Tag Archives: USA

The World Is Running Out Of Money – But Who Do We Owe It To?

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The World Is Running Out Of MoneyAll you hear about in the news these days is how much the major countries of the world are in debt.

The USA is in deep debt.  The UK just went £1 Trillion into debt.  Most of Europe is in deep debt, Italy and Greece in particular, and the whole Eurozone financial crisis is putting the economic recovery plans of not only the UK but the USA at risk too.

In mid January the credit rating for France was dropped, which added yet another factor, threatening the Eurozone bailout plan.

It just seems to be a never ending downhill spiral, and yet if you step back and think about it, this is just crazy.

The once wealthiest countries in the world are deep in debt.  They are also trying to help the poorer countries in Europe who are in even worse debt, which is dragging them down further in turn.

What I would like to know though is who is all this debt owed to?  If the USA and UK owe vast sums of money and most of Europe too, then who is the creditor?

It can’t be the Russians, because they are deep in their own debt crisis.  Maybe it’s the Chinese and a master plan to control the world.

Actually a lot of the US debt is in Treasury Securities, which are funded by wealthy investors, as well as corporations, retirement funds and governments around the world.  Surprisingly enough, about 25% of the national debt in the USA is held by foreign governments, the largest being Japan, then China, the UK and then the major oil producing nations.

In the UK, about 40% of the national debt is owed to insurance companies and pension funds, and a whopping 35% to foreign investors,and then next in line comes the Bank Of England.

Another big question comes to mind, “Who are these foreign investors who have such a big stake in the UK?”.

Is it Middle Eastern individuals, companies or governments? Is it private investors like Bill Gates? Is it the Russian Mafia maybe?

The interesting thing is that no amount of Googling seems to throw up any documents with information on how this is made up.

It’s a little worrying don’t you think, that all of our countries are fast going downhill financially, and a siezable chunk of the debt is owed to foreigners.  So what happens if there is ever a “crunch day” when the debt is called on?  Could our countries then come under the thumb of foreign powers?  It would probably make a good fiction story, but I hope it never comes true…

Sources:

The Bond Market Explained

UK National Debt

Who Owns The US National Debt

Reverse Culture Shock

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I have to admit that moving back to the UK after having lived in the USA for the last fifteen years is a bit of a reverse culture shock for me in many ways.   Fifteen years is long enough to get past most of the pangs of missing things from where you came and also to become well adjusted to where you moved to, however even after that length of time, there were still some words or customs I came across that were different in the USA that I wasn’t aware of before.

So having moved back to the UK and now having started back to work, albeit after almost three months of trying to find a job and spending much of my time at home, I am not back in the real world of living in England.

Working for a family owned company here is very different to working in Corporate America, where there are so many rules and regulations as to what you can and can’t do, and many of the traditions that might have been have long since gone.   Here for example, people in the department take it in turns to get tea/coffee for everyone, something that I haven’t seen in years.   The boss took us all down the pub for lunch on the first day, and it’s still acceptable to have a drink at lunchtime, whereas the mere mention of alcohol at work in the USA is a big “no no”.   Companies don’t necessarily have microwaves and water coolers here for the employees, in fact ours has neither, but there is a good supply of hot water to make a decent cup of tea as you would expect!

Driving to work is also very different to what it was in the USA, and for me it’s a step backwards.  No more driving 25 miles down the highway for me, or like in my last job 45 miles, which I could do in about 45 minutes.  Now it’s just over 8 miles to work, but it takes me between 40 minutes to an hour.   Only 1/4 mile of that is using a road that has 2 lanes each way, the rest is on just regular roads, and of course much of it is just one big traffic jam.

I guess this is just one of the downsides to living in the UK again, having to deal with the traffic, whereas in both Indiana and Florida where I was living in the USA, the traffic levels were much lighter.  Not only that, once I got out of the residential areas, the rest of the journey was on main highways with at least 2 lanes in each direction.  The traffic in the UK has always been terrible and it gets worse every year, but I am grateful at least that I am not working in London.  Most people working in London have to take public transport to get to work, and that just seems to get more unreliable every year too, so all in all I am pretty lucky to just have a 30 minute journey every day.

My next task, having moved house this weekend, is to sort out a food system for work.   In Florida I used to make myself oatmeal for breakfast in the office, and could bring in leftovers at any time to heat up in the microwave.  I also used to drink a lot of water, and kept bottles that I would fill up from the water cooler.  Now without either a water cooler or a microwave I am looking at alternative options, so will have to bring in my own water from home (since I object to paying an arm and a leg for bottled water), and will probably have cold cereal in the office, since there is a fridge that I can keep milk in.   We don’t have enough money for me to splash out on buying sandwiches etc more than once a week, and besides that, I prefer to know what I am eating, trying to eat healthy as much as I can.  Having lost more than 20lbs in weight over the last two years, I am determined to not put it all on again, as I feel so much better these days.

