Posted on 01/06/2005 12:18:36 PM PST by Robert Drobot
AccountingWEB.com - Jan-6-2005 - For the first time ever, the U.S. does not rank among the world's 10 freest economies in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S.' score in the 2005 Index did not change from 2004. But improvements in the economies of Chile, Australia and Iceland enabled all three to surpass the U. S., leaving it in a tie for 12th with Switzerland and out of the top 10 for the first time in the 11-year history of the Index.
(Excerpt) Read more at accountingweb.com ...
Thanks for the ping!
Yes these next few years are the last chance to reduce the size of govt, the size of the debt and return us to the path of economic freedom. Some think that our leaders WILL can keep us booming and leading the world. Like being committed to something happening in words, but not in deed makes it happen.
The dollar will be dead by the middle of 2005 due to runaway trade and fiscal deficits including social and military spending. I don't think the blame for these problems can solely laid at the feet of socialist policies do you ?
BUMP
I've talked to enough Aussies to seriously doubt that Down Under has passed us by in this regard.
Chile ahead of the US.
I've been there, didn't want to live there.
Who among us would move to any one of those countries?
How much would you bet that the majority of the touted "Top Ten" list ARE socialist nations?
31 August 2004
The Washington Times - James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, The Fraser Institute,
Arriving in 1939 as a brand-new, wide-eyed mail clerk at the head office of IBM on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, I recall how struck I was by its bold 15-foot-high sign painted on the exterior wall. The sign read "World Peace Through World Trade" — an idea, I learned later, of IBM's ace thinker, founder and entrepreneur, Thomas J. Watson.
That Watson-IBM thought, to which I'll return, bears on this work that rates, indexes and ranks the degree of economic freedom for 123 countries. Like its competitor, the annual economic freedom index published jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, this report — authored by economists James Gwartney of Florida State University and Robert Lawson of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio — finds a close connection between economic freedom and national prosperity, including per-capita income.
Messrs. Gwartney and Lawson acknowledge the ongoing help of economists Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institution and Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia.
They also acknowledge the support and participation of some 60 other free-market think tanks, including the Cato Institute, Centro Einaudi in Italy, the F.A. Hayek Foundation in the Slovak Republic, the Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa, the Hong Kong Centre for Economic Research, Britain's Institute of Economic Affairs, South Korea's Center for Free Enterprise and Timbro in Sweden.
The authors classify the various statistical components of their index under five areas: size of government expenditures, taxes and enterprises; legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation of credit, labor and business.
Messrs. Gwartney and Lawson find that Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom, or 8.7 out of a possible 10, whereas Singapore comes in second with 8.6, and bunched for third at 8.2 are the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Australia, Canada, Ireland and Luxembourg, in that order, round out the top 10. The bottom five countries, in descendingorder,are Venezuela,theCentral African Republic, Congo, Zimbabwe, and, in last place, Myanmar (formerly Burma), with a score of 2.5.
In other of their findings, the authors note that booming China's rating has climbed from 3.8 in 1980 to 5.7 in 2001; prosperous Ireland's rating has advanced from 6.2 in 1985 to 7.8 in 2002; and ex-Soviet, newly admitted EU member Poland rose from 3.3 in 1990 to 6.6 in 2002.
Two notable nations moving down of late include Zimbabwe (formerly successful Rhodesia), whose rating fell from 6.0 in 1995 to 3.4 in 2002, and Argentina, whose rating fell from 6.7 in 1995 to 5.8 in 2002.
As Mr. Gwartney and Mr. Lawson remark, economically free nations grow faster; nations with more economic freedom both attract more investment and achieve greater productivity, and central to successful national growth is "a legal structure that provides for secure property rights, even-handed enforcement of contracts, and the rule of law."
Well, for our terror-haunted world, these constructive forces have apparently been at work over the last two decades. Good work: Only 15 of 104 countries had double-digit inflation rates in 2002, compared to 76 in 1980. In 2002, not a single country imposed a 60 percent marginal tax rate on personal income, while in 1980, 49 did so.
