BS Summary: This article contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Hasty Generalization, and Negativity Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 48% saturation with 423 hits. Analysis detected 2,072 faulty-reasoning hits from 882 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 61.7% and a BS Rank of 68% (6,804 of 21,218 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 67.90% of the article peer group.
This commentary is by Bob Stannard, a former member of the Vermont House of Representatives who lives in Manchester.
In a recent commentary in VTDigger , the authors advocate that perhaps the only solution to Vermont’s problems is more growth, more development.
They point out the obvious: Our population is decreasing, we have fewer kids in school, and we are now suffering from regulations that deter further growth.
What they fail to address is the root cause of the problems that they believe growth will solve, but won’t, which is income inequality.
Let’s look at two hypothetical families.
One family has lived in Vermont for many generations.
They’re still living on the once-thriving family farm, but now, thanks to tax policies and subsidies that favor large agri-corporations, it is no longer viable.
They have always worked for themselves and now are doing odd jobs for those who will hire them.
In 1950, their farmhouse would have cost $10,000.
They lived a very peaceful life, but experienced their share of stress.
The weather impacted their crops.
Their machinery occasionally broke.
There was always something that kept them up at night.
Crime was minimal because everyone knew each other in their tight-knit community.
As time moved on, this family saw the value of their $10,000 farmhouse increase to $400,000 today, a price still out of reach for most Vermonters.
The other family immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 1950.
They were able to purchase a brownstone building for the same amount, $10,000.
They lived in a nice neighborhood and commuted to Manhattan, where they, their kids and grandkids were able to make a very good living.
These folks faced some inconveniences like traffic, potholes and developers tearing down one neighborhood after another to make way for the next big housing project.
As neighborhoods changed and crime rose, they experienced one significant benefit: an increase in the value of their real estate.
A brownstone in Brooklyn currently sells for between $1 million and $5 million.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed an exodus of people from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
There are multiple reasons why they may have decided to move.
Overcrowding.
The hassle of day-to-day city life.
High crime rates.
Too many homeless people.
Polluted air.
Perhaps it was the crashing of two planes into the World Trade Center or the pandemic that was the tipping point.
Maybe it was just that they could realize a serious windfall if they sold up.
The Brooklyn family sold their lovely brownstone for $4 million.
Add that to their savings from toiling in Manhattan for years, and they could be pretty well set if they could find a reasonably priced house.
Vermont had a lot to offer these Brooklyn folks.
It’s a beautiful state covered in forests rather than asphalt and concrete.
People live at a slower pace here, and the best part is that they could buy a really nice house with some land for only $750,000.
They couldn’t wait to make the move and a change of lifestyle.
There are many more people in the aforementioned states than there are in Vermont.
The comparison of two families above is skewed.
The competition for Vermont land and homes today is fierce.
People with money move to New England and are happy to pay exorbitant prices for a place to live or to invest in homes for short-term rentals, adding additional stress to our long-term rental markets.
Vermont has experienced past immigration.
In the 1960s, young kids from down country who wanted a different life flocked to Vermont.
It was known as the back-to-the-land movement.
They created communes and seriously thought that all they had to do was have a nice garden, a goat or two and smoke some weed, and they could live happily ever after.
They did not compete with Vermonters, but instead found ways to assimilate into the community, not try to change it.
Some went on to become state senators.
Vermonters accepted these kids because they worked hard, got involved with their community and did not price Vermonters out of their homeland.
That was the Vermont that I once knew.
A Vermont of strong communities, highly opinionated locals who were more than willing to share their point of view on just about anything, whether you wanted to hear it or not.
It was a state where neighbors helped each other when needed.
Oh, sure, there were gates, but they were to keep the cows, sheep and goats from escaping, not to keep people out.
The whole point of being a Vermonter is to have a driveway that any friend can drive up for a visit unannounced.
It’s Vermonters who are in trouble, not Vermont.
Vermont will be here just like it always has been, but the people who made Vermont what it was — yeah, they’ll be gone.
They’ll be driven out by those of means who can pay high prices and scoff at the cost of living.
So build away.
Open the floodgates and get going.
Time’s a wastin’.
Move Vermonters outta here and make way for the “New Vermont” — the one that’ll be overdeveloped and undesirable in no time.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont is not in trouble.
Vermonters are.
Speakers
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