Gross National Happiness – Another Agenda 21 con game
My impression: What a crock!
It looks like the United States is now embarking on this nonsense.
Yes, your hard earned tax dollars are now going to fund various surveys and research to determine “how happy we are”.
photo/Jay Baldwin
Somerville, Massachusetts participated in survey questions last year (as part of the census) and came out with this report.
They are, of course, using their findings to justify spending more money on public programs.
USA Today had a big article about the GNH Index…
Several cities and states are already looking into citizen well-being or floating happiness initiatives. Yet the real game-changer could be a federally funded panel that is studying whether there’s a better way to tally prosperity. The panel, which started work in December and will report its findings next year, will recommend whether measures of happiness (and misery) should be added to the equation. And if so, how? …
The practical impact of the panel’s work would be to figure out whether a broader GDP could better guide public policy. For example, if commuters prefer riding the train to fighting traffic in a car, perhaps public transit should be bolstered. Or if patients value pain management more than costlier medical treatments, care considerations could get a second look.
For these reasons, states and cities are also putting well-being — a broader version of happiness — on the public agenda. Vermont enacted legislation in May to compile a new measure of the state’s “economic, environmental, and societal well-being,” akin to Maryland’s Genuine Progress Indicator that includes the value of housework and the cost of lost leisure time.
Civic groups in several U.S. cities — led by Seattle in 2010 and followed by Wisconsin’s Eau Claire and California’s Nevada City — have launched happiness initiatives. They ask residents to take a survey and use the results to offer community activities intended to lift spirits.
You want to know what would make me happy?
If the government would stop taking money out of my pocket to pay for moronic studies like this!
and of course it is NO SURPRISE that this massive bullshit campaign is coming from the United Nations!
In late June, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development called for a broader index than GDP that would include environmental and social impacts, echoing a U.N. resolution last summer that said GDP does not “adequately reflect” people’s well-being. In April, a U.N. meeting discussed the Gross National Happiness index used by Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation with a population of just over 700,000 …
In 1972, Bhutan’s king called for a Gross National Happiness index, saying people’s happiness did not depend solely on money. In 2008, the nation began setting policies, based partly on the index, that look at many factors including life satisfaction, mental health, safety and literacy. For example, Bhutan limits tourism (by issuing visas only to tourists booked with a local licensed tour operator, for example), bans the sale of tobacco and, beginning in June, bars motorists from town centers on “pedestrian’s day,” every Tuesday.
To coincide with the Bhutan-led U.N. Conference on Happiness in April, the first World Happiness Report was published by Columbia University’s Earth Institute, an eco-minded research group. The report found that higher incomes — not surprisingly — boost well-being in poor countries. In rich countries, however, more money made less of a difference. Other factors — political freedom, social support, job security, health, stable families — often mean more.
So you see, this is just another nonsensical public policy program designed to make work for government workers, broaden government, justify more public spending on more public programs, to be a diversion away from our real problems and to justify more government control and intrusion on your life …because they are doing this for YOUR welfare.. they will be telling YOU what is good for YOU in everything from healthcare to the food YOU eat!
GNH is a global con game.
GNH wants to make everyone believe that they do not need wealth because “money cannot buy happiness”.
GNH wants to convince you that you can be happy with less and do not need to strive to be more successful or wealthy.
GNH is another globalist initiative to alter measurements of a country’s success. (as opposed to GDP)
GNH wants to lead you to believe that government and public policy can give YOU the things to make you happier.. more parks, more public transportation, more programs, with some wealth redistribution thrown in as well (because taxes will fund all of this).
Since this is apparently part of the United Nations Agenda 21scheme, let’s just take it for what it is… a device that will allow government to measure YOUR happiness and then tell YOU what they think is good for YOU!
And of course, YOU are paying for all of it!
As I said.. it’s a crock.
You want to know what would make me really happy?
If we defunded the United Nations and ended our idiotic involvement in Agenda 21.
As far as Bhutan being some idyllic place..perhaps one should ask how happy Bhutanese Nepali refugees (Hindus) have been. Seems to me that they have been treated like garbage by their benevolent and caring government – so much so that they have fled to other countries.
The Desk of Brian recommends:
Bill Clinton says no one could have turned the economy around in just four years- Is he correct?
The Obamacare Tax
VIDEO: Teacher screams at student that it's criminal to criticize President Obama
Blacks and Politics by Dr. Walter Williams
Tampa strip clubs prepare for Republican National Convention
Rick Perry, the Globalist
Agenda 21 for Dummies - Consent of the Governed
The Return of the Smear Brigade
