Comparisons of Nations:
Life Expectancy (
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDI_2008_EN_Tables.pdf)
Top Three: Macau (84 yrs), Andorra (82), Japan (82)
US Rank: 45th, 78 years
(France: 11th, 80 yrs)
Education Index
Top Three: Australia, Denmark, Finland (all .993)
US Rank: 20th, .968
(France: 12th, .978)
GDP per capita (
http://tinyurl.com/4kqj8o)
Top Three: Luxembourg ($103,125), Norway (83,485), Qatar (78,754)
US Rank: 12th, $45,725
(France: 18th, $42,034)
Infant Mortality (
http://www.un.org/esa/population/pub...lights_rev.pdf)
Lowest three: Singapore (2.3 deaths/1000 live births), Sweden (2.75), Japan (2.8)
US rank: 43rd, 6.3 deaths (just slightly worse than South Korea & Cuba).
(France: 6th, 3.36)
Teen Pregnancy (
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/he...ncy-per-capita)
Top Three: US (1,672 births per million people), Slovakia (1,113), New Zealand (972)
(France: 16th, 297)
Hey look! We are best at something!
Incarceration Rates (
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/rese...op-seventh.pdf)
Top three: US (738 per 100,000), Russian Federation, (611), Turkmenistan* (489)
*Skipping St Kitts & Nevis & the Virgin Islands, both of which have populations below that of many US cities, and lots of tourists. They each have several hundred--total--incarcerated persons, which puts them in the low 500's per capita.
(France: 146th, 85)
We're tops in
two fields!
US States, Percent of
College Graduates by State: (
http://www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/index.html)
Top Three: DC (46.4%) (which might not count, given the career-base involved, so I'll do top 4), Massachusetts (37.6%), Maryland (37.2%), Colorado (36%)
Lowest Three: West Virginia (15.3%), Arkansas (17.4%), Mississippi (19.3%)
(Why does the bible belt have the lowest rate of college graduates?)
I love my country. I think we've got terrific innovation skills, and an incredible history of valuing human rights that much of the world doesn't believe should exist. We're technological groundbreakers. We treasure diversity in a way that inspires advances in every field--arts, medicine, sciences, technology, foods, leisure--the list is endless.
But that doesn't make us "best." It makes us potentially "most fun"... but fun doesn't always make people happy, and it doesn't make them healthy. And it certainly doesn't make them moral, or smart, or kind.