Vox: How Venezuela’s socialist dream collapsed into a nightmare

Venezuela is in the midst of a stunning social, political, and economic collapse. The country of 30 million people is facing dire food and medicine shortages, frequent power outages, serious political unrest, the world’s highest inflation rate, rampant violent crime, and one of the world’s highest murder rates. Earlier this month, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, declared a state of emergency. --In short, Venezuela has become the world’s most visibly failing state. --It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Not so long ago, Venezuela’s socialist revolution attracted its share of fellow travelers — first-world idealists hungry for the next earthly utopia.

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How Can We Recover Our Economic Freedom?

Just in time for tonight’s GOP presidential debate, a consortium of think tanks from nearly 90 countries has released its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report. The report has some good news for much of mankind — economic liberty increased slightly around the globe — but not such good news for the United States, which continues to tumble in the rankings. As recently as 2000, the United States had the second-freest economy in the world, trailing only Hong Kong. But throughout the Bush and Obama years, we have slipped further and further behind. Read more at National Review Read More......

Why We Should Care About America's Fading Economic Freedom

The Economic Freedom Team at Economic Freedom.org writes, "The word at the water cooler is that the U.S. has fallen to 18th in economic freedom. So what’s the big deal? Professor Antony Davies of Duquesne University explains in U.S. News & World Report that economic freedom benefits just about everyone. ✧ The conclusion is simple: Economic freedom yields beneficial results. ... data bears out what Americans know intuitively: The United States is less free than it once was, and our lives are the worse for it. The way to improve our lives as citizens is to return to our birthright as citizens: liberty." Read the full article at U.S. News & World Report... Read More......

Samuelson: Europe’s economic purgatory

WASHINGTON POST, 12/14/2011 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler)

By now, it’s obvious that adopting the euro was a colossal blunder. It may rank as Europe’s worst policy mistake since World War II. The virtues of the common currency — it reduced transaction costs and the uncertainty of fluctuating exchange rates among national monies — were temporary. Its vices seem permanent or, at least, semi-permanent: the mounting economic costs of saving the euro; the growing nationalism from arguing over who’s to blame. ✧ Do not expect some magical “solution.” Europe has entered an economic and political purgatory from which there is no early escape. On paper, the crisis countries (so far: Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain) might benefit from abandoning the euro and resurrecting national currencies. They could then devalue these currencies, spurring exports and tourism. But in practice, this choice is dangerous and maybe impossible. Read more at the Washington Post...

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WSJ: Moody’s Lowers Economic Growth Outlook

By Tess Stynes
Moody’s Analytics said its near-term outlook for the U.S. economy has fallen significantly in the past month [in the] wake of the debate over the U.S. debt ceiling and the downgrade of the nation’s credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s. Read more at the Wall Street Journal... Read More......

Rasmussen: 29% Say Tea Party Members Are Terrorists, 55% Disagree

Several prominent Democrats and their media friends have charged the Tea Party with being economic terrorists during the congressional budget debates, but most voters don’t see it that way. Read more at Rasmussen Reports...

Also at Rasmussen Reports, 8/7/2011 - New Low: 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed Read More......