The FP Quiz

1. The United States spends $7,290 per person annually on health care, the most of any country. How much does the No. 2 country spend?
a) $4,763
b) $5,852
c) $6,612

2. How many aid workers were killed last year worldwide?
a) 22             
b) 72              
c) 122

3. How many people worldwide suffer from chronic hunger?
a) 250 million           
b) 500 million           
c) 1 billion

4. By what percent has the proportion of women in the world’s legislatures increased since 1995?
a) 22 percent            
b) 42 percent            
c) 62 percent    

5. In which country are taxes on gasoline the highest?
a) Norway                
b) Turkey                  
c) United States

6. Which of the following places has the most oil per capita?
a) Kuwait                   
b) Greenland                        
c) Russia

7. Which country has the highest top rate of income tax?
a) Sweden     
b) Denmark  
c) Japan

8. Which country spends the most on its military, as a percentage of its GDP?
a) Israel                     
b) Oman                    
c) United States

Answers to the FP Quiz

1) A, $4,763. Norway spent $4,763 per person on health care in 2007 when adjusted for purchasing power, second to the United States, which spent $7,290 per person — a whopping 53 percent more — according to OECD data. Given all that extra spending, which gobbles up $1 out of every $6 of U.S. economic output, Americans aren’t commensurately healthier, and one out of six adults isn’t even insured.

2) C, 122. More than 100 humanitarian aid workers lost their lives violently in 2008, compared with 36 in 1998. Including those who were kidnapped or seriously injured in attacks, 260 were victims of "security incidents" in 2008, the highest number on record according to data from the Aid Worker Security Database. The expanding number of aid workers isn’t the cause: Victims of security incidents increased from four per 10,000 humanitarians in 1998 to nine per 10,000 in 2008. From 2006 to 2008, three-fourths of attacks occurred in six countries, listed in descending order: Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Chad, and Iraq.

3) C, 1 billion. For the first time in history, the number of people who go hungry each day has reached 1 billion, or one out of every six, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. Lower incomes and increased unemployment due to the Great Recession have forced 100 million more people into chronic hunger this year.

4) C, 62 percent. In December 1995, the average national-level legislative chamber (lower house, upper house, or single house) was 11.3 percent women. By December 2008, the average had increased 62 percent to 18.3 percent women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organization of parliaments. Women have come a long way since 1945, when women made up 3 percent of lower houses and 2.2 percent of upper houses of the world’s then 26 legislatures.

5) B, Turkey. As of Jan. 1, 2009, petrol in Turkey was taxed at roughly $3.90 per gallon, according to the OECD, up from about 26 cents per gallon as of Jan. 1, 1998. Among OECD countries, Americans pay the lowest federal gas taxes, 18.4 cents per gallon. With state taxes, the average comes to 47 cents per gallon as of July. Norway is a petrostate, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tax its people’s gasoline. The government there rakes in $3.44 per gallon.

6) B, Greenland. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the amount of oil and natural gas in northeast Greenland is equivalent to 31.4 billion barrels. Even if only 7 percent of it were oil, Greenland would tie Kuwait for most oil per capita at 38,645 barrels per person. Greenland recently received increased powers of self-governance from Denmark, and if recovery of the oil — trapped in icy, difficult terrain — ever became feasible, some say it could become the world’s next Dubai.

7) B, Denmark. In 2009, the top rate of personal income tax in Denmark was 62.3 percent. Sweden has the second highest, at 56.7 percent. Japan comes in at 50 percent, still significantly higher than the U.S. top rate of 35 percent. Denmark’s recent tax-reform bill, passed earlier this year, reduces income taxes for the poor and the middle class, but doesn’t affect top earners.

8) B, Oman. Oman spent 10.7 percent of its GDP on military expenditures in 2007, followed by Saudi Arabia, which spent 9.3 percent, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Only 12 countries spent 4 percent or more of their GDP on the military that year, with most in the Middle East. Israel, in a neighborhood with few allies, spent an estimated 8.6 percent of its GDP on its military. The figure for the United States was 4 percent, though that amount constituted 45 percent of the world’s total military spending.