Land Of The ‘Free’ Plunges To 15th “Free-est” Nation In The World

Turns out the “Land of the Free” may not be so “Free” after all.  That is, at least according the 2015 Legatum Prosperity Index which found that the U.S. has dropped to the 15th “most free” country in the world behind Costa Rica and Uruguay, among others.

Perhaps even more staggering is that the U.S. dropped to 33rd in terms of “Safety & Security” ranking behind Uruguay and Slovaki and just ahead of the United Arab Emirates.  Meanwhile, in the one bit of positive news, the U.S. was found to be the “Healthiest” nation in the world despite soaring obesity rates. 

Below is an interactive table of the complete “2015 Lagatum Prosperity Index“:

As mentioned above, perhaps the most shocking thing about the “Prosperity Index” this year is that the United States dropped to 33rd on the “Safety & Security” sub-index, down from 31st last year and 27th back in 2012.  According to Legatum, “Safety & Security” is the only sub-index in which the US ranks outside the top 30 nations of the world.  Moreover, the US was found to be the only Western country to register high levels of state-sponsored political violence with the index ranking the US on the same level as Saudi Arabia…seems like that may be a “stretch” but we’ll take their word for it.

Frankly, we’re probably lucky that the investigative team at Legatum didn’t take a close look at soaring violent crime in America’s largest cities…one look at Chicago and the U.S. “Safety and Security” ranking would have dropped to a couple of notches below Venezuela.

Meanwhile, in the one piece of positive news for the U.S., Legatum found Americans to be the “healthiest” people in the world with a life expectancy 6.8 years longer than the global average.  Apparently the cost of adding that incremental 6.8 years to the life expectancy of the average American was a 560% increase in per capita healthcare expenditures….and just wait until those numbers get updated for Obamacare.