billion of domestic spending. republicans are against that. they think that, hey, look, democrats have two years to send as much money as they wanted in terms of different stimulus packages and the infrastructure bill and the climate change and chips act. this is kind of the last stand for democrats since they lose majority in a few weeks. i think if you talk to people on both sides of the aisle, they are cautiously optimistic that the government is not going to shut down and that there s a good chance they ll be able to come together and kind of democrats can hand the keys to republicans saying you fund the government after this deal passes. but i don t think it s very productive for congress to be having to extend, you know, government funding every few weeks or months. i don t know about you, daniel but my mama always told me that procrastinating is terrible and we ve all
procrastinating on competitive races have become. so much of it is just chatter. people guessing, people spinning data into hard facts end of quote. why do you think so many people were predicting a red wave and what were they missing charles? well you know part of it is the business we are in. i say we because i am in it as well. you are asked all of the time to predict. and we fall prey to that. there is a pack mentality iran prediction. one person predicts, it and we sooner than enough is contagious and another person predicts and it becomes almost like a fact even though it is not. we were, getting a little bit from polling here and there. pulling as become difficult to aspartame by the way. fewer people are answering polls and so it becomes very difficult. you have to take things with a grain of salt. a lot of things people do now is poll of polls, which is an average of all polls to get a
financial house in order. no more procrastinating. i could use some of that advice. one more thing before you go, wendy, the housing market. it is really tough right now. interest rates roughly doubling over the last year or so. what s your advice for people trying to buy a house right now? the trends are really mixed here. there is less competition in the market as people are getting priced out and there s more inventory. however, it is still more expensive to buy the same house today than it was 12 months ago because of the doubling of mortgage rates as you just mentioned. i will say this is the time for potential home buyers to get ague aggressive with their potential lenders. if you are not getting at least five different lender quotes, you are leaving money on the table. this was done by a study showing that you can get the best mortgage rates by asking around
children s hospital and in our outpatient pediatric clinics throughout the city, we ve been preparing and actually prepare for surges like this even before covid started, have been preparing throughout the last two years of this pandemic so, you know, looking at extra shifts for our employees, physicians, you know, understanding the porngs of being available for our patients, we re seeing, in the office, telehealth visits, we are prepared but as the numbers continue to groerks it gets tougher tougher to keep up with the demand. so given all of that, for parents watching right now, what is your advice to them? well, i think the most important advice to them is that if you haven t vaccinated your children, do it now, don t keep delaying or procrastinating, the sooner you get your kids vaccinated, the sooner they get the protection they need. we understand most kids who get
procrastinating forever. laughter but having a day to start forces me to be here onjanuary 7, ready for the next day. all right. so what are you currently writing, then? well, i cannot tell you because i never talk about the book in progress, but i finished another book that is being translated because i want my american editor to take a look at it. it s a very american story. so i m always working on something. my goodness me. well, i hope there are many more books to come from you, isabel allende, for your many, many fans all over the world. isabel allende, in california, it s been a pleasure talking to you. thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. thank you. goodnight.