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That figure is off by a factor 6-10 too. In October 2008 the number of people enrolled in anything from kindergarten to college was ~76 million. ~48 million in elementary and high school. Source.

$18.7 billion / 76 million students = $246/student
$18.7 billion / 48 million students = $390/student

Doubt that would fix much, even if every single dollar trickled all the way down.

I suggest you check (or at least list) your sources. There has been a long running internet hoax regarding this exact topic.

The best source I have makes a good faith attempt to estimate average IQs by state from SAT and ACT scores. However, as you can imagine that isn't exactly definitive. It also lists the methodology for how the results were arrived at.

The original numbers, made by someone trying to claim that states that vote for one political party over another are smarter (in this case liberals though I've heard of conservative claims as well), has been debunked repeatedly. Frankly, it is a sad state of affairs when people have to make up lies in order to further their political or ideological viewpoint.

If you're interested, the US Census keeps records on education attainment level by ethnicity as well.

but don't get it twisted and think you deserve the content.

And you shouldn't get it twisted into thinking they don't deserve the content.

Fanatics like you just can't seem to cope with the concept that blocking the free speech rights of 6,800,000,000+ people so that one (1) person can get additional profit might be an exceedingly dubious idea.

Ideas are not physical property. Never were, never will be. They're different and need different handling. Copyright-as-it-is-currently-implemented is a construction of the mind and is only one of an infinite number of possibilities. Entrenched interests who persist in claiming that current copyright law is the only possibility are a major problem in itself.

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Ownership, by definition, is the right to control something. Any ethical (not legal) argument based on "because they own it" is bogus.

The US has between 305 and 310 million people and "in 2006, there were nearly 203 million licensed drivers in the United States."

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_3.cfm

Exactly what I was thinking. Traveling 10% slower means 10% more time on the road. What I'd like to see is a study about the relationship/ratio between risk/injuries and speed. Even assuming that driving 10% slower (across all speeds) reduces accidents/injuries (which is not shown by this study), we still may have more accidents/injuries/deaths due to a disproportional decrease in accident rate between the different speeds and the increased time spent on the road. This doesn't even address the value of the lost time itself. The 130 million employed Americans spend, on average, more than 100 hours commuting to work each year. An increase of 7% (liberally assuming 30% of Americans are taking rail transit, or would otherwise be unaffected) would mean a loss of almost a billion hours a year. And that's just for the United States.

I remember doing the census in 2000. It was a small booklet taking about a week of evenings to complete.

You were one of the unlucky 10% to receive the 2000 Census Long For Questionnaire (PDF link) ; most people got the Short Form Questionnaire (PDF link). The 2010 Census doesn't have a long form.

I remember doing the census in 2000. It was a small booklet taking about a week of evenings to complete.

You were one of the unlucky 10% to receive the 2000 Census Long For Questionnaire (PDF link) ; most people got the Short Form Questionnaire (PDF link). The 2010 Census doesn't have a long form.

The parent post is more right than wrong ... we don't export as much manufactured goods as we used to. That, and our increasing consumption of foreign natural resources (mainly oil) has caused increasing trade deficits. The royalties we can get from IP , along with a reduction in consumption, can restore our economic balance. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.txt http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/data/index.html

The parent post is more right than wrong ... we don't export as much manufactured goods as we used to. That, and our increasing consumption of foreign natural resources (mainly oil) has caused increasing trade deficits. The royalties we can get from IP , along with a reduction in consumption, can restore our economic balance. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.txt http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/data/index.html

Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density for Illinois

General demographics of Illinois (Age, sex, race, housing occupancy, housing tenure)

All of these data and more are supplied in HTML and Excel.

Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density for Illinois

General demographics of Illinois (Age, sex, race, housing occupancy, housing tenure)

All of these data and more are supplied in HTML and Excel.

Slight correction: date of birth is one of the census questions. I have received my census, but see item 7 on the following page for confirmation: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/interactive-form.php

From the 2010 Census FAQ "Information on race is required for many federal programs and is critical in making policy decisions, particularly for civil rights. States use these data to meet legislative redistricting principles. Race data also are used to promote equal employment opportunities and to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks."

I had the exact same complaint when "my team" controlled the government.

Doesn't matter whose "team" is in power, the point is that it's none of their business, and the Constitution (4th Amendment) prohibits them from demanding such information without a warrant.

You want to make it about teams? Your "team" just raised the fine for not answering from $100 (which was never levied) to $5000. Now, pray tell, why is it so important to your "team" to get that information that they upped the non-compliance fine 50x to FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?

