In the year 2000 the USA ranked second on the Economic Freedom of the World report. Now, in 2014, the USA has fallen to 12th place.
That’s right, the country founded on capitalism and economic freedom has been steadily losing ground among the most free nations as our system declines into welfare dependency, government sponsored crony capitalism (which isn’t capitalism at all but fascism), and big government, regulatory strangulation.
The CATO Institute puts out its annual report measuring the economic freedom of the nations of the world and this year the leader in global economic freedom is Hong Kong. The rest of the top ten are as follows: Singapore; New Zealand; Switzerland; Mauritius; United Arab Emirates; Canada; Australia; Jordan; and, tied for 10th is Chile and Finland.
And what of the United States?
The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 12th in the world, tied with the United Kingdom at 7.81. Due to a weakening rule of law, increasing regulation, and the ramifications of wars on terrorism and drugs, the United States has seen its economic freedom score plummet in recent years, compared to 2000 when it ranked second globally.
The “weakening rule of law” is a salient point. We live in a nation where the law does not respect the people, where law makers change laws and with abandon, where courts make constant alterations in the law from the bench, and were officials and police alike just don’t care if they are following the law at all.
In a climate like this business cannot thrive because they never know what to expect from one moment to another. This means they have to waste more money every year on lawyers and government compliance officers, on fighting lawsuits, and trying to figure out what government will do to them if they should want to grow their business.
For instance, the CATO reports notes that, “increased use of eminent domain to transfer property to powerful political interests, the ramifications of the wars on terrorism and drugs, and the violation of the property rights of bondholders in the auto-bailout case have weakened the tradition of strong adherence to the rule of law in United States.”
This makes for a unsettled and uncertain grounding for entrepreneurs, small and big business and even the regular citizen alike.
Government is cost this country billions a year in wealth and the growth of government is sending this country down the drain.
