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| Sun Apr 13 22:38:47 2008 Other Freedom Rankings |
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| Mon Apr 7 21:00:00 2008 Reporters Sans Frontieres |
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| Tue Apr 1 20:00:00 2008 Profits Questioned |
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| Sun Apr 13 22:38:47 2008 Other Freedom Rankings Comparing countries' various rankings. |
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| I was thinking of other country rankings. I quote the Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking below, but there are other rankings! There is the index of economic freedom from the Heritage Foundation. I have no idea what the Heritage Foundation stands for, but some quick surfing on their site indicates it is a right-wing think tank. Check out some of their positions listed here. So take their biases into account, but their ranking methodology isn't bad. That's just economic freedom. There is a basic freedom ranking published by Freedom House, which is a nonprofit organization (founded by Eleanor Roosevelt!) which promotes freedom around the world (take a look at their mission statement). Their freedom ranking focuses on political rights (electoral process and government), and civil liberties (freedom of expression, rule of law, individual rights). They combine those subscores into an average per-country rating, with the summary listed here. What is the most free country in the world? No one seems to agree. Hong Kong tops the Heritage Foundation's ranking for Economic Freedom, but Freedom House lists it as only "Partly Free" (in the "Territories" section, sincie it isn't an independent country). China, to which Hong Kong belongs, is counted "Not Free" by Freedom House. Iceland and Norway are tied for the top spot in RSF's ranking of Press Freedoms, and both are in the top grouping for Freedom House's combined rankings. However, the Heritage Foundation says Iceland is only "Mostly Free" economically, while Norway is just "Moderately Free." So there is no one country that aces all the rankings. How does the United States rank? Economic Freedom: number 5 in the world, although we barely qualify as free (Heritage Foundation counts you as free if you rank from 80-100 on their scale, and only 7 countries qualified). Political and Civil freedoms: we are in the top group with a ranking of 1. Press freedoms: number 48 in the world. So we are at least in the better half of the world. Canada does well: it is ranked as Free by the Heritage Foundation, in the top group of Free countries from Freedom House, and is 18th on RSF's very tough press freedoms ranking. Russia does poorly: Heritage Foundation ranks it as economically repressed, Freedom House ranks it as "Not Free" (although in a group above China), and it is near the bottom of RSF's list at 144. China does even worse: although only "Mostly Unfree" from an economic perspective, it is "Not Free" from a political and civil perspective, and is a bottom-dweller of RSF's list at number 163. The United Kingdom? It is "Mostly Free" from an economic perspectve (just 0.5 short of "Free"!), in the top "Free" group from a political and civil perspective, and is a respectible 24th on the RSF list. As I mentioned below, I am a big fan of Tunisia, but it does poorly in these rankings. It is "Mostly Unfree" from an economic perspective, "Not Free" from a political/civil perspective (same ranking as Russia), and it ranks below Russia on the press freedoms index. Another country I've visited a few times is Chile. Chile ranks fairly well: it tops the list of "Mostly Free" countries from an economic perspective, is in the top grouping for political and civil freedoms, and is number 39 on the press freedoms ranking, ahead of the US, Israel, and South Africa, just to name a few. Comments |
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| Mon Apr 7 21:00:00 2008 Reporters Sans Frontieres Basic press freedom benchmarks. |
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| This is somewhat old news, but if you haven't seen the Reporters Without Borders 2008 Annual Report it is definitely worth checking out. It has details on each country's current press freedoms. I like the Reporters Without Borders organization. Its worldwide indices on press freedoms are excellent. Their description of the ranking process is fairly objective and focused. My only criticism of the organization is that it is very politicized. I don't necessarily disagree with their politics, but their activism means their objective judgement can (and should) be questioned. But at least their ranking system is transparent, which is laudable. Sometimes in the US, as we embark on various phases (or denials) of nation-building, we try to consider what the best forms of governments are. But there is something to be said about a free press. Perhaps any form of government works so long as there is freedom of expression. Citizens can audit and critize, and therefore improve, their government so long as they can openly discuss it. I think it is no coincidence that the worst governments are the ones with the least press freedoms. But more than anything, visit their press freedom ranking (also listed on the above ranking description page). It lists every country, in order from the most press freedoms to the least. Or, more accurately, it lists countries in order from the least press persecutions to the most. There are some expected results on the list. North Korea, China, and Cuba are near the bottom of the list. As they say in the report: "China is the most technically advanced country