News, The World's Happiest Countries. (home, university, salary)

[John1960]

A British researcher merged dozens of statistical metrics to rank nations on the elusive notion of contentment

Feeling blue? Perhaps you live in the wrong country. A recent study from Britain's University of Leicester examined a range of statistical data to devise a ranking of the world's happiest nations. Heading up the list: Denmark, which rose to the top thanks to its wealth, natural beauty, small size, quality education, and good health care. At the bottom were Zimbabwe and Burundi. But there were a few surprises along the way, too.

The World's Happiest Countries

[moving123456]

I am surprised that Norway isn't in there with Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland.

[LuckyLoki]

Eh, i was gonna collapse if i saw the united states in there...i would rather live in most of those countries than here.

[texdav]

I read a recent survey that in fact most americans are very satisfied with their lifes.I know I am. I think that you can find malcontents in any western country.

[fp1978]

BS list and not at all objective.

"It's dark and cold in the winter and has some of the highest taxes in Europe. But that doesn't get in the way of Finns' overall happiness. High quality medical care — at little to no cost — contributes to the country's high average life expectancy. The country's free educational system is one of the best, resulting in a 100% literacy rate."

Medical care at little to no cost? Free education?
I assure you that no such animal exists anywhere in the world, except in the socialist mind.

[S6Sputnik]

Amazing now that Denmark is once again burning due to the cartoons

[Sweden]

Originally Posted by fp1978

BS list and not at all objective.

"It's dark and cold in the winter and has some of the highest taxes in Europe. But that doesn't get in the way of Finns' overall happiness. High quality medical care — at little to no cost — contributes to the country's high average life expectancy. The country's free educational system is one of the best, resulting in a 100% literacy rate."

Medical care at little to no cost? Free education?
I assure you that no such animal exists anywhere in the world, except in the socialist mind.

What do you mean? That's how it works in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland (just to mention a few). Free education and almost free health care, etc. is what we have here.

How come it's always "BS" if one's own country etc is not on something? The list talks about OVERALL happiness, so people can be happy in every single country in this world, and there can be huge amounts of happy people in every single country in this world- it's just that in some countries, the GENERAL people is more OVERALL happy than in other countries.

And yes, the bigger population, the harder it is to make everyone happy. But, fact is, if one actually analyzes lists like this, that people in countries with smaller populations in GENERAL are more happy than people in GENERAL in countries with bigger populations. Therefore, one should not assume that smaller countries are worse to live in due to smaller populations. They're not. It's not about one country being better than another, and it's not about one country's population being happy whilst populations from country's that are not topping a list are not happy. It's just that the GENERAL population, meaning the majority of the people, be it a thousand or a million or a billion, is happy with what's going on in the country in GENERAL.
Then some countrys that are not topping the list may be better than the ones on the list at some things, but worse in others, which might reduce the people's OVERALL happiness.
Or, it might be that different countries have different cultures, so even if another country is better at something, the people in the country topping the list might like things being done the way its own country does them better than the "best version" of it.

There are so many factors in lists like these that we cannot just disregard them based on what is being written in the news article. If one wants to challenge a scientific study, one must first read the scientific report on it, and then oppose to it (if one still wishes to do so). The news articles never give you the whole list of how experiments were done, what the independent and dependent variables were, who they studied, etc. Sure, scientific studies might get things wrong sometimes, it happens all the time, but we shouldn't disregard them just because we don't like the results. We should atleast try to learn something from them.

[BigSwede]

The high taxes pays for education and health care.

[moving123456]

Originally Posted by Sweden

What do you mean? That's how it works in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland (just to mention a few). Free education and almost free health care, etc. is what we have here.

He means that it is not really free when you are taxed very highly for those services. Sweden has a 25% VAT/Sales Tax while most Americans would call 8% high. Most states keep it in the 6.5-7.5% range. Technically you do pay for it, just in a different way. Those services are only "free" in the mind of socialists.

[Lillietta]

I saw this on 60 Minutes the other night. They said the Danes basically were happier because they had no great expectations which also happens to be a Zen philosophy, though that's another topic. Most of their needs are met educationally and otherwise. i.e. a father said he receives a full salary of six months for staying home with the baby.

If one places emphasis for happiness on materialism, he/she probably won't be really content.