The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with Dr. Nathaniel Branden (left).

Introduction: Dr. Branden (left) is a practicing psychotherapist in Los Angeles and also does corporate consulting. Dr. Branden offers workshops, seminars, and conferences on applying self-esteem principles to the problems of modern business. He addresses the relationship between self-esteem and such issues as leadership, effective communication, and managing change. Dr. Branden has a PhD in psychology and a background in philosophy and has written 20 books, which have been translated into 18 languages. More than 4 million copies are in print, including the classic The Psychology of Self-Esteem, originally published in 1969. In it, he explains the need for self-esteem, the nature of that need, and how self-esteem-or lack of it-affects our values, responses, and goals. His many books include Honoring the Self, The Six Pillars of Self-esteem, The Art of Living Consciously, and a personal memoir, My Years with Ayn Rand. Many of his books have been translated in to foreign languages, and worldwide have sold over 4 million copies. His most recent book- Self-esteem at Work – deals with the application of his work in the field of self-esteem to the challenges of business in an information age economy. This is a follow-up interview to one conducted late last year which can be read by clicking  here.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (left) defended the Fed's handling of the financial crisis in 2008 before a federal commission, saying the bailout averted a much greater crisis for the U.S. economy. Speaking before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Bernanke also explained the Fed's involvement in the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, saying the federal government did everything it could to avoid the company's death. He repeated earlier statements that the Fed did everything within its legal authority to avoid the company's death. "The only way we could have saved Lehman would have been by breaking the law," he said. "And I'm not sure I was willing to accept those consequences." – Politico

Dominant Social Theme: Ben Bernanke, apologetic, intends to do great things.

Free-Market Analysis: Despite such statements from Ben Bernanke, we would venture the observation that there is an ever-growing perception within the alternative news community (especially among the hard-money websites) that the Fed and central banking in general constitute an illegitimate institution. It is indeed a fine line that the elite walks in our opinion. Society needs to be controlled by money power as the elite seeks to realize its apparent goal of global governance. But such power is a blunt force instrument. An additional dominant social theme might be: "All of us need the centralization provided by a group of functional wise men, but it is not an easy task and we need to cut them some slack."

More and more Americans today are coming to understand the terrible truth about our Federal Government -- that it seeks to dominate us as citizens, to mold us into a society of dutiful Stepford Wives totally beholden to the wishes of elite politicians, bureaucrats and bankers. Those who study history, independent of the public school system, understand that this state aggrandizement process has been under way for the past 100 years in America in one form or another, and that it is taking place because too many of our citizens sanction such dictatorial usurpation and actually work diligently for its implementation.

This process has resulted in the lion's share of our earnings being annually confiscated by these governmental elites and then redistributed to despicable projects of waste and war to further their dream of world collectivism. It has led to the shocking debasement of our currency and an endless escalation in the cost of staying alive. It has brought about the degeneration of our economy from a robust engine of industry and personal self-reliance to an effete conglomeration of bloated consumers subsisting on financial gimmickry and debt addiction. As a result, America, once a proud land of muscular factories and productive people, has become a stuporous society of shopping malls and welfare crybabies.

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki (left) said Friday the country's new constitution would create better economic opportunities for younger Kenyans. "There would be more opportunities and better business, a new Kenya where all citizens will live a dignified life. This is the promise of the new constitution," the President said after signing into law the new constitution at a ceremony attended by regional leaders in Nairobi. "It is also a promise that every Kenyan will unleash their full potential. We are a people with a diverse culture and languages," Kibaki said. The Kenyan leader said the constitution would help propel Kenya into a new era of faster social, political and economic growth, and would also give Kenyans an opportunity to choose better leaders. – New Africa

Dominant Social Theme: The state knows best.

Free-Market Analysis: It would be nice to think that the new Kenyan constitution is going to be helpful to the country and to Africa generally. But when we read the constitution we find as usual these days that the power of the people is vested in the state. The dominant social theme here seems to be, "A new constitution has been drawn up that gives people hope for the future. The government hasn't been much good in the past, but now with this piece of paper things will be better."

Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted and pay an annual fee of $150 — plus $10 for a police background check — to practice their craft. The new rules are among America's strictest on palmists, fortune readers, and other psychics — and part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously. But officials in Warren, a town of 138,000 near Detroit, say it's time to weed out tricksters. "We had no mechanism of enforcement to protect people against unsavory characters," Warren City Council member Keith Sadowski says. "We want to be sure there is some recourse in case we do get somebody who is not legitimate." Regulating an industry that deems itself clairvoyant, has no standard education requirements and yet rakes in cash for revealing spiritual truths may itself be an act of faith. It also might make good economic sense: just over one in seven Americans consulted a psychic or fortune-teller in 2009, according to the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life. That could be 30 million or more of us. – Time Magazine

Dominant Social Theme: Time to regulate the mystics.

Free-Market Analysis: We have been writing about regulation lately because the regulatory state is one of the very biggest of all power-elite themes. The financial crisis has actively fanned the flames of regulation. But at some point, regulatory society must surely crosses the divide between democracy and authoritarianism (a democracy being bad enough but an authoritarian one being worse). Eventually, inexorably you end up with a kind of totalitarianism. And what then? Dominant social theme (nonetheless): the marketplace needs to be tweaked and good government stands ready to do it.