Pippo,
There's an old saying my father taught me. "Figures don't lie, but liars will figure." I find it hard to believe that Ireland has a higher GDP per capita than the U.S.
And there's another saying that taught me one of my lecturers at college:
"Statistics is the science which explains that if I eat one chicken and you eat nothing we both eated half chicken".
Maybe it's hard to belive for you that Ireland has a GDP per capita higuer than USA (and I understand why you think that) but if you bet your house on that idea you will lose it, that's sure.
Ireland in 1990 had a GDP per capita almost equally to the spaniard one, but in only 15 years, ONLY 15 Ireland has triple its GDP.
That's easy to understand, Ireland has less than 4 millions of inhabitants, it means that with only a hundred of big companies establishing its european headquarters in Ireland the jump in the income of people will be huge.
That's exactly what has happened: there's a lot of USA companies who has installed itselves in Ireland, If I remember well Microsoft is one of them.
Ireland is more attractive to american companies for two reasons:
1.- English is one of the national languages.
2.- Ireland has very low taxes.
If the same companies had installed their headquarters in a country like India the economic impact would had been WAY LITTLE, because India has one billion of inhabitants.
I copy and paste a good link if you want check the numbers (by the way, it's a great site for people who works or like the ecomics science)
http://dataranking.com/table.cgi?LG=e&TP=ne03-1&RG=1 I would like to see statistics on home and car ownership and employment statistics. If these show anyone topping the U.S. it will be those liars figuring.
I can guarantee you that Spain has a bigger percentage of home ownership than USA, not bigger but much bigger, because that's a cultural thing (but this don't means that spaniards have a better income than americans, because the american GDP per capita is 75% bigger than the spaniard one).
If you want to know why USA is such a powerfull and great country you have to see these figures:
a) USA ranks 3 on population (first between OCDE countries)
b) USA ranks first between OCDE countries in percentage of youg people.
c) USA ranks first in GDP, in fact the GDP is so big that is higher than the addition of the next 5 countries.
d) USA ranks 1 in innvation
e) USA ranks first in Technology.
f) USA ranks first in business competitiviness.
g) USA ranks second in national businees environment quality
h) USA ranks 5 in percentage of computers.
i) USA ranks first in military expenditure.
I think that statistics reflect a good image of a country, one exemple, I know in Spain we have a big problem with pickpocketing, I saw the statistics and Spain ranks number 1 of all OCDE countries (I'm not surprised).
If you see the figures of your country, you could check if they show a real "image" of USA, or they don't:
http://dataranking.com/country.cgi?LG=e&CO=30
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