Per year??? Really? I’m quite surprised by that high a number.
Pft. So what? NY has more Jews than Tel Aviv, more Irish than Dublin, etc. That 150 years ago people emigrated to the US for politcal and economic reasons doesn’t have anything to do with today. 1776, the US was among the leading in democratic governments; today, it’s dropped behind with its antiquated system.
Probably because Germany especially doesn’t want immigrants. German law is sadly old-fasioned, and the majority of the population doesn’t want immigration - though that sentiment, of course, is directed at the “foreigners”, that is, Turks and Italians, the politicans don’t change the law, which applies to all foreigners. So although it would be easier for an American to immigrate than a Turk because he would be more welcome, it’s still far from easy. I guess most Americans - like most Germans today - simply come for work reasons for some years and then leave again or stay, but keep their old nationality, so they don’t show up as immigrants.
But the middle class, as important it was after WWII, building up prosperity for everybody, is constantly being eroded: most people are getting poorer by not keeping up with inflation, while a handful are getting richer. If the liberatarians among the neocons are continuing to have their way, the US will end up like Brasil or other third world countries: a huge mass of poor and a small amount of rich people in walled ghettos.
You can see some figures in this essay(scroll down to Destination Banana republic). Read also this one on welfare : how it helped prosperity, and how much it was later cut.
It seems to me that “number of movies produced annually” is not the best measure of who the leader is. For example, according to this list, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made about 60 films between 2000 and the present. By contrast, Rigid East Productions has made more than 60 spanking films between 2002 and the present.
A much better measure, in my opinion, is revenue. By that measure, I would guess that the American film industry is head and shoulders above Bollywood.
This site says that Hollywood’s revenue was $9.62 billion in 2007. this site says that Bollywood’s was between $2.2 and $2.5 billion.
I’ve also heard the argument that the US is the Necessary Hegemon, and that it provides benefits to the rest of the world by maintaining international security. I am dubious about this argument for reasons both obvious and off topic.
I found a table on Overseas Development Aid (ODA) as a share of gross national income. The US trails at the bottom. (I don’t know whether military humanitarian spending is included, but I suspect not.)
Norway 0.95%
Sweden 0.93%
Luxembourg 0.9%
Denmark 0.81%
Netherlands 0.81%
Ireland 0.54%
Austria 0.49%
Belgium 0.43%
Spain 0.41%
Finland 0.4%
France 0.39%
Germany 0.37%
Switzerland 0.37%
UK 0.36%
Australia 0.3%
Canada 0.28%
New Zealand 0.27%
Italy 0.19%
Portugal 0.19%
Japan 0.17%
Greece 0.16%
USA 0.16%
As noted above, “number of movies produced” is a silly measure of who leads. By that measure, many obscure pornographers lead the biggest Hollywood studios.
No, I didn’t mean that. Because the U.S permits attorneys to represent people on contingency. Not only that, but most civil rights statutes have provisions allowing a prevailing plaintiff to collect attorneys fees.
OTOH, I read somewhere we have the most violent society in terms of violent crime in the world, but I wonder if that includes countries like Iraq or Somalia. Maybe it’s just an urban legend.
OK then - scrap that. America does NOT lead in being middle class. Objectively then it does not look like America lead in much, but they are up there with the best in many cases. I’m sure few Americans would leave, though, even if someone could show them a “better” place.
I’m also surprised to hear that your Universities are free. I don’t think we could ever have a university here where the faculty works for free. I mean, even your janitors volunteer? That’s amazing. Question though- how did you get the utility companies to give you power and water without charging you anything?
Or do you mean that the gov’t pays for the universities and bills your citizens? In other words, you have to pay for everyone else’s college, even if you don’t go? Right. Better system indeed.
In my opinion, if somebody is a brutal, monstrous murderer, I don’t have a problem with executing them for crimes committed at age 16 or 17. But it would seem to be incorrect to claim that the U.S. leads the world in executions of child offenders.
Meh. It also permits people to be sentenced to life in prison or execution despite their public defender falling asleep during the trial. So what? Pretty much every legal system has its pros and cons, they all produce notorious miscarriages of justice on a regular basis, and they are notoriously hard to compare. Providing they are reasonably well aligned with the proclivities of the population, it’s all fine.
From discussions with colleagues in Europe, Australia, S. America, and Asia, we still lead in Web design and technologies. In general, the rest of the world’s Web design is one or two years behind what we’ve got going on here. Their conclusion is that this is related to our fast-moving entrepreneurship (referenced in post #96).