Why leave?

New Jersey is ranked one of the most expensive states in the country to live. Fourth highest by latest figures. High costs and taxes go to feed the spend happy government, feed the trade unions and mobsters who seem to have an oily hand in everything. Often you can overhear someone say "Things are cheaper down South, but the wages suck." Jersey residents used to have a high income, some were the Wall Street types who worked in Manhattan and lived in posh bedroom communities here at the Shore. Their income would trickle down on the rest of us. Small shops selling useless home decor, bartenders serving decadent yuppies who were too lazy to mow their own lawns and hired landscapers.

We all were pups sucking on the tit of big business and and wall street. Then the banking pimps with the help of Washington DC killed the goose that laid the golden egg. I have one passenger who worked for Merrill Lynch delivering pizzas now. That's the only industry in in Jersey that keeps us afloat, pizza.

I feel like Tom Joad, loading up a beat up car with all of the belongings I can carry and moving onto a promise of prosperity. Fleeing a dust bowl created by careless farming practices, fleeing foreclosures, repossessions and hunger. Joad had ambition, just no opportunity. Capitalism is noble, like farming. However, when greedy men start to take too much from the land it will become bare and choke us all.