Page 11 - Ulpan-Or E-Tone (14.03.17) Advanced Level

E-Tone™: Ulpan-Or Weekly News Digest

Item #2 (Advanced Level)

How Happy are You?

We love to complain about the cost of living, the eroded wages and high
taxes, but at least according to one index, the Happy Index published
today, we’re not doing bad at all. According to the index measured by the
UN, Israel is ranked number eleven out of a hundred and fifty five
countries, and this, it should be said, for the second consecutive year. At
the head of the list are Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Israel is even ahead
of the United States, Germany and the UK, countries (we) can’t call poor.
What is this index based on? It checks several criteria: product per capita,
healthy living, social support given by the country, generosity, corruption
as well as freedom, or free choice. At the bottom of the list, by the way,
(you) can find Syria, Yemen, Tanzania. Following the report some
countries even appointed a “Happiness Minister”, whose job is to make
sure these indexes remain high. So before politicians brag about the data
and say that everything is actually okay, (we) can’t forget that in other
indexes we’re far from doing fine, but everything as we know is relative,
and sometimes it’s nice to hold on to an index where we’re ranked at a
relatively impressive place, too.

Page 11 - Edition 03-28-17

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