Unconfigured Ad Widget

Collapse

Unconfigured Ad Widget

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Best Countries to Live In

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Best Countries to Live In

    I'm thinking of moving to Norway. I love Kurt Nilsen and the Norwegians I've met. And now this article has me convinced I should check it out. Hmm, maybe I should go on an extended timeshare vacation first to do my proper due diligence.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Norway, Iceland, Australia said best places to live

    By Evelyn Leopold...Reuters

    Norway, Iceland, Australia, Ireland and Sweden rank as the best five countries to live in but Africa's quality of life has plummeted because of AIDS, said a U.N. report released on Thursday.

    The United States was ranked in eighth place, after Canada and Japan, in the report that rates not only per-capita income but also educational levels, health care and life expectancy in measuring a nation's well-being.

    The Human Development Index, prepared by the U.N. Development Program, has been issued annually since 1990 and includes every country for which statistics are available.

    Unsurprisingly, the countries at the top of the list are high income nations as people in richer countries tend to be healthier and have more educational opportunities.

    People in Norway, for example, are 40 times wealthier than people in Niger, which ranks 177th, the lowest ranking country on the list. For the 31 countries with low human development, life expectancy is only 46 years -- some 32 years less than in rich nations, the report said.

    But some nations have a rank above their income. Vietnam for example is poor but ranks above countries with a higher per capita income. Conversely Bahrain has an average income twice the level of Chile but ranks lower because it "under-performs on education and literacy," the report said.

    However, since 1990, sub-Sahara Africa has stagnated, in part because of economic decline but mainly because of the "catastrophic effect of HIV/AIDS on life expectancy," the report said.

    The list of 177 nations ends with Niger. Above it are Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Burundi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which ranked 167th.
    "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed and those who are cold and are not clothed."
    -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

  • #2
    Norway was once said to have one of the world's highest suicide rates. I don't know if that is still true. The long, dark winter months was suggested as one of the reasons for this. I think the reality was that with booze so expensive they couldn't afford to drink themselves into a stupor in order to forget how miserable the long, dark winters are

    Comment


    • #3
      If I couldn't live here, then:

      1. St. Bart's (St. Barthelemy, F.W. I.)Aaaahhhhhh. I'd have to improve my French toute suite !
      Getting there is a scream, literally.

      2. Ireland (I could bother Garry/Ireland's Call)

      3. People's Republic of Key West (I believe they seceded).

      4. Maybe Switzerland. They haven't declared war or invaded anyone in ages and just think of the chocolate.

      Comment


      • #4
        I like it right here in the USA.

        Norway is way too cold in the winter.

        Iceland has nothing to do.

        The food in Australia isn't as good as it is here.
        My Rental Site
        My Resale Site

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Beaglemom3 View Post
          If I couldn't live here, then:

          1. St. Bart's (St. Barthelemy, F.W. I.)Aaaahhhhhh. I'd have to improve my French toute suite !
          Getting there is a scream, literally.

          2. Ireland (I could bother Garry/Ireland's Call)

          3. People's Republic of Key West (I believe they seceded).

          4. Maybe Switzerland. They haven't declared war or invaded anyone in ages and just think of the chocolate.
          Am easily "bothered" Beags....! G ( Best for me is North Spain...just great )

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by BocaBum99

            The food in Australia isn't as good as it is here.
            Interesting. Which food? (That's not a rhetorical question, I'd be very interested in the answer as maybe we've been brainwashed by all the ads?) I thought we had the best produce and seafood, etc in the world, or so I've been told. In fact, my sister is moving to NY to work after Christmas and her main concern is that she'll miss all the good food we can get in Australia. She did part of her law degree at NYU so does know about food in NY.

            Northern Europe is too cold. Australia has great weather, great working conditions with everyone entitled to 4 wks annual leave and long service leave after 10 years. Best of all, no tipping! Everything is included in the price you are quoted.

            University education is affordable. No need for parents to go broke. If kids can't afford it, as long as they get enough marks, they can defer payment until the degree is completed and start working.

            And if the world goes crazy (blow each other up) in the northern hemisphere, we're far enough away to miss most of the fall-out.
            Syd

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Sydney View Post
              And if the world goes crazy (blow each other up) in the northern hemisphere, we're far enough away to miss most of the fall-out.
              Oh, now that's a good thought.
              Mike H
              Wyndham Fairshare Plus Owners, Be cool and join the Wyndham/FairfieldHOA forum!

