New Zealand

As Xmas approaches, it is good to reflect about all the nice stuff about New Zealand as a country:

* We are the 2nd least corrupt country in the world, above 143 other countries. NZ scored 9.6/10 and the median is 3.4!

* We rank top equal in terms of political freedom and civil liberties.

* We are the 5th most economically free country in the world, above 150 other countries. NZ scored 1.70 out of 5 (worst) and the median is 3.06.

* We are the 12th best country in the world for press freedom, above 152 other countries. NZ has only 2 “bad” points compared to the median of 20.5. Or in this other press freedom survey we rank 10th with only 12 bad points against the median of 42.

* We rank 14th highest for environmental sustainability, ahead of 96 other countries. NZ scored 60.9 and the average was 51.8

* We rank 15th highest for quality of life, ahead of 95 other countries. NZ scored 7.436 out of 10, and the median was 6.164

* We rank 19th highest on the UNDP Human Development Index, ahead of 158 other countries. NZ scored 93.3% and the median was 75.3%

Would be interesting to do some weighting amongst all the various indexes and come up with a mega-index. Ideally one could have the user set the weightings to reflect personal preference as I would rate political freedom and economic freedom very highly while others might put environmental sustainability as most important. I suspect however you do it, NZ comes out pretty good.