[Poreponko]

^ That's right. Who said anything abut being proud?

If anyone can be proud, it's the countries you refer to, who can better feed, house, provide health care and educate citizens --though none of them manage to do it for "huge numbers."

Luxembourg gets the nod for eliminating poverty, Singapore provides decent housing, and Andorra earns the gold medal for life expectancy more than ten years longer than ours. Forty-six other countries get kudos on that score; seems like every developed country can provide better health care --even without the best doctors and hospitals. This is because their health care systems aren't run by insurance companies for profit. (Also they walk more and ingest less animal fat.)

When compared to other industrialized "advanced" societies, our numbers are decent to very poor, depending on the category. Poorest of all in military spending. No one else spends so much on guns and tanks.

Educate citizens? American primary and secondary schools ain't so hot, but more folks go to college, and there's almost no illiteracy.

Education might be overrated anyway. Seems like nearly everyone in the present administration went to Yale or Princeton; it doesn't seem to have done much for the quality of their judgment.