America Isn't The Greatest Country Anymore (Here are the numbers)

Zero Hedge ^ | 11/12/2012 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

Via Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live,

This weekend I had my first opportunity to watch "Newsroom," an HBO series, and I was struck by the opening sequence of the show as Jeff Daniels, aka Will McAvoy, discusses why America WAS the greatest country in the world - but no longer is.   Here are the stats as he breaks them down:

The U.S. is:

• 7th in literacy
• 27th in math 
• 22nd in science
• 49th in life expectancy
• 178th in infant mortality
• 3rd in median household income
• 4th in labor force
• 4th in exports

But here are some other stats where the U.S. ranks as well:

• 19th is State success
• 3rd in oil production
• 12th in prosperity
• 22nd in freedom of the press
• 2nd in child poverty
• 30th in nocturnal safety
• 3rd in "liking" the United Sates (behind Japan and Kenya)
• 11th in "happiness"
• 22nd in freedom from corruption
• 24th in "perceived" honesty
• 39th in income inequality
• 4th in employees "faking" illness
• 3rd in human development
• 10th in economic freedom
• 17th in credit "worthiness"
• 4th in global competitiveness
• 47th in infant survival
• 38th in trade freedom
• 8th in researchers
• 12th in thriving population
• 34th in the Children's index
• 61st in monetary freedom
• and, most depressingly, 50th in erection length.

You get the idea.  The rise of economic strength was built on the backs of hard working Americans who built stuff from skyscrapers to railroads.  We farmed, we produced and we raised families.   The pride of "built in America" was the flag that we waved.  

America just voted for a continuation of dependency.  Dependency on government for handouts from food stamps to welfare.  Dependency on the graciousness of our neighbors to continue loaning us money to support excess spending.  America has become a debtor nation and the cancer of debt has eroded our economic prosperity.

Can America be great again?  Absolutely.  America has an indomitable spirit and a will to succeed unmatched my any on this planet.  It just requires a spark to bring us together as a country to make the sacrifices necessary to return America to its former greatness.  However, it requires great leaders that will fight for moral values, stand up for what is right, strike down the wrong laws for the right reasons, fight for those in poverty, care about our neighbors and put our money where our mouth is.  

Yet it is great leadership that has been missing.  Each leader has followed the same path of profligate spending and reckless disregard of the long term economic drain for short term economic gains.  The country needs a leader that is willing to take the risks of failure to achieve success.  A leader that is willing to fall to earth while reaching for the stars.  A leader willing to accept the responsibility for his successes as well as his failures.  Our Forefathers were great leaders.  We have forgotten what great leadership meant.  We have opted for mediocrity and self-indulgence and we have reaped the harvest that we have sewn.  

It's not too late for America.  Will McAvoy is right: "The first step in solving any problem is recognizing that there is one.  America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."   We must acknowledge the program.  We must choose to return to begin the long road to recovery by becoming an informed and educated electorate.  We must begin making the right choices, sacrifices and demanding the same from our leadership.   I have hope.

Warning:  Video has strong language

 

 

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

[Marathoner]

A great country would never elect a Barak Hussein Obama to the highest office in the land, much less be stupid enough to reelect him.

[bravo whiskey]

some of these depend on where they get the statistics. we are higher in infant mortakity because many babies who eventually die would have died at birth in other countries but we take extraordinary measures tio save them. od course except for obama’s partial birth belief which murders innocent lives. bastard.

[hosepipe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLgTX3AsnE0&feature=youtu.be

[Greysard]

178th in infant mortality

47th in infant survival

How does that work? Shouldn't those numbers be the same?

America has an indomitable spirit and a will to succeed unmatched my any on this planet.

Some, a minority, still have that spirit and a will to succeed. Far more are content to live on handouts. Next generation will not even know what it is to work at a steel mill, or at a factory, or to make things with their hands. Only rural kids still know what the word "work" means.

It just requires a spark to bring us together as a country to make the sacrifices necessary to return America to its former greatness.

What spark would make Obama voters to vote for a candidate who will end their entitlements? Doesn't a heroin addict always vote for his supplier?

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Completely false assumption that American’s have an indomitable spirit. We are no longer a moral nation. We are a nation of takers and slackers for the most part, and that nation of parasites has just passed the tipping point where those moral Americans pulling the cart just can’t carry them anymore.

America is done and there is nothing left but the decline into Italian socialism on the way toward hard communism.

I wish with all my heard I could delude myself into the dreamy belief that America can bounce back.

In 1930, it could bounce back from these conditions, with a nation of well-raised, well-educated children becoming man-wife parents for life, working hard, and conducting their lives over the moral foundation of Judeo-Christian values.

There are still many such people but they are advanced in age, replaced by and large by selfish, opportunistic immigrants who strongly support some socialist hybrid of US capitalism, when such a hybrid isn’t possible. By supporting socialism, they are driving out capitalism and destroying the goose that laid the golden egg.

No, America is dead, it is just going take a while for that decline and fall to be completed. We’ve turned the corner on the back of an immoral electorate.

There is no going back or saving the nation. Put your faith in God, because only He can save America and I don’t believe he is inclined to reward such immoral people that way. So just give yourself over to God and let it be.

I’m just sick to my stomach that the American Dream was poisoned to death on my watch. I did not want to live to see it.

I’m sure Ted Kennedy is laughing heartily in hell.

[impimp]

A lie:
178th in infant mortality

This is because American hospitals count children who die just after delivery as having died. In other countries they count babies who die weeks after birth as stillborn (i.e. not counted as infant mortality). In other countries they abort fetuses that are not perfect while in the USA prolifers will try to keep these children alive even if they will die shortly after birth.

In other words, I never want the USA to have low infant mortality as that is a sign we have strayed from God (even more than we already have).

[tbw2]

The child poverty rate is inflated by the children of illegal immigrants and children in poverty here are better cared for than those in the middle class of many third world nations, from food / WIC to medical care to free schooling.
47th in infant survival - inflated because we count all living babies as born and try to save them; European nations often won’t even try to save very small preemies and classify them as stillborn.

[Forgotten Amendments]

We’re #1 in prisoners. USA! USA!

[ponygirl]

There are still many such people but they are advanced in age, replaced by and large by selfish, opportunistic immigrants who strongly support some socialist hybrid of US capitalism, when such a hybrid isn’t possible. By supporting socialism, they are driving out capitalism and destroying the goose that laid the golden egg.

I can't tell you how many times I heard in college, "The best system would be a combination of both socialism and capitalism." The other thing they love to say is, "Americans work too hard. We should follow the European model of two months off for vacation." When I respond, "Then who is going to do the work?" they just shrug. They don't ever think it all the way through, do they?

I was just listening to Don McLean's "American Pie." Takes on a whole new meaning now.

[Cronos]

well, playing devils advocate, if you take the points you've listed, we've been out of the top 10 in math and science for a long time, at least since the 80s IIRC

the 178th in infant mortality -- that should be a good thing, right? we have less infants dying than 177 other nations

49th in life expectancy is to be expected as we are a growing, relatively young nation, with myriad racial groups which have different death rates

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

American Pie: The day our Freedom died. I’m not singing. I’m crying.