The U.S. Falls To 23rd On The World Happiness Report

 Chart is from the 2024 World Happiness Report

How Americans View Other Countries

The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between February 1st and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,016 adults, with a 4 point margin of error. 

The Best And Worst Countries In The World

 These charts are from the U.S. News and World Report. You can go here to see how they arrived at their rankings of the countries.

Favorable Views Of Countries By U.S. Adults

The chart above is from a Gallup Poll -- done between February 1st and 23rd of a nationwide sample of 1,008 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

The Best And Worst Countries For LGBT Community

 

Gallup Poll

Countries Rated Most Favorable/Unfavorable By U.S. Public

 The chart above is from the Gallup Poll - done between February 1st and 17th of a nationwide sample of 1,008 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Events In These Countries Make A Difference To Americans?

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between February 12th and 15th of a nationwide sample of 1,500 adults, with a 2.7 point margin of error.

Biden's Approval Is Strong Compared To 12 Other Leaders

These charts are from the Morning Consult Poll. They represent a 7-day running average of 1,000 adults queried each day in 12 countries (and 5,000 in the U.S.). The margin of error for each country is between 1 and 3 points.
 

Poll Shows What Americans Think Of Other Countries

 The chart above is from the Gallup Poll. It was done between February 3rd and 18th of a national sample of 1,021 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

U.S. Trails Other Countries In Giving Women Respect/Dignity

The United States prides itself on equality -- giving respect and dignity to all its citizens. But is that a reality, or just a comfortable myth. The Gallup Poll questioned men and women in 21 countries -- the United States, Canada, and 19 European nations (all of them developed nations). They asked at least 1,000 people in each country if they thought women were treated with respect and dignity in their country.

The United States did not fare well in the survey. Out of the 21 nations, the U.S. finished dead last. Only 48% of women in the U.S. said they were treated with respect and dignity, while 70% of men said that. The women's opinion was lower than in every one of the other 20 countries (and the only country to have less than 50%). The men's opinion was lower than in all but one country (Italy tied among men).

This should embarrass every U.S. citizen -- men and women. We must do better than this. The old patriarchy needs to die. Everyone deserves respect and dignity.

U.S. Has Too Many Guns And Too Little Control Of Them

These charts are from the Small Arms Survey. That survey estimates that there are 857,396,100 firearms in civilian hands worldwide. About 393,347,000 of them are in the United States (about 45.88%). In fact, the United States is the only country in the world that has more forearms in civilian hands than its total population. There are 120.5 firearms per 100 people in the U.S. (or about 1.2 guns for every citizen).

That's a problem, and the problem is exacerbated by a failure to control those firearms. We let each state make its own firearms laws. Some have stricter laws and others have very lax laws. But the states with stricter laws have a problem because their citizens can just go to a state with lax laws to get whatever they want.

This is the biggest reason we have over 30,000 gun deaths each year in this country (including over 12,000 homicides by gun) -- and an average of one mass shooting every day (a shooting that kills or injures four or more people). The other reason is that our politicians are too gutless to do anything about it. They put NRA campaign money over the lives of American citizens -- refusing to even plug the holes in the federal background check law for people buying a gun. This lets anyone (criminal, terrorist, dangerously mentally ill, perpetrators of domestic violence, etc.) buy any kind of weapon and as much ammunition as they want.

They will tell you the guns are needed for protection against criminals. That's ridiculous. All other countries have criminals. They just don't let them have easy access to firearms. They try to blame it on mental illness. But all countries have mentally ill people. They just don't let them have easy access to firearms.

Gun lovers and politicians can make all the excuses they want, but we have a gun problem in this country, and we need to do something about it.

The chart below shows the firearms per 100 people of some other prominent countries.

Is The U.S. Big Enough To Dictate Trade Policy To Others?

Right after World War II, the United States economy was undoubtably the strongest in the world. One reason for that is because the European and Asian countries were devastated by the war and trying to recover. It left the United States in a position to dictate economic policy to the world.

The United States continues to have the biggest economy in the world -- with a gross domestic product of about $20.41 billion. Is that big enough to bully the rest of the world into accepting U.S. trade policy. Donald Trump seems to think it is. He thinks he can put tariffs on other countries, and force them to give in to U.S. economic desires.

