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posted by janrinok on Monday March 19 2018, @09:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-clapping-for-us dept.

Common Dreams reports

Nordic countries with strong social welfare structures fared best, as they have in previous years, on the United Nation's annual accounting of global happiness--while the United States finished in 18th place, down four spots from 2017.

Finland was ranked number one on the World Happiness Report, compiled by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The country was joined by other Scandinavian nations--Norway, Denmark, and Iceland--in the top four, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia.

[...] the United States finished in 18th place, down four spots from 2017.

[...] The drop followed President Donald Trump's first year in office, during which the majority of Americans reported disapproval of the country's top elected official, and hundreds of thousands protested his regressive policies on immigration, women's reproductive rights, and gun control--as well as widespread concerns that the president is blatantly profiting off his position in public office.

The past year also saw reports of America's widening wealth gap, with the average upper middle-class household holding 75 times more wealth than low-income families.

Trump's tax law, pushed through Congress despite the disapproval of 53 percent of Americans, only heightened the perception of many people that the government is intent on transferring wealth to the richest Americans while the majority live paycheck to paycheck.

The World Happiness Report ranks countries according to per capita GDP, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and corruption levels.

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row in 2017, with researchers suggesting that the opioid addiction epidemic and inequality are related to the decline.

Reigning political ideologies in the highest-ranking nations contrast sharply with that of the U.S., noted the researchers.

The countries in the top 10 tend to "believe that what makes people happy is solid social support systems, good public services, and even paying a significant amount in taxes for that", said [Jeffrey D. Sachs, editor of the World Happiness Report].


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @01:11PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @01:11PM (#654861)

    If you don't like them, maybe don't ship millions of them as slaves to your country.

    Believe me that we wish we hadn't. Even good ole' Honest Abe knew that we would be better off if we shipped them all back

    The small amount of labor we enjoyed is no where near worth the amount of cost involved in murder, mayhem, destruction, vandalism, public welfare, social costs, urban decay and other fruits of their existence. Take a trip to Detroit or Baltimore and look around and you'll see it's devolving right back to Ghana. You can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @02:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @02:23PM (#654904)

    Case in point: Nine year old Homo Habilis, criminal in training, executes his sister by gunshot to the back of the head in a dispute over the video game controller. It took a bit of searching to prove what I already knew, that the shooter was a proto human. The circumstances: [Mississippi, victim murdered execution style, violent reaction to a minor argument over meaningless item, nine year old has unfettered access to a loaded handgun, choice of dispute resolution, absolute contempt for human life] Not easy to identify the perp since the mainstream media tries to hide race in matters that are utterly abhorrent to humans.

    Sheriff Cantrell confirms the victim was Dijonae White.

    Yep... Checks out. At least this time it wasn't over Chicken McNuggets.

    http://www.wtva.com/content/news/Teen-shot-in-head-by-9-year-old-in-Monroe-County-477207783.html [wtva.com]