THE DON JONES
INDEX… |
GAINS
POSTED in GREEN LOSSES
POSTED in RED |
|
9/11/17… 15,636.30 9/5/17… 15,651.03 6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
|
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 9/11/17… 21,797.79; 9/5/17… 21,987.56; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)
LESSON for September 11, 2017 – GIVE ME
LIBERTY (or at least give me an i-Phone
10)!
Back in the day… the day
being May 29th of this year… we considered a fellow by the name of
Greg Gianforte, elected to Congress from Montana (the
only Congressman from that state, as a matter of fact) who did what probably
ninety percent of the politicians want to do to nosy journalists, socked him in
the face.
He got arrested, even
though it was Montana, had to pay a fine and do some community service but was
otherwise unharmed and seems to have since disappeared into the swamp that
Washington was and remains – before and after Trump. The journalist would seem to have recovered
and Montana has gone back to worrying about wildfires (an early snow may come
as a welcome solution to that problem) while the rest of the country has moved
on to worrying about further tricks that Mother Nature may have up her sleeve.
Anyway, Congressman Gianforte’s display of fisticuffs inspired us to determine
what purportedly unbiased (but clearly left-leaning) NGOs like Reporters
Without Borders thought of press freedom in America… which led to a broader
scrutiny of the rest of American freedoms as analyzed by Freedom House and
then, to be fair and balanced, a consideration of the freedom of corporations
to do business (including cheating and hoaxing their customers, exploiting
their workers, despoiling the environment, anything and everything on the
table) as expressed by the Heritage Foundation… a bought-and-paid-for think
tank servicing the corporate elite and snuggled up with that font of dark money
into politics, the Kochtopus.
Quite surprisingly, there
turned out to be not much difference between the quarreling three… Heritage
denying China’s swallowing Hong Kong but concurring with the others that most
of the winners were rich and white, while the losers were African and/or former,
unrepentant Commies. America lost to
Jamaica, true, but… at 34th… we eked out victories over Lithuania
and Burkina Faso.
Of Reporters Without Borders, we reported this back in May:
Reporters
Without Borders uses three criteria to measure press (and by extension,
citizen) freedom in the same 180 nations… legal, political and economic… and ranked the United States as the 35th most free nation,
just ahead of Italy, but behind Slovakia.
While America still remains officially “free”
(Freedom House has downgraded us to third from the top on a scale of seven),
its scores of 6, 12 and 5 respectively gave it a total of 23 (where higher is
better), which was down from the 2015/6 standing of 21. The dropoff was
from a score of 10 in “political” which is probably attributable to
apprehensions about the Trump victory in November.
If RWB found America to be slightly less free
this year than last, what are they going to make of Mister (now Congressman) Gianforte. Fortunately, we have the peanut galleries –
left and right – to thank for providing us with certain insights into the
future of press freedom well before RWB conducts its 2017/18 survey.
This year,
they ranked Norway as the freest (if not best) place for journalists and North
Korea only the second worst, behind war-torn Syria. Due to the age of the data for some of the
viciousness categories and for prison population, Syria finished out of the
bottom ten… which would not be the case at present. Then too, some of the economic data on small
Caribbean islands is likely to be blowing in the wind as a result of the recent
storms.
Freedom
House also ranked Norway as #1 for the general public and did put the North
Koreans last. This from the May DJI…
The 2017
Freedom House report singled out “populists and autocrats” and warned that the
principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law will give way
to “a world in which individual leaders and nations pursue their own narrow interests
without meaningful constraints, and without regard for the shared benefits of
global peace, freedom, and prosperity.”
They wrote that 67 nations had suffered net declines in human rights
over 2016, while only 36 recorded gains.
It was the eleventh straight year that the world was less free than in
the previous year.
