8 Shocking Ways America Leads the World

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Factors contributing to high use include the cost of heating and cooling increasingly large homes, electricity requirements for home electronics, the high amount of energy required to produce consumer goods in the industrial sector, and transportation usage.

U.S. energy consumption almost tripled from 1950 to 2007, driven by population growth and increased standards of living, and then dipped in 2009 due to the Great Recession. The U.S. is predicted to experience a slight decline in energy use in the coming years, but world energy demand is on pace to double by 2050.

7. Health expenditures.  The U.S. devotes more of its economy to health than any other country, 17.6 percent of GDP in 2010, and the trend is slanted upward. We spend more in every category of healthcare, especially in administration costs, due to the existence of thousands of different insurance companies.

Yet the Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. dead last in healthcare quality among similar countries, while noting that U.S. care is the most expensive. A coronary bypass in the U.S., for example, costs 50 percent more than it would cost you in Canada, Australia and France, and twice as much as you’d pay in Germany.

Despite all the money sloshing around, the U.S. has fewer physicians per person than most other OECD countries, fewer hospital beds, and a lower life expectancy at birth, according to a recent PBS report. The same report stated that the U.S. spent $8,233 on health per person in 2010. The next highest spenders, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland spent at least $3,000 less per person.

8. Cocaine use.  When it comes to cocaine use, we’ve got a tie with Spain. In both countries, according to the 2008 World Drug Report released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, three percent of adults and teens say they’ve given it a try.

Between 2006 and 2010, cocaine use is reported to have declined significantly in the U.S., but demand has by no means disappeared: about 2 million Americans are regular users (crack users account for about 700,000 of these). Colombia was once the major supplier of cocaine to Americans, but it has now fallen behind Bolivia and Peru, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Cocaine is the second most popular drug behind pot, but unlike marijuana, it is associated with high rates of death, particularly due to cardiac arrest.

Interesting factoid: Cocaine has a nasty link to industrial capitalism. It first became popular with laborers as a way of increasing productivity, and employers often supplied the drug.