Transcript
The Jacobsen Group with Jon Jacobsen · Mon Jun 2, 2025
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Good morning on this glorious morning in Iowa.
John Jacobson here with a Jacobson group.
You are listening to us on North America's original Blowtorch 50,000 watt clear channel KXEL.
We are here today.
Folks, Mick Guta joins us on this Memorial Day weekend.
Michael Guta.
known as Mick, affectionately by his friends, a banking legend in the state of Iowa, the longtime president and CEO.
Now in quasi-retirement from Trainer State Bank, now TS Bank and the TS Banking Group, former
head of the Iowa Division of Banking.
He was the supervisor.
As long as we're on the topic, another bevy of biographicals in the financial industry, including his leadership ties at Iowa State University, as well as the work that he has done for the federal home loan bank as its president nationally for us.
Mick is very active in his church, in his community, winning many awards, including the Mercy Hospital,
uh, uh, Hall of Fame, along with his wife, Judy, and other organizations such as, uh, Children's Square.
Uh, Mick and Judy have been married now for, uh, over 50 years.
And what we're bringing Mick on today is guys, they say, never meet your heroes.
Well, I'm glad I met Mick Gutach as he is my hero.
Uh, this is radio, but if you want to know what look, what, uh, Mick looks like, uh, just.
Just draw up John Wayne in his mid sixties and that's what Mick Guttall looks like.
And you saw John Wayne and Green Berets, but Mick Guttall was the real Vietnam combatant.
Bronze star, two distinguished flying crosses, one of the first Americans over the ordinance in Laos when the war was expanded during Vietnam.
Mick drew so much enemy fire, he was literally almost strafing the ground with his
choppers as he was flying loaches, Huey's and Cobras both in attack mode and search and rescue mode for our American GIs.
And Mick, I can't believe it.
These Vietnam vets like you now are approaching the completion of eighth decades here in the USA.
And Mick, you've the once future and always patriot.
It is so great to have you join us in
Eastern Iowa this morning.
How are you, Mick?
Doing good.
Thank you for calling, John.
Well, Mick, I know that you have done some radio work with me before out in the Omaha area.
You and Judy did your love letters correspondence.
uh, back before email and back before fax machines in the 1960s.
You're, uh, you're long, perduring love letters while she was here in Iowa and you were in Vietnam.
Those letters, uh, won an IBNA award for, uh, large market radio, uh, uh, excellence.
And Mick, we thought we'd share you with, with a newer audience today.
Mick, what does Memorial Day mean to you?
Well,
Memorial Day to me is remembering the guys and it's like I remember them every day of my life.
And it's true for me and for their families that there's not a day that goes by that we don't think about them.
The special part of Memorial Day is that the nation joins us this Memorial Day on Monday or even the whole weekend.
Remembering those people who have gone before us and who have dealt with the
defensive, not only our country, but our fellow people in this world.
Here with Mick Guttaw, Captain, U.S.
Army Retired, Cobra, Attack Helicopter Pilot, and Bronze Star Distinguished Flying Cross Awardee.
Mick, it has been well over half a century since those flying days in Vietnam and in Laos, and yet for you, the memory
of these who have gone before us, colleagues that you served with who did not come home, those memories are still fresh for you, aren't they?
They're very fresh and part of that is just because of the impact that they've had on my life and all those situations occurred.
But also, I surround myself with a lot of warming stuff and pictures of my buddies that we did lose and some we didn't lose.
And it's just important for me to have those memories close by, even though I do suffer from PTSD, from all those people that I lost, but also part of it is from all the people that I killed.
And it's just important to me to keep them in my mind and make sure that my family knows the story and how important it is to me and to this world.
Mick is a great man.
I would say the greatest living American that I know I had the privilege of working under his tutelage Years at trainer state bank where Mick was legendary.
He casts a giant shadow.
He
bestrides the world like a colossus, as we say.
And, you know, Mick does so much work continuing to serve helping our veterans, including some of the veterans boards there in Pottawatomie County in the Council Bluffs area.
Mick, any stories about the guys that never came back, your fondness for them, and sometimes the seemingly randomness of who was spared and who doesn't make it back?
What is that?
Conjure up for you and you were spared the Lord obviously Needed those fellas to join him back then when they left us what in our mind would seem to be too way too early But yet he kept you here for a purpose too.
How have you sorted that and process that over the last half century plus?
It's as I'm sure you hear from a lot of other veterans that that's a difficult difficult part of life is is wondering the question to come to my mind is always
why me you know why why was I the one to survive and and my friends that I grew very close to I didn't you know and and some of them in fact you know some of them I didn't know as well because you know one guy that I'm taking of right now he was he was gone within two weeks after getting there he was a very young warrant officer and a pilot and we lost him after only two weeks so
There were those relationships where I was just getting to know the people.
And then there were those who had been together for six months, nine months, 12 months.
And then we were losing people at that time too.
Do you see Vietnam as an important cog in winning ultimately the Cold War?
Yes, I do.
And of course, the Domino Theory gets put down a lot.
And a lot of people don't want to support that that had any positive effect within our world.
I really feel it did.
