> Mostly it was waiting for "a" job that would pay all the bills.

I understand.
By the way, I was reading a financial report last saturday: it seems that unemployment in the USA went down from 5,6% to 5,5% instead of raising to 5,8% as expected by analysts.

> Our economy is very robust and tends to grow over the long term.

I agree. I preferred to see the same trends in European economy, but as far as I can understand from the current situation, Europe is not going to grow as expected.

> Personally, I don't put much stock in economists

Alan Greenspan is always a valuable opinion; more valuable than that of Duisenberg, the ECB President.

> Anyway, don't move to France. They're all a bunch of snooty communists there.

Yes, ok, but (a) France is not more than 3 hours by car from my current location while N.Y. is 7 hrs. by plane; (b) the people I know there organize their business in a way that's more similar to USA than Italy; (c) I never said I dislike communists... :)

Many thanks for your reply,
AP.