A Geek in London

One of the things that I’ve been dreading for a while now is the approach of the incredibly short days here in England.   London is much further north than any place I’ve ever lived, it is on the same latitude as northern Canada, just a touch higher than Calgary, and because of this the winter days are mucher shorter and the summer days are much longer.

In Bloomington the earliest the sun will set this winter is 5:20pm.  On the solstice, the shortest day of the year, Bloomington will have 9hrs 20mins of sunlight.

Today, in London, the sun will set at 3:59pm.   It will set as early as 3:51pm in a few weeks.  Our shortest day here will be 7hrs 49mins.

I do realize that this is the trade off for the incredibly lovely days in the middle of the summer where the sky is still light until after 10pm, and the days reach close to 17 hours of daylight.  However, it is a bit of a downer to look out the window of my office an hour and a half before I leave and see that it is dark as night.

p.s.

The update on the work permit is that there is no update.

I’m a money geek, I know this.  I spend as much time on Bloomberg.com as I do on TechCrunch or Engadget.  I log into my Yodlee and Mint accounts frequently and see the grand overview of my entire financial life.  I download two podcasts daily that are financial news related (Marketplace and NPR Planet Money) and a separate one that is devoted to consumer finance (The Clark Howard Show).  With all of this in mind, it should really not be a surprise to anyone that knows me that I would go to an art house cinema to see a documentary about the U.S. National Debt.

The movie, “I.O.U.S.A.”, was directed by Patrick Creadon (The same director as the documentary “Wordplay”, another excellent film) and funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (former Secretary of Commerce).  The movie simultaneously follows members of The Concord Coalition across the country on their ‘Fiscal Wake Up’ tour, intersperses on screen interviews with Warren Buffet, former Fed Chairmans Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, former Treasure Secretary Paul O’Neill and others, while breaking down the complex issues relating to the national debt into manageable (to comprehend, not deal with) pieces.

There is a cursory recounting of the national debt over time, from 1787 through early 2008, displayed as a percentage of GDP.  There has only been one time (in approximately 1830, where our debt was at $0).  After understanding how we arrived at ‘modern day’, we are given a more thorough examination of the debt and federal budget since the early 1990s.

During the last 40 years, there have only been five years that the Government has spent less money that it collected in taxes (a budget surplus).  Four of those years occurred between 1998-2001.  Since 2001 the government has run an ever increasing budget deficit each year (excluding any consideration of recent bailouts) and we are now looking at over twice the debt had at the beginning of the decade.

From the US Treasury website, the National Debt on Friday was:  $10,617,806,584,635.27  

The total GDP for the US in 2007 was $13.8 trillion.

Making the National Debt approximately 75% of GDP.

So why is this scary and un-nerving and all of the rest.  Well, we’re still running budget deficits, meaning that this number is continuing to grow and not shrink, this debt is accumulating interest, which is compounding the problem even further, and lastly there is the Social Security issue.

We all know that social security takes money from current workers to give to current retirees.   As an isolated system, this is fine for the time being.  However you should also know that in the not so distant future there will be fewer dollars collected from workers than will need to be paid to recipients.  Looking at this as an isolated situation this obviously means that when that future arrives, social security benefits will be a further strain on the Federal Budget.  The most frightening part of the problem is that it’s not isolated.

Social Security as an isolated system has been running huge surpluses for a long time.  So what has the government been doing with those surpluses?  They’ve been using them in other parts of the budget.  Meaning, that when we get to the point where social security is a negative sum game, the excesses that have been used to ineffectually prop up the system until then will go away creating a magnified effect.

For the 2008 budget, this surplus will be about $187 billion.  

There is much more to the problem than what I highlighted here. It’s also related to the trade imbalance of our exporting less than we are importing, it has to do with who owns our debt, it has to do with American Citizens lack of concern about the problem, and on and on.

So should we be concerned? I can’t say “F%@K YES” loudly enough.

