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World's Best Countries

unseen

Ireland is in top 20. Not bad! Happy to be here.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html

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storm2811

Cookie_Monster wrote:

poorly maintained forestry and countryside.

And how do you make that one out?

fakearms123

saywhatyousee wrote: »

yes granted i was only there for 5 day's i was in brussels and could not wait to get home.and according to all the graphs i am reading on the internet no belgium does not have a higher stantard of living

I was in Belguim for 8 days, sounds like you didnt enjoy your experience there for whatever reason, i could give many reasons why Belguim is better but im kind of lazy today, one thing I will say is that every major city should have an underground metro, Brussels has this, Dublin doesn't, plus crime and homeless people is almost non existent from my experience, but thats just one man's opinion, one sexy man

Gone West

fakearms123 wrote: »

but I was also in Vienna so I know that these two countries are better than Ireland from experience

Good man. How long did you live there for?
From your experience there you understand how non-holiday things work, of course?
Childcare, schools, healthcare, income tax, etc etc?

Or are you just basing this on a weekend Ryanair holiday?

starlit

Ok I'd give my list of possible top 10 Countries I think should be in the list!

1. Sweden
2. Canada
3. Australia
4. Netherlands
5. US
6. Switzerland
7. Germany
8. France
9. UK
10. New Zealand

storm2811

fakearms123 wrote: »

I was in Belguim for 8 days, sounds like you didnt enjoy your experience there for whatever reason, i could give many reasons why Belguim is better but im kind of lazy today, one thing I will say is that every major city should have an underground metro, Brussels has this, Dublin doesn't, plus crime and homeless people is almost non existent from my experience, but thats just one man's opinion, one sexy man

Belgium is fantastic,don't know why people don't like it?
I don't see how it's boring either,far more to do there than here,even in the smaller towns!

fakearms123

Fuzzy wrote: »

Good man. How long did you live there for?
From your experience there you understand how non-holiday things work, of course?
Childcare, schools, healthcare, income tax, etc etc?

Or are you just basing this on a weekend Ryanair holiday?

I should of been more specific, I was over meeting a friend who lives there for a week, got to see how he lived, he showed me around the place, it was a holiday for me personally but a bit more of an experience because I wasn't just doing sh*t that I found in a brochure

Wagon

We have a lot of problems. But we aren't dying on the street. And we get an education, food on the table, a health service (which i will concede that by western standards, is complete ****). and we have a better sense of humour than the rest of the world. And we're friendlier (exceptions to be made but let the **** stick to themselves and you'll be fine). And we don't work until we die either. We actually take a bit of time to enjoy life, which doesn't neccessarily mean the pub. We travel around and work and see places, can do sports and hobbies and when we DO go to the pub, we do it properly and have sessions and try and spend 50% of the time pissing ourselves laughing. Or at least that's what me and my friends do. I dont know about the rest of you miserable bastards.

Ireland ain't perfect. The only ones who truly know that are the locals. But it's better then Bolivia, or Nigeria. and plenty of other kips where you don't need to be a native to know of their faults.

fakearms123

Wagon wrote: »

We have a lot of problems. But we aren't dying on the street. And we get an education, food on the table, a health service (which i will concede that by western standards, is complete ****). and we have a better sense of humour than the rest of the world. And we're friendlier (exceptions to be made but let the **** stick to themselves and you'll be fine). And we don't work until we die either. We actually take a bit of time to enjoy life, which doesn't neccessarily mean the pub. We travel around and work and see places, can do sports and hobbies and when we DO go to the pub, we do it properly and have sessions and try and spend 50% of the time pissing ourselves laughing. Or at least that's what me and my friends do. I dont know about the rest of you miserable bastards.

Ireland ain't perfect. The only ones who truly know that are the locals. But it's better then Bolivia, or Nigeria. and plenty of other kips where you don't need to be a native to know of their faults.

