Asia is home to the world’s freest _ and most repressed _ economies, but Europe ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom, an annual report released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal said.
While the world as a whole made little progress toward greater economic freedom, there were some surprising improvements by countries such as Mauritius and Mongolia, the survey found.
Hong Kong and Singapore retained their No. 1 and No. 2 rankings respectively on the annual Index of Economic Freedom for the 14th successive year. Both port cities benefit from low taxes and liberalized trade. Hong Kong, however, saw its score dip slightly due to higher inflation and greater tax revenues.
European countries accounted for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free, with Ireland at No. 3, Switzerland at No. 9 and Britain at No. 10. The U.S. ranked No. 5, and Canada ranked 6th.
Comparisons are odorous
Now, now, Pageantmaster, let us not be testy. I would like to congratulate the people of Mauritius for making it into the top twenty.
And I suggest that the famous bird native to Mauritius, the [i] dodo, [/i] be adopted as the official symbol of The Episcopal Church.
With the entire North American Continent outranking all but Ireland in Europe, how is it that Europe “ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom”.
#3, maybe Mexico did poorly, and they might lump us in with Cuba and have all the countries weighted evenly. That’s certainly a plausible way to handicap North America so that Europe looks good.