Is America the Greatest Country in the World?

The new HBO series, the made some news itself when it debuted because of a scene in the first episode that shows the protagonist anchorman, played by Jeff Daniels, deliver a biting soliloquy on American decline. of the scene, which bills itself as the “most honest three and a half minutes of television ever,” has garnered more than one million Internet hits.

In short, Daniels, sitting on a panel, is asked by an earnest young woman why America is the greatest country in the world. After a tirade of statistics to rebut the poor woman, Daniels’ character concludes: “The first step in solving any problem is to recognize there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”

It’s no wonder that the YouTube alone has generated a million views. The soliloquy is bipartisan and strikes a chord with many Americans concerned about the contrast between their youthful vision of America’s greatness and its present day economic malaise. Many Americans may agree with President Obama’s statement, “I believe in American exceptional ism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptional ism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptional ism.”

While I believe that Americans share a sense of pride, nationalism and love for their country, they may not necessarily think about it every second of the day. I think we are an exceptional country and I am eternally thankful that I was lucky enough to be born here and express my passion about the greatness of this nation.

I disagree fully with the often-misstated statistics that suggest we are just another declining country. The statistics quoted are sheer bull.

Take for example the statistics that justified the passage of the Obama care. These statistics suggest that the American healthcare system is worse off than other countries because of poor infant mortality and longevity rates. While this may be true, those statistics have nothing to do with our healthcare system and everything to do with our lifestyle. Eating right and exercising daily are what improve these rates, not government mandated healthcare. But when it comes to treating and curing life-threatening diseases, America is the best in the world proved in part by the fact that most of the world’s wealthy travel here for treatment.

Critics of American exceptional ism next attack our education system, calling it a complete failure. Yes, the numbers are scary if you look at But consider two facts. First, we have a diverse and extremely large population, and the highlighted statistics are often average scores that mask the huge number of high achievers. Our pre-college education system has challenges, yet citizens of other nations increasingly want their children educated in the United States. More, we have some of the world’s best universities, and we see Chinese government officials strive to send their children to U.S. schools at increasingly younger ages. Indeed, China sends  to American schools. Second, it’s not the basics or rote learning that makes an American education valuable: it’s the culture of innovation that we imbue. We may not be the best at basics, but we are phenomenal at teaching students to challenge the status quo. Our First Amendment, our immigrant and diverse culture, our “can-do” attitude and our entrepreneurial spirit come together to produce a nation of innovators.

We lead the world in Internet innovation, music, movies, biotech and many other technological fields that require out-of-the-box thinking. From Apple to DreamWorks Studios, from Amazon to Zynga, we are the world’s innovators. As I travel the world and speak about these issues I am increasingly aware that the government of virtually every other country in the world wants their citizens to be as innovative as Americans.

We certainly have problems, and we must address them. Our politicians and even our voters are failing to deal with the big issues. We focus on meaningless political squabbles as the cost and reality of rapidly growing entitlements threaten to send us into an economic tailspin. We are living today rather than investing for tomorrow. And we are raising youth who may not understand the values that we once shared as a nation.

However, I am passionate that our nation was, still is and can remain the best in world. We not only owe it to our children to act to preserve our greatness, but we must also honor those who have served and risked their life and limb in our Armed Forces to preserve our nation and its freedoms.

We are a beacon for the world. Our challenge is not to lament our decline or even celebrate our exceptionalism; it is to come together with true leadership that can unite us as we sacrifice to preserve and expand our greatness.

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies, and author of the New York Times bestselling book,

A Department for Education spokesman said the test results showed the strength in problem solving

• There were also big regional differences. Northern Italy had some of the best results in the world, while schools in southern Italy were far below average.
• Colombia, Bulgaria and Uruguay had the lowest results.
• Head teachers’ leader Brian Lightman described the results as “excellent news”.
• “Graduates need core knowledge in subjects like maths and English, but they also need to be able to apply this to tackle complex and unpredictable tasks with confidence,” said Mr Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
• “Good problem-solving skills give young people an edge in the world of work and prepare them to move into top jobs and leadership positions.”
• A Department for Education spokesman said the test results showed the strength in problem solving.
• “But they also confirm that generally those who perform best in maths, reading and science – Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong and South Korea – are also those who do best in problem solving.
• “This connection between the core subjects and problem solving underlines why we are focusing on the basics in the rigorous new primary curriculum, and why reformed GCSEs and A-levels will have open-ended questions which encourage lateral thinking.”

