Slashdot Mirror

There's birds and air and stuff out there! And you won't be pissed off at your friends!

Are you trying to kill me? It all over the news yesterday that the air is going to kill me https://www.weforum.org/agenda....

But joke's on them. Skin cancer will get me first.

He read a headline and not an article. Only about 20% of world plastic waste comes from rivers. However that 90% figure is still right with a caveat: 90% of plastic waste coming *from rivers* comes from just 10 rivers in the world.

Every article I've seen on this topic has the headline misrepresent this fact but gets it right in the article itself: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Right but I took the DNA sequence of a pig as it was written down, then synthesised the the DNA, assembled into a man made donor cell, and grew me some bacon that is not physically derived from any living pig. Is it Kosher and/or Halal ?

Noting that this is clear cut for a vegetarian or vegan. They can have no ethical issues at all. Well they will because it removes part of their identity, but hey you get nut jobs on the fringes of veganism that worry about plants feelings if you cut them down, because they clearly need a science education.

But hey

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Every time ghost cities are brought up, the poster can never give locations.

Maybe you should try using google, it took 10 seconds to find:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Maybe you should try reading, it took 10 seconds to find no location info, thanks for proving my point.
Your links talk of "vacant housing areas in 9 cities", and literally has a grainy aerial photograph some random city block...you could have swap the photo of the victory parade of the Boston Red Sox for all it shows.
In case you haven't kept up, we have satellites even in the west now. You can zoom in on those commie "1000 ghost cities".
Your links also speaks of "ghost cities" as less than 5,000/km2. That makes the following metropolis "ghost cities":
Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, London, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles...

Every time ghost cities are brought up, the poster can never give locations.

Maybe you should try using google, it took 10 seconds to find:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

You still lie about this, what a joke you are.
Show anywhere at all credible that puts China's coal use at 80%.
It's common knowledge as far as morons like you are concerned, but you can't find a single place to back up your lies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This shows China was 25% renewable back in 2015...so good luck idiot.

Capacity isn't use, plants are run at less than 50% capacity because they already have too many of them. It's stupid to build more, but the local governments want the jobs and hope the other places will be the ones forced to close down not them.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda... Clearly America uses much more coal per person for electricity than anyone China included. China 3785/4 = 946. America uses 1643
Close to twice as much per person.

Don't you think it's about time to stop sending your money to Arabs and Japs and buy an American car built by American workers for an American owned company

Honda Accord is built by American workers in Marysville, Ohio.

powered by clean electricity produced by American power companies

Isn't the majority of electricity still generated from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas?

And what about the environmental harm that's caused by producing electric vehicles, not to mention the costs from trying to get minerals like cobalt and nickel out of the ground?

Your claim that "it stops being an economy without people to pay" is false. There certainly are economies in non-human species, such as ants:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/two-lessons-from-ant-colony-organization/

And it's certainly possible for there to be robot economies without any people involved.

"cost as part of GDP" is a silly way to compare, because the U.S. is wealthier than almost all other countries and as a result spends more on everything where you can spend more to get more, including books, restaurants, fast food, education, lawn care, cars, roads, bridges, electronics, and yes, health care. The U.S. also subsidizes a lot of medical device and drug research for other countries. All you're showing is that wealthier people tend to spend more on discretionary items (like extra doctors and a private room when you don't really "need" that) than less wealthy people.

Once Medicare/medicaid and VA health spending are comparable to OECD levels of health spending (hint, they're much higher), then you can start arguing public health care would cost similar to what the government already spends.

"Cost as part of GDP" is a pretty good way to compare. It shows how much of a country's production goes towards healthcare, helps correct for different salary and cost levels etc. FWIW, Norway is a bit better off than the US in general. We spend more than the US in absolute terms, but less when seen as a part of the GDP

Administrative costs seem to be a huge part of why - 8% of GDP in the US, 3% in most other countries.

It really is an amazing car. . . I feel like a requirement to short the stock is one of the following: 1) You have never test driven a Model 3 2) You are a shill for some competing industry/company

3) You believe cars as a concept have no long term future. At 10m2 (approx) per vehicle they simply take up too much space to be useful in higher density living environments.
I'm too poor to gamble on shorts, but the way population growth and urbanisation is going, the car is a dead end strategy for a transport solution. Tesla really should be getting into electric city buses like the Chinese https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

1) Explain the first graph in 3 sentences and why it perfectly matches the suns day cycle: https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

2) Explain the graph on page 21, in 3 simple sentences and admit that all your recent posts are wrong: https://www.ethz.ch/content/da...

