[News] World’s happiest countries

[goldstone]

Tax is our way of helping other people.
Does this mean you don’t like helping other people?
Or do you believe in the almost universally discredited trickle-down theory?

I have no desire to help people who do nothing to help themselves and there are far far too many of them. I have no desire to help families with five or six kids who then live off benefits.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Despite the regular advice on this thread, I wouldn't take this with a pinch of salt. There is robust evidence that the more equal a society is, the better the outcome, and this is just further confirmation of that.

So how is Israel 4th then ?

 

[Machiavelli]

So how is Israel 4th then ?

A few things on this:
1, Swanny posted the metrics considered to calculate the rankings. In short, they did well on those
2, the point I'm making about levels of equality and happier societies is a general one, and there will be discrepancies to the rule. The analysis began with The Spirit Level, but has been reinforced elsewhere subsequently
3, as an aside, over 10% of Israel's economy is based on security (which will be an impressive export industry too -- probably to shady regimes and/or personalities)
4, the best way to find out Israeli figures on in/equality and their movements is via wid.world. There is a country-by-country breakdown here but, for some reason, I can't access those in the bottom row/s which includes Israel:

Home - WID - World Inequality Database

Home The source for global inequality data. Open access, high quality wealth and income inequality data developed by an international academic consortium.

wid.world

 

[rogersix]

Great if you like high taxes, even higher than ours. Personally I prefer to keep more of my money so that I can decide what to spend it on. Hunt and Sunak please note. As an aside, was just reading the Reform Party website and I think that will be where my vote goes next time. A whole raft of very sensible policies.

could you pick out some of your favourites?

 

[goldstone]

could you pick out some of your favourites?

OK.

Lower taxes.
No future lockdowns.
Free speech.
Rigid immigration policies.
Reform House of Lords.
Reform BBC.

What's not to like about any of them?

 

[rogersix]

OK.

Lower taxes.
No future lockdowns.
Free speech.
Rigid immigration policies.
Reform House of Lords.
Reform BBC.

What's not to like about any of them?

you should vote lib dem then

 

[rogersix]

Why penalise people who work hard to improve their own lives?

If someone works 60 hours a week then gets taxed insane amounts for doing so it discourages people from working hard and being rewarded for their hard work.

so you're saying trickledown is the way forward, is that right?

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

so you're saying trickledown is the way forward, is that right?

Tax people less they then have more to spend within the economy.

That's a trickle down at work.

 

[South Oz Seagull]

When I thought about moving to NZ in the 90s, I discovered it had one of the worst male teenage suicide rates in the world. This was attributed to the 'macho' rugby culture and austere Scottish heritage, which may suit some, but not most teenage boys.

If one of the questions asked of everyone "On a scale of 0-100, how happy are you that your family returned to a homeland after a 2000 year diaspora?" then I can understand how Israel scores so highly.

Did you know that more than 100% of surveys contain flawed and misleading content owing to careless and ambiguous syntax?

Been to NZ a few times and it's breathtakingly beautiful. Take your point about the rugby culture though - in NZ they used to refer to football as "sissy soccer" and may still do so for all I know. All credit to Chris Wood for surviving the bull***t and doing so well at his chosen sport.

 

[South Oz Seagull]

13% of New Zealanders live in Australia. A rather large number.

We've been relentlessly deporting them for years because we seem to end up with a lot of their shadier characters. Dusty Martin's dad one of the more prominent examples.

 

[Live by the sea]

Or if Israel gave back illegally taken lands and stopped killing civilians .... or stopped breaking international law ... lovely nation .... not.

Technically it’s not illegally taken if you are attacked as a country , win the war & hold onto land you were fighting on . From what I’ve been told , Israel given a free choice Would not want to hold onto either the Gaza Strip or the golem heights but has to to endure it’s security .

Israel also has zero interest in being a type of occupying force to the Palestinians , it’s very expensive , dangerous and leads to mistrust on both sides but again it feels it had no choice because of the structure of the Palestinian society with all the heavily armed jihadi groups involved .