Tariff rates dove: In 2002, the average tariff rate was 10.4 percent, compared to 26.1 percent in 1980. Upshot: World trade expands, relatively and absolutely. From 1980 to 2002, on average, exports plus imports as a share of GDP went up by 25.2 percent.
So Thomas J. Watson's idea of "World Peace Through World Trade" seems to be doing its part for peace — albeit, note the authors, with much of the Middle East and other Islamic nations generally lacking the rule of law and property rights. It's an unsafe lack.
U.S. critics of "globalization" and "outsourcing," who tar CEOs engaging in such practices as "Benedict Arnolds," have it wrong. For don't such criticisms set back global market democracy and world capitalism, and unmindfully incite further terrorism across a nervous globe? Isn't free trade-world trade-world investment the Watson answer for world peace? Indeed.
Why should terrorists and suicide bombers kill, when their very own people engage in friendly and peaceful trading and investing across borders, and are the richer and happier for it? After all, who goes around shooting his customers or bombing his investors?
William H. Peterson is an adjunct scholar with the Heritage Foundation and contributing editor to the Foundation for Economic Education's magazine, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty.
Simply it is not true.
FREE
1
Hong Kong
2
Singapore
3
Luxembourg
4
Estonia
5
Ireland
New Zealand
7
United Kingdom
8
Denmark
Iceland
10
Australia
11
Chile
12
Switzerland
United States
14
Sweden
15
Finland
16
Canada
17
Netherlands
Heritage Foundation is a serious Institute and a Conservative think tank.
Ah, Willie, according to the index used to figure this out, the more restrictions a government imposes on free trade, the lower you fall on the chart.
So, are you coming out in favor of free trade now?
You don't think that Denmark, Iceland, and the United Kingdom with their socialized medicine, socialized energy industry, and socialized national transportation systems are more socialist than the US?
What I read is that the more a government encumberss free trade, the lower in the chart you go.
The First Federal Revenue Law
On April 8, James Madison, once again a congressman from Virginia, addressed the House. He went right to the point. Congress, he said, must "remedy the evil" of "the deficiency in our Treasury." He argued that "[a] national revenue must be obtained," but not in a way "oppressive to our constituents." He then proposed that the House adopt legislation, virtually identical to the unimplemented Confederation tariff, imposing a five-percent tariff on all imports....
...
A single, uniform tariff, he insisted, had two advantages. First, it could be imposed quickly, which was important because "the prospect of our harvest from the Spring importations is daily vanishing." Second, it was consistent with the principles of free trade ("commercial shackles," he said, "are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic")
LOL!!!
Madison isn't alive today Willie.
So does that make him just another one of those dead white men who you think are "irrelevant" in today's society, Luis?
The rail transport system in Great Britain developed during the 19th century. After the grouping of 1923 by the Railways Act 1921 there were four large British railway companies, each dominating its own geographic area. These were the Great Western Railway (GWR), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the Southern Railway (SR).
London Underground and the Glasgow Subway were independent concerns and there was a small number of independent light railways and industrial railways, but did not contribute significant mileage to the system. Neither were tramways considered part of the system.
During the Second World War (1939 — 1945), the railways were taken into state control. They were heavily damaged by enemy action and were run down aiding the war effort.
The Transport Act 1947 made provision for the nationalisation of the network, as part of a policy of nationalising public services by Clement Attlee's Labour Government. British Railways came into existence from 1 January 1948, under the control of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission (BTC)
Independent railways were not taken into BR.
The Northern Counties Committee lines owned by the LMS in Northern Ireland were quickly sold to the Stormont Government, becoming part of the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) in 1949.
Thanks for the link about James Madison. Might you added it to your FR home page space? Just an idea, my friend.
Do you know who was M. Thatcher and her 80's policies? G.B. now is a really FREE Country. I don't really get at your intentions, but it's interesting. Thanks!
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