KXEL Presents: The Jacobsen Group Podcast – February 14, 2026

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Economics is the study of human choice in the world we live.

Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

By investigating faith in economics, we can learn how they lead to human flourishing.

This is the Faith in Economics podcast, a presentation of the Gortney Institute at Ottawa University.

Hi, and welcome to our show.

I'm Justin Clark, the Menard family professor of philosophy and ethics, and I'm joined by Peter Jacobson,

the Guartney Professor of Economic Education, and Russ McCullough, the founder of the Guartney Institute and the Wayne Angel Chair of Economics.

All right, so Peter came up with a topic today, and I don't know where it's all going to go, but he apparently has a grievance or something to get off his chest.

It's a podcast about podcasts, so can't wait to see where we go.

Peter, what are you thinking?

Yeah, I just thought we would talk about our

the podcast.

We listened to our relationship with podcasts.

We are a podcast.

Been doing this for a long time.

Gosh, you guys have been running this for at least six years.

Yeah, five

years.

Yeah.

I think five or six.

Yeah.

Yeah, between five and six.

And so this is a long running podcast.

And I think the podcast has a format is still in its heyday.

I think it's as popular as it's ever been, maybe like 2020.

They were slightly more popular during COVID.

But it's basically at the peak that it's ever been.

That's true for our podcast too, it's doing as well as it ever has, basically keeping pace with any sort of other month historically.

And so I want to talk about podcasts because A, it'd be interesting to see what Justin and Russ listen to if they do and B,

I also think it's interesting that I don't like podcasts.

I don't enjoy listening to them.

I've tried to.

Russell appreciate this.

He also might think it's odd.

I'm actually not the biggest Dave Ramsey guy, but one of the few things I'll listen to as a podcast is like the Dave Ramsey like shorts that they release as the podcast, like when I'm raking leaves in my yard or something.

When I'm on the road is when I seem to listen

to that.

Yeah.

But that's the funny thing.

And I think that's, we could get into this.

The funny thing about that is the Ramsey show seems more like radio than podcast to me.

Like the way that.

it's formatted.

So I think it'd be interesting to talk about the difference between podcasts versus radio versus, for example, YouTube videos.

And so

to lay all my cards on the table.

I don't listen to any podcast at all regularly.

I don't enjoy them very much.

I've tried to because I think in theory it's a good idea to be able to like listen to something that is either educational or interesting or at least entertaining in your free time.

But I just like I can't get on board.

I end up getting distracted.

I don't really listen when it's playing in my ears.

But what's funny is when I watch dishes and I'm our dishes person in our house.

that's because we've got so many kids now it's a variable like anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour is how long I'm spending doing this.

I flip on YouTube videos and I won't watch them but I will listen to them and I enjoy them and I can listen to them.

So I think talking about the difference between podcasts and other formats would be interesting.

I think talking about what sorts of things we do and don't like about podcasts would be interesting.

I have my own theories about why I don't like podcasts and why I think they're an inferior format but I'm more than happy to pass it off now because I've been talking for a long time.

So Justin, Russ, anything about podcasts?

So I used to watch Oprah Winfrey and a little bit of Phil Donahue and Jerry Springer.

I was going to say, you get to the Maury show.

The Maury show.

Anyway.

The things I watched when I was sick.

I always

kind of liked talk show type things as well as going with that.

Long before podcasts were invented.

And so once they started to come around, I started to listen to people talk about stuff.

So I've listened to a few on walleye fishing and Dave Ramsey was probably one of the ones I've listened to the most, but haven't been listening to recently.

But on long road trips, it seems to be a good one to listen to.

So, and maybe it's partly because I teach Dave Ramsey pretty much know it inside and out, but it's still kind of interesting to listen to the.

case studies of people's unique circumstances of why they're broke or what they're doing and how they became debt-free and all that stuff.

So I guess that's kind of my background.

I'm not anti-podcast, but I actually don't listen to a lot of them either, which is kind of funny.

The one that I've listened to that apparently you two do not.

I've brought it up before is Armstrong and Getty.

