Saturday, October 11, 2014

The land of the less free

The Cato Institute reports:

There was a time, not so long ago, when the United States was considered the world standard for economic freedom. Yes, there were countries out there, like Hong Kong and Singapore, that might have had lower taxes or fewer regulations. But the world could still speak confidently of the American free-enterprise system. No longer.
This week, a consortium of think tanks from almost 90 countries released their Economic Freedom of the World Report. The United States is no longer among the top ten countries when it comes to size of government, rule of law and property rights, soundness of the money supply, regulation, and free trade. We now rank twelfth, down from second as recently as 2000. For the record, we now trail Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, Jordan, Chile, and Finland.

More

NZ Table here

Note our poor 'size of government' rating - ranked 89th

3 comments:

S. Beast said...

Clearly they didn't consider all the unpaid government spies who have been forced to report US citizens through FACTA

tranquil said...

"Note our poor 'size of government' rating - ranked 89th"

I'm not surprised.
There are departments that just cry out to be axed. Women's Affairs. The Human Rights Office. The Children's Commission.

As for local government - what an utter mess *that* is.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Amen to that.