Then and Now
Here are some interesting statistics looking at the change from September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2011:
- Afghanistan’s GDP has risen by 645% from $2.46B to $18.33B
- Iraq’s GDP has risen by 473% from $18.94B to $108.42B
- Gold has gone up by 582% from $271.40 per ounce to $1,851.00 per ounce
- US National Debt is up 154% from $5.77B to $14.69B
- Gasoline (avg price in the US) is up 137% from $1.51/gal to $3.58/gal
- The number of unemployed in the US is up 107% from 6.77M to 14.01M (unemployment rate is up 94% from 4.7% to 9.1%)
- Government spending as a percentage of GDP is up 28% from 33.05% (of a GDP of $10.29T) to 42.46% (of a GDP of $15.23T – a rise of 48%)
- The number of Americans on foodstamps is up 157% to 45.8M
- and if you were a savvy investor, Silver is up 890% from $4.18 per ounce to $41.40 per ounce
- and finally, the number of super-informative, amusing blogs written by the collection of 6 unique and distinct authors on a variety of topics is up by (Dr. Evil voice) one million percent – from 0 to 1.
GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.