This should tell us something

about the wisdom of "nation building"

The bottom 5: Uzbekistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia.

For reference: Russia was 154th. Iran and Haiti were tied at 146th. Pakistan was 143rd. Mexico and Egypt were 98th. China was 78th, Cuba at 69. Italy at 67. Lithuania (along with the city-state of Macau in China) was the first country at "average" of 5.0 at 46th (this should give a perspective that most of the world's governments are corrupt or at least very non-transparent).

The US checked in at 22nd, behind such free state luminaries as Chile and Qatar. The top ten was populated by the usual suspects of pinnacles of "great societies"

1) Denmark
Singapore
New Zealand
4) Finland
Sweden
6) Canada
7) Netherlands
8) Australia
Switzerland
10) Norway

With Hong Kong, Iceland and Germany just outside that group.

If we want someone to go administer a democratic and free society, that's the group we should have do it. We should probably figure out how to run our own first a little better. Because 2 of the bottom 5 are countries we're telling how to run. And that doesn't seem to be doing so quite so well.