The World Bank, which does many things poorly, does one thing exceptionally well: It publishes an annual survey that scores and ranks countries according to the ease of doing business. Want to better understand the mess Greece is in? In 2006 it took an average of 151 days to enforce a contract in the Hellenic Republic. Today it takes 1,580. Want to measure Israel’s progress? A decade ago, starting a business in the startup nation took about 34 days. Now it takes 12.
What about the United States? When President Obama took…