Howard only made us a nation of debt slaves by over stimulating the housing markets as a trade off for getting the GST thru, a tax on consumption and every move you make.
Of course the banks were on standby to open the flood gates of easy credit to fuel the consumption and no-one had their snout in the trough of free juice like Howard/Costello.
They didn't create easy money, Greenspan did. And they didn't create China either, but they feasted for free.