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The Jacobsen Group with Jon Jacobsen · Mon Sep 8, 2025
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All right, so today we're going to talk about the Overton window, which I really don't know what it is, and I didn't Google it, so there you go.
Peter, teach me.
Sure.
So the Overton window is a concept, you could say in political science, I actually don't know how academic it is in nature as much as it is like a way that people who are kind of interested in politics and practice describe politics.
And so the idea of the Overton window is that there is a window of allowable or acceptable opinions in American society and really any political regime.
And so, for example, the idea of raising taxes on the rich,
is inside the Overton window.
And the idea of lowering taxes on the rich is also inside the Overton window.
Republicans frequently do that, and they even say in campaigns, we're going to lower taxes on everybody, including the rich.
But I would say raising the taxes on the poor is outside of the Overton window.
In other words, people could advocate it.
You make even occasionally find a person whose policy does that in one way or another.
But saying that, oh, you could think of as tantamounts like political suicide, at least the way things are now.
The reason the Overton window, by the way, the Overton window is actually a relatively recent idea.
Developed in the 90s, I think it became Vogue in the early 2000s.
And so this isn't some ancient political theory or anything.
So that's a guy named Overton.
Joseph Overton.
Yeah.
And so, you know, there's some disagreements that the Overton window is actually a thing that exists.
But I think a pretty like
the inversion of what it describes is basically true.
Whether or not it's useful is a different question.
But the reason why people talk about it is a lot of times people talk about strategy with respect to the over 10 window.
And so a big claim that's made is that, you know, Trump hasn't really changed much in terms of permanent legislative policies over his two different terms.
He's added executive orders recently.
And so he can't say he hasn't done that.
There's not a whole lot of legislative change that's happened under him that isn't status quo.
Think of the so-called big beautiful bill, which is really just like another deficit or a national debt ceiling raising package.
It looks like all the others.
But the claim that either pro-Trump people will make or anti-Trump people is that the most
The largest effects that Trump has had is he shifted the overton window.
That is, there are things you can now say, because Trump ran for president and he's been in presidency and he says these outrageous things, that you couldn't say, I don't know, in 2012 when Mitt Romney was running against Barack Obama.
So, you know, things like we should deport illegal immigrants.
I mean, George Bush famously put together a worker visa program.
like that was his policy for immigration.
So even the more conservative border policy people before Trump would say things like, well, we have to tighten up our borders, but, you know, the people in the country, we just need to figure out a way to incorporate them in legally into American life.
Mass deportations has really become an acceptable idea.
And by acceptable, I mean, you're allowed to believe it in politics without being thrown out of a room because of Donald Trump, or at least that's the claim.
So this is the idea behind the Overton window.
And so I guess
The questions we could have going forward is, hey, what do we think about this?
Is this a real concept?
Is it an important concept in American politics?
And to what extent do we think it's ethical to aim politics at moving the Overton window rather than an actual policy?
Because one of the claims is that our goal should be to move the Overton window more and more in our direction and make the opinions of our opponents less and less acceptable.
And vice versa, our views more acceptable.
So, and sometimes, by the way, by being more extreme than we actually are, that's one of the claims.
Is it, I was thinking the way you defined it, that it kind of helps to find things that are out of bounds, but then you're bringing up how that can change at the margins somehow.
But is it mostly like moral claims?
Like whether it's right to tax the poor or not?
I think all political policies are moral claims at the end of the day.
I can't think of any policy like, apart from, no, I get the... Kind of
normative type.
what should be done, people vary on.
So it ends up somewhat maybe being moral claims, but maybe we should let the philosopher jump in if I'm not thinking about
that.
I mean, they're political policies, right?
And politics involves what should we do?
What should we do?
There's it's politics is normative by definition.
It's
not
necessarily moral always or immoral, but it's certainly normative.
And so I think it's important to like the way
the Overton window was originally presented was, let's look at this degree of government intervention into the economy or government control.
And it was a spectrum of less free to more free, less free being zero government intervention in the economy.
And sorry, more free being zero government intervention in the economy and less free meaning, you know, the end of that spectrum is what like total Soviet control.
Right.
And the idea was,
we can split these up into a couple of different categories.
There's policy.
What counts as policy is what the current status quo is, right?
Status quo would be a better word for this than policy.
And then on either side of policy, there's popular that is things that a lot of people like that either goes more free or less free because there's going to be things on either side of what the status quo is that people like.
And then there's sensible things that are slightly less popular than
popular but still a lot of people like them and then there's acceptable which is it's still bandied about maybe not everybody likes it and then on the side of acceptable on either direction is radical and then finally unthinkable and the overtone window is everything from acceptable in so everything that's acceptable
sensible, popular, or the status quo.
And these aren't like, if it's in one category, it's not in the other.
It's obviously like a spectrum, right?
But the idea is that when we look back historically, we can think of states and political institutions and go like, how could these people have even thought this is in these policies that they had, they're unthinkable, right?
And that may be a function of the society that we live in now.
And I guess not so much in the last couple elections, but if you look at like, like the tax proposals of like Bush v. Gore, George W. Bush versus Gore.
or even like the healthcare policies of like Romney versus Obama, they're pretty close to each other.
