GENEVA — The United States fared badly in a new assessment of world economies, with the financial crisis accentuating its weakness as one of the most economically unstable nations, the World Economic Forum said Tuesday.

In contrast with its overall ranking second only to Switzerland in the WEF's 2009 Global Competitiveness Report, the United States now placed 93rd among the 133 countries in terms of macroeconomic stability.

"The United States has built up large macro-economic imbalances over recent years," said the WEF, which hosts the annual Davos pow-wow of business and political leaders.

"Repeated fiscal deficits have led to burgeoning levels of public indebtedness, which are presently being exacerbated by significant stimulus spending," it added.

The widening government budget deficit and low national savings rates helped drag the United States down.

The White House has projected that its budget deficit would reach 9.05 trillion dollars for the 2010-2019 period.

But the United States is not only grappling with a state deficit, its citizens also hold too much debt and insufficient savings, according to analysts.

In the years leading up to the financial crisis, the country's national savings rate had dropped to almost zero.

"More generally, given that the financial crisis originated in large part in the United States, it is hardly surprising that there has been a weakening of the assessment of its financial market sophistication, dropping from ninth last year to 20th overall this year in that pillar," said the WEF.

The United States also scored badly for the soundness of its banks, in 108th place, just ahead of Venezuela, Serbia and Vietnam.

Like the United States, the banking industries of Britain, Ireland and Iceland brought up the rear, as their financial centres all suffered in the crisis.

Iceland's banks were ranked the fourth most unsound, rivalled only by Zimbabwe, Mongolia and Ukraine, while Britain was the ninth from last and Ireland the 13th worst.

While major Swiss banks also suffered in the economic crisis, Switzerland managed to come out top overall, overtaking the United States to lead the global competitiveness chart this year.

Researchers found that Switzerland had remained "relatively stable, whereas the United States has seen a weakening across a number of areas."

Singapore moved up to third place from fifth a year ago, helped by strong government institutions, infrastructure and a focus on education.

Nordic countries -- Sweden, Finland and Denmark -- took the fourth to sixth places, with strong macroeconomic stability and transparent institutions.

Among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) emerging giants, China performed best, gaining one place to 29th place. It remained 20 places ahead of India, thanks to its strong fiscal position.

India had "fairly well functioning institutions" but ranked poorly on health and primary education, macroeconomic stability and infrastructure.

Brazil was boosted by its growing domestic market and one of the region's most developed financial centres, but it was weighed down by poor macroeconomic stability and its institutional environment.

Russia was the only BRIC country to slide down the ranking this year, falling 12 places to 63rd.

It was hit by structural weaknesses including a lack of government efficiency, judicial independence and property rights, according to the report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iZjENhg4--bQB_o5w9YFrwVvlBnQ

Like this is new news?

We have a major recession going on and we are in a hole right now. It is going to take while to see our way out of it. Obama said so in his speeches about the economy. Oh and so did the other economists interviewed.

Compared to the rest of the nations, who are also in an economic recession, yest it is news. Remember it's a world-wide recession not US-only. In regard to that, USA was No 1. as the most stable and slipped down to the 93rd place, which is pretty sad. Compared to last year, it was 66th.

Where is the end of the slope?

Economic stability has nothing to do with recession. It has to do with the conduct of the monetary actions of the nation. We are spending borrowed money hand over fist. The economic instability has to do with how rapidly we are accumulating debt that will build on itself until we essentially are borrowing more than we are taking in...oh, wait a minute... we already do that...

the instability is how close we are to a total collapse or at the very least, the start of the part of falling into the hole where we can no longer climb back out. at our current rate, we will nearly have a debt to GDP ratio of 1 by the end of Obama's first term and will be paying almost half our federal income on the interest on that debt. If that does not scare you, there is nothing that can be done to make you see the problem in all of this.

The end is either monetary reform, destruction of the currency/impoverishment of the masses, war for profit (which they all are, though some are more profitable than others), or overthrow of the government. All empires end, this one will too. Let's just hope it's not as violent as some collapses have been.

I have gotten old and lost much of the edge of the street-savy I used to have.

There are many visious, violent and organized gangs that would flourish in the midst of an empire collapse.

They would go after the middle-class and affluential first. They have the best bounty. And face it, they have the softest bellies.

I agree! That's why if I had the money, I'd be stocking up on guns/ammo/weapons.

Bush should have known you cant cut taxes and wage war at the same time. Let alone a war based on Lies.

Ignoring the last line, I must disagree to an extent. You can in fact fight a war and cut taxes, provided you cut elsewhere. The war and taxes were less than half the deficit of the last 8 years. There was far more to it. Either way, necessary cuts were not made.

And stop acting like everyone else was so high and mighty and this was all bush's fault. it's been in the works for decades.

Bush took us to "military action" against a country who did not do 9/11 after 9/11, it was Bush who did it. He has to take the blame for this one along with all his cronies.

apparently you missed the balance sheet where the war was a very small portion of our deficits. there was far more to it.

Just because we got hit worse doesn't make this new news.

We are far from the worst. Japan and China both were hit with double-digit contractions that were far larger than ours.

Bush took us to "military action" against a country who did not do 9/11 after 9/11, it was Bush who did it. He has to take the blame for this one along with all his cronies.


I thought congress decided........
????

revisionist history

Bush pushed for it to begin with. Who brought up Iraq as the target? Bin laden wasn't in Iraq. Iraq should have not even hit our radar in the aftermath of 9/11, so who brought it up?

We put Hussein in power and we took him out...with congress' approval!

The blame lies with Congress

That doesn't cover the blame that applies in this situation, not one iota.