Best country in the world?

[Will Robinson]

So you're buying it?

All Jeff did was take your raw data and convert it into a statistic. That statisic has no data on why the original numbers are what they are.

I'm confused. Are you asking me? And what statistics from what raw data? Maybe I'm not seeing a recent post or something...

[Grendel]

There are other factors as well -- quotas, proximity betw. bad & good places, complexity of the process, ease of finding work or housing etc. Just going by raw numbers (or even percentages) is a grossly over simplification IMHO. Eg., mexicans migrate to the US because it's next door. Algherians migrate to france because it's close and there's an easy route. Same for Russians w/ german descent, very easy for them to migrate to germany. The main motivation for migrating is to find a better place to live. If that place is nearby and it's possible to enter it w/ reasonable effort it will be 1st choice.

[Spidey]

So you're buying it?

All Jeff did was take your raw data and convert it into a statistic. That statisic has no data on why the original numbers are what they are.

I'm confused. Are you asking me? And what statistics from what raw data? Maybe I'm not seeing a recent post or something...

Yea I was talking to you, I thought it was understood a response just under another post is directed at the post above.

Sorry.

The raw data was the numbers & chart you posted…and “buying it” was referring to per capita giving some information as to what countries people are selecting to immigrate to.

I agree with Grendel’s post here…my only problem was where to hell “per capita” fit in…still can’t figure it out.

[Neo]

Isaac, I see wut yu did thare. >_>

I want to move to Canada... or Australia x_x

[Will Robinson]

So you're buying it?

All Jeff did was take your raw data and convert it into a statistic. That statisic has no data on why the original numbers are what they are.

I'm confused. Are you asking me? And what statistics from what raw data? Maybe I'm not seeing a recent post or something...

Yea I was talking to you, I thought it was understood a response just under another post is directed at the post above.

Sorry.

The raw data was the numbers & chart you posted…and “buying it” was referring to per capita giving some information as to what countries people are selecting to immigrate to.

I agree with Grendel’s post here…my only problem was where to hell “per capita” fit in…still can’t figure it out.

I don't buy it in the sense that it contradicts what my point was but I'm understanding what he's hung up on.
I think he's trying to read too much into what I was implying, same with Grendel.

It's simple. roid says that only Americans think america is the best. I say that, sure we americans think this place is great, but apparently so do a lot of the people looking for a better country to call home. We get a disproportionately higher share of those people.
I realize the title of best is subjective and not proven by the popularity but I never said we were the "best" I merely pointed out that were were the one with the most attraction to the people of the world looking for a new country. Take from that what you will.

Grendel - Sure we border Mexico so Mexicans looking for something better can head north with ease...but they also border with South America yet they don't head south by anything close to a similar ratio. The reason being they choose the U.S. over and South American country and many South Americans keep trekking right through Mexico all the way to America.

[Jeff250]

those numbers would indicate more people chose the USA.

But like you said, what we really want to know is who their first choice is, not where they got stuck.

I understand your point regarding Will’s numbers, but I’m still having a hard time figuring out why the per capita ratio is significant.

The fact that they *are* correlated can be seen from Will's data. The the number of immigrants the country has corresponds with the number of people they have in general. If we ranked how "best" first world countries are by their absolute number of immigrants, then we would generally get the same ranking as if we had just ranked them by their number of people in general.

*Why* are they correlated? In general, both having too small or too large of a fraction of your population being immigrants is bad for your economy. You already hinted at this answer yourself--the U.S. restricts the number of immigrants that can come into the country. And do you think they do this in an absolute sense? "Only five million a year, and that number would have been as good 200 years ago as it will be 200 years from now." Or relative to our population? "Only five million, because that's a reasonable fraction of our population, but when our population was a fifth of our size, we would have only let in a million, and when it is ten times our size, then we will let in fifty million." Historically, we used to even use forms of strict quotas based on a percentage of our population (actually, based on percentages of other people's populations in our population).

