My dear American friends and relatives, I have a question for you: why are you so stupid? Not all of you of course. But around 1:5 of US citizens are functionally illiterate. Meaning interviews and what not on tv need to be dubbed as some 20 percent can't read subtitles. In the Netherlands the percentage of basically illiterate people is only 18! Co-incidentally about the same percentage of people that vote for rightwing populists. Yes, I'm being cynical. Of course not everyone who is illiterate is also a racist and you also find racists amongst people with a university degree.
Of the 35 most 'developed' nations, gathered in the OECD (click), the USA ranks as number 31 as the country with the most 15 years old citizens being able to read and write at at least some level. Despite the fact the US government spends a whopping 35% more money on education per child than the average OECD country. Apparently simply pumping more money into education isn't productive. So, where do all those billions go to?
Glad you asked:
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Here is a very interesting piece of data, showing how The Netherlands and The USA compare to the average OECD-country in the fields of Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving:
OECD=blue
Netherlands=green
USA=red
At first glance anyone can see that especially under the younger people, the USA has some catching up to do. American companies are already giving grants to foreign students and hire skilled foreign workers. Simply because their US counterparts are not up to the task.
Worldwide US citizens can be found around the middle (click) of all countries when tested for literacy among the general population. If the USA wants to stay important in the next few decades, they will have to climb that ladder. Not only where it concerns reading and writing skills (can you read better than a 5th grader?), but also in the fields of digital literacy (can you set up your new smartphone or social media account within 20 minutes without help from friends or spouses?), media literacy (can you distinguish actual news from fake news?) and financial literacy (from the top of your head: how much do you pay for household gas? How much for internet at home? What's 14 times 6? How much is a liter of milk?).
In my opinion, my American friends can benefit a lot from at least trying not to rake up debt. You don't want to be the laughing stock of millions of people like these newly-weds (click), do you?
In short: it's really, really stupid to spend $300,000 annually when your income is a 'mere' $250,000.
So, just stop buying stuff like food in bulk 'because it's cheaper per item!'. Because it's not since you throw about half the food you just bought 'cheaply' away (okay, only some 40% (click). I was exaggerating). Stop using your credit card from a company that charges 20% interest; instead of paying $10 for a movie theater ticket, you end up paying $12.
Basically: if you can't afford it, don't buy it. Which goes for everyone who doesn't want to still be in debt when their funeral is being arranged, not just for Americans.
Another interesting piece of data reveals that the wealthier a country, the higher the household debt per capita (click).
In part that's simply because people living in the richest cities, also have the highest mortgages. But there are also other factors in play.
What do you think? Is it a problem, being in debt, or should we just do like banks and other large companies (click) and ask for a couple of billion from our country's taxpayers to bail us out?
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