Posted by
Warner Todd Huston on Monday, July 23, 2007 6:39:24 AM
-By Warner Todd HustonThe AP will use just about any excuse to say that the USA isn't what it used to be, or what it should be. Yes, they will use any excuse to tear down this great country. Today's example is predicated on the dodgy research of another America bashing "economist" who is saying
Americans are too short -- as in too short in actual, physical height -- because we are "gradually falling behind the rest of the world" in everything.
Lamenting that in the 1850's the people of the USA averaged 2 and 1/2 inches taller than folks in western Europe, the AP goes on to rip the USA because other nations have caught up to us and, in some cases, surpassed us in height. But it isn't just height that the AP says makes us losers.
Without explaining, the AP says that we have faded in "so many other arenas."
But just as it has in so many other arenas, America's predominance in height has faded. Americans reached a height plateau after World War II, gradually falling behind the rest of the world as it continued growing taller.If we are such big losers, why are so many of the world's people <i>still</i> killing themselves to get here? Why are we considered the world's lone superpower? But, let's not allow reality to get in the way of the AP's getting a good hate on for the USA.
But, let's get to the claims of the man upon who's research the AP based their story. First of all he is not an American, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
...John Komlos, an economic historian at the University of Munich who was born in Hungary, grew up in Chicago, and has spent the last quarter century compiling data on the heights of nations.His initial assumptions are certainly correct. A people grow taller as their health and wealth increase. That seems a no-brainer.
Many economists would argue that it does matter, because height is correlated with numerous measures of a population's well-being. Tall people are healthier, wealthier and live longer than short people. Some researchers have even suggested that tall people are more intelligent.Now this is obvious. I hope no one paid this guy to state the obvious.
But, where he gets ridiculous is with his claims that the USA is somehow falling behind now. Sure in the 1850s the people of other countries were far shorter. That was because we were the healthiest, richest country on the planet! And, sure other countries have caught up to us now.
But here is the thing...
Over the last 150 years we HELPED our European counterparts (as well as everyone else in the world) get richer and healthier with our research, markets, exports, ideas, and democratic principles. The rest of the world didn't just catch up by happenstance, WE allowed them to as a result of the exportation of our excellence. If it weren't for the USA, they would still be wallowing in the poverty they were used to before the USA was created.
So, what this goof ball claims is our "falling behind" is
really our generosity and excellence assisting the rest of the world to join us in health and wealth. And, what this story SHOULD have been was one praising the USA for letting the rest of the world become healthy and wealthy enough for catching up to us in height at long last.
But, no. What we get is the AP saying we are "falling behind" the rest of the world.
So much for gratitude!
But even more absurd is the obvious conclusion that immigrants from South of the Border has affected our height statistics. If the Dutch are the tallest, as the AP report claims, and we are no longer receiving as many immigrants from that area of the world, then we are naturally going to have relatively smaller height statistics. And, let’s face it, we have far more people from Mexico added to our population than Dutch these days!
Couldn't this could be a possible explanation, too?