>>>>>>snippage<<<<<<<<<<,,,

> Exactly.
>
> This is the problem when folks outside the US, particularly those in
> Europe look at any sort of blanket statistics for the US. They really
> don't grasp how large and diverse the US is and how any given statistic
> presents a very distorted appearance when you try to apply it to the
> whole US.
>
> Some of their countries would fit into our larger states. If they were
> to compare the US statistics to the same statistic applied to the whole
> of Europe, including their problem areas, they would get a better
> comparison. It just isn't really possible to get the true picture of the
> US by looking at a statistic for the whole US.
>
> Looking state by state gives a more accurate picture. Even then, for the
> larger US states you have to go by city since a large state may have one
> really bad city that distorts the statistics, while the rest of the
> state is great.
>
> Things like murder stats get really distorted since the stats may make a
> state look dangerous when the reality is a 4 block area in one city in
> that state accounts for most of the murders and the rest of the state
> has virtually none.
>
> Recently one person from France was in Dallas, TX visiting and wanted to
> visit Carlsbad Caverns just over the border into New Mexico... until he
> was told that it was a 10 hour drive (and that's on 70-80 Mph highways).

When we moved to Scotland while I was growing up, we would be asked over and
over whether we knew any stars, or if we lived near this or that musician.
There was no concept of the fact that we are from North Carolina as far away
from Hollywood as we were from Scotland. It's a hard scope to recognize I
suppose. That makes it's hard to see the difficultly of assessing financial
status across the country.

The U.S. is an unusual critter I guess.

Cindi