America the Great

Well, we’ve finally done it.  We’ve hit the zenith.  As a nation, America has risen to the top.  For proof, I offer this tidbit of information: America today must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors simply in order to function.  That is not to prosper, not to remain the Number-One economy in the world, not to do anything more than simply exist.

Now, that’s scary, and it got me to thinking about just how a great nation, built upon great visions by great forefathers, could have gone so far amuck.  So, I did a little investigating, and here’s what I’ve learned.

• The United States today is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranks 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Twenty percent of Americans think that the sun orbits the earth.  A paltry seventeen percent believe that the earth revolves around the sun once every 24 hours (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education ‘score worse than virtually all other countries’” (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 providing them with remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• "The European Union leads the United States 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).
• Congress continues to cut funds to the National Science Foundation.  This year, 1,000 fewer research grants will be given out (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
• Foreign applications to U. S. graduate schools declined 28 percent last year.  Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades while increasing dramatically in Europe and China.  Last year, Chinese grad-school students in the United States fell 56 percent; Indians, 51 percent; and South Koreans, 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004), meaning that foreigners (Mexicans excluded) no longer believe that the United States is “the” place to study.
• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the United States [was]...37th."  However, so that that dismal ranking is not misinterpreted, in health care, we're 54th.  "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80).
• "The U. S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all of their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80).  South Africa?  South Africa???
• Inadequate health insurance coverage resulted in 18,000 unnecessary American deaths last year, nearly six times the number of people killed on 9/11 (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• "U. S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, second to last among developed nations.  Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81).  Mexico?  Have you been to Mexico lately?  Looked around?  With your eyes open??
• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves."  Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality.  Even Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• The leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U. S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U. S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39).  Yet, Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country in the world and receive less vacation time.
• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66).  "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one was European" (The European Dream, p.69).
• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European.  In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese.  Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors.  In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world.  In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten.  Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
• 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).
• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of all U. S. government debt, one of the reasons we talk nicely and carry a soft stick.  "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004).  In other words, America owes a large part of its economic success to China, because they want us to keep buying all that cheap electronic stuff they manufacture.
• Sometime in the next 10 years, Brazil will likely surpass the United States as the world's largest agricultural producer.  Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco.  Last year, Brazil passed the United States as the world's largest beef producer.  While America boasts record trade deficits, Brazil enjoys a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• As of last June, the United States imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Bush: 62,027,582 votes.  Kerry: 59,026,003 votes.  The number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004).  That's more than a third.  If more than a third of all Iraqis failed to show up for an election, no country in the world would think that the election was 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).
• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
• "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 that torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
• Nearly one million 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).

Some sobering statistics for a nation of people who continue to believe that they have a strangle hold on success?  Think about those things the next time you hear from our elected representatives just how well America is faring in the world.  Think about them, and belly up to the bar.

And I...am D. J. Herda.
 

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D. J. Herda is President of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://amsaw.org), an organization made up of authors, writers, editors, publishers, agents, directors, producers, and other media professionals who rely upon the printed word in the creation of quality literature and entertainment.  He is a member of the Author's Guild, a former member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a former member of the National Press Club.  He has published more than 80 books and several hundred thousand articles, short stories, columns, interviews, plays, and scripts.
 

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