It is simply logical that a country with many different people who have many different interests, jobs, cultures, and histories will be less equal than one that is ethnically, culturally, racially, occupationally homogeneous. It also is logical that one size fits all policies will benefit the latter more than the previous. Also Canada and Australia are not as diverse as the U.S. They aren't comprised of fifty populous states all with diverse economic histories and diverse legal systems (their form of federalism limits this.) I also contest that Australia is as racially diverse as the U.S; there are nowhere near as many people of native Amerindian and African ancestry, and the aboriginal population is miniscule. The U.S is the most diverse country on the earth, in practically every way, and it has a population an order of magnitude greater than Australia and Canada.

Also, I mentioned a difference in states, not between cities and the country as a whole. I used the same scale of populations. One state has a higher average cost of living, and consequently has a higher average income than the other. New Hampshire and Mississippi are as diverse as Norway and Great Britain in that regard.

Americans aren't dieing earlier because the health-care is poorer. We are dieing earlier because our health is poorer. East Asians and Europeans have much healthier diets, eat healthier portions, and are not subjected to American obesity rates. There are also biological factors. Certain health risks are found among certain biological populations more than others and this will affect life-expectancy. As an economist who specializes in this field, I am sure you know all of this though.

What exactly do you mean by the differences between states being low? New Hampshire has a Gini Coefficient similar to Sweden and the Netherlands. While New York and Washington D.C have Gini Coefficients similar to Germany, Portugal, and Italy. Now once we compare the income of people who live in New Hampshire to those who live in Mississippi, that is where we get these huge differences. But we aren't considering that the cost of living for people who live in New Hampshire is much, much, much higher than it is for people who live in Misssissippi, and consequently the average wage is also higher. The U.S as a whole has a gini coefficient similar to France, another very diverse country.  Let's look at the countries with the lowest Gini Coefficients from your link:

Ireland - homogenous, South Korea - homogenous, Iceland - homogenous, Switzerland (racially and economically homogenous), Norway - homogenous, Denmark - homogenous, etc, etc.

Considering there is no consensus  by economists on this topic (or practically anything relevant to macroeconomics), I find your arrogance quite funny. Anyway, I am not completely ignorant of economics. I am an economics minor after all, and have taken quite a few economics courses. But please go ahead with your appeal to authority rather than actually arguing why my points are incongruent.

edit: Please provide your source that the mobility has declined. Here's mine that it has not.

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265356290/study-upward-mobility-no-tougher-in-u-s-than-two-decades-ago

Another interesting quote by the way,

"But the study also says economic mobility varies a lot from place to place in the United States. Rates of advancement in the Seattle, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco metro areas compared favorably with European countries. But many parts of the Southeast and the Rust Belt look more like the developing world."

"The study doesn't try to find out why economic mobility varies so much. But it does note that there's a strong correlation between advancement and certain kinds of social factors: the quality of schools, the degree of racial segregation, and whether you grew up in a two-parent household."

From outside seems to me America its like many others countries. With bad and good things. Like any kid can pick a gun and go to a school and kill, but its a also a place where you have a good chance to make a good live.

It's not that you're not supposed to answer the thread truthfully, it's that you're not supposed to incite a flame war with your obscenely incindiary remarks.

Well if you ever did want to live in Australia you would be most welcome, personally and in the general population visiting/staying Americans are well liked/respected

our police doesnt shoot supersaving family packs of ammunition in middleeastern kids with toy guns and says that was the right choice after reviewing the process.

and its not about races in europe, its about ideology. modern western we-dont-give-a-shit-about-god-because-we-dont-need-him against islam. the problem is, the muslims are too brainwashed to see that it was islam that made their native countrys shitholes.

but im pretty sure that this will change, 90% of people are intelligent enough to see what a joke religion is if they get  education.

An Irishman here.

I have travelled extensively, the world over, on business and for pleasure and have been to the U.S. 18 times. My trips there have included New York, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston.

I wonder whether there is, in fact, a homogeneous country called the United States of America? It seems to me that the country is a mass of diversity and contradictions. The people you will find in the mid west are nothing like the people you will find in, for instance, Los Angeles who in turn are nothing like the people in, for instance, Chicago.

Now it is true that every country has diversity due to internal geographic location, including my own small island. What makes the US diversity so different is the sheer size of the country allied with the fact that it comprises a mostly immigrant population arriving in the last few hundred years.

As to its internal politics, it is quite baffling that one pretty far right party excoriates another slightly right of centre, by international standards, party for being Left Wing. Also, using Liberal as a pejorative term is, frankly, ridiculous.