There are two commentators that are libertarian-ish.

Again, that's kind of not an easy thing to define, but basically free market type of guys.

But they're also pretty balanced.

So they're kind of looking, I'd say like we do, kind of at critical angle for both the left and the right.

So they're not heavily biased one direction or the other.

And if anything, again, supportive of free enterprise.

and free market.

So when I'm kind of wanting to listen to a talk show type of thing, I'll usually play Armstrong and Getty so that it's a little more balanced and top.

I've actually brought in topics that they've talked about when we've had some of our podcast topics.

So I used to listen to the Motley Fool, which I haven't done for a long time.

That was like investing

stocks and whatever kind of market activity with stock market.

My only thing I wanted to add with YouTube is that I haven't double checked if we've done it, but we just started putting our podcast on YouTube listeners.

So hopefully it's up there and maybe Peter will want to, I know he doesn't like listening to himself, so he probably won't listen to our podcast.

But there are a number of podcasts that are on YouTube now as well.

So we haven't been and I'm not planning to record ourselves on a regular basis, but

we'll just put a static picture of Gorton Institute up on YouTube and you know the podcast will be published there because I think just like what you just said a lot of people are just going to YouTube whether to listen or to watch or what an echo.

So it's another outlet that has evolved I think for podcasts as well.

So I'll leave it there for now Justin.

Oh man I have so many thoughts about podcasts.

I like podcasts.

I listen to at least probably three regularly.

My, I think my top three are, there's one called Very Bad Wizards.

And it's a podcast with a philosopher, Tamar Summers from University of Texas at Houston and a psychologist, Dave Pizarro from Cornell.

And it's, they're both really, really funny and they're really good friends with each other.

And they have a great banter and they're constantly like, you know,

Insultingly implicating the other person the way you do with a good friend and

I

like the format of it too because what they usually do is they'll have some topic and it will be like anything from you know

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

That will be the second half.

And the first half will be they'll take a paper that's recently published in Philosophy or Psychology or some current event that's just usually kind of like ridiculous and kind of run with that for 20 minutes.

And they have good guests, but it's just a really good conversation between two people who are very smart, well-read, and don't take themselves too seriously.

But they're talking about academia or

Often an academic lens on something that's in pop culture So I like that and then another podcast that I listen to and these are ones that I'll listen to like every episode of it's like the behind and very bad wizards, but also listen to Matt and Shane's secret podcast, which is her name Shane Gillis the comedian and his friend best friend Matt and sorry, man, I'm forgetting your last name off that but they are very their comics that are not

This is not an academic podcast.

This is a comedy podcast.

And, you know, that's what I listen to.

And

they're just funny

people dishes.

They're extremely funny.

And again, also ripping on each other most of the time.

And so that's what I really like in a podcast is good banter between the the hosts.

I'm not a huge fan of like single person podcasts.

For a while, I did listen to like the Bill Burr podcast, which is just him just ranting for, you know,

an hour and those are now not my favorite

but

that's also why I think I like podcasts because we can save this for part two but I think there's actually something pretty dangerous about this too as opposed to like a radio show or radio show is just like one guy ranting right one guy talking a lot of time so you can think of like Howard Stern as being like maybe proto podcast-ish sure right there were these like combinations all the guest stuff whereas something more like you know

Who is it, Phil Hendry?

Who is the old guy?

I don't know.

But radio is usually more just a monologue.

Yeah, Rush Limbaugh,

I mean, kind of a monologue.

NPR, weird sci-fi guy.

Yeah, like Ira Glass or

something.

So those are the podcasts that I like and I will listen to our podcasts and almost all of them too.

So that's the third one that I listened

to.

Yeah, you're our big double check.

Yeah, I have to trust it.

Thank goodness.

Yeah.

Those that you

respond sometimes in the iTunes comments saying like why are the ads five times as loud as the regular content

on

your podcast?

Yeah, that's good feedback that we need to hear.

I do pass that on and I do hear it too and it drives me nuts as well.

So listeners.

