1998 is remembered by most Dems as the year of, among other things, the highly partisan impeachment of Bill Clinton (followed by his acquittal in the Senate the next year). What else was going on in 1998?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
The unemployment rate dropped from 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 1998 to 4.4 percent in the second quarter. The rate changed very little after that; the fourth quarter unemployment rate was also 4.4 percent. Month-to-month, the jobless rate remained within a narrow range of 4.3 to 4.5 percent from April 1998 onward.
In 1998 the average labor force participation rate (the percentage of the working age population that is working or actively seeking work) was 67.1. In 2007 it was around 66. Taking into account that the working age population grows by roughly 140,000 every month, this drop in the participation rate represents millions of working age people who have dropped out of the labor force (and thus are not accounted for by the unemployment rate).
Inflation in 1998, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was 1.6%, the lowest since 1986. Declining energy prices were largely responsible for keeping the CPI increase so low.
The stock markets continued to perform well in 1998. The Dow started the year just under 8000 and finished near 9200. The NASDAQ rose from 1581 to 2192. Both would peak a couple of years later, and while the Dow subsequently crashed and then recovered, the NASDAQ crashed and remains at around 50% off its lifetime high.
At the end of 1998 one US dollar was worth 1.54 Canadian dollars, .855 ECUs (the ECU being the forerunner of the Euro, which was formally adopted in 1999, replacing the ECU one-for-one) and .599 pounds sterling. Today the US dollar is worth almost exactly one Canadian dollar, .498 British pounds, and .687 Euros.
In December 1998 the national debt stood at $5.614 trillion. $1.278 trillion (22.8 percent) of that was held by foreign interests. The national debt had been growing steadily and significantly since 1982, but it was leveling off by 1998, and was actually declining, in inflation-adjusted dollars, by 2000. In September 2007 the national debt amounted to $9.007 trillion, $2.249 trillion (24.9 percent) of it foreign owned.
In calendar year 1998, there was an operating federal budget surplus of $54.729 billion. This surplus grew to over $100 billion in 2000. By 2002 the federal government was running deficits again. The operating deficit for the 12 months ending in September 2007 was $162.681 billion.
The US trade deficit in 1998 hit $166.14 billion, then an all-time high. The deficit in 2006 (the most recent year with complete data) was $758.522 billion. The trade deficit with China alone was $232.588 billion in 2006, and $237.477 billion in 2007.
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Phillips Petroleum and Conoco were still separate companies in 1998, as were Exxon and Mobil. BP and Amoco merged in the summer of 1998, when gasoline was selling for around $1.25 a gallon retail. When Phillips and Conoco announced their merger in late 2001, gasoline was still selling for around $1.25, and the merger was described as a matter of "survival" for the two companies by Wall Street analysts. Phillips had a profit of just under $1 billion in 1998, and around $700 million in 2001. Conoco posted a profit of $1.8 billion in 2001, the second highest annual profit in company history. In 2006 ConocoPhillips reported profits of $15.5 billion, up from $13.5 billion the year before.
The US price for crude oil bottomed out at around $10 per barrel in 1998. Adjusted for inflation (based on December 2007 prices), the average price for oil hit an all-time low of $15.35 in 1998.
Adjusted for inflation, the average price for crude in 2007 was $64.92. The all-time inflation-adjusted high was in 1980, when the price hit $95.50. We have seen even that figure surpassed in recent weeks.
The BP-Amoco merger in the summer of 1998 resulted in a loss of 6000 jobs. When Exxon and Mobil merged early the next year, 9000 jobs were cut. Exxon's 1998 profit was $6.4 billion, while Mobil's was $5.5 billion. Exxon's 1998 stock price was in the mid to high 20s, and they paid a quarterly dividend of twenty cents.
ExxonMobil posted record profits of $39.5 billion in 2006, up from $36.1 billion in 2005 (also a record), and far eclipsing their $25.3 billion profit in 2004. Their stock today sells in the low 90s and pays a dividend of 35 cents per share.
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A lot can happen in ten years - quite a lot indeed.