It is just Finland. The other Scandinavian countries are in the same league as the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...

It's always worth bringing up that while the US ranks poorly on cross-national standardized tests like PISA, it is near best-in-class after adjusting for race: US whites outscore white countries; US asians outscore asian countries, etc.

Source?

It's not just Finland.

It's pretty much all Europe, where any decent high school student can easily outscore any undergraduate US student on pretty much any subjects (knowledge of anything not-US or not pop culture-related showing possibly the most embarrassing difference between them).

And indeed they directly built or indirectly facilitated much (most?) of the innovative products in the fields you are mentioning. It's just that they work/teach/live in the US because of a more favourable entrepreneurial framework, easier access to capital, less red tape, higher pay at top universities.

So, a well-educated populace results in less favorable entrepreneurial framework, harder access to capital, more red tape and lower pay? I'm starting to doubt.

Two gut reactions, without meaning to disagree with you in a significant way:

- "less favorable entrepreneurial framework" can probably be viewed as the direct cause of "harder access to capital". Which means the four surprises in your list are probably better thought of as three or fewer surprises.

- A well-educated populace probably does result in more red tape compared to a poorly-educated populace. My argument for this is: a smart populace is able to handle the load of red tape, whereas a stupid populace encumbered with a comparable degree of red tape would just see their systems fail, and be replaced by less complex systems, when nobody could make things work.

Again, I think your general point is a good one.