Australia is 2nd best country to live in, America is #13

[spookyturtle 9,465]

I am not here to win friends or to be liked. If you guys want to have a legitimate discussion great, if you want to piss fart around and turn int into a EP, then so be it. I have nothing to gain from lying to people I know nothing about, let alone who they are.

Some people want and engage in a legitimate discussion, others do not. These folks who do not ,are easily identifiable considering the majority of their posts are 2 liners. It would be good if there was a section for those who legitimately wanted to discuss something. However, this does seem to be above some in OT VJ.

Don't worry, you don't have any friends here and nobody liikes you.

He's not here. Check the other place.

That's ok, it still applies.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

I am not here to win friends or to be liked. If you guys want to have a legitimate discussion great, if you want to piss fart around and turn int into a EP, then so be it. I have nothing to gain from lying to people I know nothing about, let alone who they are.

Some people want and engage in a legitimate discussion, others do not. These folks who do not ,are easily identifiable considering the majority of their posts are 2 liners. It would be good if there was a section for those who legitimately wanted to discuss something. However, this does seem to be above some in OT VJ.

Don't worry, you don't have any friends here and nobody liikes you.

He's not here. Check the other place.

That's ok, it still applies.

no friends there, either.... sad.

[kaffy 2]

as someone who's lived in both countries I have to say I like living in the US more

for one, I (aussie citizen) get treated far better here than my husband (usc) was ever treated in Australia

[spookyturtle 9,465]

I am not here to win friends or to be liked. If you guys want to have a legitimate discussion great, if you want to piss fart around and turn int into a EP, then so be it. I have nothing to gain from lying to people I know nothing about, let alone who they are.

Some people want and engage in a legitimate discussion, others do not. These folks who do not ,are easily identifiable considering the majority of their posts are 2 liners. It would be good if there was a section for those who legitimately wanted to discuss something. However, this does seem to be above some in OT VJ.

Don't worry, you don't have any friends here and nobody liikes you.

He's not here. Check the other place.

That's ok, it still applies.

no friends there, either.... sad.

And probably none IRL. Maybe it's something he said?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Moved to 2nd while the US dropped to 13.

Yeap. Why the hell are you still here, you must be stupid.

I wonder if it is the US or Australia has more people wanting to immigrate to it each year?

The US hands down. After all, America Most Admired Country In The World, Global Survey Finds.

[Peikko 1,575]

Question to ask is why is the USA #13, bet if you look at the military budgets of those twelve countries ahead of us their military budgets are next to nil. Wasn't Norway concerned about being invaded by the USSR or being nuked like we were? Australia doesn't have any problems, USSR doesn't even know that country exists.

Why do we still have troops in Korea? Since they took our ship building industry, seems like they are more of a target than we are, and with the money they are making, can defend themselves. Why are we paying for that.

Always some kind of a war, ever since I was born here starting with that very long cold war with the USSR, Korea, Cuba, Viet Nam, Latin American countries, former USSR countries, now the middle east. Who made us the police of the world, what good is the UN. Listened to a guy from Finland bragging about what a wonderful healthcare system they have compared to us. So why isn't Finland defending the world, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or China, or even the Russians?

We have an abundance of natural resources other countries do not have, beautiful lakes and mountains, peoples from all nations, no nation can attack us without killing their own. But yet we have the world's most powerful military that is costing us a bundle. Believe that is what is pushing us down the list.

You guys that are fighting among each other, why don't you leave this board, you can settle your differences behind my shed. I don't want to hear it.

It's the UN! Who cares! We pay the lion's share for the operation of the UN, and they resent us, thinking of us like an obnoxious rich uncle. Who cares what the some committee from the General Assembly has to say about anything.

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no knowledge of what the UN does and is. Here's a clue, it wasn't created to piss off America or to empty the US coffers.

[Danno 1,228]

Question to ask is why is the USA #13, bet if you look at the military budgets of those twelve countries ahead of us their military budgets are next to nil. Wasn't Norway concerned about being invaded by the USSR or being nuked like we were? Australia doesn't have any problems, USSR doesn't even know that country exists.

