Talk:United States of America

Article Checklist for "United States of America"

Workgroup category or categories	Geography Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Stub: no more than a few sentences
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Petréa Mitchell 11:03, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

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First sentence

"...is a nation located in North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico." No excuse for this. Anyone who doesn't know where the U.S. is won't find it enlightening to have it located with respect to N. America, oceans, Canada, and Mexico. Such a comment probably belongs in a section about the political/historic significance of its location. It would be better to open with some comment about what makes the U.S. distinctive. Good luck with that.  :-) --Larry Sanger 23:30, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Range of incomes

The article read: "...and a highly inequitable distribution of wealth compared to other nation-states." I changed this to: "...and a very wide range of incomes, compared to other nation-states." But I'm not even sure that this is true, according to the first source cited, where there are many countries with numbers higher than that of the U.S. I'm not sure what the second source is doing there, either; it's an absolutely enormous document that (for that reason) shouldn't be directly linked to without explanation. It should be moved to a footnote, or deleted.

Anyway, this is specifically a criticism of the U.S. by people on the Left, and, whatever you think of them, people on the Right tend not to find it such a problem or even a particularly noteworthy fact, to whatever extent it is a fact. Hence, we must be careful about this. I'd like to emphasize that I do not have a dog in this fight; I simply want to insist that we stay true to our commitment to the Neutrality Policy. --Larry Sanger 13:39, 13 April 2007 (CDT)

Sorry about the second link to the pdf at the UN's web site. The link points to page 335 of the pdf document, but when you click on it, you don't simply get taken to that page. I think the link to the CIA should suffice.

I agree with your lack of confidence in the phrase "...and a very wide range of incomes, compared to other nation-states." It's just not correct, strictly speaking, and probably not so strictly speaking as well. I presume you were trying to recover some aspect of what I had added.

Your earlier comment regarding adding information about what makes the U.S. distinctive spurred me to elaborate the characterization of the U.S.'s economy. It's particularly interesting that the advanced industrialized country with the highest national income also has the highest inequality of income distribution among advanced industrialized countries. You characterize the thoughts and feelings of a rather broad range of people, but I think you'd have a difficult time backing that up. The only debates (and in the widest sense of that term) are over the causes of income inequality, not over the official position of the United States, as expressed by its Central Intelligence Organization on its web site that I cited for support. I don't know how you arrive at your characterization as to what people on the right find noteworthy. On the contrary, for example, I've heard speakers who identify themselves as being on the Right argue repeatedly and passionately for the reduction of taxes as an essential step to reduce what they consider unacceptably widespread poverty. The disparity in sharing in the U.S.'s prosperity is always of great interest to such people on the Right.

I think you've erred on the side of overcaution here by anticipating irresponsibility that might arise from people who elaborate the characterization of the U.S.'s economy I added. The phrase you deleted isn't a criticism, but an interesting fact. The root causes of that generally accepted fact form the basis of criticisms that span the political spectrum, but which don't appear in this article. The phrase we're left with mischaracterizes the U.S.'s economy and doesn't invite correct elaboration. Cheerleading also violates the Neutrality Policy. For example, the statement that the economy is "marked by steady growth" is incorrect, as it ignores recessions, which people across the political spectrum certainly don't ignore. The statement that unemployment is low is strongly politically biased. Nathaniel Dektor 19:02, 14 April 2007 (CDT)