3) Explain the first graph here https://www.weforum.org/agenda... and explain the correlation to my question 1)

Stop making an idiot of yourself.

Sorry if using Texas as a simple to follow example annoys you, or if you don't find the examples simple to follow. Well if you don't find it simple to follow, my suggestion is: "stay out of discussions you are not competent to join".

Still no evidence, or timeline. Almost as if you don't want the evidence examined.

https://www.statista.com/stati...

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Your paywalled examples don't appear prominently in these lists. So by your own metric (time spent) , we are far from being in a paywall internet business environment.

If we talk about nerd sites : /. , reddit , wired are free . Stack* sites have a declared policy of not minding even if users block ads.

the whole "wealth inequality" thing. When it comes to quality of life America isn't even in the top 10.

Put another way, what the hell do I care if there's 100 billionaires in driving distance of me if I'm living in a slum?

The US is modern enough to be the world leader again, surpassing China recently...

In what? Number of motorcycles?

Go to bed Donald, your meds have kicked in.

Only a fool would say the leader in GDP isn't modern. Who knows, maybe I've found that fool?

Add up the bottom 5 out of top 10 and you're still not up to the US. Here, let me give you a link, based on the international money fund since you don't seem to know how to use google or maybe you don't even know what to look for or are familiar with international finances and modernization. Your comment was really that ignorant. Clueless I think is what I'm looking for. You're clueless.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

So I have a feeling your "modern" countries are way behind the US. In fact they barely even belong in the same list. Socialist polices have taken a big toll on Europe. Really big toll. It holds them back.

Just google world economies if that site isn't to your liking. I know crazy people love to say - oh well that's your site or some other BS so they can stay in their little fantasy world. They avoid reality best they can. Read fake news and believe it. I bet you still believe the collusion delusion.

Go to bed Hillary, you're meds have kicked in.

Why do employers discriminate based upon age? Study after study has shown that older workers perform just as well as younger workers for most tasks. Ageism bias is ignorant.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...
https://www.techrepublic.com/a...
https://www.recode.net/2016/10...

The only logical reason to discriminate against older workers is because health insurance costs in the US are far higher for older people.

Is age discrimination less of a problem in countries that have single payer heath care?

I have not yet to see one person mention any job that will open.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

I'll stick to having quality of life you can't even dream of.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Most importantly, maybe this time "shills" aren't that wrong...

According to Bloomberg, Italians are the world's healthiest people: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

And according to the OECD, Italians are the slimmest people in west, and the third-slimmest among the developed countries: https://www.oecd.org/els/healt...

And I sincerely doubt that either of the two is on Barilla's payroll.

According to Bloomberg, Italians are the world's healthiest people: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

And according to the OECD, Italians are the slimmest people in west, and the third-slimmest among the developed countries: https://www.oecd.org/els/healt...

And I sincerely doubt that either of the two is on Barilla's payroll.

According to Bloomberg, Italians are the world's healthiest people: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

And according to the OECD, Italians are the slimmest people in west, and the third-slimmest among the developed countries: https://www.oecd.org/els/healt...

And I sincerely doubt that either of the two is on Barilla's payroll.

> You've proven increasing the number of guns in the U.S. doesn't result in more people being murdered. Congratulations.

Nah, you've just proven how to hide truth with misleading statistics. For example you cited homicides in general, not gun deaths.

In fact, gun deaths and gun ownership are almost linerally correlated. Here is a chart of state gun deaths vs gun ownership rates.

And from a study published in the American Journal of Public Health:

Conclusions. We observed a robust correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher firearm homicide rates. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda... Are u sure?

No it isn't. This is a myth. The pace of replacement of human labor with automation is not accelerating, it is slowing down.

Interesting. I was thinking in terms of job churn: how long does a certain skill set stay relevant. I have absolutely zero data to back any of this up but here is my impression.

For ages, you just did what your father did, learning from him. Most likely you farmed just like your great-great-grandfather did. A few hundred years ago, things started opening up. You could apprentice to a master, learn a new skill, and you had an occupation for life. But once you apprenticed, it was rare to change jobs.

Around 100 years ago, the pace of change started really heating up. Innovation started coming faster and faster. By the time you got to the end of your career, the skills you learned as a young adult were increasingly likely to be obsolete. You had to be ready to learn new stuff. Either that, or the tail end of your career might get kinda bleak and you might wind up laid off and working a menial job for the last few years. But you could make it work and didn't necessarily have to find a new occupation when you turn 50.

