So happiness is directly correlated to the cost of houses? The property market in the UK is a reflection of population growth and density, bad government policy and overinflated valuation, nothing else.
What about looking at the average level of educational achievement, or the rates of teen pregnancy, alcoholism, clinical depression and violent crime, or income distribution and living costs. Despite having more "economic freedom" than most other Western European countries, the UK consistently performs worse on these metrics. Child poverty rates have stabilised in the UK under Labour only because they raised taxes, invested in employment schemes and began to roll back some of the harmful neo-liberal policies of the last Conservative government that damaged the poor's ability to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
How do you square that with your claim that "lower taxes [lead] to more successful countries"?
As for countries in Africa, of course foreign aid isn't the solution (did I ever say it was?) The solution will come from civil society organising itself to the point where it can demand and implement good governance and sound management of their economies; when international institutions such as the WTO are more democratic so they can tackle Northern protectionism; when they can spend all of their tax income on improving their infrastructure and investing in core services like health and education, rather than servicing bad debt and struggling to cope with health crises like AIDS/HIV, TB and malaria; when a whole host of things happen that are not direct consequences of increased "economic freedom" (i.e. less regulation of business and capital to the detriment of society).
© Tom Chance 2001-2007. 
So happiness is directly correlated to the cost of houses? The property market in the UK is a reflection of population growth and density, bad government policy and overinflated valuation, nothing else.
What about looking at the average level of educational achievement, or the rates of teen pregnancy, alcoholism, clinical depression and violent crime, or income distribution and living costs. Despite having more "economic freedom" than most other Western European countries, the UK consistently performs worse on these metrics. Child poverty rates have stabilised in the UK under Labour only because they raised taxes, invested in employment schemes and began to roll back some of the harmful neo-liberal policies of the last Conservative government that damaged the poor's ability to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
How do you square that with your claim that "lower taxes [lead] to more successful countries"?
As for countries in Africa, of course foreign aid isn't the solution (did I ever say it was?) The solution will come from civil society organising itself to the point where it can demand and implement good governance and sound management of their economies; when international institutions such as the WTO are more democratic so they can tackle Northern protectionism; when they can spend all of their tax income on improving their infrastructure and investing in core services like health and education, rather than servicing bad debt and struggling to cope with health crises like AIDS/HIV, TB and malaria; when a whole host of things happen that are not direct consequences of increased "economic freedom" (i.e. less regulation of business and capital to the detriment of society).