"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 07:13:58 -0500, Dave Hall wrote:



Freedom of choice is a big factor in the quality of life. It tends to
cancel out many of the other issues.

In the Human Development Index, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada,
Netherlands, Belgium and Iceland were higher than us. Perhaps, you could
state what freedoms they are lacking.


" The UN Human Development Index (HDI) measures poverty, literacy,
education, life expectancy, and other factors. It is a standard means of
measuring well-being, especially child welfare."

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...elopment-Index

That index gets 1/3 of it's weighting from adult literacy and education.
It's possible that the US lags in adult literacy because we have a greater
influx of non-English speaking immigrants than the 7 countries ahead of us.



But, you are right about achieving wealth, the United States mean wealth
is the highest of any country, unfortunately it's median wealth is much
lower.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...-United-States

And here is why: "other countries are more ready to sacrifice net wealth in
favour of equality".

We have a guaranteed equality of opportunity...not a guaranteed equality of
wealth.