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28
Feb 2013

U.S. Employment Growth By State (New Mexico Lags Behind)

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The chart below shows employment growth by state. Its divided up by the last month, the last year, 3 year, and 5 year.

In the five year map, a vast majority of states showed negative growth, which is understandable considering the 2008 crisis.

What is worthy of note is that for the 3 year growth rate, New Mexico is one of two states that showed negative employment growth (and was the worse off of the two). The year over year, New Mexico is one of a handful of states that continued to show a loss in employment.

But take comfort in that we had .29% growth last month!

growth1

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Categories: Economy, NM Politics
20
Feb 2013

Printing Bonanza! Easy Money Pandemic

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money1

 

I’m sure most of our readers are well aware of the massive money printing the Federal Reserve has done and continues to do. Currently, Bernanke is flooding the economy with $85 billion a month through purchases of $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion worth of Treasuries. If you haven’t noticed, the financial markets are enjoying the new injections of their favorite drug as our economy takes another trip on the boom cycle. How long this will last? Who knows. However, Bernanke isn’t the only one with his foot on the gas pedal.

There’s been a string of devaluations, depreciations, and printing bonanzas around the world.

Japan’s central bank is poised to start the presses under the direction of the newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Bank of Japan’s Governor Masaaki Shirakawa even offered to step down early so they can start the party. The BOJ policymakers have declared their goal to be a 2% inflation target and will “aggressively” attempt to achieve it.

In recent days, Economics Minister Akira Amari has said stocks are undervalued and that he would like to see the Nikkei Stock Average hit 13000 by the end of March

It seems they’re shooting for getting the Nikkei above 13000 points and are willing to print as much yen as necessary to do it. The Wall Street Journal noted the concerns of other countries on the Japanese move:

The yen’s more than 10% decline against the dollar since November has invited some foreign grumbling, putting Tokyo on the defensive. Bank of Mexico Gov. Agustin Carstens said Tuesday in Singapore that he believed Japan was actively pursuing a policy of trying to push the yen lower, while Germany has warned Japanese lawmakers against trying to strong-arm the BOJ into easing policy.

The concerns on Japan starting a currency war even warranted a direct response from the G-7:

In an attempt to head off a potentially destabilizing round of currency devaluations, G-7 members Tuesday reaffirmed their commitment to allowing market forces determine exchange rates. The statement also said G-7 central bank policy will be solely focused on domestic objectives.

The statement followed comments in recent months by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his aides suggesting that the country is targeting an aggressive drop in the yen’s value to shore up its exports. However there was no explicit mention of the yen in the statement and Japanese officials moved quickly Tuesday to say other G-7 nations understood their policies were not aimed at targeting the exchange rate but at fighting deflation.

“It’s not so much the (yen’s) level but the speed of the drop and the volatility it creates that cause concern,” the G-7 official said. “There was a concern that it may overshoot.”

The official said there was no question the statement was issued principally because of the recent decline in the yen and that Japan had been reluctant to sign up.

Many investors were able to get in front of the wave. George Soros nailed $1 billion in gains from the yen devaluation. If you take a look at the Nikkei, you’ll pretty much see an inverted graph of the one below.

yen

 

But it won’t be because of Japan that a string of devaluations will occur. It already is! World’s central banks are all printing money to stave off the global recession. Its the only tool in their tool box and they love it.

Venezuela devalued its currency by nearly 50% last Friday! The Venezuelan bolivar was devalued to 6.3 per dollar from the previous 4.3 per dollar. This only adds to the high inflation the country already suffers from. Its estimated to reach 30% by the end of the year.

Venezuela

Chavez’s government is an all too familiar one. A socialistic government that demonizes business, nationalizes the means of production, and promises its people the moon. A central planner who thinks he knows more than the spontaneous order of the market process. Now his government is faced with huge deficits that this devaluation can’t even cover. His people are faced with rampant shortages throughout the country despite being a very oil rich nation. They got plenty of oil but, unfortunately, you can’t eat it!

A perfect example of the socialist miscalculation Mises described.