The other issue is that, due to the enormous land mass there is no real need for the average US citizen to travel outside his/her country. Consequently, the vast majority of Americans don't even hold a passport. This results in an understandable insularity which in turn leads to a lack of real insight into what the rest of the world is like.

Some of the geo-political commentary about the rest of the world one sees, whether relating to Europe, the Middle East, Africa or elsewhere is extraordinarily ill-informed.

Having said all of that, the US is an extraordinary country in many ways. Because of its immigrant origins there remains a 'can do' mentality and a desire to achieve that is commendable. When not involved in bone headed political debate most US citizens are the salt of the earth.

Overall, I very much like the US and its people. It's not the greatest country in the world. It's not even close to being that, but it is a very good country.

46% of the population owns a passport, 54% do not as of 2014 data.  Sure, that is much lower than European countries, but I think "vast" majority is overstating it.

The term "American" for people living in the United States really took off after the first World War.  During the colonial era people referred to themselves as Virginians or New Yorkers.  To the British empire they were all lumped together as Colonists or Americans.  After breaking off from the empire commonly thrown around American because to them difference between a Vermonter and a Carolinian was negligable.  As the United States grew and especially after the Civil War the identity of many citizens shifted from state level to a national one.  As stated earlier the first World War was the US emerging on the world scene as a major player and a sense of national pride and identity solidified itself during second World War and Cold War period.

Today in most parts the national identity dominates, but you have large states like California and Texas where I meet people who still have attachment to state level.  Know a few Texans that perfer to be addressed as such as opposed to American.  Personally I don't really care. It would be nice to be called Kentuckian, but from my experience most foriengers don't even know where we are. Just this past week in Boston was talking to a Spaniard and he asked if Kentucky was a state. If you want to remember all fifty states thank you, but I get lumping us all together.

Oh, that's right, my bad. European citizens attack them before the police ever have a chance to.

Tough question.

From an outsider's point of view, it often seems like a crime-ridden place with arrogant people. More often than not, people in high places put the country as some sort of shining example of how everything should be and are massively ignorant about uses and customes of other nations and cultures. Every once in a while, someone will say some laughable, hypocritical or even patronizing, thing about some other country that could surely compete in the 'dumbest quote of millenium-award'. Like when some woman from the UN commented on how we celebrate our holidays here in the Netherlands. I'll tell you, a lot of people in high places aren't really promoting the image of your country much, you're getting laughed at instead. Or worse. Then, there's things like the school shootings and massive murder rates which makes people other western countries scratch their heads about why there's still such loose gun-policy in the US. Racism, which occurs in every 'camp', also seems to still be a big thing in the US as well.

I'm sure we only hear about the bad parts here though. Media is always biased and thrives on sensation; good news and lightheartedness is boring I guess.

I've been to New York for a week years ago, and I have to say it was one of the best vacations I ever had. The city is amazing and I felt right at home. Even for such a busy city, people seemed very friendly, helpful and respectful. It does get annoying that every American seems to think Dutch people speak German (saying things like "Auf wiedersehen!"), but at least they tried to be polite, which is more that can be said for most. On of the things we Dutch can take an example of, as we're often as a people occused to be blunt, which is usually correct, even if there's no wrong intent, because we're so down-to-Earth.

So I've seen New York and visited pretty much every neighbourhood so I got a good sense of the city. Besides that though, I haven't been anywhere else (except Philadelphia Airport) so my view of the country does remain mostly an outsider one. A couple friends and me were planning to tour the Western US next spring, but one of them had problems getting a visitor visa, so that will have to be shelved unfortunately.

Nature is very unique, which is why it's very interesting for foreigners, and there's a lot of beautiful things to see, but the cities I feel are a mixed bag from what I know. For a European, where every city has centuries or sometimes millenia of (visible) history, most US cities seem very uninteresting. Plain or 'ugly' (for the lack of a better word) mostly and soulless. A few exceptions of course, one of them being NYC which I visited and would love to revisit sooner rather than later, but here in Europe, there's too many amazing cities to visit to count.

Due to that, and the unsafe image along with representative people being arrogant, I wouldn't want to live there. Especially since I'm already in a country that has an equal, or higher, depending on what you're looking at, level of quality of living. It remains a good country to visit though, my parents have been in Florida to return with plenty of stories, and that tour of the Western US will still happen someday. As will revisiting New York. Can't wait!

Lastly, I do hope you Americans realize that your presidential elections and the hysteria that goes with it is just one big popcorn-show for the rest of us.