Quote:
Originally posted by porsche996:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kodiak:
[b]I immigrated here "legally" 10 years ago when Australia was facing record unemployment, and unions where ruining the country.

At the time the USA was booming, record growth virtually no unemployment, barely any foreign debt now after two terms of Bush the country is staggering around drunk....housing bubble, US$ tanking, oil headed for $100 reported to be $140-160 next summer, foreign debt in trillions.

Discuss
Have to use 1996/2006 years, since '07 isn't over, yet, and year averages can't be computed when the year ain't done...

But, here goes:

1996 unemployment rate: 5.41%
2006 unemployment rate: 4.63%

1996 Dow Jones record: First time ever above 6,500.
2006 Dow Jones record: First time ever above 12,500!

1996 avg barrel oil (adjusted for inflation in 2007 $'s) $27.18
2006 avg barrel oil (adjusted for inflation in 2007 $'s) $60.28

1996 US national debt: +/- $5.25 TRILLION
2006 US national debt: +/- $8.50 TRILLION

Seems the only thing to "discuss" is your poor recollection of the way things were in the late 1990s... They weren't the "Golden Years" you seem to recall, afterall. Sure, oil is up quite a bit these days. But it hasn't slowed down national growth, and it hasn't really made any sort of dent into the overall economy, either. Turns out, we've got enough $$ in the US to absorb the increases, overall.

[Wave] [/b]
Um...why don't you be a little more truthful?

Dow Jones hit 11,700 in 2000. It took it 6 YEARS to go higher.

The national debt growth was SLOWING in the late 90s.

Unemployment rate went from over 7.5% in 1992 to about 4.5% in 1998. (to be fair...it was around 5.5% in 1990 - gee...what was one of the reasons Bush I lost?)
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"Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced" - Thomas Jefferson, moral relativist