It’s not quite as straight forward as westdene seagull seems to think .

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Technically it’s not illegally taken if you are attacked as a country , win the war & hold onto land you were fighting on . From what I’ve been told , Israel given a free choice Would not want to hold onto either the Gaza Strip or the golem heights but has to to endure it’s security .

Well the UN, Article 49 and a vast majority of the international community says otherwise.

If Israel had no wish to hold on to the occupied areas then why have they built settlements there ? Indeed, the current ultra right government has even just last week authorised the building of yet more settlements. Interested who told you - were they American and Jewish by chance ?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Technically it’s not illegally taken if you are attacked as a country , win the war & hold onto land you were fighting on . From what I’ve been told , Israel given a free choice Would not want to hold onto either the Gaza Strip or the golem heights but has to to endure it’s security .

Israel also has zero interest in being a type of occupying force to the Palestinians , it’s very expensive , dangerous and leads to mistrust on both sides but again it feels it had no choice because of the structure of the Palestinian society with all the heavily armed jihadi groups involved .

It’s not quite as straight forward as westdene seagull seems to think .

Golan.

But you're right. I visited there 30 years ago and was shown around. There was an abandoned tank and other detritus. Before the Israelis pushed the border back a bit, the Syrians used to use the vantage point to take casual pot shots at the Israeli settlements. I have seen it with my own eyes.

Israel is surrounded by nations that would be happy to push the Jews into the sea. Taking decisive action, pre-emptive if necessary, is unavoidable.

I have had endless arguments with one of my brothers about the Palestine 'situation'. It is easy for me to see how he can conflate Israel with Jews and with human rights abuses, but this is a mistake, pure and simple. My experience is that Israel is a modern liberal nation, and there are plenty of Arabs living freely in the country.

Here is Berem Kayal's take: "I'm Arabic. Sometimes people on the outside can't understand the bigger picture. They ask how Jewish and Arabic people can live together. But, it's fine, I lived [in Israel] and I enjoyed it and I get on with the people there. I have friends who are Jewish. It shouldn't really matter in sports about Arabs or Jews. If someone says 'Beram Kayal is an Arab player' then that is enough for me".

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly I have no solution to the plight of the Palestinians.

It very certainly doesn't help that Israel keeps electing right wing bastards like Bibi (and assassinating decent left of centre pro-peace politicians like Rabin), and that America does nothing to work against the excesses of the Likud coalitions. Beware the ruthless antidemocratic instinct of right wing zealots. And we have conspicuous examples of these in our present government.

 

[NooBHA]

I think while all of you say may well be true, the Palestina situation probably just don't affect everday life in the happiness definition here.

Looking at Wikipedia now, apparently this is what they base their rankings on:

• real GDP per capita
• social support
• healthy life expectancy
• freedom to make life choices
• generosity
• perceptions of corruption

Other than having a fair bit of corruption, I think they rank quite highly and are up there with the usual suspects (Nordic countries, Benelux) on these rankings.

If the "wolds happiest countries" was based on the number of laughters per day or intensity of positive feelings or something, I think the list would be a lot different, so it is a bit misleading.

There a lot of " Progressives " in Israel. They are not happy with every day life there.

The Country as a whole does not get enough credit for the work that the Progressive Population does. It's just a shame they can't really get much through Parliament. That's what I hate so much about the situation there.

 

[Live by the sea]

Golan.

But you're right. I visited there 30 years ago and was shown around. There was an abandoned tank and other detritus. Before the Israelis pushed the border back a bit, the Syrians used to use the vantage point to take casual pot shots at the Israeli settlements. I have seen it with my own eyes.

Israel is surrounded by nations that would be happy to push the Jews into the sea. Taking decisive action, pre-emptive if necessary, is unavoidable.

I have had endless arguments with one of my brothers about the Palestine 'situation'. It is easy for me to see how he can conflate Israel with Jews and with human rights abuses, but this is a mistake, pure and simple. My experience is that Israel is a modern liberal nation, and there are plenty of Arabs living freely in the country.