in terms of censorship and repression...", and their Journey to the Heart of Internet Censorship is chilling reading. Also fascinating if you are an Internet technical junkie! There are also some surprises on the list. The United States ranks 48th on the list (!), after Ghana, Bosnia, Romania, and Nicaragua (just to name a few). Some of the reasons the US ranked so low were due to Guantanamo (an Al-Jazeera cameraman is being held there for the 6th year in a row, and is not charged with anything), the jailing of a blogger for refusing to name his sources, a number of other journalists forced to name sources, and the CIA destroying evidence (videotapes) of "interrogations." The report notes that some of these press restrictions are being lifted. But the Al-Jazeera cameraman appears to be hosed. As far as I could tell based on a quick Internet search, the cameraman's only crime seems to be that he worked for Al-Jazeera in a war zone. Mexico's low ranking (136!) was also a surprise. The Annual Report noted that Mexico has recently passed a law whereby defamation and "insults" are no longer criminal, which may help the 2008 rankings. But Mexico's biggest problem seems to be the murder of journalists by drug cartels. A personal and disappointing surprise for me was the low ranking of Tunisia at 145, below Russia, Afghanistan, and Yemen. I really enjoyed my week in Tunisia in 2001 but even at the time I noted some political discontent and a state personality cult built around the President, Ben Ali. The Annual Report notes that harrassment of journalists is routine, although the government takes pains to convict them "for things unrelated to their job so the regime can avoid criticism for censorship." Overall, the list and Annual Report are well worth the time to peruse. Comments |
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| Tue Apr 1 20:00:00 2008 Profits Questioned An accusatory focus on energy company profits hurts the Green cause. |
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| Today Congress went through the familiar ritual of questioning energy companies about their high profits (stories here and here for instance). If there was serious suspicion of collusion or other tactics to defraud customers of money, then a Congressional grilling is warranted, as well as legal charges! However, it is very clear what is happening: oil is a scarce commodity. The massive drop in the dollar's worth, our high energy consumption, and dwindling supply mean that gas is more expensive to produce and harder to come by. It's a triple-whammy: production costs go up along with demand, while supply goes down. Any economist will tell you that prices go up. And when prices and demand go up, so do profits. You aren't running the business correctly if that's not true. All of these companies are facing the usual questions of "do I cut prices to beat my competitors and steal more market share, or will I lose more money that way?" And the equations get harder if you have less control over supply (they can't lower prices and increase supply, since supply is restricted). Incidentally, there are some amazing resources for examining how much oil we use. Check out this site for graphs of per-capita energy consumption. Very small states with lots of oil have crazy consumption ratios. If you disregard them, the US and Canada are clearly far above standard industrialized countries in terms of consumption, running 25-50% higher or more than most of Europe! This page, while atrociously designed and in places slightly out-of-date (but only in places), has fascinating statistics on prices and proven reserves. Also see the author's statement (halfway down, titled "Personal note about bias"), he gives an interesting account of his own shift in thinking. And he links to this interview which is one of the scarier interviews I've read in a while. For examples of how much the dollar has declined, check out the value of the Euro over the past 5 years, which has climbed as the dollar has weakened. Or look at the value of the dollar vs. the Canadian dollar, which shows how the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the US dollar. Remember, exchange rates are fundamentally a measure of foreign confidence in our economy. Given our trade deficits, inability to control spending, and absurdly low interest rates, most of the world thinks we are a dubious investment. So, due to poor management of the economy (devaluing the dollar) and poor management of energy consumption (we keep consuming more oil), gasoline prices and therefore profits have gone up. What good does it do to grill the energy company execs? It is purely political staging. People are annoyed about high oil prices, and members of congress know it is easier to harangue the energy company CEOs than actually fix the real problems (limited supply and increasing consumption). This is too bad, because it deflects attention from the real problems and their fixes. The problem of high oil prices can be fixed! The solution is to consume less oil (duh). Oddly, Congress seems to not be talking about that. This page, from the Natural Resources Defense Council, is old but nonetheless has a straightforward solution. Bump up the required mileage! That is, force an increase in fuel efficiency. This worked well in the 70s, and can work again now. Curiously, the energy corporation CEO-bashing continues. Get used to it, because as oil supplies dwindle and our consumption increases, gas prices will continue to skyrocket. Hopefully a few members of Congress will decide to fix the problem rather than grandstand. Comments |
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