In 1988, the US was ranked "the best place to be born." Today it is #16. What happened?

Kind of not fair. There should be some kind of scale based on populations.

It is no surprise to see Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the top 5. I was surprised Finland was 11. Normally these 4 aka...the "Nordic example" all score very high.

But they are very small population centers. In the great frozen north, those people rely heavily on each other, need each other...and therefore, they take steps to take care of each other. Not a big secret. There seems to be a drop off point, population wise, where people lose concern about the welfare of their neighbors...not sure what that is but if you look at the USA population growth...we were a much better place when we were in the 230-250 million range. At 315-330 million...we have too many people to maintain the lifestyle we used to have...simple as that.

But aside from that...what happened.

The Fed Gov took over education. The Repubs cry about the caliber of people that voted...maybe because they were publicly educated by a Federally ran system? Give it back to the states for crying out loud!

Selling products became first priority...buying them became second and being able to afford them was totally irrelevant..."I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". Consumerism went off the charts into pure stupidity.

MSM disinformation has caused a split of ideology....

People do not have "national Pride" anymore. Most people do not care about making the country great again...they just want some shiz and they don't care how they get it or who pays for it.

Originally posted by Trustfund
Trickle down economics is what happened.

Trickle down economics or trickle down government taking away our rights and freedoms?

Well it doesn't surprise me to see Britain on the decline. I'm only 28 but even I can remember how good the 80's were and the 90's. Low and behold Labour in power though, unleashed the cheque book to unlimited spending and opened the doors to mass immigration that wasn't even controlled or counted. So now we are in debt and have a country riddled with people who don't speak the language and don't give a damn about trying to live our way of life or integrating with us. Add to that a law has just been passed where anyone who comes here from another country for longer than 24 hours we have to give them free health care which comes out of our tax money from working....... Treacherous and spineless politicians is what has ruined this country. It's reached a point where British people don't even have hope or pride in their home land any more.

It's hard for me to take the the most up to date list seriously.....in the first list there is the UK and Ireland (or Republic of Ireland ) which is correct.
In the second list it only shows Britain and Ireland...there are a few issues with this.Britain is what England and Wales used to be called collectively.... Scotland, England and Wales together formed Great Britain.....on a wider note the the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island ( or UK for short) obviously includes northern Island .....
I can live with us being referred to as Britain instead of great Britain ( i live in England) it's no biggy if not technically correct....But what the hell happened to Northern Island in the second list then? It seems they don't exist! as they are separate from the Republic of Ireland and the second list as omitted to acknowledge them by not listing UK instead of Great Britain.

It may sound like i am being picky and perhaps the average person on the street doesn't necessarily understand there is a difference...but i would have thought a credible study would!

The loss of liberty. This rankled with me the most. Down the years, from gregarious backslappers to timid mice impersonating Canadians. This is so heartbreaking if you get my drift.

Seen them all. From the undignified exit from Vietnam, Iranian hostages crisis to the Marines barrack bombings in 83, America by far was still the best country on earth. What went horribly wrong from there on ???

We managed to accumulate enemies like there's no tomorrows and the Carefree America is busted. Pity those who were born amidst the strife and discord of today and never get to taste the America of just a generation ago but instead got the TSA feels up and the draconian Patriots Act. SAD !!!!

reply to post by silent thunder


I always wanted to live in Ireland. This just gives me another reason.

reply to post by silent thunder


When America was great it was because it was more profitable to be great. Nowadays, it is more profitable to sell your people out. Nearly every country shows evidence of this trend.

Do not fall for politics. It is a farce. Lust of money and the power it brings is what controls the men at the top.

reply to post by solidguy


Trickle down economics.

This list obviously doesn't take into account that Australia is full of Australians.
That accent will make you poke your eardrums in about a week.

Woah.. we are just above UAE, SK, and Israel. That's not good. We (as well as Germany) are the last of the places any reasonable person would choose.
I don't understand why Ireland is above though. Thought they were having some problems.

France after Israel and Kuwait?

All I'm going to say is this... since when is being ranked 16 bad when you consider how many countries there are in the world? The US isn't perfect and guess what? And I know this might shock a lot of you here..but neither is any other country!

