"Les Cargill" <lcargill@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:482d182d$0$31757$4c368faf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> The Trucker wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 19:23:44 -0400, Les Cargill wrote:
<snip>
>
>> So you can escape
>> by weighting the different non spinnable metrics. But you really can't
>> do that either. If you have the freedom to move about then you can
>> select
>> the economy that scores best on YOUR selected weights. The measurement
>> of
>> the economy is not the province of Milton or of the Republicans or the
>> Democrats or the Nazis. It can be individualized. Based on the
weights
>> selected by the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Intelligence_Unit
>> the US economy ranks significantly below Scandinavia.
>>
>
> And a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
>
> That index measures infantilism, not livability. I know Scandinavians.
> They're just as grumpy as we are, just about different things. They
> don't particularly *like* their little socialist paradises. Which are,
> after all, overwhelmingly based on rents.
>
> Scandinavian societies are really hard on ambitious people. But
> that's the point, isn't it?
Amen.
I'm on my way to Sweden next week to attend my nephew's graduation from
high
school. He is the valedictorian, and wants to be a doctor. While I'm
traveling to Sweden, he's also traveling there -- from the US. He's
finally
got his US citizen****p, because he wants out of Sweden for exactly that
reason -- he's ambitious. (His mom wants out of there too, but she's
saddled
with an unambitious husband who is satisfied with the state of affairs,
but
also grumpy about them.)
JG
>
> This being said, the pragmatic Swiss really do a good job of dealing
> a lot of issues - health care, the like.
>
>>>> There is and will be much disagreement over the weight assigned to
the
>>>> various measurements of "infant mortality", "longevity", "happiness",
>>>> and
>>>> the like. But these are the things that actually represent the
quality
>>>> of
>>>> life; the success or failure of economic policy.
>>>>
>>> And each of those will mire you in details forever. Improved
>>> prenatal care actually inflates infant mortality figures - what
>>> would have been a miscarriage is now an infant death. Yadda
>>> yadda.
>>
>> Another seemingly ridiculous diversion.
>>
>
> Uh huh. Fertility drugs, delayed pregnancy, other factors lead to
> increased numbers of low birth weight babies, who overwhelmingly
> bias upwards infant mortality rates.
>
> You can't metrify happinefs. Jefferson shoulda stuck with
> "property".
>
> --
> Les Cargill
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