Hong Kong rules (also Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland

The Heritage Foundation has issued its 2015 Index of Economic Freedom, in which only the five headlined countries achieved a "Free" rating. (Hong Kong is a bit of an anomaly, since it's not really a country, and is being dragged kicking and screaming into the economy of 139th-ranked China.)

And where is the United States in this competition? We lost our "Free" rating in 2010 after just one year of Mr Obama's regimen of tax, spend, regulate, and demonize the successful. We're number twelve, just after Denmark and just ahead of Britain (also called the United Kingdom, though it's not really a kingdom and not terribly united). The Heritage Foundation finds some reason for cheer in the fact that at least we have not dropped any further than twelfth, and indeed improved our stats over last year (though not enough to displace Denmark at number eleven).

The other nations who scored better than the U.S.: Canada, Chile (a dictatorship not long ago), Estonia (part of the Soviet Union not long ago), Ireland, and Mauritius (a British colony not long ago).