How America Stacks Up in the Stats

[frazzledspice]

This is a sobering article, not altogether surprising. The only areas in which the US ranks # 1 are:

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.

We're 49th in literacy.

37th in health care performance; 54th in health care fairness.

Among 23 developed countries, only Mexico ranks higher in childhood poverty.

One third of all children are born out of wedlock.

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle8191.htm

[hymie[$]]

frazzledspice said

Among 23 developed countries, only Mexico ranks higher in childhood poverty.

This clearly comes from the UNICEF report Child Poverty in Rich Countries 2005 or an earlier version. This poverty rate ranking is relative poverty - the number of children living in households with income below 50% of the national median. US median income is about $43K per household, so by UNICEF's standards a US child lives in relative poverty if household income is less than $22K. The CIA factbook says that per-capita income in Mexico is one-fourth that of the US, so roughly speaking a relatively poor child in Mexico lives in a household earning $6K.

Not that we don't have desperately poor kids in this country, but it's a fine example of how to lie with statistics. And by the way, the report shows that this relative poverty rate dropped sharply in the US during the 1990s, while welfare cuts were being made. The only country to have a larger decline in its rate was the UK. In most of Europe, the rates went up.

[anderclayton]

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

So which is the reason that the writer has chosen to stay in the country and not move somewhere else? Given the other two choices I'd say it is a run off between weaponry and consumer spending and since consumer spending doesn't seem much of a choice, guns it is

So essentially what we have here is a gun nut ( )who has taken the worst statistics that he possibly could from sources that are variable in nature with regards to agenda (don't tell me a book entitled The European Dream is agendaless), scope, and actual content and trotted it out in a fairly nonproductive sort of here-are-some-stats-but-they-don't-really-apply-to-me sort of manner.
He bounces from including Europe as one entity to including each individual country depending on whether it furthers his agenda.
He includes stats that might seem kinda bad on the outset but geeze they don't seem as bad when looked at a bit:

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

means that up until the mid nineties, the United States was producing more scientific literature than all of the countries in Europe combined! That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. As for the fact that Europe exceeded the US, good for them.

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent 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 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

The fact that the applications declined for the first time in three decades means that up until that point they had been increasing (or staying the same? Unlikely...) every year since 1974 (or so). This doesn't seem like a bad stat and claiming one year as definitive proof seems to be reaching a good deal. Especially given the fact that he decided to select specific nationalities later rather than giving the reader the whole story (I'd imagine that other nationalities went up).

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer.

So we are currently the largest agricultural producer and his premise is a lie. Great fun messing with stats eh? Maybe this fellow is really here (hidden agenda alert!) for the agriculture.

Ander

[hymie[$]]

Foreign applications to grad schools are down because the government is making entry into the US more difficult in the post-9/11 climate. People are deciding that they'd rather go elsewhere then jump through crazy hoops to come here.

[frazzledspice]

For those who might read these posts without reading the article, it's only fair to note that most of the information gathered is taken from articles in the New York Times.

And I think that someone can write an article challenging the assumptions of most Americans and challenging America to "do better" without wanting to move. I don't think that most Americans want to abandon their country, but they don't want their country to abandon its conscience, either.

I think that the "weaponry" being alluded to here is the weaponry of a military-industrial complex that has decided it's OK to make preemptive strikes against other countries based on spurious and manufactured evidence.

And I think that the "debt" being referred to is the national debt, brought about by an ill-conceived tax cut and the aforementioned war.

The one statistic that caught my eye was the one on health care. I had written once or twice about leaving the US until we were 65 if we were forced into early retirement without medical insurance, talking, primarily, about Costa Rica.

One of the books I read about Costa Rica (by an American expatriate) says that it is ranked in the top twenty worldwide in health care. And we're #37? And #54 in health care fairness?

When I made this statement people acted as if I wanted to abandon myself to witch doctors and practictioners of voodoo (partly, I suppose, because of that "We're #1" attitude.) I didn't. I just wanted to figure out the best way to get affordable health care when preexisting conditions would rule out most other options.

[anderclayton]

frazzledspice said

For those who might read these posts without reading the article, it's only fair to note that most of the information gathered is taken from articles in the New York Times.

Well, fourteen of thirty-three stats are from the NYT actually. Not half of them so "most" is an overstatement.

Eleven of the stats are from The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream.

Three are from CNN

Two from USA Today

Two are from The Week

and one is from The Associated Press.

The stats are presented in such a manner as to make it seem as though they come from a host of diverse sources though. The first three stats aren't TED (The first two are NYT, the third The Week). The last three also aren't (the two USA Today and the AP one are the last stats). The ones that aren't NYT or TED seem like oddball stats for the most part anyhow, included only to boost the number of sources. None of the stats come from primary sources--meaning the people that actually did the surveys/collected the stats. This makes it tough to figure out from where the data actually came (and easier for him to fudge around with the numbers).

I think that the "weaponry" being alluded to here is the weaponry of a military-industrial complex that has decided it's OK to make preemptive strikes against other countries based on spurious and manufactured evidence.

Hey now, we are talking stats here. Entering into new hypotheses about what these stats actually pertain seems to be reaching. Granted that was one of the stats for which he actually isn't citing sources but ummmm... ???

Ander

[anderclayton]

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.

Note that this stat only kinda sorta is from the NYT. The only part quoted is the second part and this "Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) " is actually unattributed (no quotes around it). The conclusion is also unattributed. The part that is actually attributed isn't really a statistic but is rather a conclusion.

So maybe 13 of 32 are NYT.

Ander

[anderclayton]

Oops. I stand corrected. Many of the stats aren't direct quotes.

Ander

[anderclayton]

Out of the NYT cites, only one is substantially a quote:

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).

Note that only part of it is within quotations.

One is the one I just talked about and the rest are paraphrases.

To be fair though, he does better with the other non-TED sources. Two of the eight are completely quotations. That's 25%!

I'd also grant you that the information gleaned from the sources was probably in the form of statistics that may have been tough to directly quote but he did manage to directly quote much of the stuff cited from TED. Everything that I can see comes with a direct quotation with his comments added on many (some of the comments don't necessarily follow from the cite though). It is a book though with an agenda that would make the quotes necessary while the other sources aren't necessarily trying to put the quotes out in the same sort of format.

Ander

[drmomentum[$]]

We're #1 in presidents who make dramatic returns to the White House on a helicopter to intervene in a single citizen's medical care!

Anyone who denies that has an agenda!

-JP

[anderclayton]

Ummmm... Well, given that "The White House" is a bit distinct...

Ander

[wivabef]

Hey! This would be a great way to solve our social security woes!

Just like those two states in Mexico that wrote up brochures on how to cross into the US without getting caught, we could print up some information and advertise in the AARP magazine on how to retire to Costa Rica. As far as I can tell, though you still have to earn at least 600 dollars in US Social Security funds, we could greatly reduce the burden on Medicare and divert those funds back into Social Security.