American economic dominance

[Moliere]

It’s probably not the best measure, but I’ve yet to see an economic measurement that doesn’t have the USA at or near the top.

[chrisrenrut]

A different metric just dropped and it not only shows America is richer than everyone else, it shows that every individual state is richer than everyone else.

Embedded Tweet

USA! USA! USA!

Is consumption a great measurement of “richer”?

Maybe not when you consider that “55% of US consumers carry credit card balances to cover essential expenses.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/11/ny-f...-persists.html

[Moliere]

That is pretty amazing scholarship. Essentially, folks who take care of their teeth have better lives. I wonder what the data tells us for folks who go to bed on time, do their homework and eat vegetables as part of their dinner as well? The big problem will always be the inability to redistribute parenting skills. If that home didn't teach them while in their youth to go to bed on time, do their homework and have vegetables with their dinner their public provided pretty smile won't do all the gee whiz things the wankers tell us it did for folk who had pretty smiles in the past. There are likely a thousand things the data can focus in on without really figuring out why folks have good lives.

Maybe the answer is to have the state parent the children. That way the parenting skills can all be the same and no one will have a disproportionate advantage over another

[Goatnapper'96]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9118621/

"There is a positive relationship between tooth retention, overall health, and quality of life. Older adults retaining ≥ 20 teeth are less likely to experience poorer health. Having < 20 teeth increases the likelihood for functional dependence and onset of disability, and may affect successful ageing. This review supports the general finding that the more teeth older adults retain as they age, the less likely they are to have adverse health outcomes. However, significant knowledge gaps remain which can limit decision-making affecting successful ageing for many older adults. This review highlights the need to consider, as an important marker of oral health and function, the retention of a functional minimum of a natural dentition, rather than a simple numeric score of missing teeth."

That's just one research article. There are many, many more.

That is pretty amazing scholarship. Essentially, folks who take care of their teeth have better lives. I wonder what the data tells us for folks who go to bed on time, do their homework and eat vegetables as part of their dinner as well? The big problem will always be the inability to redistribute parenting skills. If that home didn't teach them while in their youth to go to bed on time, do their homework and have vegetables with their dinner their public provided pretty smile won't do all the gee whiz things the wankers tell us it did for folk who had pretty smiles in the past. There are likely a thousand things the data can focus in on without really figuring out why folks have good lives.

[Moliere]

A different metric just dropped and it not only shows America is richer than everyone else, it shows that every individual state is richer than everyone else.

Embedded Tweet

USA! USA! USA!

[Jeff Lebowski]

You used to be cool.

You used to have a sense of humor.

[wuapinmon]

This is how canadapoors and europoors cope.

You used to be cool.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is how canadapoors and europoors cope.

[tooblue]

Exactly. The stated goal in the methodology is "To understand how countries are perceived."

The study was not designed to determine which country has the highest standard of living, has the most individual rights, is the safest, or is the most economically dominant. It's all about understanding perception.

Tooblue - there are around 100 counties on the list and the survey asked each respondent about 1/3 of the list. Their targeted respondents were "engaged citizens who are broadly representative of the global population." While it's certainly possible that all 15k respondents had personal experiences in each of the 30+countries they were asked about, it is not likely.

It's much more likely that their sample consists primarily of people who have not traveled extensively since that is more representative of the global population.

Insanely weird and difficult past week, and then my original post took a week to be posted—also weird (unless Jeff was censoring me ... )

I get that y'all don't like the data, but that does not mean it is not valid, regardless unsupported suppositions such as: "their sample consists primarily of people who have not traveled extensively since that is more representative of the global population." And here is some other data:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-countries-for-quality-of-life?slide=2

And at this link below there are swaths of data that can be sifted through:

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/measuring-a-life-well-lived/

Consistently, regardless the source, the US ranks in the middle or lower half of these "studies." That's a fact.

