U.S. Decline ― by the Numbers
- 433: Total number of days it takes in the U.S. to start a business, register a property, pay taxes, get an import and export license and enforce a contract .
- 368: Total number of days it took to do the same in 2006.
- 7: U.S. ranking, out of 144 countries, on the World Economic Forum’s 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Index.
- 1: U.S. ranking on the 2008-2009 Global Competitiveness Index.
- 33: U.S. ranking for its legal system and property rights in 2010 on the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom index, out of 144 countries.
- 9: U.S. ranking for its legal system and property rights in 2000.
Sources: ‘Doing Business’; World Economic Forum; Fraser Institute. (More)
“Our institutions need fixing.” Yes Yes Yes.
We can all agree one that, but how can we convince our politicians of the same.
Serious decline in all three categories. I do not want to see how much more we will drop over the next decade.
It is the U.S. tax and regulatory environment that is hindering all of those number. The U.S. need a mass overhaul of it’s regulatory environment, and it’s tax code.
Here is a great article on how to do this by the competitive enterprise institute:
http://cei.org/sites/default/files/Avoiding%20the%20Regulatory%20Cliff%20-%202013%20Agenda%20for%20Congress.pdf
Our tax code is over 60,000 pages long. The fact that there is a joke among the accounting community that goes “did you do your taxes right? well I don’t really know” is kind of sad. Literally no tax lawyer in the entire world has read the entire thing. That type of regulatory morass is what is keeping the U.S. low on all of these rankings.
“433: Total number of days it takes in the U.S. to start a business, register a property, pay taxes, get an import and export license and enforce a contract.”
– we are going to continue to see these numbers increase if we don’t control regulations.
33: U.S. ranking for its legal system and property rights in 2010 on the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom index, out of 144 countries.
I’m not sure who ranks ahead of the United States. We’ve reached a level of affluence such that we not can support the activists who seek to slow our growth and regulate against our affluence.
I mean I am just guessing, but I think it might be countries like Switzerland and microstates like Lichtenstein. Who all have superior legal environments and value property rights highly.
Affluence is temporary. History repeats itself and the US will most likely continue to decline.
“Among the questions he asked was where the U.S. was “falling behind” relative to other countries. The top three lagging indicators named were: the effectiveness of the political system, the K-12 education system and the complexity of the tax code. Regulation came sixth, efficiency of the legal framework eighth.”
But without an effective of the political system (#1) How do you fix it?
The U.S. regulatory environment is sad. The idea that tax credits etc will help business creation when businesses can’t even get off of the ground because of government red tap is preposterous.
“433: Total number of days it takes in the U.S. to start a business, register a property, pay taxes, get an import and export license and enforce a contract”
Too long. Enough said.
I’ve founded a number of corporations in Silicon Valley, two of which actually went public. I can tell you that number is bull. The biggest expense and problem we had was getting decent health care insurance. The insurance companies make life impossible for small groups. You want to help business formation, hope Obamacare is successful, even better, get Medicare for All single payer.
“that number is bull”
I don’t think you actually read the source article.