Why do we still have troops in Korea? Since they took our ship building industry, seems like they are more of a target than we are, and with the money they are making, can defend themselves. Why are we paying for that.

Always some kind of a war, ever since I was born here starting with that very long cold war with the USSR, Korea, Cuba, Viet Nam, Latin American countries, former USSR countries, now the middle east. Who made us the police of the world, what good is the UN. Listened to a guy from Finland bragging about what a wonderful healthcare system they have compared to us. So why isn't Finland defending the world, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or China, or even the Russians?

We have an abundance of natural resources other countries do not have, beautiful lakes and mountains, peoples from all nations, no nation can attack us without killing their own. But yet we have the world's most powerful military that is costing us a bundle. Believe that is what is pushing us down the list.

You guys that are fighting among each other, why don't you leave this board, you can settle your differences behind my shed. I don't want to hear it.

It's the UN! Who cares! We pay the lion's share for the operation of the UN, and they resent us, thinking of us like an obnoxious rich uncle. Who cares what the some committee from the General Assembly has to say about anything.

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no knowledge of what the UN does and is. Here's a clue, it wasn't created to piss off America or to empty the US coffers.

I guess it's "intended purpose" might be of interest.... though only slightly.

Why don't you share what the grand purpose (rather than intended purpose) of the UN is.

And then we will measure it's successes.

[NickD 202]

This article seems reasonably intelligent:

Source: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2356005/posts

Comment: Sounds like the UN is slightly biased.

"Driving to work this morning, I heard a radio news report on a United Nations statistical compilation that purports to measure what countries are best to live in. It's called the "Human Development Index" and has been produced by the U.N. for some years now. The network news reader said portentously that the best place in the world is Norway, followed by Australia. The United States, he concluded somberly, is number thirteen.

The U.N. and many other organizations produce statistics of this sort. Their purpose, generally, is to promote the types of governments (i.e., liberal or socialist) that they like. If you go behind the numbers, you invariably find that they are meaningless if not outright misleading. The U.N.'s HDI is typical of the genre.

Those few who actually read the U.N.'s report will find that the Human Development Index has three components, equally weighted: life expectancy, an "education index" that is a combination of adult literacy rate and the "combined gross enrolment ratio in education," and GDP per capita. Each of these measures is misleading in some way.

Life expectancy at birth depends on how one defines "birth." In the United States, we save an extraordinary number of premature and "defective" babies. Not all of them survive for long or attain normal life expectancies, but they are counted as live births. In nearly all other countries, such babies are not saved and are not counted as live births. I have never seen any attempt to quantify the effect that our effort to preserve high-risk infants has on life expectancy figures.

The adult literacy rate is essentially 100% in all developed countries, so this factor isn't a differentiator in the U.N.'s rankings of those countries. What does make a huge difference is the U.N.'s "combined gross enrolment in education" column. What does that mean? The U.N. explains:

The ratios are calculated by dividing the number of students enrolled in primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education by the total population in the theoretical age group corresponding to these levels.

So, according to the U.N., the more people you have going to school, the better off you are. Some countries (Australia, for example) somehow achieve a "combined gross enrolment in education" score in excess of 100%. If a young person has a job, or is in an apprenticeship program, that's a negative. If he or she is pursuing a degree of some sort, of whatever quality or utility, that's a positive.

The last factor is per capita GDP. There are two problems with this as a measure of societal well-being. First, it penalizes countries where there are children--like the U.S.--since the numerator, GDP, is divided by the total population, not the working-age population. Second, the U.N. takes the view that when it comes to money (unlike education), enough is enough. Thus, the top 13 countries in per capita GDP tie with a GDP index of 1.000, even though their actual per capita GDPs vary from $85,382 to $40,658. (Apparently the U.N. couldn't bring itself to say that the best place in the world to live is Lichtenstein.)

The point is that statistical compilations of this sort are always misleading and politically motivated. Their purpose is to convince the rest of us that people who live in very liberal or socialist countries are best off. The methods are transparent, but organizations like the U.N. are secure in the knowledge that news outlets who read their press releases over the air or reproduce them in newspapers will not actually read their reports to assess whether they have any validity."

