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No. 1?
BY MICHAEL VENTURA



No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well ... this is the country you really live in:

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• One-third of our science teachers and one-half of our math teachers did not major in those subjects. (Quoted on The West Wing, but you can trust it – their researchers are legendary.)

• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the Earth. Seventeen percent believe the Earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

• "The International Adult Literacy Survey ... found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream

: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.7.
• Our workers are so ignorant, and lack so many basic skills, that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

• "The European Union leads the U.S. in ... the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

• "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28% last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56%, Indians 51%, South Koreans 28% (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was] ... 37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.

• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

• Twelve million American families – more than 10% of all U.S. households – "continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

• Women are 70% more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its work-force in the 1980s. ... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1%" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one was European" (The European Dream, p.69).

• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European. ... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European. ... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies ... are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top 10. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.6.

• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).

• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million – one in five – unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40% of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.

• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.2.

• "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

• "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

• "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

   

The GDP's of the world's two largest economies -

Lets see:

European Union 11,848,195 Mill $
United States 11,784,781 Mil $

(The data here is an estimation for the year 2005 produced by the International Monetary Fund in September 2004, in international Dollars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...y_GDP_%28PPP%29))

   

And your point was? Sounds like someone has some sort of complex if they feel the need to make post about how terrible the US is. Here's a line from you a while ago:

Rubbish. Not only is Britain the second-most powerful nation in the world, it's military is also the best in the world. The Royal Navy is the second-largest navy in the world. Our soldiers are the most highly trained. Even our Territorials (our part-time soldiers) are more highly trained than American FULL-TIME soldiers, not to mention the fact that we have the Gurkhas who are the most feared soldiers in the world.

--I just saw this a while ago in one of your post. What is your deal man? Are you trying to pick fights with Americans and assert your superiority? Your shit still stinks, and if Europe is so great, what do you care about how the US is, other than trying to pick fights with Americans. Anyways, these same statistics have already been posted before. As I gather from your post on here, you seem to think like this "The UK is the best, the EU sucks with out the UK, America sucks, The British are the best, we are better than Americans" and so on. Talk about being insecure. All these people accuse Americans of being arrogant, but I would say your post show a real arrogance.

What makes a military the best? The UK might have highly trained soldiers, but the US military is funded a hell of alot more, has more toys at their arms. It's just ridiculous how arrogant and full of your country you are. I'm an American and I don't even think as highly of my country as you do.

Lets take just one example from these statistics that you post:

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

--Now, when put like that says, it sounds completely terrible. I mean, 900000 kids being abused is quite terrible and sounds like a grand number, but, when we take that number and find what percentage it is of the total population, it comes out to around .3%. Which sounds worse, 900000 kids being abused, or .3% of the population? Also, you have to factor in what kids are actually abused, and what kids are neglected. Of course, abuse is never a good thing, but when you have as many people as the US has, and wide differences in amounts of money made, different lifestyles, etc, you are bound to have some unfortunate abuse/neglect cases.

Another statistic which seems odd is this one:

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy

--Now, while that is probably very well true, it's just a fact with nothing backing as to WHY the United States is like that. Did you know that they count Mexican immigrants, sometimes illegal, who can't even speak english, into those numbers? Every month, around a million illegal immigrants cross the border. They had a special on Tv the other day about how the teachers have to spend all this time teaching english to mexican immigrants who often times end up dropping out and score poorly on test because they don't even know english. I find that statistic to be grossly misrepresentative. Alot of the statistics in this post you made can be further explained, and often the problems are made to look worse than they are(they are still problems, but I find statistics, especially the ones you posted, to be almost dishonest in how much they leave out).

Another thing you didn't point out was while the EU has a higher total GDP than the US, the per capita GDP of the European Union is only $ 25,700, while the US, a single country, has a Per Capita of $ 37,800(which, might I add, is higher than the UK, France, Germany, and only below Luxemburg), which, isn't first, but is more than the EU. Just like China has a huge economy of like 4-5 trillion dollars, no one is bragging it up because the per capita GDP is like 6000 or 7000. While that is not bad, it doesn't reflect well on how much the wealth is among the people. I'm sorry, but alot of the statistics you posted are ridiculously unexplained, and your comparison of the GDP of the EU and the US is grossly dishonest as to what is going on in the whole picture. We have two different systems, and to compare the problems of our countrys doesn't seem logical to me. All countries have their own problems.

   

Let's look at the rest of the post of a typical American hypocrit, shall we?



Ahhh...true Amerikan hypocrisy at it's best!

Tell me, do you think you're superior to everyone?

   

I think there are more threads about the USA and people complaining about Americans then there are Canadian threads.

I swear if I see a new thread called “US Imperialism”, “US out to destroy the world” or something else like that I’m going to explode.

   

Actually, I was just stating facts. While the EU does have a larger GDP, it's stupid to act like that makes it better because the per capita is smaller. Call it hypocrisy if you want, but after he posted a whole article basically saying how the EU is doing better than the US, and then compared the GDPs to somehow prove that the EU was doing better, I had to put that down because the per capita GDP was not more than the US, thus making the economy of the EU being bigger than the US not that big of a deal and almost meaningless.

Also, about the military line. I just said that the US military is funded a hell of alot more than the UK military, and now I'm a hypocrit? I didn't say we were better, but was asking which you think would make a military better -- a highly trained, but limited force, or a highly funded hi-tech military. His lines were arrogant in that he said even the part-time soldiers of the UK were better than the full-time ones of the US, which was just plain arrogant and wrong.

Also, I don't think I'm superior, but it's obviously from his post that he does. All I pointed out with misrepresentations of his post, and you ignore his post, and try to attack me. Do you think YOU are so superior that you can throw names around and try and take an upper ground?

You said lets look at the rest of the post? All you did was take two things out of context and misrepresent everything I was saying. I was basically picking through the holes in his arguements, and you come up in here taking my post out of context and calling me a hypocrit. How rude!

   

Wow, copying and pasting stuff off of the internet earns you a cookie!

   

Yeah, it's too bad that people just pull these statistics off the net and such and don't seem to put much thought into why the statistics are that way.

   

Was there ever a question?

Sure, America has some problems. Every country does. But overall, America is #1. Most wealthy, most powerful, and to top it all off, the best place in the world to live. America attracts the best talent from anywhere on the globe.

I hope someday you are skillful or lucky enough to come to America and see what it's like to live in the land of limitless opportunity.

   

Oh good...another misinformed American troll with nothing better to do than harrass people at Canadian sites. You're giving real Americans a bad name FC...wander back to Jesusland where you belong.

   

"Troll."

"Jesusland."

This is your rebuttal?

With my skillset, I could have gone anywhere in the world. I traveled to many different countries before making my decision. I chose America for a reason, and I have never regretted it.

Perhaps you could enlighten us with a counterargument instead of slinging mud?

   

How cliché.

   

Wait a sec, are you telling me a region with over 150 million more people can barely muster 60 billion more in GDP?

....And what is their economic growth and the US's? Would you care to repost those GDP's in another year or so?

   

The USA is number one in foreign aid by a long shot.

And there's also the 'foreign aid' that isn't tallied up that comes in the form of countries such as Canada who depend on the USA for their military defence.

Canadian military policy in the event of a hostile attack on Canada is essentially summarized as:

"In case of attack call the Pentagon. Then do whatever they say."

   

I believe the US is the #1 in total $ in foreign aid, and they should be! they are the richest, largest economy and a huge population.

If you were too look at it per capita, they are behind.

   

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