America and Its Rivals

How does the United States compare when objectively measured shoulder-to-shoulder against the world’s two most influential autocracies? This full-color book provides a solid foundation to enable the reader to create informed opinions about China, Russia, and the United States through comparative examination of their global status and the quality of their peoples’ lives. Data resources—created by many respected organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and Freedom House, to name a few—have been mined to provide direct comparisons between many key characteristics including health, wealth, poverty, education, employment, crime, imprisonments, freedoms, happiness, natural resources, infrastructure, debt, taxes, trade, military assets, and nuclear warheads.

It is the author’s mission to present meaningful data—all with attributed sources—in an inviting, graphic format to convey much more information than would be possible in tabular form. By directly displaying data the usual biases and filters are bypassed enhancing your ability to draw your own conclusions. This visual approach very effectively reveals trends and makes differences between nations and their people self-evident.

In the United States (2016):
64,100 people died of drug overdose and 2.2 million people were in prisonsThe top twenty percent of households received 51.5 percent of all income1.2 trillion dollars were added to debt and 241 billion was paid in interestForeigners held one-third of federal debt including 1.1 trillion by China
In comparison with the United States Russia had:
12.5 years lower life expectancy for males born in 2016 (only 65.0 years)Double the homicide rate and 40 percent higher suicide rate60 percent higher alcohol consumption per capitaAn economy one-fifth as large, measured by GDP in international dollarsEquivalent number of nuclear warheads (approximately 7,000)Double the crude oil reserves and five times the natural gas reservesRepressive government—rated within the worst 10 percent by Freedom House14 times as many residents (67,000) seeking asylum
In comparison with the United States China had:
An economy 15 percent larger, measured by GDP in international dollarsThree times as many patent applications filed by residentsOne-fifth the homicide rate and one-half the poverty rate58 percent more outbound international tourists61 points higher scores in mathematics literacy for students aged 15 yearsDouble the total carbon dioxide emissions Repressive government—rated within the worst 10 percent by Freedom House44 times as many residents (212,000) seeking asylum