And this was always the argument like you guys are having death matches over the difference between Crest and Colgate, right?
And so there we can say that the origin window is really small.
It seems like the only thing that these people are arguing about is the difference between a marginal tax rate of 28% and 35% or something like that.
Whereas I take it maybe what Peter was talking about earlier with
Trump is that some of the issues that have previously been well outside of what would be considered a policy proposal are now being picked up by by either party and I think there's a one of the ideas is that well the overton window changed and so political parties responded to that changing overton window and another view is that no the political parties changed what they believed and so the overton window changed and maybe like a
a view that you could also say actually both those things are true.
They kind of reinforce each other.
Would you say, Peter, that civil discourse lies within the Overton window?
It generally does.
On the ground, if you listen to a debate between two state representatives,
you're going
to get something inside the Overton window.
I think if you listen to politics,
pre-trump, you basically get conversation that's within the Overton window.
And so, like, you can see non-Overton window moments if you look back historically at politics.
One good example of this is when Ron Paul ran for the Republican nomination, I can't remember if it was 08 or 12, he ran in both.
There was a moment where he was asked about, like, you know, terrorism, the Middle East, war in the Middle East.
And it was against, like, New Gingrich was the one who was challenging him, if I remember correctly.
It could have been Romney, I don't remember.
Or Huckabee.
It could have been any of these guys.
That's the funny thing.
It could have been anybody else.
Yeah, it was Giuliani.
I was, oh wait, Giuliani.
So it's like Mr. 9-11, the mayor of New York City, who like that became his big issue.
And Ron Paul had the audacity to say,
that like well they didn't attack us because we're free like they attacked us because we've been over there for the last 30 years and there's like this kind of like moral outrage by the other people on the stage like you're saying we deserved this he's like i'm just saying it's a matter of fact that like this happens as blowback for some of the things that we did over there whether warrants or not uh he didn't say this part but whether warrants or not was the idea like this is the matter of fact that was a good example of civil discourse happening where something that i think was outside the overton window was said
it was kind of unacceptable at the time to say that the Unite, again, think of 08, we're not talking about, you know, 2016, where now everybody looks at the war in the Middle East as a nightmare.
08, it was starting to get unpopular, don't get me wrong.
It was unpopular by 08.
But you still weren't allowed to say something like, well, 9-11 was not totally just this group of crazies who just hated us because we have freedom, right?
Like, still, right and left, that was the general story about what happened on 9-11.
And so I think generally civil discourse takes place within the Overton window, but I think one of the unique changes of Trump is that he
Did not do that.
So if you look at his debates, you know, he would come out and say things like I think this is even a good example You would say something like Rosie O'Donnell is fat, right?
Like that's not a political issue exactly But it's not something that would be acceptable for politicians pre-trump to say like if they were only on trouble because he said he had binders of women candidates like people like oh binders of women You think they're just like there's a silly like news story that came up when he said that
And like, you know, Donald Trump's able to, you know, come out and just say, oh, Rosie, Donald's fat, right?
And so the acceptable window of opinion is generally where civil discourse has taken place.
But kind of the interesting thing about Trump is that maybe what we're finding out is the Overton window is a lot more mobile than people used to think it is.
And then I was thinking firing the Fed governor here coming up and basically running the Fed or suggesting he participate in the Fed.
I mean, that to me would be outside the
Overton window normally.
I think he's the first president to ever bring up that type of thing
I think that's maybe even too nerdy of an issue to like have a strong overton window.
Okay, I think Ron Paul thing we should get rid of the Federal Reserve is probably outside of the Overton window But I I agree I agree with you and though like broader category of Trump just like being willing to say I'm gonna get rid of this bureaucrat because he's
not money supply.
Yeah
other way to
Yeah, I control my or even like any other bureaucracy where it's like I don't like what you're doing I know you've been here for 30 years, but you're just not gonna be here anymore, right?
That's sort of
So that mentality is, and you know, a lot of Trump's comments, which I don't really like or appreciate of like, you know, the American people really want me to be in charge.
They prefer me as a dictator than the next democratically elected.
Like he says stuff like that right now.
And that's outside of the Overton window, right?
Or maybe it's not.
Like this is part of the question is how successful has Trump been or will Trump be at moving Overton window discussions in the country?
Yeah.
Well, he is a very unique.
character.
And the reason I'm saying this is that I'm trying to imagine other politicians who have followed suit being outside the Overton window.
And I can't think of any, but maybe you have some, I'm trying to think of anybody out there that's like, Oh, Trump can say that I'm saying this.
And then they, they, they dance outside the Overton
window.
I think like Rashid to leave out of, is she Minnesota?
I don't remember Michigan, one of those states when she is anti Israel, that's outside of the Overton window.
And so if famously is
to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC.
She is nominally anti-Israel, but when she votes, she votes in favor of funding for Israel.
And so even though she's willing to say some things, other people aren't willing to say, really, AOC plays inside the Overtoon window of, I care about Palestine, but I'm actually gonna vote the exact same way as everybody else on this issue.
Whereas someone like Rashid Tlaib, who will vote against those issues, I say on that particular issue, she's outside the Overtoon window, at least for the country as a whole, where she'll
outright call Israel like a terrorist state and say that they're engaging in a genocide.
