In any case, one persons level of poverty may well be another persons level of luxury. And all of that interconnected economics stuff could be a load of crap. And so could the interconnectedness of all things in the environment. You know, driving big cars produces greenhouse gasses which cause global warming. Nah… things are not interconnected. Our president even says so!

It’s all inter-related. Everything. No exceptions. Yeah, it bums me out when Lou rags on enviros and their idealism but we have to believe that if everyone just does a a few small things for the common good then we will all be better off in the long run. That applies for economics and the environment in my book.

While I may not agree with huge TAV’s I have come to realize that the only purists are the ones skiing all the way to the mountains from their solar powered, sustainable straw bale co-housing units built by well educated indigenous peoples who eat locally grown organic vegetables watered with pure mountain streams that in turn power mini-hydros that run our computers so we can read this site.

Who knew that Wild Snow would become such a forum of ideas and intellectual exchanges… it’s time to go look for some corn.

It’s a little like an Ayn Rand novel, where everything is black-and-white and there are no subtleties. For example, “if you don’t pay full price, I can’t hire a carpenter, and that means that you go hungry.”

What a pile of theoretical crap. Totally unprovable. Completely fictitious. And yet, it sounds quite logical, and GASP! it explains the inhumane grab for profit profit profit and luxury luxury luxury.

But I’m not too surprised, given that there have been posts lately in this blog which trumpet the utility of a gas-guzzling hyper-customized truck, even though many smaller and more useful and less expensive vehicles could do the job.

that is what I advocate. Some do and when shopping online I try to support those shops.

The local mtn shop in resort areas dont make money off the locals they make it off the visitors buying clothes.

I have had good luck talking with local shop people and getting good info on gear and then buying it over the phone from them.

And Rando Swede I am afraid the C: in that conversation sounds like a trustafarian wearing his carharts ’cause they are cool

But hey Craigslist has also been a good source of gear as well.

I know that I try to strike some sort of balance on this one. I buy locally when I can, even if it is a little more. Sometimes, however, it’s a lot. Take the freeride pluses I bought this fall- $475 locally, $250 on the web. The local ski and bike shop that I frequent understands the reality of the web, and doesn’t give me a hard time when I come in there with a product I bought online, because I’m still in there all the time for the small stuff, and I send them a fair amount of business.

I will add, however, that it is extraordinarily bad form to go into a local shop, tie up an employee for an hour trying on different boots or backpacks or whatever, and then leave only to buy the correct size and product on-line.