KXEL Presents: The Jacobsen Group Podcast – June 7, 2025

Who used all the Wi-Fi?

Ah, apartment life.

Bad Wi-Fi, mystery laundry piles, and a roommate who says, I'll Venmo you.

Maybe 2027 deserves an upgrade.

Coming August 2027, Four Lakes Properties introduces the brand new Union Station Apartments, furnished in-unit washer and dryer.

Internet included a great central downtown location, one to five bedroom apartments, and no double occupancy fees.

That's less adulting and more actually enjoying where you live.

Union Station Apartments, now leasing from Four Lakes Properties.

Wait, we have a washer and dryer in the apartment?

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.

Good, Saturday morning, KXEL, the Jacobson group here on America's original 1540, 50,000 watt clear channel of Kerming into the 14 original big 10 states and neighbors to Canadian provinces on FM Band 100.5 out of Cedar Rapids.

And listen live on KXEL.com.

John Jacobson here with the inimitable Mike Shane, our great engineer who has his legendary KFAB ringtone in tow.

Play it, Mike.

This

is the Jacobson report on KXEL sponsored by

our friends at Midwest renewable energy LLC, Gibbon, Sydney, January, renewable energy, ethanol is clean as clean as green energy for small America, life runners, life runners.org.

Get your t-shirt walk and run for life like the lovely and gracious Mrs. Jacobson, helping build a culture of life for expectant mothers and their babies on the way.

Barbara Hames Bryant to the great people at Hames homes in Southwest Cedar Rapids.

beautiful, safe, affordable, manufactured housing.

And now John is joined by KXEL's Jeff Stein along with special guest GOP gubernatorial candidate Eddie Andrews.

Newstalk 1540 KXEL where Iowa comes to talk.

Hello, I'm Jeff Stein.

We are speaking to you from

the House chamber in Des Moines at the state capitol, and we're here in the second row speaking with Representative Eddie Andrews from Polk County, and we could talk about a number of legislative issues, but the reason why we are speaking with you today is because as folks are hearing this on Wednesday, you're making a major announcement.

Really?

Am I?

Making an announcement.

This is what I was told.

That's why I'm here.

That's the rumor.

Well, it is the rumor has been confirmed after lots of prayer, after lots of consultation.

I am putting my hat in the ring for the governorship of Iowa.

I am going to Terrace Hill for really to help islands of all kinds, people who don't have voices.

We're going to be working on property taxes.

We're going to be

working on mental health, autism, landowner rights, getting Iowa back to number one in education, addressing our cancer issues, all kinds of things.

What was the tipping point in making the decision?

And I'll talk about your background, ask you about that, and more importantly, issues in a bit.

But so that people get a sense of the process, you're a member of the state house right now, you have chairmanship of a committee,

Why make this leap to run for governor?

Well, we have made a lot of progress over the last few years.

I've been in This is my third term.

So I've been in here five years and What tipped me off over the over the edge so to speak to even get into the race five years ago was mental health That's not an issue that has a lot of

Lobby support, you don't see people with banners, you know, strengthen our mental health care system.

But it was personal to me, personal to my family.

We experienced it in our family and we got to see firsthand, despite good intentions, the system had lots of holes in it, lots of failures, not enough doctors, too long waiting periods.

And so I did,

kind of the unthinkable, right?

I jumped in like all the people who are listening to me, I was just like you.

I mean, I, we have opinions on politics, but you know, we also have jobs.

We have church, we have school, we have kids.

Um, but jumping into politics, that was just, that was it.

I, I just, we, we lost our kid and that was just, you know, uh, let's help other families.

And, um,

So that's why I got in in the first place.

And I'm happy to say that we've made a lot of progress over the last few years.

But we have a lot more to go.

Landowner rights is another big issue.

How do I start there?

And by the way, that sigh, I think was echoed by virtually everyone listening to this conversation because they especially along Iowa Highway 3.

We're living this every day.

Absolutely.

So put this on one of the lists that was not on my radar when I ran in 2020, right?

But when I first heard the plight of a few landowners and they're saying, well, there's this pipeline.

Great.

No problem there.

Wants to take part of my land or to use part of my land.

But I don't want to, I don't, I don't want them to.

Okay.

What's the problem there?

Well, they're going to try to use eminent domain.

I'm like, what in Iowa?

This is not, that's, um, that's, we don't live in China, right?

Um, and the last time I checked the declaration, let's say before the constitution, the declaration talked about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and, um,

You know, there are literally volumes.

We obviously won't go into that, but there are volumes written literally about that last phrase, uh, pursuit of happiness.

They obviously didn't want to use property because the southern states would have called that slavery as property, but they used a way to say property without saying property.

And obviously in the, in the constitution itself, there's, uh, landowner rights are protected and.

You know, you can do both.

You can be pro Iowa, you can be pro corn, you can be pro business, and still 100% protect land on the right.

And that, to me, is a guttural reaction.

You know, I don't own farm land, but I gotta tell you, when I see people rolled over, like, these are just men and women, moms and dads,

Um, who just want to don't want anyone messing with their land, you know, this private property is a, is a major component of the United States.