I'm in the same boat.

I am one of you.

Well,

what's funny about the way that you just characterize things is I think you and I are on the exact opposite side of things.

And so what's funny about Justin's comments there is... It's not

somewhere in between, apparently.

Yeah, well, I think the one spectrum is the monologue versus dialogue, right?

And what's funny is when I was trying to reverse engineer why I like YouTube videos better,

One thing I noticed is I don't like YouTube videos that are dialogues.

And so like, I won't listen to like group videos very often.

If I do, it's because I like one person in it a whole lot and there's nothing else on the screen.

But I listened to the monologue videos.

In other words, one guy doing a thing.

And so I was thinking about, well, you know, why, then why not those podcasts like that?

Cause there are podcasts like that too.

And here's kind of what I thought about is I think the interesting thing about podcasts is

Algorithmically, very regular podcasts are the ones that are rewarded.

In other words, like weekly podcasts, right?

If not daily.

A lot of the really popular podcasts are like daily podcasts, which is crazy.

And I think that it's very difficult to have a high quality product that occurs every single week.

That's one of the things that I thought of.

Now, obviously this podcast is an exception.

But I think a lot of times when you listen to a recurring, and I do think there are exceptions, don't get me wrong, but a lot of like recurring podcasts, you can't have a guy monologue every week and have a high quality thing.

And so what often happens is like what the route Joe Rogan goes is he just gets a bunch of interesting guests, right?

Like this is at his out.

He doesn't have to think of a bunch of interesting topics to monologue on each week because he can bring in a guest and dial even though it's still just

Joe Rogan's podcast.

He doesn't have like a co-host or something.

Well, he's got like an editor.

I don't know.

I don't watch or don't listen to the Rogan podcast.

That's one of the many that I've tried to listen to and thought, I just am not entertained by this.

Like I just can't keep attention for it.

And so the difference is, and by the way, YouTube has people who do that too, but the people I follow on YouTube tends to be people who release videos like at most once a month.

And

so I really like the video essay format on YouTube, which is just like a person who will find an interesting topic.

Like some battle in World War II that wasn't actually a battle, but just the British Navy thinking they were in a battle and they destroy all their own ships.

Or like the first person to climb on Everest and like how the story is maybe more complicated than we think.

Like very like weird niche things that have nothing to do with my life.

A guy who went cave diving and got stuck, right?

Things like that, but these are, these creators release them like once every three months or something like that.

And when it comes out, it's like very, you know, it's like a 45 minute, you know, thing about this.

And so I think a lot of podcasts for me end up being like relatively low quality.

I think what Justin is talking about when you have a really good dynamic between two people.

I think that may be something that could potentially interest me.

It just doesn't.

I haven't found any group of people since Norm MacDonald and his co-host Adam Egan.

That one was one that I've gone back and listened to those episodes because I think they play off each other super well.

So I'm not saying it's impossible to do that, but there's kind of a spectrum.

One spectrum is monologue versus dialogue.

Another spectrum is...

you know, quick, low quality, or deep, well-researched, high quality.

And I kind of like the monologue, well-researched, high quality on those ends of the spectrums.

And I think that's the least common type of podcast, because it just isn't rewarded algorithmically.

Have

you ever heard of books before?

My friend was telling me about that the other day.

Uh, audiobooks.

I know it's not audiobooks either.

I was like, I was gonna press you because I love audiobooks.

I scratched that monologue itch with a bunch of audiobooks that I'll listen to.

And what I love about an audiobook is I know it's 15 hours or whatever on, you know, the flu in World War One

or

whatever.

Single issue podcast?

Like, I'm just like, oh no, is this like some story that

a relative, a close relative of mine that I'm not going to name.

You get in like a story with somebody and you're like, I'm not sure if there's an end date on when this story is gonna end, right?

Why don't you like audiobooks then?

I think the audiobook thing is interesting.

Maybe there's something psychologically going on where like I feel more, I feel like it's more necessary to pay attention while I'm listening to a book.

And so, I'll give you that.

