Vail Stock

[yiddle on da fiddle]

...Guessing that Art History degree from Smith aint worth a bucket of warm spit ....

[asher2789]

Telling people they should not invest in profitable companies because they don't pay a living wage is about as effective as Trump telling his people to boycott Coke.

You don't have to be a lefty to see the problem with income inequality in this country, though. If you're any kind of business owner and you think longer term, you'll realize that we are a consumer-driven economy and if consumers have less money, the economy will grow more slowly. A higher minimum wage would be a long term boon to most business in the long run.

This is a stupid conversation.

Nobody makes minimum wage.

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most of the staff at killington make VT minimum wage which is a slightly better but still not enough ~$12 an hour. most jobs in the area go to low wage service work (and an even lower tipped minimum), and construction work is only a little higher despite the sky-high risks to labor. i've worked a variety of these jobs - and the most i ever made was $17 an hour for extremely dangerous, back breaking work in 37 degrees and r*ining 70 hours a week which YOU directly benefit from. (and no, the wage was not worth the work - we all deserved double+ for the insane hours, conditions and risk.) obviously that's a far cry from the $7.25 federal minimum but if that wage floor was higher my wage would be higher too (who would work for $17 an hour doing dangerous work when you can do safe work for $15 an hour?). this isnt rocket science.

i no longer work in construction - was pretty turned off by the rampant misogyny ("what does your husband think of you working this job"), and am back working in the field i have a degree in, but VT professional wages are pathetic compared to national averages.

real minimum wages would be $24 an hour if they kept up with inflation but something needs to be sacrificed for the 320:1 average of CEO:median worker pay.

So you have a degree and work in the field in which you have that degree, yet you complain about VT professional wages in addition to lower wage employment. Some questions:

1. Did you move to Vermont or are you a native Vermonter?

2. Why, if you have a professional degree, did you choose to work construction and other lower paid jobs?

Unless I'm mistaken, living in Vermont is a choice. Part of that choice is the type of jobs available and the pay scale involved. You can go anywhere, yet you possibly chose to move here and/or choose to stay here. That's your choice. Why are you complaining?

why are you complaining?

why are you gaslighting? where was i supposed to go where the wage and the cost of living work out to a half decent life? not a single f*** state isn't bleeding its workers dry when it comes to wages versus cost of living. not one. god, the utter ignorance and sheer abuse from boomers is mindblowing and infuriating. massive f*** privilege blinders.

oh i dont know, i graduated into the worst recession since the great depression where the rich got a hell of a lot richer and everyone else got f***? couldnt find a "proper job" for YEARS because there were none that paid a fair wage for the work? (no, 30,000 a year is not a livable wage in the NYC metro area where i am from. if im going to live in my parents basement then ill be f*** flipping burgers high as sh*t, not doing the professional work i was trained for).

fyi, oh ignorant boomer, construction is the best paying and most available job in vermont. i realized quite quickly that i dont have the chops nor personality to be a servant to the wealthy vacationers, the other main industry in vermont. but you wouldn't know that. cush life. have you ever looked at the help wanted section of any of the local papers in the last half a decade? please tell me what jobs pay over $45k a year that dont require a decade of experience and management role. ill wait. i worked difficult jobs not in my field of study because i had long given up on finding proper, professional wages for professional work. i came up for a career and life change because i was f*** suicidal (like many my age - many now who succumbed to drug overdoses and suicides because capitalism is crushing an entire generation - those deaths of despair dont cause themselves), and vermont - full of kind, good natured people, unlike my native state - saved my life. again, just because i make a decent wage now doesnt mean i should just ignore the suffering of others. selfish much?

why are you complaining? f*** off. honest work deserves an honest wage. the wage slavery that you defend in this country aint it.

[easyrider16]

Unless I'm mistaken, living in Vermont is a choice. Part of that choice is the type of jobs available and the pay scale involved. You can go anywhere, yet you possibly chose to move here and/or choose to stay here. That's your choice. Why are you complaining?

I think this mentality needs to change. Just because you can move doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to stay put and improve things where you are. Not everyone can move easily, and those that can shouldn't have to leave their home if things can be made better where they are now.

That said, I think the $12 minimum wage in Vermont isn't unfair given the cost of living. It's not good money but it is a living wage. I wouldn't oppose increasing it a dollar or two, and I think ultimately that would be good for the economy in VT overall. But it's a far cry from the federal minimum.

[KingsFourMan]

So you have a degree and work in the field in which you have that degree, yet you complain about VT professional wages in addition to lower wage employment. Some questions:

1. Did you move to Vermont or are you a native Vermonter?

2. Why, if you have a professional degree, did you choose to work construction and other lower paid jobs?

Unless I'm mistaken, living in Vermont is a choice. Part of that choice is the type of jobs available and the pay scale involved. You can go anywhere, yet you possibly chose to move here and/or choose to stay here. That's your choice. Why are you complaining?

why are you complaining?

why are you gaslighting? where was i supposed to go where the wage and the cost of living work out to a half decent life? not a single f*** state isn't bleeding its workers dry when it comes to wages versus cost of living. not one. god, the utter ignorance and sheer abuse from boomers is mindblowing and infuriating. massive f*** privilege blinders.

oh i dont know, i graduated into the worst recession since the great depression where the rich got a hell of a lot richer and everyone else got f***? couldnt find a "proper job" for YEARS because there were none that paid a fair wage for the work? (no, 30,000 a year is not a livable wage in the NYC metro area where i am from. if im going to live in my parents basement then ill be f*** flipping burgers high as sh*t, not doing the professional work i was trained for).

fyi, oh ignorant boomer, construction is the best paying and most available job in vermont. i realized quite quickly that i dont have the chops nor personality to be a servant to the wealthy vacationers, the other main industry in vermont. but you wouldn't know that. cush life. have you ever looked at the help wanted section of any of the local papers in the last half a decade? please tell me what jobs pay over $45k a year that dont require a decade of experience and management role. ill wait. i worked difficult jobs not in my field of study because i had long given up on finding proper, professional wages for professional work. i came up for a career and life change because i was f*** suicidal (like many my age - many now who succumbed to drug overdoses and suicides because capitalism is crushing an entire generation - those deaths of despair dont cause themselves), and vermont - full of kind, good natured people, unlike my native state - saved my life. again, just because i make a decent wage now doesnt mean i should just ignore the suffering of others. selfish much?

why are you complaining? f*** off. honest work deserves an honest wage. the wage slavery that you defend in this country aint it.

[XtremeJibber2001]

please tell me what jobs pay over $45k a year that dont require a decade of experience and management role

Public accounting. We regularly offered college Seniors $55k+ starting salaries. Many of those would go on to make six figure salaries five or so years later.

[deadheadskier]

Unless I'm mistaken, living in Vermont is a choice. Part of that choice is the type of jobs available and the pay scale involved. You can go anywhere, yet you possibly chose to move here and/or choose to stay here. That's your choice. Why are you complaining?

I think this mentality needs to change. Just because you can move doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to stay put and improve things where you are. Not everyone can move easily, and those that can shouldn't have to leave their home if things can be made better where they are now.

That said, I think the $12 minimum wage in Vermont isn't unfair given the cost of living. It's not good money but it is a living wage. I wouldn't oppose increasing it a dollar or two, and I think ultimately that would be good for the economy in VT overall. But it's a far cry from the federal minimum.

I very much feel wages for numerous jobs should go up and the minimum wage should be a liveable wage. If a company can't afford to pay someone enough working full time to sustain themselves without public assistance, then they shouldn't be in business.

I very much disagree with your first point that people should have the right to stay where their birth or chosen home is and expect decent work. I went to high school and college in VT. I and a very high percentage of my classmates, especially college classmates, left VT for greener pastures. And I had a degree in hospitality, which is one of the industries that does have some opportunity in VT.

After college I stayed for two years in Stowe and looked around the landscape at the average age people were achieving a decent enough job in hospitality to afford their first home in VT and they were typically mid to late 30s. So, I looked for a new job in a location that paid better and was cheaper to live. That took me to Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland. Each move was to a place I knew no one, but the job moves were all well studied regarding earnings vs cost of living and included a promotion. I found my way back to VT and got a pretty good management job in Burlington, but still saw even better financial opportunity in Portland Maine and left again.

Eventually I got tired of working 60+ hours a week in hospitality and bored of operations work and looked for an exit. I just happened to host a number of medical trade shows and started talking with the sales reps about how lucrative it could be. I had no idea. Tough field to get into though. They said get some sales experience in an industry you know, prove you can sell and maybe you'll get an opportunity. So I started selling fine meats, did very well at selling and made a decent enough wage to buy our first home here in NH.

I still wanted to get into medical sales though. After a couple of years in meat sales I started applying to medical sales jobs like crazy and could barely even get an interview, nevermind a job. This was 2007-2011, which Asher points out was very tough economic times. I thought that maybe if I started working in a hospital, a medical device company would finally give me my shot.

So, I looked at fast medical degree programs that would still pay me decently if I still didn't achieve the medical sales career I wanted. I saw that two year Community College degrees in numerous disciplines would pay $50-60k+ right out of school. (There's an answer for you Asher). I took a gamble and at 36 years old went to a Community College to get an X-ray degree. My parents and friends thought I was crazy. My wife probably did too, but will never admit it and was supportive at the time. It was a hospital based program. I was in the hospital from 7-4 then went straight to a restaurant three school nights a week and double shifts on weekends to wait tables to pay my bills. The commitment between school and restaurant work for two years was 80+ hours a week. I sacrificed almost all social life and only skied 15 days a year. Part of that sacrifice also included putting off having children until I was 39.

Anyways, long story, longer while working OR cases while still in school I networked with the medical sales reps and got names of their recruiters and started firing out resumes. Come graduation all of my classmates got $50k starting X-ray tech jobs. Pretty solid for only two years of College. I was about to join them, but got a call back from a recruiter and after a six week, one interview per week hiring process got a job in medical sales. This was 2014. It was a "bad" medical Sales job "only" making $90k a year. Did that for a couple of years and got a good medical sales job. It has blown away every expectation I had when setting out on this path in 2007. It took 9 years and massively hard work and sacrifice to get there. I won't say how much I make other than it has afforded us the ability for my wife to be a stay at home mom and my one income has been well above the threshold of being eligible for any Pandemic stimulus.

I'm sharing this story because it demonstrates that if you are nimble and move around, sacrifice and reinvent yourself, you can achieve great things. Not everyone can do what I did, but most people can find a career somewhere that affords a higher standard of living. It might not be exactly where you want to live, but you can find that balance if you work hard and sacrifice. Hell many on this board are retirees now living in VT who slaved away in NYC or Boston for 35 years before they could afford to live comfortably in VT. They most likely would not have been able to achieve that had they moved to VT in their 20s like Asher chose to do.

Good luck Asher. You can figure out a way to live comfortably in VT someday with hard work and figuring out what fields have the jobs in VT to do so. If not there right now, go somewhere else and then come back as a retiree.

[hillbangin]

Great story.

It's not easy out here.





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[easyrider16]

I don't disagree with anything you've said, Deadhead. The mentality I'm talking about though is this notion that if you don't like the way things are, you should leave. I believe that if you don't like the way things are, you should have the right to stay and try to make them better. If someone argues that wages are too low in Vermont, and someone else responds that if you don't like it you should go somewhere that wages are higher, that's really not an on-point response, it's a dismissal. If we treated every problem that way, we'd never solve anything.

That said, I think I stated that I don't think wages in Vermont are too low. I agree that it's a place with limited economic activity, so if you choose to live there, you choose to accept a lower standard of living relative to Boston or NYC. But if the minimum wage in VT was at the Federal minimum, I'd be arguing that wages are too low and the law needs to change. What's absent from my argument is, "well if you don't like it, you should leave" because that's a non-sequitur.

There shouldn't be a place in the United States where the lowest wages paid aren't something you could survive on as an individual at 40 hours per week. If you worked for the Federal minimum wage at 7.25 an hour and worked forty hours a week, you'd be below the Federal poverty guideline. That's frankly absurd. At the VT minimum, you'd be well above it.

If you want me to jump on the bandwagon of criticizing Asher's comments on wages, I'll do so. I don't think $17 an hour is an unfair wage for construction work. I've seen people do it for far less. Skilled construction workers, even those in VT, can make a lot more. But $17 an hour equates to $34k a year full time salary, which I'll agree isn't great, but I don't see that as exploitation. You can afford all the necessities plus a few small luxuries on that salary, especially in VT. If Asher was working 70 hours per week, with overtime, she'd be making well over that $45k figure she cited. I don't think $12 an hour working for Killington is exploitive either. I think you'd barely be scraping by on that wage, but it's a living wage, meaning you could afford basic housing, food, clothing, car, etc on that if you worked full time.

What I do think is exploitive is that Killington gets to leverage the H2B visa program to import what are effectively lower-wage workers from overseas. If Killington can import workers then they can artificially increase the supply in the labor market instead of raising wages to attract workers. That seems not only unfair, but contrary to basic principles of capitalism.

[KingsFourMan]

Unless I'm mistaken, living in Vermont is a choice. Part of that choice is the type of jobs available and the pay scale involved. You can go anywhere, yet you possibly chose to move here and/or choose to stay here. That's your choice. Why are you complaining?

I think this mentality needs to change. Just because you can move doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to stay put and improve things where you are. Not everyone can move easily, and those that can shouldn't have to leave their home if things can be made better where they are now.

That said, I think the $12 minimum wage in Vermont isn't unfair given the cost of living. It's not good money but it is a living wage. I wouldn't oppose increasing it a dollar or two, and I think ultimately that would be good for the economy in VT overall. But it's a far cry from the federal minimum.

I very much feel wages for numerous jobs should go up and the minimum wage should be a liveable wage. If a company can't afford to pay someone enough working full time to sustain themselves without public assistance, then they shouldn't be in business.

I very much disagree with your first point that people should have the right to stay where their birth or chosen home is and expect decent work. I went to high school and college in VT. I and a very high percentage of my classmates, especially college classmates, left VT for greener pastures. And I had a degree in hospitality, which is one of the industries that does have some opportunity in VT.

After college I stayed for two years in Stowe and looked around the landscape at the average age people were achieving a decent enough job in hospitality to afford their first home in VT and they were typically mid to late 30s. So, I looked for a new job in a location that paid better and was cheaper to live. That took me to Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland. Each move was to a place I knew no one, but the job moves were all well studied regarding earnings vs cost of living and included a promotion. I found my way back to VT and got a pretty good management job in Burlington, but still saw even better financial opportunity in Portland Maine and left again.

Eventually I got tired of working 60+ hours a week in hospitality and bored of operations work and looked for an exit. I just happened to host a number of medical trade shows and started talking with the sales reps about how lucrative it could be. I had no idea. Tough field to get into though. They said get some sales experience in an industry you know, prove you can sell and maybe you'll get an opportunity. So I started selling fine meats, did very well at selling and made a decent enough wage to buy our first home here in NH.

I still wanted to get into medical sales though. After a couple of years in meat sales I started applying to medical sales jobs like crazy and could barely even get an interview, nevermind a job. This was 2007-2011, which Asher points out was very tough economic times. I thought that maybe if I started working in a hospital, a medical device company would finally give me my shot.

So, I looked at fast medical degree programs that would still pay me decently if I still didn't achieve the medical sales career I wanted. I saw that two year Community College degrees in numerous disciplines would pay $50-60k+ right out of school. (There's an answer for you Asher). I took a gamble and at 36 years old went to a Community College to get an X-ray degree. My parents and friends thought I was crazy. My wife probably did too, but will never admit it and was supportive at the time. It was a hospital based program. I was in the hospital from 7-4 then went straight to a restaurant three school nights a week and double shifts on weekends to wait tables to pay my bills. The commitment between school and restaurant work for two years was 80+ hours a week. I sacrificed almost all social life and only skied 15 days a year. Part of that sacrifice also included putting off having children until I was 39.

Anyways, long story, longer while working OR cases while still in school I networked with the medical sales reps and got names of their recruiters and started firing out resumes. Come graduation all of my classmates got $50k starting X-ray tech jobs. Pretty solid for only two years of College. I was about to join them, but got a call back from a recruiter and after a six week, one interview per week hiring process got a job in medical sales. This was 2014. It was a "bad" medical Sales job "only" making $90k a year. Did that for a couple of years and got a good medical sales job. It has blown away every expectation I had when setting out on this path in 2007. It took 9 years and massively hard work and sacrifice to get there. I won't say how much I make other than it has afforded us the ability for my wife to be a stay at home mom and my one income has been well above the threshold of being eligible for any Pandemic stimulus.

I'm sharing this story because it demonstrates that if you are nimble and move around, sacrifice and reinvent yourself, you can achieve great things. Not everyone can do what I did, but most people can find a career somewhere that affords a higher standard of living. It might not be exactly where you want to live, but you can find that balance if you work hard and sacrifice. Hell many on this board are retirees now living in VT who slaved away in NYC or Boston for 35 years before they could afford to live comfortably in VT. They most likely would not have been able to achieve that had they moved to VT in their 20s like Asher chose to do.

Good luck Asher. You can figure out a way to live comfortably in VT someday with hard work and figuring out what fields have the jobs in VT to do so. If not there right now, go somewhere else and then come back as a retiree.

Great story Deadhead. Hard work, tenacity, and sacrifice pays off, who would have thought? You did something about it rather than blame the system or others.

[Mister Moose]

I very much feel wages for numerous jobs should go up and the minimum wage should be a liveable wage. If a company can't afford to pay someone enough working full time to sustain themselves without public assistance, then they shouldn't be in business.
Many businesses are competitively viable only at minimum wage levels. The lowest cost provider wins. Also, note that what the government has devised is actually a tiered minimum wage. A 16 year old mowing lawns living at home gets zero federal or state assistance. A father of 2 gets significant assistance. I'm not saying this is the best solution, but it does alter your argument.

Impressive story, DHS. While I expect I will still chafe at your temper and outbursts, I will now do so with an elevated respect.

The mentality I'm talking about though is this notion that if you don't like the way things are, you should leave. I believe that if you don't like the way things are, you should have the right to stay and try to make them better. If someone argues that wages are too low in Vermont, and someone else responds that if you don't like it you should go somewhere that wages are higher, that's really not an on-point response, it's a dismissal. If we treated every problem that way, we'd never solve anything.

Of course anyone has the right to stay. However it is completely unrealistic to think you can bring about effective change in a short period of time. All of us are fish in the ocean. The decision is to stay with the associated compromises, or leave for better opportunity.

why are you gaslighting? where was i supposed to go where the wage and the cost of living work out to a half decent life? not a single f*** state isn't bleeding its workers dry when it comes to wages versus cost of living. not one. god, the utter ignorance and sheer abuse from boomers is mindblowing and infuriating. massive f*** privilege blinders.

oh i dont know, i graduated into the worst recession since the great depression where the rich got a hell of a lot richer and everyone else got f***? couldnt find a "proper job" for YEARS because there were none that paid a fair wage for the work? (no, 30,000 a year is not a livable wage in the NYC metro area where i am from. if im going to live in my parents basement then ill be f*** flipping burgers high as sh*t, not doing the professional work i was trained for).

