America is only good at war and sports.

[Temprano26]

And I am not even sure about the war part anymore but we also kick the ass out of the world in the Olympics. I keep reading about Americans beating Japan at basketball by double digit margins in basketball going all the way back to Bill Russell.

It is not the largest economy anymore, that would be China. It is not the richest middle class, that would be Canada. So what is America good at besides sports at this point?

[onethousandknives]

Actually USA isn't very great at a lot of sports. We have a few we're good at, and our big three (or four or five) team sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey.) But the big problem with America and sports, especially individual sports, is there's no state funding. If you notice, USA in 2012 got most of their medals from swimming and track and field in the Olympics. Both of those sports at the youth level get school funding. However, for individual and niche sports, USA doesn't do well, as the government does not actually fund athletes, as happens in most other countries. Athletes have to pay for training and their health costs out of pocket, or in many cases, their parents' pockets. The US Olympic Committee is actually a non-profit organization (with 50+% of it's money going to pay CEOs and management, and athletes getting at most a $2000 a month stipend, but most only getting $400.)

The reason China and Russia beat us at certain sports is their governments actually pay their athletes and support them. This is the case with Olympic style weightlifting. In USA, the youth results are actually better than lots of other countries, but then once the athletes become adults, they can't make money with the sport, so they quit. So USA's sport prowess is actually a bit of an illusion, as aside from our own professional leagues and the few other sports that get school funding and coaching, we have trouble internationally. Our medal count at the Olympics in 2012 even was inflated, as swimming has the most events of any sport, and 1/3+ of our medals were from just swimming. We also do much worse at the Winter Olympics, usually placing third or worse in overall medal ranking, despite having half of our country covered in snow in winter.

The other thing USA does, too, is when we get bad at a sport, we just quit it, and sometimes make/only participate in a sport just for Americans. For example, Harley Davidson couldn't keep up with the Japanese and European bike makers in GP motorcycle racing, so Harley Davidson just quit. Same with F1, Touring car racing, etc. American manufacturers just quit those sports that actually matter on the world stage, and then went with American sports like circle track racing (NASCAR.) This happened too with the sport of weightlifting, once the other nations developed better technique and the sport changed a little (and those nations rebuilt after WWII) the US started losing at the sport and in the 1970s basically quit, and then the money went to the newly American made sports of bodybuilding and powerlifting.

So no, I'd say we're not good at sports. We're OK, but we're not great at sports. Do you ever hear of US coaches being hired by other countries? No, other countries usually hire Asian or Eastern European coaches for basically any sport, as they actually use science and study sport academically and have actual systems in place.

Also, we kind of suck at war, too. We've been in Afghanistan longer and less successfully than the Soviets were and have wasted more money and caused more problems than they did. Nevermind Iraq. I wouldn't say we're "good" at war, as if you're good at war you generally win and aren't in the country for a decade accomplishing absolutely nothing. Also, nobody has any idea of the defensive prowess of USA, either (thankfully for us living here.) Do you seriously think US citizens would be able to handle a siege in their city like the Russians did at Stalingrad? Do you think we could even rebuild our country after a war like the Russians, Germans, British, etc, when we still almost a decade later haven't rebuilt a city wrecked by a hurricane?

Despite having flags everywhere, our actual national pride is severely low, too low to actually be good at war, or sports. The entire US attitude can be summed up in the ghetto speak phrase "I got mine!" There's no national solidarity to actually accomplish anything in this country, as the entire point of living here is only "I got mine!"

[Jonny Law]

-NEWSFLASH-
The USA f***ing sucks at war. They got their Ass Kicked in Vietnam. Lost half of Korea. Could not invade Japan by land (even with nukes, because we would lose too many)

Currently we were Kicked out of Iraq, We are getting our Ass f***ing Kicked in Afghanistan.

In sports we get our Ass Kicked in Baseball by the Latino countries. Europe kicks our ass in Hockey and Soccer.

Europeans are able to keep up with our great worshiped NBA stars. In 2004 we lost in the Olympics to the Europeans.

We are sometimes good at watching sports and great at losing wars (even with far superior technology).