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</p>
<p>The whole country isn’t cold. Vancouver winters are warmer than St. Louis or Little Rock winters. Only slightly cooler than Atlanta winters. London and Toronto have winters similar to Detroit, certainly not warm but not the brutal cold stereotype either.</p>
<p>I’ve been to London in the winter, it’s cold but not cold like Paris because it’s not in the continent.
I’ve yet to be there in Canada in the winter, nor any of the places you mentioned in post #2400.</p>
<p>I guess you never watched “all in the family”</p>
<p>I vaguely remember the show.</p>
<p>I watched it all the time, but I am not getting the reference.</p>
<p>“The whole country isn’t cold. Vancouver winters are warmer than St. Louis or Little Rock winters. Only slightly cooler than Atlanta winters. London and Toronto have winters similar to Detroit, certainly not warm but not the brutal cold stereotype either.”</p>
<p>I guess I’m too opaque for my own good. I’m assuming that the above comment refers to London, Ontario as London, England certainly doesn’t have weather like Detroit. DrGoogle is implying that it refers to London, England.</p>
<p>In an “All in the Family” episode, Archie was supposed to send a package to London - London, Ontario and sent it to London, England and was fired.</p>
<p>Actually, he lost his Christmas bonus not fired.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing that out, I was thinking of London, UK. I didn’t know there is another London somewhere else. 
It goes to show I should get out more.</p>
<p>Edit: Already been covered.</p>
<p>Interesting/sad problem affecting many people’s retirement:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Student</a> debt threatens the safety net for elderly Americans](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/student-debt-threatens-safety-net-100139365.html]Student”>Student Debt Threatens the Safety Net for Elderly Americans)</p>
<p>That article is pretty bad.^^ They use two people as examples. One says he didn’t know he owed money and the other says she wants to save the money she does have to give to her kids.</p>
<p>I don’t feel sympathy for either person in that article, but the woman who has the resources to pay her debt really annoys me. A few years ago, an elderly relative wanted us to pay for something and claimed he couldn’t afford it. The cost was >$25K so we didn’t just pull out our checkbook. While being badgered by other relatives who tried to guilt us into ponying up, we learned that he did have the money but did not want to spend it because it would have reduced his children’s inheritance. We then said, “Sorry, but that won’t be possible,” over and over until the message got through.</p>
<p>An aging boomer relative is upset about his wife’s remaining student loan debt. She went back to college in her 40s and took out student loans instead of using some of their savings. They both recently retired and he thinks it’s “unfair” that they have to continue to pay off the debt. Dh and I look at these people and ask ourselves how can we possibly be related? </p>
<p>To continue on post 2398, yesterday on Public Radio, they were talking about OECD, and how maybe the French people’s negative spin is affecting their ratings. Talking about how they have great health care, 6 weeks vacation a year, etc. A couple from Paris said they travel a lot - love living in Paris and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. However Paris is an expensive place to live. Maybe live close enough to travel in for frequent visits.</p>
<p>I worked at a French bank for many years based in NYC, and I’m always shocked that France is “still in business.” I’ll give you one example: I was on a business trip for a week in Paris once, and every day there was a guy in the office who was reading the paper, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, anything but working. I asked a coworker what the deal was with him. She replied: “Oh, he’s on Mobility.” I asked: “Mobility?? What in the world is Mobility?” She explained that he was unhappy with his job, so he had a year to find another job in the company, and in the meantime, in order to not interfere with his search, he had no work assignments. </p>
<p>France has big economic problems:</p>
<p><a href=“France: the new sick man of Europe | France | The Guardian”>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/14/france-sick-man-europe-economy</a></p>
<p>D23 just reported that she’s increased her Roth 401K percentage to 17%, and has more than half a year’s salary socked away in her savings account. I think all the discussions about the importance of saving for retirement and being prepared to roll with challenges must have clicked. Doing the happy dance!</p>
<p>I agree about France’s economic issues, but if they will go to as bad as Greece or other countries…</p>
<p>Interesting in that a company that H’s company was doing contract electronics mfg for was just bought by a French company, and H is helping with technology transfer from one US state to where we live. Corporate (out of Houston) insisted today in H being involved - that sure helps with our feelings of his job security.</p>
<p>Skyped today with DD1 who has been in Switzerland and Italy. She says the Swiss have their economy going great, and people are really engaged and involved; the only bad thing is there are a lot of smokers - and they will see the medical costs and health consequences down the road. She was shocked by how little religion there is expressed in Switzerland, and Catholic Sunday Mass only does one reading. Italy people were very expressive of their faith.</p>
<p>"D23 just reported that she’s increased her Roth 401K percentage to 17%, and has more than half a year’s salary socked away in her savings account. I think all the discussions about the importance of saving for retirement and being prepared to roll with challenges must have clicked. Doing the happy dance! "</p>
<p>@arabrab, I’m hoping for your sake that the D23 is a typo, and you just meant to type D2 or D3!!</p>
<p>That is awesome.</p>
<p>“An aging boomer relative is upset about his wife’s remaining student loan debt. She went back to college in her 40s and took out student loans instead of using some of their savings. They both recently retired and he thinks it’s “unfair” that they have to continue to pay off the debt. Dh and I look at these people and ask ourselves how can we possibly be related?”</p>
<p>Ah come on now, they’re victims. It’s not their fault. They didn’t know this would happen.
Sometimes you do have to wonder what in the world is wrong with people.</p>
<p>And that story about the guy in Paris? Unbelievable. How do companies in France stay in business? That is crazy.</p>
<p>Meant to type D1, who IS 23, but I think the fingers got ahead of the brain, @busdriver11. :)</p>