Archive for the ‘Religion & Politics’ Category

There are lots of different reports that rank nations according to various criteria to tell you who is best at something. Education, healthcare, equality, prosperity, the lists go on. The problem with these lists is that they can be very subjective and so it is difficult to trust which ones are a) accurate and b) measuring something meaningful.

The Fin Global Development Index solves this problem. We have taken 23 different indexes and averaged them to produce a score for each country. This helps prevent bias in any one report from moving a countries position.

Secondly, I took ensure that a fair criteria was used. Rather than measure on the criteria that was used to build the report, I took a simple premise.

We all know that Finland is the happiest, most developed, generally best place in the world. It has an unmatched education system, high social mobility, and achieves such levels of happiness that most of its population manage to not kill themselves even though it is dark, miserable and freezing cold six months of the year.

Therefore, based on this premise, countries were awarded points based on how close they were to Finland in each of the rankings. Having an equal score resulted in zero points, being one place away was one point, and so on. Therefore if Finland ranked 4th in the world, you would earn zero points by being joint-forth, one point for being 3rd or 5th, and so on. The object being to score the lowest amount of points.

Countries represented

A selection of countries were chosen to represent the world. These included a selection of developed nations, as well as developing nations to use as comparisons. The complete list of countries included were:

• Norway
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• France
• Spain
• Germany
• Estonia
• United States
• Canada
• Australia
• Japan
• India
• China
• Brazil
• Saudi Arabia

Indexes

The following index were used to compile the report:

• GDP (PPP) per capita
• Life expectancy
• Infant mortality
• Press Freedom Index
• Pearson education index
• Education Index
• European Health Consumer Index
• WHO healthcare rankings
• Human Development Index
• World Happiness Report
• Long-term unemployment (OECD)
• Government transparency (OECD)
• Global Slavery Index
• Social Progress Index
• Cancer rate (OECD)
• Health care quality (OECD)
• Suicide rate (OECD)
• Corruption Perceptions Index
• Globalisation Index
• Failed States Index
• International Property Rights Index
• Legatum Prosperity Index
• Alcohol consumption (OECD)

Results

Analysis

When plotted as a percentage graph with zero representing a perfect score and India (who scored the highest) representing the worst possible score, most developed countries represent similar levels of development.

Click for a larger version.

The highest ranking countries were Sweden, Norway and Canada. There is a possible bias for Northern Europe to share a similar culture and therefore score better on some of the metrics, or it could simply be that these countries are uniformly excellent (or more likely both).

It is also possible that OECD countries benefited from the inclusion of those lists as because there are less states on there, they may be moved closer together. This is unlikely to have had a large effect, as most non-OECD countries would not score that highly, but will have had some effect.

Conclusion

Northern Europe and Canada are the best places to live. Unless you dislike freezing your balls off, in which case you might want to consider the United Kingdom or Australia. You probably do not want to live in India.

4th of July, Higgs Day, is a big thing for Americans. To the rest of the world however, it is just another day.

Being British, you can sometimes receive a gentle ribbing from Americans about the issue. The day they broke free from the Britain Empire. The truth is though, this happens to us a lot. We used to own almost everyone, so statistically, more than once a week someone is celebrating their independence from us.

Grand total: 61

Recently a new report by Shelter suggested that 80% of homes were unaffordable to most families. Government intervention on this issue has failed us. Perhaps it is time for a free market solution?

Firstly, the government’s “Help to Buy” scheme is not helpful. It allows people to take 95% mortgages by allowing the banks to make less risky mortgages and the government paying the rest. The problem with this is that it allows people to buy homes they can’t afford.

The example of the Help to Buy website shows the government adding in £20,000 to the £5,000 deposit the buyer has, thus allowing them to buy a £200,000 house. But they cannot afford a £200,000 house. Based on the deposit they are putting up they can afford a £40,000 house. However, state intervention then allows everyone to charge £200,000 and have buyers for them, thus house prices go up to way beyond what they should be.

Secondly, the banks are willing to take large risks on mortgages because they know the government will bail them out if they get into trouble. Thus they can take huge risks, get rich when times are good and make the tax payer pay when times are bad. Who wouldn’t do that?

The government should stop doing things to make this huge prices affordable and actually do the opposite – making them unaffordable! Thus the free market would then bring prices down.

This, not propping up unaffordable house prices, is where state intervention would be useful. In order for the free market to function effectively you need to ensure there is liquidity in the market. This can be achieved by making sitting on second homes unaffordable.

Leeds City Council has already taken steps to do this. They have revoked council tax discount on empty properties and after two years you even may a premium of an extra 50% (you pay 150% of the normal council bill) to encourage you to sell it. Similarly, as I wrote about in 2012, you could just ban people from buying second homes.

