Thank you to all those in and out government and Wall Street whose foresight in being able to come up with such creative and lucrative ways to steal and bribe and legislate and gamble with our lives on your way to fame and fortune made this honor possible! We salute you!
The U.S. was displaced by Switzerland as the world’s most-competitive economy after its financial markets were roiled by the worst crises since the Great Depression, the World Economic Forum said today.
The U.S. fell to second position for the first time since the Geneva-based organization began its current index in 2004 as it lost marks for the sophistication of its markets and rising budget deficits. Switzerland was credited for its stability and ability to innovate.
“A number of escalating weaknesses have taken their toll on the U.S. ranking this year,” the study of 133 countries ny the Geneva-based organization said. “Switzerland’s performance has remained relatively stable.”
I know the U.S. has problems but SWITZERLAND!?!
The last innovation to come from there is the Swiss Army knife.
I start each day asking for the invisible “Angry White Man” to make our economy crash and burn. It’s working, so I may subscribe to his news letter.
I know that the US stopped being competitive in manufacturing years ago – it’s cheaper to just get China to build everything.
But what the hell does Switzerland manufacture?
>lost marks for the sophistication of its markets and rising budget deficits. Switzerland was credited for its stability and ability to innovate.
So Switzerland moved ahead because their financial institutions are allowed to invent things like derivatives?
We suck a little more than we used to but damn when it comes to Wall Street where the HELL was the SEC and the dopes who ran it? Apparently not smart enough to wipe their own…noses.
Yes, just a small part of problem but without them Bernie Made-off with millions and others like him wouldn’t have played the game like a Stradivarius.
Clearly none of you have heard of the Gnomes of Zurich 😉
This is just another scoring model (adding apples, oranges and bananas) and conceived and implemented in an ad hoc fashion.
They gave scores for each of their “12 pillars of effectiveness”–things like “technological readiness” and “health and primary education.” Then they weighted each score to come up with a ranking. These types of attributes aren’t comparable across countries, and the weighted sum of these factors is certainly B.S., with the score being more subject to the researcher’s modeling choices than to any real attribute of the economy.
Further WEF is not an academic or policy organization, but a secretive collaboration of 1,000 or so of the world’s major corporations.
I agree that it seems wrong. 2nd seems far too high.
A Geneva-based organization named Swizzyland as most competitive. Competitive at what? Cheese?
No choice but to nuke them…
I love watches so I can’t really complain 🙂
5,
no, Switzerland is ranked so high because their banks are not allowed to perform such shenanigans.
I have American friends who are either retired teachers or still working on public schools (in the USA) and they all agree on one thing: American kids are idiots.
Nobody stays on top. The Swiss make a point of getting things done right and on time. We don’t.
I’d say we aren’t going to like the ride to the bottom.
I can think of nothing better to say about this than to repeat my previous post:
From
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff5.htm
“The tax which will be paid for [the] purpose [of education] is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” –Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786.