Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (70806)	1/10/2005 2:18:02 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

U.S. Falls out of the Index of Economic Freedom's Top 10 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. "The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing their approaches and reducing their roadblocks," said Marc Miles, a co-editor of the book, along with Ed Feulner and Mary Anastasia O'Grady. "The U.S. is eating the dust of countries that have thrown off the 20th-century shackles of big government spending and massive federal programs." As in previous years, the Index ratings reflect an analysis of 50 different economic variables, grouped into 10 categories: banking and finance; capital flows and foreign investment; monetary policy; fiscal burden of government; trade policy; wages and prices; government intervention in the economy; property rights; regulation; and informal (or black-) market activity. Countries are rated one to five in each category, one being the best and five the worst. These ratings are then averaged to produce the overall Index score. World-wide, the scores of 86 countries improved, the scores of 57 declined and the scores of 12 are unchanged from last year's Index. The U. S. recorded an overall score of 1.85 for the second consecutive year, making it one of 17 countries rated as having "free" economies. Another 56 countries finished between 2.0 and 3.0 and are considered "mostly free," 70 finished between 3.0 and 4.0 and received a "mostly unfree" rating, and 12 were considered "repressed." With top scores in property rights, banking/finance and monetary policy, the U.S. is still a vibrant and dynamic economy, the editors note. But a 4.0 rating in fiscal burden of government, which ranks worse than all but 30 countries in the survey, held it back. This reflects poor scores in the area of taxation. The U.S. corporate tax rate ranks 112th out of the 155 countries scored, and its top individual tax rate ranks an only somewhat better 82nd. The fiscal burden rating also reflects the fact that federal spending has reached levels not seen since World War II and now costs the average household more than $20,000 per year. This is the 11th consecutive year The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have published the Index. Marc Miles is director of Heritage's Center for International Trade and Economics, Ed Feulner is Heritage's president, and Mary O'Grady edits the "Americas" column and is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal. You may access the entire Index, which is available online for free at index.heritage.org . accountingweb.com

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (70806)	1/10/2005 2:39:01 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

But Greenspan did succeed in spades with his primary (unstated) objective IMHO -- enriching the financial industry and the big investor class beyond their wildest dreams.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (70806)	1/10/2005 3:51:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The following sites are the most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community... Blogdex is a research project of the MIT Media Laboratory tracking the diffusion of information through the weblog community. Ideas can have very similar properties to a disease, spreading through the population like wildfire. The goal of Blogdex is to explore what it is about information, people, and their relationships that allows for this contagious media. Blogdex uses the links made by webloggers as a proxy to the things they are talking about. Webloggers typically contextualize their writing with hypertext links which act as markers for the subjects they are discussing. These markers are like tags placed on wild animals, allowing Blogdex to track a piece of conversation as it moves from weblog to weblog. Blogdex crawls all of the weblogs in its database every time they are updated and collects the links that have been made since the last time it was updated. The system then looks across all weblogs and generates a list of fastest spreading ideas. This is the list shown on the front page... blogdex.net