Economic calculation can only take place by means of money prices established in the market for production goods in a society resting on private property in the means of production. – Ludwig von Mises, Socialism p. 123

Even the current exchange rate after the devaluation is optimistic and some report that the bolivar is exchanging on the black market for 18 per dollar. The market is a stubborn one, isn’t she?

You can’t fool the market by establishing a fixed exchange rate while printing your monopoly money to fund government expenditures. When the growth in the amount of money in circulation surpasses the growth in the amount of goods and services available, there will be upward pressure on prices. The value of money decreases relative to the value of goods and services. Of course governments always attempt to hide this fact. However, they inevitably fail under the pressures of the market, leading them to implement….PRICE CONTROLS!

Venezuela has established price controls in an attempt to defy economic law. EconomicPolicyJournal reports:

The Venezuelan government has put price controls into place in the country, as a result of climbing prices. But the cause of the soaring prices is out of control money printing by the Venezuelan central bank.Venezuelan M2 money supply has grown by 57% over the last year!

With that much new money chasing goods, it is not surprising that price inflation is soaring.  You can’t fix the problem by decreeing less money should be spent on goods, when there is a lot more money in the system chasing those goods. It simply results in shortages. If a government, say, decrees that Rolls Royce automobiles must be sold for $100, Rolls Royce dealers will be sold out of cars within 15 minutes, the showrooms will be empty and Rolls Royce won’t be supplying any more cars to that market.

Argentina is in a similar boat with its central bank’s heavy foot on the printing press pedal. Since last April, Argentina has been inflating the money supply. As a result, the country has an inflation rate near 30%! Surpassed only by Venezuela. At the beginning of February, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner ordered a two month price freeze. Within a week of that order, Kirchner imposes an advertising ban in an attempt to hide the inflationary problems.

These are the more severe cases. However, you also have China struggling to juggle between the threat of inflation and an economy starving for its easy money, Brazil on the edge of raising interest rates if inflation remains hovering above 6%, and Europeans biting their nails waiting for the European Central Bank to pull the trigger already.

The global wide money printing is going to be something to look out for throughout the year and how it affects the global economy.

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Categories: Economy, National Politics
29
Jan 2013

Peak Oil – Are We There Yet?

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peak oil are we there yet dadPeak oil claims has been heard by every generation since oil was first extracted and refined on a mass scale. They’ve been debunked every time after every new discovery of reserves or significant technological developments in the extraction/refining process that squeezes additional productive use for every drop of black gold. Our generation is no different. This from the Economic Policy Journal

The Mediterranean has joined the shale game, but as most of Europe’s Mediterranean countries drag their feet, all eyes are on Israel, Turkey, and Algeria.

For Israel, it will be a slow road without the majors.

For Algeria, it’s full speed ahead, in theory—but the foreign interest is just dabbling for now due to a lack of shale infrastructure.

For Turkey, the situation is more promising thanks to a renewed interest by the majors and a near-perfect blend of good governance and attractive fiscals.

Here’s what the playing field looks like:

Turkey

Turkey is the best bet here. In Turkey, it’s all about the Dadas Shale, in which the majors have recently expressed a renewed interest, making the game immediately more promising for the North American juniors who are betting heavily on this play.

The Dadas Shale is being compared to Texas’ Eagle Ford shale and Oklahoma’s Woodford shale in both size and potential. What is that potential? Well, those who are investing in it say it has more than 100 billion barrels of original oil in place.

While nothing’s being produced, testing is about to begin and new technology has the majors and juniors highly optimistic.

Positives

• Everyone likes working with the Turkish government—permits are fast and bureaucracy is kept to a minimum. Turkey is too keen to become a regional energy hub to let bureaucracy stand in the way. There’s just too much riding on this.

• Fiscal terms are very attractive: foreign companies get a flat 12.5% royalty tax and a 20% corporate tax rate

• The infrastructure is already there; it’s easy to refine and get to your choice of markets

• Shell has recently renewed its interest in Dadas (it’s about to drill five wells)

• ExxonMobil is in talks with the government right now about a Dadas license of its own

Negatives

• The National Oil Company is holding on to key geological data that would help the industry, but this year should see some new regulations that make exploration even easier

• This is still some way off (but Shell’s drilling in Dadas this year might be the turning point—at least the juniors think so)

Israel

Some think Israel is on the verge of a major energy revolution because of the combination of shale discoveries and a recent conventional natural gas discovery (16 trillion cubic feet).

