{"id":205272,"date":"2010-01-20T13:30:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T18:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.33849"},"modified":"2010-01-20T14:16:41","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T19:16:41","slug":"heritage-foundation-canadas-economy-freer-than-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/205272","title":{"rendered":"Heritage Foundation: Canada’s Economy Freer Than U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

A year of bailouts and stimulus spending has taken a toll on global economic freedom, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom<\/a>. For the 16th year in a row Hong Kong is #1, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.<\/p>\n

The report from the conservative Heritage Foundation bumped the United
\nStates from #6 to #8. It’s not often you hear praise of Canada
\n(#7) from a right-leaning think tank, but our neighbors to the north have
\nbeen deemed to have the freest economy in North America<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Canada’s economic freedom trails the world average only in government
\nspending. Elaborate social and welfare state programs swell overall
\ngovernment expenditures. Government spending has also increased
\nslightly due to implementation of a significant stimulus package.
\nHowever, good fiscal management and federal budget surpluses have
\nenabled the economy to undertake stimulus measures without undermining
\nfiscal soundness and long-term economic competitiveness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not surprisingly, the report’s authors are not fans<\/a> of Pres. Obama’s economic policy.<\/p>\n

Seeing
\nHong Kong in the #1 spot, where it has presided since the index was
\ncreated in 1995, may be jarring for those who have followed the
\nGoogle – China saga<\/a>. And to be certain the Heritage Foundation doesn’t look kindly
\non mainland China, ranking it at #140, sandwiched between Djibouti and
\nHaiti.<\/p>\n

So why does the Index favor Hong Kong when
\nit is ultimately answerable to the same rulers who demand censorship
\nfrom Internet companies? The short answer: Low taxes, tariffs, and
\ngovernment spending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Critics of the Index have long complained that it rewards and punishes countries on the basis of conservative economic doctrine, without providing any helpful predictions about when more freedom — as defined by the Heritage Foundation — will result in higher economic growth. (One obvious example: #140 China’s GDP growth puts 139 “freer” countries to shame.)<\/p>\n

As Wheaton College economics Prof. John Miller wrote on the 2009 Index<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So it seems that the Index of Economic Freedom in practice tells us
\nlittle about the cost of abandoning free market policies and offers
\nlittle proof that government intervention into the economy would either
\nretard economic growth or contract political freedom. In actuality,
\nthis rather objective-looking index is a slip-shod measure that would
\nseem to have no other purpose than to sell the neoliberal policies that
\nbrought on the current crisis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n



\n

\n Email this Article<\/a>
\n Add to digg<\/a>
\n Add to Reddit<\/a>
\n Add to Twitter<\/a>
\n Add to del.icio.us<\/a>
\n Add to StumbleUpon<\/a>
\n Add to Facebook<\/a>
\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year of bailouts and stimulus spending has taken a toll on global economic freedom, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. For the 16th year in a row Hong Kong is #1, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. The report from the conservative Heritage Foundation bumped the United States from #6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}