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The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

With logic like your's, I'm surprised we rank that high.
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I could only get through about half of B4's article before I'd had enough. The basic NYT message of Europe good, America bad is trite and I'm surprised to see it appear on FR especially when so much of it criticized the USA for not having socialized medicine. The rest of it is rife with factual errors. Here are some things the author conveniently neglected:

* American workers are the most productive in the world.
* Our consumption is the economic engine keeping the
world economy from tanking.
* The US is the world leader in virtually every area of
technology.
* American pharma's save 5 lives for every one life saved
by drugs from other countries.
* 80% of the bottom 20% of income earners moves into the
middle class every ten years. Source: 1990 and 2000
census and "The Right Facts" book. No other country
offers that kind of opportunity.
* When world leaders and other aristocrats get sick they
choose to be treated in the US.(If they're smart)
* Old Europe is mired in high unemployment, no growth,
oppressive regulation, corruption and they are incapable
of defending themselves as military spending gives way
to the nanny state.
And so on...

Maybe that's why so many people are willing to risk so much to get here. Somehow, all this is lost on the author.

I could only get through about half of B4's article before I'd had enough. The basic NYT message of Europe good, America bad is trite and I'm surprised to see it appear on FR especially when so much of it criticized the USA for not having socialized medicine. The rest of it is rife with factual errors.

I love this one:The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

If you believe that a 3rd world dictatorship that can't afford aspirin has a lower infant mortality rate than the country that regularly saves the lives of babies born months prematurely then you need to lay off the crack.

Or this one:"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens"

Do I really need to explain the difference between providing health care and refusing health care?

With logic like your's, I'm surprised you can read. I did not author the article.

>>The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

"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).

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!

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

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

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

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 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).
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).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

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.

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).

"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"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).

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.

If you wish to remain blind to the degradation of America, such is your option. Keep deluding yourself and you won't notice when we hit the bottom in every category.