From Harry Hutton
“Ireland is the world's most pleasant place to live, according to The Economist's Quality of Life Index (2005), though if you deduct them a point for their plaintive whinging ballads they drop to 19th, just ahead of Portugal.
The whole index is deeply flawed, in my opinion. It seems to be weighted in favour of lame-o Scando-Canadian-style countries, where no one with any self-respect would live. Yes, yes, they are having the mass literacy and the vonderful social spending; but they are even colder and more depressing than Britain, and any realistic assessment of life there ought to take this into account.
But here, for what it's worth, is what The Economist thinks:
1. Ireland
2. Switzerland
3. Norway
4. Luxembourg
5. Sweden
6. Australia
7. Iceland
8. Italy
9. Denmark
10. Spain
11. Singapore
12. Finland
13. USA
14. Canada
15. New Zealand
16. The Netherlands
17. Japan
18. Hong Kong
19. Portugal
20. Austria
Britain comes 29th, which sounds about right until you realise that this is 22 places behind Iceland. Iceland!- if the editors of The Economist had any faith in their own index they would vote with their feet and move to Reykjavik, in search of the good life. But they don't, because it is plain even to them that their index is tosh. Singapore higher than Hong Kong? Ireland higher than Italy? Denmark higher than the USA? What nonsense is this?
Here is my own, far more realistic index:
1. Brazil
2. Italy
3. Hong Kong
4. France
5. Spain
6= USA / Australia (Might have scored higher, but docked points for the brutish ignorance of their inhabitants.)
8. Holland
9. Germany
10. London (Lost points for the trains, and the fact that the people who live there have the manners of baboons.)
Others will have their own ideas.”
I think what this is pushing at is that economist’s despite 200 years of trying still don’t really have any understanding of utility except in the narrowest sense of the world.