Spidey, Will, if you're still not convinced of the futility of your metric, here's some food for thought. Analyze any of the 50 states individually. Is California "better" than Colorado because it has more immigrants? Is Russia a "better" place than your home state? If your home state is such a great place, then why are all of the immigrants "voting with their feet" and moving to Russia? We can go the other way too--is the European Union "better" than the United States? I'm "merely pointing out" that the European Union is "more attractive" for "the people of the world" looking for a new place to live.

[Spidey]

I can’t really speak to state to state being a good analogy, because I don’t know if immigrates even have that kind of choice from the beginning.

But, I do know if you look at migration patterns over time in this country, you can see a very clear pattern of “worse to better”. (ghost towns…boom towns)

This takes place on the large scale…region to region…down to the very small scale…hood to hood.

I’m not sure state lines play any part at all, in a country that doesn’t restrict crossing them. (I’m sure it does when taxes and some other factors are considered)

[Will Robinson]

India has half the immigrant population of Canada yet it is around ten times the population!
Russia is half the population of America yet only has one fourth the immigrants. So your population correlation seems to be flawed.

Also, I never said America is best! roid claimed only Americans think it is the best and I point out that we have all these immigrants sacrificing to get here more than other places and that proves america is a desirable location. I think the my theory that people choose to move to places they see as a better place not worse is sound.
Best place? As I've mentioned at least twice, I never said it was so my metric doesn't need to prove that. I do believe it suggests it is the best choice in more immigrants minds unless you can come up with something other than the population correlation because the facts don't support that theory.

[Will Robinson]

...
We can go the other way too--is the European Union "better" than the United States? I'm "merely pointing out" that the European Union is "more attractive" for "the people of the world" looking for a new place to live.

I was addressing roids comment about 'which country thinks it is best' so the whole european union isn't really a fair comparison. At least do north America as a whole if you are going to re-write the criteria lol

[Jeff250]

Will, obviously India wouldn't fit--size isn't the *only* factor. But after you meet some standard, like first-worldliness, *then* it becomes the primary factor. Your Russia/America example isn't that exceptional--it's just my Canada/America example that I already gave in reverse. The correlation isn't *that* strong, but it's strong enough to explain why countries like Norway with 1.6% of our population have a small fraction of the amount of immigrants. What did you expect--the entire population of that country could be overrun multiple times over with the number of immigrants in our country alone. Among first world countries (which I think is a fair restriction, since I think that's all who anyone is honestly comparing), can you come up with a *better* metric other than number of people in the country to predict the absolute number of immigrants in that country?

I was addressing roids comment about 'which country thinks it is best' so the whole european union isn't really a fair comparison. At least do north America as a whole if you are going to re-write the criteria lol

I generalized your reasoning to "places" instead of "countries," but, as a thought experiment, it doesn't take much imagination to think of the European Union as a country. Speaking strictly of countries, in your ranking, if the U.K. wants to become twice as good of a place to live, they just have to annex France? If the U.S. split into two, living anywhere in the former U.S. would be half as good? If your home state left the union, then overnight Russia would be a better place to live than your home state? This is just silly--it's easy to see what's going on here.

[Jeff250]

*better* metric other than number of people in the country

This is probably easier than I thought on second glance, just because you could always just say something that is also correlated with the number of people in a country, like GDP. But I think the rest of my post stands.

[Will Robinson]

...
Among first world countries (which I think is a fair restriction, since I think that's all who anyone is honestly comparing), can you come up with a *better* metric other than number of people in the country to predict the absolute number of immigrants in that country?

I don't think there is a single factor that can predict it just like there is no single factor to explain the number who choose this place over the others. But I never set out to explain why so many choose America, it is just the fact that so many do and always have that was pertinent to my point. Probably if you could find the data on which country draws immigrants from the farthest distance (they choose to undertake greater hardship to arrive there) and which country has been sustaining the high ratios of immigrants since Americas birth then you could draw some conclusions that support or disprove my theory.

[Spidey]

And if you are going to make “restrictions” like removing the non first world countries, wouldn’t it also be fair to remove any countries that are out of scale on the other end as well?