In fact, 12 years ago, in the summer, our family, kids and grandkids, and a couple of other friends took me back to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
It was just an amazing, unbelievable trip that I wasn't even sure that I wanted to take, but I wouldn't give it up for anything today.
The reason that was such is because of the amazing progress that we saw over there.
The last night we were in Vietnam.
We stayed at a hotel in downtown Saigon, coaching in the city.
And when Judy and I went to bed, we turned the lights off.
We left the drapes open.
We get in the bed and we look across a block or two and there's an office building over there.
I don't know, 12, 14 stories tall probably.
And that building changed color all night and I assume the
Surface of that building was embedded with L and D's and that was some kind of a marketing plan for whoever was there and it just you know things like that just were amazing to us and and The other thing that I when I came back so many of my buddies asking, you know, what it was like much different You know one guy asked me what said what about the boonings where we were, you know, and I said well I said
They looked very much the same, you know, small villages and rice paddies and everything, but I said the rice paddies are now full of New Holland and John Deere tractors instead of water buffalo.
You can still see nearly as many water buffaloes as you used to.
And just so many things like that, a place where we stayed slept at night in a foxhole on the Vietnam side of the border in De Laos during the invading.
We went to that same exact location Lang Bay and it's a village today and it's got beautiful kind of like you know strip mall office buildings beautiful landscaping concrete curbs surface streets and and everything like that and it's just the progress is amazing when we're driving out of I think back toward the coast near Denane
We come along the highway and almost to the coast and I'm looking at the front of the bus that we're on and there's this high rise building and it was an upper I forgot which brand it was now, but one of Marriott's Marriott's upper scale hotels right there on the beach on the South China Sea, you know and just a beautiful setting and and of course the beach of all along Vietnam is just beautiful and and They've made so much progress when we were staying in Ho Chi Minh City
He stood at the front door of our hotel and looked across the street.
I've been in New York many times and it looked like I've been in New York storefronts and their displays and everything were just like we would expect to see in a capital city and it was just very impressive.
So the progress has been very rewarding to me and one short story was I got to talking to a local guy through our translators, of course, you know, and he was telling me about his
business that he owns and it conversed a lot about that.
And then I said to him, I said, how can you own your own business in a communist country?
And he looked at me and he says, oh, we have to give money to, we have to pay the government.
And I said, uh, yes, we do too.
We call our taxes.
We call our taxes.
What do you call yours?
Here with the greatest guy.
I know.
Go ahead.
I finished that.
Capitalism is progressing in, in, uh,
to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and it's a very rewarding thing to see, and the people are just amazing.
Here with our authentic American hero, Mick Gutam.
Mick has done so much work.
Mick was asked by our government to go over, and when the Cold War ended, Mick was called on to go over there and teach them and advise them and consult with them.
Mick, I'm going to go into it right now.
I want to save the love letters with Judy.
and specifically your Christian faith for a little bit later.
But right now, I want to talk about this incredible moment that I don't understand how people have the capacity to do this, but I saw Ronald Reagan forgive his shooter, John Hinckley.
I saw Pope John Paul II forgive his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agha.
Mick, you came face to face.
with the enemy on this tour of Vietnam, your erstwhile enemy from decades before, and it wasn't combative.
Talk about that.
It's an amazing story.
No, it was very warm relationships that we developed with not only the step-on guides that came on our bus and took us to different places, but just meeting people on the streets or in hotels and things like that.
And actually, at one point, in fact, it was the last day we were there.
We were in Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, and we went to the Capitol building.
And I wanted to go up on the top of the roof of that.
And they let us do that after the tour because up there they served ice cold, Coca-Cola, and water.
And we get up there.
And one of the people went with us, was my roommate.
I lived with him in Vietnam.
And so we're up there having a water or a Coca-Cola or something.
I think it was nine people looked about our age and they were in green what appeared to be military uniforms and my roommate Harold said to me, Nick, who are those people on the side?
I don't know.
So I did the tour guide interpreter and he says, I think they're military people from Vietnam, even more than South Vietnam.
And so we ended up talking with them.
So here these are the same people
that were fighting against us.
And in fact, when we shared some of our stories and I told them about the invasion to Laos, and I was the first person in the invasion of Chippon, one of those guys was the guy on the ground shooting at me with an anti-aircraft quad-51 gun.
Amazing.
And here, and I was shooting back at him, you know, three or four thousand rounds a minute.
Amazing.
Rockets and everything like that.
And we shook hands.
We had some hugs.
Amazing.
And, uh, they, like I've said before, they, they just, they respect the United States so much.
And they, they want to be like us.
You know, they see the, the freedom and the economic development and that type of thing.
And they want to be there too.
Absolutely.
Amazing story.
They were shooting at you, you were shooting at them, handshakes and embraces.
In fact, incredible stuff from Captain Michael McGuta, US Army retired, Huey Loach and Cobra helicopter pilot, two distinguished flying crosses.
Bronze Star, a lifetime of service in banking and for veterans and in the ag community is a patriot ambassador for us with ag consulting over in Eurasia.
And Mick has just gotten done so many wonderful things.
Mick, let's talk about the importance of your Christian faith and how that, what that meant to you in Vietnam and how it has helped you reflect.
over these years, subsequent to coming home again?
