According to the Heritage Foundation, the Dominican economy is just like it was in 1995. The newspaper Diario Libre is reporting that deteriorating banking and financial activity, the increase in prices, and the weakening of purchasing power are some of the economic indicators that allow the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal to say that the index of economic freedom has diminished in the Dominican Republic. During this downhill slide the Dominican Republic is ranked 120th of the 161 countries that were included. In Latin America, only Honduras, Ecuador, Haiti, Suriname, Cuba and Venezuela have higher negative indices. Besides the activities already mentioned, the study also looks at commercial policies, tax loads, government intervention in the economy, capital flows and foreign investment. Using all of these measurements the foundation gave the Dominican Republic a rating of 3.51 on a scale that goes from zero to five, with five being the worst. This is 0.22 points worse than last year. The report also criticizes the subsidies given to LPG (propane), the protectionism in the agricultural sector and the subsidies paid for electricity.