Now, I think the reality is any skill you learn at 20 is really unlikely to be useful when you are 60. You better be ready to find something new, especially if you're in an industry which is rapidly automating. For example, machinists. My father-in-law was a drafter and machinist. He knew how to use a ruler, protractor, pens, and drawing board. He know how to operate a lathe and mill. Today, he'd need to know AutoCAD and CNC programming. Knowing how to tighten a three-jaw chuck is increasingly unimportant. And AutoCAD and CNCs really only came to dominate in the last 20 years.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see if anyone's researched this. What was the shelf life for skills over time? I'm sure it varies by trade and I don't know what else.

The pace of the transition is intimidating.

No it isn't. This is a myth. The pace of replacement of human labor with automation is not accelerating, it is slowing down.

Italy just can't do anything.

... except having the healthiest people on the planet ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda... ), the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), giving birth to those who invented the radio, the telephone and even the first microprocessor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), having had some of the biggest scientists in history (Galileo, Volta, Fermi), and, quite surprisingly, having one of the richest population on the planet in terms of median net worth per adult, far higher than the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ).

Except all of that, they can do nothing.

P.S.: Italians chose to leave the war after they toppled Mussolini. It was actually an extremely cunning move: while formally defeated, they basically avoided paying war damages, and they preserved their gorgeous architecture and artistic heritage from allied carpet-bombing. So now they have probably the three most beautiful cities in the world: Florence, Rome and Venice. Just look at how ugly Berlin is instead.

This doesn't make sense to me either. Under WTO rules, retaliation is permitted against dumping and subsidies. But there is no retaliation permitted just for low prices.

Uh yeah, where do you think those low prices come from? The Chinese government provides subsidies to disruptive industries...

True, A link to back this up:
https://www.scientificamerican...

An interesting article about floating panels, plus a comparison of US vs China investments:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

I initially disliked the tariffs, fearing trade war and escalation of prices - I'd rather us start investing as much as China and beat them at their own low-price game. But after reading the WTO Anti-dumping and subsidy rules, I think this isn't supposed to start a trade war - it's the legal and appropriate reaction to China subsidies (and dumping I guess). I'd still like to increase US government investments in research and subsidies anyway.

The study ignores that the Japanese and the Italians, whose diets are both known for very high carbs intake (rice and pasta), have the highest and second-highest life expectancy in the world respectively (I'm excluding Hong Kong because it is not a country): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And the Italians have just been named the healthiest people in the world by Bloomberg: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Long story short: if the research in the article was supposed to make me go back to mcdonald's, then nope, it failed.

It's not only rice, and not only fish. It's pasta too, for example. The Italians have just been named the healthiest people in the world by Bloomberg ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda... ) and the slimmest among western countries by the OECD ( https://www.oecd.org/health/ob... ), besides notoriously having an extremely high life expectancy.

Carbs-eaters seem to have health statistics on their side. Probably the research paper should have specified which kind of carbs are supposedly bad (sugar?), instead of being so generic.

"Carbohydrates" is too generic, they need to specify which ones.

Italians, who eat massive amounts of pasta (hence carbs), have just been named the healthiest people in the world by Bloomberg's Global Health Index: https://www.weforum.org/agenda... ...and they are even the slimmest people in the west, according to the OECD: https://www.oecd.org/health/ob...

That's not enough. The Japanese, who eat massive amount of rice (carbs again), have the highest life expectancy on the planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So I'm highly skeptical of this new "research", unless they meant "sugar", and not carbs in general. I'm also curious to know who might have financed it. And I'm surely not going back to mcdonald's anyways.

The EU took the right stance. Even Yanis Varoufakis has said that the idea of taxing robots does not work. This is what needs to be done instead: https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

I wonder if Linus is part of the trial. https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Not only that, but the economy is government heavy and doesn't pay their own people very well...

True, but money isn't everything

And adjusted for inflation, stagnant or dropping wages.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Every assertion you have made is lacking the critical thinking 'Why?'

Why is a 97% cash based economy "just ridiculous?"

What is ridiculous and why is it bad?

It's bad because it facilitates corruption on multiple levels. Go to a store to buy something and inevitably the question pops up of whether you want a bill. The vendor offers you a discount if you pay cash and don't ask for a bill because that way he evades sales tax on that transaction. Most people would gladly pay cash and take the discount. With a card swipe the vendor has no choice but to account for the transaction and pay the tax on it. Multiply this across every store in the market, add gas stations, hospitals, basically anywhere money changes hands in cash and imagine the scale of tax evasion. Many people feel a sense of unfairness at the prospect of their income tax being deducted at source (@marginal 30%) when traders and business owners are getting by paying only a fraction of what they're supposed to.

