The Language of Wealth

In a Wash Times col, Richard Rahn asks whether speaka da English will make you rich:

If you look at the list of wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis, you will notice almost all the top 20 are English-speaking, or use some other Germanic language, with the exception of France, Japan, and Finland (however, most Finns know German and English as well as Swedish, and many Frenchmen know German and/or English).

But before you go into battle under the English-only banner being flown by Sen. Lamar! Alexander and others, duly note:

English is becoming the world language by default, precisely because there is no institution that states what English is, thus it is totally open to new ideas, concepts, technologies, etc. (like open source software). In fact, the two largest English-speaking nations, the United States and the United Kingdom, do not have an official language (unlike most other countries)—English is only the de facto official language. Any country can adopt English as an official language if it wishes—and now about 50 of them have done so.

Whole bit here.