The Happiest Place On Earth

No, it's not Disneyland. Actually, I'm talking about the happiest countries on earth. If you guessed the U.S. as one of the happiest, you were wrong. First, what is happiness? Several years ago researchers at a London think tank set out to rank the happiest countries in the world. They ranked 110 countries on 89 variables like economy, entrepreneurship, governance, education, health, safety, personal freedom and capital.

Norway came out on top, and it's Scandinavian neighbors Denmark, Finland and Sweeden were all in the top 10. Switzerland and Netherlands were also right up there. None of the highest ranking countries had great hoards of oil and gas. So what do these countries have that we do't? First, Norway has the highest per capita GDP of $53,000 a year. Norwegians have the second-highest level of satisfaction with their standards of living: 95% say they are satisfied with the freedom to choose the direction of their lives; an unparalleled 74% say other people can be trusted.

One of the factors that ranks the Scandanivan countries so high is size. Being small helps. Big countries have so many disparate groups vying against each other that it's hard for true social cohesion and trust to emerge, and harder to maintain high levels of safety. Among countries with populations of more than 150 million, the United States ranked highest, at number 10.

Another common factor is they are all borderline socialist states, with generous welfare benefits and lots of redistribution of wealth. Civil liberties are abundant. There are few restrictions on the flow of capital or labor. Of utmost importance, nearly all the nations in the top 10 are adept at fostering entrepreneurship and opportunity. This means low business startup costs, lots of cellphones, plenty of secure internet servers and the perception that working hard gets you ahead. Entrepreneuralism gives a society a mechanism by which it can address and improve other aspects of the prosperity ecosystem.

The U.S. is still the envy of the world when it comes to entrepreneuralism. In 2009, Americans created 558,000 new businesses (not new jobs) each month. That's 27,000 more than in 2008 and 60,000 more per month than in 2007. What we're lacking in is feeling "well rested." We were 62nd world wide in this criteria. Figuring out how happy we are is very complicated. It all depends on how happy you've been. If you're already rich, like Scandinavia, then more freedom, security and health would add the most to happiness. For the likes of China and India (both ranked around 88th), money is more important, because they don't have it.

The least happy country on Earth is Zimbabwe, followed by Pakistan. North Korea is so far off the chart that they're not even rated. Happiness is one of those emotions with so many elements. Our economic woes right now are making happiness difficult for the middle class. I guess for right now we'll just have to go to Disneyland to feel happy.