While Israel doesn’t have much by way of heavy oil, it does have world-class shale oil resources.

Shale can contain both natural gas and oil, and in terms of oil, Israel’s shale plays put it in third place vis-à-vis expected volume, behind the US and China (but ahead of Russia).

Positives

• If these shale oil reserves can be extracted, we’re talking about making Israel a rival to Saudi Arabia…

Read the rest of the article here.

Just a few days ago, reports came out on over 200 billion barrels of oil reserves were found in the Outback:

The discovery in central Australia was reported by Linc Energy to the stock exchange and was based on two consultants reports, though it is not yet known how commercially viable it will be to access the oil.

The reports estimated the company’s 16 million acres of land in the Arckaringa Basin in South Australia contain between 133 billion and 233 billion barrels of shale oil trapped in the region’s rocks.

It is likely however that just 3.5 billion barrels, worth almost $359 billion (£227 billion) at today’s oil price, will be able to be recovered.

The find was likened to the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil projects in the US, which have resulted in massive outflows and have led to predictions that the US could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer as soon as this year.

All this coupled with the shale oil/natural gas revolution occurring in the United States, I think its safe to say the peak oil theory has been debunked for this generation. I’m not saying that these resources are infinite. However, there is a pattern of cry-wolf activists continually moving the goal post on our last drop of oil. Could we run out eventually? I don’t know. But I know the market, empowered by the simple economic law of supply and demand, would drag on any dwindling supply for generations–to the point of incentivizing alternative sources of energy by the time such resources could be completely depleted. Basically, oil will be used until better technologies make other sources (i.e. solar, wind, nuclear fission/fusion, hamster wheels, rocks, human farts) cheaper than oil. Thanks to markets, it will be a gradual process.

The actions of certain special interests groups that pay off politicians to penalize oil producers and subsidize alternative fuels in an effort to forcefully alter the consumer demands of the market will only have the opposite effect of the intent. Market entrepreneurs are much more forward-looking and adaptable to changing market conditions than any self-loving bureaucrat or politician.

Alternative sources of energy will naturally be developed and produced when the need arises and the market demands it. By burdening current energy producers with regulations and taxes in an effort to disincentivize these businesses from the production of fossil fuels results in raising all businesses’ input costs, money that could be better spent on more productive uses such as improving on current energy technology. One of their tools of production, cheap and efficient energy, is artificially made expensive which hampers the natural market process for adapting to changing conditions. Cheap and efficient energy (something we have with oil) would be beneficial in the preliminary stages of research and development of alternative sources of energy.

Artificially making oil expensive through taxes and regulations is a great way of cutting the legs from underneath those who would most likely give us “greener” energy.

Below is a short video from LearnLiberty.org on how the free market would keep us from running out of many of our natural resources:

Prof. Steve Horwitz addresses the common belief that the world is running out of natural resources. Instead, there are economic reasons why we will never run out of many resources. In a free market system, prices signal scarcity. So as a resource becomes more scarce, it becomes more expensive, which incentivizes people to use less of it and develop new alternatives, or to find new reserves of that resource that were previously unknown or unprofitable. We have seen throughout history that the human mind’s ability to innovate, coupled with a free market economic system, is an unlimited resource that can overcome the limitations we perceive with natural resources.

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16
Aug 2012

This Paul Ryan Fellow

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As we close in on the GOP National Convention and celebration of the party’s candidates, I thought it appropriate to consider Romney’s VP pick a bit critically. What do our readers think? Is everyone as excited about the Ryan pick as social media sites would have us believe? Any reservations? Jump in on the comments.