That sort of thing is outside of the Overton window on my view.
Yeah, but that is so much different than calling Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Yeah, it is
like categories of...
Yeah, and that actually might be a bad example because it's not a political comment, right?
But I was just using that as exactly how Trump is willing to do something that other people would not say.
I think it's useful to point out too that since the Overton window is a like abstracted feature,
of a kind of culture, right?
At least the way I think of it.
Yeah, cultural.
We have different Overton windows for like
the west coast or the east coast or the left and the right have different overton windows and i think you actually see parties try to negotiate this fact when they run their primaries and they realize oh this person looks really good in our you know republican or democratic primary but we know that what looks like
And acceptable take in our primary is actually going to be a radical take in a general election.
Yeah.
And so just that, you know, sometimes if we get in arguments about what is or isn't in the Overton window, oftentimes I feel like we're talking about different Overton windows.
We're talking about the Overton window of the country's a whole or one political party or one region.
And these are abstract entities anyway.
It's a helpful.
tool to think about.
And correct me if I'm wrong, we'll kind of go into break here, but the development of the Silverton window was trying to strictly say within the political realm, right?
It was trying to describe a political phenomenon.
Because we can think about cultural norms at the university, like what you can say and what you can't say at Ottawa University or whatever.
So, but, but he was really addressing this political realm, right?
Yeah, I think you can find, I mean, you can find this concept in like
The way restaurants design their menus.
Cultural knowledge.
That's unthinkable, whatever.
Yeah.
Well, when we come back from break, I want to touch on a little bit more like how voters really drive and kind of public choice aspects of this.
Is it really voters who are driving the window and not so much the elected officials?
We'll be back in just a bit.
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All right, so we're back and I wanted to touch on.
all kind of politicians doing what voters want what they'll vote for as part of this discussion because then it it makes me think that a politician goes outside of the Overton window when they think that'll help them stay in office or get elected which kind of brings us into this public choice theory of politics and that politicians and elected people aren't angels that they're pursuing their own self-interest and part of that is you know doing what they want to do and so
how much of this window is just capturing, trying to capture voters at the margin or people that want, somebody tough in office that's going to shake up Washington.
So the more he says that's outrageous, and it's a little different now that he doesn't have another term.
Although then we've heard things outside the window saying, well, maybe we'll create a third term, which would be another thing else.
What do you think there for you?
Yeah, so I don't think, well, this is part of the question is like, can it ever make sense for a politician to try to move the Overton window or they subject to the Overton window, which Justin kind of even alluded to earlier.
And I think this is the question.
My general feeling is that in so far as politicians are subject to the Overton window, it's kind of their own decision.
And so what I mean by that is if you are apologetic, and I don't mean that in the argumentative sense, I mean that in the I'm sorry sense.
If you're apologetic, think that you do get constrained to the Overton window.
So people who are come out and say, yeah, I shouldn't have said that or said, oh, I was wrong on this issue.
And I came up like that sort of discussion causes you to be policed by the current.
Overton window.
And so when you're willing to apologize, which whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, people will subject you to the Overton window.
But I do think when you consistently refuse to apologize, sort of refuse what other people would call accountability for mistakes, even though you might not perceive it that way, I think that allows you to play outside and move the Overton window in a way that other people haven't been able to in the past.
So here's kind of what I think happened with Trump.
And you can see it in the primary a little bit when he ran in 2016.
This Trump would say something like way out of the bounds of normal.
And then people would say, oh, it's over for Trump.
And the media would cover him on this for three weeks.
And people would say, oh, so you've got to apologize for this.
And he just sort of wouldn't.
And he would just keep going.
And then he would say, when he said, oh, the problem with immigration is they're not sending their best.
They're sending their criminals and all this.
He's still to this day.
People are mad at him for that comment.
But the reason it didn't affect him is because he just refused to concede that point.
To this day, if you've asked him.
Yeah, he would say, well, yeah, that's part of the problem with immigration is they're setting criminals.
That's how he continues.
Did you see the
hat he had on within the last few weeks or something?
I got everything right.
I'm paraphrasing it, but it's something like the red hat and it was, I got everything right.
And I'm like, wait a second here.
I can think of a couple of things.
But anyway, yeah, he definitely does not apologize.
Yeah.
So I mean, I think there are hard boundaries.
for anybody like I don't people like Trump even made the joke himself I could shoot somebody on you know whatever for that I don't know what's happening with this I'm not from New York City I actually don't think Trump could do that I think Trump killed somebody he would be removed from politics by even popular opinion yeah but I do think what Trump has demonstrated is that if you are unrelenting
then people are more willing to move the the Overton window in your direction.
It's only the people who are relenting who are forced in the current Overton window, if that makes sense.
Well, I thought of something.
It is something outlandish that's technically outside the window actually still outside the window because it was Trump and he says a lot of stuff like that that we know is not true, either not true or just not his true feelings that it's it's kind of a you see what I'm saying like are we really
going outside.
I don't think there's anything Trump says that he doesn't believe.
But I'm saying if the voter or the person listening to him hears that it's outside of like, oh yeah, that's just the way he does things.