Well enough rambling for now… Please feel free to leave a comment…

The UK Versus USA Culture Shock

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I was born in England and spent most of my life there, apart from a year in New Zealand in the late 1980′s, but although I am well travelled, having visited many countries around the world both on vacation as well as for work, the cultural differences between the UK and the USA never cease to amaze me.

In 1994 I moved from the UK where I had been living for 15 years, to Northern Indiana, where I would spend the next 12 years, before heading south to Florida.

Most people think that the biggest difference between the UK and the USA is that in England you drive on the left side of the road, and in the USA you drive on the right side, but it’s really far more than that.  There are a myriad of cultural and social differences that only really become apparent when you spend a significant time in the other country.

There is an awful lot that I don’t like in the USA, I have to admit that.  Let’s face it, I didn’t grow up here, so things are not what I am used to, and that is normal for anyone to find.  However there are also a lot of things I do like here, and a lot of things that I don’t like about England too.   In a perfect world I would take a blend of ideas from multiple cultures to get the best of everything.

I have learned that paradise doesn’t exist, since nowhere is perfect.   Take that dream of a tropical paradise for example.  It sounds perfect doesn’t it!  Golden sands, the sound of the ocean, little tiki bars and restaurants, swaying palms.  On the other hand you have maybe a high cost of living, limited entertainment, limited shops, theaters, museums or any of those things that you take for granted in the big city.  Hurricanes!  Did I mention those?  Frequent power outages… just to name a few things that you might miss.   Have you ever wondered how many people who live in places like Jamaica and The Bahamas actually go to the beach?  Relatively few actually.  Like most people, you don’t visit places that are on your doorstep.

However I am digressing instead of writing about the original topic, which was differences between the UK and the USA.  I’m good at getting sidetracked, as Debbie well knows :)

I found so many odd differences between these two countries, that I have actually pondered whether someone said “we have to be different to England, so let’s make everything work differently to them”.  Read on and you too might wonder, but I also wonder which came first, the American or the British version…

We all know that electricity in the UK runs on 240 volts, and in Europe and most of the rest of the world on 220 volts.  The USA and it’s neighbors runs on 110 volts.  Why is that?  It seems that 220 volts is more stable, but I have no idea why the difference.

Now driving on the other side of the road I can understand, and it historically goes back to horse drawn transport centuries ago, but other things I have no idea about.

Take the old rotary phones, which I grew up with.  In the USA the dial and numbers went the opposite way around to in the UK.  Fortunately I didn’t have to use one, because it would make calling really hard.  It was bad enough in the UK, especially when the phone slipped on a high digit, causing you to mis-dial and you had to start again.

Many locks on doors turn the opposite way in the USA compared to the UK.  What’s the logic there?   And light switches go the other way.  In the UK you flip the switch down to turn a light on and up for off.  In the USA it’s the opposite.

One thing that you will never change my mind about is chocolate.   To my dying day I would declare that Cadbury’s is the best chocolate in the world and not Hersheys!

But take something like health insurance.  In the UK it’s free!  If you go to see the doctor, or need a triple bypass – it’s free!  In the USA you could end up spending a small fortune if you got sick, and you have to pay high premiums on health insurance.  It’s also almost impossible to afford if you lose your job or your work doesn’t provide health benefits.  However, if you get sick in the UK and your treatment isn’t urgent, you could end up on a waiting list for a year.  The quality of treatment is often better in the USA, but it comes at a price.  Good if you can afford it.

The thing that really hit me hard was when I got my first job in the USA.  I had been living in the USA for 5 years before I got my first job, having been employed by a software house in London since I relocated.  I had a horrible shock when I was told by Human Resources that the working week was 40 hours (but they expected more like 60), and that there was no vacation time the first year (“come again?”), 5 days the next year, and then 10 days off – but wait – you get 3 weeks off after 5 years service!   I was shocked!  In Europe by law companies have to give you a minimum of 23 days off a year, and many companies in the UK expect you to take a 2 week chunk of that during the summer, rather than have constant long weekends throughout the year.  Many places also have a 35 or 36.5 hour working week.  My heart sank as you can imagine when I heard that.   But I have gradually got adjusted, except when I hear from friends in England who have been on an exotic trip for 2 weeks, and then are planning another week somewhere in the fall, whereas I have to figure out how to make the most of my 10 days, allowing for trying to take time off over Christmas, which leaves maybe 4 days for the rest of the year.

