America the 22nd Most Stable and Prosperous

I meant to post about this a while back--thank you session manager add-on for Firefox! Remembering tab contents is the coolest!

But I digress.

The above screencap comes from a March 25, 2008 article at TimesOnline.co.uk which you can read for yourself here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3613926.ece

The gist of it, however, is that Britain ranked 7th in a prosperity and stability study done by Jane's Information Group. Turns out America came in 22nd, but scored a 93%.

Of course, the question begs to be asked, doesn't this mean that America is no longer "the greatest country on Earth"?

That's what I always hear from other Americans--that the US is "the greatest" and "the best" nation around--but often it seems like these comments come from people who have never spent any real time in another country.

I don't mean just for vacation, either. I spent two weeks in Edinburgh, Scotland back in 2005, and while I may be a bit biased, I'm pretty sure I fairly judged that city to be a much more efficient, cleaner, safer, and more fun city to live in compared with Los Angeles. Of course, I have no idea what the job situation in Scotland is like, but I do recall seeing an ad for bus drivers wanted. The pay was £35,000 per year. That's like $70,000. Granted, everything costs more there, but just think of the vacation you could have visiting America. ^_^

I think I'm digressing again.

I'm thinking that the US is NOT the best country in the world and I suspect it's becoming less stable and less prosperous--with the emphasis on the last syllable, there. Our dollar gets ever weaker (it's kinda designed that way) and it seems like gas prices will never make it back below $2 (or even $3) ever again.

Yet, we're "free" to say what we want and stuff, which is true. But if it weren't for the Internet, what other way would we have to express ourselves?

Given that we're 21 countries away from being "the best," shouldn't we be spending more time worry about problems at home? Like our economy or the evaporating middle class?

Happy Monday everyone! ;)

(If you think this post is depressing wait until you read the next one for today!)

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