He's not outside the window because he just says stuff like that.
Maybe but I also think people say that Trump says what he means and so I actually think most people do believe that Trump is gonna do the things that he says now some people over interpret Trump and say he's gonna do something else like they'll interpret Trump saying I'm gonna run for a third term with Trump's gonna put the military in all 50 states and take over the country right so.
His supporters will say, yeah, he's not going to do that.
He's just like braggadocious, right?
But I don't think Trump's ever set a policy proposal, and people have been like, he's not going to do that.
He says the policy proposal, and everyone's like, oh, well, let's see how that goes, I
guess.
Yeah, I thought the one thing that came to mind when I saw that hat with everything right was he said he would
If he was in office, the war would be over in 90 days, between Russia, Ukraine, or even the Middle East, and both of those still
go on.
One of the things that I think is interesting is a lot of the stuff that I think people think is completely outside of the Overton window.
Take Trump on the border.
You can find clips of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton saying, essentially,
the same and advocating for the same policies that Trump advocates for on the border that were wanted by Democrats.
And I mean, I know this is about the Overton window and not Trump, but I think one of the things that I think Trump has picked up on is that there's a bunch of these policies on the ground and he can pick the, you know, 60, 40 or 80, 20 policies, even ones that used to be advocated for by the other side and that are
for historical reasons and maybe for ideological reasons too, policies that the right wouldn't touch.
And he could just pick those up and advocate for them.
And immediately his opposition will say those are the worst policies on earth and align themselves against them.
And so if you look at things like foreign policy or border issues, it seems like there's been a scrambling.
I wouldn't say it's so much a scrambling of which policies are
advocated by politicians nationally, but there's been a scrambling with regard to the red and blues about who's advocating what.
So I think that's like, you find a lot more advocacy for nation building, international nation building on the left now than you do on the right.
You find advocacy for domestic for economic protectionism to protect domestic industries on the right rather than the left.
These have switched in the last 20 years.
But they're only outside of the Overton window with regard to their own political party.
Yeah, right.
Which I'm not sure that's the window or tunnel.
The real window is everything.
window, right?
But I see what you're saying.
Outside the norm.
You can conceptualize it both ways, I think.
But yeah, the general way people talk about it is the whole.
I do have a friend who I went to grad school with named Marcel Gautreaux, who writes a sub-stack.
And he had a good post, I think, on the Overton window, which kind of undermines the entire conversation, but not completely, where he basically said,
he doesn't like the concept of the Overton window because everything that is like new about it isn't really true and everything that's true is not new and he doesn't use those exact words but his claim is that America doesn't really have a way Overton window has taboos and I think that that's basically like rights that there's taboos now I do think those taboos take on particular shapes on the right and left they kind of arrange themselves in a window like fashion so I still think the example is like a good illustration of what's going on but I agree it's taken the wrong way.
But I think that does bring us to this question of whether or not, like, playing with the taboo is an acceptable way to, like, move in politics.
Because what ultimately happens with this Overton window thing is, like,
people have decided that they're going to try to engineer politics by saying things that are perhaps even more extreme that they believe than they believe in order to put the things that they actually believe inside of you.
So like there's this thought of like, well, if I just become the furthest right wing or the furthest left wing person on the planet, then something that was previously crazy is going to sound normal compared to me, right?
And so I do think that there is like an interesting question about
the first off that there there's something actually fundamentally dishonest about that pretending to be more extreme that you are so that way things like come back kind of in the direction you want but i what this ends up doing is like people will support like really taboo things that probably should be taboo right and so they'll start you know i get off the top of my head i can't think of any examples that are not fraught so i'm not gonna go there but but they'll start advocating for things that basically.
I think are pretty understandably like universally morally wrong that what like everybody is sort of held like common myths or whatever not for the purpose of actually challenging them which would be one thing and perhaps we're thinking about considering because sometimes people can like people can be universally wrong about things but they'll do it in the way to like move things in their direction yeah and so I don't like do we see this as a is it an effective strategy like it's trying to move the overton window or to cut down on taboos on your side is that an effective strategy
And then, apart from being effective, is there something wrong about it?
Or is it an acceptable strategy?
What are our thoughts on this?
So you made me think of a negotiating technique that I teach that I think is what you're exactly saying is moving the middle.
Yeah.
We tend to, OK, let's compromise.
Let's meet in the middle.
Well, by pushing that extreme edge, and then, like, let's meet in the middle, you actually move the middle your direction, right?
Yeah.
And so you've made some progress that
way.
I think that's a great example of what is happening.
Yeah.
Or a great description.
Rothbard said something like this about when he was talking about like the abolition of slavery and he said that you know among abolitionists there are people who demanded immediate like immediate abolition of slavery in the United States starting this minute or there are people who were kind of consigned to it kind of gradualism and he said
it will always be a gradualism.
You're never going to get what you want right off the bat, but that's exactly why you need to argue for abolition, for full abolition immediately, because you're definitely not going to get gradual.
If you argue for gradual abolition, you're going to get no abolition.
But if you argue for immediate abolition, what you'll get is gradual abolition.
And I think he's right about that in that case.
But the question is like, does that
does that generalize so I guess my answer to is it effective it's like yes it is but it seems like like most tools that are effective it can be used for good or bad yeah
and it seems like there might be a difference of
Being successful at getting some policy moves, like maybe you're either in office, but to get reelected, you might be in a more dangerous zone.
If you're perceived as the extremist, you might have pushed yourself into less voters.
So I'm thinking that person has to be careful there on, yes, it might be a good strategy for getting policy changes moving your direction, but you might not stick around or you might not get you
elected.
Yeah, I actually think for that reason, parties have grenade throwers.
And so like I think
Rashid Tlaib is a great example of a left-wing grenade thrower.
And so she would not be electable for presidents ever, or at least in the current point.
You can't say that anymore because of what Trump did.
But in the current political regime, I can't imagine her ever becoming president.
On the flip side, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think is the same way that she would never be able to run for president either.
They're both able to be where they are because they're in states that are generally really favorable for their ideas.
No, right.
But they're not politically viable in most places.
But kind of what they do is push the over to window.
They, you know, the Republicans will come out and, you know, say something like, well, we are interested in America first and we kind of want to withdraw from other countries.
And then Marjorie Taylor Greene will come out and say, I don't think we should fund Israel because they're being genocidal.
I mean, she said something mostly to that extent last week.
And so she allows Republicans to become a little less interventionist by being so off the board, anti-interventionist in that way.
And I think.
Ironically, Rashid Tlaib does the same thing, which is kind of a funny thing about foreign policy.
But I think on any issue, like you have these, like Bernie Sanders allows Barack Obama to advocate for Obamacare because he wants to socialize the whole system, including hospitals, right?
It's like, at least he's not Bernie Sanders guys, right?
Like you've had those conversations before.
Yeah.
So I agree with you that people who are in politically tenuous positions generally don't go straight outside that Overton window.
But that's what makes it, you know, that's one of the reasons why the Trump phenomena is so interesting is like we thought a bunch of things were taboo that aren't actually taboo.
And like that reality has turned out to be different either they were made not taboo or they never were and we just thought they were regardless.
I got another wrinkled ad.
So what were the lyrics to that one guy's song that was south of Virginia?
The Richmond North of Richmond.
Richmond North of Richmond.
How much of the Overton push was really innovative on Trump's part to bring people to the vote?
that wouldn't otherwise vote.
So I think that, like, was that kind of an innovation that may not stick around again?
And I don't know, is there data on that?
Like, how many people did he bring?
I don't know the answer.
If he brought a lot of new people out of the woodwork that otherwise would just, you know, felt like they're powerless, like the Richmond song.
Yeah, I mean, there's a gamble where, like, if...
politicians are always in theory if politicians are like equally eloquent over time which they're probably not but let's ignore that if politicians are just playing the same issues over and over again then you're going to expect the same results over and over again everything else will be constant and so if you're willing to move around on the issues you might pick up voter contingencies that you wouldn't in fact if you go outside the overton window
you might pick up some contingencies who are really interested in being outside of the norm-applied discussion in that area.
And if you don't move in a way that's too crazy
to the
normal voters, then you keep yours while picking up some others.
That's what I was thinking.
I think that could be a true phenomenon.
I know what Trump did do is he got like a lot of like young men who are Latino and African-American.
That's
how
he got a lot of his gains in this election.
So maybe by being outside the Overton window on certain topics he picked up some disaffected male voters.
I don't know though.
Like I'm not sure if like they swung or if they never voted before.
Like I can theorize but I'm not sure.
All right well anything else or is that a good spot to wrap?
I think like anything politics
Like anything in politics, like Justin said, the knowledge of the overton window and what it can do is a tool that you can use.
But I also think that like it's really easy to get caught up and maybe we could talk about.
We've talked about Machiavelli before actually on the podcast, so someone should listen to it.
It's really easy to become like a real politic Machiavelli bro, which like basically is someone who like all that matters is the political results.
All, you know, there's no, we don't have to worry about morality because we might make right, that sort of thing.
There is a temptation amongst like the overton window enjoyers to kind of go down that path of like, all that makes true or right or good is what happens in politics.
And so as long as I, when I could just, so I would just caution people against that.
I don't think ultimately.
might makes right.
I think might sometimes succeeds and gets to decide for society what's right.
But I think that's different than making right.
And so I guess, you know, the Overton window knowledge of it is a tool.
It's something to understand.
It shouldn't and can't be ignored.
At least taboos can't.
But you should be careful playing games for the for the sole sake of winning.
You know, there's a there's a way to win a game that ends up being worse than if you had lost.
Also, can I say like, I think Peter
I can't remember what podcast it was, but you talked about it a while ago when this idea that, and I think this is the way people play with the window, with the Overton window, and the way that Peter's talking about is when you pretend or like you adopt and
intentionally extremist position to make a slightly less popular extreme position look more palatable and I mean I think the form of that it's essentially like a threat right like
look what
I
could be
yeah and the danger of that is always like
you can be called on that thread.
Or people can actually like the really extremist position that you put forward.
And so the danger with playing with that is like, you better be really careful what you pretend to be because, uh, as the Vonnegut, the mother nightbook puts it, like we are what we pretend to be.
