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George Rebane

The Heritage Foundation published its 2024 edition of its Index of Economic Freedom (here) for all the countries of the world.  Thanks to Bidenomics the US continues to drop in the prestigious ratings to its historically lowest place.  And the alert reader is already aware of California’s rank in the various freedoms being in the toilet among the states as recently reported in Catoโ€™s โ€˜Freedom in the 50 Statesโ€™ (here).

What continues to shake the confidence of so many Americans in their ignorant and/or socialist neighbors is that they have no clue that the more a nation or state restricts economic freedoms, the lower is its citizensโ€™ standard of living.  Our leftwingers just continue voting for Democrats who promise to curtail business activities, reduce personal freedoms, and โ€˜tax the richโ€™ while expecting bigger checks from the government.  The graphic below summarizes it all.

EconFreedom_2024

Posted in , , ,

26 responses to “US Drops to 25th Place in Index of Economic Freedom”

  1. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    Not surprising results seeing as it comes from the Heritage Foundation, not exactly an independant credible source.

    Like

  2. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    Punch… your idea of an independent source is Raw Story. Yes?
    If the Heritage Foundation made an error, I’m sure a bright fellow like you could find it.

    Like

  3. George Rebane Avatar

    PaulE 813pm – The source is both prestigious and credible. Its methodology and data are transparent and presented in the open. Unfortunately, you of the hard (sic) Left can do nothing about the content of the message, and are therefore left to denigrate the messenger. The difference between how the two sides operate was again highlighted today with the revelation that over 320,000 illegal aliens were flow into the US last year on secretive flights by the Biden administration. That itself is a criminal act carried out at the highest federal level. The Left continues as the champion liars in all countries and for all times since Marx and Engles first published. And we ain’t seen nothin’ yet as November approaches.

    Like

  4. Paul Emery Avatar
    Paul Emery

    George
    You write ” over 320,000 illegal aliens were flow into the US last year on secretive flights by the Biden administration”. Can you provide some documentation for that statement? I know Trump stated that tonight but he gave no source as well.

    Like

  5. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    Wallowing in ignorance is the ponytail of ignorance’s favorite state –
    The Biden administration has unleashed a new program to boost illegal immigration that allows immigrants to fly directly from their hometowns into a U.S. city of their choice, according to newly obtained records.
    Instead of rushing the Texas border, the program lets immigrants use the administrationโ€™s app to pick a destination, buy an airline ticket, and fly in unseen on what amounts to ghost flights.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/biden-s-dhs-let-200000-illegal-immigrants-fly-directly-into-43-cities/ar-AA1h3gIv
    In the past 12 months, Bidenโ€™s administration allowed at least 320,000 illegal immigrants to fly into 43 different American airports through a controversial program using the Customs and Border Patrol app โ€” also known as CBP One โ€” that was created to let migrants apply for parole into the US, the Daily Mail earlier reported.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-says-biden-flying-320k-unvetted-migrants-into-the-us-sets-stage-for-something-far-worse-than-911/ar-BB1jnp5z
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2900755/biden-secretly-dumped-320000-inadmissible-illegal-immigrants-us-cities
    Thanks to an ongoing Center for Immigration Studies Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the public now knows that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has approved secretive flights that last year alone ferried hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens from foreign airports into some 43 American ones over the past year, all pre-approved on a cell phone app.
    https://cis.org/Bensman/Government-Admission-Biden-Parole-Flights-Create-Security-Vulnerabilities-US-Airports
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Like

  6. George Rebane Avatar

    PaulE 949pm โ€“ Paul, over the years you continue to demonstrate, through your ignorance of current events and other prominent news coverage, that the lamestream outlets compromising your information sources are little more than carefully censored propaganda organs of our socialist Left โ€“ a practice that has gotten more intense since Obama was elected. You, of course, are not alone, but you do serve the RR readership as an exemplar or posterchild of the knowledge state of at least half of Americaโ€™s population. You and yours dominate states like California, New York, Illinois, โ€ฆ, and have given rise to perpetually incompetent cum evil Democratic governments that have caused the ongoing low quality of life in those regions, especially that for the poorest in those jurisdictions. The news of the surreptitious and illegal flights was again reported yesterday on Fox News and other responsible media. But, of course, the lamestream outlets you consume have been silent on this as on so many other issues that contradict/expose the Leftโ€™s promotion of our slide to authoritarian collectivism. Here are just some of the links that give an example and illustrate the mire that you find yourself in, and to the harm of us all.
    https://cis.org/Bensman/Government-Admission-Biden-Parole-Flights-Create-Security-Vulnerabilities-US-Airports
    https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/biden-admin-flew-hundreds-of-thousands-of-migrants-into-us-using-cbp-one-app-illegal-immigration-border-crisis-southern-border
    https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2023/12/sen-cruz-demands-answers-from-dhs-regarding-illegal-aliens-use-of-fake-ids-for-air-travel
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13155765/biden-illegal-migrant-flying-program-national-security-vulnerability.html

    Like

  7. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    …and some monthly numbers. It appears to be via FOIA releases.
    https://cis.org/Bensman/New-Records-Biden-DHS-Has-Approved-Hundreds-Thousands-Migrants-Secretive-Foreign-Flights
    But like one Amy Johnson sez about Sealions:
    “Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioningโ€”often about basic information, information easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential pointsโ€”with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target’s patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the “sea lion” may seem innocent, they’re intended maliciously and have harmful consequences.”

