Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'

[LongTomH]

Source: The Guardian UK

Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.

These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.

The American Human Development Report, which applies rankings of health, education and income to the US, paints a surprising picture of a country that spends well over $5bn each day on healthcare - more per person than any other country.

"Human development is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it," said the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, who developed the HDI in 1990.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/17/internationalaidanddevelopment.usa

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None of this is really news. The sad thing is that the US is still slipping on most measure of Human Development.

[crimsonblue]

1. We're number...

42.. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

[mwb970]

2. We develop corporate profits, not people.

Have they done a survey of which country's corporations have accumulated the most money in the last 10 years? Don't bother. We're number one!

[Stuart G]

3. Another gift from our friend MR. BUSH.. how sad indeed. nt

[Stuart G]

4. I look at this one and hang my head..

What the hell is going on in this country? How can this happen?
I wonder how we rate on the TV index. TVs per person or family? Does that count?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. Number 1 on the Cheese Doodle index! nt.

[ThomCat]

6. Helping people in need has rarely been a government priority

and certainly not under any recent Republican administration. x(

We have become a government by corporations, for corporations. If they were to measure the portion of a nation's productivity that becomes wealth for the rich we'd be number 1.

[Phred42]

7. We have allowed Greed to trump everything

[Maineman]

8. The for-profit practice of medicine is a conflict of interest.

All too often big pharmacy is not seriously different from big tobacco.

For-profit corporations are in business for one reason. And, large corporations are really good at one thing, manipulating public opinion to their advantage.

Big food industry? In business for one reason.

And, of course, there are millions of lazy, uninformed consumers.
We are free to eat anything we want to -- until only hospital food is available.
If we eat junk, our bodies turn into garbage.

[LynnTheDem]

9. #42 in life expectancy. But don't worry! Being #53 in freedoms of the press means

you won't ever learn that we're anything but #1 in everything!

[glitch]

10. Are we #1 in anything positive?

Sure we're #1 in obesity, sure greed, sure warmongery, sure per capita consumption, sure military expeditures, sure massive debt. But in anything actually good?

God what fools we are chanting we're number one, we're number one!