Sure, statistics can be cobbled together to justify almost any theory. But the latest Bloomberg Misery Index comes up with a strange one.
The happiest country in the world? Norway? Well, it's one of the richest. Brazil, riding high on the World Cup success and with the Olympics next year? Taiwan, which has some of the best looking guys on the planet?
Nope. None of them, although Switzerland comes second. The happiest country on the planet is none other than . . . . Thailand!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -the-worldIn what may come as a surprise, the least-miserable country in our analysis is the not-so-wealthy Thailand. That's partly thanks to an unusually low unemployment rate, currently tracking below 1 percent, that has so far failed to spur inflation.
To be fair, the list is based primarily on two factors which generally make consumers unhappy - unemployment and inflation. Clearly, though, the authors take no consideration of the type of employment. How can anyone one seriously claim that the millions of Thai rice farmers are happier in their labour than the gnomes in Switzerland?
And what of the island miracle to our south, Singapore? It's nowhere to be found in the 51 economies surveyed!
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