This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Bachelor. The Fraser Institute, the economic index of freedom.

I welcome Veronique de Rijee of the Mercatus Center, George Mason University, writing about

surprising results, what it means to be have economic freedom, how is it that the countries that do not much have it, call themselves socialist, and the countries that do much have it call themselves capitalist? What does that mean about freedom?

Veronika, a very good evening to you. The Fraser Institute, you introduced me to it, so I went to the website.

I urge everybody to go there.

What is economic freedom?

How do they define it?

Good evening to you.

Good evening.

So economic freedom, this report, which started in 96, I believe, so it's been going on for a while,

it ranks country based on economic freedom as defined by basically their degree of taxation,

stable money, regulation, and freedom of, and freedom, hold on, there's a fourth

one that I'm forgetting right now.

But basically it's like, oh, yeah, yeah.

It's like openness to trade, taxes, regulatory burden, and government spending, and the soundness

of the country's money.

So it's five categories.

Each categories have different things in them.

And then they give each country a grade for all of these factors, and then they rank them.

Sort of like what's the best university in the world I understand.

Now, I'm going to be disappointed that the U.S. is not number one, given how much money we spend on our government. How's it doing the U.S.?

Well, actually, that's why we're not number one.

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