[xarmydog]

I fled there 12 years ago and haven't looked back.There are jobs there,but only for the multiple Govt.agency's that are layered so thick,to start a business there,you have to have a large amount of money to start with.I know of a small town in upstate NY that had a small credit union that wanted to expand three blocks away on a vacant parking lot.It took three years by the time all the permits,EPA nonsense,and whatever you could imagine was completed.Lord knows how much was spent before a shovel full of dirt could be dug.It was a credit union,and they had the money.And they cry about no jobs.It seemed like everyone was self employed as long as you had a pickup truck with a ladder.I don't know how those people survive.Quite a few have no choice but to work under the table to make ends meet.It is a perfect example of democrats being in charge way to long.But as long as the people keep voting the way they do,they deserve it.I have friends there,but they have a choice.Move.

[jude24]

It is a perfect example of democrats being in charge way to long.

No, no, no, no!. It's not Democrats that are the problem. The Republicans are just as bad, if not worse. It wasn't a Democratic County Exec. that spent Nassau County or Erie County into oblivion.

The problem is the endemic culture of patronage and corruption in New York. Whenever serious bi-partisan reformers try to make a change, they run into the unmovable wall that is the powers that be. For instance, a bipartisan group of working-class Democrats and Republicans have formulated a serious proposal for reform of Erie County's structure. I predict that the Erie County legislature will just let that proposed reform linger on a bookshelf somewhere, rather than letting the voters decide the matter.