[Omaha 680]

I wrote a brilliant response to the Wharton quality of life "study", but it was lost to history. Summary: Livability or quality of life scores are inherently subjective. However, if you want the study to have any meaning at all, the scoring/weighting methodlolgy should include at least SOME objective data points. The fact that the "study" used survey data of perceptions and didn't include actual statistics like PPP, GDP per capita, percentage of population with access to certain modern conveniences, life expectancy, violent crime rates, tax burden, etc. makes the study worthy of publishing on Buzzfeed.

[wuapinmon]

I refute that pretty teeth ought to be public responsibility!

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9118621/

"There is a positive relationship between tooth retention, overall health, and quality of life. Older adults retaining ≥ 20 teeth are less likely to experience poorer health. Having < 20 teeth increases the likelihood for functional dependence and onset of disability, and may affect successful ageing. This review supports the general finding that the more teeth older adults retain as they age, the less likely they are to have adverse health outcomes. However, significant knowledge gaps remain which can limit decision-making affecting successful ageing for many older adults. This review highlights the need to consider, as an important marker of oral health and function, the retention of a functional minimum of a natural dentition, rather than a simple numeric score of missing teeth."

That's just one research article. There are many, many more.

[wally]

Here's the link to the actual study by the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. The methodology is explained starting on page 6:

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Best-Countries-Index-2026.pdf

As far objectivity is concerned, all data is subjective—humans are incapable of being objective. So, the "data" compiled in the index is not invalid because it is based primarily on surveys.

"The attributes were grouped into ten thematic factors that formed the basis of the Best Countries rankings: Adventure, Agility, Cultural Influence, Entrepreneurship, Heritage, Movers, Open for Business, Power, Quality of Life, and Social Purpose. Each country's score for a given factor was determined by averaging the scores it received across the attributes comprising that factor.

To determine the weight assigned to each factor in the overall Best Countries score, the factors were correlated with 2025 gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita. This measure, reported by the World Bank, provides an indicator of inclusive prosperity that is comparable across countries. The standardized correlations were then used as the weights assigned to each factor in the overall rankings."

Wharton probably just borrowed the algorithm for college football playoff rankings and then renamed a few of the variables.

[Goatnapper'96]

You mock me, but you also can't refute me.

I refute that pretty teeth ought to be public responsibility!

[Jeff Lebowski]

As I see it, this isn't about the quality or reliability of the data. It's about what is the study actually measuring. That's all you can draw reliable conclusions from. I didn't dig into the methodology as Pelado seems to have, but if it asked people outside the US to answer about their perceptions of all these countries then this data shows the US has an image problem internationally. Whether it is true or not that the US is actually worse to live in than China, that is not what this data actually measured, so you can't draw that conclusion from this data, as it was not designed to answer that. Trump has worked hard to do things that would result in hurting our reputation, so this result isn't surprising to me.

Any rational and even remotely objective person who has been to both America and China knows that this is an absurd comparison. Not to mention anyone who values basic human rights.

[Pelado]

As I see it, this isn't about the quality or reliability of the data. It's about what is the study actually measuring. That's all you can draw reliable conclusions from. I didn't dig into the methodology as Pelado seems to have, but if it asked people outside the US to answer about their perceptions of all these countries then this data shows the US has an image problem internationally. Whether it is true or not that the US is actually worse to live in than China, that is not what this data actually measured, so you can't draw that conclusion from this data, as it was not designed to answer that. Trump has worked hard to do things that would result in hurting our reputation, so this result isn't surprising to me.

Exactly. The stated goal in the methodology is "To understand how countries are perceived."

The study was not designed to determine which country has the highest standard of living, has the most individual rights, is the safest, or is the most economically dominant. It's all about understanding perception.

Tooblue - there are around 100 counties on the list and the survey asked each respondent about 1/3 of the list. Their targeted respondents were "engaged citizens who are broadly representative of the global population." While it's certainly possible that all 15k respondents had personal experiences in each of the 30+countries they were asked about, it is not likely.

It's much more likely that their sample consists primarily of people who have not traveled extensively since that is more representative of the global population.