The main problem I have with the interesting ranking of countries  -Future-Orientation Index-  developed by Tobias Preis and Helen Susannah Moat of the Warwick Business School and University College London is the concept. What does exactly forward-looking mean?  It reflects international differences in attention to the future and the past, Moat told NPR.  Not easy translation to Spanish if you don’t use more than one definition: progresista, previsor, visionario, que piensa en el futuro…

The new Index compares how often Internet users in 45 countries Googled the years “2011” and “2013” in 2012. In this edition Germany is the world’s most forward-thinking country, replacing UK, and Pakistan  its least. The US  goes 4th and Spain 26th. On Feb 8th 2013 Caitlin  Dewey  mentioned in the Washington Post some of the objetives we should not look for in the new ranking:

But while future-orientation may correlate to economic strength, it doesn’t predict it – at least not in the short term. Japan, for instance, ranked ninth on the index in 2011, and third in 2012. Yet GDP growth in that country has been tepid both years, a mere 2.2 percent, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.