First up, there is the always important reminder that it’s not the second member of the ticket who sets policy:

 Mitt Romney on Wednesday unequivocally disavowed more than $700 billion in Medicare spending cuts proposed by his new running mate, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

In an interview on “CBS This Morning,” Romney was asked how he squared his running mate’s plan to cut spending on the popular healthcare program for the elderly with his criticism of President Obama for making the same reductions.

More from the LA Times here. For more on Ryan and Medicare, check out Steve Chapman’s post here.

Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a hard look at Ryan’s actual record on fiscal issues, and it’s not all that pretty:

Ryan voted for nearly every request to raise the debt ceiling during his 14 years in Congress. He voted for TARP, the GM bailout and most of the recent stimulus giveaways. He also voted to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on a credit card, which added another trillion dollars to the government’s debt. And he voted to assault the Constitution by supporting the Patriot Act and its extensions, as well as Obama’s unconstitutional proposal to use the military to arrest Americans on American soil and detain those arrested indefinitely.

We have a rough idea of how Obama would bring about government control of private industry through Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. From Ryan’s voting record, we have a rough idea of what Romney-Ryan would bring us: more of the Bush-era big government. In other words, Ryan is just another big-government Republican holding himself out as a fiscal conservative. Even his controversial budget proposals—which the House approved, but the Senate declined to address—would have increased government spending. It was less of an increase than Obama wanted, which is why the Senate Democrats refused to consider it, but it was not a cut in spending.

More along these lines from Jesse Walker here.

So where do PubliusNM readers stand on the Paul Ryan pick?

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12
Jun 2012

“Doing fine” Mr. President?

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On Friday, President Obama assured us that “the private sector is doing fine” in this now-infamous press briefing (click here to view in YouTube):

Our friends at the Heritage Foundation took the President to task with, you know, actual data in yesterday’s edition of the Morning Bell:

While the President’s comment is astoundingly out of touch with the public—and economic reality—perhaps even more distressing is that this wasn’t a passing verbal gaffe. This is actually a consistent talking point of the President and Democratic leadership that goes largely unchallenged by the media.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) made the same case last fall when he was pushing a $35 billion bailout for state and local governments. “It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine,” Reid argued. “It’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about.”

This is the President’s and the Majority Leader’s solution to the jobs crisis: more so-called stimulus and more government employees.

As Heritage’s James Sherk has explained, this thinking is completely backwards: “If the recession has barely touched one sector of the economy, it is government.”

If anyone is “doing fine,” it’s government employees. This goes beyond the far more generous pension and health benefits they enjoy. While the private sector lost 4.6 million jobs (a 3.9 percent drop) since the recession began, government payrolls have only fallen by 240,000 jobs (a 1.1 percent drop). Federal employment has actually grown nearly 12 percent since the end of 2007, and while the country suffers from 8.2 percent unemployment, the unemployment rate for government employees is just 4.2 percent.

Original post here. I suspect the President’s words will ring particularly hollow with American families who have lost nearly 40% of their worth in the past 3 years:

The Great Recession took such a heavy toll on the economy that the typical American family lost nearly 40% of its wealth from 2007 to 2010, shaving the median net worth to a level not seen since the early 1990s.

The Federal Reserve said in a new report Monday that median family net worth, the point smack in the middle of those richer and poorer, fell to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 three years earlier after adjusting for inflation.

The fall came with the collapse in the housing market and massive layoffs that slashed people’s incomes, and the pain was felt by families across the board – young and old, well-educated and less so, with children or not.

But the biggest impact was felt by young middle-age families, those headed by people ages 35 to 44. For this group, the median net worth – total assets minus debts – fell a whopping 54% in the three-year period to $42,100 in 2010. Such was their financial hardships that only 47.6% of these families said they had saved money in 2010; that was the lowest among all age groups, where an overall average of 52% of families saved some money that year.

Full story here.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Economy
07
Jun 2012

Debunking Great Depression Myths

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The economic situation in the country continues to generate concern, some claiming we are in a slow (if not faltering) recovery and others suggesting worse times yet to come. Throughout the past few years, many have compared our current situation to The Great Depression and questioned the similarities and differences. In light of such comparisons, the folks at LearnLiberty.org have put together a timely new video that is worth watching (click here to watch in YouTube):

So, PubliusNM readers, do you agree with the professor? Any counter arguments? Let’s hear your voice in the comments.