As we speak, Canada is on a worldwide campaign to recruit immigrants, they are making their country look better than it really is, and creating fast tracks for “young and skilled”…huddled masses need not apply.

Removing the non first world countries proves to me that there is no “expectation of a countries immigration based on population”. It way too conveniently removes all of the countries that prove there is more going on.

[Jeff250]

I don't think there is a single factor that can predict it just like there is no single factor to explain the number who choose this place over the others. But I never set out to explain why so many choose America, it is just the fact that so many do and always have that was pertinent to my point.

The question was bad for a number of reasons, so I retract it--it's just distracting from my main point.

There's positive correlation between the number of people a first-world country has and the number of immigrants it has, and it has more to do with larger countries' economies being able to support more immigrants than any assessment about how good a country is to live in. You haven't shown how many people choose America in a "first choice" sense--just how many get stuck here as first choice or somewhere down the list. You say that you never set out to explain *why* there are so many immigrants in America, just that there *are* so many, but you should set out to figure out why. Maybe the primary reason is because America is everyone's "first choice." But, if it just turns out that the primary reason that there are more immigrants in America is because our country is larger, has more people, and can thus support more in an absolute sense, then you really aren't saying anything about what country is better to live in, just which country is large enough to support more immigrants, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with Roid's position. If you *can* show that people really choose America as a first choice disproportionately, then this would be interesting and I would like to see this. I'd wager that to some extent they do--I just don't know to what extent or if it's even significant--but in any case, your statistics are pretty ineffective in showing this one way or the other.

And if you are going to make “restrictions” like removing the non first world countries, wouldn’t it also be fair to remove any countries that are out of scale on the other end as well?

Do you mean out of scale by population? You could, although in the U.S.'s case, it doesn't leave many interesting cases in our "weight class."

Removing the non first world countries proves to me that there is no “expectation of a countries immigration based on population”. It way too conveniently removes all of the countries that prove there is more going on.

Of course there's more going on if you want to consider third world countries, but I don't think it's elusive. If you don't have a free market, if you don't have a democratic government and a strong culture of democracy, good natural resources, a good history, etc., your country won't be a very nice place to live. I don't think anyone will argue with that. But there does seem to be this set of countries--first-world countries--that all seem to have plateaued at being reasonably nice places to live in where size of country seems to dominate in predicting how many immigrants they have rather than how nice they are to live in. It's just the scope of my statement. Sure, it doesn't cover, say, Iran, but I don't see anyone honestly suggesting that Iran is the best place to live anyways, so I don't feel bothered to explain Iran's number of immigrants. All of the honest suggestions have been first-world countries, and so among them, their difference in absolute number of immigrants has more to do with their difference in absolute size.

[Lothar]

Imagine a country so awesome that everyone wants to immigrate to it, but it's currently empty. In the first generation it exists, half of the world's population goes there, so its population is 100% immigrant. The next generation, half of the world's remaining population goes there; now it's only 33% immigrant. The next generation, it's down to 16% immigrant, and on and on. Immigration per capita is decreasing, not because the destination is becoming less desirable, but simply because so many people have already made the trip.

I'm not saying the US is necessarily that awesome. But it seems silly to penalize the US in your statistics because so many people immigrated in the last 4 centuries, making this generation's immigrants a small percentage of the total. IMO \"per capita\" immigration is a very poor measure.

[Jeff250]

That thought experiment seems fair. In practice, I think that people's motivations for immigrating to the U.S. have changed over history, so reasons why people originally immigrated may not be pertinent anymore. In some dimensions, the perceived value of a country changes too--more people move in, now land isn't as cheap. But I still agree with your thought experiment showing a problem--it's certainly possible that would you described could happen. But still, absolute measurement also seems unfair--politically splitting a country in two doesn't make both halves suddenly half as good places to live in. That experiment breaks that measurement. Going back, I think that some sort of measurement of first choice is ideal.

[Will Robinson]

...
If you *can* show that people really choose America as a first choice disproportionately, then this would be interesting and I would like to see this. I'd wager that to some extent they do--I just don't know to what extent or if it's even significant--but in any case, your statistics are pretty ineffective in showing this one way or the other.
...

