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America Ranks as a Top 10 Nation for Economic Freedom. But There’s a Twist…
Economic Freedom of the World: 2018 Annual Report from the Fraser Institute.
To the extent “Make America Great Again” is an economic argument, it’s one that doesn’t make much sense. During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump described America as pretty much a failed state, even using the phrase “third world country” multiple times. As he told The Washington Post, “I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we’re a poor country now.” This dystopian view was also part of the claim that 2016 was the “Flight 93” election where the nationalist 99% had one final chance to “charge the cockpit” and seize control from globalist Davoisie oligarchy running Washington and ruining America.
Of course, exploiting economic discontent is what so-called populists do, whether they are of the left or right. And they aren’t going to let facts — such as America having a net worth of over $100 trillion — get in their way. Yet it’s worth making sure those facts stay front and center as much as possible. Helpful in this endeavor is the new “Economic Freedom of the World” report from the Fraser Institute, which “measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom.” And some good news: America is back in the top ten. The US economy scores particularly high in areas such as “sound money” and “regulation.”
So give some credit to Trumponomics? Not really. Turns out that the underlying data is from 2016, as the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome helpfully notes on Twitter. Indeed, the comprehensive US score bottomed in 2011 after a long decline since 2000. It will be interesting to see if the next report shows the recovery that started during the Obama presidency continuing into the Trump years. One criteria that may trip up the future US ranking: “freedom to trade internationally.”
Published in Economics
So it looks like the USA had a downward trend in freedom during the Clinton- GW Bush administrations and started an upswing under President Obama when one considers the 2-3 year lag in information. Hmm.
And people hate white people because of what?
Putin’s Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia should be in the bottom quartile.
Remember religious freedom, women, censored Internet, Crimea, etc.
Who would rather live in Putin’s Russia than western Ukraine?
Looks a little fishy doesn’t it?
https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/russia.ukraine/economy
I believe Russians are on average twice as rich as Ukrainians as I remember reading a few years ago, but Russia attacked and invaded the very populous and sometimes wealthy and industrial eastern part of Ukraine and completely took over Crimea.
How are things in the Republic of Georgia and Tibet also?
The assertion that freedom advanced under Obama tells us more about our inability to measure things than it does about the US during this period. The IRS attacks, Obamacare, attacks on religious freedom, banking regulations. DOJ’s efforts to prevent then undo an election. Moreover, it takes time for moves against freedom, regulations, bureaucratic creep to settle in and change fundamental incentives. Peter’s loss is averaged out with Paul’s gain, minus dead weight loss from changed incentives but as long as there’s still growth we don’t capture it.
It’s interesting (to me anyway) that they still list Hong Kong as a separate country from China. Hong Kong remains at the top of the list while China is way down at #108. I’m curious what the score would be if Hong Kong was treated as just another province in China. Also interesting is Chile, the one country in South America in the top 25% (#15) when most of the continent is in the bottom quartile. That includes neighboring Argentina at third from the bottom at #160. I expected the usual suspects* like Sudan and Venezuela to be down at the bottom of the list, but it was surprising to see Argentina rank so low. They were in the top quartile at #37 as recently as 2001.
*North Korea isn’t on the list at all, probably because they don’t release any information.
Falkland Islands are a blue dot.
Peru sneaks into the blue range at #38 on one map.
Last place Venezuela was ranked #10 to #15 between 1970 and 1980.
And how terrible was Pinochet?
“Under the influence of the free market-oriented neoliberal “Chicago Boys”, Pinochet’s military government implemented economic liberalization, including currency stabilization, removed tariff protections for local industry, banned trade unions and privatized social security and hundreds of state-owned enterprises. These policies produced what has been referred to as the “Miracle of Chile” by Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet
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On one map Rwanda is a tiny blue dot in Africa squeaking in as the last slot in the upper quartile.
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And how terrible was Margaret Thatcher?
The United Kingdom was in the third quartile (fewer countries in survey) until Margaret Thatcher took over. It has stayed in the first quartile ever since.
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On one map Georgia is all the way up to #7, just behind the United States!
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It looks like the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and perhaps a few other dots like Hong Kong and Singapore are about the only countries to rank in the top quartile in every survey.
Do my eyes deceive me? Is that blue speck next to Ukraine Romania? How’d they ever end up in the top quarter on anything?
I thought you meant #34 Albania, but perhaps you are referring to something else. I guess you are referring to #20 Romania.
Albania did stay out of the EU and the Eurozone.
Spain #30 and Portugal #36 are ranked kind of high for southern European countries. Perhaps there is some bright side for them soon. There seem to be a lot of smart people in Spain, but I think a lot them have been traveling elsewhere to find work.
It is interesting that people take colorful charts made by political organizations seriously. I suspect that Obama could have jailed half the population and ran half the businesses out of the country and the charts would show what a bang up job he was doing. Of course the opposit is true. No matter how good the Trump economy is, or deregulation he does this graph is pretty much guaranteed to fall when his data comes into play.