“In the midst of the Great Depression, New Hampshire’s Billy B. Van traveled the country, speaking to chambers of commerce, business conventions and civic leaders. Mr. Van had a gimmick when his audience began to complain about hard times. He was fond of tacking up a large white piece of paper and then marking the center with a small ink dot, asking his audiences what they saw. They all said the same thing: a little ink dot. With the setup complete, Mr. Van would respond: You all see the tiny little dot, but none of you see the big sheet of white paper.”
This tale, from a feature story by correspondent Patrick O’Grady in the Sept. 23 Valley News, seems very apt today. The media is full of stories about doom, gloom, destruction and despair in the United States. But that strikes me as just focusing on the little dot.
There are 7.4 billion people in the world. The United States has something like 325 million people, less than 5 percent of the total population. Yet, by many meaningful measurements, the U.S leads the entire world. From large things like language, money, technology, military, philanthropy, higher education, natural resources, safety and even manufacturing, to little things like sneaker brands, the U.S. sets the pace in a wealthier and healthier world.
English, originally spread by the British Empire and now by America’s influence, is the language of communication.
Over 600 million people have received formal education in English as a second language, more than four times that of the next most popular second language. According to ongoing research by scholar David Crystal, one-third of the entire world’s adult population, more than 2 billion people, can communicate using English.
The U.S. dollar is the currency of the world. People often prefer the dollar over their own currency. Officials at the Federal Reserve report that 63 percent of foreign exchange reserves are in U.S. dollars. Eighty-five percent of all foreign exchange transactions involve the dollar. Heck, more than 70 percent of U.S. $100 bills are held outside of the United States.
The United States has an astonishing amount of wealth. The Allianz Global Wealth Report shows that 42 percent of the world’s financial assets are held in the United States. Half of the 100 largest companies in the world are based in the U.S. The U.S. has as almost as many billionaires as the next nine countries combined. The International Monetary Fund reports that the U.S. GDP per person is on a long and steady march upward from $7,500 in the 1930s to over $50,000 today, all measured in real dollars.
Technology is driven by the United States. Fourteen of the 25 largest tech companies in the world hail from the U.S., including seven of the top 10. Startup Ranking, a company that track and ranks new technology companies, reports that more technology companies are started here than in the next nine countries combined. Citizens of the U.S. have won almost as many Nobel Prizes in the Sciences as the next nine countries combined. The internet? You name a global website, and the underlying computer coding is based on English. Even the address book of the internet, ICANN, is in California.
The U.S. spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. David Vine, a professor at American University, notes that, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history. … our country maintains something like 800 bases in 80 foreign countries.”
The United States has been named “the world’s most generous country” for years by The Giving Institute, a thought leader in philanthropy. In 2015, charitable donations in the U.S. exceeded $370 billion, leading the world in total and as a percentage of GDP. Charities Aid Foundation, a 90-year-old nonprofit based in the United Kingdom, reports that 76 percent of the U.S. population helped a stranger sometime in the last year, far surpassing any other country. Our government provided over $31 billion in direct foreign aid in 2015, more than any other country.
Higher education has flourished in the United States. According to a variety of surveys, 19 of the top 25 universities are in the U.S. If you throw in the top universities in Canada and the U.K., 22.5 of the top 25 universities in the world primarily teach in English. Not surprisingly, the Institute of International Education reports that the U.S. hosts more of the world’s international students than any other country.
Our natural resources are glorious and wide ranging. At one end of the spectrum, the U.S. was the first country to establish a national park, in 1872. At the other end of the spectrum, according to a variety of sources, our natural resources are worth approximately $45 trillion, trailing only Russia in raw value. The U.S. is the largest producer of oil and natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that the U.S. is shortly expected to achieve energy independence for the first time since the 1950s, where energy exports will equal imports.
Much has been written about the decline of manufacturing in the United States. But even so, the U.S. still has the second largest manufacturing economy in the world. China, which passed the U.S. in total manufacturing in 2010, has four times as many people, but lags far far behind in productivity per person.
Culture is a harder thing to measure, but the United States certainly dominates by many measures. Movies, music and brands from the US are pervasive throughout the world. In what countries can’t you buy a Big Mac, an Air Jordan or a cut from Beyonce?
Safety? By following Bill Clinton’s exhortation to “examine the trend lines, and not the headlines,” you can see that we are living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence. Steven Pinker, a Harvard University professor, has widely observed that fewer people, measured as a fraction of the population, die now from war or murder than ever before. Per the Millennium Development Goals Report at the U.N., long-term global trends on health, nutrition and literacy are all very good. Over a billion people have moved out of extreme poverty in the last 25 years. The United States is no exception to this general progress. The FBI UCR Annual Crime Reports show that in the same 25-year period, domestic crime rates have fallen 50 percent for both violent and property crimes. Read that again — our crime rates today are half of what they were 25 years ago.
So as far as I can figure out, the United States is an extremely dominant country in a rapidly improving world. Our language, technology, currency, wealth, military, higher education, natural resources and culture all set the pace.
Now please note that there are many things I am not saying. I am not saying that the United Stated leads in every measure of every aspect of life. Nor that “relative” leadership in each of these areas is not changing. Nor that leadership is good or bad. Nor that the general studies cited here are without critics. More importantly, I am not saying that the world or the U.S. are free of problems. Nor that wealth or income are distributed the way we might like. I am not saying that every death isn’t tragic. Nor that discrimination doesn’t exist. Nor that global warming isn’t a threat. Nor that the world needs to make progress on human rights. Nor that there are not local tragedies happening all the time. All I want to do is to step back and take a look at the big white paper. And recognize that the U.S. has a pretty amazing position in the world. The United States IS great.
The writer is a finance executive who lives in Etna. He describes himself as an economic conservative and a social liberal.