So if you pretend to be this crazy extremist position for too long, like be very careful because that can just be end up.
you could find yourself, oh no, that's actually what I am
now.
Yeah, yeah, or you could look around you and say like, oh, we weren't joking, like we were serious this whole time,
right?
I feel like there's been a little bit of a value maybe for free speech if we do value that in our society that pushing the Overton window, stepping over like we've been talking about people are like, well, he's got the right to say it.
You can say what you want to in this country or whatever that there's maybe a little bit of value with that, whereas
pre-Trump, we were kind of going down the whole political correctness.
Oh, you can't say that.
Oh, you can't say that.
Oh, you can't say that.
And so maybe there's value going outside the window
that way.
I agree.
I agree 100%.
As a signal
for the
whole society.
Yeah, I think both ends of the spectrum, there's truth, I think, that you can go too far in trying to mess with the norms.
But I also think if we just all sort of sit down and shut up about the norms and slowly degrade, that could be even worse.
Right.
And I think that's what was happening three 2016 eras.
We were kind of slow.
I mean, I actually think that's what has happened in England.
London, Britain, you know, London inside of Britain is having a lot of political issues right now.
And it seems like people have no way to protect themselves.
And I think that's because they were quiet for too long.
I think we, but for the last eight years, be the exact same.
So.
Alright, well that looks like a place to wrap.
This has been a production of the Gorton Institute here at Otto University.
I'd like to thank you all for listening.
Five Star Rating helps other people find us, otherwise just pass this along to friends and family that might like to take a listen.
Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.
Thanks.
Alright, well this has been a production of the Gorton Institute here at Otto University.
I'd like to thank you all for listening.
Five Star Rating helps other people find us, otherwise just pass this along to friends and family that might like to take a listen.
If you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time too.
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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.
Other than that, be fruitful multiply.
Thanks.
you
Welcome back this glorious Saturday morning here in eastern Iowa KXL, North America's original.
50,000 watt blowtorch, what lose rapids, 1540 AM, 100.5 FM caramang, not just to Eastern Iowa, but to 14 states and two Canadian provinces just on that AM signal.
Plus we've got FM listen live and podcast features, John Jacobson here, and we welcome back our recurring guest, Barbara Hames Bryant.
And you hear Sean Torres.
in that wonderful homage to Neil Diamond and Cracklin Rosie.
Barbara, how are you this late summer day as Hawkeye football is just around the corner?
It's the part it's made.
And Barbara, I want to go back.
I love your multi-generational family stewardship of
bringing safe, affordable, beautiful homes to people in Southeast Iowa.
And I remember as a young lad, 50 years ago, I was just learning to drive my car, go back 50 great years, circa summer of 75.
And again, we'll hear those strains of Cracklin' Rosie and Neil Diamond in the background with Kurt and Norma.
Let's take a quick listen
here.
You know,
Barbara, it's pretty awesome to hear that, and let's hear part two of
that.
This is the one.
You've come to the right place.
Curt and Norma Hames can show you just the home you're looking for.
Help with financing too.
Hames Mobile Homes.
Marion, Iowatha and Iowa City.
The Homes People.
Oh Barbara, your dad bestrelled the world like a colossus seeing him in his prime along with your mother.
They built a beautiful foundation for a business that is literally doing
I can't think of a better vocation in life than to bring safe, affordable, beautiful homes to families.
Oh, John, that brings back so many memories.
What a great commercial.
Thanks for playing that.
Yes, my parents started this business in 1969 when they retired from the Army.
They didn't know anything about housing.
They didn't know anything about Iowa.
Mom is from Indiana, Dad's from Missouri.
But they knew that people would always need good, safe, affordable housing.
And they were right.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you, John, but Hames has sold over 14,500 homes.
Incredible.
15,000 homes.
My goodness.
Yeah.
And you know how we sold them?
We sold them one at a time.
Yep.
matching the right buyer with the right home one at a time through all the years, and it really has paid off.
We have sold multiple homes to the same families.
We have sold multiple families.
We all want to live together in our neighborhoods.
We love that.
And I think it just reinforces that we are a family business.
We're a three-generation family business, and we love serving families in eastern Iowa.
Here with Barbara Hames Bryant, who is truly one of Iowa's premier business leaders, both in her industry nationwide, but also as the head of some statewide civic organizations, Barbara Hames Bryant, daughter of Kurt Ann Norma,
bringing us this comfort, beauty and value in eastern Iowa.
It was not lost on me, Barbara, that we, we just hit that fifth year anniversary last week of the dreaded derecho and you guys stood strongly, proudly and tall.
Uh, you know, there's that.
Aesop's fable about the the the wolf and the little pigs and the house of straw, the house of wood and the house of bricks.
The derecho I think blew down all three of those but the Hames Homes withstood the tide.
It
is so ironic John that 140 mile an hour winds for 40 minutes here in Southwest Cedar Rapids.
None of our homes blew over.
None of them blew away.
A couple of them had siding and shingle damage, you know, of course, and of course we lost a lot of trees, but the only major damage we had was to our own office, which is a brick office.
The roof flew
off.
It's ironic.
It's ironic.
