[seacapt]

US Slips Down Global Competitiveness Ranking - Yahoo! Finance
Honest question , how do we revive domestic production , economic confidence and beneficial trade policies?

[jeffkrol]

US Slips Down Global Competitiveness Ranking - Yahoo! Finance
Honest question , how do we revive domestic production , economic confidence and beneficial trade policies?

smoke and mirrors from the same article.. most of this is "attitude" not fact.....

A lack of macroeconomic stability, the business community's continued mistrust of the government and concerns over its fiscal health were some of the reasons for the downgrade, according to the annual survey.

and macroeconomic stability is what??? Stable debt... stable non-debt???

Despite declining in the overall ranking, the forum highlighted that the U.S. remains one of the world's top innovators - supported by an "excellent" university system - and continues to offer vast opportunities because of the sheer size of its domestic economy.

Why are you conservatives always soo gloomy..??? didn't your parents tell you it is not what other people think about you but what you think about yourself???


I promise to get more serious on this though...as one who Believes (a known fact) the US "can't go broke".. it certainly is much less of an issue than many believe it is..

Switzerland and Singapore retained their positions as the most competitive economies,

model ourselves after Singapore???? huh!!!! Switzerland?.. maybe we should make watches..

The Swiss economy

Switzerland’s economy is based on a highly qualified labour force performing highly skilled work. The main areas include microtechnology, hitech, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as banking and insurance know-how. The service sector now employs the greatest number of people.
Most of the people working in Switzerland are employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, which play an extremely important role in the Swiss economy.
The Swiss are concerned that economic activity should have as little impact as possible on the environment. Switzerland's energy and transport policies aim to be environmentally friendly.
The age of unlimited economic growth in Switzerland is over. Fear of unemployment has been one of the main concerns of the Swiss for several years.

http://www.swissworld.org/en/economy/

Taxation is relatively low in comparison with the neighbouring countries. On the other hand, the Swiss spend a lot on insurance, including compulsory health insurance, which alone accounts for over 5.6% of their expenditure. They spend another 5% on private insurance; the more people have, the more they want to - or must - insure.

[Nesster]

Here's a list
Glance: Global Competitiveness Index from WEF - Yahoo! Finance


Different countries do different things... but many of the top economies seem to have in place some balance between capital and labor, with decent social safety as well. Some of the associated articles mention stuff like investment in infrastructure and education...

It really comes down to some common sense things: keep our roads, bridges, electric and electronic nets in good repair and with sufficient capacity. Keep our people well educated, pay attention to training and re-training (this is not just govt, it's business priorities, which are molded by government and population attitudes) and the balance of labor and capital. These sorts of items are traditionally difficult to resolve politically in the USA, especially during polarized times such as we are in.

OTH, 'you get what you measure' and who knows the politico-economic assumpitions of the folks designing the survey. Send an unreconstituted Randian born-again Chrstian 'libertarian' to do this thing and you'll get a different result.

[JohnInIndy]

US Slips Down Global Competitiveness Ranking - Yahoo! Finance
Honest question , how do we revive domestic production , economic confidence and beneficial trade policies?

Simple answer. Get rid of the current administration in November.

[ihasa]

US Slips Down Global Competitiveness Ranking - Yahoo! Finance
Honest question , how do we revive domestic production , economic confidence and beneficial trade policies?

A good start would be to look at what the countries immediately above are doing - especially the ones which are most 'culturally similar' to the USA. Sweden and Germany may offer clues.

That said, I wouldn't worry too much about rankings like the 'competitiveness index' - there are plenty of other metrics aside from 'competitiveness' to worry about (note that Qatar is significantly ahead of Norway, and I know which kind of country I'd rather live in!), and how accurately can you assess competitiveness anyway.

[Nesster]

Plus, China, India etc are way down the list - yet we seem to be exporting jobs and business to these countries. So what gives?

[GeneV]

A good start would be to look at what the countries immediately above are doing - especially the ones which are most 'culturally similar' to the USA. Sweden and Germany may offer clues.

Not to mention Finland and the Netherlands, with the UK right behind the U.S. at #8. Not exactly a list of the countries with no social programs.

[ihasa]

Here's the report's headline comments on the USA -

The Global Competitiveness Index 2012–2013:
Country Profile Highlights: The United States

The United States continues the decline that
began a few years ago, falling two more positions
to take 7th place this year. Although many structural
features continue to make its economy extremely
productive, a number of escalating and unaddressed
weaknesses have lowered the US ranking in recent
years. US companies are highly sophisticated and
innovative, supported by an excellent university system
that collaborates admirably with the business sector in
R&D. Combined with flexible labor markets and the scale
opportunities afforded by the sheer size of its domestic
economy—the largest in the world by far—these qualities
continue to make the United States very competitive.
On the other hand, some weaknesses in particular
areas have deepened since past assessments. The
business community continues to be critical toward
public and private institutions (41st). In particular, its trust
in politicians is not strong (54th), perhaps not surprising
in light of recent political disputes that threaten to push
the country back into recession through automatic
spending cuts. Business leaders also remain concerned
about the government’s ability to maintain arms-length
relationships with the private sector (59th), and consider
that the government spends its resources relatively
wastefully (76th). A lack of macroeconomic stability
continues to be the country’s greatest area of weakness
(111th, down from 90th last year). On a more positive
note, measures of financial market development continue
to indicate a recovery, improving from 31st two years
ago to 16th this year in that pillar, thanks to the rapid
intervention that forced the deleveraging of the banking
system from its toxic assets following the financial crisis.

[jogiba]

So the US is ranked 7th and China 26th, so what's the problem ? People in the US don't even want to pick produce let alone work on a consumer electronic production line for low wages. The US has the most crybabies on the planet and just want to cry about things but do nothing about it. Show me another country with as many fat lazy people that want more handicap parking spots to park their fat cars. The brain dead Republicans are in love with Paul Ryan who says he ran a 2hour 50 something marathon that was really over 4 hours but they don't care because they have no clue since they all failed math.

[jeffkrol]

No THIS is the problem...............

22 Statistics That Prove The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America - Business Insider

[arnold]

The answer is simple. If you want people to produce, get out of their way. They are being stifled with regulations to the point that I wonder how anything gets produced. There is always "justification" with social and environmental agendas. Producers make bigger pies. Regulators just decide how to cut them up without concern about how the pies get there in the first place. Time we put "free" back into enterprise.

[ihasa]

The answer is simple. If you want people to produce, get out of their way. They are being stifled with regulations to the point that I wonder how anything gets produced. There is always "justification" with social and environmental agendas. Producers make bigger pies. Regulators just decide how to cut them up without concern about how the pies get there in the first place. Time we put "free" back into enterprise.

You need to read the report before jumping to easy answers, I think. It's easy to assume it's all because of regulation, but why is Germany higher than the US and miles higher than Australia? Are they 'less regulated'?

[arnold]

You need to read the report before jumping to easy answers, I think. It's easy to assume it's all because of regulation, but why is Germany higher than the US and miles higher than Australia? Are they 'less regulated'?

Germany underwent a huge shift of easing up on the producers. However, the principle should be obvious, people produce more when they are free to do so. China is a lot freer than in thirty years ago, and the results show. (Not to say there isn't a long way to go for them, or to approve of their politics)
The easy answers are there, but the political system is set up to buy votes with government favours and intrude. That leads to government controls and redistribution that is to the advantage of some at the expense of others. For example protecting an industry from competition may buy votes, but in the end affects incentive for production. Other businesses go down and consumers pay higher prices. Governments should just keep the peace and let people get on with earning a living.

[ihasa]

Governments have a role to play in protecting the rights of the people, ensuring businesses have a skilled and well educated work force to recruit from, and protecting long term interests of the environment also, but in principle I agree they should generally keep out of meddling in private competition on a regular basis.

I like the Nordic model, and note Sweden is ranked very highly on the competitiveness index.

Overview

Economic publications, such as "The Nordic Model - Embracing globalization and sharing risks", characterize the system as follows:[2]

An elaborate social safety net in addition to public services such as free education and universal healthcare.[2]
Strong property rights, contract enforcement, and overall ease of doing business.[3]
Public pension schemes.[2]
Low barriers to free trade.[3] This is combined with collective risk sharing (social programmes, labour market institutions) which has provided a form of protection against the risks associated with economic openness.[2]
Little product market regulation. Nordic countries rank very high in product market freedom according to OECD rankings.[2]
Low levels of corruption.[2] In Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index all five Nordic countries were ranked among the 11 least corrupt of 178 evaluated countries.[4]
High degrees of labour union membership. In 2008, labour union density was 67.5% in Finland, 67.6% in Denmark, and 68.3% in Sweden. In comparison, union membership was 11.9% in the United States and 7.7% in France.[5]
A partnership between employers, trade unions and the government, whereby these social partners negotiate the terms to regulating the workplace among themselves, rather than the terms being imposed by law.[6]
Sweden has decentralised wage co-ordination, while Finland is ranked the least flexible.[2] The changing economic conditions have given rise to fear among workers as well as resistance by trade unions in regards to reforms.[2] At the same time, reforms and favourable economic development seem to have reduced unemployment, which has traditionally been higher. Denmark's Social Democrats managed to push through reforms in 1994 and 1996. (See Flexicurity).
Sweden at 56.6% of GDP, Denmark at 51.7%, and Finland at 48.6% reflects very high public spending.[3] One key reason for public spending is the very large number of public employees. These employees work in various fields including education, healthcare, and for the government itself. They often have lifelong job security and make up around a third of the workforce (more than 38% in Denmark). The public sector's low productivity growth has been compensated by an increase in the private sector’s share of government financed services which has included outsourcing.[2] Public spending in social transfers such as unemployment benefits and early-retirement programmes is high. In 2001, the wage-based unemployment benefits were around 90% of wage in Denmark and 80% in Sweden, compared to 75% in the Netherlands and 60% in Germany. The unemployed were also able to receive benefits several years before reductions, compared to quick benefit reduction in other countries.
Public expenditure for health and education is significantly higher in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in comparison to the OECD average.[7]
Overall tax burdens (as a percentage of GDP) are among the world's highest; Sweden (51.1%), Denmark (46% in 2011),[8] and Finland (43.3%), compared to non-Nordic countries like Germany (34.7%), Canada (33.5%), and Ireland (30.5%).

[arnold]

Governments have a role to play in protecting the rights of the people, ensuring businesses have a skilled and well educated work force to recruit from, and protecting long term interests of the environment also, but in principle I agree they should generally keep out of meddling in private competition on a regular basis.

I like the Nordic model, and note Sweden is ranked very highly on the competitiveness index.

When my top dollar earned, went 52cents to the government, and they let me keep 48 cents of it (This was just direct income tax), it dawned on me what the implications were; that by right the government owned what I earned, and they would decide how much they would let me keep of it. I retired early on my savings as soon as I could afford it, not rich, but at least a little feer. One less producer for the economy.