Here is Berem Kayal's take: "I'm Arabic. Sometimes people on the outside can't understand the bigger picture. They ask how Jewish and Arabic people can live together. But, it's fine, I lived [in Israel] and I enjoyed it and I get on with the people there. I have friends who are Jewish. It shouldn't really matter in sports about Arabs or Jews. If someone says 'Beram Kayal is an Arab player' then that is enough for me".

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly I have no solution to the plight of the Palestinians.

It very certainly doesn't help that Israel keeps electing right wing bastards like Bibi (and assassinating decent left of centre pro-peace politicians like Rabin), and that America does nothing to work against the excesses of the Likud coalitions. Beware the ruthless antidemocratic instinct of right wing zealots. And we have conspicuous examples of these in our present government.

I agree completely. To answer Westdene seagull question who seems to think it’s all one sided when it clearly isn’t , yes they are American but not Jewish .

 

[rogersix]

Tax people less they then have more to spend within the economy.

That's a trickle down at work.

fool's gold. i expected more from you

 

[NooBHA]

I have no desire to help people who do nothing to help themselves and there are far far too many of them. I have no desire to help families with five or six kids who then live off benefits.

I don't overly mind paying taxes to support people like that so long as they bring their kids up well and they and their children are caring nice people.

I am reminded of a statement a friend of mine once said, who is a Gay Man. If I can remember the quote well. It was something along the lines of. " I don't mind paying taxes to support and educate the children of heterosexual people. Because they create the Gays of the future and keep my blood line going "

And after I stopped pissing my self laughing. I thought. He has a point. Human Nature should be all about tolerance.

 

[rogersix]

From what I’ve been told ,

can you explain this phrase, i'll bet you can't,

you're a walter mitty type character, yes?

 

[Swansman]

Technically it’s not illegally taken if you are attacked as a country , win the war & hold onto land you were fighting on . From what I’ve been told , Israel given a free choice Would not want to hold onto either the Gaza Strip or the golem heights but has to to endure it’s security .

Israel also has zero interest in being a type of occupying force to the Palestinians , it’s very expensive , dangerous and leads to mistrust on both sides but again it feels it had no choice because of the structure of the Palestinian society with all the heavily armed jihadi groups involved .

It’s not quite as straight forward as westdene seagull seems to think .

Who attacked who really?

A decision was made, primarly by the British in cooperation with the Zionists, that Jews should be given a country in Palestine, pretty much on the basis that "well, they were there first". This is similar as if China (or some other far-away country) today would make a decision that about half of England should belong to Spain & Portugal and be inhabited by people from Spain and Portugal, because they were likely to have been the first in the UK.

If people in England would have thought "umm no I don't lie that" and defended themselves from the Spanish and Portuguese taking over what they had been awarded, with the Spanish and Portuguese then successfully not only defending the borders they had been given by China, but also expanding to taking two thirds of the country instead of just half - would you sit here and defend the Spanish/Portuguese right to do so? Would you even consider this Iberian takeover rightful in the first place? Would you consider the situation as you attacking Spain & Portugal or Spain & Portugal attacking you?

 

[Live by the sea]

A few things on this:
1, Swanny posted the metrics considered to calculate the rankings. In short, they did well on those
2, the point I'm making about levels of equality and happier societies is a general one, and there will be discrepancies to the rule. The analysis began with The Spirit Level, but has been reinforced elsewhere subsequently
3, as an aside, over 10% of Israel's economy is based on security (which will be an impressive export industry too -- probably to shady regimes and/or personalities)
4, the best way to find out Israeli figures on in/equality and their movements is via wid.world. There is a country-by-country breakdown here but, for some reason, I can't access those in the bottom row/s which includes Israel:

Home - WID - World Inequality Database

Home The source for global inequality data. Open access, high quality wealth and income inequality data developed by an international academic consortium.

wid.world

Shady regime’s slur is a little unfair, Israel’s closest allies include Australia, America , England , Germany , Italy , India , New Zealand , Spain . Most shady countries are not especially friendly towards Israel because of its close relationship with America and the west .