http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm The United States tops the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008. Switzerland is in second position followed by Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Singapore, respectively. The rankings are calculated from both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum together with its network of Partner Institutes (leading research institutes and business organizations) in the countries covered by the Report. This year, over 11,000 business leaders were polled in a record 131 countries. 1) Fewer than 8 percent of private-sector workers are covered by unions. That's way down from the 1970s and means that the transfer mechanism of higher food and energy inflation into cost-of-living wage adjustments—collective bargaining—has been severed. 2) A more service-oriented U.S. economy is far more resilient to energy shocks than it was in the 1970s. Tech helps, too, allowing folks to work at home or videoconference instead of flying to a meeting. 3) Not only does the rise of global capitalism and trade help keep costs here low but provides a source of growth, through exports, for the currently anemic U.S. economy. Yet according to Gross, we should be bummed out by Rising Asia. 4) Although beset by an oil spike and a housing plunge, the core U.S. economy is in far better shape than it was in the 1970s. Productivity, the key measure of an economy's strength, consistently grew at less than 2 percent in the 1970s and stayed weak until the tax cuts, deregulation, inflation fighting, and corporate restructuring of the 1980s blossomed into the tech and productivity boom on the 1990s and beyond. Productivity has averaged about 2 ½ percent since 1995 and is now running closer to 3 percent. Recently, the World Economic Forum rated the competitiveness of the major economies, and America's came out on top. I like to think of it this way: If you could swap the American economy for someone else's long term—China's, India's, the EU's—would you? (Apparently, Gross and Newsweek would choose. "All of the above.") China, for instance, has far worse demographic problems, has far worse environmental problems, will probably never catch America in terms of per capita GDP, and, by the way, still needs to fully transition to democratic capitalism. America? It's in far better shape that you think.
Ah but which states are driving our good economy and which states are in more trouble? Look like another Blue and Red map you have seen before? And Obamas plan = More regulation, more business tax, more personal tax.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Fuck Obama. I honestly don't give a shit how this next election ends, however. I've still got property. Property survives even the worst economic disasters any Democrat could initiate.