When I miss parts of the audiobook, I like make myself go back and listen to them.

And I think that's like stupid.

That's the stupid reason it's not like audiobooks.

But with a YouTube video, I don't feel that way.

Like if I miss, like if I'm doing dishes and like Cedar interrupts me and I've got to like pull the headphones out, I'm not going to bother like scrolling back and finding the minimark.

But I do that with audiobooks.

So that's one thing.

Another issue I have with audiobooks is I think books actually suffer from a very similar quality to podcasts, which is that there's actually relative

few high quality books.

I think books suffer from a really big volume problem and I actually think YouTube has gotten to be that way more over the years.

But my, yeah, that's my excuse is that like most books actually really suck and so to find like a good one that is also easy to listen to, here's the one other thing that I think is different.

I think fundamentally writing and speaking are very different things.

And so I think speaking a written book is a much more difficult medium to catch than just speaking something spoken, right?

A video essay.

In other words, when you've got a script.

So it's funny when like you read books by people who are not authors.

And so one of my friends recently recommended that we all read, if you know Scott Galloway, Scott Galloway's big book, Notes on Being a Man.

Now this is a guy who has a podcast and he wrote a book on being a man.

I actually didn't enjoy the book.

One of the reasons I'd enjoy the book is it seems like a podcast.

Like it seems like you could write, if you read it out loud, it was very conversational.

It wasn't very bookish, right?

So I don't know.

Those are all my excuses for why I like two books, but not regular books, but maybe they don't actually make sense.

All right.

Well, this looks like a good spot for a break.

I did overlook one podcast that was really influential for me, but I don't, I've kind of hit and hit or miss nowadays.

And that's the thinking fellows.

I know I've mentioned it many times on theology and that really, it's,

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod professors, none of them are actually pastors.

They've had guest pastors on but and they kind of had that banter and they would have, you might hear clinking of our glasses as we have a bourbon while we, that was in the early days of the podcast and maybe that's why I liked it too, that it was very informal and conversational.

So I think that's all important parts.

I had to, had to mention that one.

Well, when we come back, I've got something to overcome the book problem too that maybe I can give Peter some advice and we'll explore.

other aspects of this.

We'll be back in

just a bit.

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 moral 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.

The Gordon Institute at Ottawa University is the best place in the Midwest for free enterprise education and its contribution to human flourishing, faith, and economics in action.

We have some great high school student programs like PPE Fest.

This is an event where students get to listen to some world-renowned speakers and then participate in competition geared around philosophy, politics, and economics.

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We have a college credit microeconomics course that runs every eight weeks.

Your high school student can earn college credit for the special price of $200.

If you know some students interested in programs like these, contact Peter, Justin or Russ today.

All right, so we're back.

So I had one comment for Peter on the book thing and I use audio books for high quality historical classics and academic stuff.

So like Deidre McCloskey, I did her book stuff where it's really long.

Fairly verbose, but I like the content.

I did Wealth of Nations.

I did other just high-quality classics.

I actually tried to find your

ultimate resource.

Yeah, ultimate resource.

I tried to find they didn't have that in an audio book.

So books like that that kind of you know going into it are good or something that you're interested in.

So I found that to be good for book stuff.

Alright Justin, what's on your mind now?

So I want to circle back to one thing Peter said because I also promised that I think that I wanted to talk about a kind of danger podcast.

So when Peter was talking about how he likes, you know, monologue or and I like dialogues and Peter said he doesn't like, you know, group podcasts.

I also it really bothers me when like the number of people in a podcast is greater than two or three.

Then I just check out because I think that part.

if not a lot of the pull of really successful podcasts and you can see this with like Rogan's which is him and one other person right is that it's a dialogue between two people at least one of whom you find interesting and the promise of the the draw of a podcast is that you kind of put yourself in this dialogue when you're listening to it

you think that you are part of the conversation that's happening right now.

This is kind of, I think, why people like listening to at least the type of podcast that I listen to where like you like the banter between people.

And you kind of think like, oh, this is kind of like, oh, I would have said something like that there.