Well, my Christian faith was important to me when I was a young man.
I had been selected to be the leader of a large Southwest Iowa organization, United Church youth.
And so I was going from church to church and speaking from the lectern and the one.
And actually at that point in time in late high school, I developed the thought that I thought I might want to go into the ministry.
And
And then and but I was also thinking about Vietnam and what was happening and you know presumably the Domino theory and I believe was that those people's Right to practice their faith in God is being taken away from them.
It
was you're
right There was
a big issue with that.
It's not written in the history books a lot but both Korea and Vietnam involved a lot of atheistic hatred Against God
and
against the rights of people to worship as they wanted to as Christians continue make you spot on there
Well, and so like I said, I thought I wanted to be a pastor and then at a point during that time probably still in high school.
I realized the only reason I felt I was being called a ministry is because I thought Nicola could have a pulpit speaking and I didn't have anything to do with Christ, you know, so that kind of fell by the wayside and then I became to the point where I thought thinking I wanted to be a missionary and
I thought maybe I was going to end up in the jungles in South America or somewhere else like that, you know, but then that evolved into being called in to be in Special Forces and Reburry Infantry Officer, and that was the direction I was going until my junior year at Iowa State and ROTC.
In fact, it was the same week I met my wife, Judy, who was.
solution up to marry me, but
hey, you got all these big 12 guys listening in from K state and KU here.
They like that Iowa state vibe.
Big 12 got
to hang together.
You bet.
And so anyway, I, uh, and she has the prettiest
girl in the state of Iowa, Mick.
You, you did, you
did pull
the top girl in the state.
She was, she wasn't his breathtakingly beautiful woman.
She still is.
So anyway, I, I, uh,
And they came and asked me, and Mick, do you want to fly helicopters?
And
I had an
airplane ride when I was in eighth grade, and I'd never given up the dream of being a pilot.
And so they came and asked me if I wanted to fly helicopters, and it immediately, that green beret on my head just evaporated.
And they said, if you pass these tests and then pass your flight physical with some reonected duty, you're in flight school.
And so they gave us all these tests.
And that didn't tell us anything about it, except that we passed them.
And then that summer on active duty at Fort Riley, I passed my flight physical.
And that got me into flight school.
And as I said, the calling was all part of this kind of mission work.
I wanted to be there and help these people continue to practice to believe their faith, practice their faith in God.
And on our trip back, back in 2013, 12 years ago was
It was rewarding too because we not only experienced, we went into several Catholic churches and got to see the beauty of them and knew that people were in their worshiping.
Plus, we knew that there were all other Christian missionaries that were there, you know, expanding their faith and working with the people.
And they were allowed to do that.
They had the freedom to do that.
And I just knew that if we wouldn't have done what we did, I don't know that that practice of their faith.
would have been able to continue.
I think you're right, Mick.
I think you're absolutely spot on with that.
Mick, I got a touch on the, you know, there's these different plays on Broadway, love letters and all of that, but nothing tops the real life love letters that cemented your bond with Judy while you guys were thousands of miles away from each other in an era where you couldn't even telephone, let alone fax or email or text for younger listeners.
It was by snail mail written on parchment.
sent thousands of miles by planes, trains, automobiles, and boats, sometimes a gap of weeks.
And, Mick, talk about the letters you and Judy traded.
Well, one thing people may not realize, we always numbered our letters, so that obviously they didn't arrive sometimes in order and sometimes they came four or five times.
We wrote each other almost every day.
And so when you sit down open, you wanted them in order, so they made sense.
Interesting.
And so that was kind of neat.
But back to your comment, John, about telephone calls, we actually were able to make, not very often, but maybe four times or so, I was able to call Judy and what they called the Mars system, military assisted radio system.
And there are shortwave operators, military people in Vietnam, and in shortwave,
operators in the western part of the United States.
In fact, Barry Goldwater's home was used extensively by many shortwave operators to receive those calls.
Yeah, he was
a big ham radio shortwave guy, Goldwater.
Yeah.
Yes, he was.
Yeah.
So we were able to talk to each other in that way a few times.
Wow.
But the interesting thing was you had the voice when you got done with what you're going to say, you had to say over.
And when she got numb, she had to say what she said and then say over.
And so you'd end up saying, honey, I love you.
I love you too.
So anyway, we did get to make just a handful of phone calls.
And in one time I was in Saigon.
I have no idea why, but I walked by a telephone booth.
People might remember what telephone booths were.
I sure do.
And I looked at that and I thought, I wonder if I can call June from there.
And it was at night.
So it was eight times she was teaching in, in Ankeny, Iowa.
And I called the high school and we got the principal because the principal had given me his number.
And so he went, took over her class and she came to his office and we get to talk.
One time.
So anyway, those are, those are just very special memories that she and I got to communicate.
I knew that she was okay and she knew that I was still alive because you know day
in
day out hour after hour She didn't know if I was still still going
It's just it's amazing and you have this beautiful treasure trove of letters now for the future family legacy to look at and these beautiful Handwritten correspondences there's a lost art, but it was definitely
a feature of wartime correspondences.
