This is a little essay I wrote. As I was writing I got depressed. I just thought I'd share:
Yep, that's right folks we are number one in the world in only a few catergories. What do you think those catergories are? Education? Nope, we are 55th on the planet at getting our citizens educated. The winners in the education game are Finland (no.1), Japan (no.2), and Korea (no. 3). The US spends the most on educating it's citizens at $500 billion annually, followed by Japan, Germany and France at $139 billion, $89 billion and $82 billion respectively.
So why is it that we are not getting a good education for our citizens when we are spending all that money on education? I haven't got an answer. Maybe someone better educated than I can answer that one.
What about health care? No again, we are 37th in getting our citizens the health care they need. Also, we are not providing the most advanced medical technology to our citizens compared with other developed nations. So you might be asking who some of the countries are that are ahead of is in health care? Some are not surprising such as France (at #1) and the UK and Switzerland and Iceland. Here is the list and some are quite surprising:
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
Looking at this list are you surprised at some of the countries that are ahead of us? I was. Dominica does a better job of taking care of the health needs of it citizens than we do! Same with Morocco. Maybe the next time I need surgery I'll fly to Singapore to have the procedure done. That way I'll have a much better chance of getting superior medical care.
In fairness, though, Americans spend more on their health care than any other nation on the planet. That's right, Americans spend 13.6% of their income on average for health care. Compare that to France's (the best health care in the world) citizens who are spending only 9.6% on health care a year. The average per capita income in France is a lot lower than it is here in the USA, so if you look at it like that, the 9.6% figure is not comparing apples to apples anyway. The French are spending peanuts on their health care compared to us.
Okay, so we're #1 in health care spending, but are only getting #37th quality? Call me crazy, but it sounds like we are getting ripped off, big time! That is like Wal-Mart charging top prices for their cheap plastic crap.
Although it may feel like it sometimes, We in the United States do NOT pay the highest taxes in the world. We are #6 on that list with Congo (55%), China (47%), Argentina (44%), Brazil (38.8%) and Germany (38.1%) all ahead of us in personal tax burden (at 38%). But the research I was reading was based on percentage of income on average per citizen. Our total tax revenue is in the $4.7 trillion range per year. So in second place in taxes raised is China at roughly $4.1 trillion.
Hmmm, maybe we are paying the most in taxes when you take total dollar revenue into consideration.
Okay, we must at least be the most generous nation on the planet, then, right? No again. We are 7th in charitable contributions from public and private sources. As far as government sponsored giving (foreign aid) we are 22nd in the world. But thanks to folks like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett and other private donations we jump up the list quite a bit. So who is the most generous? Saudi Arabia, when combining charitable contributions from the kingdom and from private citizens comes out on top.
I wonder if welfare and medical care fraud committed by citizens and non citizens counts as charitable giving?
Maybe we are the best at technology development and implimentation then? Uh, no.
According to a blogger at the San Francisco Chronicle, Charles H. Giancarlo:
"The United States now ranks 12th in the world in the total percentage of citizens that subscribe to broadband access, lagging behind such countries as Iceland, Korea, Sweden, Belgium and Canada. The trend line is even worse. The United States ranks 17th for the growth of these high-speed connections, outpaced by nearly all of our economic peers. Our broadband speeds don't measure up either. Korea's citizens, for example, have access to 50 megabits per second connections, making Internet services at typical U.S. speeds 'broadband lite,' at best."
Thinking about the fact that our nation is not getting needed technology to it's citizens, isn't that spelling disaster for future economic growth? Won't it be difficult for America to compete on the world market if our citizens are not able to access technology that the rest of the world is embracing?
But that is a topic for another blog on another day...
Man I'm getting bummed out by all this. Okay, then we as Americans must enjoy the most personal freedoms and civil liberties on the planet, right? Sadly, no. We are 45th in the world for most personal freedoms and civil liberties. Surprised? I am. Aren't we the "Champions of Freedom"? It seems 44 other nations do a better job of walking the talk than we do. Now don't get me wrong, I know there are a LOT of places that don't have anywhere near the personal freedoms that us Americans have. Places like Somalia and Chechnya offer almost no civil liberties and freedoms. I do appreciate the freedoms I do have, to be sure. But we are far from being the number 1 "Land of the Free".
The Nations who enjoy the most personal freedoms and civil liberties are:
1. Andorra
2. Australia
3. Austria
4. Bahamas
5. Barbados
6. Belgium
7. Canada
8. Cape Verde
9. Chile
10. Costa Rica
11. Cyprus
12. Czech Republic
13. Denmark
14. Dominica
15. Estonia
16. Finland
17. France
18. Germany
19. Hungary
20. Iceland
21. Ireland
22. Italy
23. Kiribati
24. Liechtenstein
25. Luxembourg
26. Malta
27. Marshall Islands
28. Mauritius
29. Micronesia
30. Nauru
31. Netherlands
32. New Zealand
33. Norway
34. Palau
35. Poland
36. Portugal
37. San Marino
38. Slovakia
39. Slovenia
40. Spain
41. Sweden
42. Switzerland
43. Tuvalu
44. United Kingdom
45 United States
I know, I'm being negative. Let's see what us American's are the best at:
1. We are the largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet, and not by a small margin.
*According to figures from the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, the top five sources of greenhouse gases were the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan.
The United States' per-capita greenhouse emissions were 24 tonnes based on 2004 data. China was 4 tonnes and India 2 tonnes based on 2000 data.
2. We are #1 for prison population. That's right, we have more citizens incarcerated than any other nation on the planet. We are ahead of China, with the worlds largest population, and Russia with draconian laws. The USA has nearly 7 million people either in prison or on probation or parole. That is 2.3% of our population. Russia has .5% and China is even lower.
3. Consumerism. Yep, no surprise here, folks. Americans spend more money per capita than any other nation on earth! Also Americans don't save their money. Less than 10% of our population has any savings at all. A whole lot of us are two paychecks away from disaster.
4. Obesity. No surprise here, either. Americans are fatter than anyone else on the planet.
5. Personal debt. As citizens we have more personal debt than any other nation. Americans not only spend more of their income than any other nation, we also owe a higher percentage than any other nation. As a people we are really good at spending money we ain't got!
6. The US is number one in the world for military spending. Not only do we spend a lot on our military, but we spend more than the next TWELVE biggest spending nations on the planet combined. Those twelve are (in order of highest spending to lowest): China, Russia, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India, South Korea, Israel, Australia, Brazil, Turkey and Canada.
*That is kind of surprising that we can't seem to get a grip on the Afghanistan/Iraq situation. We are fighting guerilla’s that are putting on their war on a shoestring budget. One suicide bomber and $18 worth of explosives are what we are up against, and those guys have managed to at least hit a stale mate against the USA and it's $450 billion military budget.
7. Entertainment and media production. We, as a nation, produce more entertainment media than any other nation on the planet. We also profit the most off of those movies, television, music and other art media. India is really starting to produce some good movies, lately. But as of right now they can't hold a candle to US profits on entertainment.
Whoo-Hoo! Finally something positive! As Americans we keep the world entertained in varied and myriad ways, and we are the best at it. It is likely our world domination of arts and entertainment began with a cartoon mouse and a gentleman named Disney.
I'm sure there are other fabulously postive things about being an American. I just can't come up with any that we are also the best at.



. I just thought I'd share:




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