3 thoughts on “Gallop on Global Wellbeing”

  1. Related to this and Daniel Kahneman's recent TEDTalk on Behavioral Economics is the metric of Gross National Happiness. Probably a better indicator of a nation's well-being than GDP.

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

    Robert Kennedy got it right in something he said shortly before his assassination,

    “…the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

  2. It looks like we'll have millions lining up to surrender their U.S. citizenships for that of Costa Rica.

  3. so i live in tanzania, and we're not doing so hot...

    i would be really curious, though, to see what this map looked like before widespread globalization. before everyone knew so much about the standards of living in other countries, i'm guessing all the answers would've shifted more toward the middle? those in extremely poor areas wouldn't have known what they were missing, and those in more developed countries wouldn't have seen how well off they were.

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