In response to the topic of future jobs in Vermont, it is my hope that agriculture will remain a major employer in the state. In fact, I hope that there will be a revival in agriculture and, hence, agricultural employment in the state, with even more Vermonters employed in agriculture than at present. As for nonagricultural jobs, I hope that they will be in compact villages, towns, and cities where people can walk to work. I also hope for a revival in railroads and more jobs in mass transit. What I do not want to see is further industrial and commercial development on what has been farmland.

Fred in Winooski (Posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

I have been chosen as an alternate representative for the Town of Strafford on the board of ECFiber. If the State would use a little of the stimulus money to provide load guarantees for this shovel ready project, I believe by providing a fiber infrastructure throughout twenty-two towns in east central Vermont we can support local businesses, provide employment to a number of Vermonters and distribute not only communications but also economic and education opportunities to many Vermonters.

David in Strafford (Posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

I can't believe what I'm hearing: people are actually questioning the value of the tourism industry in Vermont. the tourism industry IS Vermont. And the notion that we're just about snow is skiing is ridiculous and uninformed. As an innkeeper, I can tell you that August is our busiest month
of the year. As for private money taking up the slack, look at the Stowe Area Association. But we need the state's ability to market itself and the powerful Vermont brand to ensure that visitors don't spend their dollars elsewhere.
This concverstaion is unrealistic, and the guests seem like they're in denial or out of touch with Vermont.

Shawn in Stowe (Posted by Steve Zind/VPR)

Vermonters pride themselves on their individualism and ruggedness, and those are the qualities required for our future. But Vermont has historically been an agriculture and timber state because its climate, demographics, and geography have always made it a rather inhospitable habitat for industrial-corporate America. This has not really changed, which is maybe a good thing....

Dependence on technology and large markets (or large government) offers great benefits, but with great risks. Consider:
1) In the Great Depression, Vermonters were less severely impacted than most Americans because they were more agrarian, and had surrendered less to the "modern" elements of "progress" which left so many others destroyed by crashing stock markets, the dust bowl, and technological advances which displaced farm workers by the hundreds of thousands and forced many into cities. Now Vermonters don't even grow their own vegetables, having surrendered their forefathers' farmland to the "higher" land use of single family dwellings and vacation homes.
2) Those old wood stoves might not have been efficient, but at least they worked when the power went out, as did the gravity-fed water, and the spring-box refrigerator.
3) As a nation, until the 1970's we were a nation of producers and savers. Modern credit markets conditioned whole generations to live beyond their means. As the federal government spends trillions of our children's earnings to perpetuate this unsustainable shift in values, few seem to consider the decades of sacrifice it will take to repay these funds. We must become once again producers, for there are no jobs for our children as there were for their parents -- they must compete toe-to-toe with the laborers and students of China and Guatemala, a competition which will only intensify.

I fully realize that the life my great, great, great grandfather led when he moved onto a Vermont hillside in 1813 was a hard and often desperate existence. But I also know he had no electric bill, no fuel bill, no computer or phone bill, no vet bill for domestic pets, almost no mortgage or taxes. Perhaps we all spend too much time out of our homes working to pay for all the amenities we are rarely home to enjoy. Perhaps the answer is not less corporate "industry" but more individual industry. Perhaps Vermonters became dependent upon skiers, snowmobilers, leaf peepers, and corporations at their peril, and so now will not be as resilient to national economic decline as they were in the Great Depression.

I know my forebears lived a rough life in these harsh mountains, but that will be a welcome alternative to an indefinite future in an American flatlander suburb, dependent on a government check or some heartless "free" market for income, and on a techno-teat powerline to provide heat, water, etc. Those who say we cannot repeat the Great Depression have a faith which occludes both math and history -- depressions are as cyclical as recessions, and debt has a price as much in the twenty-first century as in previous times.

We cannot all be employed by a "service" economy or the government: someone must produce something. We Americans are still buying $40,000,000 more in goods each month than we produce from the rest of the world. We still consume a quarter of the world's oil (we are 4% of the population). What is it we intend to make, now that our housing, auto, and other manufacturing foundations have crumbled to dirt? What is the new magic technology or industry which will foster a growth sufficient to repay what we owe? How long can any government (America is not exempt) print money and extend unemployment benefits? We don't make anything anymore in America, except military armaments and debt instruments...

Another depression is more certain than another flu pandemic. But this time we are an urbanized, debtor nation of 300,000,000 dependent on the government and modern industry to feed, house, heat and warm us; whereas in 1929 we were an agrarian, creditor nation of 100,000,000 and many still had no electricity: and look how we suffered. And this time, we do not have the prospect of a great war to stimulate our nascent potential: we have instead the anchor of two morale-depleting and intractable quagmires, which will drag us down the way the arms race and Afghanistan throttled the Soviet Union's economy.

Vermonters must ignore the allure of the bright lights and big city -- our future is with our past, where we grew our own crops, and canned them; raised our own meats; taught our own children; raised our barns communally. There is pride as well as sustenance in providing for our own, and until just a short generation or two ago, this was our way of life. Do we stand like deer in the headlights being slammed into by that illusion called "progress," or do we take true shelter in the values and self reliance of our ancestors, whom we say we emulate?

The avenue of agrarian self-dependence is not available to those wed to life in city or suburbs, for whom the very prospect would create fear. But for those with the will and the courage, self-reliance is the new elitism. When times are rough, who would trade the ability to hunt, can or garden with the Wallstreeter's useless knowledge of convertible debentures? When things continue to deteriorate, the response to the panicked millionaires who hoarded currency will be: let them eat cash....

John in Irasburg (Posted by Steve Zind/VPR)