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Categories: Economy
09
May 2012

Publius Digest

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National

Big election news today comes out of North Carolina, which is the 30th state to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage via proposition, and Indiana, where 80-year-old incumbent and GOP moderate Dick Luger was ousted in a decisive primary.

PubliusNM readers — any thoughts on what implications–if any–these votes have for our upcoming November presidential election?

Hopefully a number of you had the pleasure of attending the RGF’s recent dinner with John Stossel, and may already be familiar with some of his arguments in this article. Either way, his explanation of Why We’re Losing is a must-read:

Most people see a world full of problems that can best be tackled via wisely applied laws. They assume it’s just the laziness, stupidity, or indifference of politicians that prevents the problems from being fixed. But government is force, and government is inefficient. The inefficient use of force creates more problems than it solves.

* * *

It is depressing that the United States, a country founded on principles more libertarian than most any other, now seems incapable of admitting that government has gotten too big. One obstacle is that we’ve had things so good for so long that most of us simply don’t believe, in our guts, that government controls can strangle the golden goose. Overseas, where people see the contrast between good and bad policies more starkly, they sometimes understand the need to make changes before we do. East Asian countries embraced markets and flourished. Sweden and Germany liberalized their labor markets and saw their economies improve.

* * *

All our potential achievements could be imperiled if we do not soon wake up to the fact that big government impedes rather than creates. The great 20th-century libertarian H. L. Mencken lamented, “A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men.…Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general…are generally obeyed as a matter of duty [and] assumed to have a kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom.”

There is nothing that government can do that we cannot do better as free individuals—as groups of individuals, working together voluntarily, not at the point of a gun or under threat of a fine. Without big government, our possibilities are limitless.

Take the time to read the full article, available here. David Harsanyi also has a worthwhile read available, in his review of Obama’s Ridiculous “To Do List”:

Obama says passing his to-do list would help create “an economy built to last — one that creates the jobs of the future and makes things the rest of the world buys — not one built on outsourcing, loopholes, and risky financial deals.” History tells us that when government “creates” an economy, it won’t be much of an economy to speak of — but here’s the new plan:

“Reward American Jobs, Not Outsourcing.” Hey, let’s play on the genuine frustration of struggling Americans. Most politicians will latch on to this protectionist notion to some extent. But need it really be repeated that outsourcing, by generating more productivity, creates more wealth and more jobs? On this point, most economists actually agree.

But even if you believe “outsourcing” is a job killer, does anyone believe the notion that “passing legislation that gives companies a new 20 percent tax credit for the cost of moving their operations” will make a dent on employment? Liberals frequently argue that high corporate taxes aren’t chasing companies abroad, yet a one-time tax break on moving expenses is now a cornerstone of “an economy built to last”?

To do: “Create Jobs By Investing In Affordable Clean Energy.” It is difficult to calculate just how many subsidies and breaks are already “invested” in unproductive clean-energy projects — many of them supported by Republicans. Whether it be morally fulfilling or good for the environment, an expansion of “the 30 percent tax credit to investments in clean energy manufacturing” could cost jobs, not create them. As one Spanish study found, 2.2 conventional jobs are destroyed for every job created in the alternative energy industry. “Investing” in inefficient energy is no way to economic growth.

Gene Healy’s consideration of whether Gary Johnson will serve as a “spoiler” in November’s election is interesting:

As a small-”l” libertarian, it’s not often I can say that National Public Radio cheers me up on my way into work. But it did the trick yesterday morning with an “All Things Considered” feature titled “Libertarians Find Their Voice in 2012 Race.”

“Somewhere on the path to the White House this year,” the announcer declared, “a powerful set of ideas began to creep into the mainstream debate over which direction the country will take ….free and open markets and extremely limited government. Those ideals are now becoming more mainstream.” Case in point, according to NPR, was the Libertarian Party’s decision Saturday to make former Republican Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico its nominee for president.