And its these vital aspects of our country that we are in the top 20 best countries in the world :rolleyes:

artanevilla

fakearms123 wrote: »

And its these vital aspects of our country that we are in the top 20 best countries in the world :rolleyes:

Yes. The people make the country.

fakearms123

artanevilla wrote: »

Yes. The people make the country.

are you saying that all Kenya people are pr*cks? If so then why are they not in the top 30 at least

Hawk Wing 2

saywhatyousee wrote: »

have you ever been to belgium?worst country in europe without a doubt

what a load of nonsense

PeterIanStaker

mikom wrote: »

♫ Kazakhstan greatest country in the world, All other countries are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium, all other countries have inferior potassium.
Kazakhstan home of Tinshein swimming pool, it's length thirty meter and width six meter. Filtration system a marvel to behold. It remove 83 percent of human solid waste.
Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place, From Plains of Tarashek to northern fence of Jewtown. Kazakhstan friend of all except Uzbekistan, They very nosey people with bone in their brain. Kazakhstan industry best in the world, we invented toffee and trouser belt.
Kazakhstan's prostitutes cleanest in the region, except of course Turkmenistan's. Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place, From Plains of Tarashek to northern fence of Jewtown. Come grasp the might penis of our leader from junction with the testes to tip of its face! ♫

Very niice! High Five!!!

artanevilla

fakearms123 wrote: »

are you saying that all Kenya people are pr*cks? If so then why are they not in the top 30 at least

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

prinz

saywhatyousee wrote: »

have you ever been to belgium?worst country in europe without a doubt

:pac: Perhaps you should go back and experience it a bit more than 5 days in Brussels tbh. Wouldn't even know where to start tbh... from brilliant public services, transport system, better opportunities for social life, better value and choice of food and drink,......and so on and so on.

fakearms123

artanevilla wrote: »

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

Well Kenya are at number 89 or something on the list and Im sure the people who live in Kenya are a nice people so I'm refering to your last post

artanevilla wrote: »

The people make the country.

Which is obviously not true! It is far more than just the people and that is why Kenya are not in the top 30 ye dope :rolleyes:, looking at the intial link the OP put up I saw no row that said "sound locals", im sure the people of the country being sound is a bonus but there is nice people everywhere you go, just like there is bad people

saywhatyousee

prinz wrote: »

:pac: Perhaps you should go back and experience it a bit more than 5 days in Brussels tbh. Wouldn't even know where to start tbh... from brilliant public services, transport system, better opportunities for social life, better value and choice of food and drink,......and so on and so on.

in the un human developent index ireland 5 belgium 17
(2009)

dr.bollocko

Australia is in the top 5. The list is invalid.

mikom

fakearms123 wrote: »

looking at the intial link the OP put up I saw no row that said "sound locals", im sure the people of the country being sound is a bonus but there is nice people everywhere you go, just like there is bad people

"sound locals" help reduce crime, which equals better quality of life, which is on the list.
.

rossie1977

its funny if you posted this on an american or british forum, everyone would be saying "why are we so low", us/uk number 1

in ireland, its "why are we so high", ireland sucks

shows the irish mindset alrite

prinz

saywhatyousee wrote: »

in the un human developent index ireland 5 belgium 17
(2009)

Peculiarities in Ireland distort our positioning on these tables tbh.

Pauleta

Ireland isnt a bad kip to live in fairness. Its as safe as most countries, we dont have natural disasters, wages and social welfare are high, Its not that corrupt :pac: (compared to most countries) and we have freedom and democracy. Its can still be a lot better and we need to address the problems.

andrew

I don't think having visited another country, or even having lived there for a year or two, qualifies anyone from saying how much better that country is than Ireland (and saying, more often than not, that Ireland is shit in comparison). OP's link includes measures on Education, Health, Quality of life, Economic Dynamism and Political Environment. So unless you're a native and have studied, fallen ill, voted and lived in a country for a long period of time it's pretty hard to make a comparison. On those measures I can see why Ireland does alright. The education system has it's flaws, but it generally does well on league tables. Oh and it's FREE. The same goes for the health system, which people love to think is shitter than it actually is. Quality of life is alright; crime rates aren't particularly high, theres plenty of stuff to do, and people are generally generous, friendly and sound. I guess we're pretty dynamic economically; the recession has temporarily made it seem as though we have it shit in this respect. Finally, we couldn't be any freer to do and say what we like in a political sense, and while our politicians can be incompetent self serving dicks, in a relative sense they're not too bad in this regard.

tl;dr Stop moaning about Ireland. It's grand.