And really good podcasts like this do this really well.

And they have hosts that are really skilled at doing this.

And

My worry is I think that human beings need social interaction and that we are social creatures.

And I think that it's really easy to just dial into a podcast.

and somehow think that you are filling your social media for the day, getting this simulacrum of being in a conversation rather than ever actually having to have a conversation with anybody else in real life.

And if you've actually had to, you know, tried to banter with somebody before, you know that there are sometimes actually high stakes.

You can cross lines, you can offend people, things don't go as well as, you know, you'd like them to.

And so sometimes I think that podcasts can serve as

surrogate social experience for people that actually would benefit from having real social experiences.

So if Peter's washing dishes or whatever, it's not like he's doing that instead of having a social experience.

If you're listening to a podcast while you're doing dishes or something, I think that's fine.

But I think they can be addictive in a weird way where it's

it's tempting to use that to simulate things that you ought to be doing in real life.

Yeah.

Well, let me now add another category, which we haven't broached yet, which I think.

Perfectly follows from Justin's comment right there because I agree with you I wasn't even thinking about this aspect But I agree with you which is live streams and so twitch and YouTube being like very big There's other live stream platforms and twitch and YouTube from my understanding are the biggest there's a few others but and live streams are interesting because They are it's very similar to like a YouTube video in the sense that you have a creator making content

But it's literally live, right?

So that takes it kind of weirdly in the realm of radio again to some extent, but with video.

Well, notoriously, live streams are known for attracting people who develop kind of like what they call parasocial relationships.

And so parasocial relationship is like a one-sided psychological bond.

Then I googled it.

That's what the AI came up with, which I think is a pretty good description.

It's parasitic and social.

That's where it comes from.

And so the way this manifests like the negative way it manifests is like people become super big fans of a person and You'll watch like the creators who get very popular over time become less and less comfortable with accepting donations because that's part of streaming and You'll see the people giving like these huge donations like you know four or five digit donations to these streamers and like these are people who are multi-millionaires and so like you can actually see them feel bad about it in real time and you even have some of them say don't do that anymore in fact you had a

One streamer moist critical I think recently come out say I'm not gonna accept donations anymore Like I have more money than I know what to do with stop donating to me and he shut off his donations Yeah, so the really negative manifestation of this is like every year they have something called twitch con which is just

whatever a con is, it's short for something.

Convention, yeah.

There we go.

A convention.

And

I've kind of wanted that too.

Which con is a

convention for quick.

And they always have the creators come and very frequently people come and there will be like weird and appropriate interactions, especially with female streamers and male streamers, which adds an entire new dynamic, but also just like other streamers who will be made to feel like unsafe or uncomfortable because

What happens is exactly what Justin is saying, a person is talking to you to some extent they're even interacting because there's a chat which they respond to and maybe sometimes they even, and if you donate money, by the way, you get to have like a message that gets read out loud a lot of times, not always.

And so the streamer gets that.

And people will develop these one-sided relationships with the streamers who, a lot of them are trying to not exploit this in like a, you know,

I think one of the more famous streamers is Ludwig.

He's not like a top streamer.

Well, he is one of the top and not like top 10.

He always makes the comment that like, if you don't like my content, you need to stop watching me.

Like I don't, I don't, I want you to stay one second past when you're entertained.

And I think his purpose with that is to try to convince people like we don't, and he'll say this all right, you're not my friends.

Like we don't actually have any relationship.

And like you need to keep aware of that.

So that's a nice sentiment for someone to say.

But also, like, that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't work, right?

That there are still people who form relationships with these streamers.

And actually, that's part of what Twitch is selling is a community, right?

But it's not a real social community.

And I think Justin's right.

There is a danger in that fake community thing.

And I'm not much of a live stream person.

I actually am more frequently watching recordings of creators who I like their live streams than, like, actually watching a live stream.

After it

was done.

Because I don't care about the community at

all.

I gotta be the only...

There's got to be other listeners that are a little wondering what's going on here.

So what are they live-streaming?

Like, I get the video game

live-stream.