Why should people not be allowed to purchase specific items with cash? Who decides that and why?

The majority of those paying cash aren't doing so just for the pleasure of it. They're doing it for a very specific purpose - to evade taxes. If the indirect tax net is broadened by discouraging these "off the books" transactions the government would be able (in theory at least) to rationalise direct taxes for the middle class who currently bear a good share of the income tax burden. Consider that over 50% of total tax revenues come from direct taxes (i.e. income tax) which are paid by less than 5% of the population. Note: this isn't the top 5% either.

Why is India an "annoying neighbor?" Why does that matter? Why is that relevant to what they do within their borders with their own currency system?

Okay, I'll count this one as a reading comprehension fail. My point was that India has an annoying neighbour that actively counterfeits Indian currency.

Why does it matter if people "can't be bothered to use the banking system?"

It matters because the promotion of a shadow economy has several drawbacks including rising tax rates, constraints on public sector spending and making econometric figures unreliable

Why is the banking system better? What does it provide that cash does not to the people that prefer cash?

How about security from theft and opportunities to earn interest?

Why do you believe interests rates dropping would be a good thing for people that can't take advantage of it?

It doesnt matter what I believe. The fact is lower interest rates are a significant factor in promoting and sustaining overall economic growth and economic growth leads to reduction in poverty levels

Why do you think that interest rates dropping would naturally lead to better infrastructure?

Not interest rates but increased tax revenues means more public funds available for infrastructure projects.

Why should someone that has cash let other people make money off of their work?

Oh I don't know - maybe because they benefit from public services like roads, sanitation and public healthcare?

Your post is

China has more renewable generation than any other country, and is expanding it faster than any other country.

Let's start with your mention of Iceland. I live in Iceland. So let's just say that I know a little something about countries whose currencies have crashed. Yeah, it's good for the bottom lines of businesses that don't have to import anything. It's terrible for regular people and for businesses that have to buy things form overseas. Because the price of all imported goods skyrockets when your currency crashes. Which directly hits your pocketbook every time you go to the store or buy gas at the pump. It also means your savings crash. And the government funds such as retirement funds crash as well.

But hey, some fish magnate can sell their fish cheaper, so that makes everything just wonderful, right? :P

If it *were* a bad thing, then you'd be complaining about how from 2 two years ago up to the brexit, the pound lost 20% of its value

Seriously? Do you really need this explained to you? Is this how you think that investors think?

"Hey, the country is considering doing something a couple years from now that could have profoundly reduce the value of my British investments. I think I'll do absolutely nothing and just hope that it doesn't pass!"

Of course it doesn't work that way. Markets take into account the risk of adverse events happening in the future - which is why as Brexit support rose in polls, the markets fell, and as it declined the markets rose. When it passed, the sudden drop became the difference between the "possibility of brexit" and "the actuality of brexit".

This is really, really basic stuff here. People don't wait until some prospective bad event happens to price it in; they price it in relative to the risk of it actually happening.

One way that Greece could have eased their troubles was by floating their currency. They *asked* the EU for permission to do this, and were denied.

The EU made it quite clear that Greece was more than free to leave. They chose to remain. Even their populist, anti-EU government couldn't stomach the potential aftereffects of leaving.

Furthermore, the UK always has been able to float its currency. Are you not aware that the UK is on the pound, not the euro?

Companies relocating to the EU are European companies... yes? And those European companies employ mostly non-UK workers, yes? And pay taxes to their parent country, yes?

By and large, no, no, and no. 1) The biggest groups looking to relocate are British banks. 2) Most companies in the UK, whether British or not, employ British workers. 3) Non-British workers living and working in the UK pay taxes to the UK, not their home countries, and local corporate offices in the UK pay taxes to the UK.

And note that the EU growth rate [ash.tips] has been going down, overall, in the last few years (and not because of the recession either).

Yes, both were in the common market, so one expects their GDP growth to have historically tracked each other. However, the Euro has been going up majorly with respect to the pound. Currency exchange rates react to adverse news immediately. Figures like GDP growth and unemployment lag behind.

Are you saying that remaining a part of a declining or stagnant union is a *good* thing for the UK?

The EU is not stagnant. And most of its troubles of late that aren't part of global slowdowns has been due to stupid, completely avoidable nonsense like the Brexit and Grexit crises.

