Graph of the day

Alternate headline: We’re #12!


We're back from sea trials and trying to get up and running. An unfortunate, untimely and salt water-induced destruction of our smart phone has led to the purchase of a new S IV. Unfortunately, we were unable to transfer anything from the old phone which means uploading all our contact infos and apps such as Twitter (will it recognize our existing account?). These are things for which we are not technologically cut out so please bear with us.


In the meantime…


You are all aware one of the central memes of the President’s current second term slouch is income inequality. Why not employ code to stoke the continual flame of class warfare in order to pass more counter-productive legislation like a minimum wage hike and marginal tax rate hikes?


And in other news today, the U.S. has fallen out of the top ten in terms of economic freedom.


From the Wall Street Journal:

World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries.

It's not hard to see why the U.S. is losing ground. Even marginal tax rates exceeding 43% cannot finance runaway government spending, which has caused the national debt to skyrocket. The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy. The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity.

But as the U.S. economy languishes, many countries are leaping ahead, thanks to policies that enhance economic freedom—the same ones that made the U.S. economy the most powerful in the world. Governments in 114 countries have taken steps in the past year to increase the economic freedom of their citizens. Forty-three countries, from every part of the world, have now reached their highest economic freedom ranking in the index's history.

Here’s the chart:

(click to enlarge)

No surprise that the countries that have made the biggest gains are those of eastern Europe that were living under communist rule just over 20 years ago. They’ve seen the results of central planning and a disregard for property rights which is at the heart of a free economy.


As It stands, when the President promised to fundamentally transform this country, that will turn out to be the one campaign promise he will most likely keep and not for the better.



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