What made the home of the free/brave fall from grace? The United States was once ranked first, in 1988. This time around, the EIU found the United States to be a nation where "babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation."
The Economist
also explained that these quality-of-life surveys are heavily, and rather simply, based on a nation's overall happiness level. Well, guess we'll have to open up an R29 Zurich edition.
![article-2240002-164240C3000005DC-310_306x726](http://static3.refinery29.com/bin/entry/910/x/985088/article-2240002-164240c3000005dc-310-306x726.jpg)
Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia/The Economist Intelligence Unit.