Good Country Index Is Released, US Not In The Top 20 
 
 Trending News: How Good Of A Person Are You? Depends On Where You Live 
 
 Why Is This Important? 
 
 Because it may be time we all moved to Sweden. 
 
 Long Story Short 
 
 The latest edition of the Good Country Index has crowned Sweden as the world’s best country while the United States languishes down in 21st place. 
 
 Long Story 
 
 The United States of America may be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but it’s not even in the world’s top 20 countries, according to the latest version of the Good Country Index. 
 
 The index, which is created by British policy advisor Simon Anholt, uses 35 categories to rate a nation’s contribution to the world, including Culture, Science and Technology and International Peace and Security and ranks them from number 1 to 163. The data comes from sources such as the UN and The World Bank. 
 
 RELATED: Best Places To Live In The World 2016 
 
 The index’s mission statement reads: “We’re not making moral judgements about countries. What we mean by a Good Country is something much simpler: it’s a country that contributes to the greater good of humanity. A country that serves the interests of its own people, but without harming — and preferably by advancing — the interests of people in other countries too.” 
 
 Topping the Good Country index is Sweden, moving up from sixth last time, which excels in Health and Wellbeing and Prosperity and Equality. Its nearest rival was fellow Scandinavian country Denmark followed by the Netherlands, Great Britain and then Germany. 
 
 The USA may be a little disappointed with 21st place, below the likes of France (8th) and New Zealand (10th), plus local rivals Canada (7th) and slightly embarrassingly lower than Cyprus (15th) and Luxembourg (16th). 
 
 The US is somewhat harshly ranked 53rd in terms of cultural contribution and less surprisingly 66th for International Peace and Security while Health and Wellbeing is a decent 12th place. 
 
 The world’s four least good countries according to the index are all African nations: Libya, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Central African Republic followed by Iraq in 159th out of 163. 
 
 Last year Ireland were top of the Index followed by Finland and Switzerland, but the report was mocked by many in Ireland who felt the result flattered their nation and many experts insist the data should be taken with a pinch of salt, but let’s face it we all love a list. 
 
 Surely whoever wins the US election should be hoping to climb the ladder a little. 
 
 Own The Conversation 
 
 Ask The Big Question: Is the USA really only the 21st best country in the world? Can we really create an accurate ratings system for countries? 
 
 Disrupt Your Feed: The US can have few complaints on International Peace and Security, but 53rd for global contribution to culture? What TV shows are these guys watching? 
 
 Drop This Fact: The World Happiness report for 2016 found that Denmark is the happiest nation followed by Switzerland and Iceland with Canada in sixth. The USA was 13th and the United Kingdom was 23rd. ||||| U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs speaks during an interview with Reuters in Rome, Italy, March 15, 2016. Picture taken March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Max Rossi 
 
 U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs speaks during an interview with Reuters in Rome, Italy, March 15, 2016. Picture taken March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Max Rossi 
 
 U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs speaks during an interview with Reuters in Rome, Italy, March 15, 2016. Picture taken March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Max Rossi 
 
 Participants are seen at the World Santa Claus Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, July 22, 2015. REUTERS/Sophia Juliane Lydolph/Scanpix Denmark 
 
 People wave Danish flags as they celebrate the 75th birthday of Denmark's Queen Margrethe, who is received at the City Hall, April 16, 2015. REUTERS/Mathias Bojesen/Scanpix Denmark 
 
 ROME Denmark overtook Switzerland as the world's happiest place, according to a report on Wednesday that urged nations regardless of wealth to tackle inequality and protect the environment. 
 
 The report, prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, showed Syria, Afghanistan and eight sub-Saharan countries as the 10 least happy places on earth to live. 
 
 The top 10 this year were Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. Denmark was in third place last year, behind Switzerland and Iceland. 
 
 The bottom 10 were Madagascar, Tanzania, Liberia, Guinea, Rwanda, Benin, Afghanistan, Togo, Syria and Burundi. 
 
 The United States came in at 13, the United Kingdom at 23, France at 32, and Italy at 50. 
 
 "There is a very strong message for my country, the United States, which is very rich, has gotten a lot richer over the last 50 years, but has gotten no happier," said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, head of the SDSN and special advisor to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. 
 
 While the differences between countries where people are happy and those where they are not could be scientifically measured, "we can understand why and do something about it," Sachs, one of the report's authors, told Reuters in an interview in Rome. 
 
 "The message for the United States is clear. For a society that just chases money, we are chasing the wrong things. Our social fabric is deteriorating, social trust is deteriorating, faith in government is deteriorating," he said. 
 
 Aiming to "survey the scientific underpinnings of measuring and understanding subjective well-being," the report, now in its fourth edition, ranks 157 countries by happiness levels using factors such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and healthy years of life expectancy. 
 
 It also rates "having someone to count on in times of trouble" and freedom from corruption in government and business. 
 
