Stacy Summary:   Funny how ‘socialists’ like Switzerland and Finland always place so high in competitiveness rankings; but then when you compare their healthcare, education, poverty, etc. numbers against US, they blow the competition away.  So this crazy summer to me is much ado about nothing.  None of the crazy stuff adds up to truth in the real world; so re: the craziness, ask yourself this:  Qui Cui bono?   The Washington fight, conducted mostly behind closed doors, has been overshadowed by the noisy debate over health care. That’s fine with investment bankers, who for years quietly wielded their financial and lobbying clout on Capitol Hill to kill efforts to regulate derivatives.

• Cheap dollars are sowing the seeds of the next world crisis

• Obama’s squandered summer

• Big changes in global competitiveness rankings

Ironically, the Swiss, who are well known for their welfare-type system which provides long annual vacation leave for all employees, generous benefits for workers who are terminated, and extended maternity leave, have competed strongly over the years with the USA, which is characterised by a more rugged free-market culture.

Under this US brand of capitalism, employees work more hours annually, with shorter vacation periods, and enjoy less-generous maternity leave or termination benefits. Yet, their high degree of social cohesion, high efficiency levels and top-of-class policy and regulatory framework allow the Swiss to achieve productivity rates that are in line with the greater compensation levels that their citizens enjoy.

Update:

• America’s toxic tap water causing cancer, rashes and rotten teeth

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.

She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.

“How is this still happening today?” she asked.

When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.

But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.