You and I agree on the point I was trying to make. You just showed that you see the statistics the same way I do. The disagreement is that you assume I'm making some kind of further, simplistic, absolute, conclusion and I never meant to imply that.

I think there is disproportionate ratio of people who make this country their "first choice" because I think that explains the extra immigrants that your population theory (which I understand and agree with) doesn't.
The significance in the context of this discussion is that I believe that extra number of immigrants who pick the U.S. as their first choice, whatever that number is, represents non-U.S. citizens that think the U.S. is the "greatest" (roids subjective descriptive) choice they could make.
I think it is reasonable to expect at least some of them fit my template and that is the evidence I presented to counter roid's claim.

and this has to be the most anal retentive argument I've ever created But the topic is interesting so the research and thought process makes up for it to me.

[roid]

So how many people have immigrated into Europe vs into USA? Got any figures on that Will?

Imagine a country so awesome that everyone wants to immigrate to it, but it's currently empty. In the first generation it exists, half of the world's population goes there, so its population is 100% immigrant. The next generation, half of the world's remaining population goes there; now it's only 33% immigrant. The next generation, it's down to 16% immigrant, and on and on. Immigration per capita is decreasing, not because the destination is becoming less desirable, but simply because so many people have already made the trip.

I'm not saying the US is necessarily that awesome. But it seems silly to penalize the US in your statistics because so many people immigrated in the last 4 centuries, making this generation's immigrants a small percentage of the total. IMO "per capita" immigration is a very poor measure.

4 centuries ago USA probably was awesome. Hell it was the world's proving ground for representative democracy. But that was a long time ago, no resting on laurels, back to reality now.

The question is about USA's attractiveness right now. According to the HDI: USA seems to be a lot more attractive now that Obama is in power. I'm curious why that is, what has improved? I havn't looked at the figures yet. And honestly i doubt people here would even be ready to discuss such a thing.
le sigh

[woodchip]

Roid, are you talking about legal immigration or legal combined with illegal? A easy answer is with a world wide recession, more people figure America has better chances for a better life. Nothing to do with Obama. Assuming of course your \"more people immigrating to USA\" now is valid.

[Spidey]

And, I guess it does take all of Europe to equal US.

“According to the HDI: USA seems to be a lot more attractive now that Obama is in power. I'm curious why that is, what has improved?”

Nothing!

Pretty much proves the HDI is political in nature.

[roid]

Roid, are you talking about legal immigration or legal combined with illegal? A easy answer is with a world wide recession, more people figure America has better chances for a better life. Nothing to do with Obama. Assuming of course your "more people immigrating to USA" now is valid.

No you have misunderstood, i'm not the one who asserted USA's immigration has increased - iirc that was Will.

when i said "more attractive" i am referring to USA's current ranking on the HDI - which has recently greatly increased.

there's 2 separate topics here you are getting mixed up:
- Immigration levels.
- HDI rank.


Also Spidey perhaps you should read about what the HDI actually is before you try to prove anything about it's nature. I have a feeling you know nothing about it or how it's calculated.
So here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

I notice that although i suggested it - no-one has yet bothered to compare the USA specific changes in the specific factors (life expectancy, education, per-capita GNI) which the HDI is entirely based on. I'm tipping some of these have improved dramatically and that's why USA's HDI rank has greatly improved as of late. But which ones? Only one way to find out...

[Spidey]

Always assuming someone is ignorant as usual.

You’re just way too trusting of the things you hold up as pure and innocent, then I am.

Quality of life here is slipping bad…but if you say differently, who am I to argue.

Healthcare hasn’t been in effect long enough to have had any effect.
Unemployment is at 10%.
Income levels are plummeting.
Public education may have gotten better around the margins…but tertiary education is slipping.

The other “good\" things like cleaner air and life expectancy have been getting better long before your benchmark (Obama).

[Spidey]

Sorry…edit problems…

Maybe the answer is some of the other great countries are “losing” quality of life faster than here…

I’ll give you that one.

Some cases can be cited. But this does not contend with your implication that it’s Obama.