Thank you for that info!!

Why does Vermont “need” to grow?

If it has a brand, its flatlander syrup.

Buy from the dude down the street.

Skip ahead a few years. Its the post war era.

The stone industry contracted and VT heavily resisted infrastructure upgrades to allow other industry to fill the vacuum (Interstate 92 anyone?). Skip ahead a few decades and we have a brain-drain problem since anyone with a skillset leaves to regions that offer jobs in the skillset. You can't open a business without importing your own employees since none of the locals have the skillsets to be employed and you're stuck in a death spiral of strip malls and dollar stores that looks more like the midwest than new england. Burlington only survives because it has the captive-college thing the Boston has going on but like Boston, the cost of living is going to drive grads out but with a smaller population, it will be less fault-tolerant. The church street derelicts are just the beginning.

There's an active railroad that goes through Okemo ski resort, with chairlifts and bridges with ski trails going over it. It doesn't have passenger service at the moment- I sometimes daydream about whether it would be possible to run a sleeper service there from New York.

Y’all be charging too much for that liquid gold maple syrup

Just need to look at places like Jackson and Telluride. Resort towns will only get more expensive and elite. Those that actually depend on local jobs and wages will be pushed to low income regional hubs (Barre, Newport, Springfield, etc). Land and homesteads are quickly becoming out of reach for Vermont wages hence all the talk around the state about “developing downtowns”.

$560 for a ranch is close to the going rate in Chittenden County.

...what? Smuggs is attached to no part of Mt. Mansfield.

e isn't a nanny. She is a childcare professional with 3 degrees. childcare centers aren't the only option for motivated people.

Your defeatist woe is me outlook is good for no one including yourself.

Aww, did you not like the truth so you came back with a childish retort.

Stowe. The back mountain is the Gondola side of Stowe and the closer mountain is Spruce peak. These Ski Vermont posters are artist's renditions; they are not meant to an exact trail map. Cropped Stowe trail map for reference.

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Plenty of room in Alabama.

I don't know whether you're right or wrong, yet it has to be observed that you start out with an unproven assertion, that Vermont needs to grow. While continual growth is the mantra of one branch of economics, it is also questioned by other economists as not necessarily being a necessary foundational principal of a healthy society.

We got here because the previous seasonal wealthy have bought our politicians, and in many cases actually run for office after moving here. Many or our local representatives are out of touch hipsters who simply pretend to care about blue-collar Vermonters while simultaneously hurting them with policy. "Let them eat cake" has become "Make them buy Teslas".

Good for cocktails

Cool story bro, tell Xenu I said Hi.

If it costs more to live in a place and wages don't reflect the higher cost, you end up with a gated community for rich people who either work from home or spend their parents money or both. That is what VT is turning into and it's gross.

401K is still a good deal. You're getting free money from your employer because they match. If they don't go find another employer.

Make sure you have a good advisor and remember everything is on a boom and bust cycle. When you're in your early 20's max out whatever you're allowed to put in and put it in aggressive funds. As you get older, you pivot toward conservative funds.

What gets people is they kind of set their 401 up and forget about it and if retirement comes during a bust cycle they get screwed because they didn't shift their funds ahead of time to something that won't take a shit.

I bet when wages are factored in MA is more affordable. Obviously no wages if you're retired but VT is MA costs with MS wages.

My dads got this same poster!

K

Until air bnb/vrbo is capped or banned, ski towns will die

I can't speak to Runamok, but I've had success ordering international shipping of some very excellent dark and robust syrup from this place in VT: https://deepmountainmaple.com/