Question: What do Hong Kong, Singapore, Chile, Ireland and Estonia have in common?
Answer: They all have more economic freedom than the United States.
According to the 2016 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom — compiled annually by the Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation — America has matched its lowest global ranking ever at #11, its seventh decline in the past eight years. Measuring such factors as rule of law, regulatory efficiency, limited government, and open markets, they conclude, “The United States remains mired in the ranks of the ‘mostly free,’ the second-tier economic freedom status into which it dropped in 2010.”
Many believe we’ve arrived at this state of affairs due to the nature America’s mixed economy—capitalism coupled with government controls—and its nexus with President Barack Obama’s eight years of collectivist ideas and policies into American life and the economy. The result: Obama and his administration have upset, perhaps in some respects irrevocably, the tenuous balance between private enterprise (free markets, productivity, entrepreneurial growth, etc.) and the countervailing winds of government coercion and intervention.
Certainly one of the primary culprits in this dynamic is the blizzard of regulations imposed under Obama. As reported by Sam Batkins of the American Action Forum (AAF), the Obama presidency has implemented 600 major regulations—defined as regulations that have “an economic impact of $100 million or more”—and is on track to enact 641 major regulations before he leaves office. This figure shatters the 426 regulations under President George Bush and represents a new major regulation every three days—according to Batkins costing, “on average, $1.4 billion . . . With the possibility of 50 more rules, the lame duck tally could push this regulatory cost figure to $813 billion . . . more than the GDP of the Philippines.”Faced with these and other findings, Obama remains obdurate and combative—offering kingly declarations in response: “By almost every measure, we are better off than when I took office” and “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.” These assertions fly in the face of the numerous non-fictions he simply refuses to acknowledge: a labor participation rate near a 40-year low (including a record number of women); his single-handed accumulation of more debt (at $19.5 trillion and counting) than every other president before him combined;46 million Americans living in poverty and nearly 50 million on food stamps; his presidency overseeing a record number of home foreclosures; as well as America’s credit rating downgraded for the first time ever . . . the litany goes on. Is it any wonder that trust in Obama’s leadership and his administration remains at historically low levels? After almost eight years of government corruption, ever-expanding spending and taxation, bloating of the administrative state, and governance repeatedly highlighting racial, social and religious divisions, the once unassailable belief in America as the freest, strongest, noblest, most prosperous nation in history has been supplanted by a vision of ourselves that we do not recognize and from which we may never recover.
Obama’s insistence on government being increasingly involved in the country’s private sector’s economic decision-making has inevitably given rise to more and more lobbyists, more special interest groups, more political influence, and more crony capitalism—which makes a mockery of his pledge to create an “unprecedented level of openness” and his claim that his administration has been “the most transparent administration in history.” His proof? Every visitor who comes to the White House is now a part of the public record.
Inflation,inflation and more inflation under Obama the Fink
The left wants to give up and declare that this dismal economy is the “new normal”. They want to mandate higher wages instead of allowing a growing economy to create higher paying jobs. The left supports a candidate that has, as ONE of her positions, pledges to open the borders of the US even wider than they have been and create a “common market” among nations where the US has the strongest economy (you do the math what happens there). This is the cornerstone of the goal of George Soros, so, again, you tell me what is likely to happen.
Do liberals even give any of these FACTS a second thought? No, they are too enamored with promises of free this or free that and the prospect of more liberal rule, which as we see, has served us so well for the past 8 years.
Well a good old world will get them back to work and allow more controls on internet ect…like the unpatriot act http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2016/breaking-news-russian-ambassador-to-usa-confirms-all-normal-channels-of-communication-between-the-us-and-russia-are-cut-off Just like Clinton refusing to negotiate with Gadaffi.
Get ready for more of the same if HRC wins. Her plans are just as lousy as Obama’s, Tax and punish is not the path to prosperity.
No, Obama did not change the face of our economy for the worse. He pulled us out of an economic death spiral, before the slowing wheels of the economy stopped turning altogether. You’ve already forgotten what things were like in 2007 and 2008. For future reference, try to remember what things are like at this point, only 3 days away from Obama’s departure—an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent; 81 consecutive months of private sector job growth; declining deficits; minimal inflation—because you may soon get a refresher course concerning what actually constitutes a really bad economy.
5 hours ago: Trump just signaled the death of Clinton-era strong dollar policy
That should be a final kick in the teeth for traditional savers, who have already seen their savings account interest rates reduced to zero for years to boost stock market and financial sector profits. The stability produced by frugality and saving for the future—once the hallmark of financial conservatism and common sense—has long since been discredited and replaced by a get-rich-quick gambling casino mentality. Now savers may be about to see the value of their hard-earned, carefully saved dollars themselves rapidly eroded, by a man who actually is a gambling casino billionaire. So much for years of saving to take personal responsibility for one’s own future financial security.
