Australia has faired better than a lot of other countrys but we are still having a tough time of it. Inflation the same, rich getting richer and think they can up their prices so they can make more money for their shareholders, supermarkets crazy prices compared to a few years back, banks raising intrest rates independant to the reserve bank (the reserve bank in Australia trys to keep inflation etc. capped by setting interest rates amongst other things, not sure how US works??) 

I work for a multi billion $ US aluminium manufacturing company I think you can guess. Our smelter is not doing real well compared to the low cost new plants opening in Saudi Arabia, and others where they can employ cheap labour. We had a doom and gloom session last night 10 maintenance tradesmen are being made redundant. We try to ask why and what we can improve or what we are doing wrong.  "You are all doing a great job nothing is wrong, we have just been told to reduce costs by 5% and that means loosing 5% of the workforce"  WTF! We already dont have enough people to do the jobs we need to, the plant is running in a pure reactive mode, not a good situation at all, and now more jobs going. Looks like the writing is on the wall.
Anyway enough of my rant.
Australia is a great place to live but we also have been hit by the GFC too, just not as bad in some areas.