OSU Professor: Asset Forfeiture Making USA Less Business-Friendly

Fifteen years ago, the U.S. ranked second, behind Hong Kong.

  Overregulation, civil asset forfeiture, eminent domain, and other factors have combined to make the country much less business-friendly, according to Per Bylund of Oklahoma State University.Bylund is the Records-Johnston Professor of Free Enterprise and Asst. Professor in the School of Entrepreneurship at OSU. He tells KRMG's Russell Mills that he's blowing the whistle to draw attention to what he sees as major obstacles to economic growth and freedom in the country, but admits there are few easy solutions.

From 2nd to 16th in 15 years, according to an international ranking.

"The problem is not only that we're doing worse compared to other countries, but that we're actually doing worse, objectively speaking, compared to 15 years ago," he said Tuesday.

• "There is more regulation. 

• There is undermining of property rights quite a bit through asset forfeiture 

• and eminent domain, where the government steps in to basically take private property and give it to private businesses because the government thinks it's a better use of this property."

Bylund goes on to emphasize;

"I'm blowing the whistle on this, more than advocating anything specifically. What I can do as a researcher and professor is really shed light on what's going on, and what research tells us this is going to lead (sic), and undermining property rights for instance - we know that this could have a disastrous effect on society, especially on economic growth, and the whole country's well-being in the future,

"I'm blowing the whistle on this, more than advocating anything specifically. What I can do as a researcher and professor is really shed light on what's going on.. - Bylund

simply because we're undermining how the market works, how the economy works, and that means it's going to have a terrible effect probably on jobs, on new businesses and so forth, and I think it's my responsibility as a scholar to share my knowledge on this."

Read the full report at: http://goo.gl/d2Tuj8

David Van Risseghem