As a matter of fact, if you watch the Ken Burns specials on the Civil War, the most poignant moments are those letters written to loved ones afar, contemplating life and death and the cause.
And these are just beautiful letters.
We've got an archive of Mick and Judy sharing some of those on some of our previous programs out in the Omaha and Southwest Iowa area.
Mick, I have seen you do several.
of these public addresses.
Either on Memorial Day or for other auspicious events you've been at the Strategic Air Command Museum in Omaha.
You did the big event at Trainer.
There's a
a static display of the helicopter they're in trainer.
You've given a lot of talks on Memorial Day.
If you had to freshen it up for us here right now on radio, what would be your key takeaway or two on this Memorial Day to tell us or to remind us as Americans, many now of whom, you know, my college kids that I teach, Mick, the Vietnam War is as far away from them as World War.
One was away from me when I was in grade school.
And, you know, we've lost most now of our Korean and World War II vets.
You guys are the vanguard, that Vietnam era, you're all hitting that 80 mark.
give or take a few either way, some older.
What would you say today, especially to our young generation for whom you talking about this would even be like my father talking to me about the Korean War back when our children were just babes?
Well, one thing I would have to say is to just encourage them to never forget the sacrifices that have been made by these
I feel like the friends of mine that got killed over there, but also remembering their families and their communities that they were taken away from.
And just the tremendous loss that those people have experienced through that loss.
And people may feel sorry for guys like me that went through the battle, but the truth is for many of us, the battle, even though we suffer in some ways today, like in PTSD,
The experience was also very rewarding in a way that, for instance, my career in business and banking would not have been what it was if it wouldn't have been for that year in combat and the leadership experiences I had and communication experiences and the importance of staying in touch with those people that you work with and that you manage.
There are tremendous benefits to taking that route also, I believe.
But as I said, in my life, it was just a very positive experience, even in spite of the very negative things that I went through.
And one of those things, of course, is remembering those guides that I served with.
And the guides that came back, in fact, in August, we will
many of us, I suppose maybe 20 or 30 of us will be back together in St.
Louis.
Again, we do this every year.
We started this.
I went to my first reading in 1995 and been there almost every year since.
And we will talk about each of those guys that I'd mentioned earlier and just catch up with each other about our kids and grandkids.
But we'll tell more stories and we're just always there for each other.
And one example of that is about 16 years ago,
I went through a series of health issues where I had to have triple bypass and because of age and orange I had to have chemotherapy for my leukemia and just things like that that kind of all came to a head at one time and that same two days I was diagnosed we also lost a grandchild and so I was sitting in my recliner because I wasn't supposed to do anything and
And
I
sent email to all my vietnam buddies and high school buddies and college buddies, fraternity brothers, everything like that.
And I got so many emails back for people responding and encouraging me.
Not one of my vietnam buddies emailed me back.
Every one of them picked up the phone and called me.
Wow.
Encourage me.
Wow.
And that's just who they are.
We're all family.
We're all there for each other.
And we always will be.
Wow.
guys this has just been an amazing and beautiful half hour uh Blake Griffin here just nodding his head at the at the engineering deck for us here uh you're listening to us on jointly on KOFO and KXEL that
KXEL signal, as you know, that 50,000 watt clarion call.
The AM band alone goes out to 14 US states, all the big 10 and big 12 states, basically, as well as two Canadian provinces.
And then, of course, KOFO owns the KC area and the East Central Plains of Kansas and will protect our identity.
Mick, but you have a granddaughter who's kind of a Kansan.
She goes to one of our state universities.
I won't mention her name or where, but I will say that she's an accomplished young.
co-ed at this university in her own leadership roles and as a scholar.
And so, Mick, you got to be feeling some love, not just for the East Iowa Hawkeye fans like me and Hawkeye alums, even though you're an Iowa State guy, but you're feeling love for the Kansas folks now too, aren't you, Mick?
Yes, I do.
In fact, after Vietnam, we lived in Manhattan, and so I feel
a closeness to K-State because it was so much like Iowa State.
In fact, Judy in my life even took a course there when we were we were living there and even though she already had her degree and she took another home that course and so it was uh it's we love Manhattan and we love K-State not when they're on the football field.
Guys this is just great uh guys you've been listening to Captain Michael Guta
Retired Captain, United States Army, past president of Trainer State Bank, former commissioner of the Iowa Division of Banking, former president of the Federal Home Loan Banks, consultant for the United States for Euro-Asian relations for agricultural expertise and tutoring and mentoring.
veteran leader on many different community organizations, including veterans boards, hospital boards, uh, children's homes, Mick, uh, highly decorated Vietnam War hero flying loaches, uh, Huey's and Cobra attack helicopters, earning the Bond star in two distinguished flying crosses in the process.
Uh, the greatest living man.
I know a man I am proud to call friend and honored that he is a fellow.
Christian warrior that I look up to for his great true grit.
Mick alluded to some health problems.
Mick was just beset by a bevy of health problems.
Mick, I don't know anyone who has truer grit than you.
You just dust yourself up and get right back up and answer the bell every time.
It's been a joy to be with you again, Mick.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for your service.
Blessings to Judy and Mick.