The majority of Americans are happy to be born here,you can bet on that. I know the USA hate is strong here on ATS(even from Americans) but on the world stage,it means nothing.

Originally posted by GrimReaper86
reply to post by silent thunder

 

I always wanted to live in Ireland. This just gives me another reason.

Ireland kind of sucks, Wet and cold, poor jobs, small living areas... I'll stay right here in America.

Someone brought this up that most of these countries have small populations that don't even equal one state. I think there should be two lists...countries under 100 million and those over 100 million. By the nature of it now we could just look at each state and compare them to whole countries.

Originally posted by Lucas73
This list obviously doesn't take into account that Australia is full of Australians.
That accent will make you poke your eardrums in about a week.

Ouch! That hurts

second

reply to post by GrimReaper86


My wife is from Ireland, no one there; for the most part they all left....those that wanted to or could.

To the OP....perhaps the news got out in 1988....and here we are today....

Perhaps that helps in bringing down the statures of a desired place to live. I would like to leave for several reasons and the afore mentioned by link is one.

We can't be everything to all the world, 65% of our budget (Federally) is for entitlements. State levels are not included.

The US was a good place to be. Eg. I renewed my licenses just a few months back. Had to fill out a form. They "ran out of English"...had about 20+ languages available....even asked me if I could read Spanish. Really? Seriously? How about make everyone learn English before they can drive and have 1 form?

Over saturation and under reporting...Giant government...I mean where to start? Where? Bleeding from every artery....pfft

MG

In 1988, the US was ranked "the best place to be born." Today it is #16. What happened?

All you kids under 25 were born is what happened!!.

The intentional destruction of our economy, educational system, health system, religious and social life has finally caught up with us.

I'm 53 and when I was a kid I remember the feeling of freedom knowing that not every phone call you made was being listened to, no cameras on street post or buildings. You could do quite a bit of mischief and actually get away with it. It all worked out because eventually most of us got caught and learned our lesson.

We used to make sport of trashing mailboxes while riding around just to work off frustrations. Got caught and instead of paying a fine or going to jail the guy whose mailbox we'd trashed told the judge we could work it off for him by doing yard work. By acting like a human being the guy won our respect and sympathy. We cut brush on his place and when we finished he invited us back to go swimming. How often do you hear stories like that anymore?

People have changed with the times and generally not for the better. The digital age is taking an unseen toll on us physically, mentally, emotionally. Were it up to me I would only allow people 2 hours a day of any and all digital media including the web, video games and cell phone use. It's crippling us all.

There goes the credibility of this list. US and West Germany the best places to be born in 1988?

And 2012, the ranking of Kuwait is even more laughable.

We've been sold down the Yangtze.

Germany is doing as bad as the us? Really? And you are still better off in Israel under threat by Hamas than in Italy? I am wondering about the criteria of that list.

You don't have to go much further than the first page of comments in this thread to get your answer, OP. We, The People have fallen for the lies put forward by our corrupt government and complicit media. While those among us who have identified themselves as "conservative" or "liberal" point fingers at each other over who is to blame, the criminals in Washington D.C., along with their cronies in boardrooms and newsrooms across America, are laughing all the way to the bank.

So much of what Mr. Jeff Daniels' character says in that video clip is spot on. There are far too many people who identify themselves by who they voted for in the last election and I am disgusted on a daily basis by the way that science and intelligence are feared and ridiculed by so many modern Americans. The fact that Creationism is being taught as "science" in some classrooms is but one symptom of this.

Money has become God and greed has become a virtue. I fear for The Republic.

What happened was simple. We stopped investing in our most valuable resource: our people. I'm not talking about welfare, I'm talking about education and infrastructure.

We decided that it was not the government's place to help it's people, only the big corporations and the mythical "job creators." We decided that if big corporations and the mythical "job creators" got what they wanted, we'd all be employed and all of the other problems, including the deficit, would take care of themselves.

So we put a ton of money into it in the form of tax cuts for the corporations and "job creators."

It didn't work.

It probably won't ever work.

But we haven't figured that out yet, and many of us would rather demonize the people who are trying to correct it.

And there you have America 2012.