Quote: (10-24-2013 04:41 PM)Samseau Wrote:
As for the article, the charts mean nothing because America has a huge population of minorities that are part of the underclass. If you just took the college educated population of the USA, I'm sure we'd top the charts.
I do think there is something to what Samseau is saying. They are comparing the USA which has a large minority population(black and Latino) and comparing them to largely homogenous countries in Europe and East Asia. Since there's large disparities in performance between white Americans and blacks and Latinos, you are going to see an average that looks lower for the U.S.
So if you don't break this down ethnically, the results don't say much. White Americans if separated out are probably on par with their European counterparts. Obviously Latinos in America do better than Latinos in Latin America and blacks in America do better than blacks in Africa, but you have to consider the gap in education attainment between the groups and the implications that has on the nationwide average.
America's economy doesn't function equally for everyone and prosperity comes rather selectively. Even if the country is sliding downhill on average, it will always be good for certain types of people when you have a two-tier economy. Think Brazil if you want to see where we're headed.