But look where Greece is on the list; 19th at 153% (at 170.5% as of 2009). That’s no where near as bad as Ireland, Iceland, the United Kingdom or the Netherlands. It’s also not much different that Sweden, Germany, France and Spain. And the United States is certainly doing what it can to catch up.

“Up to 20,000 people have died needlessly early after being denied cancer drugs on the [British National Health Service], it was revealed yesterday,” according to Daniel Martin of The Daily Mail. These unnecessary or unnecessarily quick deaths had to do with patients being refused cancer medication for rare forms of cancer.

Perhaps losing 36,000 jobs is better than expected, or even a sign of a recovery (which I doubt), but at best it’s a sign that things aren’t as bad as they were, not good news.