Our good friends at the UN have recently come out with their top places to live in the world based upon the "Human Develpoment Report."  According to the website:

"The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrollment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income)."

Here is the list of the countries that made the list this year:

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. Iceland
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. France
9. Switzerland
10. Japan
11. Luxembourg
12. Finland
13. United States
14. Austria
15. Spain
16. Denmark
17. Belgium
18. Italy
19. Liechtenstein
20. New Zealand
21. United Kingdom
22. Germany
23. Singapore
24. Hong Kong, China (SAR)

You saw right!  The US is number 13.  What?  13? 

I've been to many of these countries and even lived in one (Germany) for three years.  Most of these are nice places but there are not many, if any, I would put above the US as the best place to live.  Take away the US and many of these countries would not even survive.  Why?  The US spends billions in the protection of itself as well as most of these countries (our allies). 

If you really want to know where the best place on earth to live is, look at the emigration (migration from native country to another; moving out) and immigration (moving to a country that is not your own; moving in).  The US is near dead last for people leaving its country to go to another.  On the other hand it is number 1 in the world for people leaving their country to come to the US.  I think the overwhelming majority of people like their life in the US and more than any other country, people want to move here.  Below is a table of worldwide migration patterns: