Well, my thoughts are that the best country to be in for its citizens is the one where most of its citizens are among the richest on the planet. Sustainability, adventure, cultural influence, entrepreneurship and economic influence are all very nice things for a country to have, but they don't much affect the average citizen who might want to do something fun - like go on overseas vacations.
By the Credit Swiss Global Wealth Report of just over two years ago (when our dollar was on par with the US dollar) the richest adult people on the planet on a median basis were Australians with US$220,000 each, followed by Belgians with around US$178,000, and in equal third position were the British, Italians and French with $110,000 each. The USA was way down the list. The ranking would be different on an average basis asopposed to the median basis, but that distorts things, as adding billionaires' wealth make the average guy look richer than he really is.
In Australia, the richest 10% of the population owned 50% of the wealth, whereas in the USA the richest 10% owned 74% of the wealth and in the UK the richest 10% owned 85% of the wealth - and most other countries were worse.
Their other measure was how much of the population owned US$10,000 or less. In Australia that figure was 6% of the adult population, which was in sharp contrast to the USA where a whopping 29% of the population was that poor.
Since then, the AUD has dropped a lot compared to the USD, but at about the same rate that the Euro has dropped, so I don't expect the rankings to have changed that much.
So, out of that list of the supposed top ten countries, only in the UK and France do its typical citizens come close to being in the same league as Australian citizens, and they are only half as wealthy.
It's my personal bias - but I prefer the criterion of wealth in assessing best countries, as it allows me to check out sustainability, adventure, economic influence and cultural things in the poorer countries while vacationing there.
Regards,
Renato
