“Heritage and the Wall Street Journal released the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom on January 12, 2012, ranking 179 countries on 10 benchmarks that gauge their economic success. The Index covers 10 freedoms – from property rights to entrepreneurship – in 184 countries. This year Heritage introduced a new interactive feature that gives you the opportunity to create a comparative graph. This week’s chart shows how the United States stacks up against Canada and the United Kingdom. As recently as 2009, the United States led both countries in economic freedom. But after four years of decline, the United States is heading in the wrong direction. This year it fell to 10th in the Index of Economic Freedom. For the 18th straight year, Hong Kong and Singapore finished first and second in the rankings, followed this year by Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland. North Korea was at the bottom of the rankings. All contents of the book are available online. A few notable developments in this year’s Index [download data here: