Thursday, August 19, 2010

You can't win 'em all

Antigua may have been voted the world's top travel destination, Tikal the world's greatest historical experience ahead of the Taj Mahal and the pyramids, the whole Central American isthmus may be a global specialist in the generation of happiness, but this week Newsweek published an interactive infographic which saw Guatemala come in a lowly 84th out of a 100 of the world's best countries — and if you sort by 'Latin America & Caribbean' the Chapines end up with the wooden spoon. Yes, we are officially the shittest place to live in the whole region.

Even though Haiti was apparently not competing, how this state of affairs could have arisen is a complete mystery to me frankly. Have the people responsible for these metrics (Health, Education, Political Environment, Economic Dynamism and Quality of Life) ever been to Honduras? They even have a higher per capita murder rate over there, as well as a lower per capita GDP and 80s-style throwback political shenanigans.

PS: Cuba came in above Colombia, a statistic that is bound to please those nice folk over on NT24.

1 comment:

scott said...

It's gotta be in the weighting, with some theoretical construct being given undue weight resulting in non-real-world numbers...