Anything.

What are these people doing like Ludwig?

They're talking?

So sometimes it's just chatting, right?

Sometimes they're talking about things.

Ludwig will do things like he'll have an event where he'll have...

$10,000 and he'll have a stream vote on what he's buying from Amazon and they can send him links and Everybody votes and they get spent up to $10,000 right and so it's like a lot of like games and stuff like that You have other streamers like Doug Doug who will make up these challenges of like you know chat needs to stop talking for 30 seconds Like that's what we're gonna try to do today is get everybody to not send a message for 30 seconds

The question you asked is essentially the same question that somebody would say like what are these kids doing when they're

Hanging.

What is

hanging about this?

Video games and just chatting are the two biggest ones.

So those are the biggest ones.

But there's other stuff too.

And again, I'm almost never on Twitch.

I'm almost always watching on YouTube because I don't actually enjoy the live part of the livestream format.

But from what I know, it's commentary, it's reactions.

So sometimes people react to other content, video games.

And some of this is probably people recording it anyway.

So they're like, oh, I might as well livestream, let's say, doing woodwork.

my dad does woodworking.

So while they're, you know, just talking and live streaming.

Maybe they edit the recording for a video short or something later after they've streamed for a couple hours or something.

Okay.

All right.

Well.

So there you go.

I guess I'm not, I'm not a live streamer.

Yeah, we've got games.

I knew my son.

Music and DJs, creative, eSports.

Most of this is games.

Like games does.

I thought games

would dominate it.

But

ASMR, which is where you just make satisfying noises into a microphone, you know, it's all sorts of stuff, right?

No, no, at ASMR is.

Oh, if you ever listen to it, it's like a woman is

tough.

people like to listen to you slowly pronounce the words.

There's a feather brushing on a cheeto that I'm going to drop onto a ball

of foam.

Listeners, smash the like button if you want Justin to start the next one.

So, so yeah, I think Justin, your point is well taken.

And I do think part of the installation strategy that I've even adopted is to do like the asynchronous YouTube video format because I actually have found myself like

Oh, I'm really excited this person, you know, uploaded a new video.

It's like, that's kind of weird.

Like, why am I excited about this person that or like something bad will happen to them.

It's like, oh, that makes me so sad.

It's like, and it should like when bad things happen to people should make us sad, but it also is like.

Am I properly, mentally invested in this non-relationship I have?

And I can see if a person's lonely this being a substitute.

And the problem is it's not a perfect substitute, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's some sort of downward spiral, probably.

It

can be.

That's like the TwitchCon stuff, like the really extreme things.

And maybe that's not even the cause, but it certainly doesn't help that this person can find this outlet where they can invest in somebody who's not invested in them.

And it can be better than nothing for people.

But it can also be worse but more instantly gratifying than the real thing, you know, which makes it into a kind of like pornography of conversation.

Well, there's less.

accidental interactions like that's what I hate about like our faculty meetings being everything on zoom now like before in the old days when we would meet up in the conference room we'd all of a sudden you know there's a faculty member that I haven't seen for a while hey are you still working on your house and you know that kind of incidental um ambushing camaraderie possibly ambushing but there there's just something extra there that you don't get from that

from that video format on Zoom, where I guess it's kind of an equivalent to live streaming in a sense.

All right, 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 Reading helps other people find us.

Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.

Thanks.

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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across the entire Western Hemisphere.

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and we are supplemented by that great FM Bandata Cedar Rapids 100.5 and listen live as we go to 17 states and four Canadian provinces on the AM signal, but you're going to always listen live to KXEL here on the Jacobson Report and at Midway we always do our salute to business, the great people at Hames Homes, the homeless people, and we're delighted to have

Clint Hames back with us.

You know, he's part of that third generation of Hames's, the Homes people who have provided comfort, beauty, and value to Eastern Iowa homeowners.

They treat their customers right with over 13,000 mobile and manufactured homes sold since 1969.

I remember the first TV commercial about a year after 1969.

They're on channel two.