Well, one thing that never flies off are those American flags, the Iowa blue, white, red eagle with our
our liberties reprised and our rights we will maintain in that POW MIA flag, always remembering our veterans.
Barbara, you guys come from a service family and two of the issues that seem to resonate nationwide in all of the polling these days, Barbara, are safety, especially from crime, and then finances.
And the one two punch that I believe the Hames Homes people deliver
better than anybody out there are the safety of your communities and the incredibly lucrative financing options for people to afford to be in safe, beautiful, affordable homes.
As far as the safety of our communities.
I want to re-emphasize that people still need to be diligent.
There's no place on earth that's perfectly safe.
But we go the extra mile.
We have security cameras.
We have unsolved managers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We are installing brilliant new street lights so people can see their way around.
We also have additional police patrols that we pay for after hours.
So we do our best to keep our residents as safe as possible.
But most of all, they keep each other safe.
People here really watch out for each other.
Now, as far as the financing goes, there have been some banks and financial institutions that have started lending for manufactured housing.
They're starting to realize that mobile homes are not going to blow over, and they're not going to go away, and they're not going to be appreciate.
So they're happy to lend to qualified customers.
We've got some great financing options for anybody who'd like to come in and talk to our sales staff.
Curtis Haynes and Clint Haynes, excuse me, Curtis Haynes and Clint Alderman about
matching them with the right home and the right
financing.
Here with Barbara Hames Bryant and, you know, take it from Barbara, take it from me, but the testimonials, it's hard to top some of the testimonials that come in about the Hames communities at Summit View and at some point Grand View.
Here is Betsy Norris.
The past 25 years have gone by so fast.
I love living here.
Thank you so much for all of you and what you do in Emory and Frankie Sample.
We are very grateful to the Hames family for making our life happier in our golden years and then Lisa nice quiet
Park, stop signs, good playgrounds and clean streets.
Jessica Simmons, very nice community, very clean and well taken care of.
And Chantel Fries here saying everything's kept clean.
And I think it's neat how Summit View hosts so many events, sometimes specifically for seniors.
I think it's adorable.
And again, from Alberta Bermuda's friendly, clean, professional, nice place.
Jim McDonald says, Hames runs a top shelf organization.
It's highly regarded everywhere.
And finally, Melody Turner, everyone here is so kind.
I love the extra things this neighborhood does for its residents, the food pantry, the clean lots, the play areas.
I could go on and on.
Susie Heffern is a lovely place.
We like to call home.
And Tony Aglar, very customer oriented, service and friendly.
It never stops bar.
They love you.
That's the greatest testimony of all.
Our mission in life is to provide clean, safe, affordable places where people want to live.
Barbara Hames Bryant, how do we find you?
I know how to find you, Barbara.
I drive by, I know that Marianne Legacy number, and I know how to find you on that beautiful website.
We've got this awesome blog, and the blog articles have been fantastic of late.
You guys have done some magnificent things about comparing, for instance, Kondo in town.
townhome buying versus the advantages of being in the manufactured homes.
Barbara, how'd they come by for a visit, call you or find you on the web or on Facebook?
We've had the same phone number, John, since 1969 and it is 319-377-4863.
That's 319-377-4863.
Most people look for us first on our website, though.
HamesHomes.com.
That's H-A-M-E-S-H-O-M-E-S.com.
We're also open seven days a week at our sale center at the corner of Wilson Avenue and West Post Road Southwest in Cedar Rapids.
That's Wilson Avenue, West Post Road, Southwest Cedar Rapids.
Here with Barbara Hames Bryant and guys, you all belong in a Hames home and
go to that beautiful website they've got such an excellent blog articles weekly right now I refer you to part three condo shoppers and owners Barbara is always a joy to visit with you and hey for those folks living in Iowa City working at the hospital going to be spending some time at the hospital or
taking classes at any one of the great colleges and schools at the University of Iowa.
You're just a stone's throw away.
Hames Homes is a viable alternative to an expensive dorm or Iowa City apartment.
You couldn't have said it better, John.
Thank you.
Barbara Hames Bryant is always a joy to have her on with us.
We're at a midpoint of the show here on Saturday morning on KXEL, the Jacobson Group, and we always thank
Barbara Hames Bryant, the great people at Hames Homes for their collegial endorsement of our endeavor, current events, sports, and weather on your weekends in Eastern Iowa.
KXEL.
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.
This is Dr. Russ McCullough, Professor and Wayne Angel Chair of Economics here at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, right here in the heart of the Midwest.
I founded the Gortney Institute.
a think and teach tank back in 2018.
We've been building and building on student programs.
We have a capital campaign right now for our goal of one million dollars.
It's going to take small donations and big donations to make that happen, but it's all part of an overall capital campaign for Ottawa University.
The Institute includes two other professors, Dr. Peter Jacobson in Economics and Dr. Justin Clark in Philosophy.
Where else can you find a place that has student programs of debates, movie nights, speaker nights, book clubs, colloquiums, and game nights?
These event topics include stuff like immigration, federalism, the Constitution, individual freedom, Bitcoin, voluntary exchange, free enterprise, rule of law, faith, family, community, and local self-governance.
Where else could you find a university that's providing that kind of education to students?
If you want to learn more about what we believe and teach, check out our Faith in Economics podcast.