In your own household, imagine if your total debt was 75% of your annual income.  [You can assume 'non-mortgage' debt since ideally your mortgage is offset by your equity in your home]  Now imagine that you aren’t paying any of that down each year and the interest is slowly adding to it.  Also, maybe occasionally you add something else to a new credit card.  The debt continues to rise, you continue to sputter, and eventually you realize the snowball has so much momentum that it’s unable to be stopped.

As a country we are not very far away from this event horizon.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE: I.O.U.S.A. 

ADD IT TO YOUR NETFLIX QUEUE:

I’ve been asked a fair amount recently what my plans are for the future, specifically what my plans are for December 29th and beyond.  The short answer to this is, “I haven’t got a clue.” While a slightly longer answer is, “It depends on several things that are currently out of my control.”

For those of you who might not be aware, my current situation is this.  I’m currently living and working in the UK on a 6-month non-extendable work permit provided under the “BUNAC Scheme”. The permit, provided to full time students and recent graduates, allowed me to enter the UK without a job, seek employment, and work legally for up to 6 month from the date that I arrived.  Not only am I allowed to limited to working for up to 6 months from the day I arrived, I’m legally required to exit the country at the end of the 6 months as well.

I arrived in the UK on June 29th, and therefore my current work permit and right to remain in the UK expires on December 29th.  My departure flight is already booked for December 28th at 12:05pm.

However, there are several reason I don’t particular want to return to the US permanently at the moment.   Not the least of which include that I don’t have a job there to return to, and this isn’t the best time to be seeking work.   Without having a job to return to, I’d need to decide where I’d return to live and ’start again’.  Bloomington would be an obvious choice, considering that I own my house there and have friends as well, but that seems like a poor decision.  It would likely be a choice made for ’short term convenience’ that would stretch into a long term crutch.

There are several other reasons I don’t want to leave the UK at the moment.  I have a job that I very much enjoy, although I do frequently get frustrated at portly external business partners.  I have faith that this company will continue to grow and expand, and I like the feeling that I can help it along the way.  I have been able to apply many things that I learned in my Master’s courses, and have been encouraged to experiment with new technologies.  I’m also in a relationship with a great guy that continues to delight, amuse, and amaze me the more I get to know him, and I’d prefer not to end this relationship due to pesky government intervention.  Lastly, there are thousands of parts of this country and culture that I’ve yet to explore, and I look forward to have the time and flexibility to do so.

So, back to the original question, “What is my plan beyond December 29th?’

Well, with the hope of being able to stay (or return) to the UK, I need receive a new work permit beyond the one that I currently have.  There seem to be 2 avenues open to me, and neither are a sure thing.

Tier 2 - Sponsorship.

For my current company to sponsor me, which they are wanting to do, there is a convoluted process that must be followed.  This process is more complex than in previous years, due to recent changes with the UK Home Office & Border Agency.  For my company to sponsor me, they must first apply to the Home Office for the right to sponsor any foreign employees.  The paperwork involved with this includes providing several years worth of company documents, extensive verification that the company has never employees a illegal immigrant, compliance with rigorous Human Resource procedures as well as data protection and privacy policies, and on and on.  There also is a requirement of an on-site inspection from the Home Office to verify the business is legitimate and not a sham of some sort.

My company has submitted all of the paperwork to get this process started, and are waiting to hear back for the next step.  I’m growing slightly concerned about the delays though, because my current permit does expire in about 42 days, although I suspect we’ll see progress soon.

After my company gets approval to sponsor a foreign employee, then there is a requirement of posting my position to see if there are any British or EU citizens that can fill the position.  I’m not particular concerned about this test though.  I have a rather unique collection of skills with my Master’s in Information Architecture, programming skills, knowledge of VoIP and SIP systems, as well as the certainly unique skill that I have developed much of the current system from scratch.

I’m not precisely clear on the next part of the process after the ‘local labour market test’, however it seems that at this point there are no hurdles and it is all just paperwork that will be cleared up rather quickly.

As I mentioned though, this isn’t a sure thing.  There are several reason that the Home Office could deny either step in the process, and only time will tell how it turns out.

