“Better off”: America slips ranks in global economic competitiveness
posted at 3:21 pm on September 5, 2012 by Erika Johnsen
In regards to Team Obama’s recent suggestions that Americans are indeed better off today than they were four years ago, ‘by every measure’… you’ll forgive me for not being rapturously convinced of their validity. As we’ve already covered, I’m not sure what metrics they’re thinking of, because by every available measure I can come up with, we’re definitively worse off than we were four years ago: Median incomes, long-term unemployment, poverty rates, and etcetera. But in addendum to Ed’s post from earlier, here’s yet another indicator of how far our fortunes have fallen since electing President Obama into office. …This one, my friends, is a dagger straight to my heart not quite like any other. Via the WSJ:
Northern European countries topped the overall ranking of a global competitiveness report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, as the United States slipped for the fourth year in a row.
“In addition to the burgeoning macroeconomic vulnerabilities, some aspects of the country’s [United States] institutional environment continue to raise concern among business leaders, particularly the low public trust in politicians and a perceived lack of government efficiency,” said the WEF, a think tank that also hosts the annual meeting of global business and political leaders in the Alpine town of Davos, Switzerland.
This year’s survey showed the U.S. fell to seventh position from fifth in the global ranking but the country remains an innovation powerhouse and its markets work efficiently, the WEF said.
Ouch. So let’s just get this straight — there’s nothing wrong with Americans’ know-how, ingenuity, entrepreneurial drive, or desire to work hard and make big things happen in a free-market setting, but it’s our gigantically inefficient federal bureaucracy and our monstrous debt problem that’s gumming up the works? America is supposed to be the freest, most hard-charging, go-gettin’, exceptional country on earth, and I love that other countries are following in our stead and finding ways to unleash the power of free enterprise, but it’s only due to our own self-imposed folly that we’re no longer leading the world in economic badassery. What excuse to we have for allowing that to happen? Because we’re so enamored of expensive entitlement programs, regulatory oversight, adverse-incentivizing taxes, and spending money we don’t have, that we just can’t get our act together? It’s a damn shame, and it could have been avoided. Everything about President Obama’s agenda (higher taxes on higher earners, Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, EPA regulatory expansion, etcetera) has only worsened the “institutional environment” that’s dragging us down. Time for something new, don’t you think?
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Sweet. How sweet it is.
Finally, Obama’s chikkinzzz are coming home to roost.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:22 PM
This.
When you have to plead incompetence to defend against charges of malfeasance, you know you might be in trouble.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:36 PM
ear relevant…
driguana on May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM
Flush this lying tudd down the drain with the rest of the Obamacrap.
kemojr on May 19, 2013 at 9:34 PM
This was Dan Pfeiffer’s week in the barrel, like Susan Rice he was given the White House talking points and sent on a mission. He really needs to get copies of these tapes and watch them and see how foolish and unbelievable he looked and sounded. The White House is losing the little credibility it still had by sending these shills out every week trying to do damage control. Community organizers make poor leaders.
savage24 on May 19, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Pfeiffer’s statement that the law is irrelevant because the IRS conduct was “outrageous” and “inexcusable”, tells us all we need to know about this administration.
However, the follow-up should have been, “On what standard do you judge their conduct to be outrageous and inexcusable since the law is apparently not an appropriate standard?” (At least in Pfeiffer’s mind.)
What this comes down to is this: “if the Administrative deems something “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such. As we have seen in so many other areas, if the Administrative deems something to not be “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such.
In their mind, the law is – in fact – irrelevant. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous.
It’s not socialism. It’s worse.
EdmundBurke247 on May 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Irrelevant = “What Difference Does It Make?”
jaydee_007 on May 19, 2013 at 10:41 PM
A fitting capstone to Ed’s story about loss-prevention (aka employee theft) and management’s “permission structure” in this post.
(Not to mention the jaw-dropping statements of Eleanor Clift in this one.)
AesopFan on May 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM
I enjoy popcorn and hope it is a long week.
Drill and Fill on May 20, 2013 at 12:41 AM
Hey give Barky a break. He had to get his sorry ass out to Vegas.
tbear44 on May 20, 2013 at 4:49 AM
Of course they sent Pfeiffer out to do the Sunday shows. He was the most senior expendable staff member they had . . .
BigAlSouth on May 20, 2013 at 5:39 AM
Pfeiffer… The guy with the red shirt in the landing party…
Boudica on May 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM
Perfect!
lea on May 20, 2013 at 7:11 AM
Does anybody else remember the campaign in 2008 when Obama defended his lack of administrative experience by saying he was just so smart and tuned in that his instincts were better than experience. Someone needs to dredge up these sound bites and play then with the current line about the government being too large to control and that the White House only knows what it reads in the newspaper.
bartbeast on May 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM
If where the president was during the Benghazi crisis is “irrelevant”, then he wasn’t where one would expect the Commander-in-Chief to be. So, where was he? Was he watching a movie in the residence? Was he bowling? Or was he having a bi-curious outing with his good buddy Reggie Love? If Obama was AWOL, as I suspect he was, it is he who is irrelevant. This entire stinkin’ criminal Obama Regime must go and now!
SpiderMike on May 20, 2013 at 9:31 AM
If this continues all week, it will be ‘O’ himself doing the rounds on the Sunday talk shows – except for Fox, of course. (‘O’ can do everything better than everyone else as he has been known to say.)
He then gets the extra benefit that no one will challenge him like they have begun to do with his minions.
Carnac on May 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM
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