Your host Richard Morrison welcomes guest co-host Jeremy Lott and Editorial Director Ivan Osorio for Episode 63 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with CEI’s FOIA fight with the U.S. Treasury, 7-Eleven’s attempt to give consumers a big gulp of government and the solution to a jobless recovery. We then move on to union pension politics, Ireland’s regrettable embrace of EU hegemony and some scantily-clad Olympic News.

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Tomorrow, 7-Eleven Inc. and other big retail chains will hit Capitol Hill to offer Congress members and their staffs a supersize serving of hypocrisy. Retailers, who rightly complain about costly government mandates in health care and other areas, are now calling for Congress slap price controls on the interchange fees they pay to banks and credit unions for services associated with the credit and debit cards of retail consumers.

7-Eleven has fine stores that offer many conveniences to their customers, but…

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Gas prices have climbed to record highs for many reasons, including expensive oil, cheap dollars, and strained refineries. But some have offered an especially novel explanation for consumers’ pain at the pump: credit card interchange fees.

A retailer-backed lobbying organization ran a full-page ad in the Washington Times yesterday in support of a bill being considered in the House of Representative to cap interchange fees. (We’ve discussed the potentially disastrous implications of the legislation in several blog posts and a media statement.)

The ad plots the growth…

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I don’t visit ATMs much anymore. Instead, I mostly rely on credit cards. Credit cards are now accepted by all kinds of stores, from small, family-owned restaurants to national department stores. And since many credit card transactions no longer require a signature, paying with plastic is quick and easy, eliminating the need for cash withdrawals and coin-filled pockets.

Yet this recent explosion of credit card use may soon come to a halt thanks to a new law under consideration in Congress. CNN…

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