That said, as on other, similar surveys, small, homogenous countries like Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and South Korea outrank us on many things. But, given where most EU member nations rank, taking the EU as a whole, it would quite possibly outrank the U.S., too.
At the same time, leave it to Newsweek to tell a mainstream media lie about how, really, no really, the United States isn't an empire:
America spends more on defense than the rest of the industrialized world combined, not because it is inherently militaristic, but because the United States is the enforcer of the international system.
And, as long as the MSM tells lies like this, America will be inherently militaristic, as Mark Twain knew more than a century ago.
However, Chinese autocratic "capitalism" (which is really no more "capitalistic" than the U.S.) isn't a model for the rest of the world, either. Rather, "old" Europe may not be so sclerotic:
To put it bluntly, European businesses are kicking America's ass, as well as Japan's and China's. And the rest of the BRIC nations besides China. And, the earlier core EU of Western Europe could actually pick up the pace more. Picture EU expansion as being, other than the Greek debt crisis, something like how NAFTA was really supposed to work here in the New World, but didn't, primarily due to American big business greed, callousness and more.
And, since French President Sarkozy hosts the G8 and G20 later this year, has been making noise about more financial reform, and the EU in general has done more than just make noise about other regulatory tightening in the last couple of years, Obama had better sit up and take notice.
Anyway, here's how we stack up against 99 other countries on five metrics.
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