t-mac,
Americans have the highest standard of living/quality of life in the world. I think that's common knowledge.
Suzanne: er.. no.
USA is not the wealthiest country in the world. Wealthy, yes, wealthiest, no - assuming that's what you mean by "standard of living". If not, let me know.
Of course, there is no truly objective way of measuring standards of living, but on the most commonly accepted: GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP), USA is behind countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg and Norway, and roughly on a par with France. I can't comment on whether it is "generally accepted" or "common knowledge", but if it is, it's false.
There are, of course other ways to measure standards of living, for example, those that take into account the extent of poverty in addition to average income. In that case, most Northern European countries, especially Germany and the Nordic countries, rank well above the US.
Also, from your "/" mark you appear to conflate standard of living and quality of life. You will doubtless have seen posts on this site where individuals state they do not rank "quality of life" in the US as being particularly high.
Indeed, let's remember that measures of "standards of living" only take account of economic transactions on where an exchange of money takes place. This is notoriously inaccurate and dependent on lifestyle choices. For example, if somebody chooses to be a "homemaker" and dependent on their partner's income their services, which have economic value, are not recorded in national statistics, whilst if they choose to PAY someone to do the same work, eg cleaning, looking after kids, those services ARE recorded.
Also, leisure time eg vacations, which have economic value (which could in principle be measured in terms of foregone income) are not recorded in economic statistics, whereas if that person does not take vacation and earns more as a result, the amount IS recorded. So national statistics such as this take no account of legitimate lifestyle choices.
Presumably, by remarking that your country has the highest "quality of life" in the world, you are assuming this is some kind of objective fact which anybody, once presented with the evidence would agree with. Leaving aside the fact that such statements have been disproven by posters on this site, you would expect all residents of other countries to prefer living where the quality of life is objectively "better". Well, I know of too many British people who have lived in the US for some time and missed the little "luxuries" to which they have become accustomed and had considered themselves previously "spoilt".
I've seen how in other threads you bemoan the British media for being Anti-US. Whilst I don't deny there is a lot of misinformation and ignorance in the media and the common person in the street about foreign countries, I can't help feeling it's partly down the fact that you're struggling to come to terms with the fact that other people with different upbringings don't have quite such a high opinion of your country as you do.
