local economics

A few thoughts about local economics. We have had some good discussions with some common folks here in Portishead where we are waiting for the Grande Ellade to arrive (at the moment she is expected to arrive on the incoming tide very early Sunday morning, two days late from Portugal). The manager of a local travel agency makes about $25,000 a year and is doing well because she still lives with her parents. The desk clerk at the hotel makes about $24,000 per year and just bought a house with her boyfriend. They can only afford to do that because they both work, but she says they can't afford to have a wedding. She owns a car, but at $8.00 per gallon for gasoline, she is very careful where she goes. The problem is that public transportation is about as expensive as driving (21 miles on a city bus cost just over $7.00, that's 33 cents a mile).

Some of the folks we met at the Sailors Center at the docks yesterday told us that they were planning on moving to other EU countries in the future, mainly because the cost of living is much less and property is way cheaper than here in Britain. A couple at the resturant last night said that when they went to France last year every Bed and Breakfast or small Inn they found was owned by an "escaped Brit", one of their fellow citizens who left the country for a less expensive life somewhere else.

And everyone is concerned about what the "American Recession" is going to do to an already bad situation. Young people especially are feeling the pinch because their wages are not keeping up with their expenses.

We have had an interesting, albiet expensive, two days so far waiting for the ship. The main lesson I have learned is that it probably makes a lot of sense to meet these kinds of ships in cheaper locations, like Pireaus Greece or Italy.

Time to go (you only get 20 minutes on the library computer),
Lynn