The whole idea of America is largely based upon that.

And again, if this is allowed, if the precedent

is

set, then it.

is not just people as I mentioned along Iowa Highway 3 and we've talked about that on the radio many times.

I do want to remind folks we're speaking with Iowa Representative Eddie Andrews.

He is a Republican and as you are hearing this conversation he is declaring his candidacy for governor of the state of Iowa as a Republican in the primary to be held 52 weeks from

this

point.

Tell us a bit about your background.

We'll get back to issues.

That's very important.

I think people also want to know who you are beyond what we have discussed so far.

So I, we're at the Capitol right now on the east side of Des Moines.

I grew up about 10 blocks from here.

I won't say, you know, we never used the word poor.

We just didn't have a lot of money, right?

But we were a very good family, very good values, parents, good church that we were raised in, good principles put in us.

I personally was active my entire life.

We actually thought that everybody went to visit people in the hospital or did community cleanups because that's what we did.

I graduated from East High School right down the street, three blocks from the Capitol, student government president.

So I jokingly say, said that when I first got involved in politics,

you know, 30, 40, 50 years later, whatever it is, um, that I've really been in politics all my life because, uh, you know, I was student government president, right?

Obviously a joke, but, um,

well, you beat other people for the job.

So, uh, that, you know, that's a one and no election.

Yeah, I know that doesn't count.

But, um, we, I went to the University of Iowa.

Uh, one of your good friends actually used to drive me.

People on this radio station may or may not be Kinshester, but I'm just saying, used to drive me to school there.

Long, long, long, long time ago.

Did some grad work, did some religious training, and married a beautiful wife, high school sweetheart, and wonderful kids.

We adopted a boy that we lost since then.

We have other kids in the family who aren't, there's no blood or DNA.

They just, they're just our kids, right?

You know how that works.

And always been active in my community.

I started the Moyne Spanish conversation group a while ago.

I thought it'd be a great idea for communications and community and just, you know, learning Spanish, but also in a very conversational way at a coffee, coffee bar.

I started Mentoromics, which is a coding class for, initially it was just for at risk kids, and we kind of expanded it.

So, and we teach kids how to code, but not how to code, but how to code from an entrepreneurial standpoint.

And so at the end of these sessions, they have something either in the App Store and the Google Play Store, or as an Alexa skill.

Um, so they can just say Alexa, um, you know, whatever their app is or skill is that they're called and that caught on and I'm just doing all kinds of things.

Um, you know, because I love service, I co-passored Hispanic congregation, what 14 years or so.

Um, I still speak to this day more, uh, in a Spanish pulpit than an English pulpit, although I do that too.

But, um, always been in public service.

In that way, like I said earlier, never thought I would get into politics until I saw a need that nobody was really doing, in my opinion, the right way.

Eddie Andrews is a member of the Iowa House, and he is a Republican candidate for governor.

Website is what if people are interested?

Eddie for iowa.com, that's the numeral for.

And the new one, which should be up, I don't know yet, should be Eddie for Governor.

And that's both the number four and or F.O.R.

Eddie for governor.com.

And again, announce the candidacy as you're hearing this on Wednesday morning, June the 4th on News Talk 1540 KXL.

I'm going to ask an indelicate question.

An indelicate question.

Okay.

And the reason is this is radio.

So people may not.

know much about your background, you are a person of color.

Does that have a role to play in this race either way?

Well, I mean, I've been black all my life.

So no

change in position there.

I'm

not changing that.

But I do think that people see this as some people see this as a positive, but most people I

We're just myself.

I'm just myself.

Yes.

Most Iowans don't really give a hoot about my color, right?

I would assert that but I was just wondering from your perspective.

I can tell you that we're in the chamber and I guarantee you if you asked a hundred of these people who is one of the hardest, is the hardest working person in this building

I don't know if I would win, but I would be on a very good mini person's top two or three or five.

There's a lot of good hard workers here, but I think people really do appreciate the value that I bring.

A lot of deep dives here.

That's one of the things I do like about serving is you get to learn so much and you have to.

I'll tell you a quick naive story.

My first time, my first week or so when I got here, I was so naive that I thought that I could start working on the things that I ran on, like the first week or second week.

Well, you know, okay, let's get started.

The first week is a fluff week.

Next week, let's get to work on all the things I ran on.

Guess what?

I learned that I was working on things that senior members had committed to, and I'm running their bills.

And on one hand, it turned out to be good because you become, it's like defending someone else's thesis because you have to be the expert.

And a lot of deep dives, one of the best things that ever happened to me, I was running a, I introduced a bill, a parental rights bill.

It started a partisan bill and subcommittee, then committee.

Eventually, we made some quick changes.

and every Republican, every Democrat voted for it in the house.

And then the attack started and we, it, we literally debated for three months on one word.

And I, at that point, I became an expert in chapter 20, chapter 20, all these different chapters of code.

Um, and that actually made me a better, um,

representative because I was able to defend everything that I had and there's no substitute for preparation and hard work.

Eddie Andrews, Republican candidate for governor, I want to ask briefly before we get to something you mentioned at the very outset.