England’s schools succeed in problem

• After many disappointments in international school tests, these latest global rankings from the OECD put England in 11th place.
• The OECD puts England as second highest in Europe, behind Finland, in tests of how pupils can apply their knowledge.
• Singapore and South Korea were top in tests taken by 15-year-olds.
• These problem-solving tests were taken at the same time as the Pisa tests, which compare how well pupils perform in maths, reading and science.

• Rather than testing theoretical knowledge, the problem-solving tests examined how well teenagers could use their knowledge in practical questions.

  For example, it presented pupils with a range of information about different types of train tickets and asked them to work out the cheapest price for a journey.

   

Is Nigeria d only country with corruption

@Goodyear,If u think corruption is our problem.it is a point BUT consider d following.
1.Is Nigeria d only country with corruption,obviously NO.
2.How about corrupt developed countries!,Do u think is impossible to have a corrupt developed country
Well, corrupt develops countries are d highest type of country u can think of;If u disagree mention d so call developed
country u will see Tyndall.ALL COUNTRIES are corrupt.corrupt. In fact,dye are more corrupt because most of Dem have been in existence 
many years b4 d birth of NIGERIA.statistically speaking dye should be ELIMINATED corruption but here we are.
or did u think DAT d former NAIAD corrupt-governor DAT disguised as a woman & escape 4 rm UK did DAT without d back up of d CORRUPT
uk authorities?
4.If corruption is our problem,Why is d telecommunication sector working?,did ANACONDA ever worked?why?
3.Can u imagine how creative with production sector NIGERIAN will b if we have functional POWER?don’t u think d ABA/ibo guys can do wot
did Chinese guys are doing DAT has put dear country on global map?
4.do u think people will still see politics as d only available job when dear is functional power?IF no den,corruption will DIE a natural death!
5.FORBES says dear are 4 billionaire in AFRICA,yet a NIGERIAN without electricity is no,& best entrepreneur for 2010 GLOBALLY(dis is just an attestation 4 our ability)
THERE,forget corruption & fix d power sector and see if our name(NIGERIA) will not OVERSHADOW d corrupt-label DAT pole are making necessary noise
about!dIS IS EXACTLY D SITUATION IN MOST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES!!!!!

Nigeria Is A Good Country.we Have Only One Problem

I ve always wonder why so many people think Nigeria’s problems are so complex?
infact,some pple think is so many!
The worst of this,is dat pple think that dis problems are peculiar to NIGERIA alone.i.e not obtained
in d so called developed countries.
All dis are BIG LIES!

it may interest u to know dat Nigeria’s problem is NOT:
Corruption,security,bad education system etc, What den is our problem.?
The ONLY problem Nigeria has is POWER GENERATION.dis singular problem is d brain behind every other perceived problems 
u can ever think of.Just go practical, pick up ur pen and start writing down practical ways to solve our national problems & u will 
notice dat none of dem will succeed without STABLE POWER as a source of electricity to d country.

Reverse d trend and assume dat Nigeria has uninterrupted power for years like most countries do,and start writing practical
way to solve our problems.U wil discover dat dey are all workable!
WOT is ur OPINION:WARNING:This thread is for people dat think only.

And The World’s Best Problem-Solvers Are…

1. American students are barely above the average of 44 countries and economies in problem-solving skills, far behind teens in Asia, according to the first international test of that attribute in 15-year-old.
2. U.S. teens on average earned a score of 508 on the Programmer for International Student Assessment — Creative Problem Solving test, between top-ranked Singapore’s 562 and bottom-ranked Colombia’s 399. The PISA results, released Tuesday, put U.S. students in the middle of the pack, hardly supporting the American workforce reputation for creativity.
3. PISA is an international test for 15-year-old that has been administered in reading, math, and science since 2000. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development — the Paris-based group behind the test — administered the computer-based problem-solving test for the first time in 2012 in response to a job market that increasingly demands what the group called “non-routine analytic” and “non-routine personal tasks.”
4. “This is the reason why the countries that participated in PISA decided this was an important area,” said Pablo Zoido, an OECD analyst.

