Interesting e-mail in response to my earlier post:

Hi Jonah,
In response to your question on rates of entrepreneurship in developed countries, I thought I might point you to the research done by the Global Entrepreneurship Consortium, which surveys entrepreneurs in 54 countries.
To answer your question about which countries have public heath care, a developed economy and higher rates of entrepreneurship than the US, several do. According to the most recent GEM report the following countries in “Innovation-Driven Economies” have higher rates of business ownership than the US (which clocks in at 5.9%)
Finland (8.3%)
Greece (15.1%)
Iceland (8.9)
Japan (7.8%)
Korea, South (11.8)
The Netherlands (8.3)
Norway (8.3%)
Switzerland (8.4%)
UAE (6/1%)
United Kingdom (6.1%)
It’s interesting to note that the US has one of the highest rates of Nascent Entrepreneurship, or people expressing interest in becoming entrepreneurs, but some of the lowest rates of actually starting that business. That suggests that fear of losing health insurance does play a factor in discouraging entrepreneurship.

This is really interesting, but something doesn’t quite smell right about this. I have to leave the computer soon, but I’ll come back to the report, which is actually pretty interesting (or appears to be after a little poking around).

At minimum it doesn’t really address this point in my original post: “Pick a country — any country — over the last 40 years that has equaled the American record of job creation, growth, and innovation. Sure some countries, Japan for example, have had great runs. But does Nancy Pelosi honestly believe Japan Inc.’s now-fading successes were attributable to its health-care policies?”

Bully for Greece’s ownership rate, I don’t think any sane Americans would like to trade our economy for theirs. Anyway, I appreciate the e-mail. More later.