Some of these
declines were in countries previously categorized as “free” as opposed to Third
World hellholes. FH called President
Trump “a mercurial figure with unconventional views on foreign policy and other
matters” and cited Brexit, the failed democracies of
Italy and Poland and the “hubris” of Russian tinkering with the U.S. elections,
invading Ukraine and supporting Syria’s mad dictator Assad. Chinese military moves in the Pacific
threatened its neighbors, while “unscrupulous leaders from South Sudan
and Ethiopia to Thailand and the Philippines engaged in human rights violations
of varying scale with impunity.
“Authoritarian powers engaged in
brazen acts of aggression, and grave atrocities went unanswered in war zones
across two continents.”
Freedom House, reporting while Barack
Obama was still President, could rank the United States no better than 43rd
among some 180 nations… ahead of Comoros but just behind Burkina Faso. America has never finished higher than 20th
in this millennium; and those scores were achieved in the first two years of
the Obama administration, during which Democrats also controlled Congress. Even with the
campaign still in progress, the United States received a downward trend arrow
because of “the cumulative impact of flaws in the electoral system, a
disturbing increase in the role of private money in election campaigns and the
legislative process, legislative gridlock, the failure of the Obama administration
to fulfill promises of enhanced government openness, and fresh evidence of
racial discrimination and other dysfunctions in the criminal justice system.”
Speaking of
private money, the Heritage Foundation (see past Indices like this) didn’t have much good
to say about America either…
While RWB and Freedom House gave their highest
marks to small, cold European democracies (both picked Norway as #1), Heritage
named Hong Kong as the most economically free place in the world (unilaterally
divesting it from China). Another tiny
Asian state… Singapore… ranked second (all those reports about caning did not
figure into their matrix).
What Heritage did consider of importance were
twelve free-market criteria, these being (with the scores for Hong Kong
appended)…
Property Rights 93.7 Tax Burden 93.0 Monetary Freedom 83.2
Government Integrity 80.3 Fiscal Health 100.0 Trade Freedom 90.0
Judicial Effectiveness 84.0 Business Freedom 94.6 Investment Freedom 90.0
Government Spending 90.0 Labor Freedom 83.2 Financial Freedom 90.0
The United States finished 17th,
its best showing among the three agencies, but they still trailed Lithuania and
finished barely ahead of Denmark and Sweden.
Obviously, some of the positive Heritage criteria might be interpreted
as negatives in the other two instances as both espoused a liberal bent
regarding tax cuts for the rich and deregulation (which, liberals will cry,
lead to safety issues, pollution and the full Republican agenda… lower wages,
higher rents).
Hong Kong is now, of
course, the sole property and bitch of the Chinese Empire, but its economy has
been allowed to flourish, so long as a slice of the profits flow back to
Beijing. Communism, after all, is drab…
capitalist economies have i-Phones, Hollywood movies,
glitzy retail outlets and exploited foreign workers (in the case of China,
thousands of North Koreans who work basically for free with their “wages”
shipped back to Mister Kim… an arrangement that may be threatened by the recent
bellicosity of the NorKor military.
The two new categories
added to the list are also old categories, taken from an old DJI report on the
most vicious countries in the world. The
first, stand-alone topic is prison population… bad people certainly have to be
locked up, but the figures still indicate that the United States has (almost)
the worst people in the world, second only to the Seychelles Islands which is
full of incarcerated Somali pirates. On
the other hand, it may be… and certain others, including some conservatives…
are coming round to the conviction that a lot of convictions and incarcerations
are simply a way to sweep the poor, the dark-skinned and those as might give
lie to the American Dream into cages where nobody will see them and the
carnival can party on.
Admittedly, these figures
may have some problems… there are nations which are, in fact, gulags in and to
themselves. Other places have small
prison populations because they kill the people that they deem unworthy to
partake in society, such as it is. The
data is old, the provenance suspicious… does any serious person believe that
Syria locks up fewer people than Norway, Denmark or Switzerland (perhaps they
do, briefly, before taking them outside to be shot)? But it is what it is, remains an important
signpost of national health.
Finally, we condensed and
incorporated the Viciousness data (see here or note Attachment 2)
and gave it one fifth of the whole, despite… being a construct of wealthy
institutions and global bodies like the OECD, it had less than a third of the
countries of the globe on its roster.
(We also detached prison population and erased the sexual
differentiation… the result being that 2014’s most vicious state, Thailand,
plummeted (or rose) to the middle of the pack.
And, because we are speaking of Liberty, the highest marks went to the most vicious countries (like the
Ukrainians, Russians and Americans) who enjoy their sex, booze, drugs, smokes
and calories far more than the abstemious Islamic states. This may seem backwards, at least as in
respect to our previous categorization of health, but we and the Russkis and some others have the liberty to indulge our
baser instincts and, by Satan, we do so!
Bolstered by a high
Viciousness score and good grades from Heritage, New Zealand takes the gold as
the freest nation in the world, followed by a bunch of Scandinavians
(obviously) as well as Jamaica (which beat out the Americans, mon) and the feckin’ Irish.
And here are the
findings…
Note: We designated the
best of the category in green, the worst in red. There were a few adjustments – these amounted
to no significant change at either the top or bottom of the chart and are noted
in italics. Heritage, strangely enough, ranked slightly
different than it scored… perhaps considering other, occult factors, and a few
of their ranked nations did not have a recorded score.
We included a number of
small and contested places that do not appear in other categories and in the
case of two European microstates (Andorra and Liechtenstein), they scored
rather high. We also included Hong Kong
because so much of the data was old that they were still considered a free,
independent country at the time.
As mentioned above, some
of the Heritage findings were incoherent, but are reprinted as stated… we can’t
blame them, they’re rich.
|
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|||||||||
|
Heritage Foundation |
Reporters w/o Borders |
Freedom House |
Prison Population |
Viciousness (from 7/16/14) |
|
|||||||
|
Rank |
Score |
Rank |
Score |
Rank |
Score |
Rank |
Pop. |
Rank |
Score |
Average |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||
1 |
New
Zealand |
003 |
98 |
006 |
16 |
013 |
13.98 |
42 |
69 |
8 |
22.75 |
14.6 |
|
2 |
Iceland |
022 |
97 |
011 |
14 |
010 |
13.03 |
17 |
45 |
15.0 |
|
||
3 |
Sweden |
019 |
100 |
002 |
10 |
002 |
8.27 |
25 |
53 |
29 |
16.5 |
15.4 |
|
4 |
Finland |
024 |
100 |
003 |
11 |
003 |
8.92 |
27 |
55 |
24 |
17.6 |
16.2 |
|
5 |
Denmark |
018 |
97 |
010 |
12 |
004 |
10.36 |
33 |
61 |
22 |
20.0 |
17.4 |
|
6 |
Norway |
025 |
100 |
001 |
10 |
001 |
7.6 |
44 |
70 |
17.75 |
|
||
7 |
Ireland |
009 |
97 |
012 |
16 |
014 |
14.08 |
50 |
79 |
12 |
22.2 |
19.4 |
|
8 |
Switzerland |
004 |
96 |
014 |
12 |
007 |
12.13 |
54 |
84 |
28 |
16.7 |
21.4 |
|
9 |
Canada |
007 |
99 |
005 |
20 |
022 |
16.53 |
70 |
114 |
6 |
24.3 |
22.0 |
|
10 |
Liechtenstein |
X |
91 |
029 |
14 |
032 |
20.31 |
5 |
27 |
22.0 |
|
||
11 |
Andorra |
X |
X |
019 |
13 |
035 |
21.03 |
23 |
53 |
25.7 |
|
||
12 |
Germany |
026 |
94 |
022 |
17 |
016 |
14.97 |
49 |
78 |
25 |
17.3 |
27.6 |
|
13 |
Austria |
030 |
95 |
018 |
21 |
011 |
13.47 |
60 |
97 |
20 |
20.3 |
27.8 |
|
14 |
Luxembourg |
014 |
98 |
007 |
12 |
015 |
14.72 |
76 |
120 |
28.0 |
|
||
15 |
Belgium |
049 |
95 |
017 |
11 |
009 |
12.75 |
61 |
98 |
27 |
16.9 |
30.6 |
|
16 |
Australia |
005 |
98 |
008 |
21 |
019 |
16.02 |
103 |
152 |
19 |
20.75 |
30.8 |
|
17 |
Netherlands |
015 |
99 |
004 |
11 |
005 |
11.28 |
127 |
202 |
26 |
17.2 |
35.4 |
|
18 |
Japan |
040 |
96 |
016 |
24 |
072 |
29.44 |
18 |
47 |
39 |
12.0 |
37.0 |
|
19 |
Cyprus |
048 |
94 |
025 |
25 |
030 |
19.79 |
51 |
80 |
38.5 |
|||
20 |
Portugal |
077 |
97 |
013 |
17 |
018 |
15.77 |
91 |
137 |
11 |
22.25 |
42.0 |
|
21 |
France |
072 |
90 |
033 |
22 |
039 |
22.24 |
65 |
103 |
4 |
24.7 |
42.6 |
|
22 |
Estonia |
006 |
94 |
021 |
16 |
012 |
13.55 |
132 |
221 |
42.75 |
|||
23 |
South
Korea |
023 |
82 |
048 |
31 |
063 |
27.61 |
66 |
107 |
17 |
21.2 |
43.4 |
|
24 |
Spain |
069 |
94 |
024 |
27 |
029 |
18.69 |
89 |
131 |
7 |
24.0 |
43.6 |
|
25 |
Czech
Republic |
028 |
94 |
023 |
19 |
023 |
16.91 |
130 |
211 |
15 |
21.9 |
43.8 |
|
26 |
Costa
Rica |
063 |
91 |
028 |
18 |
006 |
11.93 |
160 |
352 |
44.25 |
|||
27 |
Chile |
010 |
94 |
026 |
31 |
033 |
20.53 |
142 |
242 |
13 |
22.1 |
44.8 |
|
28 |
United
King. |
012 |
95 |
020 |
21 |
040 |
22.26 |
161 |
365 |
5 |
24.4 |
47.6 |
|
29 |
Malta |
050 |
96 |
015 |
22 |
047 |
24.76 |
88 |
131 |
50.0 |
|
||
30 |
Slovenia |
097 |
92 |
027 |
24 |
037 |
21.7 |
45 |
73 |
51.5 |
|
||
31 |
Italy |
079 |
89 |
036 |
33 |
052 |
26.26 |
56 |
