U.S. economic competitiveness falls
Nothing like having Bush running our economy.GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States fell to sixth place in the World Economic Forum's 2006 global competitiveness rankings, ceding the top place to Switzerland, as macroeconomic concerns eroded prospects for the world's largest economy.
In a report released on Tuesday, the World Economic Forum said Washington's huge defense and homeland security spending commitments, plans to lower taxes further, and long-term potential costs from health care and pensions were creating worrisome fiscal strains.
"With a low savings rate, record-high current account deficits and a worsening of the U.S. net debtor position, there is a non-negligible risk to both the country's overall competitiveness and, given the relative size of the U.S. economy, the future of the global economy," it said.
Switzerland was deemed the most competitive economy in 2006, followed by Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Singapore. After the United States, which had topped the 2005 index, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain rounded out the top 10.
posted by walldon | 10:29 AM
1 Comments:
This is one of the ways the issue of poor economic management should be consistently and relentlessly framed by Democrats: loss of national competitiveness, loss of national strength -- with the positive vision of restoring our leadership and resuming our march to a better and more prosperous society for everyone (that was developing under Clinton in the 1990s, but was undermined -- for fear of long-term loss of power if his administration was generally considered an unqualified success -- by the Republican attack on him for his personal weaknesses). Of course, the Iraq fiasco and sophomoric endorsement of torture in interrogations worthy of made-for-TV miniseries, also play into the themes of loss of leadership, loss of national strength, loss of national competitiveness.
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