Charles Goyette, our long-lost former co-contributor to Antiwar Radio and author of The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments, discusses the enormous costs of maintaining a world empire – especially these last few wars, how the general public is mesmerized by CNBC and ignorant of economics, why keeping government out of the money creation business is essential to maintain liberty, the U.S. dollar’s weakening role as reserve currency despite decades of post-Bretton Woods hegemony, China’s attempt to limit exposure to U.S. government debt while stockpiling commodities and the danger that the endgame of the current U.S. monetary system could be a command economy.

MP3 here. (79:12)

Charles Goyette is an award winning morning drive-time radio host from Phoenix, AZ. He is a libertarian commentator, who is noted for his outspoken anti-war views, his opposition to the war in Iraq, and his economic commentary. He is the author of the book The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments.

Donald Losman, professor of economics at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, discusses the secondary role OPEC played in 1970s U.S. economic problems, U.S. government intervention in oil prices that encouraged poor consumer choices in the broader economy, the numerous real costs not included in a barrel of oil and why military coercion is not needed to spur international trade.

MP3 here. (28:13)

Donald Losman is a professor of economics at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University, Washington, D.C. He is the author of a 2001 policy analysis for the CATO Institute, “Economic Security: A National Security Folly?”

Losman began teaching at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) in 1982 and also holds a diploma from ICAF. He has worked in senior professional military education since 1978, having taught at the U.S. Army War College and the National War College as well. Earlier, he was a civilian academic for 14 years. Dr. Losman holds a PhD in international economics from the University of Florida, with a minor in international politics. He has also served as a consultant to the Small Business Administration and the World Bank; he has worked in the Pentagon and for an economic consulting corporation. Dr. Losman is the author of four books, over 60 scholarly articles, and op-ed pieces in all our nation’s leading newspapers as well as in overseas publications. He has regional expertise in the Middle East and is recognized as an authority on economic sanctions. He also has expertise in defense industrial base issues and the electronics industries.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent the views of the National  Defense University or the Department of Defense.

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.

Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, discusses the debt some progressive causes owe to states’ rights, vintage 1812 war propaganda that sounds alarmingly like the run-up to the war in Iraq, state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and the undue respect given to the Supremacy Clause.

MP3 here. (36:05)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, discusses Seymour Melman’s [.pdf] research into the societal repercussions of a military economy, the diversion of research scientists from the private sector to Cold War military programs, the transformation of the U.S. university system into a DOD jobs program and the corruption of defense contractors into companies that can’t compete in a free market.

MP3 here. (22:11)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Frida Berrigan, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, discusses the frantic U.S. defense contractors lobbying for stimulus money while promising job creation, the prospect of a militarized outer space, Lockheed Martin’s overpriced and unnecessary F-22 Raptor and why the commonly held assumption that World War II ended the Great Depression must be challenged.

MP3 here. (23:33)

Frida Berrigan is Senior Program Associate for the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. She is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus and a contributing editor of In These Times magazine.

David R. Henderson, research fellow with the Hoover Institution, discusses the love-fest between Congressional Democrats and President Obama, the benefit of empire for a select few and the net loss for everyone else, the common misconceptions on what caused and worsened the 1973 oil crisis and the difficulty of communicating with people whose ideas and arguments are wrapped in insulating layers of emotion and patriotism.

MP3 here. (37:08)

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 writes a regular column, “The Wartime Economist”, for Antiwar.com and is the author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. His latest book is The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

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.

Alan Bock, senior editorial writer at the Orange Country Register, discusses how Alan Greenspan’s easy-money policy created a war bubble concurrent with the housing/consumer spending bubble, the unfortunate historical victory of Hamiltonian central banking over the Jeffersonian decentralized model, Afghanistan’s well-earned reputation as the graveyard of empires and the merits of a South Africa style truth and reconciliation commission for the Bush administration.

MP3 here. (52:21)

Alan Bock has a regular column, “Eye on the Empire”, on Antiwar.com. He is the senior editorial writer at the Orange County Register and author of Ambush at Ruby Ridge and Waiting to Inhale: the Politics of Medical Marijuana. His website and blog are at alanbock.com.

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.