14 October 2010

Index of Economic Freedom

I see we have dropped 2.5 points and so out of the top 10 of the Heritage Foundation's 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. Chile, bless, has moved ahead of us. The USA has dropped 2.7, out of the "Free" and into the "Mostly Free" with us.

The "Free" are - Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada.

The "Mostly Free" include - Denmark (9), Netherlands (15), Sweden (21), Germany (23), Belgium (30).  
The "Moderately Free" include  - Spain (36), Hungary (51), France (64), Poland (71), Italy (74)

The bottom six of the "Repressed" - Venezuela, Burma, Eritrea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea.

P.S. This needs to be cross-reffed with the corruption list at NationMaster.  

4 comments:

  1. Is this based on taxation? If so then what's Ireland doing in the Free category?
    Perhaps it is that you're free to live on the street when you default on your inflated mortgage because Cowan is nicking half your shit to pay of his mates' dodgy loans???

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  2. LOL. The factors relate to the ease of setting up and running a business. Needs to be cross-reffed to the corruption index at: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corruption

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  3. So they are in the top because there is a low corporation tax then. There is nothing else easy about setting up a business here, ESPECIALLY if you are officially self employed.

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  4. Corp tax would weigh heavily in the assessment, but the freedom index is supposed to be about a lot more than that. How does it compare with, say, Spain?

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