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United States Businesses The Almighty Buck

US is World's Most Competitive Economy for First Time in a Decade (wsj.com) 290

schwit1 shares a report: The U.S. is back on top as the most competitive country in the world, regaining the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2008 in an index produced by the World Economic Forum [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], which said the country could still do better on social issues. America climbed one place in the rankings of 140 countries, with the top five rounded out by Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Japan. All five countries' scores rose from 2017, with the U.S. notching the second-biggest gain after Japan's. [...] The Global Competitiveness Report this year assessed 140 countries on 98 indicators that measure business investment and productivity. The indicators are organized into 12 main drivers of productivity including the nations' institutions, tech savvy, infrastructure, education systems, market size and innovation.
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US is World's Most Competitive Economy for First Time in a Decade

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  • by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:01AM (#57491180) Homepage Journal
    We even know how to use Unicode on the web.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:07AM (#57491190)

      No we donâ(TM)t

      • This represent Slashdot's support of Unicode:

        There's supposed to be a poop emoji at the end of my sentence above. It displays when I'm in the textarea but disappears when I click on preview.

        • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

          This represent Slashdot's support of Unicode:

          There's supposed to be a poop emoji at the end of my sentence above. It displays when I'm in the textarea but disappears when I click on preview.

          Works fine for me.

  • by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:06AM (#57491186) Homepage

    Woo! Victory lap!

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )

      Also with the State of California (The Top State Economy in the US) carrying most of the country.

      The United States is the 3rd most populated country and the 3rd/4th (Depending on how you measure it, and disputed border areas) largest in area country. We really shouldn't just be edging past these countries, we should be near dominate. The only other country with the resources to beat the US Economy would be China, Who is about the same size as the US in area however has a massive population.

      For the most par

  • MAGA bitch! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That's whats up!

  • by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:19AM (#57491224)

    The US has had a trade deficit since the '70s, and still does. What is the value of 'most competitive' if you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports ?

    • The US doesn't borrow, it prints.

      • The US doesn't borrow, it prints.

        1 BTC = USD$1,000,000 is coming sooner than we thought!

        • by h4x0t ( 1245872 )
          BTC is done for. It's not useful for transactions and it pollutes like a MF. The writing is on the wall. It has no solution for the amount of electricity it pulls per (lack of) product/service.
      • Most of the money is printed as a result of a new loan.

    • by jeremyp ( 130771 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @09:42AM (#57491642) Homepage Journal

      You realise you don't borrow money from the rest of the Worlds to pay for imports, don't you?

      The trade deficit thing is a red herring. If the economy is doing well, people will buy more stuff and some of that comes from abroad.

      Also, although money flows out of the country, goods flow in. For example, Trump seems very concerned about paying for Chinese steel. Well, yes, you've sent a load of cash to China, but they have sent you a load of steel and if they are dumping it at below cost, you've actually got a pretty good deal and it will benefit all of the industries in the USA that use steel. Everybody benefits except the US steel industry, which is actually a pretty small part of the economy compared to all the parts that will benefit.

      • Also, although money flows out of the country, goods flow in

        Money is nothing but a standardized form of IOU. The US dollar is valuable, only because it carries a promise to the recipient that they can give back the money to the US, in return for something (goods, labour) of equal value. If you keep promising for decade after decade, and never return goods of equal value, you're borrowing for imported goods, just like a drunk is borrowing from the bar when he lets the tab run up and never pays it back.

        • Apparently, you don't think America is renting machines that print money.

          Apparently, you do think America is renting machines that spew giant piles of filth, that all has to be immediately carted off to the nearest landfill, at great expense.

          Into which category goes a DVD? If it's a Gladiator DVD, soon enough it does go to the landfill, where it properly belongs (how did that abomination ever win Best Picture?)

          However, if it's an instructional DVD titled "Machine Learning for Dummies"—though it might

      • Everybody benefits except the US steel industry, which is actually a pretty small part of the economy compared to all the parts that will benefit.

        And the workers, whose wages have remained flat during this period. The corporations are making more money, and as usual, they are giving all the profit to executives and none of it to the workers. It's an outright lie to suggest that everyone benefits.

    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      You can't fix the deficit by fiat. You do it by making trade and production within your borders efficient so that it trends in the better direction.

      China did a great job at that, they kept all the production to themselves, with low or non-existent export taxes they made themselves more competitive than any other country, attracting industry and lifting their own people out of poverty. Saudi-Arabia is currently trying to do the same thing for high-tech business because they know oil is inherently unstable, e

      • You do it by making trade and production within your borders efficient

        Yes, and that's what I would call 'competitive'. The ability to create products that the rest of the world desires enough to buy them from you.

    • by 4im ( 181450 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @10:16AM (#57491906)

      Indeed... 779 billion dollars deficit for the first year of the Trump administration.

      That's between tax breaks for the rich and spending even more on "defense".

      Guess who's going to have to pay that back? I'll bet it won't be Trump's rich friends.

      • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @12:20PM (#57492822) Journal
        FY2017 spending was approved by President Obama; defense spending for the first year of the Trump administration was set by the Obama budget. It is back to around the level of 2010-2011 [usgovernmentspending.com] in dollars, and well under the first term of President Obama as a percent of GDP.
      • Indeed... 779 billion dollars deficit for the first year of the Trump administration.

        That's between tax breaks for the rich and spending even more on "defense".

        Guess who's going to have to pay that back? I'll bet it won't be Trump's rich friends.

        Well, that isn't surprising since 'world's most competitive' economy has become a synonym for 'best at letting the rich screw the citizenry'.

      • A larger deficit is now considered a good thing. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

      • You know there's a difference between a TRADE deficit, and the budget deficit, right?

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      you have to borrow money from the rest of the world in order to pay for your imports?

      The US foreign debt situation is actually pretty good.

      There is a persistent trope that the US owes tons of money to foreign governments, but it is incorrect. Most US debt is held by US citizens. Wikipedia lists foreign bond holders at 34% right now. That isn't huge, and it isn't a bad thing even if it was. The more invested foreign governments are in your currency the safer your currency becomes. It means everyone on the planet has a vested interest in the US economy doing well. It means if you want t

      • The ticking time bomb is the SS trust. Full of junk bonds.

        When those can't be rolled over, we're screwed. Should have already happened, but the fed has been buying the bonds left at the end of every auction. Putting them on both sides of the transaction.

    • The language of "trade deficits" is exactly the wrong way around.

      The rest of the world gives you *actual things which are useful* and you only have to give them a piece of paper (or even better, increment a number in a database) in return. I know who I think wins in that equation.

  • Meaningless (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nukenerd ( 172703 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:35AM (#57491302)

    Sounds like another of those bullshit evaluations in which you can make the order come out how you like depending what weight you attach to the measured parameters - even assuming they are measured correctly (or guessed) in the first place. For example, FTFA :

    This year the WEF changed its methodology to better account for ... [blah blah, blah .....]

    • If it were one off, yes. But because this is standardised over time and the parameters are fixed over time, the metric travels well.

  • From the first article:

    "The last time the U.S. topped the list was 2008".

    I rest my case.

  • Soooooooo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @08:50AM (#57491370)

    Analogically speaking... That's like saying that the ONE olympic star on television winning medals is representative that everyone sitting on their couch eating potato chips watching them perform, are also winning medals.

    What is a competitive economy really when for thirty or fourty years, the economy of the PEOPLE has been GUTTED by the corporations and politics supporting them?

    Fucking hogwash!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Everybody is better off. Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned. The poor are rich, they're just comparatively less rich than the very rich.

      Pointing out the divide between rich and poor in the US is not about inequality or living in squalor conditions but about jealousy.

      • Everybody is better off. Yes, the divide between the rich and poor is growing bigger, but all the US "poor" are pretty much nearing the middle class as far as the global economy is concerned. The poor are rich, they're just comparatively less rich than the very rich.

        The "middle class" is not "the middle third of the nation". It's the middle of three classes, and Americans are dropping out of it [fool.com], not achieving it. The shrinkage has paused momentarily due to our energy costs plummeting as we move to natgas, but that increased natgas production is predicated upon fracking which is ultimately going to harm the lower and middle class.

  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @10:15AM (#57491902) Journal

    With so many pretending that they actually know how the economy works please find US Federal Reserve Act [federalreserve.gov].

    I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Somehow though, I think presidents are more the tail than they are the dog.

  • That should help our productivity! :)

    All kidding aside, the takeaway I get from looking at the Canadian numbers, is that the lowest scores that hurt our "productivity" are the "ICT Adoption", which is basically the number of subscriptions per capita of cellular and internet services. Which isn't a huge surprise when you look at how expensive and noncompetitive our telecommunication industry is (Rogers, Bell, and Telus) compared to the rest of the world. To which Canadian's have been complaining about for ye

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