When the federally funded voice of urbane, upper-middle class liberalism says we’re on the verge of a “libertarian moment,” that’s what the lawyers call an “admission against interest,” and it’s worth paying attention.

More here. And yet another great moment (or not so much) in higher education, as described by the WSJ:

The Chronicle of Higher Education has fired our former editorial-page colleague, Naomi Schaefer Riley, for a blog posting on the Chronicle’s website that offended 6,500 professors. Well, they’re not all professors yet, but they are members of what calls itself the “higher-education community,” for which the Chronicle is its trade paper.

As best we can make out, the Chronicle’s editor, Liz McMillen, fired Naomi Riley for doing what she was hired to do—provide a conservative point of view about current events in academe alongside the paper’s roster of mostly not-conservative academic bloggers. We should point out that Naomi is married to Journal editorial-board member Jason Riley.

In a piece nearby, Naomi describes the sequence of events that led to her dismissal. After she posted an item critical of contemporary black studies on the Chronicle’s ironically named blog—Brainstorm: Ideas and Culture—a petition drive instantly demanded her dismissal. It came and quickly.

Ms. McMillen’s Note to Readers explaining the dismissal is itself worthy of note. “I sincerely apologize,” she writes, “for the distress these incidents have caused our readers and appreciate that so many of you have made your sentiments known to us. One theme many of you have sounded is that you felt betrayed by what we published.”

More here. And CATO’s Richard Rahn has a good recent piece on Obama’s corporate tax madness, check it out here.

The United States already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, but the Obama administration is proposing to make the U.S. even less competitive internationally by reducing the corporate tax deferral on income made abroad. Most countries have a territorial system of taxation in which they only tax income made within their borders. The United States is one of the few countries that taxes individuals and companies on their worldwide income. Companies have been allowed, however, to defer taxes on income earned in other countries until it is brought back to the U.S.

And here’s more Stossel in today’s video (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

I’m not particularly inspired by any local news or commentary today, but feel free to check out NMPolitics.net, ErrorsofEnchantment, or Economic Liberty for some updates.

Feel free to email us your thoughts for Publius posts or guest posts: publiusnm-at-gmail-dot-com.

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Categories: 2012 Election, 2012 Elections, Congress, Economy, National Politics, NM Politics
08
May 2012

“Should You Need the Government’s Permission to Work?”

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Excellent new video and study by the Institute for Justice (click here to view in YouTube):

Check out more on the study itself here. As it turns out, New Mexico licenses 52 low-income occupations, which is 51% of the 102 low-income occupations included in the study. You can check out the average burdens imposed by our state’s licensing schemes here.

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24
Apr 2012

“If I wanted America to fail…”

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Powerful video message (click here to view in YouTube):

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Categories: Economy
29
Dec 2011

Publius Daily Digest

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National

Matt Welch attended Vaclav Havel’s state funeral and provides a fascinating look in his recent post:

Such was Václav Havel’s genre-straddling life and thoroughgoing conception of freedom that it seemed as natural as tartar sauce on fried cheese to bookend a portentous, Dvo?ák-haunted National Requiem Mass in Central Europe’s oldest Gothic cathedral with a loose-limbed, hash-scented rock and roll celebration at the Czech Republic’s most storied music venue, all while the non-VIPs on the streets of Prague (and their counterparts outside the capital) lent the most dignity of all to the three-day National Mourning by creating ad-hoc candlelit shrines in whatever patches of cobblestone reminded them of the man who made them most proud to be Czechs.

It was a remarkable memorial, one that–like Havel himself–could not have happened in any other city or country. Yet the celebration offered enough bread crumbs for non-Czechs to stumble upon the promise of forgotten political alchemies lurking just outside our daily view. I was there to pay my respects; here are some observations and pictures.

You could not go anywhere in Prague last week without hearing Havel’s hippiesh Velvet Revolution epigram, “Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.” Most foreigners tend to focus on the “truth” part of that equation, since Havel wrote and spoke so memorably about how the simple act of “living in truth“–i.e., calling things by their proper names, refusing to go along with the rituals of coercion, staying true to your authentic sense of self–inevitably expands the zone of freedom and puts authoritarians on the defensive.