 "When countries single-mindedly pursue individual objectives, such as economic development to the neglect of social and environmental objectives, the results can be highly adverse for human wellbeing, even dangerous for survival," it said. 
 
 "Many countries in recent years have achieved economic growth at the cost of sharply rising inequality, entrenched social exclusion, and grave damage to the natural environment." 
 
 YARDSTICK FOR HAPPINESS 
 
 The first report was issued in 2012 to support a U.N. meeting on happiness and well-being. Five countries - Bhutan, Ecuador, Scotland, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela - now have appointed Ministers of Happiness charged with promoting it as a goal of public policy. 
 
 The 2016 survey showed that three countries in particular, Ireland, Iceland and Japan, were able to maintain their happiness levels despite external shocks such as the post-2007 economic crisis and the 2011 earthquake because of social support and solidarity. 
 
 Sachs pointed to Costa Rica, which came in 14th and ahead of many wealthier countries, as an example of a healthy, happy society although it is not an economic powerhouse. 
 
 (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) ||||| Ouch. “We’re No. 87!” doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it? 
 
 Michael E. Porter, the Harvard Business School professor who helped devise the Social Progress Index, says that it’s important to have conventional economic measures such as G.D.P. growth. But social progress is also a critical measure, he notes, of how a country is serving its people. 
 
 Top 16 Countries Rankings in the 2015 Social Progress Index. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Norway Sweden Switzerland Iceland New Zealand Canada Finland Denmark Netherlands Australia Britain Ireland Austria Germany Japan United States 
 
 “We’re not now No. 1 in a lot of stuff that traditionally we have been,” said Professor Porter, an expert on international competitiveness. “What we’re learning is that the fact that we’re not No. 1 on this stuff also means that we’re facing long-term economic stresses.” 
 
 “We’re starting to understand that we can’t put economic development and social progress in two separate buckets,” Porter added. “There’s a dialectic here.” 
 
 The top countries in the 2015 Social Progress Index are Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, New Zealand and Canada. Of the 133 countries rated, Central African Republic is last, just after Chad and Afghanistan. 
 
 Sri Lanka does better than India. Bangladesh outperforms Pakistan. Both the Philippines and South Africa do better than Russia. Mongolia comes in ahead of China. And Canada wallops the United States. 
 
 One way of looking at the index is to learn from countries that outperform by having social indicators better than their income levels. By that standard, the biggest stars are Costa Rica and Uruguay, with New Zealand and Rwanda also outperforming. 
 
 “This takes time,” said Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which produces the index. “Costa Rica is an overperformer because of its history.” 
 
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 Green notes that Costa Rica offered free, universal primary education in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it disbanded its military forces and invested some of the savings in education. One payoff: Some surveys have found Costa Ricans among the happiest people in the world. 
 
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 Then there are the underperformers that do worse than would be expected from their income level. Saudi Arabia leads that list. 
 
 The Social Progress Index, now in its second year, might seem a clarion call for greater equality, but that’s not quite right. Professor Porter and his number-crunchers found only a mild correlation between economic equality (measured by Gini coefficient) and social progress. What mattered much more was poverty. 
 
 Of course, wealthy countries with high poverty tend to be unequal as well. But inequality at the top seems to matter less for well-being than inequality at the bottom. Perhaps we should worry less about reining in the top 1 percent and more about helping the bottom 20 percent? 
 
 On the other hand, one way to finance empowerment programs is to raise taxes on tycoons. And when there is tremendous inequality, the wealthy create private alternatives to public goods — private schools, private security forces, gated communities — that lead to disinvestment in public goods vital to the needy. 
 
 In any case, the 2015 Social Progress Index should serve notice to Americans — and to people around the globe. We obsess on the wrong measures, so we often have the wrong priorities. 
 
 As an American, what saddens me is also that our political system seems unable to rise to the challenges. 
 
 As Porter notes, Americans generally understand that we face economic impediments such as declining infrastructure, yet we’re frozen. We appreciate that our education system is a mess, yet we’re passive. 
 
 We can send people to space and turn watches into computers, but we seem incapable of consensus on the issues that matter most to our children — so our political system remains in gridlock, even as other countries pass us by.
– Skal, Sweden! Raise a glass to the Scandinavian nation, which beat out 162 others to win the overall top spot in the "Good Country Index," a ranking of the world's countries, the Independent reports. The list is based on 35 various indicators from sources such as the World Bank and the UN, separated into the categories of culture, science and tech, prosperity and equality, world order, international peace and security, planet and climate, and health and well-being. The US just missed making the top 20, coming in at No. 21. And in last place—Libya. "A good country is one that successfully contributes to the good of humanity," British policy adviser Simon Anholt, who established the Good Country Index, tells the Independent. "Of course, it must serve the interests of its own people, but never at the expense of other populations or their natural resources: This is the new law of human survival." Here, the "goodest" 10 of the bunch: Sweden Denmark Netherlands United Kingdom Germany Finland Canada France Austria New Zealand (The entire list is here.)