StartUp NY going nowhere. Fast.

StartUp NY – Governor Status Cuomo's grand plan for a public-private partnership to “jump start” the NY economy has run into a snag. And that is a very problematic one for the Governor, given that we are just two years away from the next election and if he has any hope of being reelected he needs this plan to work.

The snag is that the jobs aren't there. To the tune of 3,700 jobs not being there for the people that need them.

The plan looks deceptively simple: Set up economic zones and tie them to the various colleges and universities to help them develop into larger economic entities. At the same time, taxes on the companies are eliminated for ten years – no taxes on the corporations because the communities will pick up the tab. This is supposed to help the companies have a better chance of succeeding.

Except fop the fact that the companies aren't coming and the ones that are here aren't creating the promised jobs.

That and the fact that some NY companies are moving into the economic zones to get out of the taxes and have no intentions of expanding.

Now Status Cuomo is going to tout BAK, a local tablet maker, as a success story because it is actually making something and doing it rather successfully. There are only so many times that a story can be told before people tune out and generally turn you off.

The fact of the matter is that this program has little to any chance of succeeding. Public-Private partnerships are only good at doing one thing – making the rich richer and passing the costs of success onto the poor. That is what we are seeing and what we will continue to see as Status Cuomo pushes this pro-business plan.

And he knows it is failing. It is painfully obvious that he knows it is failing. The report, which was due on April first (note the name of that day) was finally released over 90 days later on a Friday afternoon on a long holiday weekend when people are more interested in parties, bar-b-cues and fireworks that in anything newsworthy. (Unless it was a “terrorist” attack. Then things would be different.)

This economic plan had no chance of succeeding and everyone knows it. It's a waste of taxpayer dollars, time, and energy.

If Cuomo were serious about putting people back to work, he'd be looking at worker owned, worker run cooperatives. While not necessarily “glamorous” - they do put more people to work and enrich the workers in the business and help the communities in which they live.

But this isn't about the workers. It's about Wall Street and doing what Wall Street wants, which is making more money that will be given to the 1%.

So, expect that you will hear next to nothing more about StartUp NY. Except on long holiday weekends when people are focused on other things. That and in commercials that our taxes pay for that spell out supposed success stories about Status Cuomo promoting Wall Street's latest get rich quick scheme for private capitalist businesses.