The Good Country Index........we won....

[Alan Medic]

well not you.

I'd like to know wtf Sweden has done to harm international peace. Maybe this is a bit like the Eurovision.

http://www.businessinsider.com/good-country-index-2014-6?IR=T

[Loz]

This is utterly ridiculous! Under 'Science & Technology' they have the US at number 26 and that technical powerhouse, Austria, at number 2.

And who knew Belgium is number 1 in the world for their contribution to Culture? Plastic Bertrand's influence shouldn't be underestimated, I suppose.

[El Pibe]

It's weighted for size of economy which takes population into account. So Austria's patents and international publication in relation to size of economy are higher than US, and US makes life hard for international students and is duly punished; though of course the US is the number one science powerhouse.

UK does very well at most stuff, we get punished for invading stuff and selling everyone weapons.

We're also screwed on the climate because one of the factors is the sustainability of countries' demands on their natural resources. Given the UK will never be able to feed itself it will never do well here.

[El Pibe]

linky no work, i assume its these folk http://www.goodcountry.org/overall

[El Pibe]

sweden sell weapons too and were invlolved in afghanistan. again small economy can punish as much as it can reward.

[El Pibe]

mind you i'd love to know the nearest neighbours algorithm http://www.goodcountry.org/country/GBR

[Jeremy]

Belgium #1 for culture is one of the most absurd things I've ever read.

Not sure what "world order" means, but Germany at #1 raised a silent chuckle.

[JohnL]

Maybe we should ask Mr Blair to pay the authors a visit.

Belgium = Chocolate.

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> UK does very well at most stuff, we get punished

> for invading stuff and selling everyone weapons.

> We're also screwed on the climate because one of

> the factors is the sustainability of countries'

> demands on their natural resources. Given the UK

> will never be able to feed itself it will never do

> well here.

[El Pibe]

I'm not saying it's fair but it's done by cultural goods and services as percentage of economy as defined in report below.

This includes cultural tourism, ie cities, museums etc where Belgium will rank highly here.

But more importantly it'll be a bigger relative sector than other stuff, so somewhere like russia that has lots of this but it'll be much smaller as a percentage compared to natural resources say, will rank lower than belgium.

http://unctad.org/en/Docs/ditctab20103_en.pdf

[El Pibe]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Maybe we should ask Mr Blair to pay the authors a

> visit.

>

:D

be afraid, be very afraid!!!!

[Loz]

Jeremy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Not sure what "world order" means, but Germany at #1 raised a silent chuckle.

Especially as 2014 was recognised as centenary of the start of 100 years of trying.

[El Pibe]

I'd put them somewhere between #2 and #3 ;)

[Loz]

It's rather inconsistent, too. Under 'Science & Technology' it rates a country by the number of Nobel Laureates ever, yet only counts the number of science publications for one year. I suspect most of the other indexes suffer the same inconsistency.

[El Pibe]

well all these things are a bit daft and arbitrary really aren't they, I genuinely wasn't standing up for it, more explaining why.

[El Pibe]

can you tell i'm bored today? God, almost like the old days, 20 posts per day!!

[Laddy Muck]

George Best was Irish - my hero