Yeah I'm pretty shocked about that comment too. We have no shortage of ethnic minorities who've struggled with poverty compared to white people, and the First Nations in particular still struggle tremendously (in fact, it seems the problem is only getting worse at the moment and they're increasingly victimized by the poverty cycle). And yes we don't have much of a history of African slavery other than possibly a miniscule amount before it was banned throughout the British empire, but we do take in huge numbers of immigrants of African descent (lots from poverty-stricken Haiti, for example) and also huge numbers of impoverished refugees. The US has had 150 years to integrate its black population into the general society but has never wanted to make a sincere effort.
There are some in America who believe the time for the tanks is near, people like Glenn Beck for instance. Like Quad, I suspect the smaller population and having educated migrants migrate to Canada has a lot to do with it. Plus they also spend a fair amount on 'education'.
Glenn Beck is certainly right about wanting the tanks, and it's because of people like him that they're needed in the first place. If you create a society where more than half the population is essentially abandoned and has no reason to feel it has a stake in the well-being of that society, then you're creating a recipe for catastrophic class warfare. The sad thing is I've spoken to plenty of Americans at the lower end of the social spectrum who also buy into the crap Fox News sells them; I guess they still have the delusion that they too will become rich one day.
Canada does take in a lot of highly-educated immigrants, the cream of the crop in many cases, but we're very deficient in helping those immigrants find jobs suitable to the fields in which these immigrants were educated. Lots of immigrants come here with Ph.D's and technical skills and end up having to run a business or find a job which has nothing to do with their specialized skills. Our society actually ruins many of these immigrants with false promises of a better life, if you investigate their stories in detail. I think public education funding plays a huge role in the stats, whereas the US still abandons its poor children in ghetto schools which teach them habitual violence and delinquency more than anything else. America has a very different approach to the labour force it creates- it's like a giant fish tank where all but the biggest fish become fodder for the corporate elite.
I'm guessing the US stats only pertain to those who are actually in the country legally and have their citizenship, which would make them rather inflated, in which case the true US numbers would actually be far worse. Not good at all- I think a functional and prosperous nation state should be united by common goals rather than mutual hate, selfishness and distrust.
One thing I dislike about such surveys however is that it does not measure intelligence or even things like literacy and numeracy competency rates. It is measuring the number of people who finish their tertiary education. Which to me, does not give a very clear picture. And it also excludes others who are in professions which require training, such as electrician or plumbers..
Intelligence and competency rates probably aren't accurately indicated by the fact of tertiary education alone, I agree. On the subject of electricians or plumbers, however, I know many people who finish high school and go into technical schools for such trades, and many others who go back to school after years spent in the labour force in hopes of earning better salaries. As far as I know, post-secondary trade schools are counted as tertiary education.