Procasinator

For income, Ireland is said to be 44.3K/capita. Is this accurate?

Only useful statistics on earnings I can find quickly is http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf, which gives average earnings (before tax) to be 716. Times by 55 weeks (obviously simplified) leads to much less than 44k.

I would imagine Ireland is a little high in the list, as from the article:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/16/best-countries-in-the-world.html wrote:

What’s more, our list represents a snapshot of how countries looked in 2008 and 2009 [...]

And I would imagine we dropped a few points in many categories between now and then as the recession came into full swing.

andrew

Procasinator wrote: »

For income, Ireland is said to be 44.3K/capita. Is this accurate?

Only useful statistics on earnings I can find quickly is http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf, which gives average earnings (before tax) to be 716. Times by 55 weeks (obviously simplified) leads to much less than 44k.

I would imagine Ireland is a little high in the list, as from the article:

And I would imagine we dropped a few points in many categories between now and then as the recession came into full swing.

When they say income per capita, they mean national income, as in GDP (or perhaps GNP) per capita. That is, GDP (or GNP) divided by population.

j1974

mathie wrote: »

"Sure dares always someone worse off dan yourself."

That kind of Irish attitude that we get from the Catholic church.

Hit the bricks Catholicism!

"hit the bricks" that always makes me laugh when I think of alec baldwin in glengarry glenross. "you dont know ****, you are ****, hit the bricks pal".

Yeah like de man said, the BRICKS yo catholicism.

Procasinator

andrew wrote:

When they say income per capita, they mean national income, as in GDP (or perhaps GNP) per capita. That is, GDP (or GNP) divided by population.

Oops. My mistake.

starlit

We go Dutch! Vary Niocce!:rolleyes:

saywhatyousee

prinz wrote: »

Peculiarities in Ireland distort our positioning on these tables tbh.

same could be said about beligium.with those 400,000 highly paid E.U
civil servants based in brussels flown in from across europe

NoHornJan

rossie1977 wrote: »

same reason people from the northern us states and canadians are moving and retiring to places like nevada and arizona, my uncle moved from nyc to southern texas because he hated the weather in new york in winter

A lot of them move because the cost of living is so much more affordable in Spain. Their pensions stretch so much further and of course the weather is a factor as well.

prinz

saywhatyousee wrote: »

same could be said about beligium.with those 400,000 highly paid E.U
civil servants based in brussels flown in from across europe

Unless they used an income based approach (which it doesn't appear they did) I can't see the EU offices having any measurable effect tbh. The figures used was Purchasing Power Parity. So what EU civil servants are earning is irrelevant.

Look at it this way, the UN Development Index is based across a cpuple of factors, including life expectancy at birth (which is higher in Belgium), GDP (which is higher in Belgium) and numbers participating (gross enrolment) in education, which is the one way Ireland could have bucked the trend. This makes sense because of the sheer numbers in Ireland who attend third level. Of course that wouldn't factor in the numbers who then proceed to quit third level before completing, nor does it account for the quality of the education givenas noted in the report..

Combined gross enrolment ratios do not reflect
the quality of educational outcomes. Even
when used to capture access to educational
opportunities, combined gross enrolment ratios
can hide important differences among countries
because of differences in the age range corresponding
to a level of education and in the duration
of education programmes. Grade repetition
and dropout rates can also distort the data.

Another factor is ease of migration. Ireland in 2007 was attracting massive numbers of migrants, many of whom were getting employed quickly in construction etc. Again, this bucks the trend IMO. It says nothing about how great a country is to live in.