[Ban Hammer 13,251]

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no knowledge of what the UN does and is. Here's a clue, it wasn't created to piss off America or to empty the US coffers.

maybe not, but it does a bangup job of it.

[chri'stina 190]

You guys that are fighting among each other, why don't you leave this board, you can settle your differences behind my shed. I don't want to hear it.

Sorry, I don't travel to meet strange Internet people behind sheds.

Then why bother insulting or arguing with them? What difference does it make to anyone what their opinions are? We are people in the same boat in regards to immigration and are basically here to share experiences and help each other. Least in principle.

NickD, think about it...meeting someone you don't know behind a shed?? That could be scary.

[Danno 1,228]

This article seems reasonably intelligent:

Source: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2356005/posts

Comment: Sounds like the UN is slightly biased.

"Driving to work this morning, I heard a radio news report on a United Nations statistical compilation that purports to measure what countries are best to live in. It's called the "Human Development Index" and has been produced by the U.N. for some years now. The network news reader said portentously that the best place in the world is Norway, followed by Australia. The United States, he concluded somberly, is number thirteen.

The U.N. and many other organizations produce statistics of this sort. Their purpose, generally, is to promote the types of governments (i.e., liberal or socialist) that they like. If you go behind the numbers, you invariably find that they are meaningless if not outright misleading. The U.N.'s HDI is typical of the genre.

Those few who actually read the U.N.'s report will find that the Human Development Index has three components, equally weighted: life expectancy, an "education index" that is a combination of adult literacy rate and the "combined gross enrolment ratio in education," and GDP per capita. Each of these measures is misleading in some way.

Life expectancy at birth depends on how one defines "birth." In the United States, we save an extraordinary number of premature and "defective" babies. Not all of them survive for long or attain normal life expectancies, but they are counted as live births. In nearly all other countries, such babies are not saved and are not counted as live births. I have never seen any attempt to quantify the effect that our effort to preserve high-risk infants has on life expectancy figures.

The adult literacy rate is essentially 100% in all developed countries, so this factor isn't a differentiator in the U.N.'s rankings of those countries. What does make a huge difference is the U.N.'s "combined gross enrolment in education" column. What does that mean? The U.N. explains:

The ratios are calculated by dividing the number of students enrolled in primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education by the total population in the theoretical age group corresponding to these levels.

So, according to the U.N., the more people you have going to school, the better off you are. Some countries (Australia, for example) somehow achieve a "combined gross enrolment in education" score in excess of 100%. If a young person has a job, or is in an apprenticeship program, that's a negative. If he or she is pursuing a degree of some sort, of whatever quality or utility, that's a positive.

The last factor is per capita GDP. There are two problems with this as a measure of societal well-being. First, it penalizes countries where there are children--like the U.S.--since the numerator, GDP, is divided by the total population, not the working-age population. Second, the U.N. takes the view that when it comes to money (unlike education), enough is enough. Thus, the top 13 countries in per capita GDP tie with a GDP index of 1.000, even though their actual per capita GDPs vary from $85,382 to $40,658. (Apparently the U.N. couldn't bring itself to say that the best place in the world to live is Lichtenstein.)

The point is that statistical compilations of this sort are always misleading and politically motivated. Their purpose is to convince the rest of us that people who live in very liberal or socialist countries are best off. The methods are transparent, but organizations like the U.N. are secure in the knowledge that news outlets who read their press releases over the air or reproduce them in newspapers will not actually read their reports to assess whether they have any validity."

It was a long.... but good post.

-------------------

The truth is, these lists are "racist" (everything is now racist I guess) as you notice the Color of Countries (typically) gets darker the farther

down the list you go. (what more proof do you need?)

How do they do that? As noted above they grade a country on select few items.

Under their list, the winner could very well be a bunch of

-well educated

- old and and miserable

-wealthy people

Wow wouldn't we all want to go there?

I've been to Norway, it was nice .... but a little boring.

I wonder if we did it another way what the results would show.

lets use three other factors in deciding the "best place to live".

1. Family cohesion.

2. Birth rate (many top rated countries are on the road to extinction).

3. A direct Poll to see how "content" members of countries are.

Lets run those numbers and see what "The list" looks like.