It's available on all the major channels.
You'll see that the titles we have really show what we discuss with students on a daily basis.
This capital campaign is important.
Donations big and small are welcome.
Contact me directly at Russ McCullough at Ottawa.
edu.
That's r-u-s-s dot m-c-c-u-l-l-o-u-g-h at Ottawa o-t-t-a-w-a dot edu.
Or just call me directly, 785-242-2558.
That's 785-242-2558.
Love to chat with you more about our programs and what we do for students here at Ottawa.
Thanks.
Welcome to our show today.
My name is Peter Jacobson.
I'm the Gortney Professor of Economic Education and Research.
Joining us today, we have Dr. Russ McCullough, the Wayne Angel share of economics and the founder of the Courtney Institute, as well as Dr. Justin Clark, the Menard family professor of philosophy and ethics.
All right.
So I thought we'd talk about investing.
We've done a few personal finance type episodes earlier, not too long ago, so you can check out those as well.
But we didn't really get into maybe some different recommendations of what to buy and what not to buy.
And so I'm saying don't buy gold.
Gold always seems to be brought up.
it always comes into the picture when the stock market is going down or there's inflationary problems or some sort of crisis that then the people who are gold brokers and people who want to sell you gold all of a sudden get a fire lit under them to bring up old arguments of make sure gold's part of your portfolio if you know if the world comes crashing down you're always going to have your gold and you know those sorts of things that it appeals to people
senses I think to have the thought of physically owning something like similar to real estate but a lot simpler because you're just holding a lump of a lump of metal if you own it in the form of gold coins or gold bars or maybe you never even see it and somebody keeps it for you but I don't think you should have any gold I don't think that's a good part of a retirement strategy again it might depend on your motivations if it's something
Personal then that's not what I'm talking about here for this episode what I'm talking about
is if you're trying to save for retirement at age whatever let's just use 65 even though it looks like that's changing with our social security and everything else we're retiring so maybe your target's a little higher but the thought of retiring at 50 is awfully nice as well and so if you're looking at if you're a 20-something or a 30-something and you're looking at a 20, 30, 40 year run of putting money into something so that you have a target met by the
age 65 then gold does not belong in that at all nor do bonds for that matter but gold definitely doesn't belong in it I just did a quick google search of the 40 year return on gold has been 4.3% I think is what the
AI spat out at me and so a 4% rate of return is awful compared to what you could have received had you put that into some stock market mutual funds and we'll get into that what that looks like later but you know gold prices you know go up they go down but they just never perform as good as as something else and so we've never seen in the history of the last 40 years a period of time where the average stock market
return was 4%.
On a mutual fund, on a mutual fund in equities.
So I gotta, again, we'll get more into the details of what you should put your money into later, but a good portfolio won't have gold in it unless it's, you're just getting some personal enjoyment from it.
Peter, let me pause there and get your thoughts here.
Yeah, so let me start by giving the clause that I feel like you're supposed to give when you do things like this, which is say that we are not official financial advisors and therefore this is not official financial advice.
These points are just our own opinions about returns based on the evidence that we have.
I will say that everything I'm about to say applies to me and whether or not that matters to you as your own decision.
But yeah, so I generally agree with Russ.
I don't own any gold, and so I can't sit here and be like, gold is the greatest thing.
I obviously don't believe that, otherwise I would own a bunch of gold.
Or do I?
But no, first off, I'll give a hundred percent sign off an agreement to under us had not bonds either.
I'm I'm totally anti bonds.
If you're a young person, they don't make any sense.
I don't know why any young person would own a bonds.
I think you could make an argument if you're in your sixties or something.
I don't know what might to
be an
argument.
So let's break down why the gold argument sometimes seems convincing to people, because oftentimes what people will do is they will compare gold to US dollars and include the law.
a value of US dollars with inflation.
And so this is one of the common, I don't know if sales tactics is fair, that sounds a little bit ungenerous, but one of the common tactics, if someone who's promoting gold will say like, hey, the dollar has lost X amount of value over the last 50 years.
If you were holding gold, that gold wouldn't have lost that value.
And so they're treating it sort of as an inflation hedge.
And so let me begin by saying, all of that's true.
It is 100% true that when inflation happens, gold's value relative to the dollar's value increases.
And so if your choice were between holding dollar bills in your mattress versus buying gold, yeah, you'd probably be in a better spot buying gold.
But in reality, that's actually not most people's options.
Most people's options for growing wealth over time look like Russ was pointing out financial assets.
And so, you know, stocks of different forms being the most common one.
All right.
Any other last words?
All right.
I hope that helps.
And again, this isn't professional advice, but it's just some opinions being thrown out.
So 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.
Other than that, just pass this along to friends that might like to take a listen.
Be fruitful and multiply.
Thanks.
Thanks again, guys.
Tell your friends about the podcast, kxel.com slash Jacobson, J-A-C-O-B-S-E-N.
In the meantime, listen to all the wisdom of Jeff Stein during his weekday news and commentary.
And folks, always remember and never forget to be safe, be smart, be good, be strong.
Love Jesus Christ, and God blesses everyone.
Till we meet again, have a great weekend, and bye-bye!
