Ivan Eland on Russia Today discusses the motivations behind Hamid Karzai’s crackdown on private security forces, saying that the intended target is local warlords rather than legitimate security firms.

Benjamin Powell on CNBC discusses the pitfalls of U.S. protection of the farming industry with pork barrel farm policies, and how they hurt both Americans and producers in underdeveloped countries.

Here is Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs speaking on “Ethanol Subsidies Have Many Bad Consequences,” from the Mises Circle seminar, “Agricultural Subsidies: Down on the D.C. Farm,” held May 14th in Indianapolis.

Dr. Emily Skarbek, Director of the Government Cost Calculator was interviewed on the nationally syndicated radio program, “The Jason Lewis Show” (Premiere Radio Networks). In the program, Dr. Skarbek uses MyGovCost.org to explain the specific effects of rampant government spending on the personal situation for any individual in America.

Dr. Emily Skarbek, Director of the Independent Institute’s MyGovCost.org was interviewed on the nationally syndicated, web, radio blog, “Taking Back America”. During the interview, Dr. Skarbek uses MyGovCost.org to explain the specific effects of rampant government spending for any individual in America. Dr. Skarbek illustrates how an individual can find out what their own personal costs imposed by government are, and what they could have earned instead.

Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed by Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio on the widening gap between public and private sector pay, the increasing affluence of military towns compared with others, the disappearance of traditional checks on government power, and the predation and incremental “ratchet effect” of expanding governmental powers that increase “temporarily” during wartime but never really recede.

Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs is interviewed on “Government’s Intrusions Threaten Economy.” Interviewed by Steve Stanek of the Heartland Institute, Dr. Higgs explains that the government’s growing intrusions into the economy—bank bailouts, economic stimulus, interest rate manipulations and credit expansion by the Federal Reserve, increased business regulations—could eventually lead to soaring price inflation and interest rates and another, far worse economic downturn. The solution is to move deliberately to end such policies and the accumulation of federal bureaucratic programs, controls and taxes on Americans.

Robert Higgs is interviewed here by Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio. They discuss the economic baloney of mainstream economists, the failure of most to understand the potential for mass inflation given the money supply currently sitting around in bank reserves, the reality of the business cycle and the politicians’ and media’s failure to grasp it, and why none of us should make sweeping predictions about how the future will unfold, even if we do understand economics, since human action and the flexibility of markets are impossible to quantify.