The United States Vs. The World: The Numbers Are In And they Are Not Good

As Americans, we like to tell ourselves that we are the best in everything we do. The biggest, the fastest, the smartest, etc. And while that may have been a true statement in the past, in looking at a slew of recent statistics and numbers from reliable sources, it appears that our place in the world on some very important measures are not where we think they are relative to other countries:

- According to the World Economic Forum's Competitiveness Index, the United States is now only the fourth most competitive country in the world, having been surpassed by Sweden and Singapore and still trailing Switzerland in the number one position. As recently as the 2008-2009 analysis by the World Economic Forum, the United States was the best in the world. Not a good trend, first to fourth in just two years.

- In the Heritage Foundation's most recent analysis and computation of their Index of Economic Freedom, of all the countries in the world, the United States ranks only seventh, trailing Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Switzerland, in that order. This index measures economic freedom which is defined as: "Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property." It is measured across ten components and the latest report shows that:

1. The United States went down in seven of those categories, up in only two and stayed even in the remaining category. Again, not a good trend to have.
2. From an overall rating perspective, the United States had the largest rating drop of all of the countries in the top ten.
3. Of the top ten countries, the United States had the ninth worst rating on the political corruption component, beating out only Chile.
4. On the government spending component, the United States was worse than the average when calculated for every country in the world, not just the top ten.

- The Economist magazine operates a group within itself called the Intelligent Unit which publishes the its Index of Democracy measurement every year. The latest year for which the index was calculated appears to be 2008 and shows that the United States ranks a lowly 18th in this measure of democracy relative to the rest of the countries in the world with Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Denmark being rated the top five. In civil liberties, the Index ranked the United States as only the 34th best nation in the world in that category of freedom. Can you say "Patriot Act?"

- In an August issue of Newsweek magazine, they had a panel of experts compile and analyze worldwide data to determine what were the best countries to live in. Their analysis ranked the United States as only the 11th best nation to live in trailing, (in order from the best): Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Luxembourg, Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, and Denmark. Two of the measurement components were Education and Health and unfortunately, the United States ranked only 26th best in both categories, despite probably spending more per capita than any other country in the world in these two areas.

- Step 27 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" set up a process to overhaul and improve the failing public education system we have in this country. Why?  According to all measurements of education quality in the world that assesses the education of our kids with the kids in other countries, we do not fare well at all. Step 27 in the book talks about the 2006 Program For International Student Assessment (PISA) process which showed that the United States' students fared far worse than many, many countries in the world on math and science tests. Not surprising since these findings are consistent with August Newsweek findings discussed previously and President Reagan' 1983 special commission on education.

- One final depressing number. In the October 8, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, an article quoted a recent finding from an ABC News/Yahoo News poll which found that more than 40% of Americans no longer believe in the "American Dream."

As we pointed out several times in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," we are not as free as we once were, we are not as free as we think we are, nor or we as free as we should be. This includes both political freedom and economic freedom, i.e. the ability to retain what you work for and earn. The more economic freedom you have the more free you are to choose what schools your kids go to, what charities to donate to, whether or not to start a business, what type of life style to have, etc. You cannot decouple political freedom from economic freedom. These numbers from the above sources indicate that we are a nation on decline at the moment, both competitively, economically, scholastically, democratically, and life style wise. That is the reality of today, the numbers do no lie.

Now, in order to solve a problem you first have to identify the root causes of the problem. Some of the above analyses have done that for us already:

• Our civil liberties have eroded as the American political class has gotten stronger and has burdened our freedoms with such things as the Patriot Act.
• Our political class ignores, encourages, and participates in a wide range of corruption practices which damage the credibility of government and wastes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year.
• We get no bang for our buck when it comes to health care and education expenditures, spending the most and getting for less than quality back in return.
• Our Federal debt and spending have gotten out of control, burdening both current Americans and future Americans with untold amounts of national debt to pay off. You cannot be free when you have to pay off the onerous debt that the political class has incurred on your behalf.

Many steps need to be taken, as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," including reducing the size of the Federal government by 10% a year for the next five years, implementing subject matter driven processes to fix our education system and health care system without the influence of petty politicians and lobbyists, and introducing term limits. The most important step starts with dumping all incumbents in the November election. Both parties got us into this mess, these trends have been building for years and/or decades, times when both parties controlled Congress and the White House. Politicians sitting in both parties today are not able to fix these trends and get us back to where we think we belong, at the top of the world as the most free, dynamic and prosperous nation in the world. They had their chance, change their status from incumbent to ex-politician in November.



Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit these other sites for freedom:

www.cato.org
www.robertringer.com
www.realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/