It’s been a while since I updated this so I am going to splurge (there’s a word that should be used more often) all the details in one go.
The Burr’s have bought a 2nd car. A beast of a bus, to transport the Burr Brood around. Now I always swore I would never get myself a people carrier, and I was equally adamant that I wouldn’t buy an American car. American cars have lower safety scores and worse mileage than almost any other car around. The American government deliberately keeps safety tests at a low level as they feel that high safety tests are unfair and a restriction of free-trade. They don’t care that it would be a restriction of my life. Seatbelt wearing is still a source of some debate with some states not enforcing the law as it is seen as the government legislating where they are not needed. However, in recent years European and Japanese cars have been out selling their American counterparts for the very reason that consumers want better fuel economy and people actually value their lives. This coupled with the fact that you can get these safety features and better mileage for about the same price has played havoc with the car manufacturers here who are scrambling to catch up.
So back to my story. With these convictions in mind I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that we bought a 7 seat mini-van (people carrier) from Chevrolet. Hey if you are going to compromise go big. Emma loves it as it has a DVD player in it. Ellie loves it because she thinks it is edible (she currently thinks everything is edible) and Jen loves it because we can get the whole family in it as well as our luggage. All these factors mean that I love it because everyone else is happy.
The economy here is in a terrible state. California is facing a massive budget deficit because they had banked on getting revenue from house sales. However, house sales have slowed down dramatically. The house sales slowing has meant that houses have stopped being built which in turn has led to lay-offs from the housing industry. This has meant more people out of work, not being able to pay their mortgages, which has led to banks having more foreclosed homes, which they can’t sell because people aren’t buying houses. This means the banks are now looking at loans more closely and also they aren’t getting their money back. As noted above consumers are trying to buy products that are cheaper and/or safer, petrol has risen sharply which has a knock on effects on food and other retail goods prices because it is now more expensive to transport the goods. I think you get the picture. With out going into too many more details and this turning into the Economist website things aren’t too good. So the solution from President Bush? He is giving 130 million households in the US $600 to kick start the economy. Yes a whopping $600 to increase consumer spending. Now I can see a few flaws with that the 1st being that most manufactured goods get imported from China so in fact if people buy more goods, no jobs will be created in the US but will be created overseas. Secondly $600 isn’t that much and it won’t allow people to buy the kind of products that Bush wants them to buy namely houses, cars, TV’s. Thirdly the majority of the money will probably be swallowed up by payments to credit card companies as credit debt is at an all time high.
Ok that is enough for now. We have another scan for the baby today so more tomorrow (hopefully).
