irrelevant and/or meaningless stats:
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* 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).
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compared to what percentage in other countries?
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* "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.78).
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scored worse in what?
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* 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!
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how much is spent per worker and how does that compare with foreign countries? there is no context or scope for the dollar figure. if a number for other countries can be found, are they compared against similar job descriptions w/similar pay? are the stats adjusted for local currency value?
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* "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; (The European Dream, p.70).
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The EU has 85 million more people than the US... how could this not be?
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* "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
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scientific literature? how could this possibly be tallied? who decides which literature is "scientific" enough to be included?
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* Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
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compared to how much funding to EU foundations? this is apples to oranges anyway, the US relies on a free market and private industry much more than the europeans do.
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* Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year.
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maybe they can get a similar education at home? great for them, seriously. i don't understand why this means that our grad schools have been degraded.
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* 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.
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how does one judge the "fairness" of healthcare? wouldn't you like to know before you ascented to the veracity of the stat?
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* 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.)
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ok, how does that compare to anyone else?
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* Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent 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).
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10% of people don't have enough food? do you buy this?
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* The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
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ok...
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* "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 were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
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according to what criteria? given the government subsidies given to conglomerates like Airbus why wouldn't they have some big damn companies? moreover, why are big companies implied to be better ones?
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* "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 ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
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again, why is bigger better? a relevant statistic would be overall market share and total revenue for these markets. i'm sure the author would have included them if it benefited the European Dream.
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* 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).
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and created how many? are businesses losing revenue or are they making money?
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* 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).
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and this compares to the numbers in the rest of the world how?
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* Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent 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.
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40% of the debt could mean 4 dollars out of 10. how much is it compared to our ability to pay it back? how do other countries fare? do we not play a more marked role in some of their industries?
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* 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.
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wrong.
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* 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).
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compared to...
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* "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
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compared to...
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* "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).
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compared to...? the unstated premise is that violence is NEVER acceptable. what if we just want national sovereignty? waaay too simplified.
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* Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
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compared to...
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* "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
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compared to...
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* "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).
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yes, we need more federal money to pour into local police.
more vulnerable than ever?
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No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
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the most important categories being the ones listed in this article? right...
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The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.
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look, this is just silly. first off, you can't simply give a single set of raw numbers when you're saying that one place isn't as good as another. i mean, for goodness sakes, a simple bald context-less comparison isn't even presented. also, huge population and currency valuation issues are not considered. numbers without per capita or percentage figures mean nothing between to entities with wildly different cultures and populations.
i know that if i were to give one of you five dollars for every flaw you could find in the list i'd have to sell my damn car. the errors are both numerous and obvious to anyone who bothers to look. that this drivel is used as a springboard for discussion is shameful.