Bermuda and Azores comments

It has been a while since I updated this subsite. I had thought I could maintain a
daily log but that fell by the wayside when I realized I was not a writer. Opinionated
perhaps but unable to express ideas in a written form. Here is an attempt to summarize
a couple of months worth of experience. In a few words, the exploitation of the common
folk continues wherever we go. It is sad to see how the modern global economy is creating
a new wealth class structure that preys upon the economically depressed areas, driving
up property values, increasing taxes and forcing people to leave homes they had occupied
for generations.
In Bermuda the development is so complete that space no longer exists for new exploitation.
The service industry is dominated by imported labour, young Eastern Europeans for the most
part but also from the Caribbean. Bermuda was very expensive and very British. A controlled
environment where your movements as a foreign vessel were noted and restricted.
The Azores provides a different twist. There is a lot of land but in most cases
uninhabitable so houses are built by the ruins of older houses often without tearing down
the old stone structures. During the last century over half of the Azores population left
to find work in the US whaling industry. They sent money back home, they sponsored
relatives, they retired and came home "wealthy". I spoke to a man that had immigrated to
Canada and had returned within the last few years. He was complaining that so many
retirees were returning home that it was hard to find a cheap farm or even house to buy
anymore. The language is Portuguese so a fair number of service workers come from the old
Portuguese colonies such as Brazil. The availability and cost of food was on a par with
smaller Canadian towns.
Bermuda caters to British and American tastes while the Azores provided us with our first
glimpse of European marketing, packaging and products.