[Hopes]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Dartmouth has been around longer than Vermont and has the $$$. The early Middlebury settlers went to college at Dartmouth or Yale. Middlebury College was founded in 1800 partly because UVM took a long time to get up and running.

You missed FrugalYankee's point entirely.

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by Hopes

So you're only concerned with Middlebury and your own backyard, not Vermont as a whole.

Your words, not mine.

Originally Posted by Hopes

Many Vermonters aren't moving for the jobs. They're scraping by and/or going on government assistance and complaining about people who moved to Vermont and ruined it.

Vermont was never a wealthy state. If anything, the outsiders who move here are bringing money. This is nothing at all like the truly poor rural areas in the U.S.

Originally Posted by Hopes

I don't need street cred in Vermont to discuss basic economics.

No, but you need economics cred to discuss economics.

Originally Posted by Hopes

That's not true. All of the profit from those stores go right back into the local economy. And those crafts and locally made products you claim are the core of the Vermont economy are sold at those stores. As a result, the closing of those stores will impact the people who produce the crafts and Vermont products.

Too much generality here. It's a waste of time unless you have facts and figures about stores and people in an actual town. Most of the small shops I see are high end tourist traps.

************************************************** ************************************************

Hopes, I don't learn anything from your posts. I have never seen you yield on any point ever, even when you are clearly incorrect. As far as I'm concerned, you've already redirected this thread from something that started positive and is now all about how people like me are ruining Vermont. You have so much writing energy that maybe you should try fiction instead.

[domc]

Why is it that Americans are so conditioned to by cheap crap? Buying something once that last 10 yrs instead of 2 years pays off in the end. no? It's hard to find quality though I suppose.

I would have hoped that that we as a country could have started something different in the way of economics after great recession.

I'm all for shopping local and have never lived in a place that pushed it so hard. It's great. I sure hope we don't get the Walmart up here in the North East Kingdom. I won't go a picket or anything cuz I just think that is hopeless against the giant. Kinda disappointing.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Vermont was never a wealthy state. If anything, the outsiders who move here are bringing money.

Vermonters disagree. Just read their posts on this forum for proof.

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Hopes, I don't learn anything from your posts. I have never seen you yield on any point ever, even when you are clearly incorrect. As far as I'm concerned, you've already redirected this thread from something that started positive and is now all about how people like me are ruining Vermont. You have so much writing energy that maybe you should try fiction instead.[/

I'm not here for you. This not a positive thread topic for Vermont, but I would have ignored it if you hadn't made an inaccurate claim that free shipping from Walmart is good for Vermont via keeping big box stores out. That's the silliest thing I've read in a long time. If you do the bulk of your buying from Amazon and Walmart, as you stated in your first post, you are contributing to the ruin of Vermont. Since you wrote those things in your first post, my responses are completely on-topic. If you just wanted to have a happy thread notifying people that Walmart now has free shipping, you should have left it at that when you created the topic.

[pauldorell]

Originally Posted by domc

Why is it that Americans are so conditioned to by cheap crap? Buying something once that last 10 yrs instead of 2 years pays off in the end. no? It's hard to find quality though I suppose.

I would have hoped that that we as a country could have started something different in the way of economics after great recession.

I'm all for shopping local and have never lived in a place that pushed it so hard. It's great. I sure hope we don't get the Walmart up here in the North East Kingdom. I won't go a picket or anything cuz I just think that is hopeless against the giant. Kinda disappointing.

I try hard not to buy cheap crap, but it isn't easy, particularly if you limit yourself to local shopping. The reason why people buy it is that they think they can have a somewhat higher standard of living than they would otherwise. In reality they are a captive market for corporations. Most high quality products are beyond the means of the average consumer. But with toilet paper, who cares?

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

But with toilet paper, who cares?

You said you buy many things on Amazon and previously went to Walmart for toilet paper. Amazon is the same monster as Walmart. Every single time you purchase online you are sending Vermont resident income directly out of the state without allowing that money to circulate within the local economy.

Your excitement over being able to give money to Walmart without walking into their big box store sounded like you were naïve about why people don't like Walmart. My goodness, buying online is even worse. You would do slightly more for your local economy if you shopped at the local brick and mortar Walmart because at least those stores are employing Vermont residents. Ordering online doesn't put any money into the local economy except for the fraction of an hour pay the local UPS driver gets for delivering it to you.

It's mindboggling how you don't understand buying local products sold at locally owned businesses is better for your local economy.

[FrugalYankee]

Originally Posted by pauldorell

Vermont was never a wealthy state. If anything, the outsiders who move here are bringing money. This is nothing at all like the truly poor rural areas in the U.S.

They may be bringing money but most of them are using it to demolish any hope of improving Vermont's economy. This includes filing endless objections to companies wanting to start a business in an existing industrial park. Or something else they do is like that super rich flatlander who started buying up dilapidated homes and razing them to convert the land to current use. That sounds all well and good as far as what it does for the scenery in his back yard until you factor in that the town he lives in can get state funding to make up for the lost property tax revenues. As a result, the rest of us Vermonters who are not fabulously wealthy get to subsidize Mr Rich Transplant to toot his horn about how he is beautifying his town. I'd prefer he take some of his business acumen and get a business going. But he gets to play with the town he lives in as if it were his personal toy.

I am fed up with people who have made their fortunes elsewhere who come here and demand that all of Vermont be a quaint Currier and Ives painting to satisfy their sense of aesthetics. At the same time they insist on a level and type of social services that appeals to their progressive sense but lacks the necessary economic base. No I am not an economist but it is common sense to realize that the out-of-staters who come here are either wealthy or destitute. Neither group is interested in working but at least the destitute ones don't stand in the way of Vermonters having decent work opportunities..

[joe moving]

How much money do you really save on toilet paper--since toilet paper is the item in question. They cost 86 cents a roll for the big Marcal rolls at the local store here. It is independent and family owned, for what it's worth

I will admit to buying vitamins online. Amazon-$60... In store: $120. Hard to justify.

[OhBeeHave]

Right now ABC TV Undercover Boss is featuring Family Dollar. They've described it as a General Store. The head just stated they are poised to double the number of outlets in the next few years.

Dollar General is doing that right now. The fight in Chester has both locals and recent arrivals on the same side. DG could put the local grocery out of business, but heck -- folks need cheap TP. I would sooner buy my hamburg locally and pay a few pennies more for my TP than be forced to drive almost 20 miles round trip to Shaw's for supermarket mush. There's already a Dollar General AND a Family Dollar in Springfield, but only one grocery (a good one at that) in Chester.

Walmart might not venture further into Vermont as the large scale box store we are accustomed to seeing, but the dollar stores are small enough to come in, offer cheap toilet paper and siphon local money out of state while squashing local mom and pops.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by OhBeeHave

Right now ABC TV Undercover Boss is featuring Family Dollar. They've described it as a General Store. The head just stated they are poised to double the number of outlets in the next few years.

Dollar General is doing that right now. The fight in Chester has both locals and recent arrivals on the same side. DG could put the local grocery out of business, but heck -- folks need cheap TP. I would sooner buy my hamburg locally and pay a few pennies more for my TP than be forced to drive almost 20 miles round trip to Shaw's for supermarket mush. There's already a Dollar General AND a Family Dollar in Springfield, but only one grocery (a good one at that) in Chester.

Walmart might not venture further into Vermont as the large scale box store we are accustomed to seeing, but the dollar stores are small enough to come in, offer cheap toilet paper and siphon local money out of state while squashing local mom and pops.

That's another excellent example. National discount chain stores of all sizes can do damage to local Vermont businesses.