1. The U.S. performed higher than 28 countries. The U.S. ranked from 12th to 21st place — the rank is imprecise because of the lack of statistical significance separating mid-pack performers — with results close to Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy. Singapore, Korea and Japan came out on top, followed by China, Finland, Canada and Australia. Colombia and Bulgaria were lowest.
2. American students fared particularly well on “interactive” questions, which “require students to uncover useful information by exploring the problem situation and gathering feedback on the effect of their actions,” according to the test results. That means U.S. students can “tolerate doubt and uncertainty, and dare to use intuitions to initiate a solution,” according to the results.

Why even black people have a problem with dark skin

Recently, my mother told me a story of myself as a child. When strangers approached me and said things such as: “Isn’t she lovely?” or “What pretty hair you have!” I would innocently answer: “I know”. 

My unassuming arrogance would take people aback, then everyone would laugh at the adorable curly-haired prima donna, enough to assuage my mother’s embarrassment. It would be easy to dismiss my younger self as a smug, precocious little brat, but it really just showed that when a child hears something enough times, they accept it as merely another fact of life.

As I grew older, I began to realise there were other factors at play, which made me uncomfortable.

Many of these compliments came from white women, but the majority came from black women, inside and outside of my own family. I was light-skinned with long thick hair thanks in part to my father’s white English heritage. That was all that qualified me to be considered “beautiful”.

It had nothing to do with being funny or smart but plenty to do with physical attributes over which I had no control. The confidence I had displayed as a young girl became insecurity then anger. I didn’t want preferential treatment because of something as superficial as skin colour or hair texture. My mother, the first woman I ever knew, loved and admired, was a dark-skinned black woman and, to me, the epitome of beauty and glamour. What was the big deal?

And then I realised and checked my own degree of privilege – it is far easier to resent one’s own skin for giving you advantages you haven’t earned than despising it for what it takes away.

Darker skinned women and, yes, men too, face that reality – an issue brought to the fore in the documentary Dark Girls, directed by Bill Duke, premiered in the UK last week.

Focusing primarily on African American women, the film opens up the conversation of colourism – a shameful discrimination generally against your own community on the basis of skin colour.

It is a legacy of slavery and plantation society that placed white slave-owners at the top of the top of the social ladder, followed by those who were mixed race/lighter skinned (who were given work in the house, with the added bonus of being a plaything for the massa, wahey!), with darker skinned black men and women (who were also raped – hence, the light-skinned house slaves) at the bottom of the pile doing the back-breaking labour in the cotton fields.

While the physical chains of bondage may be broken, for many in the black and Asian community, colourism is still a part of life – a psychological prison of self-loathing and envy. Comments such as, “You’re pretty … for a dark skinned girl” or “I hope the baby comes out light” are par for the course.

Type dark skin or light skin into Twitter and you will seecolourismin action. One tweet: “Party on Friday. White Girls free. Light skin girls 5dollars. 50 dollars for dark skin girls”. Another: “I thought cute dark skin girls with long hair was a myth … I feel like I seen big foot.” (sic) Within the past week, ‘dark-sinned vs light-skinned’ has been a trending topic. As one angry tweeter kindly pointed out, “Is this what Martin Luther King died for?”

Dark Girls makes for a haunting and uncomfortable watch. Listening to beautiful women admit to insecurities thatled them to request bleach in their bath water or putting hair removal cream in the scalps of their light-skinned school peers as an act of jealousy would seem all but ridiculous if it didn’t hit so close to home.

