Page 1 of 3
1
2
3
LastLast
  1. #1
    Deleted

    Where to be born in 2013?



    Warren Buffett, probably the world’s most successful investor, has said that anything good that happened to him could be traced back to the fact that he was born in the right country, the United States, at the right time (1930). A quarter of a century ago, when The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born in 1988, America indeed came top. But which country will be the best for a baby born in 2013?

    To answer this, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, has this time turned deadly serious. It earnestly attempts to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.

    Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life matter too. In all, the index takes 11 statistically significant indicators into account. They are a mixed bunch: some are fixed factors, such as geography; others change only very slowly over time (demography, many social and cultural characteristics); and some factors depend on policies and the state of the world economy.

    A forward-looking element comes into play, too. Although many of the drivers of the quality of life are slow-changing, for this ranking some variables, such as income per head, need to be forecast. We use the EIU’s economic forecasts to 2030, which is roughly when children born in 2013 will reach adulthood.

    Despite the global economic crisis, times have in certain respects never been so good. Output growth rates have been declining across the world, but income levels are at or near historic highs. Life expectancy continues to increase steadily and political freedoms have spread across the globe, most recently in north Africa and the Middle East. In other ways, however, the crisis has left a deep imprint—in the euro zone, but also elsewhere—particularly on unemployment and personal security. In doing so, it has eroded both family and community life.

    What does all this, and likely developments in the years to come, mean for where a baby might be luckiest to be born in 2013? After crunching its numbers, the EIU has Switzerland comfortably in the top spot, with Australia second.

    Small economies dominate the top ten. Half of these are European, but only one, the Netherlands, is from the euro zone. The Nordic countries shine, whereas the crisis-ridden south of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain) lags behind despite the advantage of a favourable climate. The largest European economies (Germany, France and Britain) do not do particularly well.

    America, where babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place. Despite their economic dynamism, none of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) scores impressively. Among the 80 countries covered, Nigeria comes last: it is the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013.

    Boring is best

    Quibblers will, of course, find more holes in all this than there are in a chunk of Swiss cheese. America was helped to the top spot back in 1988 by the inclusion in the ranking of a “philistine factor” (for cultural poverty) and a “yawn index” (the degree to which a country might, despite all its virtues, be irredeemably boring). Switzerland scored terribly on both counts. In the film “The Third Man”, Orson Welles’s character, the rogue Harry Lime, famously says that Italy for 30 years had war, terror and murder under the Borgias but in that time produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance; Switzerland had 500 years of peace and democracy—and produced the cuckoo clock.

    However, there is surely a lot to be said for boring stability in today’s (and no doubt tomorrow’s) uncertain times. A description of the methodology is available here: food for debate all the way from Lucerne to Lagos.

    Laza Kekic: director, country forecasting services, Economist Intelligence Unit


    Source

  2. #2
    I am Murloc! Anakso's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Perth, Australia
    Posts
    5,020
    Quote Originally Posted by Everything Nice View Post
    Well, that right there would toss us out of the top 50.
    Your country is interesting whether you like it or not!
    Interesting to me anyway.

    Also yay for number 2, 7 and 19.

  3. #3
    Poland is clearly the winner.
    "You six-piece Chicken McNobody."
    Quote Originally Posted by RICH816 View Post
    You are a legend thats why.

  4. #4
    Hehe Sweden on 4th... will be on 34th place when the house loan bubble bursts. Thankfully our family can pay both mortgage and interest but it's going to suck for other people.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by TradewindNQ View Post
    Poland is clearly the winner.
    Poland is always the winner.

    But how convenient, I'm living 8 kms from Switzerland and I'll study there next year

  6. #6
    Deleted
    56/80. Keep going Romania, maybe we'll one day reach last place!

  7. #7
    The difference between 1 and 80 : 3.48

    Also, Israel, Kuwait 20 and 22. Yes a 3rd world country where you chance of being killed is 50 to 1 over dying of natural causes, clearly safety not ranked equally with all the other stats.
    Apply blizzards model to any other subscription service,you'd be outraged:
    Netflix adds no new movies for a year, you click a new movie, there's a $5 fee.
    You're in an accident, click your onstar button, but there's an addition $20 fee for them to help.
    You turn on your tv only to find all you get are the infomercial channels. Every other show is pay per view.
    See how dumb that model is?

  8. #8
    Now if only scandinavian countries and Switzerland had same tempetures as Australia.

    Trough I'm glad to see the list had Australia as 2#, pretty cool. Anywho I heard about this list some days ago, and most of the rankings dosen't suprise me at all, but Australia I think, so thats very nice. Would love to go there once.
    Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/djuntas ARPG - RTS - MMO

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Dazzy View Post
    The difference between 1 and 80 : 3.48

    Also, Israel, Kuwait 20 and 22. Yes a 3rd world country where you chance of being killed is 50 to 1 over dying of natural causes, clearly safety not ranked equally with all the other stats.
    not sure about Kuwait, but Israel is nowhere near a 3rd world country.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    What suprises me the most are France and Britain.
    My country on 15th place, could be worse But how are we behind the Netherlands? Oh yeah.. No drugs :/

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by JfmC View Post
    What suprises me the most are France and Britain.
    I'm not. No offense to the UK'ers, all but 2 of my family members live in the UK currently and I wouldn't move there if they paid me.
    "You six-piece Chicken McNobody."
    Quote Originally Posted by RICH816 View Post
    You are a legend thats why.

  12. #12
    Scarab Lord Nicola's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Belgium
    Posts
    4,787
    Hmm nice to know that they don't bother counting the state I live in....

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by TradewindNQ View Post
    I'm not. No offense to the UK'ers, all but 2 of my family members live in the UK currently and I wouldn't move there if they paid me.
    Why not? It's a perfectly fine place. I sure as hell would live in it rather than South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, Austria, Chile, Kuwait, or Israel.

  14. #14
    Legendary! Wikiy's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Virgo Supercluster, Local Group, Milky Way, Orion Arm, Solar System, Earth, European Union, Croatia
    Posts
    6,733
    Eh, this index is pretty bad.

    Quote Originally Posted by nitrobg View Post
    Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries.
    It's not a quality of life index if it takes into account how happy people are because the happiness of people has absolutely nothing to do with quality of life at all. Africans are happier than Croatians yet they life in incomparably worse conditions. So, what, Croatians just happen to be a depressed people and that means that quality of life is worse here? No, that only means we're less susceptible to good quality or life. Or, if you will, that we're more susceptible to the fact that our quality of life isn't among the best in the world.

    Quote Originally Posted by nitrobg View Post
    Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life matter too.
    Trust in public institutions? Same as happiness, it has absolutely no bearing on what the quality of life actually is.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Did they take into account that Australia is in fact a living Hell designed to rape your mind and crush your soul with giant spiders and dropbears?

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-06 at 01:30 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Wikiy View Post
    Eh, this index is pretty bad.
    I know realized why Britain is so low on the list.

    We're all a bunch of miserable bastards.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    where is North Korea on that list? :P

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by laggspike View Post
    where is North Korea on that list? :P
    Glorious best Korea is too good to be shown on a list with lesser countries

  18. #18
    Kuwait beat out the UK wtf?

  19. #19
    I almost felt bad that we are really down on the list, but then i saw it was about "—how happy people say they are—". We are the whiniest and most unhappy place on the planet which brings us down a lot.

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Themius View Post
    Kuwait beat out the UK wtf?
    The UK definately isn't the place you would choose to be born at the the moment, but I agree some fo the countries that did beat us are questionable.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •