As economists from Adam Smith and Milton Friedman to Paul Samuelson and Larry Summers have stressed, freedom of exchange and market coordination provide the fuel for economic progress. In the 2019 Economic Freedom of the World report, Hong Kong and Singapore once again occupy the top two positions. The other nations in the top 10 are New Zealand, Switzerland, United States, Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Mauritius. It is worth noting that the United States ranks in the top 5 in 2017 after having ranked in 12th place as recently as 2014.
The United States has long been the world’s leading arms exporter. But over the past decade American weapons have wound up in the hands of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, sold on the black market in Yemen and elsewhere, have been used by oppressive governments to kill their own people, and have enabled nations to engage in bloody military conflicts. To help improve decision making about arms sales, A. Trevor Thrall, Caroline Dorminey, and Jordan Cohen have created the Arms Transfer Risk Index, which provides a way to measure the risk involved with arms sales to every nation.
Legislation likely to be enacted in California, the Fair Pay to Play Act, is making big noise, threatening to pit our largest state against arguably the country’s biggest sports power: the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA.
Victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and their family members are attempting to hold Remington, a gun manufacturer, responsible for the crimes of the killer because the rifle he used was made by Remington.