He is wrong. While there are a lot of smaller countries that the U.S. can bully, Trump is picking on some economic entities that are now big enough to withstand the pressure and fight back. He is trying to bully China, the European Union, and the G-6 nations (the G-7 without the U.S.).

Those entities do not have tiny economies anymore. China has a GDP of $14.09 billion (and its growing fast). The G-6 countries have a GDP of $19.22 billion (and Trump's performance last weekend has united them). And the European Union has a GDP of $19.67 billion (less than a billion below the United States).

They are big enough to play economic hardball with the United States -- and that is especially true if you combine the G-6 and China, or the European Union and China. Trump has said a trade war would be easy to win, but he's picking on economic entities that are strong and capable of fighting back. They can hurt the U.S. as much (maybe more) than the U.S. can hurt them in a trade war.

Trump is living in the past, but the world has changed. In this modern world, we must get along with our allies and follow policies that are good for all -- not just the United States.

United States Slips To Eighth In The "Best Country List"

The U.S. News & World Report has issued it's Best Country List for 2018. Switzerland remained in first place, followed by Canada and Germany. The United States dropped to eighth (from seventh in last year's list).

Countries are judged in each of nine categories, and then ranked in each category. The lower the score on the chart above (which shows the 25 best countries), the better.

Here's how they describe their methodology:

The subrankings, their weights in calculating the overall ranking score and the country attributes factored into each are below. The country attribute scores were equally weighted within each subranking. Subranking weights do not add up to precisely 100.00 due to rounding.

Adventure (3.24 percent): friendly, fun, pleasant climate, scenic, sexy

Citizenship (16.95 percent): cares about human rights, cares about the environment, gender equality, progressive, religious freedom, respects property rights, trustworthy, well-distributed political power

Cultural Influence (12.93 percent): culturally significant in terms of entertainment, fashionable, happy, has an influential culture, modern, prestigious, trendy

Entrepreneurship (17.42 percent): connected to the rest of the world, educated population, entrepreneurial, innovative, provides easy access to capital, skilled labor force, technological expertise, transparent business 
practices, well-developed infrastructure, well-developed legal framework

Heritage (3.17 percent): culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions

Movers (10.00 percent): different, distinctive, dynamic, unique

Open for Business (11.99 percent): bureaucratic, cheap manufacturing costs, corrupt, favorable tax environment, transparent government practices

Power (7.42 percent): a leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military

Quality of Life (16.89 percent): a good job market, affordable, economically stable, family friendly, income equality, politically stable, safe, well-developed public education system, well-developed public health system

To arrive at a country's rank, we first calculated its standardized scores for each of the 65 country attributes. Each country received nine subranking scores by averaging its scores for the country attributes grouped into that subranking. A country's overall score reflects the weighted sum of its subranking scores. The subranking and overall scores were rescaled so that the top country in each category received a value of 100, and others were calculated as a proportion of that top score. Scores were ranked in descending order.

Residents Of G-20 Countries Trust Merkel More Than Trump

This chart reflects the results of the Spring global survey done by the Pew Research Center. It shows what the residents of the G-20 nations think about Donald Trump and Angela Merkel -- and which they would trust more to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

In the past, most of these nations would trust the U.S. president over other world leaders. That is no longer true. Now, in 14 of the 17 nations queried, the residents would trust Germany's Angela Merkel over Donald Trump to do the right thing. Only Russia and India would trust Trump more -- while South Africa is split between trusting Trump and Merkel.

Trump is not even trusted more than Merkel in the United States. About 56% in the U.S. would trust Merkel to do the right thing, while only 46% would Trust Trump to do the right thing -- a substantial 10 point advantage for Merkel.

Trump Compares Poorly To Leaders Of Other Democracies

The chart above shows what the American public thinks of the leaders of five of the largest and wealthiest democracies. It shows each leaders net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable). And it doesn't make Donald Trump look very good. He is the only one to have a negative net favorability (-14). The others are Trudeau-Canada (+11), Merkel-Germany (+11), Macron-France (+7), and May-Great Britain (+4).

The chart uses information in a new Public Policy Polling survey -- done between June 9th and 11th of a random national sample of 811 registered voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.

U.S. Trails 13 Other Nations In Having "Happy" Citizens

From the Gallup Poll.