If you positioned yourself

or how would people describe you as a Republican?

Yes, Republican, but there are a variety of, shall we say, categories or shades, et cetera.

How would you describe yourself in terms of being a Republican?

Where do you fall in the spectrum?

I'm a faith forward, constitutional loving, conservative period, full stop.

I actually, we're cleaned off our, most of our desk here, but I have a sign here.

When we vote, if there's ever any difficulty, God first, meaning is it a moral issue?

Number two, what does the Constitution have to say about it?

Number three, did I make any promises?

And then is it good for the state, is it good for the district, is it good for Iowa and Iowans?

And there's a difference between sometimes it might be good for this.

date as a quote unquote business, but is it good for Iowans, the people who the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was actually written for?

You mentioned property taxes at the very outset.

I would suggest that eminent domain and property taxes were the two things that I heard the most about in the 2024 campaign.

You folks did pass eminent domain, we'll see what the governor thinks.

What about property taxes?

If you're in a position like governor to lead that conversation, if it still needs to be had by the time you'd be sworn in in January of 2027, how do we fix this issue?

Well, for those of you who do not know, that's one of the things that I am known for.

I've campaigned on elimination of the property tax.

First of all, I do think it needs to be done differently.

Effectively, everyone is renting their homes, even if

after you own finger, finger quotes, air quotes, own the property that you are on, you never fully own the property that you're on.

You're always renting.

And you know why I know it's renting?

Because if you don't pay it, somebody's going to come call it, right?

And so there are plenty of ways to do this.

I guess the first thing, the easy, slow,

Low-hanging fruits are, number one, if you eliminate the property taxes, you save millions there just by not having assessor's offices or minimizing what they do or consolidating what they do, maybe even at a state level.

There are plenty of tools that do that right now.

Other ways to get that money that doesn't punish people permanently.

Eddie Andrews, he is currently a state representative from Polk County.

He is a Republican and as of the time you're hearing this conversation, he is a Republican candidate for governor.

eddie4iowa.com that's the number four that's what he has been using and will be migrating to eddie4governor eddie4governor.com either the number or f or and you can check out what he has for positions there and I trust we'll be talking again before June of 2026 sir

we're going to have a lot of fun a lot of fun and helping a lot of people

Mr. Andrews, thank you so much for your dedication to service and for committing to a run for governor.

That is no small undertaking and I respect that greatly.

Thank you so much.

The last thing I would ask is I solicit your prayers.

This is not an easy task.

And we always want to be led by what God asks us to do.

Eddie Andrews for governor and the conversation held at his desk in the House chamber in the state capital in Des Moines Tuesday afternoon just before his announcement on Wednesday morning and you're hearing it on News Talk 1540 KXEL where Iowa comes to talk.

The blowtorch KXEL America's original

50,000 watt exclusive blowtorch on 1540 and 100.5 FM emanating from Waterloo in Cedar Rapids.

Summer is here.

What a beautiful time to look at beautiful, affordable, safe, spacious homes.

And we have back with us today the matriarch of this great family enterprise, Hames Homes, founded by two literal

They're just great American patriots, literally everything good about American exceptionalism.

Kurt and Norma Haymes, the founders of Haymes Homes, their daughter, Barbara Haymes Bryant, with us today.

Barbara, they cut quite a mark for us, didn't they?

That's the greatest generation that laid the groundwork to be that beacon where the United States lifted the entire world out of would have been

fascist and communist slavery.

We had great people taking up arms and defending our nation as your father and mother did in their own ways, Barbara.

Great to have you again with us here this Saturday.

Well, Anna and my parents, Kurt and Norma Haynes, certainly were inspirational to me and my brother and sister and a whole lot of other people.

They were from the generation that didn't expect to be given anything.

They worked for everything that they had.

They sure did, and I remember your dad and mom very fervently as a young child and seeing them build that beautiful business.

Of course, they were located there further north from where you are today, right at the edge there between Marion and Cedar Rapids.

I was a Marionite.

My mom still has a legacy Marion phone number, as you guys have retained, as you've gotten closer there to the airport, the Iowa City area, in booming Southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

You guys did advertising early on.

I remember those wonderful TV ads.

They may seem primitive by today's standards, but they were very cutting edge back then.

All the way along with the Neil Diamond music.

Old commercials.

Oh, except when I was in high school and my classmates would come up to me and go, why aren't you on any of those commercials?

I was very camera shy and it wasn't my favorite thing to be in the limelight.

But looking back on it now, those commercials made an impression on so many people in eastern Iowa.

I still run in people who say, I remember watching Curtin Norma Hames the Homes people on TV.

So you know they made a lasting impact.

Nowadays, it's kind of corny.

But if you want to watch them and have a good laugh, go to our website, HamesHomes.com, HamesHomes.com.

and go to about us and our commercials, and you can watch every one of those little gems and looker and enjoy them all.

You know, Barbara, as a young boy watching those, I was only probably about nine years old when those first debuted, maybe ten, and what I caught from there is really interesting.

This great

older couple, older to me because I was 10, anybody over the age of 35 was old to me.

