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A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

newyorker.com

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Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#31

Post by scythe »

atourgates wrote: post #16
iamthepieman wrote: post #5

I live and ski in this area[0]. Have season's passes to Burke Mountain and even met Stenger and Quiros back when they were running the ski areas. On the slopes, at my coworking space, and around the campfire in the Summer, the topic of how to make this little pocket of Northeast Vermont more economically viable is a topic that comes up often. I'm starting to form an opinion that we shouldn't try to compete, at any le…

One of the things I have trouble understanding is why "rural mountain towns near large population centers" are exploding in the West, but not the East. I understand some of the issues. The mountains are smaller and the snow isn't nearly as consistent. But still. It seems like a ski resort 3.5 hours from Boston should be absolutely brimming with customers every long weekend. On the other hand, I sat in a hot tub with…

The better ski resorts in the Northeast — Killington, Sugarloaf — aren't as close to the big cities. NH is sort of an exception. But in general, you can drive there on Friday, ski on the weekend, and drive home on Sunday, or you can't. Six hours is just over the line.

There are also more ski resorts in the East. After the environmental movement really kicked off in the '70s it became a lot harder to open a new ski hill with a Forest Service permit. There are no ski resorts in the Rose Mountains or the Wallowas, regions of the West with huge vertical drops and high snowfall. They're protected wilderness. (Today the nearby towns are much poorer than Vail.) Competition keeps prices down.

And the smaller ski resorts in the West aren't exactly driving local economies. Leadville and Lakeshore are just muddling through. It's a very winner-take-all market.

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#32

Post by katbyte »

threeseed wrote: post #9
ryandrake wrote: post #7

> The whole program, it turned out, lent itself to dishonesty. Faraway investors were desperate to get to the U.S., and didn’t keep close track of where their money was going. The lawyers and brokers got large transaction fees and had little incentive to point out potential wrongdoing. “Everybody was making millions of dollars, but very few people wanted to speak the truth about the riskiness of these investments,” G…

Usually the government is fully aware of the risks of fraud. But that the cost of not implementing the program is far worse. Which in the case of PPP would've meant a lot of businesses failing and workers without a job.

And yet businesses still laid off people, people lost their job, homes and struggled to feed themselves.

propping up failed businesses is preventing the capitalism/the market from working. Why save for a rainy day or ensure your business can weather a storm when you can just do stock buybacks abs shovel money to the shareholders and the Goverment will prop you up?

It’s better to just ensure people’s needs are taken care of then this weird “trickle down middleman” plan that literally never works.

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#34

Post by Scoundreller »

jhfdbkofdchk wrote: post #15
ryandrake wrote: post #7

> The whole program, it turned out, lent itself to dishonesty. Faraway investors were desperate to get to the U.S., and didn’t keep close track of where their money was going. The lawyers and brokers got large transaction fees and had little incentive to point out potential wrongdoing. “Everybody was making millions of dollars, but very few people wanted to speak the truth about the riskiness of these investments,” G…

I'm not going to argue with your central point that we spend too much time scrutinizing small dollar awards. The PPP program was ridiculous. I had a very difficult time helping two legit non-profits (one a nursery school, one a food pantry) get a fraction of the money they were entitled to under the PPP program, while less scrupulous people got far more. In the EB-5 real-estate investment program, the government does…

> In the EB-5 real-estate investment program, the government doesn't hand out money here

The government is handing out value here. What's the difference?

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#35

Post by Scoundreller »

renewiltord wrote: post #4
ralph84 wrote: post #3

EB-5 is just a way to buy a green card. The US government should cut out all of these middlemen with dubious “investment opportunities” and just have the money go straight to the federal budget.

Can't do it. If you try to change it people will say "The US is up for sale to the highest bidder" and you'll get run out of office. It's fortunate it even exists. Best not to mess with this stuff.

Has anyone tried and had that response?

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#36

Post by ghaff »

mp05 wrote: post #30
atourgates wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I have trouble understanding is why "rural mountain towns near large population centers" are exploding in the West, but not the East. I understand some of the issues. The mountains are smaller and the snow isn't nearly as consistent. But still. It seems like a ski resort 3.5 hours from Boston should be absolutely brimming with customers every long weekend. On the other hand, I sat in a hot tub with…

> One of the things I have trouble understanding is why "rural mountain towns near large population centers" are exploding in the West, but not the East. The skiing sucks? Never skied out east, but I understand it's basically ice skating. But that's hearsay.

There can be a lot of ice and hard-pack; sure it's not getting any better.

