The Most Prosperous Nations on Earth

As I was logging out of my hotmail account an interesting article on the MSN Money website caught my attention. The title of the article is “The most prosperous nations on earth” – btw MSN, Earth should start with a capital E – and it basically lists 20 of the best countries to live in. The countries are ranked ranked by the Legatum Institute according to the following key criteria:

1) Economic fundamentals
2) Entrepreneurship and innovation
3) Democratic institutions
4) Education
5) Health
6) Safety & security
7) Governance
8) Personal freedom
9)Social capital

Being Canadian, I was obviously curious to see whether Canada makes it in the list, and although I’m glad it made it I was thinking it would’ve ranked higher – apparently Canada has some improvement to do. But enough about Canada, let’s get on with the list. Here are what the Legatum Institute deems the “most prosperous nations on Earth” (in reverse ranking):

20) Slovenia

19) Spain

18) Hong Kong

17) France

16) Japan

15) Austria

14) Germany

13) Belgium

12) United Kingdom (U.K)

11) Ireland

10) New Zealand

9) United States (USA)

“In a move that will surprise few, the U.S. ranked lowest for health (27th in the world) and safety and security (19th) – with 44 countries having lower homicide rates”

8) Netherlands

7) Canada

Yes, that’s right, Canada beats the United States…again. Lol, I have a feeling my American readers will flame me for that one 🙂 But seriously, I think both the US and Canada can do better. Nor surprisingly health is a big failure for both countries. I’m guessing that the people living in the other higher ranking countries probably think of Canadian and Americans as overweight couch potatoes.

6) Australia