Try less than half that, down from a high of 10.1% unemployment last year, and not to be confused with welfare (in the formal sense that you're taking jaketheory to task for).
You have a habit of making unqualified proclamations (like "Australia is closed to IMGs") and then defending them by saying something else. One cannot call the under-employed unemployed, or U6 the "real" unemployment rate (it gives additional information when used with U3 to assess labour markets, not "better" information), let alone equate under-employed 16 year olds with being on welfare. Remember, you implied jaketheory was an idiot for his use of the term "welfare" before you changed your post, so I'm just similarly taking you to task.
It's unfortunate that you haven't met North Americans here who aren't annoyingly pro-America. Maybe it's who you hang out with, or where you are.
What are you going on about? Do you paint the whole world with such a broad brush? I never said anything about "America is so great", and your allusions are nonsensical. I took you to task for your false claims above. Period. Disagreeing with you on what constitutes welfare and unemployment, or on Australia's relative levels thereof, makes not an America-phile or an Australia-hater.
Well, I didn't mention anything about racism, you did after deciding that the discussion was about whether America is great. There was the "huge story" here about the targeting of Lebanese and gang warfare in Sydney, and of course all those about the Indian bashings last year -- do they in themselves make Australia any more or less racist than the US? Do promises by politicians to "stop the boats"? No.
There you go again. No, Obama didn't tell me that, nor did I make such a claim, but the trend in the numbers you chose do. Am I still dumb?
Not much at all with respect to the stats you chose to tout, contrary to your claims. Your exaggerations as pointed out have been the whole point.
And you believe the BLS doctors its numbers because...they disagree with your worldview?
Hmm. Maybe you should stop using ad hominem attacks when people disagree with you, or when they're not saying what you claim they are. It really doesn't reflect well on you.
And most people are ignorant, not understanding that European banks did the exact same things that Wall St. banks were doing (and govts doing far worse wrt to sovereign debt) and were just as culpable for the meltdown; nor appreciating that recessions come and go and do not imply some inevitable downfall of America, or the free market (as Rudd touted, not long after proselytizing on the supposedly biggest moral challenge of our time).
I was there not too long ago, but "seeing" anecdotes doesn't necessarily make for better understanding. I also used to work for Goldman Sachs, though that really has little effect on my opinions on financial regulation except for any industry insight gained from understanding a little of GS' vision and management structure. At any rate, Goldman is not being "controlled" by the US govt in any sense that it can be said of GM. There was govt extortion for sure in response to how it marketed one commodity, similar to govt extortion from BP without due process, but that's not controlling in the sense that the govt changed GM's makeup of car dealerships and management structure and continues to affect its market vision. They're apples and oranges and don't really support the notion of govt control of industry in general (as bailed out banks pay the govt back for example, they lose any strings, ergo no such govt control).
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I was there not too long ago, but "seeing" anecdotes doesn't necessarily make for better understanding. I also used to work for Goldman Sachs, though that really has little effect on my opinions on financial regulation except for any industry insight gained from understanding a little of GS' vision and management structure. At any rate, Goldman is not being "controlled" by the US govt in any sense that it can be said of GM. There was govt extortion for sure in response to how it marketed one commodity, similar to govt extortion from BP without due process, but that's not controlling in the sense that the govt changed GM's makeup of car dealerships and management structure and continues to affect its market vision. They're apples and oranges and don't really support the notion of govt control of industry in general (as bailed out banks pay the govt back for example, they lose any strings, ergo no such govt control).
While I agree there has been a recent US "decline" of sorts, I see it in the perspective of recent history -- there was the "decline" of the 70s which didn't really turn around until the early 80s (meanwhile Japan was slated to take over, according to many), there was the Australian dollar on par with the USD back in the 50s, there have been other recessions before and since, and so on. That this recession is deeper than many others doesn't say much about the future (there hadn't been a 'big one' in the US since the 70s, so many don't have that historical perspective), and it also has yet to be a notably long one.
California in particular is a bad example to use, as it has been financially inept for a decade because it's been a Big Govt state with fascist tendencies and a history of really stupid energy policies for example, akin to Greece in that the GFC (or financial markets) isn't what caused the problem, it just exacerbated very poor management to the tipping point, and both probably should go broke in order to fix the underlying problem since bailouts won't.
I also think that what people perceive (and as Rudd the quasi-populist was mimicking) as a failure of the "free market" is as much a misunderstanding of markets and/or a reflection of anti-globalization worldviews (early GFC alarmism was most certainly wrong), as it is a myopic view of temporal shifts like the fear of "decline of individual rights" post-911 (I don't deny some loss of freedoms, but the point being that a short-term trend does not imply any medium or longterm decline...maybe a better analogy would be global climate and temperature trends
Bush and Iraq and economic globalization and global warming alarmism have naturally made the US an even bigger target than it had been, and so with the GFC there's been some finger-pointing and wishful thinking on the part of many pundits and audiences that Western capitalism, American in particular, is both at fault for the ills of mankind, and doomed. And a current left-wing govt gives ammunition internally (esp. for Fox) to jump and point the finger at any imposition of market restrictions (like in health care), thus paradoxically reinforcing perceptions of a decline in the free market. But as a result, the relatively anti-regulation Republicans are once again becoming popular...
So basically, while I agree wholeheartedly it's been a couple years of US economic badness with arguably misguided govt interventions in response to an under-regulation of financial markets, but this follows almost a decade of relative prosperity, following a post internet bubble burst and huge economic slowdown, following a decade of incredible prosperity, following a recession, following incredible prosperity and de-regulation (by Reagan and Hawke/Keating in the two countries at hand), following a deep and protracted international stagnation due to oil shortages and over-regulation...and there's really no reason to believe such pendulum swings won't continue, for all countries.
Um, the EU just violated its own constitution to bail out Greece. There's been talk of possible Euro collapse, which could happen if countries start to bail out in response to Greece again failing, or if Spain or Iceland fail, since it's other countries (particularly France and Germany) which have to pick up the tab for that 'blank credit card'. There's no real alternative to bailouts, 'cause EU countries don't have their own currency to print as part of a standard last resort when they're going broke, and there's no mechanism to force Greece or another EU broke country to reform.
Why would I base where I live on how powerful a country's economy is? What a bizarre assumption about another person. Not to mention a false generalization about residency.