Easter always hit me hard too, since in the UK everyone gets both Good Friday and Easter Monday off, making it a 4-day weekend.  This falls in the middle of the 2 week Spring Break for the schools, so it’s great for parents.  I couldn’t believe that a country that is far more religious than the UK would not have time off for Easter, at least in many companies.   Then Christmas of course, where in the UK we have Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day.  It’s hard to think about going to work the day after Christmas, but so far I haven’t had to and hope I never have to.

There are so many things that I can think of.  If you know of any differences that I haven’t listed, or have any theories, please leave a comment.   You can also find some more information on Cultural Differences between the UK and the USA on another article that I wrote at Associated Content.

Another Batch Of Fresh Lenses

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Both Debbie and I have been busy this last couple of weeks creating new lenses on Squidoo.

While Debhie has been working on her collection of lenses about Hampshire, I have been working on my USA States lenses, and also a local one about my daily walks.

Firstly, Debbie created a lens about Southampton, the city where she lives.  Southampton is one of the largest ports in England, in the middle of the South Coast, and has seen many famous ships sail down the river, including The Titanic, Queen Mary and Elizabeth, and also their successors the QE2 and QM2.

She just completed another about Netley, a suburb of Southampton which has a lot of history.  Netley has ruins of an Abbey, as well as an old military hospital, the remains of which have been turned into a country park.

Meanwhile, I just completed a lens about the morning walks that I take where I live in Deer Creek in South Florida.  The lens has over 80 photographs from the walk, including some nice homes, lakes, and much of the tropical foliage and wildlife of the area.

I have also been working on a set of lenses about the states in the USA.  I am creating these in alphabetical order, and so far have completed Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas and California.   Each lens has background information on each state, and a list of other lenses about that state.  If you have a Squidoo lens about any of these states, please feel free to add it to the list of lenses to get some free promotion.

If I haven’t got to your state yet, why not subscribe to our blog so you can be kept up to date with progress.  I hope you enjoy what you see here.

I GOT MY USA VISA!!!!

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Well, it finally arrived!

Four whole months after my interview at the US Embassy in London, and the help of my M.P. (Member of Parliament), this arrived:

Please be advised that we are now in a position to issue your US Visa. Please resubmit your passport to us for visa issuance. Note that you have three months from the date indicated above in which to resubmit your passport.

Three months?  It was on it’s way the next day!!  Of Course, this email was quickly followed with:

We regret the delay in responding to your inquiry. We have been waiting for information on your case from the Non-Immigrant Visa Unit.

Why the wait?  Where have they been?

I have to say, I’ve been appalled at the way this has been handled. This all started to go wrong when Tony and I decided to ‘do things properly’ and get a Non-Immigrant USA Visa to allow my to visit to the USA for a year. How often do you get the opportunity to have a whole year off work to spend in another Country?

At my first interview, I was asked questions about Tony that I simply didn’t know the answer to… why would I know what his social security number is? The consular officer that interviewed me obviously had a hunch that she wasn’t comfortable with and so denied me the visa.

As the Chief Immigration Officer at Miami quite rightly summed it up ‘ I was denied a visa because some A**H*** was having a bad day’ Some bad day. Some bad day that took away my only chance to have a year out. Some bad day that caused me to be held for 15 hours at immigration. Some bad day that left Tony stood in arrivals all night long not knowing what was happening. Some bad day that cost us in changing flights and re-applying for interviews. Some bad day that my employer went to a lot of trouble for and then did it all over again so I could return to work early. Some bad day that meant I had to find somewhere new to live from 4500 miles away. Some bad day that worried my kids, my parents, my friends not to mention Tony and myself. Some bad day that meant I couldn’t even go through the United States in transit. Some bad day that meant Tony and I couldn’t spend time together last week when I had the week off work.

I hope she doesn’t have another bad day any time soon. I appreciate the authorities have to be very careful over who they approve for visa’s, but when you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, have a government job for which your criminal record has to be checked reguarly, meet all the required criteria, have documentation to prove you intend to return and funds to support yourself, why does it come down to someone’s gut feeling? A gut feeling that left me almost having a nervous breakdown.

A gut feeling that will leave me feeling sick every time I travel to the United States in the future. A gut feeling that will almost give me a panic attack as I go through immigration and see those men in black waiting to check me out.

Surely the system isn’t right if it relies on gut feeling? Do these officials have any idea of the impact on people’s lives when they make these decisions? Her gut feeling was that I wanted to live in America. If that’s what I wanted, why bother going to all the trouble of getting a year off work?

Apologies for sounding angry, but somehow I feel I’m entitled to. Here’s something to make us all smile though – Funny Immigration Video I hope you enjoy it :)