It features men with pixelated faces trying and failing miserably to justify their own prejudices – “I just prefer light skin women”. “Dark skinned women just look wrong next me” –to stories from African American women confessing black men would lust after them in private, but opt for a light skinned trophy to parade in public.

Some find it bemusing that journalists, feminists and social commentators devote so much time to discussing the politics of hair texture and skincolour but it is absolutely, unequivocally, political.

Based on these personal accounts, is it a coincidence that 50 per cent of all Black Caribbean men in Britain have partners outside their own race? Or that the majority of high-profile black men– from politicians to sport stars – have a white partner? Are they simply exercising their right to choose, or attempting to exorcise their own demons?

In the Caribbean, such as the Bahamas where I was born, the minority light skinned community forms the majority of the ruling elite – the effects of generations of wealth and privilege and marrying the ‘right’ people from the ‘right’ (and light!) families.

The ugly truth is while racism – whether institutional, structural or ingrained – and inequality persists, so will colourism. It is no surprise that skin bleaching creams are most popular in developing countries.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 77 per cent of Nigerian women use them. In India – home to a third of the world’s poorest people – two thirds of all skin products contain lightening agents. For some, lighter skin is seen as a route out of poverty, creating opportunities to cheat a system engineered to oppress. It South Africa, it is the difference between being black and part of the ‘coloured’ middle class.

The women featured in Dark Girls weren’t born hating their skin, they hated the limited social outcomes it extended, the way they were treated and spoken to because of it. But while colourism differentiates, racism does not. Being mixed didn’t prevent me from being called a P*ki or a n*gger while growing up in the north east. We are all dark girls. 

Perhaps one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the documentary is its opening; when a beautiful cherubbarely five years old, cannot meet the camera’s gaze as she admits to hating being called black.

I hope that by having these conversations and confronting the enemy within, as well as the bigger picture, little black girls of any skin tone won’t ever have to question their looks. Society will learn to tell them they are beautiful, and their response, quite rightly, will be: “I know”.  

THEY WANT TO LINK FAMILIES FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES

Familiarly is the name of the student group in Demo la who are currently tackling a challenging subject that concerns the whole society:

How can we integrate people from different cultures into the community and create more understanding and tolerance towards our fellow humans in this country?

The group is currently half way through the project and has been kind enough to spare some time to give us a sneak peek into their project. In Demo la you experience a lot, and the story of the process is best told by those who are smack in the middle of it. What have they experienced so far and what happens when you are expected to create something with people who are from a totally different field then from your own? 

The group consists of four members; Patrick Uttermost (studying information technology), Love Barnstorm (studying sociology), Winnable Saber (studying Computer Science) and Magus Johnson (studying social work). Since their project is about bridging the gaps between different cultures in society and create forums that will lead to better understanding they choose to call their group Familiarly.  

How come you all chose to apply to this particular project?

All members of the team are from different programs and we noticed that most of them have found that they were drawn to Demo la by the possibility to mix knowledge with practice – you have a subject that you study and here at Demo la students can apply the knowledge onto a real challenge. 

As Love puts it:

– I find studying and trying to understand behavioral patterns that appear in our society fascinating, since I study sociology and group psychology. I also thought it would be fun if I could apply what I have learned at the university into practice, and do something real.

Patrick feels similarly by explaining:

– I felt that this project would allow me to apply my skills, and I was going to be able to do something I find my self to be good at. 

Patrick also found it interesting that the project presented a concrete problem, and that the group would have the freedom to pursue the solution they thought would best solve it. This is were Demo la differs from other projects – We don’t have a specific product that should be produced, instead we encourage students to contribute with their own creativity, and this is also the most valuable input that Demo la generates for the project partners. The aim is to see what happens when you think outside the box, and pivot to a solution that might be an even better one.  

Together, the group acknowledges that they were all attracted by the width of the challenge in this particular project. It is an issue that concerns the entire society. 

Patrick concludes:

-This has the potential of becoming something big and it could do much good.