If this fails, there is a 2nd option that I will be able to explore:

Tier 1 - Highly Skill Migrant Program (HSMP)

While being sponsored by the company under the Tier 2 relies on the company to complete the paperwork and pay the fees, Tier 1 leaves the entire process to me, and will need to be submitted from outside of the UK.

HSMP is a points based system that gives an individual points based on education, previous earnings, age (being younger gives you more points), and previous UK work experience.

A person needs to have 75 pts to qualify, and if they do they will be granted a 3-year work permit that is eligible for extension.  I’m right on the borderline for qualifying for this, and much of it depends on the date used to convert my US earnings into British Pounds, and if my UK work experience will meet the minimum threshold.

If sponsorship fails, I will return to Bloomington at the end of December, and start the process of applying for the HSMP permit.  I’d likely continue working for the company remotely while we see how this tact ends up.

If both Sponsorship and HSMP fail..  hmm..  I then need to decide lots of things for the near term future that I have avoided considering (in an effort to remain optimistic).

It’s my hope and expectation that I’ll have more information on some of these things within the next 2 weeks.

From the moment that I arrived in the UK back in June it was apparent that people here were following the US election with the same level of interest as those back home.  As I met new people, both personally and professionally, shortly after it was known that I was a US citizen who had just recently arrived, I would be asked my thoughts on the process and what I hoped and thought was going to happen.

Perhaps not surprisingly a fair amount of disapproval of Bush came through as these people talked to me.  One of the often repeated questions that I got, and one that four years out I still don’t have an answer for, was “I can understand electing Bush the first time, but why did you re-elect him to a second term.”  The only thing that I could say to this is that neither me nor my friends actually voted for him, and that his campaign in 2004 rallied his supporters with fear and hate.  You can never underestimate the number of Americans that cling to their conservative religious ideology and oppose anything relating to social-progress to the detriment of all other issues.

Leading up to the election it was somewhat difficult to understand that Obama and McCain weren’t running for election as Prime Minister of Great Britian.  The campaigns were frequently front page stories, conversations overheard on the tube, and fodder for comedians and satirists.  I mentioned in my post about going to Amsterdam that a comedy troupe there was preparing a show titled “Bye Bye Bush”, and we got to see 45 minutes or so of a preview as they tried out their shtick.

Palin’s abusrdities were covered extensively as well.  The News Quiz delighted weekly in talking about her, playing the Hallejuih chorus when her name was mentioned.   At times it seemed that the people here understood the dangers of putting such an unqualified, unprepared, “I don’t need to actually know anything because I can rely on my former beauty queen looks and grating folksy charm to win you over” next in line for the US presidency more so than those back home.  The few people that I do know that were McCain supporters, when I’d press them on the Palin issue, specifically ‘What if McCain dies and she becomes president’, the response was the same. “I’m not voting for the vice president, I’m voting for the president.”   I couldn’t help but be frustrated by this blind ignorance, but then again what can you expect from Republicans.  [Not So Random Fact: 8 US presidents have died in office, and Nixon resigned.  Meaning 9 of our former 43 Presidents achieved the office (the first time) through succession.]

I stayed up quite late on election night, until about 5:30am GMT in fact, chatting with Cory in California, and Aaron in Minnesota.  Although it was quite clear that Obama was going to win, I wanted to see it happen, and to hear his victory speech as it happened.

I also was watching the results come in for Indiana, a state that hadn’t voted for a democrat for president since 1964.  I had both the CNN and MSNBC county-by-county results maps up and refreshed them every so often.  Even as the vote count lead for McCain widened (from 40k to 50k to 75k at one point) I was more and more optimistic.  All of the rural counties were nearly reported in at 100%, and Monroe county (IU), Marion county (Indianapolis) and 3 of the main counties in NW Indiana (near Chicago) weren’t reporting in much at all.  Once they started reporting the vote count shrank to 60k to 40k, to 25k, to 7k.  It was great to see my state turning blue.  When I finally went to bed at 5:30am, Obama was leading by 7k votes, however the county I grew up in, Wayne, had not reported any results yet.  It wasn’t until about 4pm GMT that CNN’s website finally put Indiana in the Obama category.

