Is the U.S. the Greatest Country on Earth?

I’ve always enjoyed this clip from the first episode of the HBO series The Newsroom, which provides a pretty strong response to those who believe the U.S. is still the greatest country in the world. Nicholas Kristof wrote an interesting Op Ed in the New York Times Wednesday, that provided further evidence toward that rather risque proclamation in a country that loves the “love it or leave it” mantra. In fact it appears that we are falling behind those annoying “socialist” countries in quality of life and economic development. The data on the United States, which comes from the Social Progress Index, speaks for itself …

• Ranks 16^th overall in the ratings behind New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands,  Norway, Sweden,  Canada, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Austria, Germany, UK, Japan, Ireland.
• 70^th in health
• 69^th in ecosystem sustainability
• 39^th in basic education
• 34^th in access to water and sanitation
• 31^st in personal safety
• The U.S. economy outperformed France’s between 1975 and 2006 but 99% of the French population enjoyed more gains in that period than 99 percent of Americans.

Any questions, beyond how do we fix this?