Did you know, for instance, that the US population is only behind China and India (granted, it's about 1/3 of the population of China and India, but it was more populous than I personally realized)? That the US is number 1 in the crimes of rape and car thefts and total crimes overall (for a free nation, that's a little frightening) ? That the US is only 7th in per capita wealth, and by a fair margin:

#1       Luxembourg      $66,463.78 per capita       
#2       Norway     $54,467.23 per capita      
#3       Switzerland     $47,999.07 per capita      
#4       Ireland     $45,707.17 per capita      
#5       Denmark     $44,742.82 per capita      
#6       Iceland     $41,720.45 per capita      
#7       United States     $39,452.74 per capita

 Some surprising things turn up in the stats, and it's very revealing that 1 of every 143 US residents is in prison in 2002, or roughly 474 out of every 100,000 Americans. This is around 22% of the total world prison population, and the highest numerical prison population of any reporting world nation. Makes you wonder about the nation that claims to be the "Land of the Free"... I love this country and still think it's the best nation in which to live, but clearly we have a lot of work to do.