Dreher e-mails a response to a Dish reader:
Did your smart-ass reader not bother to read my actual blog entry? I said flat-out that we were going to end up packing our stuff ourselves and driving the truck to Louisiana ourselves, because it's the only affordable option? I had already publicly committed myself to following his pissy advice before he even gave it. As I wrote, I haven't had to move like this since 1992, almost 20 years ago, before my back went south.
I wish I did have the money to pay somebody else to do it, but with the interstate tariffs, we just can't justify that kind of expense. And that was the whole point of my post. It's easy for a guy in his 20s to scare up a crew of friends to load and unload the U-Haul. Not so easy for guys in middle age to do the same. If you're too old to tote boxes yourself, or have a bad back, or any other disability, you're going to have to pay somebody to do it, and the existence of these tariffs, which I never knew existed until this, adds significantly (and prohibitively) to the expense.
Brad Plumer has a fuller explanation of interstate tariffs and whether moving costs are hurting the economy.
The Dish 