fyi, oh ignorant boomer, construction is the best paying and most available job in vermont. i realized quite quickly that i dont have the chops nor personality to be a servant to the wealthy vacationers, the other main industry in vermont. but you wouldn't know that. cush life. have you ever looked at the help wanted section of any of the local papers in the last half a decade? please tell me what jobs pay over $45k a year that dont require a decade of experience and management role. ill wait. i worked difficult jobs not in my field of study because i had long given up on finding proper, professional wages for professional work. i came up for a career and life change because i was f*** suicidal (like many my age - many now who succumbed to drug overdoses and suicides because capitalism is crushing an entire generation - those deaths of despair dont cause themselves), and vermont - full of kind, good natured people, unlike my native state - saved my life. again, just because i make a decent wage now doesnt mean i should just ignore the suffering of others. selfish much?

why are you complaining? f*** off. honest work deserves an honest wage. the wage slavery that you defend in this country aint it.

Geez, where to start Asher. You have an entitled point of view, rather than a doer's point of view. Any sentence that starts out with "I deserve...." just is missing the entire American ethic. Yes, we should be a compassionate people. Yes, people should be paid a decent wage. But you are half of that equation. You need to seek out, prepare for, and obtain that decent job. It is not the government's job to do that for you.

Wake up rule #1: The good jobs are not in the want ads. Find your preferred career, go out and seek it. Print out DHS's story and put it on your bathroom mirror. Be prepared to slave away for that good career, because that's what it takes. No one, absolutely no one, is going to hand it to you.

Wake up rule #2: Construction is not the best paying job in VT. Not even close.

Wake up rule #3: Good jobs are usually (there are exceptions to everything) about being a good person as well. No one wants to work with a grouch, or a slacker, or a chronic complainer. You will be weeded out of a high paying job if you project a personality at work like you do here.

Wake up rule #4: Of course the rich get richer. This is one of the stupidest mantra's of the current political dialogue. The rich have saved money and invested it. They almost always are people that spend less than they earn. They earn a return on their investments and get richer. Someone who spends all they make, who has zero savings to invest, cannot participate in that. It is about spending less than you earn - there are many high earners who spend it all and are not wealthy. And yes, there are those in the lucky sperm club, but that isn't who we should devise economic policy for. And before you say you can't - I did on 2 low paying jobs.

Wake up rule #5. All good jobs require learning the business, and quite a few years of it. So yes, it might take 10 years. You are completely unrealistic here.

Wake up rule #6: I graduated into a bad recession also, a lot of us did. We can't change the year we were born. Move on.

You can either be a complainer with a big cable TV bill and no savings, or a doer with a growing savings account for future goals. It's your choice.

[yiddle on da fiddle]

and?...as Mona Lisa DeVito likes to say?...

[easyrider16]

Of course anyone has the right to stay. However it is completely unrealistic to think you can bring about effective change in a short period of time. All of us are fish in the ocean. The decision is to stay with the associated compromises, or leave for better opportunity.

Sure, but before the thread turned into an episode of "let's lecture the millenial" it was about raising the minimum wage. That's a pretty easy thing to change.

Of course before that the thread was about Vail stock until Asher derailed it into a discussion of exploitive labor practices and minimum wage. But hey, if you don't like how this thread has gone, you can leave.

[KingsFourMan]

Vail's stock has been on a steady decline since the start of this thread falling almost 5% from $333 to $317.

At what price would you call it a buy? I still think it has a long way to go based on nothing other than a hunch which means nothing.

[easyrider16]

Give it another 100 or so dollars downward and it will start to look like a reasonable valuation.

[XtremeJibber2001]

At what price would you call it a buy? I still think it has a long way to go based on nothing other than a hunch which means nothing.

Never. Index funds ... buy and hold.