On Wednesday morning I got many text messages and e-mails of congratulations from people here in London.  Everyone was so incredibly happy that Obama won, and that the Bush regime was finally on their way out, for certain.   I went to meet up with Silvia and João in the evening, and when Siliva saw me she ran up to me like a giddy school girl and gave me a huge hug, and told me how happy she was for me.

One final instance of how people from all over Europe were interested and pleased by the outcome.  Last night I went along with Nick and Iain and Iain to a Seth Lakeman concert.  Lakeman is an English musician that is sort of an electric folk (?) sound.  His opening act was a group of 3 sisters from Stockholm Sweden.  During their set, this Swedish group announced to the British crowd that the song was ‘dedicated to Barack Obama and his victory’, and the crowd cheered incredibly loudly.

Ahh…  what a nice feeling, it has been a long time gone.

The final day in Paris was a pretty low key affair, but still quite enjoyable.  We put everything we brought back into our backpacks, checked out of the hotel.  I really like the fact that I was able to go to Paris and get everything I needed into a backpack, more trips like that are needed.

We located a nearby Patisserie, got our croissants and other morning snacks, and headed back to Citroen Park that we found on the first day.  We sat and ate our breakfast near a large fountain that was flush with the ground around it on a slight incline.  While we sat there a few young kids on skateboards repeatedly went to the top of the incline, rode their skateboards down it and through the water.  The navigated to avoid most of the water spikes, but they did get a bit wet a few times.

We headed out through the side of the park we hadn’t seen yet, and it just solidified my opinions that it was one of the nicest city parks I’ve been in (or will be when the fountains are all entirely repaired).

From there we caught an overground train to Gare du Nord, the station where our train back to London would leave in about 5 hours.  We dropped off our backpacks in some lockers and went off to see new areas of the city.  

On the way to the east of the station we walked through a small sex shop district, and I pondered the business smarts of setting up a sex shop next to 3 other sex shops.   Do people really visit all 4 of them to price and feature compare?

Walked acrossed a bridge at Gare de l’Est, and was amazed by the number of tracks leading into the station.  There appeared to be about 36 tracks, although when we went in to check out the arrival hall there were only about 28 platforms.  

We walked along a canal that I had never seen before, it was a warm Sunday afternoon and many people were out jogging and enjoying the weather.  The canals had a few set of working locks, and one of them was being used to elevate a canal boat shipping gypsum or some such.

Lunch at a Moroccan restaurant although we both went with a very tasty croque monsieur.

From there we walked back a long way towards Notre Dame and around the island on which it stands, going all the way to the front of the island that faces the direction of the Eiffle Tower.

Returned to Gare du Nordd for the Eurostar.  At the Eurostar terminal you go through French emigration (where they check and stamp your passport for leaving France) about 20 feet before you go through British Immigration (where they check and stamp your passport for entering the UK). 

Because of the permit that I’m traveling on, the BUNAC Blue Card, I must show it to the immigration officer every time I reenter the UK.  A pleasant Scottish woman a few years older than me was the person that I had to deal with and at first she was unsure what to do with my card and my passport.  She closed up her laptop, asked me to step over to a special area and wait for her, as she closed her line.  I was quite amused thinking about what others must have thought.  “Is he on some watchlist?’

She went around to a few different areas and talked to a few different people before she eventually decided to re-stamp my passport with the same stamp that I received when I arrived in London in June.  The original stamp said I was allowed to work for “SIX MONTHS”, and this immigration officer wrote the actual date of my necessary depature “29 Dec 2008″.  It would have been nice if she wrote “SIX MONTHS” as well, because I have a feeling that would have been binding.  Oh well.

The Eurostar home was pretty fast, we reached 310 kilometres/per hour, according to my GPS.  

Arrived back at St Pancras, where Nick and I went our seperate ways.  We hastily made plans to hang out midweek as I went off to catch the Piccadilly Line north for 3 stations, and Nick caught the Northern line south for a slightly longer journey.