Clint, it's so great to be back with you today as we rotate between you and Barbara and Curtis, Ames, the younger.

How are you today, Clint?

I'm doing wonderful, and I appreciate you having me back today.

Well, listen, I am bullish on 2026.

One great thing down the pike is that it looks like the new failed reserve board chair that will be appointed and take office here in just a couple of short months.

Sounds like they're already planning maybe four rate cuts for 2026, but now is a good time because people are starting to factor in the good news around the corner.

The inflation numbers were low and that makes the interest rate folks even more bullish on cutting.

I think it's a great time to buy a manufacturer at home.

What say?

I

can't agree more.

We've seen some rate cuts happen here in the last 60 days that have gotten us excited and we've had a nice amount of traffic just here early in the year for 2026.

You

know, I think you guys have the one-two punch going.

The foundational issues are always, can we afford it?

The answer is yes, especially with the enhanced financing of you guys being able to get folks in at good interest rates, affordable rates, but also, you know, let's face it,

at Clint, we're always looking for safety and I believe your manufactured home communities are unique in just the due diligence you guys take.

to preserve the safety of your neighborhoods there at Summit View and at Grand View.

You want to talk about that just for a minute.

Of course, I'm glad you brought that up.

We do a background check on all adults that are living in the community, whether the homeowner or they're just living with their cousin.

They are subject to a background check, so we do a thorough check out there.

We have 24-7 on-site management, so if you think I tell my buyers and clients I work with is if

something as simple as just your neighbors blocking your driveway.

We have someone that can come over and just ask them to move their car.

So we have a lot of safeguards and things in place just to help people out here.

You know, Clint, it just never amazes me the ongoing new fresh testimonials that come in from your people who live there.

I mean, Mary Croft and Kenny Selker saying, one of the best decisions we made in our life.

was to buy a new manufactured homes from Haymes.

Doug and Julie Morgan, it isn't often that you find a business so willing to work so hard in helping someone.

We are very happy and comfortable in our new home.

And of course, Rachel Arneson reiterates, we're just talking about their neighborhoods are

They are clean and quiet.

And the neighbors are good, Sheryl and Tom Church.

We love our home and have been blessed with good neighbors and good friends.

Hard to top those testimonials, isn't it, Clint?

It certainly is.

I mean, we're going to keep trying and we're going to keep working at it.

But we appreciate all the kind words that those have said about us.

You know, Clint, I'm looking at some of your listings here.

You've got something for everybody.

You've got literally stuff for $65,000.

Two bed, two bath, 1,120 square feet there on Mitchell Street.

And you've got for under $100,000, a three bed.

two bath, almost 1500 square feet, and a four bed two bath at 1200 square feet, one for under 90,000.

You want to talk about spacious, but you've got stuff for big needs, small needs, intermediate needs, you know, and I always think too that, you know, why spend all that money fixing something up when you can just buy a refurbished home from you guys?

Absolutely.

If you just go out and do a soft look in the market for what you get for your money, we easily beat about everyone around.

Our homes are fully reconditioned and we do include a pre-owned home warranty with our pre-owned homes.

New homes come with a 12 month warranty from the manufacturer.

So you have a lot of safeguards in place there as well on the buying side.

Here with the great Clint Hames, that third generation of management with the great Hames homeless people, nothing has changed in terms of the customer service and the family's duty and honor in their vocation to bring safe, affordable, beautiful homes to families.

You know, the American dream there.

But one thing that has changed over the era

Clint, these used to be mobile homes, and now these are such magnificent, manufactured homes.

Talk about the difference, because during that derecho, when the siding and the rust were peeling off of traditional homes, your communities there were unblemished.

Exactly, and that was a testimony to how well our homes are set.

Our homes are manufactured, so they're built in a factory, they're not built here, they're built off-site, but they're built in a building, so they're not exposed to the weather, rain, anything like that.

The frame of your home is being built in a covered building.

And then when we set the homes, we set them on concrete piers and runners, and we've got a team that's been here for over 20 years that are setting the homes, so these guys really know what they're doing, and the home has a solid foundation.

