Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the overwhelming popular support for auditing the FED, the surreptitious method of funding wars through inflation instead of direct taxation, the case for withdrawing from Afghanistan and Ben Bernanke’s refusal to change course and acknowledge flaws in his economic theory.

MP3 here. (14:42)

Congressman Ron Paul represents Texas’s 14th district. He is the author of End the Fed, The Revolution: A Manifesto, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship and Freedom Under Siege.

Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Depression, War and Cold War, discusses his thesis of “regime uncertainty” as a major factor of the Great Depression, the crash and recovery of 1921-22, the bubble created by the Fed in the later “roaring” twenties in order to prop up British interests, how World War II provided the certainty big business needed to start investing again – in arms, why the Cold War buildup was still cheap enough for the economy to continue under its weight, who really benefits from empire, who pays, the irrelevance of trade deficits, the roots of the financial crisis in Wall St.’s bogus financial models, congressional and Federal Reserve polices and the cartelized ratings business, the all-important intertwined policy of inflation and war, his view of the extent of the collapse and whether the empire will be dismantled, the danger of high price inflation, danger of nationalization, and why government regulation of the market is responsible for – not the solution to – its failures.

MP3 here. (1:16:17)

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Higgs is the editor of The Independent Institute books Opposing the Crusader State, The Challenge of Liberty, Re-Thinking Green, Hazardous to Our Health? and Arms, Politics, and the Economy, plus the volume Emergence of the Modern Political Economy.

His authored books include Neither Liberty Nor Safety, Depression, War, and Cold War, Politická ekonomie strachu (The Political Economy of Fear, in Czech), Resurgence of the Warfare State, Against Leviathan, The Transformation of the American Economy 1865-1914, Competition and Coercion, and Crisis and Leviathan. A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of more than 100 articles and reviews in academic journals.

Justin Raimondo, editorial director for Antiwar.com, discusses Vladimir Putin’s red-baiting of Soviet America, the U.S. military’s use of old Soviet supply lines into Afghanistan, how the incredible U.S./Russia role reversal confirms the existence of Bizarro World, why the crumbling U.S. economy won’t stop an Afghanistan surge or prevent new interventions in Africa and how the use of logical deduction in figuring out U.S. foreign policy goals only leads to wild speculation.

MP3 here. (37:24)

Justin Raimondo is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement and editorial director for Antiwar.com. His articles are archived at Antiwar.com/justin.

Thomas E. Woods, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses the evidence that contradicts Paul Krugman’s opinion that war is good for the economy, the renewed skepticism on the cause-and-effect relationship between WWII production and U.S. economic recovery, the stifling of private investment during the Depression due to erratic governmental interventions, the centrality of managerial intransigence to current Big-3 automaker woes and the debate on the benefits of a global division of labor.

MP3 here. (38:15)

Thomas E. Woods. is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, co-editor with Murray Polner of We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now, and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and Meltdown: A Free-market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse.

David R. Henderson, research fellow with the Hoover Institution and author of “The Wartime Economist” for Antiwar.com, discusses his article “The Libertarian Case against the War in Afghanistan,” the efficacy of using ethical reasoning in foreign policy arguments, the inconsistent U.S. extradition policies regarding Luis Posada Carriles and Osama bin Laden, the exaggerations of systemic risk used to justify bailouts, the limited short-term risk of inflation and why a fractional reserve banking system could continue to exist without a central bank.

MP3 here. (41:40)

David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an associate professor of economics in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. His latest book is The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the expansion of the American empire after the collapse of the Soviet Union, how empires lead to the loss of liberty, security and wealth, and long term prospects of the current financial downturn.

MP3 here. (23:43)

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) is a former Republican presidential candidate. He is the author of The Revolution: A Manifesto, Pillars of Prosperity and Freedom Under Siege.

Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and proprietor of LewRockwell.com, discusses how voting propagates the myth of a representative participatory democracy, the virtue of not voting, the continuation of election fraud from ballot stuffing to computerized tampering, voting as sacrament to the state religion, why imposing higher thresholds of voting eligibility would be an improvement and how Ron Paul’s prescience about the economy and his widely heard public criticism of the Federal Reserve has more than compensated for the blame free markets, and by extension libertarianism, are getting for the financial crisis.

MP3 here. (37:19)

Lew Rockwell is the founder and President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, California, and publisher of the political Web site LewRockwell.com. He served as Ron Paul’s congressional chief of staff between 1978 and 1982. Check out his new podcast show here.

Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and author of the blog TheWashingtonNote, discusses Joe Biden’s threat to remove Bush and Cheney from power if they bombed Iran in early 2007, the Annapolis peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, the challenges of a stable settlement, the influence of the evangelical Christian wing of the Israel lobby, the police state in Palestine and the fragile and dangerous situation in Pakistan.

MP3 here. (43:19)

Steven Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to promote a new American internationalism that combines a tough-minded realism about America’s interests in the world with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America’s democratic way of life. He is also a Senior Fellow at New America, and previously served as Executive Vice President.

Publisher of the popular political blog The Washington Note, Mr. Clemons is a long-term policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. He has served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Policy Advisor on Economic and International Affairs to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and was the first Executive Director of the Nixon Center.

Charles Goyette, the most independent talk show host in America, discusses the current financial crisis, the idiocy of the bailout and the media’s support of it, the cost of war, the fault of the Fed in the crisis, know-nothing madman John McCain, the end of the republic and those horrible warfare/welfare statists who dare to call themselves libertarians.

MP3 here. (45:00)

Charles Goyette is the most independent talk show host in America and once and future partner in Antiwar Radio.

As part of Antiwar Radio’s week long series on the economic crisis in association with the Campaign for Liberty, Rep. Ron Paul discusses the current financial crisis, payoffs to special interests and arm-twisting in congress to get the next 700 billion dollar bailout through, the role of the war budget in helping to inflate the dollar bubble, the difficulty in getting the media and politicians to understand Austrian monetary theory, how the Fed’s policies send false signals to people in business, leading to bad investments across various markets, necessitating a correction (recession) for prices to reflect reality again, the inflation/heroin junky analogy, the Fed bureaucrats’ inflated belief in themselves, his proposal to re-legalize competing currencies in the free market, the possibility of creating a new Gold Commission [.pdf], and some limited success in teaching congressmen some things about it.

MP3 here. (20:09)

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress, representing Texas District 14 and author of these great books.