The annual Economic Freedom of the World index for 2007 has been published. Zimbabwe isn’t exactly a winner, but South Africa’s performance is merely average. According to the report:

The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of privately owned property. Forty-two data points are used to construct a summary index and to measure the degree of economic freedom in five broad areas: (1) size of government; (2) legal structure and security of property rights; (3) access to sound money; (4) freedom to trade internationally; and (5) regulation of credit, labor and business. This year’s index includes a number of new components based on the World Bank’s Doing Business ratings.

South Africa’s score rose slightly, but it slipped to 60^th in the rankings, from 54^th in 2006 and 36^th in 2005, as other countries overtook it and new countries with higher scores were included among the 141 evaluated. The report is copublished by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute in Canada and more than 70 think tanks around the world.

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) launched the report at separate events in Johannesburg and Cape Town today. I was unable to attend, but the organisation’s executive director, Leon Louw, said in a statement:

After impressive gains from greater political and economic freedom achieved in and after 1994, SA’s overall economic freedom score has stagnated during recent years, although there have been significant changes in individual components in the index.

This year’s report notes that economic freedom remains on the rise, and also confirms that it is contagious — albeit not as highly as some would like to think. “Countries ‘catch’ about 20% of their average geographic neighbors’ and trading partners’ levels of, and changes in, economic freedom,” argue the authors, Russell S. Sobel of West Virginia University and Peter T. Leeson of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. According to the announcement:

The average economic freedom score rose from 5.1 (out of 10) in 1980 to 6.6 in the most recent year for which data are available. Of the 102 nations with scores in 1980 and in the most recent index, 90 recorded improvements in their economic freedom score, and just nine saw a decline. In this year’s index, Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom, 8.9 out of 10, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Zimbabwe, which isn’t a failed state according to its ambassador to the US, is ranked dead last, behind Myanmar. “[Prosperity, security, freedom and life expectancy] are part of a fundamental base needed to build a free and prosperous nation. A quick glance at the countries scoring lowest on the index quickly shows that without economic freedom, especially protection of property rights and the rule of law, there is little individual freedom and little in the way of prosperity,” said Temba Nolutshungu, Cape Town director of the FMF.

South Africa’s scores in each category changed as follows:

• Size of government: remained unchanged at 5.5.
• Legal structures and security of property rights: improved from 6.6 to 7.0.
• Access to sound money: declined from 8.2 to 8.0.
• Freedom to trade internationally: declined from 6.9 to 6.6.
• Regulation of credit, labour and business: improved from 6.4 to 6.8.

The full report is available from the Cato Institute or the Fraser Institute. Eustace Davie, a director at the FMF, discusses the report in an article of the week. Because this link may not last, I’ll reproduce the full text below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is hilarious. Some nut decided to sail his yacht through the Arctic Ocean north of Russia. True, sailors have been trying this for centuries, but Adrian Flanagan reckons he can do it because global warming is, well, warming the globe. So he’s proposing a vertical circumnavigation of the globe by sailing where no man has sailed before.

According to the expedition’s website, “Adrian plans to complete the voyage in the summer of 2007 by making the first ever single-handed transit of the Arctic Ocean along Russia’s Northern Sea Route returning to the UK towards the end of August.”

A glance at the date, and at the expedition map alongside, confirms that the trip isn’t going entirely according to plan. I’m no navigator, but that red line looks suspiciously unlike a vertical circumnavigation. Also, he’s stuck. He’s calling in reinforcements in the form of Russian ice breakers. But the latest news that the ice is impenetrable, even with the assistance of a nuclear powered ice breaker. At least he’s getting some attention while he waits: from extinct polar bears.

No, this doesn’t disprove global warming. But it does prove Flanagan’s mind is kettle-fried.

(Hat tip: Don Surber.)