But they had a good chemistry.

You can't fake that.

Even on TV, you saw the endearment that Kurt Norma had.

That registered, there was a chemistry on a 32nd commercial.

You can't fake that, Barbara.

Oh, they were very devoted to each other.

They were married for 60 years when Kurt passed away.

Wow.

Well, he was a giant and a patriot.

Remind our listeners, they were part of World War II.

They were part of the big war.

And Barbara, they met through the war, didn't they?

No, actually, Kurt was drafted at the tail end of World War II.

And his first assignment was being an MP at Aachen Army Base in Germany.

Right.

I knew he was

rather in

Germany.

Right, right.

Right.

So that was in 45, 46.

Now my mom's a little younger than my dad.

She actually joined the military during the Korean War.

So she served in the Army during the Korean War and then served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Here with Barbara Hames Bryant helping win the Cold War.

Barbara, what they built, manufactured homes has come through several generations and wouldn't they be astounded today

to see even what's happened the last five years with the quality, the safety, the affordability, and these wonderful locations that you have in these beautifully landscaped tracks out there at your two communities.

It's really phenomenal.

My parents get two communities, Grandview and Summitview in Southwest Cedar Rapids.

When I see communities, people think I need like towns or cities.

we may manufacture home communities.

Exactly.

But otherwise, the word community means exactly the same thing, a place where people get together.

I hope that they would be proud of Troy and Fenty and I and how much we've kept these communities looking beautiful with the work that they started.

The homes themselves started improving in the late 1970s after housing and urban development passed a law standardizing

the instruction of manufactured homes.

That's when they went from being called mobile homes to manufactured homes.

Precisely, precisely.

Their beautiful homes are new ones, even the pre-owned ones.

Beautiful decks to enjoy the outdoors in Iowa in the summer.

They're just beautiful.

I want everybody to come to Grandview and sun up you to

see them.

I agree.

I've been there.

They fly old glory in our Iowa flag and our POW MIA flag.

It's you've got Dog Park, Frisbee, Golf.

You've got a pantry there.

They've got additional surveillance.

The streets are pure and new.

The lighting system is terrific.

The lawns are landscape meticulously.

It is a pre vetted community where obviously they are screening out for any people that would have, uh, uh, any, you know, criminality issues.

It's just absolutely splendid and Barbara, I want to touch on, uh, I'm of a certain age as is my bride.

You know, we're all in that downsizing mentality now.

And, uh, you guys downsizing is really something that, that can, uh, be

a theme for a couple that would lead them into purchasing a manufactured home.

Talk about that Barbara.

All across the country as us baby bloomers start to get in our 60s and 70s and we don't need that house with three stories.

We don't need that house with all the stairs.

We don't need to spend our weekends mowing grass and pulling weeds.

What we want is a home that's all on one floor

Where every square inch is used perfectly, a small yard so we have separation from our neighbor and opportunities to go travel and visit and do things with all that extra money that we now no longer need to spend on high maintenance homes.

Ladies and gentlemen, Barbara nailed it.

You do this downsizing for these beautiful manufactured homes.

Just think you're embracing that simpler lifestyle.

You've got

Single-level living, which is important.

You know, you don't have the stairs to climb you're designed for comfort.

You got less maintenance You got more free time as Barbara mentioned and there's that still that nice very true sense of community that they have there at summit view and Grandview and the financial freedom Barbara, how do they get a hold of you?

They need to drive by and see these beautiful sites and these beautiful lots and and talk

to

I hope they will drive by and see it.

We love showing off our neighborhoods.

We're at the corner of Wilson Avenue and West Post Road, Southwest.

That's Wilson Avenue, West Post Road, Southwest in Cedar Rapids.

Our sales office is open seven days a week.

Our model homes are open.

They're ready to view.

So please come and see them.

Or if you don't have time to drive out there, come and see us on our website, HaynesHomes.com.

We have a full listing of all of our inventory on there, new and pre-owned homes.

Our pre-owned homes are completely refurbished, so you will know that you're getting a great value and our pricing is transparent, which you see on there, that is our price.

No haggling.

Come and see us.

And you know parents and folks that want to be close to kids or have kids that may be going to school even down in Iowa City.

It's a short trek to Iowa City, 15 minutes if you're a student.

Folks, if you look at that website, they've got higher end models, but right now, they've got beautiful homes that you can get into for $52,000, for $38,000, for $79,000.

Barbara, it's affordable, especially with the great financing that you guys have available as well.

Yes, financing company called Circle Finance.

But there's lots of great local lenders that are willing to talk to you about financing your homes and the rates are pretty competitive.

I would encourage people to take a look at them.

Here with Barbara Hames Bryant, I encourage all of you get over there, see the good folks at Hames Homes.

These are people with a Christian worldview who are American patriots and every sinew in their

connective tissue in their bodies is devoted to God and country.

And those are the kind of people I want to do business with.

Barbara, as I remember your father and mother and my dad with these great celebrations of American victories that, that perdued the freedom across the world.

It's always great to be with you.

And I hope to see you soon when I'm back up to visit mom with her legacy, Marianne phone number.

