Hi greg,

>Well the US gets oil far cheaper than anyone in Euorpe so that can definitely explain the top list. I'd bet every dime I have that Iceland pays more for gasoline and oil per unit than we do in the US.

I don't know about that. We've got shell, a large oil company (dutch/british) which gets it oil at the same price as american companies do AFAIK. The difference is mainly in taxes. about 80% of the sales price at the gasstation is just TAXES.

>I'd also like to point out that when I mean America is the 'richest' country I was speaking of GDP and corporate influence around the world. I don't have hard statistics but I'd bet money that US corporations have more influencue globally than Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Canada, etc...Probably more than all of these countries combined if we knew the truth.

I doubt that either. For example much of Manhatten is owned by foreigners, don't even think of the influence the rich jewish community has in american politics (one of the main reasons america is not going to solve the palestinean conflict). Don't forget that many foreigners are attracted by the US for its TAX climat and huge market. The money made here is added up to the GDP but is not in the hands of the american government or citizens.

So we are talking about a very complex definition of what is suposed to be the "richest country". In many aspects the US is less rich as you might think.

>To me these numbers underline the fact that the United States has a larger gap between the wealthy and the poor. When 1% of the people have 99% of the money it isn't suprising that our standard of living and other metrics will be lower on average than other countries that may have wealth distributed more evenly.

Please explain? The average is the average and it really does not matter how the numbers are distributed. In statistical terms: it does influence the standard deviation and variance, but it does not affect the avarage.

>I also believe that the US has a far higher polution output than iceland, norway, finland, etc. in terms of total numbers... not averages of course.

Yes, Agree, some of these statistic should be based on numbers per citizen, or visa versa. But more inportantly, the definition of how these number are obtained are missing.

>I also would assert that the US has the largest military and spends more on military than any other country in the world. Once again, I don't think I need statistics to back up this assertion.

Well you need statistics to come to the conclusion that China has the larges military.

>I would be interested in seeing % of prison population in the US compared to those other countries as well. I'm sure America is running high prison percentages compared to many other countries.

I'm not sure about that at all. Remember there are countries in which you cannot speak out freely and if you disagree with the government you are jailed. I'd not be surprised of the number of prisoned people would exceed the US numbers.

>When someone says America is the 'richest' country they don't mean by the average citizen but in total GDP including all the corporations as well. The numbers you provided have nothing to do with Ford, GM, Microsoft, Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds, IBM, Disney, etc... This is the power, influence and wealth that makes America the most powerful country; not the average joe who makes $11 an hour.

Sure given the about 300 Million citizens and the economic policy it sure has more influentual companies than any country, but don't forget the rest of the world, TOYOTA (bigger than FORD), SONY, PHILIPS, SHELL, ING banking and supermarket chains are very powerfull companies as well. Again realize that the jewish community might have more power than all of these companies in american politics as you might realize.

>So while I still say America is the most power and most 'rich' country overall; your statistics obviously prove not all of the citizens are seeing the benefits of America's global dominance.

Well that would be about 99% of all citizens.

Walter,