More travel gubbins

To be honest I'm a bit out of the loop on travel gadge. Its been a while since I had to trudge across the globe cattle class and get up for a meeting the next day, or drive 5 hours for an evening presentation and then turn around and come straight back stopping, briefly, in a Welcome Break car park for a power nap. So, I'm a bit gutted that this little beaut didn't exist when I was still doing a shit ton of miles in a plethora of Vauxhall Astras. In fairness, PDAs were still a thing back then, with iPhones a mere glint of billions of dollars in Monsieur Jobs' eyes. Still, I'm glad it exists to give even the lowliest of Marketing Executives a bit of Facebook respite while they eat their Burger King Chicken Royale on the M3 at 10 o'clock at night.

Sad orphans and deprived puppies coming out of my arse

Having just experienced the ol' Scottish referendum back in blighty I've been asking about the voting rights over here in Cali. Well, it turns out that asking the people to vote on decisions is rather popular out here. Sure, citizens get to vote people into power, but locally we also get to suggest stuff and have all our fellow Californian Raisins vote on it too. For example, Proposition 41, which was voted on over the summer, is designed to support veterans through better housing provision. It kinda defeats the object of having voted representatives into power if you're going to let every pleb make a proposition and ask everyone else to vote on it, but it does feel like a more transparent way to manage the state. I appreciate the drawbacks (there are often lots of propositions on the ballot paper, and its hard enough to get people to vote normally, let alone when they've got to read a shit-ton of extra blurb, aside from the fact that people are dumb, so giving them the opportunity to make decisions that affect us all when you KNOW they haven't actually researched each proposition before ticking the box. I would imagine the winner is whoever uses the most puppies and sad orphans in their tv advertising campaigns. I've also been told that sometime propositions can contradict each other, so voting for both effectively means they cancel each other out), and if the voters believe they are getting a say in all the important governance details then they won't be too hot on picking up the bigger, shadier deals going on, but the 'matrix management' style feels quite nice - like the local political leaders actually respect the opinions of the local population and trust us to make well-informed and intelligent decisions. Thats a very naive idea, but making your plebs feel important is a smart move if you want to be reelected.

If you're interested, here is a summary of the current propositions on the ballot paper (its very interesting to actually read the details, especially once you've been bombarded with the tv adverts for a couple of weeks. I've got sad orphans and deprived puppies coming out of my arse, and I'm still none-the-wiser which way I should vote. If I could vote. Wait...I can't vote? Why the hell am I wasting my time with this shit. Days of our Lives is on.)

From little acorns massive debts do accrue

I've already had a bit of a winge about the old credit card situation over here. Selling me a prepaid debit card as 'a low risk credit card with no fees!' was pretty transparent. But, we played along and it actually didn't take too long to build enough of a credit reputation in the US in order to be trusted with a grown up credit card. If you're in the same situation, do it - its hard for a Brit to swallow their pride when faced with an American bank teller scoffing at your excellent UK credit rating, but its totally worth it.

So, onto the next question - where should I put my money to get the best interest rates? The answer: anywhere outside the US. I'm thinking of throwing my money off the top of the Coit Tower - I'm pretty sure I'll get a better return than any of the banking options.

There are no accounts that offer more than 1.03% interest on savings. Which is LAUGHABLE. And, again, not something that we're used to. But I think the system for managing your money in the US is very different. Salaries are generally paid fortnightly, people seem to use rewards-based credit cards for everything and investment is something for the average Joe. I'm not sure whether its the influence of capitalism on us plebs, but everyone seems to have stock options (it makes so much more sense that the smart phones all come with a stocks app now!)

Its a bit daunting, especially for a risk-averse Brit, but the american approach is different. Take big risks, get big wins. You will, obviously, run the risk of a financial loss, but this is the nation built on immigrants who took a risk on a better life in a remote new land, and thats panned out quite well for them in the long run.

There are even ways that you can introduce yourself slowly to this with apps like Acorn, which rounds up your credit card bill to the nearest dollar every time you use it and invests your spare change. It seems like a pretty smart idea, and an easy way to see that smart investment is definitely the way to earn the sort of 'free money' that we see in the UK in the form of interest. The big difference is that the investment choices are in our hands, rather than the banks, which, for a Brit that innately trusts the Bank Manager, the Doctor and the Insurance man to make our decisions for us, is a LOT of responsibility. Its cool - I'm getting used to all this responsibility. I'll be administering my own injections and undertaking my own smear tests from now on. I look forward to claiming the costs back from my insurance company for that.