Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A US Empire Declining - Or Collapsing?


The US is the world's largest economy and home to dynamic and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs ahead of our time. However, global competition is heating up in these areas, especially in China. In his thought-provoking article on Time, Fareed Zakaria asks is America still number one?

Fareed feels the policies and developments of the 1950s and 60s in education, infrastructure and the like made during this time caused the US to boom. However underlying measures today don't create the same confidence for the future.

“According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), our 15-year-olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math. We rank 12th among developed countries in college graduation (down from No. 1 for decades).

We come in 79th in elementary-school enrollment. Our infrastructure is ranked 23rd in the world, well behind that of every other major advanced economy. American health numbers are stunning for a rich country: based on studies by the OECD and the World Health Organization, we're 27th in life expectancy, 18th in diabetes and first in obesity. Only a few decades ago, the U.S. stood tall in such rankings.

No more.

Could this be drug-related?

No comments:

Post a Comment