Well, our Marion legacy phone number is 319-377-4863.

Look at that,

guys.

319-377-4863.

319-377-4863.

Barbara picks the cues up flawlessly.

Segway right into that.

Barbara, I call her one take, Barbara.

You're always on top of things.

Hope to see you soon.

And Barbara, it's a shame

You weren't in those TV commercials.

You're so photogenic.

I can't believe they didn't take advantage of that opportunity.

I tried to talk me into it, but I was so camera shy.

I just wouldn't do it.

Well, you know, if you weren't so camera shy, we could get you a run for governor, maybe.

But alas, I think you're committed to the business end of commerce in Iowa.

quite a crowded field for governor too.

It is.

We're going to have to do some additional shows and interviews here on our Jacobson report show just to make sure we've got everybody on the on the radar screen.

Barbara, Hames Bryant, always a joy to be with you and thanks again for all that you do and for all that your family's done now multi-generationally for our community.

Great.

Barbara Hames Bryant, go see the folks at

HamesHomes.

Check out that beautiful website at HamesHomes.com and check them out in person.

Those lovely sites and lots there at Grandview and Summit in Southwest Cedar Rapids.

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 Gorton Institute at Ottawa University.

Welcome to the show.

I'm Justin Clark, the Menard Family Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, and I'm joining our

Gordon Institute founder, Russ McCullough, who is the Wayne Angel Chair of Economics at Ottawa University.

All right.

Well, kind of exciting episode here.

We have two gentlemen that started their own country.

And so I was at a conference

and uh met peter crovina uh he's from prog but uh is the chief of staff for the republic of liberland and had the opportunity to chat with him in mexico city at a conference and learned learned a lot and i said you oh would you be able to be on our podcast and he said sure and not only that he was going to uh see if vete yedlichka let me know i'd blow that yedlichka

who is the president of the Free Republic of Liberland to join us as well.

So I have both of these two on here and we're going to learn how you start a country and there's a lot of unique aspects to this and some of the foundational aspects of it as well.

So Peter and Veet, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having us.

Hello.

Great to be with you guys.

All right, so Veet, what can you tell us about starting a country?

It's a busy job.

Quite exciting.

You get to meet a lot of people.

I get to travel to a lot of countries.

I think I did 75 countries in the last 10 years.

Wow.

And yes, it really brings people together, especially if you're founding a country on principles of liberty and trying to invoke the spirit of American revolution once again.

So you get together a very nice crowd and I'm very

happy about the people that LeBron has put together.

It's almost 800,000 people by now.

Wow.

So tell us a little bit about maybe the geography and the circumstances surrounding it.

From the map, it looked like it was for our listeners who are mostly American, but we have people from around the world on the show as well.

But it looked like it was east of Italy and west of, well, certainly Russia, but maybe there's a better way for you to describe it.

Oh, Croatia and Serbia are our immediate neighbors.

We're 10 kilometers away from Hungary.

Budapest is a very nice city.

That's where you mostly want to fly to if you are coming to Liberland.

Belgrade also is another big airport nearby.

So we're kind of between Budapest and Belgrade in the middle on the Danube River, the largest European river.

And we are a very beautiful

area of seven square kilometers, three times bigger than Monaco, with a nice sandy island, one kilometer long, where we're right now building some three houses.

I actually spent last hour talking with suppliers of different three houses, so we have a proper settlement on Liberty Island there.

I have a question.

So when looking up Liberland, it's clear that you guys are really influenced by

you know, for better or worse, what we might call like the libertarian tradition.

And I'm wondering is, was this a, like how, how did the idea and the actual terrain come together?

Was it like an idea in search of a terrain?

And then when you found the land, you were like, okay, now we can implement our idea.

Or was it a terrain that you looked for an idea to fit?

Or like,

Does that question make sense?

Yeah, sure.

No, we have first had an idea to build a country.

We even had the first flag.

And then we found Liberland by googling No Man's Land.

We were looking for the best place to find the territory.

So back in 2014, we started with that.

And then in the year 2015, we found it.

And I was amazed that there is a hardship territory in Europe that is not claimed by any other country.

And the cool thing is that not even 10 years later, now we celebrate the 10 year anniversary of April 13th, still no other country claims the territory, which is quite exciting.

While we do have some issues with our neighbor Croatia, we have a quite neutral or I would say even slightly positive

relations with Serbia, our other neighbor.

And yes, we had all these libertarian ideas in mind when we were starting Liberland.

The idea was to innovate both on the form of the governance and as well as on the technological side of nation state governance.

So, I mean, the idea of behind the constitution has been refining last 10 years and I feel finally confident enough that we be shared.

the draft of the constitution a month ago and now everybody's invited to work on that constitution with us.

It's just Google draft liberal and constitution and you should get to the right page.

And what is also quite exciting that the blockchain behind the constitution or all the smart contracts according to which the government should operate are already in place for more than a year.

Everything is working.

We already had two elections on chain.

It's quite exciting that we are very famous people now in Congress that are helping us with creation of Lebanon.

It's becoming a very powerful machine, building more liberty globally and finding the best people out of this 800,000 people to lead the nation forward.