People are "stupid" for getting suspicious when faced with a $5000 fine for not reporting name, race, and number of toilets? Ya know, I'd like very much for Uncle Sam to just leave me the he11 alone - but no, your "team" just got more in-my-face about it to the tune of $5000 if I don't obey.

The census data is absolutely useless to medical researchers. "Black" doesn't describe anything about an individuals genetic code other than melanin content. The genetic variation among "black" people is as great or even greater than the genetic variation between any given black person and white people.

Then why do researchers routinely find a link between race and various health conditions?

Race may be a social construct with no genetic basis, but social constructs are real, and often have medical consequences.

"Asian" is used by the census generally to describe anybody from about Pakistan eastward, lumping Indians with Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, all of which are very distinct from each other.

...and, surprise surprise, this is why question #9 in the 2010 Census form doesn't have a checkbox for "Asian" (contrary to what you imply); it has separate checkboxes for Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Other Asian--with a write-in box for people to write in their ethnicity in the latter, complete with a list of examples (Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian).

So you're very much wrong about the Census lumping "asians" together.

And what constitutes "black" and "white" today, anyway? Is Tiger Woods black, asian, or what? Are his kids black or white? Do you want to bring back the old "one drop" test, so if any of your ancestors are black, you are deemed black?

It has been absolutely clear for decades now that the answers to the census questions about race and ethnicity are about the respondent's self-identification and their identification of the other people in their household, not some objective adjudication of their "real" race. The upsides and downsides of this, its (un)reliability and its problems are very much a matter of public discussion.

Again, race is today understood as a social construct, and race is very much a matter of personal identity. What race people identify themselves as is a significant fact about the population. Nobody who's not constructing a strawman is pretending that this data is to be treated as any more than what it is.

Demographers are among those who continue to insist that we define our society by skin color, so I don't feel much need to help them out.

I'm sorry, but the American society is very much defined by skin color. Native-born and raised black people, whose ancestors have been in this country no shorter than the majority, overwhelmingly live in different neighborhoods, speak a distinctive dialect, have different artistic expressions, have different naming customs for their children, have worse health, are discriminated against in housing, health and employment, and a host of other differences that would not be possible if the nation's culture did not see them as a different race in the first place.

I also put American for race.

Thank you for completing and submitting your Census form. Your answer will be routinely adjudicated as "Non-Hispanic White," perhaps after some minor statistical controls to estimate the very small number of non-whites who fill out "American."

I like this from their privacy policy http://www.census.gov/privacy/privacy_policy/data_collected_automatically.html page on census.gov:

When you visit our web site to read pages or download information, we automatically collect and store the following *non-identifying* information:
The Internet protocol *(IP) address from which you access our web site*. An IP address is a unique number that is automatically assigned to the computer you are using whenever you are surfing the web

If they are this disingenuous about the "anonymous" info they collect on their web site, how can you believe anything else they say about privacy? An IP address is identifying info because they can call the ISP, give them the IP and time stamp and identify the person who had the IP at the time.

Granted, this info is collected by any web server, however in their privacy policy they are misrepresenting the nature of the information. Do they know what privacy means? They certainly don't understand the concept of "non-identifying" which is a part of the privacy lexicon. What else don't they know or understand about privacy? IMHO privacy doesn't exist in the government mindset.

The article makes it seem like the Census Bureau passed this information to the US Army and the DHS under the table and behind everybody's back without us knowing. In truth, this information is public. The Census Bureau didn't give anything to the other organizations that the rest of the public of the United States doesn't already know. The Census Bureau didn't release anybody's addresses with their specific information, just the ZIP Code. You give them this information with the knowledge that they are going to make the information public (less your name, address, etc), and you have full rights to check the box that says "Decline to State". You, yes YOU, a member of the general public can access all this information -- by ZIP code -- at The American FactFinder. You don't need a fancy job with a fancy title at a fancy government organization.

There has been no violation of trust at any point in time. This is just sensationalist media bullshit.

Says who? The US Constitution thats who says what the US Census is for. Article 1, Section 2: "The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct." You want more data collected and used in different ways? Change the Constitution.

I wonder how the Founding Father's interpreted that? Well, let's see the questions that Thomas Jefferson asked on his 1790 census.

* Head of Household
* Number of Free White males of 16 years and upward
* Number of Free White males under 16 years
* Number of Free White females
* Number of All other free persons (by sex and color
) * Number of slaves

From here: http://www.gengateway.com/census/1790_census.htm. Hmm. I suspect Thomas Jefferson may have had a better idea of what the Constitution meant than the libertarian fanatics who suggest breaking the law (it is illegal not to answer every question on the Census, and wastes taxpayer money as they to hire more people to come to people's doors and find stuff out).

Just for comparison purposes, let's take a look at the 2010 short-form census that the vast majority of people are receiving.

How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?
Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?
Is this house, apartment, or mobile home: owned with mortgage, owned without mortgage, rented, occupied without rent?
What is your telephone number?
Please provide information for each person living here. Start with a person here who owns or rents this house, apartment, or mobile home. If the owner or renter lives somewhere else, start with any adult living here. This will be Person 1. What is Person 1's name?
What is Person 1's sex?
What is Person 1's age and Date of Birth?
Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?
What is Person 1's race?
Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

, like the age and DoB one, are from the 1800 census. Others, like the naming question, are a later addition because it was found that asking for names helped people list the correct number of people. But all in all, it's pretty much the same census the Founding Father's took. You're also missing the "in such manner as they shall by law direct" clause. Sure sounds to me like Congress can direct the Census people to ask more and different questions according to the Constitution.

The actual form can be seen online here.

And this too, damn me for not previewing it right

http://factfinder.census.gov/jsp/saff/SAFFInfo.jsp?_pageId=sp4_decennial&_submenuId=

And here they are: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/ACS-1(info)(2010)%20Stateside%20English_web.pdf

Perhaps in 1790 that's all the census needed to know (that and how may slaves you owned), but it's a far different situation now.

Well, in 1790, they did ask for sex, race, and date of birth. http://2010.census.gov/2010census/text/text-form.php

I don't care how many times pundits from the Census Bureau muck it up with our lord Jon and savior Steven they aren't going to convince me to answer 10 questions on a census. There is only one question I will answer on that stupid form, and if that lumps me in with the "evil" conservatives, so be it.

Have you actually read the 10 questions?

Questions 1, 2, 5, and 10 are all simply checks to make sure that the respondent really did, indeed, list all residents of the household (which isn't straightforward in all cases -- think roommates at college, for example).

Questions 6, 7, and 9 have all been asked since either 1790 or 1800 and are basic profiling questions. Don't like it? Complain to the almighty Founding Fathers. Question 8 (are you Hispanic) is necessary to make question 7 (race) make sense in a modern world.

Question 3 (your phone number) is to allow easy follow-up; if you don't include it, I don't think the bureau will care unless there's something they can't understand with your report (illegible handwriting, most likely), in which case they'll have to knock on your door to fix it (which costs far, far more of your tax dollars than a phone call).

Question 4, which has been asked since 1890, is the only one that I agree isn't really necessary.

The ten minutes the Census Bureau says this form will take is a gross exaggeration. Two is more like it -- far more than it took me to write this response or you to complain about it.

Census data always becomes public... According to this census data becomes public after 72 years. This is an invaluable resource to those tracing their genealogy. I will be filling out my form fully, but then I'm not an illegal immigrant or a terrorist. I could see why someone in those groups would not want to fill it out. But filling them out provides valuable data today for all kinds of things, from predicting how many students will enroll in your public schools to how many representatives you'll have in local, state, and federal elections.

The problem is that the poor - or, in fact, anyone below the rich - is not getting an increasing standard of living. The fact that people are getting into more and more debt to maintain the same lifestyle should be a clear indication of this. The rich are getting richer faster than the economy as a whole is growing, and that means that everyone else is getting poorer - not just proportionally but in absolute terms too. That is the problem

Ahh, proof by repeated assertion? Take a look at this data, from the census guys http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h01AR.xls

Things have been flat for everyone since 2001, as our debt has come home to roost. But that's pretty short term in the scheme of things, and isn't actually a reduction for any income group. Longer term, purchasing power has increased exponentially from 1800-2000, roughly a 10-fold increase every 50 years. Hooray for technology!

This idea that we have it worse than the previous generation is an urban legend that has been repeated every generation since America began, but except during the 30s and the Civil War, it simply hasn't been true. Of couse, we seem determined to wrack the ship of state upon the reefs, and if we don't repeal recent spending initiatives things may very well get ugly, but thus far it just hasn't happened. I have hope that, thanks to recent personal fincance lessons learned painfully by many, we may even get a party that stands for fiscal responsibility again - hey, it could happen!

>>And, since you're so much better than Pelosi, you'll have some official government statistics to back up your claim, right?

Here you go, bub. Start reading: http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf

Flip to page 22.

There's 9 million well off people (> $75,000) who don't have health insurance. I'm sure glad they'll have it now under the new plan, aren't you?

Over half without insurance are people under the age of 34. If they're like me, they decided that health insurance wasn't worth it.

"We know that 1 of these 300 people probably committed this crime.

... or one of the 6500 people who are NOT U.S. citizens who also match that sample. Remember there are approximately 6.8 billion people in the world today. Or are you going to collect these DNA samples ... er "signatures", sorry I misspoke ... from everyone who enters the country?

Now, that said, I agree that there is huge potential for a tool like this to be misused and abused, and I don't like the idea of "the government" tracking people in this manner. But to claim that a 1 in a million sensitivity makes the tool entirely useless to law enforcement isn't much of a compelling argument against it.

Oh, I agree that the sensitivity doesn't make it entirely useless ... but the fact that police would come to depend upon this tool, and likely become lazy, does concern me greatly. Suppose the police had a computer that was able to automatically solve a crime correctly (one million - 1) times out of one million cases. How much would that one innocent person who was falsely accused have to argue to get the police to examine the case more closely (unless it's blatantly obvious they couldn't have committed the crime)?

As I said, I agree with your conclusion - the whole system would be fraught with potential for misuse and abuse, it could generate false leads, and I wouldn't trust the government to keep the data secure and not collect "extra" data, without significant, transparent oversight. But arguing that law enforcement could only use it "sometimes" just isn't a compelling argument when the times it would be used would be splashed all over the headlines.

Unless it was used like National Security Letters have been.

I would start by reading this article, then look at the trade data on your own here.

I don't know if any countries are exporting anything at all times highs right now because of the global recession, though the trade data does show some detail about the US import/export ratios for certain products. For example, in January '10 the US exported over 2x more airplane engine parts, plastics, coal, corn, cotton and metal ore than it imported. If you remove crude oil from the equation the trade imbalance shrinks dramatically.

The goal here is an irrational rant. Preferably in wall-of-text format. Why bother actually forming an informed opinion when we can spume and froth at the mouth and work up a good outrage?

So please, quit confusing the issue with stuff like "facts" and "details" like the following.

Infant Mortality Rate and Life Expectancy, by Sex: Canada
Year: 2010
IMR Both Sexes: 4.99
IMR Male: 5.34
IMR Female: 4.63
Life expectancy both sexes: 81.29
Life expectancy male: 78.72
Life expectancy female: 84.00

Infant Mortality Rate and Life Expectancy, by Sex: United States
Year: 2010
IMR Both Sexes: 6.14
IMR Male: 6.81
IMR Female: 5.44
Life expectancy both sexes: 78.24
Life expectancy male: 75.78
Life expectancy female: 80.81

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base.

United States - Latest Data Used in the Estimates and Projections
Reference years: 2007
Data source: vital registration
Data collection years: 2007
Notes: Preliminary data on total registered deaths.
Citation: National Center for Health Statistics. 2008. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_21.pdf.

Canada - Latest Data Used in the Estimates and Projections
Reference years: 2004
Data source: vital registration
Data collection years: 2004
Notes: Registered deaths by age and sex.
Citation: Statistics Canada. 2006. Annual Demographic Statistics: 2005. Ottawa.

Note: Infant deaths are approximated as IMR times births in the year and may not add to totals due to rounding.

U.S. data are based on official estimates and projections. Population estimates for 1950-1999 are based on the resident population plus the armed forces overseas. Population estimates for 2000-2008 are for the resident population and are based on Census 2000. Population data in the IDB for 2009-2050 are projections of the resident population. The U.S. population components shown in the IDB for 2000-2050 may not match the official population components for the United States, due to differences in how they are displayed (calendar year versus midyear estimates). Revised official population estimates are released each year (see http://www.census.gov/popest/). Therefore, the U.S. population estimates (official compared with IDB) may not match due to differences in the timing of their releases.

Actually, Asians are the richest racial group in America, earning well above non-Hispanic Europeans.

Unfortunately, in this case, we need to cut pork not to cut taxes, but rather to get our debt load under control

I agree that we need to get our debt under control, but this is a long term problem. We need to solve it AFTER we get the economy in shape. Cutting spending now is foolhardy. That doesn't mean EVERY program is a worthy one of course. If we're talking about going to the moon again, it's a stupid program that doesn't benefit much of anyone.

The real problem here is Americans have short memories. After this whole economic mess is over in a few years will there really be enough political will to actually solve our long term debt problem?

Every American household is now responsible for almost a million dollars in government debt and as-yet-unfunded government programs.

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from, but according to the publicly available numbers for the national debt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
  and the households:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

The number is actually more like 100,000 per household. That's still bad, but nowhere near the million dollars which you quote.

So it's no shock that these kids, of which very little was ever demanded or expected of them, should suddenly find themselves failing college once the gloves come off.

I like to think the cause is much simpler: colleges have increased enrollment considerably, and in order to do so, reduced their admissions standards.

Yeah, but like 90% of Americans travel less than 25 miles a day for their commute.

But, like, 25 miles doesn't matter because, like, if it takes you 40 minutes to go, like, 25 miles, then you still have to burn, like energy that whole time regardless. It'd be different if you could drive, like, 55mph the whole way, but most people are driving more like 15-20mph.

The average commute in the USA is, like, quite long in terms of, like, minutes.

.

Considering the negative effects of varous forms of Foreign aid on the recipients and the prevalence of skimming by graft, it wouldn't bother me if the US goverment hired some foreign codemonkeys instead. It's better for them and better for us.

The problem with your plan is that if a foreign corp contractor contracts to write code for the Navy, another foreign corp can't use that code for the CIA because they don't have the right to publish it Public Domain so they can't use it. Look - it's not the crown jewels of intellectual property, it's mostly minor applets or business intelligence for .gov organizations that are highly custom. But if it becomes a beautiful suite of APIs and frameworks that incidental to its main purpose advances the art, where's the problem?

Considering the negative effects of varous forms of Foreign aid on the recipients and the prevalence of skimming by graft, it wouldn't bother me if the US goverment hired some foreign codemonkeys instead. It's better for them and better for us.

The problem with your plan is that if a foreign corp contractor contracts to write code for the Navy, another foreign corp can't use that code for the CIA because they don't have the right to publish it Public Domain so they can't use it. Look - it's not the crown jewels of intellectual property, it's mostly minor applets or business intelligence for .gov organizations that are highly custom. But if it becomes a beautiful suite of APIs and frameworks that incidental to its main purpose advances the art, where's the problem?

Canada is the principle trading partner of the US. We also have fantastic relations with them, disproving your entire point. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/current/balance.html

And 99.44% of deaths in 2006 were not caused by drunk drivers.[1] [2]

[1] - Total number of reported deaths in 2006: 2,426,264
[2] - Total deaths in alcohol-related crashes in 2006: 13,491

OP is correct, people will likely go with whatever is suggested by the government, even given the chance to review and modify it. Dan Ariely points out this effect in the context of organ donor percentages across multiple nations in his TED talk. I also think that Intuit is, though admittedly biased, correct (at least insofar as the company was quoted correctly in the summary).

But what I want to know is, by what metric do you determine the average case? 95% of the time the government's calculations are accurate? 99%? 99.9%? The census.gov Population Clock estimates that there are 308 million people in the United States, and the Bureau of Labor and Statistics currently claims that the employment-population ratio is 58 percent, which I assume translates to about 179 million people who'll be paying income taxes.

If the error rate is 1%, just short of 2 million people will have to correct mistakes in their government-provided taxation proposals. If the error rate is 0.1%, it'll be just shy of 200,000 people.

I agree in principal that taxes could be streamlined, but I would want to see some hard numbers after a trial run before deciding that the government was doing a good job (and I would want to see a comparison with the current error rate, as well as hard numbers on the Intuit-assisted error rate).

The problem is that the NYT has never given us accurate and factual news...

It is usually unwise to make unqualified statements.

You may not like the NY Times, but it certainly appears there are counter-examples to the assertion that it "has never given us accurate and factual news." For example, a trivial spot check reveals an article on the site today: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/us/17census.html?ref=us That article reports that Census Bureau data shows "the decline [in employment] was greater among black and Hispanic couples than non-Hispanic white ones." This appears to be true (see: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/014540.html ), and as a consequence your statement appears false.

It is likely the Times has made many mistakes over the years, but if your intent is to demonstrate the Times is a poor source of news you should probably show that it has made more and/or more significant errors than other news organizations, especially as related to the quantity of information reported. It would be interesting to see real data arguing that, as opposed to anecdotal or notional generalizations.

As it stands, it's hard to take seriously your comment's moderation as "insightful."

One of the finest replies I have ever seen. Hats off to you sir!

The problem is that the NYT has never given us accurate and factual news...

It is usually unwise to make unqualified statements.

You may not like the NY Times, but it certainly appears there are counter-examples to the assertion that it "has never given us accurate and factual news." For example, a trivial spot check reveals an article on the site today: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/us/17census.html?ref=us That article reports that Census Bureau data shows "the decline [in employment] was greater among black and Hispanic couples than non-Hispanic white ones." This appears to be true (see: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/014540.html ), and as a consequence your statement appears false.

It is likely the Times has made many mistakes over the years, but if your intent is to demonstrate the Times is a poor source of news you should probably show that it has made more and/or more significant errors than other news organizations, especially as related to the quantity of information reported. It would be interesting to see real data arguing that, as opposed to anecdotal or notional generalizations.

As it stands, it's hard to take seriously your comment's moderation as "insightful."

China only holds about $800 billion in U.S. Treasury Securities. U.S. GDP was about $14.2 trillion in 2008. U.S.imports from China were $338 billion in 2008. Exports around $70 billion, so trade with China accounted for 2.9% of U.S. GDP. If China were to exercise the "nuclear option" and suddenly dump all the U.S. treasury securities it owns onto the market, and stopped all trade with the U.S., its financial impact would be about 8.5% of U.S. GDP.

China's 2008 GDP was about $4.4 trillion. Their trade with the U.S.at $338+$70 billion accounted for 9.3% of their GDP. So if China were to dump all the U.S. securities and stop all trade with the U.S., they would be hurting their economy more than they would be hurting the U.S. economy.

China needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs China.

Picking arbitrary dates around 1962:

1962 Life expectancy at birth: 66.9 years
2005 Life expectancy at birth: 74.89
source http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_mal_yea-life-expectancy-birth-male-years&date=1962

1970 cost of food as percentage of income: 14%
2005 cost of food as percentage of income: 9.3%
source http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=429074

1960 home ownership rate: 61.9%
2000 home ownership rate: 66.2%
source http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/owner.html

1960 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 41.1%
2000 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 80.4%
source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

1960 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 7.7%
2000 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 24.4%

source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

Picking arbitrary dates around 1962:

1962 Life expectancy at birth: 66.9 years
2005 Life expectancy at birth: 74.89
source http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_mal_yea-life-expectancy-birth-male-years&date=1962

1970 cost of food as percentage of income: 14%
2005 cost of food as percentage of income: 9.3%
source http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=429074

1960 home ownership rate: 61.9%
2000 home ownership rate: 66.2%
source http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/owner.html

1960 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 41.1%
2000 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 80.4%
source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

1960 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 7.7%
2000 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 24.4%

source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

Picking arbitrary dates around 1962:

1962 Life expectancy at birth: 66.9 years
2005 Life expectancy at birth: 74.89
source http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_mal_yea-life-expectancy-birth-male-years&date=1962

1970 cost of food as percentage of income: 14%
2005 cost of food as percentage of income: 9.3%
source http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=429074

1960 home ownership rate: 61.9%
2000 home ownership rate: 66.2%
source http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/owner.html

1960 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 41.1%
2000 Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or More: 80.4%
source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

1960 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 7.7%
2000 percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor’s Degree or More: 24.4%

source http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/phct41/US.pdf

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

Duh! That isn't what you said. You claimed that the USA would be better off with more isolationist policies. B0bby demonstrated that you're full of crap. That ain't what I'd call "corroboration". Idiot.

Which part of unprecedented growth doesn't corroborate that?

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

Duh! That isn't what you said. You claimed that the USA would be better off with more isolationist policies. B0bby demonstrated that you're full of crap. That ain't what I'd call "corroboration". Idiot.

I didn't know what the answer to the question is: what does the US export? Fortunately, the US has a (relatively) open government and the data is available. It's interesting to see how the data breaks down, though it is in part confusing. For example, we export more than twice as many vehicles to Saudi Arabia than to the UK, but then we export twice as many parts to UK than Saudi Arabia.

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html
Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

The folks at the Census disagree with you

1998 was the most recent year I pulled up after a quick search. See page 3.

99.3% of all households, poor included, have refrigrators. How do you propose they have fridges without electricity?

As for underfed children, there are food stamps, WIC, free school lunch and breakfast programs, food pantries, etc. What more do you want? The only reason for a child to be underfed in the US is for their parents to not feed them, access isn't the issue.