He went on to explain (at great length) that the Japanese were still clinging to the original model of capitalism, and the only way forward was high tech communism.

Japan chooses to coddle and protect many industries that would be more productive if exposed to global competition. (Thus TPP is seen as a back-door way to achieve reform).

The Economic Freedom Index lists Japan as only "Mostly Free", notes:

"A web of close relationships among companies, politicians, government agencies, and other groups fosters an inwardly cooperative business climate conducive to corruption, most often seen in the rigging of bids on government public works projects."

"A propensity for lifetime-employment guarantees and seniority-based wages hurts productivity and impedes development of a more flexible labor market. A government effort to scale back institutionalized farm subsidies has encountered stiff political resistance."

"Imports of many agricultural products are restricted. The government screens investments in several sectors of the economy, including agriculture and telecommunications. The banking sector is competitive but lacks dynamic growth. Japan Post (the holding company for the post office, postal bank, and postal-insurance company) has distorted the financial sector."

There's 145 countries on the index. Guess who's at the bottom?

Hint: rhymes with "gizz palm"

What you don't get is that America's comparative advantage is bullshit, AKA "marketing".

That is officially recognized. The World Economic Forum calls it "Business Sophistication"
http://reports.weforum.org/glo...
and scoring high in this area (the US do) is indicative of advanced economies.

But then again, it may not...

Here in Ontario, Canada, we raised the minimum wage from $10.25 to $11.00, and unemployment went down in the following months and year, from around 7.5 %to 6.75% (source). While that doesn't prove that minimum wage increases never result in unemployment rises, it does disprove that they always result in unemployment rises.

Minimum wage increases killing jobs is a ridiculous notion - prices can always raise as well, and besides, the naysayers repeat this line almost Every. Single. Time. - even for overdue inflation-indexed increases, which generally casts doubt on their positions. In reality, it's a lot more complicated than that.

I will never understand why minimum wage is not tied to inflation rates - this is a ridiculous argument to have Every Five Years.

http://www.thenation.com/artic...
http://www.thestar.com/busines...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda...

Having a service where you are cheating customers by not revealing a major part of how a service works is a serious problem. Countries where people are more trusting of other people, corporations and their governments do better economically, and are better by a variety of other metrics (such as Gini coefficient). While there are serious correlation v. causation issues here, it is likely that a big part of this is that people are more willing to engage in transactions with people or institutions they aren't directly familiar with. See e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/trust-wealth_n_851519.html, http://www.pewglobal.org/2008/04/15/where-trust-is-high-crime-and-corruption-are-low/, https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/10/how-trusting-are-european-nations/, and http://www.oecd.org/forum/the-cost-of-mistrust.htm. This means that large corporations bilking customers is damaging to all of us at a large scale.

Well ... yes and no. Let me first admit that I feel that a lot of money in government is err ... wasted. And yes, we should be critical of how (our) public money is spent. But Government waste is often like advertising waste: the trick is to find out which _part_ is wasted.

Only ... I really don't think that all the federal, state, municipal governments in the US are particularly wasteful. They could be better, they could be worse (see e.g. http://www.businessinsider.com... here, http://www.weforum.org/reports... and here http://www3.weforum.org/docs/i... for a comparison with China).

That's why I most certainly don't agree with people who go around shouting their heads off about "the Government is wasting our money" (the rah-rah crowd I was referring to). I like roads without potholes, decent municipal services, bridges that don't collapse, decent (public !) education, and a high quality civil service. And yes, that all costs money.

And wherever mediocre people spend money within a thicket of rules (part of which serve to keep them accountable) they will waste part of it. You can try to remedy that after the fact (I'm in favour of that of course) but you can't very well prevent it.

So, yes, keep Government size in check. But don't skimp on those parts of Government we agreed we should have.

There are two sides to the Government Efficiency coin. Things that bug me is the endemic low level of salaries in certain Government functions, which I think results in people being hired whom you'd rather not see in such functions.

Teachers for a start. DHS screeners.

For example I admire the way Israeli airport security works. They're smart and well-educated, they're polite, and they're very thorough. They also receive a reasonable pay (which is why they're much more costly than their US counterparts). Err compare that to the average DHS airport screener and you'll see what I mean. We pay our airport screeners ... peanuts ... training is done on a shoestring, initiative is stamped out ("the book" is everything) and then we complain when we get less than stellar specimens checking us.

Didn't we bring at least part of that onto ourselves?