Yeah, it's it's exciting So it looked like I was just perplexed at how there was an unclaimed piece of land but and so this is from Wikipedia So I want you to verify this but it sounded like Croatia said hey Serbia you own that piece and Serbia said we don't own that piece and that's how it was kind of unclaimed and you were able to Come in at that time.

Is that correct?

Exactly, exactly.

That was the point where Serbia even stated they don't mind creation of Liberland on this territory because they don't claim it.

They said it's not that serious act when we establish the country, but nobody says it anymore.

Like everybody takes us seriously.

Croatia actually elevated our status to para state.

So they have a similar relation diplomatically to Liberland like Serbia has to Kosovo.

While we are actually not formed on any former territory of Croatia, and Croatia has never claimed our territory, but that's how they actually diplomatically see us.

And it looks like access to Lieberland must be through Serbia due to the Danube River being there.

Is that correct?

Well, yes.

The Danube River used to go, we were on the Serbian side of the river in the last century.

So yes, like this part parcels kind of historically belong to Serbia and according to disaster maps, we kind of still are part of Serbia, but Serbia already gave it up and creation ever incorporated into their own territory.

And you can actually look it up very easily by looking at both Serbian and Croatian disaster maps.

Okay.

Tell me about this jet ski incident.

It looked like in 23, was that the last time that you felt

pushback about entering the land and claiming it.

This again was Wikipedia, but it looked like I'm guessing it was you or some other people tried to access it through jet skis and met some

resistance.

That was quite successful actually.

It is the most popular video about Croatia if I'm not mistaken, which is actually not about Croatia, it's about Liberland.

I think it has 12 million views now if you go Niko or Milana.

It

helped us quite a bit, so people know about Liberland, but also, I mean, he successfully came to Liberland and stick the flag, but then he got his ass kicked by Croatian police.

I'm going to go around to this famous British YouTuber, so people still think that you get your ass kicked when you enter Liberland, but it's not the case anymore.

Liberland borders are open, we are up for business.

It's quite exciting that to see people permanently living in liberal these days and building three houses and having fun there.

I've got a question so you mentioned at the beginning that starting a country is a lot of work and it seems like you're right what do you say to people who say things like.

What's the point though?

Like what would Liberty gain from a successful Liberland or why would individuals want to be citizens of Liberland?

Like is there a sales pitch on the project as a positive force in history and a sales pitch to individuals as to why they ought to be part of the project?

Well, I think

The biggest issue that we're facing as humanity is really stupid form of governance and the fact that governments are extorting money from people and they are slowing down economic progress.

It's very visible.

I think healthy economic growth of society will be 10 to 20% a year.

Yet we managed to slow down the progress to 1-2% as you see in Europe.

It's really sad to see that, right?

And even European Commission when they say

They estimate how much the EU regulation, just the EU regulations slow down progress.

They estimate that they slow it down by 4%.

That basically means that they destroy half of EU economy every 20 years.

Is this invisible distraction?

the broken window fallacy, you know, that you could refer to with Frederick Bastiat.

People don't see the destruction that is being perpetually created by bureaucracy and by high taxes, which is enormous.

And when I was thinking how to be useful, I was thinking I have to do something about that.

I read Frederick Bastiat when I was 13 and I read

the call to action that the law has gone terribly wrong instead of protecting people's property, it has become a tool of greed.

And yes, this is the case with many nation states that they are

They're richly robbing people out of their prosperity and people don't even realize it and with Liberland we wanted to innovate we wanted to make taxes completely voluntary and we wanted to motivate people to pay taxes by making them shareholders of the country that they are living in so there are these two new concepts which I believe are going to be Prevailing concepts for creation of new nations Breaking the paradigm removing the force from the state

to collect taxes by force.

And by the way, that's what you have to swear if you become a citizen that you're not going to extort your fellow citizens through state.

It's a citizenship commitment.

But also I think it's a noble cause and it really brings together noble people and I

I have a lack of working with people like Peter that are hardworking with me for the last seven years now.

Building Lippeland together, finding the best people around the world to make it reality.

And also the blockchain elections, they have been very popular.

And I think we've got one of the wealthiest, maybe even the wealthiest prime minister ever on the planet.

So it tells you something that, you know, we're on a right path.

We're putting together the right group of people.

And there is quite a bit of sexes behind the 10 years of building Liberland.

Well, property rights was one of my questions.

You said there's three houses going up now, and then you just mentioned shares of the land.

So there's some sort of cooperative or co-ownership of the land with the voluntary taxes.

There was a lot bundled up there.

It's

not just the land, right?

We tokenize the whole concept of state.

So nothing in Liberland is public, which we really wanted to remove that that stupid concept because you always have this nobody takes care of the public property because it doesn't belong to anybody.

Yes,

everything in Liberland is private and and all the new taxpayers are becoming shareholders of the country.

So they're not just like sending their money somewhere and they don't get anything back like in other countries.

But they're actually investing into their future, into the society that they're living in.

And it seems quite obvious that this should be the system through which the countries would be created or they would operate.

But for some very strange reason, you don't have a single shareholding country in the world.

