For the past 15 years, America has been ranked as the world’s most competitive economy according to the Swiss-based IMD World Competitiveness Center. In the 2010 report that was recently released, the United States fell to number three, trailing Hong Kong and Singapore. Obama deserves much of the blame, but a nation rarely become less competitive overnight and it is quite likely that the big government policies of the Bush years also are responsible for what will probably be a long-term decline in America’s economic vitality. Here’s a blurb from the Associated Press:
Singapore and Hong Kong are the world’s most competitive economies, an annual survey said Friday, demoting the United States from the top spot for the first time since 1993. The study lists 58 economies according to 328 criteria that measure how the nations create and maintain conditions favorable to businesses – a formula that had favored the U.S. for 16 years. …Switzerland and Australia rounded out the top five. Then came Sweden, Canada, Taiwan, Norway and Malaysia.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100521/D9FR6CSO0.html
http://www.imd.ch/research/publications/wcy/World-Competitiveness-Yearbook-Results/#/