    Like

  8. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    In seven months and 29 days… there will be an event.

    Like

  9. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    Here is a good example of what the TDS set would buy hook line and sinker even though the video of the day 1 roll back is again making the rounds-
    Buttigieg denies Biden dismantled Trump border policies in clash with CNBC host: ‘Literally not true’
    Buttigieg strongly denied Kernen’s claim that Biden only cares about the border because it has become important in the election year
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/buttigieg-denies-biden-dismantled-trump-border-policies-clash-cnbc-host-literally-not-true?dicbo=v2-EqS2SdA
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Like

  10. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    Punchy the sea lion…
    Just try using your favorite search engine…
    320,000

    Like

  11. scenes Avatar
    scenes

    regarding sealioning, some guy on reddit defined it thus:
    “It’s a false pretense of an honest debate, it’s very common in social media and basically a sub-set of trolling.
    Basically the troll constantly peppers the victim with seemingly sincere requests for further discussion, further evidence, further reasoning without any desire to actually engage in a good-faith conversation. They’re just trying to pester and annoy the victim to the point of frustration. If at any point the victim seeks to leave the cycle of debate the troll will declare victory, they they are actually the genuine “thinker” and that the victim was the troll or fool or wrong.”
    I mean, if there’s a tag that more accurately defines psul, I don’t know what it would be.
    re: the Biden Invasion from parts south.
    I’m surprised by how many Darien Gap stories I’m seeing lately. There is a bunch of people on their way. A bunch.

    Like

  12. Individual Juan Avatar
    Individual Juan

    What we have been doing since the 1930s is trying to weave the philosophies behind Conservative Manifesto and the New Deal together,
    Conservative Manifesto
    Immediate revision of taxes on capital gains and undistributed profits in order to free investment funds.
    Reduced expenditures to achieve a balanced budget, and thus, to still fears deterring business expansion.
    An end to coercion and violence in relations between capital and labor.
    Opposition to unnecessary government competition with private enterprise.
    Recognition that private investment and enterprise require a reasonable profit.
    Safeguarding the collateral upon which credit rests.
    Reduction of taxes, or if this proved impossible at the moment, firm assurance of no further increases.
    Maintenance of state rights, home rule, and local self-government, except where proved definitely inadequate.
    Economical and non-political relief to unemployed with maximum local responsibility.
    Reliance upon the American form of government and the American system of enterprise.
    The New Deal
    Closed many of the weaker banks in the country and halted the export of gold from the U.S.
    Confiscated both gold & gold certificates from the American people, devalued the dollar, and annulled the gold clauses, which brought a (so-far) definitive end to the gold standard in the U.S.
    Created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in 1933 in order to manipulate prices by buying and holding food, as well as providing subsidies for low production among farmers.
    Created the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 to create a hydroelectric project on the Tennessee River.
    Created the National Recovery Administration in order to regulate competition amongst businesses (declared unconstitutional in 1935).
    Created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in order to create state and local jobs.
    Created the Civilian Conservation Corps to put people to work on natural resource projects.
    Passed the Wagner Act allowing workers to collectively bargain A.K.A. form unions.
    Passed the Social Security Act in order to provide welfare for minors, the disabled, and the elderly.
    Passed the Housing Act to give funds for low income housing.
    Passed the Fair Labor Standards in order to
    institute the standard work week and the national minimum wage.

    Like

  13. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    So Jeff, is your son graduating this Spring?

    Like

  14. fish ole' Avatar
    fish ole’

    In keeping with the posting of completely random gibberish by one of the slack jawed progressive regulars ….

    “In a star less massive than the limit, the gravitational compression is balanced by short-range repulsive neutronโ€“neutron interactions mediated by the strong force and also by the quantum degeneracy pressure of neutrons, preventing collapse.[12]:โ€Š74โ€Š If its mass is above the limit, the star will collapse to some denser form. It could form a black hole, or change composition and be supported in some other way (for example, by quark degeneracy pressure if it becomes a quark star). Because the properties of hypothetical, more exotic forms of degenerate matter are even more poorly known than those of neutron-degenerate matter, most astrophysicists assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that a neutron star above the limit collapses directly into a black hole.
    A black hole formed by the collapse of an individual star must have mass exceeding the Tolmanโ€“Oppenheimerโ€“Volkoff limit. Theory predicts that because of mass loss during stellar evolution, a black hole formed from an isolated star of solar metallicity can have a mass of no more than approximately 10 solar masses.[13]:Fig. 16 Observationally, because of their large mass, relative faintness, and X-ray spectra, a number of massive objects in X-ray binaries are thought to be stellar black holes. These black hole candidates are estimated to have masses between 3 and 20 solar masses.[14][15] LIGO has detected black hole mergers involving black holes in the 7.5โ€“50 solar mass range; it is possible โ€“ although unlikely โ€“ that these black holes were themselves the result of previous mergers.
    Oppenheimer and Volkoff discounted the influence of heat, stating in reference to work by Landau (1932), ‘even [at] 107 degrees… the pressure is determined essentially by the density only and not by the temperature'[7] – yet it has been estimated[16] that temperatures can reach up to approximately >109 K during formation of a neutron star, mergers and binary accretion. Another source of heat and therefore collapse-resisting pressure in neutron stars is ‘viscous friction in the presence of differential rotation.'[16]
    Oppenheimer and Volkoff’s calculation of the mass limit of neutron stars also neglected to consider the rotation of neutron stars, however we now know that neutron stars are capable of spinning at much faster rates than were known in Oppenheimer and Volkoff’s time. The fastest-spinning neutron star known is PSR J1748-2446ad, rotating at a rate of 716 times per second[17][18] or 43,000 revolutions per minute, giving a linear (tangential) speed at the surface on the order of 0.24c (i.e., nearly a quarter the speed of light). Star rotation interferes with convective heat loss during supernova collapse, so rotating stars are more likely to collapse directly to form a black hole [19]:โ€Š1044โ€Š”

