Great news: I just learned that the US has made it into the top 50 in science education, narrowly edging out Senegal! With any luck, we should be able to catch up to Greece! We’ve also made it into the top 20 in standard of living, closing in on Finland for that coveted Number Twelve spot! We may remain well behind the Euro area in industrial output and behind Germany in exports, but hey, we’re still the world’s number one producer of ‘coarse grains’! Whatever those are…
All sarcasm aside for a moment… we can do better…
Hmm… I’d like to know where this information came from. I’m always suspicious of such “top 10”, “top 50” and such rankings, especially on subjective things like “standard of living”. There are many subtle differences between cultures that make attempts to quantify the criteria meaningless. Even visiting other countries, viewing their life through the lens of our own priorities, can’t tell us enough to state unequivocally whether they have it better off or not.
The hard numbers, such as GDP as a measure of standard of living and the production of ‘coarse grains’ come from The Economist’s ‘Pocket World in Figures’ for 2010. These are accurate as far as they go, but as you so rightly point out, the interpretation may be open to question. In particular, I would argue that since the US has the best hang gliding sites in the world, we will always have the best standard of living, even if we’re only 19th in per capita car ownership
The science ranking came from some multinational test that came under discussion at a science workshop I attended recently. While I don’t know the details, and one could certainly argue the exact number, there’s no doubt that we’re way behind the top 10. But these things come and go in cycles. I imagine that sometime during the next decade, there will be another shock like Sputnik, and we’ll get our act back together again.
The nation with the highest per capita car ownership is… Luxemborg? Huh? What do they need all those cars for? And were do they keep them?