This is a guy who said early on that the economy is going to nose-dive again. He should know. He’s the sort of guy whose recklessness can make such things happen.
2 months ago: How President Donald Trump will wreck the world economy
@Greg:
A crock of shit greg..
@Greg: Obama impeded a natural healing of the economy. Unemployment spiked at 10.2% (when he promised it would peak at 7.9% if he got to waste a trillion dollars on his campaign supporters. If he had not imposed Obamacare on the economy, it would have done much better, but not due to his actions… in SPITE of his actions.
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
Notice greg spews the same old tired mantra, but when confronted, he runs for the tall grass….
Actually, no one put forward any credible counterargument that could be categorized as a confrontation. Trump, in fact, has been talking down the dollar.
We’re about to swear in a president who believes a strong U.S. dollar is part of the problem, and that weakening it is part of the solution. Why do I believe this? Because he has said as much. Have you not been listening to him? He intends to reduce the value of the dollar. He intends to deal with debt by paying it off with cheap paper. He intends to renegotiate with those who hold our debt, using fear of a crashing dollar as a negotiating tool. Big money investors will stay ahead of the curve. The little guy can’t move as quickly and nimbly.
If you have worked hard and carefully saved the dollars you have earned over the course of your lifetime, you are about to receive a second kick in the stomach as a reward for your traditional conservative financial values. First you were robbed of the interest on your savings. Now the value of your dollars you have saved will be slashed.
Maybe you should take your money to the casino. Put it in stocks, or real estate, and drive values up to the benefit of the big players. Everybody will be a winner—just like before.
@Greg:
Your assessment of the obama economy is flawed, but it has to be. You merely repeat fake news as real news. We know better and have known better for some time now…
Yeah, right. But who’s really being repetitious around here?
No intelligent person who’s been paying close attention to recent developments has said anything to make me believe my fears—and they are fears, I admit, on both a mental level and a gut level—are without basis. It’s that silence that scares me, as much as anything. There’s surprising silence on the right, among traditional, well-informed conservative thinkers. The right has become the alt-right, moving in and taking over without much conscious awareness of the transition on the part of conservative American voters. The traditional conservative mainstream has simply stopped analyzing.
@Greg:
@Greg:
Are you bereft of all intelligence? A strong dollar curtails exports.
All the intelligent people paying attention to what Trump is doing are impressed. Only the nodding donkeys, following the same propaganda that convinced them Hillary was winning a landslide and the source of their cry-baby, spoiled brat tantrums now, are fearing Trump’s agenda.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #13:
That doesn’t mean turning the dollar into monopoly money is some sort of a solution.
Of course, if one has never had the discipline to work and save for the future, I suppose there’s a certain satisfaction to be had from seeing the efforts of those who did so come to nothing.
Sure they are. Bearing in mind that, by the right’s definition, anyone who isn’t impressed isn’t intelligent, which turns the assertion into an exercise in circular reasoning.
William F Buckley, Jr was an intelligent conservative. He was as smart as smart comes. He had this to say about Donald Trump, way back in the year 2000:
On Donald Trump and Demagoguery
@Greg:
Again… is there anything you are aware of? Trump is not PRESIDENT yet. He is not doing ANYTHING with or to the currency. Obama, on the other hand, has been printing billions of worthless dollars for 8 years, to loan at 0% interest to prop up his failed economy. Yet, this does not bother you. Trump’s tweets bother you.
You need to pay better attention.
Trump has been stating his beliefs and intentions. Have you not been listening?
Or do you just automatically assume his statements bear no relation to his actual beliefs and intentions?
@Greg: Yes, I have been listening. I believe the economy is about to take off. Liberals have no earthly idea how to run an economy… except to run it into the ground.
Hmm… What’s a four-letter word that starts with “D” and rhymes with “Trump?”
liberals that believe MSM
http://media2.giphy.com/media/3o6ZtaiPZNzrmRQ6YM/giphy.gif
It matters little who follows their messiah, obama.
http://moonbattery.com/graphics/sunrise.jpg
The country could have real unemplyoment of less than 5%, GDP growth consistently abve 3% quarterly and yearly, median income annual growth, debt reduction and a labor participation rate at all time levels and what would be the response from the democrats and the media, but I repeat myself.
It would be that who ever was president, well that individual did not have to deal with the “great recession”. The left will attempt to portray the obama economy as a benckmark with which to compare. More fake news…..