[WS:] Les Etats Unis is French for the United States. I use it because the acronym is the same as European Union which is supposed to be a pun, but perhaps too obscure and not very funny.
ravi: "I learnt the above when I first landed in the USA, in Philadelphia. A much different experience than what the movies had prepared me for :-)."
[WS:] I had a similar experience when I first landed in Grand Rapids, MI ;) It takes about a two-hour drive from the nation's capital to go to the Third World.
ravi: "Regarding Japan, if the article’s claim is correct, could the underlying reason be that some economic indicators (growth of the economy) might contradict others (unemployment) in describing the health of the economy, and this might be a sign of a good thing in a political system? i.e., only in the USA where govt has been shackled to the point of not even being the last resort for citizens, do these numbers point to the same thing?
[WS:] It is has everything to do with public - private spending balance, a point elaborated at length by JK Galbraith. Private spending leads to a Third World style displays of wealth surrounded by slums, whereas public spending builds infrastructure that makes all the difference between the First and the Third World. In the US, much of the public spending goes to the so-called "defense" - a classical Orwellian newspeak - which is neither public nor defense. So comparatively speaking non-defense public spending in the US is not that much different from that in many Third World countries.
Wojtek