Report from World Economic Forum Gives U.S. Poor Grades for Wasteful Spending and Burdensome Regulation

The latest issue of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report contains some rather damning information about government incompetence in the United States.

America ranks only 68th in the “Wastefulness of Government Spending” category (page 373) and 49th in the “Burden of Government Regulation” category (page 374).

Singapore, by contrast, ranks first in both of those categories. So is anyone surprised, then, by this chart showing that Singapore’s economy grew rapidly between 1950 and 2008?

Indeed, the World Bank’s 2010 data shows that Singapore has surpassed the United Stated, with per-capita GDP of $54,700 compared to $47,020 in America.

But the point of this post isn’t to decide whether Singapore is richer than the United States. Instead, the moral of the story is that small government and free markets are a recipe for strong growth and rising levels of prosperity.

By the way, the Global Competitiveness Report relies on survey data to prepare its rankings, so I’m a bit skeptical of the findings. American politicians are experts at wasting money and imposing senseless red tape, to be sure, but is America really worse than Ghana and Azerbaijan?

That being said, perceptions are important. And since the overall burden of government has rapidly climbed during the Bush-Obama  years, low scores of some kind are deserved.

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The Keynesian Crackup Continues: From Space Aliens to Food-Stamp Stimulus

Paul Krugman recently argued that a fake threat from space aliens would be good for the economy because the people of earth would waste a bunch of money building unnecessary defenses.

That was a bit loopy, as I noted a few days ago, but other Keynesians also have been making really weird assertions. Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture (another department that shouldn’t exist) just said that food stamps are a great form of stimulus (video at the link, for those who think this can’t possibly be true).

Makes me wonder if they’re having some sort of secret contest for who can say the strangest thing on TV. And if that’s the case, Nancy Pelosi has to be in the running for her claim that you create jobs by subsidizing joblessness.

Appearing on Judge Napolitano’s show, I explained why the Keynesian theory is misguided.

Unfortunately, Keynesians are immune to evidence. No matter how bad an economy does when the burden of government increases, they just point to their blackboard equations and claim things would be even worse without the so-called stimulus.

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