Most Free Economies in 2013

I just come across this "Index of Economy Freedom" which was published recently by U.S. heritage foundation and I think it is worth to share with you guys if you haven't heard about it.

So what is this "Index of Economy" about? It basically tells how free are you to work, produce, consume and invest in any way you want to be? In short, the higher points a country gets, the freedom you're in terms of investment perspective.  If you want to know the detail, refer to the link at the end of this article.


Top Ten World Ranking

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Denmark
10. United States

This graphical representative is cool as you can see overall ranking in all around the world. 

Where is Malaysia stand by the way? Malaysia is ranked 56th, and categorized under moderately free (i.e. yellow / between 60 to 70) which is ranked 9th in the regional ranking. It is still better than a lot of our neighbors but not comparing to those developed one. :)

I don't know what conclusion can be made here but it seems to me the more developed a country is, the more economy freedom there are.

For detail on the research, ranking and data, and you can also plot the trend, please refer here: www.heritage.org

My 2013 Resolutions and Yours?

Overall, I'm partially met my 2012 resolutions as stated in my previous post and as usual, I'm going to set top 5 resolutions for 2013. I think 5 resolutions are good enough, not too many, not too less. :)

By the way, if you realized, I put "measure of success" in each resolution that I have. You may want to do that too as I know many of us (happened to me in the past too), we don't really know what is the measure of success although we have resolution. So how to we know we succeed or fail?


Improve Health

This is a must for every year I think. What my worry is the consistency because every time when my health gets better, I tend to eat a lot and forget about it. So, I still need to consistently monitor my health's status to make sure my cholesterol and liver are in good shape.

Measure of success: Do checkup every 6 months and no elevated cholesterol and liver enzymes.


Migration to Australia

Well, why I want to make this move? There are few reasons. One reason is I'm stuck in my career here and no longer has motivation to work. I just know that I need to move but move where? I have considered US but it turns out that Australia is the lucky one.

Measure of success: Get an Australia PR by end of this year. 


Become Android Developer

Software programming is always my interest. I"m not sure if it is my passion because sometimes I will get bored of it especially when it becomes a routine and most importantly I didn't touch programming for quite some time already.  I've never been good in GUI programming and this is going to be challenge for me. I started to know some basic android development, but I think that is not sufficient.

Measure of success: Publish one application on Google Play store.


Study on Australia Economy

I know little bit about Australia and since I wanted to move there, I think it is a good idea to study on it. Perhaps I should start to read more news related to Australia. I'm more interested in personal finance related stuff such as living expenses, housing/rental price, car price, tax scheme, insurance coverage, government subsidy, job market, retirement plan, cultural difference and so on. Thus, measure of success is pretty broad. :)  Each item needs certain level of research.

Measure of success: Know above mentioned stuff and research and blog about it for each item. 


Blogging (Stretch Goal)

I like blogging but I plan to put lower priority in blogging this year because of  focusing on mainly above stuff.   Thus, it is stretch goal for me this year. However I do want to set myself a goal for this so that my blog won't totally dead in 2013. :) When my mood comes, I will blog!

Measure of success: Publish at least 1 post per month in my active blogs. 


There are other stuff such as investment and financial related but I guess every year is the same so I decided not putting them as my top 5 resolutions in 2013. If you wonder how to set your investment goals, you can check out my previous post: 4 Steps to Set Your Investment Goals

Happy new year!