The world economic forum’s Global Competitiveness rankings for 2009-2010 are out.
Notable:
1. The US lost its top spot to the Swiss.
2. China, India, and Brazil all improved their rankings, coming in at 29, 49, and 56.
3. Russia fell back to 63.
4. In Latin America, Chile was the most business-friendly, at 30 and Paraguay the least, at 124. Uruguay weighed in at 65 and Argentina at 85.
This isn’t a measure of the country’s laws or political stability. The press release from the WEF has this:
“The GCI is based on 12 pillars of competitiveness, providing a comprehensive picture of the competitiveness landscape in countries around the world at all stages of development. The pillars include Institutions, Infrastructure, Macroeconomic Stability, Health and Primary Education, Higher Education and Training, Goods Market Efficiency, Labour Market Efficiency, Financial Market Sophistication, Technological Readiness, Market Size, Business Sophistication, and Innovation.”
Have to wonder what these various measures really mean–business sophistication–is that necessarily good? Look what sophisticated “financial products” got us. Maybe sophsiticatd weaponry? How good is that and for whom.
Being reasonably well versed in matters statistical you come to realise (and I forget who one summed it up in great phrase, Lila will know) that statstical and “quantitative” measures are some of the best ways to implant images, misinformation and useless symbolic memes–GDP, Mean income, the dow, and on and on. So prevalent that people look at these like the weather yet 98% (or more) if their lives depended on it could not explain what these things mean or if even if they know their meaning understand of these indicators/measures have any relationship to reality.
If you ever do more work on propaganda–would love to be a co-author!!!!
Ciao–don;t be a stranger miss exchaning ideas!