Ending the state-sponsored propping up of house prices and introducing further measures to add liquidity to the housing market could then allow the free market to bring house prices down to a reasonable level.

Obviously this is a topic that most people will have an opinion on, so I would love to hear why I am wrong (on which I expect there will be some good arguments).

Recently, the US Patent office revoked some of the patents owned by the Washington Redskins because their name was offensive to Native Americans.

This follows on from a long campaign against the american football team to change their name because it is incredibly racist. Earlier this year the National Congress of American Indians launched a new advert to bring the point home.

Of course, it is not really like the point needs to be brought home. It’s obvious. There is simply no way this can be viewed as anything but offensive:

For example, what happens when you take out one derogatory term for a group of people and put another one in:

As if anyone would stand for that! It’s time for a name change.

What should they change it to? I’m angling for the Washington Filibusterers.

If Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead. That is what one critic of Obamacare said.

You can probably safely assume then that the author did not consult the latest World Health Organisation rankings of the world’s healthcare systems. It was getting increasingly out of date, with the latest rankings being published in 2010. However, even back then it could be seen that Britain ranked a reasonable 18th while the United States could only manage 37th, equal with Costa Rica.

However, a new study by The Commonwealth Fund has ranked the NHS at the top.

It is quite a selective list. No Spain or Italy for example, both who ranked excellently in WHO’s 2000 report, along with many very small nations such as San Marino that arguably do not count. But does include a health selection of systems including France (the 2000 first place) and Sweden and Norway that you would expect to do very well in all things quality of life.

In fact Britain does so well that it comes first in every category but three – equity (joint second), timeliness (third) and healthy lifestyles (tenth).

Click for a larger view.

Not everyone agrees with the report though. The Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI) produce rankings also and their 2013 report puts Britain a lot further down the list.

Click for a larger view.

However, as I will almost certainly lead a happy life in the belief that I do have the best healthcare in the world, I’m going to choose to believe the former. Go NHS!

People often refer to Britain as a Christian country. You can make this argument, but as the BHA points out, not if you look at the stats. They are quite clear. Most people in Britain have no religion.

“Hello, welcome to the polling station. Are you voting fraudulently?” “No” “Okay, wonderful. Go right ahead then”.

Sounds ridiculous of course. However, in the UK, that is pretty much what we do. Without bothering to ask the question explicitly. In some parts of the country they were apparently turning EU citizens away saying they had not completed a UC1 form whatever that is.

That certainly was not the case in Leeds. The two non-British EU citizens I spoke to said they had the same experience. No one asked to see their polling card. No one asked to see their ID. They didn’t even need to know their own name.

When Elina went down to the polling station she was armed with her polling card and password. However, she didn’t need either. They just asked for her address. She could have given any. After she did that, they read out her name and asked if that was her. She said it was, and was given a ballot paper.

I’ve never tried electoral fraud, so I am not an expert in it. However, I can see a few ways in which this system would be undermined. For example, I could have given my neighbours address. Very easy when you live in sequentially numbered flats. Even if they had then asked me to confirm my name, I could have just read it upside down while they were looking for the address and given it back to them. And all of that is only based on a scenario where I don’t know the name of my neighbour.

Luckily, because everyone in Britain is totally honest, this isn’t a problem.

The UK currently has an opt-in system for organ donation. That means that unless you have specifically opted-in to donate your organs after you die, the NHS cannot have them. Sort of. Actually, whether you are signed up or not, they just ask the family. The NHS advice that making your views clear can be helpful. But actually, it is fairly irrelevant.

So a graph like this might look pretty scary:

But actually, it is not a complete disaster, because they will just ask the family anyway. I still think it would be worthwhile for the UK to switch to an opt-out system though. In general, you get higher donation rates in countries with an opt-out system.

If they also just ask the next of kin, it is not immediately obvious why this should be the case. Perhaps the relatives are less likely to say no if they do not feel the individual felt strongly enough to opt out, or perhaps there is just a general culture of that being the done thing. I am just speculating, I have no idea.

To me though, I wonder why there would be an opt-out at all?

What is the point? I cannot think of a good reason why the NHS should not just have a free right to help themselves to my organs after I am dead.

Perhaps you could make the argument that the family don’t like the idea. Or that it makes some people uncomfortable with the idea that their organs will be removed after they are gone. But organ donations save lives. Are these the reasons that are worthy of condemning someone to death? I would argue they are not.

Lovely cartoon by Joel Pett.

Apparently, Paddy Power think he is not.