CIA World Fact Book

[miriam_e]

I've always been a bit of a fan of the CIA's World Fact Book. Say what you want about the organisation's troublesome morals, they are good cataloguers of information. I downloaded the latest (2008!) copy last night because I needed some good vector maps and they include pdf maps in the appendix. (I hate pdf, but beggars can't be choosers.) Anyway, I was spending time I shouldn't have browsing the fact book itself and noticed an interesting thing. The summary at the beginning of each country's chapter, and at the head of each part inside that chapter doesn't necessarily reflect the statistics that follow.

For instance, based upon the summaries you could be forgiven for thinking that the USA has a wonderful level of employment, Australia has an acceptable one and that Sweden's is at dangerous levels. Actually, the fact book gives the figures for unemployment rate at:
USA 4.6%
Sweden 4.5%
Australia 4.4%

Likewise the glowing report on the USA's economy would lead you to believe they are a shining example of dynamism, and Sweden verging on stagnation. Here is the GDP:
USA 2.2%
Sweden 3.4%
Australia 4%

Of course that is just how the money side of things work, and that doesn't necessarily relate to how well off the humans are. The number of people living below the poverty level is a better indicator of that:
USA 12%
Sweden -
Australia -
The figures for Australia have to be pretty shonky because I consider myself below the poverty line, and there are people worse off than I am, but on the whole I have to say I lead a quite luxurious existence because my lifestyle requires very little money. Pity the USA though, where an 8th of the population lives below the poverty level! And given the employment figures, most of those below the poverty line must be working. What a horrid existence that would be -- to be an indentured wage slave with no way out and still stuck below the poverty line.

Two other guides to how good life might be are infant mortality and life expectancy:
Infant mortality (deaths per 1000 live births):
USA 6.37
Sweden 2.76
Australia 4.57

Life expectancy:
USA 78
Sweden 80.63
Australia 80.62

How is health hampered by religious intolerance?
AIDS prevalence in adult population:
USA 0.6%
Sweden 0.1%
Australia 0.1%

So... download the CIA World Fact Book. It is a goldmine of information, but do read further than the biased summaries.

Oh, the address?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
You can refer online or download it.

Comments

Re: Here

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

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--
Rev. Bob