Saturday, January 14th, 2017
Stephan: [caption id="attachment_30473" align="alignleft" width="283"]
Australia, which is number 4 on the list of nations with the highest standards of life.Credit: Craig Sillitoe[/caption]
One of the reasons I believe Donald Trump was elected is that we cannot stop lying to ourselves, as a populace; consequently we cannot make an accurate assessment of our true position.
Do you think we have the highest standard of life of any country in the world? Do you think we have the best health care? The best education system? The longest life spans? Keep asking yourself any question you like? Here's what we are actually first in 1) The largest nastiest prison gulag in the developed world. 2) The biggest pile of war making machines. 3) The most civilians killed by other civilians by guns, with a special shout out for the most deaths by guns fired by toddlers.
If we are going to save the United States, pull it back from the cliff it is about to go over, we need to tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. Because if we don't do this, who will?
As any 12 step program will teach you, the first step to healing is to start by recognizing the truth about yourself. The fact is in terms of standards of life we aren't in the top 10; we're just barely in the top 20. Here's the list.
The countries with the highest quality of life have been announced by the not-for-profit organisation Social Progress Imperative.
Scandinavian nations scored highly in the “Social Progress Index,” but more surprising are the very large countries which came lower down the list — suggesting that a strong GDP per capita is not the only gauge for a high standard of living.
Despite this, all of the top 19 countries are developed nations — so having a strong economy clear has an impact.
The “Social Progress Index” collates the scores of three main indexes:
- Basic Human Needs, which includes medical care, sanitation, and shelter.
- Foundations of Wellbeing, which covers education, access to technology, and life expectancy.
- Opportunity, which looks at personal rights, freedom of choice, and general tolerance.
The index then adds the three different factors together, before giving each nation a score out of 100. You can see the countries with the highest quality of life in ascending order
19. United States — 84.62. The US scraping into the top 20 may surprise some, and the report does call it a “disappointment,” saying the country’s huge economy does not translate into social progress for many of its citizens.
18. France — 84.79. For many France is a liberal bastion, but it […]
Sobering. We can do better and we will but we need paradigm change not “hope and change”.