My research question is why do smaller countries have better economies than the U.S.?

I want to see what these countries do differently and if there is anything the United States can
change. When I am talking about the economy and what I am looking for? I am talking about
more than the richest country. I know the U.S. has the biggest economy money wise. I want to
dive deeper and look more into government, healthcare, poverty, and education. I then want to
apply what I learned and see if we can make these changes and what may be stopping us from
doing that. A big reason I think we don't make a lot of these changes is because of money. The
countries I want to look at are more democratic and have more taxes which could be why we
are hesitant to try many of these things.

FocusEconomics. “Major Economies Consensus Forecast Report: FocusEconomics.”

FocusEconomics | Economic Forecasts from the World's Leading Economists, 23 Mar.
2014, www.focus-economics.com/online-store/products/annual-subscription/major-
economies.

The first source I found was Focus Economics. This is a website that is made for
governments and businesses to see how the economy is in every country. It can be hard to look
at different sources for each bit of your information so, Focus Economics has it all in one place.
It is made up of a network of economy forecasters. They gather all the data and give you the
average. On the website it says, “FocusEconomics is a leading provider of economic analysis
and forecasts for over 130 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East,
as well as price forecasts 30 key commodities”. This quote talks about how they have a range of
different countries, economies, and commodities. This company has a really good reputation
and has big clients such as Disney, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Nike just to name a few.

Focus Economics is filled with tons of facts and numbers. It uses rhetoric aspects such
as ethos and logos. It tells you why they are credible and who they are. It also has many
statistics for each country such as population growth, inflation rate, and overall money. This
website is primarily used by businesses to see how the economy in the different countries are
doing. This is a good website to use because I can find many facts that I will need all in one
place. I can click on the country that I am researching, and it will tell me the population,
economy growth, unemployment rate and so much more.

“Rankings.” Legatum Prosperity Index 2020, 10 Nov. 2020, www.prosperity.com/rankings.

My second source is from Legatum Institute. It says, “The Legatum Institute is an

independent educational charity based in London, UK”. This website was created to form a
global movement for people who want to transform society and end poverty by creating
prosperity. The CEO of this charity is Baroness Philippa Stroud, who is also a member of the
House of Lords of the United Kingdoms. They are trying to create long term changes all over the
world to make better societies for everyone.

This is a great article for me. It has all the countries ranked with nine categories: safety
and security, personal freedom, governance, social capital, investment environment, enterprise
conditions, market access and infrastructure, economy quality, living conditions, health,
education, and natural environment. This is the perfect website and chart for me to be using
because it looks at more than what country has the most money. It ranks 167 countries. This will
help me see where the U.S. is ranked and what the top ten countries are. The U.S. is ranked as
18th in prosperity while Denmark is ranked number 1 overall. It will also tell me who is number
one in what category. Say I want to know what country is top in health. I can look at the chart
and see that Singapore is at the top of that category. Some of the stuff I find in here could be
kinda biased since the whole point of this institute is to get rid of poverty and form prosperity
everywhere. The audience for this website is for anyone who wants to join the movement or for
anyone curious in how the countries are doing based on prosperity.

Overall, I am really excited to dig deeper into the prosperity index to help me find countries to
compare the U.S. to. I still need to look further into why these countries are doing so good and
what policies they have in place to do that. I also need to look into how we can use that here in
the United States.

Horn, Michael B. “Five Reasons Why Free College Doesn't Make The Grade.” Forbes, Forbes
Magazine, 17 July 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2019/07/16/five-reasons-
why-free-college-doesnt-make-the-grade/?sh=64fb8f52a6c1.

“Five Reasons Why Free College Doesn't Make the Grade” by Michael B Horn was
released on July 16, 2019 on Forbes. Horn is a senior contributor who writes a lot about
education and learning. In the article it says, “I speak and write about the future of education
and work with a portfolio of education organizations to improve the life of each and every
student. I am the author of the new book, Choosing College, which strips away the noise around
college to help students and parents understand why they are going to school and how to make
better choices, as well as aids schools in designing better experiences.”(Horn). This quote was
written by Michael B. Horn about himself. He lists many reasons why he is a credible source in
educational learning in this section, the quote is only a part of it. He writes for people who want
to learn more about college, homeschool, education, etc.

This article is about reasons we shouldn't have free college. One reason is that the
private colleges and trade schools would no longer have funding. These schools are more
popular for being cheaper and faster options compared to traditional universities. If college
becomes free, then private schools don't always sound more appealing. He also worries that if
college becomes free then people won't put in so much effort. When we have to pay for
something ourselves, we want to take better care of it. And vice versa, when we get something
for free it's okay if it breaks or something happens to it because we didn't have to buy it. Horn
talks about his concern that more students will drop out due to failing grades or puting life before
education. College would lose its value to many students if they don't have to work hard to pay
for it.

This is a good article for me to use because it shows another side to my argument. This
is something to consider. Free college might not be possible here in America. There are many
private colleges and community colleges that would no longer be getting as many students
since more would be enjoying free universities. Maybe the government could give more in
college aid. I know many democrats preach about free college. So why don't they just put that
money towards students whose parents won't be paying for their college education.

Aspril, Joshua, and JH Bloomberg School of Public Health. “U.S. Health Care Spending Highest
Among Developed Countries.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 8 Jan.
2019, www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2019/us-health-care-spending-highest-among-
developed-countries.html.

“U.S. Healthcare spending highest among developed countries” posted by John Hopkins
Bloomberg School of public health was released on January 9,2019. This article was written
because of a study on health costs they conducted. This is a very reliable source. They are a
very notable medical university. John Hopkins does lots of other medical research and informs
the public. One of the lead authors is Gerald F. Anderson. He is a professor at the university
and works with medical research and international health. Anderson has also written many
books. The audience for this could be the public because they want to inform how low staff
hospitals are and how much more expensive care is here in the U.S.

This article is about how the U.S. pays more on medical bills but receives less care than
other developed countries. One reason for this is because the prices are just higher.
Prescriptions cost more, salaries cost more, administration costs more, and equipment cost
more. THe median around the world for healthcare cost is just above $4,000, while the U.S. is
over double that with an average of $9,000. The article also talks about how the United states
has less medical school graduates than the OECD average. The OECD has an average of 12.1
medical school graduates per 100000 population. Meanwhile the United States has only 7.5
medical school graduates per 100000 population.

This article is useful for the health section of my research. It is crazy how expensive
everything is. Therefore, not as many people are going to get help when they need it. But there
also isn't much we can do about that right away. If the United States changed the costs of
everything then the market would crash again. Something we can work on is health insurance,
making it more affordable to the public so they don't have big bills. Another thing is many
doctors give unnecessary tests just to “rule it out”. By not giving these tests that are not needed
you can save patients lots of money.