89 |
36 |
14.75 |
51.8 |
|
32 |
Jamaica |
041 |
75 |
063 |
18 |
008 |
12.73 |
98 |
145 |
52.5 |
|
||
33 |
Hong
Kong |
001 |
X |
72 |
35 |
073 |
29.46 |
71 |
115 |
45 |
7.7 |
53.3 |
|
34 |
United
States |
017 |
89 |
035 |
18 |
043 |
23.88 |
172 |
693 |
3 |
27.75 |
54.0 |
|
35 |
Lithuania |
016 |
91 |
030 |
24 |
036 |
21.37 |
144 |
254 |
54.5 |
|
||
36 |
Burkina
Faso |
093 |
63 |
082 |
42 |
042 |
23.85 |
12 |
41 |
54.75 |
|||
37 |
Latvia |
020 |
87 |
039 |
28 |
028 |
18.62 |
136 |
224 |
54.75 |
|
||
38 |
Romania |
039 |
84 |
043 |
42 |
046 |
24.46 |
94 |
142 |
56.0 |
|
||
39 |
Poland |
045 |
89 |
037 |
26 |
054 |
26.47 |
122 |
187 |
23 |
18.9 |
56.2 |
|
40 |
Uruguay |
038 |
98 |
009 |
26 |
025 |
17.43 |
154 |
291 |
56.5 |
|
||
41 |
Slovakia |
057 |
89 |
034 |
22 |
017 |
15.51 |
121 |
184 |
57.25 |
|
||
42 |
Mauritius |
021 |
89 |
038 |
30 |
056 |
26.67 |
116 |
174 |
57.75 |
|
||
43 |
Taiwan |
011 |
91 |
031 |
26 |
045 |
24.37 |
149 |
267 |
59.0 |
|
||
44 |
Namibia |
078 |
77 |
059 |
31 |
024 |
17.08 |
96 |
144 |
64.25 |
|
||
45 |
Comoros |
121 |
55 |
094 |
49 |
044 |
24.33 |
2 |
19 |
65.25 |
|||
46 |
Croatia |
095 |
87 |
041 |
40 |
074 |
29.59 |
52 |
81 |
65.5 |
|||
47 |
South
Africa |
081 |
78 |
055 |
35 |
031 |
20.12 |
155 |
292 |
9 |
22.5 |
66.2 |
|
48 |
Greece |
127 |
84 |
044 |
41 |
088 |
30.89 |
57 |
91 |
18 |
20.75 |
66.8 |
|
49 |
Senegal |
120 |
78 |
056 |
52 |
058 |
26.72 |
35 |
62 |
67.25 |
|
||
50 |
Benin |
096 |
82 |
049 |
34 |
078 |
30.32 |
47 |
77 |
67.5 |
|||
51 |
Botswana |
034 |
72 |
066 |
41 |
048 |
24.93 |
124 |
193 |
68.0 |
|||
52 |
Qatar |
029 |
26 |
134 |
67 |
123 |
39.83 |
24 |
53 |
46 |
7.25 |
71.2 |
|
53 |
Israel |
036 |
80 |
052 |
31 |
091 |
31.01 |
147 |
265 |
32 |
15.8 |
71.6 |
|
54 |
Côte
d'Ivoire |
075 |
52 |
099 |
61 |
081 |
30.42 |
29 |
56 |
72.0 |
|||
55 |
Indonesia |
084 |
65 |
075 |
49 |
124 |
39.93 |
41 |
69 |
38 |
13.0 |
72.4 |
|
56 |
Georgia |
013 |
64 |
078 |
49 |
064 |
27.76 |
146 |
262 |
72.75 |
|
||
57 |
Bulgaria |
047 |
80 |
053 |
37 |
109 |
35.01 |
83 |
125 |
73.0 |
|||
58 |
Colombia |
037 |
64 |
081 |
53 |
129 |
41.47 |
141 |
240 |
10 |
22.5 |
73.6 |
|
59 |
Kosovo |
046 |
52 |
100 |
49 |
082 |
30.45 |
63 |
100 |
73.75 |
|
||
60 |
Tonga |
073 |
74 |
064 |
29 |
049 |
24.97 |
110 |
166 |
|
74.0 |
|
|
61 |
Argentina |
156 |
82 |
047 |
52 |
050 |
25.07 |
106 |
160 |
16 |
21.75 |
75.0 |
|
62 |
Tanzania |
105 |
X |
108 |
51 |