And you don't also have a single country with voluntary taxes.

There was a little bit of...

During the foundation of United States, there was this concept of the federal union where the taxes would be voluntary by the states in US, but that never really also took off.

But the voluntary tax system is, I think, better than zero tax system.

You're really expected to contribute, but you should get something in return and why not the shares of the country in which you're living in.

So what does share ownership, larger share ownership, there's disproportional share ownership, it sounds like.

And so if you contribute more, you have a larger share.

Yes, yes, you've got more merits and merits.

There is 70 million merits.

10% of merits is being put to markets or to people that want to support liberal and every year.

So we never ran out because we always have a 10% left out of the bulk.

And so it's in a similar distribution system like Bitcoin in a way, because every single year we distribute less and less, it becomes more and more valuable.

While the value of Limbeland is, the Limbeland itself is gaining momentum by all these investments and cool people joining it.

So the merits are really the share of the country.

something that has never been done before and it's now completely decentralized running on our own blockchain where every single citizen has the right to run this blockchain infrastructure.

In order to be a citizen with full voting rights, you need to have 5,000 merits that you have also staked or we call it poly pooled.

So you can also only get back 10% a year from your shares and that's kind of the welfare system of Liberland.

All right.

Well, gosh, there's so many ways to move forward with this.

We're at about the mark for our break, and I'm excited to get back.

There's so many topics between Bitcoin and the ownership structure, and then I eventually want to bring up phishing the Danube.

So we'll be back in just a bit.

Auto University has an exciting new major, PPE, which stands for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

Each of these fields is interesting in their own right, but they intersect in ways that are important to understand both individually and for your community.

If you find philosophy fascinating but want to make sure that your study of the subject is practical, if you enjoy economic analysis but want to see how economic laws interact with more principles, if you are interested in politics but want to explore how economic and ethical realities constrain our political choices, you should consider the PPE program at Ottawa University.

This spring, Ottawa University is organizing a PPE League competition or Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.

Students in this competition will compete leveraging the ideas of philosophy, politics, and economics in various events.

If you're a professor or an advisor of college students and you're interested in your school competing in PPE League this spring, contact Peter, Justin, or Russ today.

By 2030, the Gortney Institute will be known for its alumni, supporters, and participants who incorporate economic understanding with their faith in their careers, vocations, communities, and personal lives.

We have some great programming going on for high school students.

We have an online microeconomics class.

Yes, you can earn college credit for $200 by taking an online class.

It's affordable, flexible, layered with support.

Our new online micro is optimized for you.

If you'd like to consider some events for your high school students or that class, please contact Justin, Peter, or Russ today.

Okay, so we're back and we want Peter Kravina, not Peter Jacobson.

He's not with us today, unfortunately.

Peter, could you explain as the Chief of Staff here a little bit more on some of the nature of Lieberland and things going on there with how different it is?

Right.

So, uh, well, you know, we're connecting

hundreds of thousands of people in our community all around the world, essentially.

So obviously this is bringing up a lot of interesting situations such as that we're basically having diplomatic relations with other countries on a state to state level.

We're having, you know, our representative offices in over 100 countries around the world.

So I'd say that there was a huge engagement from our representative community.

and from the community of our followers and supporters, because I'm not sure if it's been brought up already, but we have 800,000 applicants for citizenship in our database.

So there's a huge demand for a new country.

And I think that everyone should know that they can live a freer life if they just go for it, you know?

Yeah.

Lots of things going on.

So with this kind of public private good distinction I wanted to Throw out there that you know the of course most of our listeners There's public roads and police and fire and courts and blah blah blah But here the public aspect to Lieberland would be something like the Constitution right everybody is sharing that that's kind of a public good the Constitution itself that will have a copy in our show notes for and then you know maybe some sort of rule of law or the setup of these

offices like you mentioned prime minister chief of staff I mean your role is kind of a public good to Lieberland as well right and so I thought can you comment a little bit more on maybe what else is public just

in a different way uh is there a national currency or are you guys letting that is it bitcoin or are you just kind of letting that be what people want it to be is there freedom with with currency so lots of lots of different issues

yeah we actually have a national currency of the liberal dollar oh and it's based on the idea of Milton Friedman's so there's a fixed inflation of 10 percent a year

And yeah, with that being said, we also have liberal on merit, which is the governance token, the share of liberal on which it was speaking about.

But regarding the public goods, we kind of like to say that there are no public goods in liberal on because the whole country is privatized.

It's a private entity basically operating as a state as a government.

So essentially, all the decisions are being made by the shareholders, just like in a normal company.

So even a constitution, in my opinion, is kind of a private initiative, really.

In terms of the shareholders, yeah, but ultimately the shareholders are voting somebody into these office positions.

Those people might be the ones speaking to other countries on diplomatic.

measure or whatever, the amount of people coming in, the establishment of this test for citizenship, which maybe Vito will speak on a little bit more to, all these exciting things going on.

I just can't even wrap my brain, and I know a lot of this stuff.

I have my PhD in public economics, and it's hard for me to wrap my brain around all the issues that you guys are facing with this.