Well ... yes and no. Let me first admit that I feel that a lot of money in government is err ... wasted. And yes, we should be critical of how (our) public money is spent. But Government waste is often like advertising waste: the trick is to find out which _part_ is wasted.

Only ... I really don't think that all the federal, state, municipal governments in the US are particularly wasteful. They could be better, they could be worse (see e.g. http://www.businessinsider.com... here, http://www.weforum.org/reports... and here http://www3.weforum.org/docs/i... for a comparison with China).

That's why I most certainly don't agree with people who go around shouting their heads off about "the Government is wasting our money" (the rah-rah crowd I was referring to). I like roads without potholes, decent municipal services, bridges that don't collapse, decent (public !) education, and a high quality civil service. And yes, that all costs money.

And wherever mediocre people spend money within a thicket of rules (part of which serve to keep them accountable) they will waste part of it. You can try to remedy that after the fact (I'm in favour of that of course) but you can't very well prevent it.

So, yes, keep Government size in check. But don't skimp on those parts of Government we agreed we should have.

There are two sides to the Government Efficiency coin. Things that bug me is the endemic low level of salaries in certain Government functions, which I think results in people being hired whom you'd rather not see in such functions.

Teachers for a start. DHS screeners.

For example I admire the way Israeli airport security works. They're smart and well-educated, they're polite, and they're very thorough. They also receive a reasonable pay (which is why they're much more costly than their US counterparts). Err compare that to the average DHS airport screener and you'll see what I mean. We pay our airport screeners ... peanuts ... training is done on a shoestring, initiative is stamped out ("the book" is everything) and then we complain when we get less than stellar specimens checking us.

Didn't we bring at least part of that onto ourselves?

Singapore is ranked 2nd in terms of Global Competitiveness by the World Economic Forum:

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-competitiveness

I think I'll take the economist's endorsement over that of a bunch of self important journalists.

Low. Our youth was not rioting. Even today, when the US is supposedly in shit-shape, US youth unemployment is lower than Europe. Only North Africa and the Middle East are worse than Europe.

Isreal has the most gender-neutral society in the entire world.

The gender gap is fairly small in Israel, but you're right: it's nowhere near world-leading. Top honours go to Sweden (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Iceland (4). (Israel is #42.) The "full" list of 128 reporting countries is here
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Gender%20Gap/index.htm/

Every decade we have stories like this about other countries that are going to surpass the United States because of how much better they can cough up answers on tests (the stories have been happening since AT LEAST the early 70s in my memory). And yet, it never seems to happen.

Depending on what "other countries" are supposed to "surpass" the United States at, it may have already happened. For example, let's talk Information Technology. Isn't Denmark the current leader (with the US at number 7)? Another example: it was recently announced that the US is down to #3 in exports too.

Actually India is ranked 44th and you've got dyslexia. Also the study measures ICT readiness, not access to toilets. You can have access to the internet, but not to a toilet.. if you've ever been to India you'll see this is true

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/rankings2007.pdf

The WEF is based in Geneva and run by the Swiss government

http://www.weforum.org/en/about/index.htm

They had a pretty big meeting in Davos in January this year at which several heads of state were present - including Tony Blair and Angela Merkel (also Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and several other industry leaders)
Read about it at that other "USA hating jack-off organization":

http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/23/world-economic-fo rum-lead-lead-citizen-davos07_cx_ag_0123davos_land .html

But don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion.

Actually India is ranked 44th and you've got dyslexia. Also the study measures ICT readiness, not access to toilets. You can have access to the internet, but not to a toilet.. if you've ever been to India you'll see this is true

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/rankings2007.pdf

The WEF is based in Geneva and run by the Swiss government

http://www.weforum.org/en/about/index.htm

They had a pretty big meeting in Davos in January this year at which several heads of state were present - including Tony Blair and Angela Merkel (also Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and several other industry leaders)
Read about it at that other "USA hating jack-off organization":

http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/23/world-economic-fo rum-lead-lead-citizen-davos07_cx_ag_0123davos_land .html

But don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion.

See the rankings (PDF). Though the article says the U.S. is ranked seventh, you'll notice that the U.S. has the same score as the "#6" Netherlands, 5.54, so we are tied for sixth place. Countries with tied scores are ranked alphabetically.

For those of you giving the "haha" tag to this story, I'd like to point out that France is #23, and Russia is down on the second column at #70, three spots below that hi-tech powerhouse Botswana, which is tied with the Dominican "Silicon Island" Republic. :-)

Appropriately, Israel is recognized as 18.