Free Trade and Its Importance

A friend wrote me saying that he had gone online after hearing me recommend Club for Growth and joined it.  As you know, Sherry and I believe that until the advent of the Tea Party, the Club was the pointy end of the political spear of economic freedom.  They still are the group most focused on electing strong advocates for that liberty in safe Republican districts during primaries.

But he wanted some clarification on the idea of free trade, one of the Club's basic tenets.  He wrote:

I have thought of free trade as being an agreement between two nations that allows goods made in one country to be exported to the other nation, up to the limits that no impact would be felt by either country's own businesses. In other words, if importing rice would cause economic harm to the receiving country's growers, then limits in the form of restricted goods or quotas would be mutually agreed upon.

I replied at length.

Atlas Shrugged -- the Movie

I bought a Kindle last November, and downloaded Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged onto it.  Last night, about 9:30, I finished it.

I have never been a big fan of Rand's magnum opus, and I have not been converted by this reading.  My concern is mostly that it is too easy to take literally her dramatic device that prosperity depends upon the brilliant few, when, as you know, it depends on economic freedom for all.  However, the allegorical approach makes for a better read, and there never has been a stronger literary advocate for individualism and economic freedom than Ayn Rand. 

A few days ago, at the Club for Growth Winter Economic Conference -- about which more later -- I was privileged to attend a screening of the new movie Atlas Shrugged -- Part I, and to meet the writer and producers.

What Romney Ought to Say on RomneyCare

We returned from the Club for Growth Winter Economic Conference Sunday.  At breakfast yesterday morning I whined about the Republican Presidential candidates we had seen, and especially about Mitt Romney.

I said to Sherry, "How can he continue to defend RomneyCare?  Though it's true that a state is on sounder ground regulating intrastate economic activity than the Federal government is, he'll never be able to attack ObamaCare until he repudiates his Massachusetts program.  He must be worried about looking like he's waffled.  Again."

Bam!  Her steel trap mind slammed shut on the right argument again.  She said "Romney ought to say that the states are indeed laboratories for democracy, and now that his experiment has failed in Massachusetts, it's clear it won't work for the nation, so we must repeal it."

Now, why couldn't I think of that?

Of course, he didn't say it during the dabate before passage, either....

Rights -- A Working Definition

Sherry and I went to the NM Progressivist's "Oxford Style Debate" in Santa Fe tonight.  The debate topic, "Cut Education and Public Services or Raise Revenues" was poorly framed, since it left the affirmative a choice.   "The State of New Mexico should raise taxes rather than cut spending," would have been better, but the debaters certainly didn't mind, and their arguments would have fit my restatement just as well.

(Stay with me, I'll get to the definition of Rights... eventually.

Oxford Style Debate: Raise Taxes or Cut Services

For New Mexico, this issue was settled last fall with the election of Susana Martinez and enough Republicans to the State House of Representatives to uphold her veto.  She will veto any tax increases, and that will be that.  But for the looter/planners who live and breathe the leftist atmosphere in Santa Fe, there is need to gather together and vote for their position in front of the cameras.

So below the jump is your chance to foil their dastardly plan of self-gratification.  Go.  Vote your heart and mind.

There will be a vote.  Pack the house.  Tell everybody you know to go and to get there early.

Do it now.  Forward this to everyone in New Mexico you can.

Mitch is The Man

Mitch Daniels is the Republican Governor of Indiana, and a former member of the Bush 42 Administration.  As a governor, and especially as a governor who has shrunk his State government and avoided tax increases in this difficult economy, he has been mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate.

He was invited to address the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC) this last weekend. CPAC is put on by the American Conservative Union, and is the biggest conservative wingding of all.

Here you will find the video of the first ten minutes of his speech, and here, the full text.

Nails in the Coffin of Statist Ideas

John Stossel and Robert Samuelson just can't miss.  They keep swinging those big economic freedom hammers and keep hitting those crazy liberty nails right square on their heads, fastening ever tighter the coffin lid on the Obama's preferred state-planned economy.

Here Stossel explains prices as information and their ability to enable spontaneous economic organization.  In a free market, that is.

And here Samuelson explains just how economically dead high speed rail schemes are. 

I really like this paragraph: