[takbodan]

Norway's the best unless you are a woman walking alone in Oslo: http://europenews.dk/en/node/26246

[muawiyah]

Or, you’re a Sa’ami attempting to retrieve ancient ancestral lands. Plus, if you deduct oil revenues from the income it really ain’t that great!

[Don Corleone]

Or you like to live in the cold and dark half of the time.

[Jim Noble]

Norway’s best because you can hear the adhan 5 times a day almost anywhere.

[Charles Martel]

China has made the biggest strides in improving the well-being of its citizens.

Nowhere to go but up, I guess.

[EyeGuy]

"And the US undoubtedly remains a hellhole of unprecedented historical magnitude", says the condescending UN bureaucrats as they take advantage of the very finest that Manhattan has to offer.

[Zeppo]

Norway, Australia and Iceland took the first three spots...

Australia I can believe... but didn't Iceland essentially declare bankruptcy?

[snowrip]

China: When you torture tens of thousands of your own citizens to death, then sell their body parts for profit... when you imprison tens of thousands more in work camps for believing in God... when you are preparing to invade your neighbors... when you censor all radio, TV, and internet news... when tyranny, murder, imprisonment, torture and fear are your primary means of political and social expression... you have nowhere to go but up!

[TexasFreeper2009]

If all those countries are so great why do all the immigrants come here?

[HiTech RedNeck]

It’s the lutefisk.

[KarlInOhio]

Step 1. Find the country you want to win.

Step 2. Take every demographic measurement possible from per capita income to length of toenails.

Step 3. Come up with weighting of the demographic measurements to put the country from step 1 at the top of the list.

Step 4. Either publish pretending that step 1 never happened and the choices in step 3 are purely scientific, or redo step 3 if some undesireable side effects happen like a country you don't like comes in second.

All of these "Best Place To Live" lists are really "places matching author's desires" lists because there is no absolute measure of "best" for everyone.

[GonzoGOP]

Iceland????? They are in total economic collapse. Do the people writing these reports look up the news from time to time?

[Night Hides Not]

The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan.

I've been to #'s 4,5,6,7,and 8. Nice places to visit, but I'll stay in the USA, thankyouverymuch. Also lived in Germany for four years, and they had to drag me out of there screaming and kicking. Germany's autobahn alone is worth being in the top five.

The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.

Undoubtedly Bush's fault.

[cvq3842]

I keep hoping America comes out at the bottom of the list. Maybe then millions would stop trying to sneak in! :)

[Neoliberalnot]

This must be why everyone wants to immigrate to Norway and not the US.

[naturalman1975]

Speaking as an Australian, I’m happy to see my country do so well on this list - but it has to be said, in terms of standards of living, there’s very little difference between any of the top 20 or so countries on the list. You’re talking first world democracies with decent human rights and the differences between them are fairly minor. Change the weighting you give to one minor criteria, and you’ll change the results within those nations - change another one, and you’ll do it again.

The overall message here is that reasonably free economies and reasonable adherence to human rights pay dividends. It’s the free world. That’s the point.

[Hawthorn]

Suicide rates are a measure of “revealed preference” for human happiness. So I think they are superior to this UN index for telling us which countries are the best places to live. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

[riri]

Ofcourse a hamburger will set you back $30 but that wouldn’t stop the morons from the UN from coming to this conclusion.

[Cacique]

btt