083 |
30.65 |
39 |
64 |
75.7 |
|
||
63 |
Armenia |
033 |
45 |
109 |
61 |
079 |
30.38 |
87 |
130 |
77.0 |
|
||
64 |
Hungary |
056 |
76 |
062 |
36 |
071 |
29.01 |
119 |
183 |
77.0 |
|
||
65 |
India |
143 |
77 |
060 |
38 |
136 |
42.94 |
7 |
33 |
40 |
11.75 |
77.2 |
|
66 |
Seychelles |
085 |
71 |
068 |
56 |
087 |
30.86 |
173 |
799 |
78.25 |
|
||
67 |
Madagascar |
113 |
56 |
091 |
66 |
057 |
26.71 |
53 |
84 |
78.5 |
|
||
68 |
Papua
New Gu. |
152 |
64 |
077 |
28 |
051 |
25.07 |
38 |
63 |
79.5 |
|
||
69 |
Malaysia |
027 |
44 |
112 |
64 |
144 |
46.89 |
114 |
172 |
14 |
22.0 |
80.2 |
|
70 |
Serbia |
099 |
76 |
061 |
36 |
066 |
28.05 |
95 |
142 |
80.25 |
|
||
71 |
Trin./Tobago |
087 |
81 |
050 |
26 |
034 |
20.62 |
150 |
272 |
80.25 |
|
||
72 |
Mali |
102 |
45 |
110 |
46 |
116 |
38.27 |
8 |
33 |
81.5 |
|
||
73 |
Cape
Verde |
116 |
90 |
032 |
27 |
027 |
18.02 |
152 |
286 |
81.75 |
|||
74 |
Mauritania |
131 |
30 |
129 |
47 |
055 |
26.49 |
15 |
44 |
82.5 |
|
||
75 |
Sierra
Leone |
148 |
66 |
074 |
49 |
085 |
30.73 |
28 |
55 |
83.75 |
|
||
76 |
Albania |
065 |
68 |
072 |
49 |
076 |
29.92 |
123 |
192 |
84.0 |
|
||
77 |
Iraq |
X |
27 |
133 |
67 |
158 |
54.03 |
82 |
123 |
47 |
3.7 |
84.0 |
|
78 |
Kuwait |
061 |
36 |
122 |
59 |
104 |
33.61 |
67 |
112 |
84.0 |
|
||
79 |
Niger |
154 |
49 |
105 |
58 |
061 |
27.21 |
16 |
44 |
84.0 |
|
||
80 |
Lesotho |
134 |
64 |
079 |
49 |
068 |
28.78 |
58 |
92 |
84.75 |
|
||
81 |
Fiji |
071 |
59 |
088 |
56 |
067 |
28.64 |
115 |
174 |
85.25 |
|||
82 |
Am.
Samoa |
108 |
80 |
051 |
29 |
021 |
16.41 |
162 |
382 |
85.5 |
|
||
83 |
Peru |
043 |
72 |
067 |
43 |
090 |
30.98 |
143 |
251 |
85.75 |
|
||
84 |
Singapore |
002 |
51 |
103 |
67 |
151 |
51.1 |
131 |
219 |
42 |
11.4 |
85.8 |
|
85 |
Belize |
101 |
87 |
040 |
22 |
041 |
23.43 |
163 |
410 |
86.25 |
|||
86 |
Bosnia/Herz |
092 |
55 |
095 |
49 |
065 |
27.83 |
93 |
140* |
86.25 |
|||
87 |
Togo |
138 |
X |
159 |
70 |
086 |
30.75 |
36 |
62 |
86.7 |
|
||
88 |
Mongolia |
129 |
85 |
042 |
37 |
069 |
28.95 |
148 |
266 |
87.0 |
|
||
89 |
Nigeria |
115 |
50 |
104 |
51 |
122 |
39.69 |
9 |
35 |
87.5 |
|
||
90 |
Macedonia |
031 |
57 |
090 |
56 |
111 |
35.74 |
109 |
166 |
88.75 |
|
||
91 |
Malawi |
149 |
63 |
083 |
53 |
070 |
28.97 |
43 |
70 |
88.75 |
|
||
92 |
Oman |
082 |
25 |
137 |
71 |
126 |
40.46 |
10 |
36 |
88.75 |
|
||
93 |
Nepal |
125 |
52 |
101 |
58 |
100 |
33.02 |
34 |
62 |
90.0 |
|
||
94 |
Liberia |
161 |
62 |
086 |