A digital platform

Designing is currently on the group’s to-do list and they are working hard to find a suitable and smart format for a digital platform. The platform will be the portal that aims at making it less difficult for different groups to find one another and do activities together. This is how the group describes their vision for the project:

– Our vision of the project is to create a natural meeting place for people from different cultures that contribute to a more open society. We want to achieve a level where, for example, newly arrived Swedes should feel that they are arriving into a welcoming society with open arms.

In this project it is also interesting how the group is viewing the subject. They have analyzed questions in this field and drawn a conclusion: 

-The problem is not that there are many different cultures in Sweden, the problem is the fact that these different cultures have no good way of interacting with one another. 

Here you’ll find the groups website for the project. 

Discovering what lays beyond graduation

The group notes that Demo la has provided them with a new picture of what reality looks like, and how it could be in their future working life. To be matched with people who have other perspectives and way of thinking have also been very rewarding for each one of them. For example, the group has already noticed how much the project has gained from the fact that Tove and Magnus, who both come from the philosophical faculty, have a different way of approaching the challenge than Patrick and Zeinab, whom both are from the technical faculty.

-This is something (experiencing different perspectives) that the university is not able to provide us with. Normally, I sit with the same people who think in the same way as me in projects and it seldom leads to new angles. Working with people who has a  completely different skillet then mine own has helped me to discover new approaches, Winnable explains.

-Different ways of thinking and mindsets about how to attack a problem is very exciting and interesting, Patrick fills in and also adds with a laugh:

-This is sort of an integration project across faculty boundaries!

The journey continues

Although a Demo la project isn’t a full time activity, this group has certainly been active since day one and they are currently booking meetings with different stakeholders.In the coming weeks they will meet with people from the municipality, companies, business coaches etc. in order to gain access to more knowledge on how they can adapt their solution so that it will be easier to implement. They have already come a long way by putting energy and dedication into their creation and we at Demola are looking forward to see how this project continues to develop and come to life. 

Global Cashless Society

one Scarcity is, together with Usury, the hallmark of Money Power control. This week the story broke that Wells Fargo is now considering offering Bitchiness services . Undoubtedly they’d be interested in offering saving and lending ‘services’.spew is spent into circulation debt-free, but then will be lent out at interest by the bank. Compound interest lending will allow the banks to gobble up the whole money supply in just a few years. The CIA’s In-Q-Tel investment arm was involved with Bitchiness from the early stages and while it’s speculation, I’d be willing to bet a fiver the market has been cornered already. Bitchiness are ‘mined’: computers must solve complex algorithms to acquire new Bitchiness. Clearly this is a rather irrational way of creating money, again mimicking Gold. Every new Bitchiness comes with a more complex algorithm, requiring more computing power. At this point only major players (like banks) have the computing power to mine new ones.

Paving the Way for a Global Cashless Society

It’s impact is quite stunning, there is little doubt about that. It started trading in early 2009 at just a few cents. Late 2011 1 Bitcoin was worth $6 and now people pay about $650. A little while back it actually reached $1000, when Chinese buyers started weighing in. It then took a big hit when the Chinese Government clamped down on it, citing ‘lack of consumer protection’. Bitcoin has crashed a couple of times on the way up, but has continued to rebound. 

But while this remarkable appreciation is the key to its perceived success, it is actually symptomatic of its main problem: it was designed to be scarce. Its rising price shows there is greater demand than supply.

 

When money rises in value, all other assets decline. It is good for those holding money, bad for those offering labor or goods and services, i.e. the real economy. In this way it behaves very much like Gold, which is also infamous for its deflationary nature.

 

Because it is appreciating so strongly, hardly anybody is paying with it. While the total outstanding value of Bitcoins is now somewhere between five and ten billion dollars, real trade is minimal. Who is going to pay with Bitcoin, when it is going to be worth another hundred times more in two years?

 

To be effective in servicing real trade, the money supply must grow and shrink with economic activity, allowing stable prices.

 

As it stands now, Bitcoin is a wholly bogus speculative item, with no real economic significance at all.

 

And it’s a pure ponzi scheme, of course. Later adapters pay for the gains of those helding Bitcoin from the early stages. As long as there are new buyers, it’s party time, but it’s ultimately unsustainable.