The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. Spending time with family, grilling food, shooting off fireworks, and most importantly taking a moment to remember the blessing of freedom that we experience in the United States. This year, in particular, I was reflecting on how interesting “Freedom” is as a concept – and how surprisingly easy it can be to take for granted. If there is one thing that this “American experiment” proves, it’s the power of freedom to transform lives. When we look at freedom through the lens of finance, history supports the fact that the freer people are, the more an economy grows -- and the more everyone benefits.

When I started with Legacy, Jerry introduced me to the Heritage Foundation. The mission of The Heritage Foundation is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” This foundation puts out an annual ranking of the most to the least economically free nations in the world, using quantifiable data such as Property Rights, Tax Burden, and Labor Freedom. This index has been put out for over two decades to measure the impact of liberty and free markets around the globe. The 2018 Index continues to validate the positive relationship between economic freedom and progress.

In honor of the holiday we just celebrated, I would encourage you to check out this website to see where the United States & other countries rank on this index: https://www.heritage.org/index/ If you want to find out more, give us a call!