I hope you and Judy enjoy this Memorial Day weekend in with real great happy although somewhat melancholic, but nonetheless Triumphant celebrations knowing that you know, you'll be reunited with those guys someday down the line with our Lord
That's exactly right.
Thank you for the call John
Mick Guttal, ladies and gentlemen.
Wow, rack that up, Blake.
That's going in the archive.
What an epic interview with the true American hero.
If you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time, too.
You can hear us on the radio, statewide at AM 1540 and in the Cedar Valley at FM 100.5.
We stream live on the web, not only through KXEL.com, but also through our free KXEL mobile app.
And Alexa knows how to find us too.
It's where Iowa comes to talk, News Talk 1540,
KXEL.
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
By investigating faith in economics, we can learn how they lead to human flourishing.
This is the Faith in Economics podcast, a presentation of the Gortney Institute at Ottawa University.
Welcome to our show today.
I'm Cole McCrae, producer and undergraduate scholar for the Gortney Institute.
With us, we have Dr. Russ McCullough, founder of the Gortney Institute and Wayne Angel Chair of Economics.
Dr. Justin Clark, the Menard Family Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, and Dr. Peter Jacobson, the Gordney Professor of Economic Education and Research.
All right, so we thought today would be a good time to talk about expansion of the United States.
There's been talk in a number of different directions, and something that's bothered me is a little bit of the rhetoric, maybe, and the way it's handled, which isn't a big surprise with President Trump there, handling things differently than maybe how I would handle it.
But we'll get into that one too.
Justin, what do you want to start us off with here, thinking about expansion?
That's what I wanted to start out with.
That, you know, we seem to be
more philosophical.
We shouldn't be taking over imperialism.
Does that sound like something I'd say?
Yeah, so it seems like expansion of the literal
boundaries of America seems to be at least on the table or being used as a negotiating point, a negotiating tactic.
And I'm curious what you guys think about it, because the two areas that have been talked about are Canada and Greenland, right?
And then, I mean, a little bit of Panama-ish, and that seems to be more saber-rattling, but I can't really tell.
So I have a bunch of opinions on all, especially the Canada
One, because I think that one's really interesting.
I don't know what you guys thought.
Well, I guess I'll just lead off.
Ever since I was young, even, I'm like, why didn't we just make them states when I learned about territories?
And like, you know, why didn't we just do that?
And I guess maybe over time, I became more sensitive to imperialism and let, you know, the world doesn't work that way anymore, you know, or whatever.
I mean, we did have a big history of doing that, but what we did with the United States and otherwise.
So to me, a lot of it comes down to what maybe the people of the country are feeling.
But yeah, even since I was little, and I guess I still kind of hold those feelings a little bit, that when Trump first mentioned that stuff,
I'm like, why shouldn't it be on the table?
Obviously not to take them over violently, but through negotiations, if there's a win-win situation, I mean, I think it's kind of cool.
Yeah, I'll be curious about your impression, Justin.
My general thinking on that is this.
Think that most of it is a waste of time in terms of the discussion not like our podcast here, but just like on a high on a high level I think it's mostly a waste of time and it's a little bit I think a in attempts to bring about some strategic uncertainty So I think there's a to some extent Trump tries to shake things up for the sake of shaking things up because it's easier to accomplish things when everything's kind of influx So I think a little bit of that's going on
I do think that if the US, you know, incorporated Alberta, Canada into the United States, that I think that would be a really big boon for the people of Alberta.
I think their lives would improve significantly.
I think the Canadian government is totally controlled by a few special interests, and I think you could argue that's true of us too, to some extent.
But I think the Canadian government is in more of a situation where because of how their country is set up institutionally, it's a bigger deal that they're controlled by a few interests.
So there's huge problems in Canada right now with respect to housing because a lot of like property owners have basically
prevented supply increases for housing while ensuring that immigration increases in these areas that are already very, you know, have a lot of people there.
And so that causes housing prices in Canada to just be ridiculous.
It's very hard for even a middle class person in Canada to imagine buying a home in 20 or 30 years.
And so I think a lot of people's lives would be improved by, again, not all of Canada, but maybe pieces of Canada's incorporation to the United States.
Now,
I don't know if that improvement is enough to justify us being like, yeah, well, Canada, Alberta is kind of ours now.
You know, I don't think that is the logical next step here.
But I do think if people didn't have a sort of derangement about Donald Trump himself, that this conversation would actually be seriously entertained by a lot of different parties.
Now, I'll also say at the same time, I'm not certain that Alberta coming into the United States would be a benefit for the United States or any of Canada at all for that matter.
I definitely do not want five new Canadian states.
What that would do to us electorally would be just nightmarish.
And so I have no interest in that aspect.
Now, maybe they could be states, but maybe only Alberta could be a state, right?
Because Alberta actually tends to be a little more reasonable in terms of people's political beliefs and things like that.
So that's my, I'll have to think on Greenland a little bit while we're talking the podcast.
I want to, I could talk on this for 10 minutes straight.
So I want to send over to Justin on his thoughts, but that's kind of my initial impressions.
Yeah, I agree with you.
The last point is the big one for me.
It's that, you know, people talk about, oh, let's make Canada the 51st state.
You're going to have some giant single state above the rest of the United States.
That's one territory.
probably not and you're going to break it up into maybe the similar way that it's broken up right now in which case good luck to anybody on the right winning a national election anytime in the near future.
Canadians are to the left of Americans for the most part.
I'd
say one of the biggest, one of the farthest left countries in the world really in the developed world.
But it wasn't
as framed as one state.
Each time I heard it,
like let's make
Canada,
like you
said,
like would that have a way to swing them in the electoral college?
If it's one, then it's still a huge, like this is a big problem.
Secondly, I don't think it would be one.
I mean, is your bet like if we did this, then it would be one state.
They would try to do things like probably try to incorporate the current lines that they have right
now.
I think
this, I think it would be an electoral disaster.
Secondly, Canadians do not want to be part of the United States for the most part.
That's the
big part.
And I know like the big talk, there's big talk about like, oh, well, there's so much like mineral wealth and things like that.
And that's an argument that also gets brought up for Greenland.
But there is a bunch of mineral wealth in Canada.
There's also a bunch of mineral wealth in the United States that we're not allowed to access for reasons that the federal government has imposed these rules.
Canada's not accessing a lot of their own mineral wealth for these reasons.
So I don't see the US benefiting from it.
Even if the Canadians would benefit from it, I don't see them liking benefiting from it.
And it's a hard sell to tell people that they're going to benefit from something that they really don't want.
And it seems like the reaction to Trump's tariffs has been a movement left in Canada, like a big move towards like the Liberal Party, I think is doing better post Trump's tariff announcement than they were beforehand.
So if this is being used as some kind of bargaining chip, okay, but boy, I hope nobody calls our bluff and says, okay, well, we'll join because I think that would be like a real disaster.
It would be like,
you know, multiplying and giving us three, you know, one more New York and like three more Vermont's or
something.
Yeah, and I'm sure we could dream up some sort of political thing where, you know, one one electoral vote from all of Canada, but yet they remain in their territories.
But it's not even worth going there because they don't want to do it.
It's not going to be voluntary.
It's not even up in the air because I so I was at this conference in Mexico City and had a chance to
to speak with Fred McMahon who runs the Frasier Institute where the economic freedom index is made and I'm like, Fred, you're the first time I've had the chance to ask a Canadian, you know, how you feel on it.
They're mad.
I mean, and rightfully so.
I mean, that's the, that was my impression that I really think of all the rhetoric and stuff of shaking things up and again, strategic motives and all that I get, but
Man, I have to side with them that they've been a good trading partner, good relationships, blah, blah, blah, and maybe some stiffening up of the border and some things needed to be done.
But overall, I think throwing out the Canada should be a state was not the best move to do.
I think we didn't need to head that direction.
Well, I think it could have been approached differently, too.
And this is often a critique of Trump is that his approach is too aggressive.
There might be something to that, but I actually find a lot of times when people have that criticism of Trump, he tends to come out on the right side.
So I'm very aware of that sort of comment.
Oh, his approach is too abrasive.
It's like people have been saying that about him for 12 years now.
And it's like he still keeps succeeding anyways.
So maybe they're maybe everybody else is wrong, right?
In that case.
Yeah, I mean to speak to both of those points.
I actually think if you approach this properly there could be the the a more positive feeling both from
some Canadians and also maybe a positive benefit to the US.
It is true that there's a group of Canadians who feel completely unrepresented in their governments.
Anybody who's like would even be considered a conservative in the United States.
There's
not
even a party for those people.
They're they have a conservative party in Canada, but it's like two steps to the right of Justin Trudeau.
And so there is a big contingent of people who in Canada
feel that they've been bullied by their government they feel like they've had these moral values from the left and left imposed on them with no real consent of their own a lot of you know decisions made in terms of children's education that they disagree with in terms of what they're allowed to say from the pulpit that they disagree with.
And so I, and there's actually a lot of Canadians also concerned about the fact that, you know, there's spent so much immigration into Canada that like political disputes from the country of India are actually affecting Canadian politics now.
Like that's how intertwined the countries have become because of this massive wave of immigration.
If you want to test case of the country that
the political arguments against immigration seems to be correct.
It's Canada.
I mean, they've really developed some major, like, I think there was an assassination.
I think there was an assassination of a Canadian politician because of this.
I could have that wrong.
So, you know, take it with a grain of salt.
But my point is, I do think there's a contingent of Canadians that could stand to benefit from being Americans and who would appreciate that and who actually would add to what I would say would be sort of a liberty mindset.
The reason I said Alberta is my understanding is that's where a lot of those people live.
They sort of have the wild west mindset is my understanding and Alberta like the the terrain is a little more difficult and so that rugged individualism
that
kind of characterizes the US maybe operates a little more there but I do agree that even geographically carved up I don't think there's any piece of Canada right now that you could do this with like I actually think there has to be a talk of like people
Getting to choose whether or not they like go to the u.s.
Portion or not and like you know there'd have to be like compensation for people who feel like they have to move and Is be a very complicated plant and probably too complicated, you
know, what's a better idea?
Free trade among the two nations
basically gets us
to where we
are.
Free trade doesn't fix the problem that I just mentioned, which is that a lot of Canadians have a government that will basically repress their deepest self-beliefs, right?
Trading with those people does not help.
They can't get out of... I mean, you can't sort of leave Canada, but it costs a lot of money to immigrate out of Canada, and it's very...
From mobility to U.S.
Yeah,
so
if we opened up free mobility with those Canadians, then yeah, the problem would be fixed as well.
I see that as less feasible than acquiring Canada.
And they are
pretty free to move around.
A lot of Canadians spend extended winters down in Florida.
Well, it depends on the month.
During COVID, if you weren't vaccinated, you couldn't leave the country and you couldn't use the trains.
I
can't bring one total COVID into the picture.
Let
go out
into the trucker protest in Canada.
The question is, do you want to live in a country that tomorrow could say to you you're not allowed to leave or use public transportation?
Right.
And like my answer to that question is obviously not.
And so that's why I think where those people say it would be valuable if they were part of the US.
Now, do I think the Canadian government has engaged in systematic human rights abuses such that warrants the US invading and stopping them from doing that?
No, because I generally think our ability to do that's very low.
I do think they've engaged in human rights abuses.
I think the trucker protests is a great example of that.
I think forcing people to stay in their homes as aggressively as was done in Canada, that is also a great example of that now.
Okay, that's not the only country that did that.
We can't save every country where that happened because that's everywhere.
But still, my ultimate point is, I think there is a win-win exchange here in theory.
in practice, I don't see it happening.
My only pushback to that would be Canada is in the top 10 of the most free countries in the world, according to the Economic Freedom Index.
So they're right up there in terms of freedom.
I mean, the United States is at 8.09 and Canada's 7.99.
Anyway, the United States is five, they're eight, Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland, you know, Hong Kong, blah, blah, blah.
They're right in there with the freedom.
So some of these little the trucker movement thing and I think these are We're not going from United States to India or other developing countries where they might be more oppressive I just I feel like these are littler things than What they really are and so freedom free to trade with other relatively free countries isn't a bad solution, but
So just really, I mostly agree, but I will say countries do not have tyrannies or sovereign debt crises or major problems until they do, right?
So our present measures are lagging indicators of what future it looks like for the people.
Good point.
Good point.
That's also kind of average over...
the U.S.
as a whole, and there's some pretty big, I think, differences in terms of freedom among the states.
Oh, yeah.
And I think that Canada represents, you know, it's
more
a lot of our really problematic states.
And if you think that the U.S.
ought to be this kind of beacon of freedom or whatever,
then kind of titrating our freedom with somebody else's that is less free.
I think that's just a bad idea.
This would be one thing if you were looking at the electoral map and it was like, dude, we have so many votes to lose or whatever.
But when things seem balanced on this knife's edge, and I just don't think that these are elections that you can afford
to
lose without
Maybe we'll still keep our ranking among world governments and the most free, but like the objective freedom of everybody, I think, would go down.
All right.
Well, that looks like a good spot for a break.
And when we come back, I want to bring up stuff like Puerto Rico, too, which I got some information on.
Greenland.
And Greenland, of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's all on the agenda.
So we'll be back here in just a bit.
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All right, so we're back and considering all these potential moves and whether they become part of the United States in some way, shape, or form, it's time to roll on to Greenland.
So Dr. Clark, why don't you start us off with Greenland?
I just think Greenland is an interesting case because
Unlike Canada, you know, it's much less people, but it has a similar kind of like geographical mineral like profile to what Canada does much fewer people and Greenland is currently
much much like isn't it 50,000 or something or 50 to 60?
I think it's it's it's a lot 56,000.
Yeah.
56,000, which is I mean, come on, give me a break.
It's half a Lawrence.
Yeah, exactly.
You take any city in the United States and they
and one of the decent sized metropolitan areas over the population of Greenland.
And it's currently like
officially controlled by Denmark, right?
And although they do have kind of like a home rule situation, but it seems like that would be a much more achievable and doable acquisition in the sense that it's currently held by some other power.
It's kind of a leftover colonial situation.
has the same type of minerals that Canada has and a far fewer population and a population that I think, I mean, I don't want to talk bad about Canadians, but I think Canadians are always proud.
They're kind of proud to not be American, like, especially over the last 20 years, I think, since like the Bush administration.
Yes, Iraq War two.
It has been like a I'm Canadian, not American kind of thing.
Yeah.
Well, the Prime Minister the other day or somebody some Canadian group just declared themselves like, oh, we're the most European of the non European countries like that.
They love to not be associated with
America.
Yeah, which, you know, I'm fine to let them have that.
Yeah.
Enjoy Europe.
Yeah.
So I mean, one of the things that I thought about
Trump's Canada and Greenland strategy was like the Canada thing was a kind of like Mott and Bailey like okay, we'll just do Greenland.
Because it seems like way more doable.
It doesn't have the problems of like a local population that really really hate like objects to it and is really sizable.
And then it doesn't come with the added baggage of like
this would have to be six states, or the population's large enough to make a really huge dent in electoral politics.
It seems like at least a lot of the electoral stuff that I was bringing up that was a huge red flag for me with Canada, I don't see that with Greenland, although I'm sure that it would be like condemned by the international community if that happened.
So I don't know what you guys are saying if I'm trying to missing something.
I wondered if you guys have heard the same thing I did that
The media has done some different stories in that some of what was reported is that many Greenlanders support it because they see the benefits of becoming part of the United States.
I mean, if you think about 50 to 6,000 people in terms of purchasing and allocating money, we could probably make them all fairly rich for starters, just as part of some sort of acquisition.
I don't know what that would look like or not, but
I think a lot were generally supportive and that's where with Canada everybody, I mean they're just mad as hell that we even brought it up.
Whereas I think there's a decent support for it actually there.
I think there might be a few leaders that were against it and wanting to maintain their sovereignty but the actual people themselves, I think there was a more support anyway.
Yeah.
Some poll was taken saying that 85% don't want to be part of the US.
Now, it's one poll and it's not like I think it's by a news organization rather than like, yeah, CBS News.
I
surveyed a thousand people near the Capitol.
That's
all the people in Greenland.
And so, you know, part of the difficulty with the Greenland conversation is like,
Trump, because he, Trump always, and the media has sort of figured this out to maybe his detriment to some degree, Trump always wants to leave every option on the table for himself, and he refuses to ever close the door on any means.
And so, sometimes people have brought up in conversation with Trump or Vance or one of Trump's senior like Hexeth had this question in his, you know, confirmation hearings like,
Would you support the United States invading Greenlands to capture it as part of our country?
And no one has ever said no to that question because, again, they refuse to take options off the table.
And so the response that's given when that question is asked is usually something like, well, there are situations where, for our national security, it could be necessary to take Greenlands.
Like that's a very like Pentagon answer.
Well, it may be not like that.
I guess like the Pentagon of all that said, no, of course not ever, even though they have plans to do it the next day.
But that's sort of like a new Pentagon answer.
Like, yeah, everything's on the table.
We don't want to tell you that we're not going to do something if we have to have it.
But I don't think there's any real
Scenario where Trump invades Greenlands at the same time and so and other people feel differently about this to be fair like there there are people out there who think like he's gonna make Greenland he's gonna be Panama and he's actually been more aggressive with this rhetoric towards Panama even then Greenlands because of the canal stuff.
even though that settled down.
And
the China connection.
Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, at the end of the day, no, we should not take over Greenland against the will of the people there.
I think that, like, I sort of like small countries.
I wish that every country was about the size of Greenland.
I think we'd live in a much better world if that were the case.
You know, it's empirical question.
It's not actually theoretical.
But regardless, so I
If Greenland wants to take Greenland, I want Greenland to take Greenland at the end of the day.
And maybe that's not a majority question, but whatever that means is how I feel about it.
But I do think that, like Canada, there could be some advantages to joining the United States.
I think that the freedoms afforded by our Constitution
though imperfectly protected are protected to some degree as evidence by all the people who hate the Constitution, right?
So I see it as a beneficial, you know, like Canada, it could be beneficial for both sides, except unlike Canada, it's much more feasible for the reasons you and Justin said.
So
you just made me think quickly of what the United States originally counted.
with federalism meant to be is that we are all little city-states.
We are all little countries, right?
It's kind of a neat way of thinking about it that I wish every country that way went off.
We're all states.
If our federal
government was actually not as big as it is, we would be, I think that was the vision to have that type of thing.
Yeah, provinces.
Yeah, it's a weird conversation.
And maybe, in fact, I know my opinion might be kind of controversial here, but like,
Greenland and Canada and Europe, they're all basically our states anyways.
We just like don't let them vote.
We let them have little municipal governments that have a lot of authority over themselves instead.
And like, I know this is like a crude way to put it, but to some extent, that's just true that the last 20 years, these countries have basically done what the US wanted in exchange.
We protect them more or less.
That's one of the things Trump has brought up.
I do think that
way of doing things is being shaken up right now.
I think the reason you see a lot of European leaders very confused is the best word for it is they sort of don't know what the world looks like if the United States is not like allowing them to be part of their protectorate, right?
And so, yeah, it's true that they can't vote for our presidents in Europe or Canada or Greenland or these sorts of countries.
But for the most part, these countries supported us in everything that we did and we protected them in any sort of like threat.
You know, the best example of this not happening was like when France refused to help us in the Iraq war or whatever.
But that was a massive thing.
It's like, how dare France not help us in our military campaign in the Middle East?
It's like, if you think about that sentence for two seconds, it's like, what on earth would France have to do with it?
That sort of indignation only makes sense when you realize, oh, France is supposed to basically be ours is the mindset that's going on there, which means they have to do the things that we want.
So.
That's what makes this a weird conversation.
It's like the US has had so much hegemony in the West for so long that it sort of feels like all these countries are states of the US already.
I think the past day of doing things would be to say, of course not, Greenland is its own country.
What we're going to do is we're just going to open up a strategic military base on Greenland, which only has 55,000 people and whatever.
And our military base will have 20,000 people added or something like that.
And so we will de facto control that while of course paying lip service to the idea that you guys are really in control.
And I think Peter's right that that's kind of ending and it's unclear what's
happening next.
That was essentially what we did to Ukraine for a while.
Alright, well that looks like a good spot to wrap.
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