It's

great.

Quite cool is that we do have a Congress and we do have Senat and both of these entities are on-chain.

It's all a big smart contract.

You basically go with your private keys and as a married holder, you select the people that will represent you in Congress and the vote is automated.

It's happening every three months, perfectly by second, predated for the future.

We cannot even change it now.

And Congress is literally like the board where there are supposed to be the executive people in it.

It's the prime minister and the ministers.

They can change every three months, but there is no need to change them if they're doing a good job.

But there is opportunity to change them every three months.

And what is, I think, very important in Liberland, we have combined the best elements of corporation.

and we don't call our shares shares but it's a merits literally for merits for building the country with the elements of democracy because every single person has one vote when it comes to vetoing laws that I think is very fundamental important lesson that we have learned from Switzerland it's democracy is only good for getting rid of laws and and anybody can initiate

a veto to get rid of some law and if more than half of the society agrees that it's a bad law, they can get rid of it.

Then we have a constitutional court that also sees if that particular law follows the spirit of the constitution or not and can basically veto the law.

And then there is one more institution which is something like House of Lords, but it also keeps a veto power and that's the Senate.

basically are the people that were either the biggest shareholders or biggest married holders at some point, or people that have contributed the most to the state budget, basically historically, or the people that made sure that Liberland was recognized by other sovereign country.

So it's kind of a special body for life, kind of the elders of Liberland, like a small house of lords, which I think is also pretty cool to have this

element to Liberland with the Senate.

So, actually, we took the best out of all these systems and put it into the package where the corporation of married holders is the one that is making new laws, but then there are three other institutions, democracy, kind of a Royal House of Lords system and republic, because we really want the country to only take care of diplomacy and securing the territory.

uh you know really with the in line with the spirit of the of the american constitution so these three elements are holding the corporation back and i think this is really the best possible setup for human society and i'm hoping that we'll be able to prove it in a short period of time on the way we govern our our society.

All right.

Well, big thank you to Vitt and Peter.

I appreciate you guys being on.

It's been exciting and quite the learning opportunity.

So we hope to speak to you again, maybe in a future podcast, we can see how Liberland's changed over time.

So that

would be great.

We hope to see you in Liberland.

Let us know when your guys coming down.

You have to visit.

I think it's like a $500 flight to Belgrade for you guys.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I would love to do it.

Oh, and I guess maybe I didn't get to my fishing.

Is the Danube able to be fished?

Is there fish in the Danube right

there?

And you should see how the fishes were jumping out of the water during the anniversary.

Oh, there's the

salesman.

He knows how

to get rest.

They're like 70 centimeter long fish jumped into our boat during the anniversary.

That's great.

And it was delicious.

No, no, we actually let it go.

But there is quite a few delicious, delicious fishes.

All right, great.

Well, this has been a production of the Gorton Institute here at Ottawa University.

I'd like to thank you all for listening.

Five Star Rating helps other people find us.

Otherwise, feel free to pass this along to your friends and family and others who might like to take a listen.

Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.

Thanks.

Hi, this is Dr. Russ McCullough, Professor and Wayne Angel Chair of Economics here at Ottawa University.

That's Ottawa, Kansas, right here in the Midwest.

I founded the Gorton Institute, a think and teach tank here, and we have a capital campaign going on right now where we're trying to raise $1 million total.

We need donations both big and small, and we hope that you'll...

think it's a great place to invest your money where college education looks a little bit different than where it does in other places.

We have student programs like debates, movie nights, speaker nights.

Book clubs, colloquiums, and game nights.

Topics including immigration, federalism, the Constitution, individual freedom, Bitcoin, voluntary exchange, free enterprise, rule of law, faith, family, community, and local self-governance.

Where else are people sharing these types of ideas with high school and college age students?

If you want to learn more about what we teach and believe, check out our Faith in Economics podcast that comes out weekly.

There you'll see the types of things that we talk to students about every day here at Ottawa.

This capital campaign is important, so please contact me directly if you'd like to give.

That's Russ.McCullough at Ottawa.edu, R-U-S-S dot M-C-C-U-L-L-O-U-G-H at

Ottawaottawa.edu or you can just give me a call 785-242-2558 that's my direct line here at the university 785-242-2558

Thank you to all of our listeners.

Also, our friends at Midwest Renewable Energy, LLC, Juvenile City, January, Renewable Energy, ethanol, as clean as clean as green, energy for small America, liferunners, liferunners.org, get your t-shirt, walk and run for life, like the lovely and gracious Mrs. Jacobson, helping build the culture of life for expectant mothers and their babies on the way.

Barbara Hames Bryant to the great people at Hames Homes in Southwest Cedar Rapids.

Beautiful, safe.

affordable, manufactured housing, and guys, it has been a joy to be with you all.

Listen to the podcast, kxl.com slash Jacobson, J-A-C-O-B-S-E-N.

We'll be back next week.

In the meantime, be safe, be smart, be good, be strong, love Jesus Christ, and thank Him for His sacrifice, His death, His passion, His resurrection from the dead to afford us that great gift of eternal life.

Until we meet again, bye-bye.