[schlockandflaws]

You said: "Have you noticed that America has the highest standard of living in the whole world? ...and that it's increasing? I'd say that the proof is in the pudding. American capitalism and free trade work." You also said "You can't just throw out B.S. like that without something to back it up." Practice what you preach.

From Wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/7yymv:

On comprehensive measures such as the UN Human Development Index the United States is always in the top ten, currently ranking number eight. Scandinavian countries, Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and (until recently) Japan; Canada and Norway have alternately held the top spot for some time. On the Human Poverty Index the United States ranked 16th, one rank below the United Kingdom and one rank above Ireland.[4] On the Economist's quality-of-life index the United States ranked 13, in between Finland and Canada, scoring 7.6 out of a possible 10. The highest given score of 8.3 was applied to Ireland. This particular index takes into account a variety of socio-economic variables ranging from GDP per capita and life expectancy to political stability and unemployment.[5]

[Slings and Arrows]

Those indices are deliberately biased towards socialized economies. One of them is from the UN, for crying out loud!

[TChris]

The best you can do to support your rebuttal is the UN Human Development Index???

Sheesh! Why not just ask Ahmadinijad what he thinks about US economics. The UN is just about as fair and unbiased.

This is the same UN which has some of the world's most brutal regimes on its Human Rights committee.

Give me a break!