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Sydney View Post
                Interesting. Which food? (That's not a rhetorical question, I'd be very interested in the answer as maybe we've been brainwashed by all the ads?) I thought we had the best produce and seafood, etc in the world, or so I've been told. In fact, my sister is moving to NY to work after Christmas and her main concern is that she'll miss all the good food we can get in Australia. She did part of her law degree at NYU so does know about food in NY.

                Northern Europe is too cold. Australia has great weather, great working conditions with everyone entitled to 4 wks annual leave and long service leave after 10 years. Best of all, no tipping! Everything is included in the price you are quoted.

                University education is affordable. No need for parents to go broke. If kids can't afford it, as long as they get enough marks, they can defer payment until the degree is completed and start working.

                And if the world goes crazy (blow each other up) in the northern hemisphere, we're far enough away to miss most of the fall-out.
                I think the Asian food in Australia is excellent. And, I didn't mean to imply that Australian food was bad. One of the best shrimp dishes I've ever had was at the "Hot Rocks" in Sydney.

                First and foremost, my experience starts with breakfast. I can't stand British breakfasts which are very prevalent in Australia. Undercooked bacon, runny eggs or those overcooked in the little round ring, stewed tomatoes and pork and beans make me cringe. Just a personal preference. I'm sure someone likes it. To me, Denny's is better than any British breakfast I've ever had in Great Britain, Hong Kong, Australia or anywhere. And, I'm not a big fan of Denny's.

                In the US, you can have your eggs done overeasy, overhard, over medium, sunnyside up, scrambled, in quiche, hard boiled, poached, in custom omlettes with over a dozen ingredients, in an egg sandwich, with ranchero sauce, with salsa on a bagel, eggs benedict. Your potatos can be home fries, french fries, tator tots, hash browns, potato pancakes, plain grits (well not quite potatos), all with or without cheese. Your meats can be regular bacon, maple bacon, honey ham, canadian bacon, ham steak, corned beef hash, link sausage, italian sausage, chorizo, patty sausage, breakfast steak, lox. Your breads can be white bread, wheat bread, sour dough bread, rye bread, pumpernickle, biscuits, corn bread, bagel toasted, untoasted, scooped, flour tortillas, corn tortillas, pita bread. with butter, margarine, cream cheese, scallion cream cheese, humous. Bagel plain, with sesame seeds, with garlic, with poppy seeds, with everything. A dozen flavored coffees, decaf or no caff, half caff, cream, milk, half and half, hazel nut. Pancakes can be had with dozens of various ingredients. Waffles with dozens of toppings. 5-6 syrups. In addition to coffee, you can have milk, orange juice, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, cranberry grape. Fresh fruits include watermelon, cantelope, grapes, papaya, pineapple, kiwi, apples, oranges, and more.

                Our restaurants will then take these ingredients and invent new combinations of dishes just for breakfast. And, this doesn't even include when they start adding in other cuisines such as chinese diem sum, congee and japanese breakfasts. All this for the simplest meal of the day. And, not including buffets. No wonder Americans are so overweight.

                Then you move to Lunches and Dinners and dessert. We have virtually every cuisine in the world done every way possible from very poor to unbelievably outstanding. The choice is even more intense than what I describe above for breakfast. And, there is fusions of multi-cultures that blow you away.

                What makes it great is the truly unbelievable choice and diversity of cuisines in the country and the various regional focus. The biggest issue is choosing the right restaurant given your own personal preferences.

                It's amazing to watch a European friend order dinner in an American restaurant for the first time and observe their utter amazement at the number of choices they need to make in ordering their dinner.
                My Rental Site
                My Resale Site

                Comment


                • #9
                  Ahh, I see. Yes, we were distinctly overwhelmed with the choices in the U.S. Your supermarket ice-cream ailse left us flabbergasted. For breakfast, as long as they serve grilled mushrooms, I'm happy.

                  Funny about the bacon comment. American bacon is so overcooked that they're carcinogenic!

                  No worries, with the proliferation of Gloria Jeans, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, etc, we'll be like the good old U.S. of A in no time.
                  Syd

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    No worries, with the proliferation of Gloria Jeans, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Burger King, etc, we'll be like the good old U.S. of A in no time.

                    Sydney,

                    With the exception of Starbucks, this represents the worst, not the best of the USA.

                    When I travel, it blows me away to find these chains in other parts of the world. I never frequent them here at home, and have to wonder, how they have made their way across the globe. I am always disappointed to see them.

                    Cheap, fast food restaurants are prevalent in the USA, but they are certainly not a good example of the varied cuisines that are available here.
                    Angela

                    If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

                    BTW, I'm still keeping track of how many times you annoy me.

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X