    This concludes the completely random crap portion of our program.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolmanโ€“Oppenheimerโ€“Volkoff_limit

    Like

  15. Individual Juan Avatar
    Individual Juan

    Posted by: Gregory | 06 March 2024 at 03:09 PM
    Thanks for asking!
    Gregi, you do realize, don’t you, that he is an adult and he can make his own decisions.
    The list is long of wealthy, successful entrepreneurs that didn’t finish college.
    I guess you really want me to ask how your little wunderkind is doing, eh?

    Like

  16. Scott O Avatar

    Hilarious!
    “Gregi, you do realize, don’t you, that he is an adult and he can make his own decisions.”
    So – what gender does he identify with now and is he working at a Starbucks or the local hip NGO?

    Like

  17. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    So thats a no @412 got it.
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Like

  18. Scott O Avatar

    “What we have been doing since the 1930s is trying to weave the philosophies behind Conservative Manifesto and the New Deal together,…”
    The items listed under the New Deal left out quite a few disasters and failed to acknowledge that FDR’s own guy testified to congress that collectively they were a failure. A convenient world war obliterated our industrial rivals and led to a 20 year period of our country getting fat, dumb, and happy.
    The New Deal cancer has now metastasized as foretold by actual smart people with common sense and will ruin our nation. We now have multiple generations who firmly believe that Uncle Sam is their source of life.
    It will end in economic ruin. The only question is when.
    Too bad we didn’t go with free-market capitalism, but that involves taking risks, striving towards a goal and hard work.
    Dude – that’s just a harsh on our party, man.
    Surf’s up.

    Like

  19. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    Indy Jeff 412p
    No need to ask about my kid. I didn’t brag about him online and I respect his privacy.
    You however were ecstatic online about the fruit of your loins’ choice of college and bragged about his place in Gidottis graduating class a few years ago.
    Good to know my instinct for your style was on point.

    Like

  20. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    Well talk about ruining a good narrative (again) –
    Speaking with Fox News Digital on Wednesday just hours after Nikki Haley ended her presidential bid, officially making Trump the presumptive nominee, a spokesman for the former president’s campaign said the RNC would “absolutely not” be providing any of its funds to alleviate his legal costs.
    “Hard no. Absolutely not. Asked and answered,”
    https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/trump-campaign-rejects-effort-rnc-232312110.html
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Like

  21. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    Here Jeff is again bragging about his son… in an obit commentary, no less:
    “August 10, 2023
    Friend
    Jeff Pelline
    Rest in peace, George. You would be pleased to know our son is an engineering student at Johns Hopkins.
    -Jeff Shannon and Mitchell Pelline”
    Not dropped out at the end of the summer.

    Like

  22. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    “Engineering is hard!”
    -Barbie

    Like

  23. Gregory Avatar
    Gregory

    August 10, 2023
    Friend
    Jeff Peelline
    Rest in peace, George. You would be pleased to know our son is an engineering student at Johns Hopkins. -Jeff Shannon and Mitchell Peelline

    Like

  24. Don Bessee Avatar
    Don Bessee

    LOL above
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Like

  25. The Estonian Fox Avatar
    The Estonian Fox

    Gregory | 06 March 2024 at 06:01 PM
    Since I’m not a local resident, your comment of Jeff Pelline’s note for an obituary threw me off.
    It said Jeff Pelline at the top, then signed by Jeff Shannon & Mitchell Pelline. So “who is this Jeff Shannon” was my first thought. Then I realized that might be his wife, but without any punctuation. But isn’t Mr. Pelline a writer? and so should be well-versed in English punctuation, grammar & syntax?
    Just odd for him to be ambiguous, which is generally NOT one of the purposes of writing in English (unless one is being sarcastic – but in an obituary?? not likely), or writing a column on humor.
    So I had to come to the best (engineering) explanation – this was the first chapter in his soon-to-be-published COMMANIST MANIFESTO. Hoping, for, at, most, 2, chapters.

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