Kevin Graham wrote:USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD
USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003
USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report
USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen
USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29
(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005
USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32
(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005
USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005
USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.
USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005
USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro
USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006
USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10
(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005
Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden.... all social democracies. Even on the democracy scale, USA ranked 15th, whereas six of the top seven countires are European. Freedom of the press, USA ranks 14th behind those same countires. Civil liberties, the USA is on par with more than 25 other countires.
At what point do we throw down our pride, look at the data and admit to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, European systems work better than ours?
Probably at the point where an intellectually serious critic provides some substantive reason to do so. Unfortunately, the largely irrelevant and decontextualized statistics (the very same kind used incessantly to rehabilitate Cuba) aren't up to the task you have assigned to them.
Indeed, some of these indicators do nothing more than dig the pit American liberals have dug for themselves even deeper. Case in point:
Kevin Graham wrote:USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD
USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003
USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003
As everyone knows, the American government school system is an intellectual shambles, competing well with other countries until 4th grade, and then beginning a nose dive that bottoms out in junior high and high school. But contemporary public schools are almost purely the creation of the modern American Left, from Dewy and other educational progressives as far back as the 20s to the modern leftists who control it today (primarily the influence of the Department of Education and the teachers unions), the American government school system is a creature of the progressive movement and its agenda. Its near catastrophic lack of rigor, intellectual fluffiness, and politicization are great standing stones pointing to the failure of leftist ideology and educational theory, something conservatives have been speaking truth to power about now for decades.
What of the rest of Graham's decontextual "facts"?USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003
Average life expectancy is the U.S. is 78 years. Here are the comparable stats for Europe according to a 2006 study by the European Health Expectancy Monitoring Unit (EHEMU):Austria
Men 76.4 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 4
Women 82.5 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 4
Belgium
Men 75.4 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 81.3 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 1
Denmark
Men 75.8 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 4
Women 80.1 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Finland
Men 75.1 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 81.8 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
France
Men 76.1 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 83.2 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
GB
Men 76.1 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 80.5 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Germany
Men 76.3 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 4
Women 81.8 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Greece
Men 75.7 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 1
Women 80.7 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) <1 month
Ireland
Men 74.9 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 80.7 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Italy
Men 77.3 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 83.1 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Netherlands
Men 76.2 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Women 80.7 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 1
Portugal
Men 74.2 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 80.8 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Spain
Men 76.2 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 3
Women 83 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Sweden
Men 78 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 2
Women 82.2 --- Annual increase in LE at birth (months) 1
What do we see here? That's correct, statistically insignificant differences in life expectancy, with most of the socialist democracies actually coming in a couple of years below the U.S. Another interesting thing here is that I can up the ante. Different studies or methodologies will yield somewhat different statistics. Teh CIA factbook shows average life expectancies a couple or more years above the U.S. for the same countries:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 2rank.html
So, a couple of years either way.
What Graham doesn't seem to get here is that whether one county's people are healthier along some measures than another has very little to do with its healthcare system, or whether it is socialized or free market. That aspect only comes into play at the point at which people get sick, or injured in some way, and need medical treatment. How healthy people are is a far more complex proposition, and has a great deal to do with lifestyle, diet, and, of course, genetics.
What we do know, as a matter of history and analysis is that universal healthcare systems far underperform free market systems, such as the U.S. system. All of them are, by definition, price control schemes involving, as they must, rationing of care, health and life threatening waiting times, and critical shortages of equipment, technology and doctors.
The real irony here is, of course, that in socialized system, the price of medical care actually goes into orbit, becoming unsustainable (which is the primary reason for the rationing and shortage of care - this is what price controls always and must do to the economic goods controlled). The general public, however, never sees and is shielded from the actual astronomical costs associated with their care in a communalized system. To them it is "free".USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report
USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen
These are strictly ideological measures, and have no rational basis as "statistics" that we could speak of here without a lengthy side debate on the source and basis of these measures themselves.USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005
Based upon what criteria? What Graham fails to tell us here is that the CPI is wholly unscientific, being nothing more than a survey that asks businessmen, financial analysts, and others involved in a country's political or economic life for their opinions on how corrupt it is.
Actually, it appears that for 2009, New Zealand and Denmark are in the number one spot.USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006
Infant mortality is a notorious statistical ploy used to prove ideological points, and is another one of those statistics that can be skewed heavily by the methodology used in creating it as well as variables in the populations being studied. High infant mortality among certain subgroups in a general population because of cultural and lifestyle factors, can skew the entire number downwards for an entire population, as can other unstated variables (The very high abortion rates in Cuba accounts for its low apparent infant mortality, not its healthcare system of general quality of life, both of which are abysmal).
For example, while white non-Hispanic infant mortality rates in America come in a 5.7%, black infant mortality is more than double this, near 14%. Lifestyle and cultural factors play a very important role in such statistical comparisons.USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.
What on earth does "quality of life" mean?USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005
Another purely ideological factor of which little more need be said here.USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro
For an economic illiterate like Mr. Graham to even go here is something fearful to behold. I'll hold off on this as this post is getting a bit long, but will link to something again for consideration:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/510
http://mises.org/daily/2259
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1234
http://mises.org/EFANDI/CH12.ASP
http://wallstreetpit.com/19233-the-scan ... -revisited
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/933
And yet another warning from our European neighbors of things to come in our own national day care center:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/14512-di ... state.html