"As Americans, we have this naïve assumption that people all over the world are struggling and way behind us. They’re not. Sweden and South Korea have more advanced high speed internet networks. Japan has the most advanced trains and transportation systems. Norwegians make more money. The biggest and most advanced plane in the world is flown out of Singapore. The tallest buildings in the world are now in Dubai and Shanghai. Meanwhile, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world."
Sweden and South Korea have more advanced high speed internet networks. -- True, but not too many decades ago neither country had much of an information structure to begin with, much less a telephone system dating back to the days of the original Bell telephone system. Certainly not South Korea. It's easy to be #1 at something copycatting it for the first time if you're not supporting the evolution of a telephone system that dates to the 1920s that was invented here in the USA. Starting from scratch is always easiest.
Japan has the most advanced trains and transportation systems. -- True, but unless you live in the Northeastern seaboard of the USA you'll probably never ride a train in your life, nor need to. Nobody in the USA has needed to ride a train from Kansas City to Albequerque since 1946. Where I live, trains haul minerals and heavy equipment, period. If I need to travel a long distance, I use SouthWest Airlines. In Europe, I actually was very impressed at The Netherlands' railway system until I realized that all of Holland was about the size of the San Francisco Bay Area. At the same time, it sure was amusing to meet Dutch people who proudly acted like some town only 14 miles away required some long journey by train and that they'd never been near that town in their lives. I'd met Dutch relatives in Amsterdam who'd said they'd never before traveled south to the Gelderland that borders Germany on the Rhine. That's like living in West Los Angeles and pretending that you've never driven on the Pomona Freeway. Please. I could pave over The Netherlands entirely with the asphalt from the LA freeway system. The whole country would look like one big airport runway when I was done.
Norwegians make more money. -- Norway has a population of only 5 million people and funds every bit of its social welfare system with money to burn because they own the North Sea oilfields that serve a national GDP of a half trillion dollars per year. Again: Five million people, half a trillion dollars. Nice trick if you can swing it. Too bad for the author's point that they're the exception to the rest of the EU nations who aren't sitting on an ocean of oil.
The biggest and most advanced plane in the world is flown out of Singapore. -- It's a French airplane. The French just wanted to be biggest at something.
The tallest buildings in the world are now in Dubai and Shanghai -- Congratulations. This is a measure of something important to the author, I guess.
Meanwhile, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. -- Yes. Now let me think what peculiarity there is about the United States that Singapore, Holland, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Dubai, and Shanghai don't share with America...
Good response!!