Venezuela, Argentina & Brazil Top Economic ‘Misery’ List

Venezuela’s skyrocketing inflation has again pushed the country to the top of a list of most miserable economies in the world. The top five countries on the list after Venezuela are Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Egypt. Next Are Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and Colombia. The list is compiled by Steve Hanke, who heads a currency project at Cato and is an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University. To arrive at the list, first developed and modified by two other economists, Hanke sums unemployment, inflation, and bank lending rates, and subtracts the percentage change in real GDP per capita. More…