Read the whole piece here.

In the January 2012 Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum has an interesting look at America’s development into a national-security state:

The private papers of the late George F. Kennan, Cold War architect and diplomat extraordinaire, reveal his anguish over the way his famous 1947 warning about Soviet expansionism helped transform the America he loved into one he no longer recognized: a national-security state. A half-century after a similarly historic warning—President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s speech about the dangers of a powerful “military-industrial complex”—Todd S. Purdum shows how completely Kennan’s and Eisenhower’s worst fears have been realized, warping almost every aspect of society, deflecting attention from urgent problems, and splitting the country into two classes.

The full article (which is fairly long) is worth a read. A PubliusNM reader provided this article along with an interesting speech by John Quincy Adams on U.S. Foreign Policy:

 

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

 

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

 

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

 

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

 

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

 

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

 

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

 

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

 

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

 

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

 

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

 

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

 

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….

 

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….

 

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

 

When John Quincy Adams served as U. S. Secretary of State, he delivered this speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence Day.

Which brings us to current national politics. The big news this week in the 2012 presidential race is Gary Johnson’s switch to the Libertarian Party:

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson said on Wednesday he is dropping out of the Republican presidential race and is seeking the Libertarian Party nomination for president.

“We are getting fed up with the two-party system,” Johnson said at a news conference at the state capitol in Santa Fe, where he was joined by some 50 supporters and by Libertarian Party chairman Mark Hinkle.

Democrats, Johnson said, have backed off on social issues such as gay rights and Republicans “are no longer stewards of the pocketbook.”

Johnson said that he’d been “snubbed by the Republican Party” and ignored by the national media.

As a long-shot candidate for president, Johnson had proposed cutting government spending, reducing taxes and legalizing marijuana.

As governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, Johnson vetoed so many bills — some 750 — that he was later nicknamed “Governor Veto.”

Hinkle did not endorse Johnson, but the Libertarian Party released a statement welcoming Johnson to the party and commending him for “stopping the expansion of Big Government” when he was governor.

Full article here, and Reason has the text of Gary’s announcement email here. In other campaign news, CNN has a new poll out with some interesting results:

A new survey of people likely to attend Iowa’s Republican caucuses indicates that the former House speaker’s support in the Hawkeye State is plunging. And according to a CNN/Time/ORC International Poll, one-time long shot candidate Rick Santorum has more than tripled his support since the beginning of the month.

Twenty-five percent of people questioned say if the caucuses were held today, they’d most likely back Mitt Romney, with 22% saying they’d support Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Romney’s three point margin is within the poll’s sampling error.

The poll’s Wednesday release comes six days before Iowa’s January 3 caucuses, which kickoff the presidential primary and caucus calendar. The Iowa caucuses are followed one week later by the New Hampshire primary.

A new CNN/Time/ORC poll of likely primary voters in New Hampshire indicates that Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, remains the front-runner, far ahead of his rivals for the GOP nomination.

More here, and more on recent polling from Reason here. Reason’s morning links have some additional campaign updates:

  • Onetime Michele Bachmann campaign leader Kent Sorenson is now supportingRon Paul.
  • Mitt Romney still ”uneasy with off-the-cuff remarks, unnatural at chitchat, and spare with his emotions.”
  • Rick Santorum is surging in Iowa; Newt Gingrich is plummeting.

The daily video here at PubliusNM has often been courtesy of ReasonTV and the folks there have now created a few playlists including one of their top five most popular videos of 2011 and the top five best interviews of 2011. Visit the ReasonTV YouTube Playlist page for more top five lists, and for today we’ll provide the second most popular video of 2011, a look at Peter Schiff’s trip to Occupy Wall Street representing the 1% (click here to view in YouTube):

New Mexico

Heath Haussamen has a list of NM’s top 10 political stories of 2011, starting with Bingaman’s retirement announcement and including looks at Roundhouse dynamics, judicial scandal, and the Richardson investigation, among others. Read the full list here.

For additional NM updates, check out various recent posts on Errors of Enchantment.

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