Don't know how true the generalization is but, while some people have condos for the weekend in New England, you tend to live nearer a major metro center and go up for 2 or 3 day weekends.

Out West, I imagine it's more common for people to just move to one of the larger ski towns--or at least to get a second home there for their recreational season of choice. At least, that's the very anecdotal impression I get. If I wanted a season pass and had a lot of free winter time to spend downhill skiing, I'd probably do it out West. New England is more accessible for multi-season activities but the locations are probably also more accessible for weekends and long weekends.

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#37

Post by gruez »

Scoundreller wrote: post #34
jhfdbkofdchk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue with your central point that we spend too much time scrutinizing small dollar awards. The PPP program was ridiculous. I had a very difficult time helping two legit non-profits (one a nursery school, one a food pantry) get a fraction of the money they were entitled to under the PPP program, while less scrupulous people got far more. In the EB-5 real-estate investment program, the government does…

> In the EB-5 real-estate investment program, the government doesn't hand out money here The government is handing out value here. What's the difference?

What does "handing out value" in this context mean? Are you talking about the visas? The investment dollars?

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#38

Post by vulgardream »

atourgates wrote: post #16
iamthepieman wrote: post #5

I live and ski in this area[0]. Have season's passes to Burke Mountain and even met Stenger and Quiros back when they were running the ski areas. On the slopes, at my coworking space, and around the campfire in the Summer, the topic of how to make this little pocket of Northeast Vermont more economically viable is a topic that comes up often. I'm starting to form an opinion that we shouldn't try to compete, at any le…

One of the things I have trouble understanding is why "rural mountain towns near large population centers" are exploding in the West, but not the East. I understand some of the issues. The mountains are smaller and the snow isn't nearly as consistent. But still. It seems like a ski resort 3.5 hours from Boston should be absolutely brimming with customers every long weekend. On the other hand, I sat in a hot tub with…

I think there’s an underestimation of the impact that mega-passes (e.g., Ikon, Epic, and Mountain Collective) have on non-local skier traffic at resorts. A lot of Vermont resorts are crowded with “flat landers” aka Boston, New Jersey, or New Yorkers on weekends; however these tend to be resorts on multi-mountain passes like Killington, Sugarbush, Stowe, Okemo, etc. These resorts and towns aren’t hurting because they draw in outsiders and casual skiers who stay in hotels or condos and spend money at bars, restaurants and other local businesses. In my experience Jay attracts locals, Canadians from southern Quebec, and a few die hard skiers. Most of these are day trippers or stay on resort and are not spending lots of money in the limited establishments that surround Jay. Passes also make travel to a west coast or European resort more feasible financially and logistically. The cost of skiing is already accounted for you just need to find reasonable flights and accommodations for 7-10 days and you have already broken even on the pass.

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#39

Post by gruez »

ryandrake wrote: post #22
jhfdbkofdchk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue with your central point that we spend too much time scrutinizing small dollar awards. The PPP program was ridiculous. I had a very difficult time helping two legit non-profits (one a nursery school, one a food pantry) get a fraction of the money they were entitled to under the PPP program, while less scrupulous people got far more. In the EB-5 real-estate investment program, the government does…

You’re right of course. In this case it’s not the government’s money, but they are still in a sense holding the funnel, guiding its direction, and promising (falsely) to regulate the flow. This stink attracts the same sort of fraudulent flies as other money funnels.

>and promising (falsely) to regulate the flow

What type of promises did they offer? Based on the newyorker article as well a quick skim of the wikipedia article on eb-5, it doesn't seem like the government was supposed to do any due diligence. The government doesn't require you invest in specific investments that it endorses. Any investment that meets the given criteria would work. You can even create your own enterprise to use as an investment.

Re: A rural ski slope caught up in an international scam

#40

Post by gruez »

katbyte wrote: post #32
threeseed wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the government is fully aware of the risks of fraud. But that the cost of not implementing the program is far worse. Which in the case of PPP would've meant a lot of businesses failing and workers without a job.

And yet businesses still laid off people, people lost their job, homes and struggled to feed themselves. propping up failed businesses is preventing the capitalism/the market from working. Why save for a rainy day or ensure your business can weather a storm when you can just do stock buybacks abs shovel money to the shareholders and the Goverment will prop you up? It’s better to just ensure people’s needs are taken c…

> And yet businesses still laid off people, people lost their job, homes and struggled to feed themselves.

The fact that people got laid off regardless shouldn't be an indictment of the program. We should instead compare to the counterfactual where the PPP program hasn't bee implemented.

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