About the usefullness of various rankings ...
It is popular these days to rank countries by various parameters: GDP, corruption, etc., etc. It is hard to say how valuable those rankings are but one ranking shocked me.
British organization and journal "International living" each January ranks the countries by the parameter they call "quality of life". They do this for very many years. Quality of life is composed according the data in 9 categories: economy, costs of living, culture and leisure, ecology, freedom, healtcare and life expectancy, public safety and crime, climate, risk of disasters (political, natural, war, terror, etc.). This year they ranked 194 countries from all over the world.
In the ranking 2009 they gave to Lithuania ... 22 place in the world. What is shocking that first 25 places in the ranking are called "countries of extra class" .... And only economy prevented to get higher place in the ranking: if Lithuanian GDP would be 30% higher this country would be among TOP10 places in the world ...
( TOP10 countries: 1. France, 2. Australia, 3. Switzerland, 4. Germany, 5. New Zealand, 6. Luxembourg, 7. USA, 8. Belgium, 9. Canada, 10. Italy )
Lithuania is ranked according those stupid Britons (typical reaction of typical Lithuanian to such ranking) above such countries Britain (25th place) and Sweden (30th place). Even more suspiciously they ranked neighboring countries - Poland 35, Latvia 44, Belarus 109, Russia 111.
I checked people's reaction (of course it's not representative) to this ranking. And always reaction was the same: the ranking is bad. Lithuanians said ranking is bad because they put us above Britain and Sweden, Swedes and Poles said that ranking is bad because they put us behind Lithuania :)))))
British organization and journal "International living" each January ranks the countries by the parameter they call "quality of life". They do this for very many years. Quality of life is composed according the data in 9 categories: economy, costs of living, culture and leisure, ecology, freedom, healtcare and life expectancy, public safety and crime, climate, risk of disasters (political, natural, war, terror, etc.). This year they ranked 194 countries from all over the world.
In the ranking 2009 they gave to Lithuania ... 22 place in the world. What is shocking that first 25 places in the ranking are called "countries of extra class" .... And only economy prevented to get higher place in the ranking: if Lithuanian GDP would be 30% higher this country would be among TOP10 places in the world ...
( TOP10 countries: 1. France, 2. Australia, 3. Switzerland, 4. Germany, 5. New Zealand, 6. Luxembourg, 7. USA, 8. Belgium, 9. Canada, 10. Italy )
Lithuania is ranked according those stupid Britons (typical reaction of typical Lithuanian to such ranking) above such countries Britain (25th place) and Sweden (30th place). Even more suspiciously they ranked neighboring countries - Poland 35, Latvia 44, Belarus 109, Russia 111.
I checked people's reaction (of course it's not representative) to this ranking. And always reaction was the same: the ranking is bad. Lithuanians said ranking is bad because they put us above Britain and Sweden, Swedes and Poles said that ranking is bad because they put us behind Lithuania :)))))