Well, you guys are worthy inheritors, worthy custodians of the legacy set by your.

awesome grandfather and grandmother the late great Kurt and Norma Hames and you know it's so exciting you guys are so close to everything you're close to the airport you're close to retail but you're in a pastoral rural setting there in southwest Cedar Rapids you're close to hospitals in Cedar Rapids you're close to the Hawkeye capital Carver and Kinnock and boy our men's and women's seem both having fine years again this year it's always great to be a Hawkeye Clint how can they find you guys

on Facebook, website, telephone, and where do they drive by to check out these beautiful communities?

Man, you can find us about any way you can think of.

Our main office is on the Southwest Side of Cedar Rapids.

We're on the corner of West Post Road in Wilson Avenue, Southwest.

The address is 5410 Wabash Street, Southwest.

Are you reaching me by phone at 319-377-4863?

Our website is

hamshomes.com, it's all one word.

And then on Facebook, you can follow us at just under hamshomes.

Guys, that's H-A-M-E-S, H-O-M-E-S.

I'll give a shout out to Clint Hames, guys.

The work ethic that Clint has, it would...

honor his grandfather and grandmother.

Clint, you're one of the hardest working, most sincere and decent guys.

It's always great to visit with you and I think any prospective homeowners will have a delightful time working with you.

Clint Ames, you're a stand-up guy.

We appreciate you rejoining us again on this great Saturday episode.

That's very kind of you, John.

I appreciate all your time and

We just, we thank you for your partnership.

Guys, the Hames, the Homes people, and I always think as you hear in the background, the Neil Diamond, Cracklin' Rosie, that's an homage to those original TV commercials where we heard that over 50 years ago.

We'll be back after this break and Hames will be with us again next week.

Thanks, Clint.

Hey, thank you.

Have a great week and enjoy the spring.

You betcha.

Take care.

We'll be back after this moment.

Economics is the study of human choice in the world we live.

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.

Hi, and welcome to our show.

I'm Justin Clark, the Menard Family Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, and I'm joined by Dr. Peter Jacobson, the Guartney Professor of Economic Education and Research, and Dr. Russ McCullough, the Wayne Angel Distinguished Chair of Economics and founder of the Guartney Institute.

All right, so it's time for our annual prediction show.

So we thought it's time.

There's some new things going on.

I guess there's

number of areas we can get into, but we thought we'd let Dr. Jacobson lead us off.

Peter, what do you got to say on predictions this year?

Yeah, so we try to do every year a list of predictions, and I don't remember what my work for last year.

That's because none of them were right.

Yeah.

So I think it's always fun to do that.

And so we should do it again this year.

And usually we separate these out into different categories.

And so we could think about political predictions, sports prediction.

We usually have predictions about Bitcoin.

I don't remember what it was last year.

Justin is usually the one I listen to.

So I'm in the mortgage of my house on this year's prediction.

So I hope he gets it right.

So yeah, that's generally I think the the route to go probably the one that makes the most sense start with is the political predictions just because those are the most maybe hot button.

You know, interesting to the average show sort of predictions, either that or sports.

So I

guess when you say political instead of like people who's going to get into office, it could be like what policy changes do we think are coming up or what's going to happen to Maduro or whatever that could go.

We can go a lot of places with that.

So yeah, yeah.

And the.

The big two would be what's going to happen with the House and the Senate.

Um, because it's midterm elections this year and so November, there's going to be elections for US House and US Senate.

And so in theory, there will be, uh, some sort of result on who owns the house, who owns the Senate.

Maybe it stays the same.

Maybe it doesn't.

Republicans, I think, barely have the edge in the house right now and have a few seed edge in the Senate currently.

So we can start off with those and I'll go ahead and start off.

I'm not going to say anything interesting on this, actually.

I'm going to stick with what most people are saying, which is that I think Republicans will keep the Senate.

And that's just based on the math.

So every year, only a third of the Senate goes up for reelection.

And so it does not turn over very often.

And my understanding is the math works out such that the seats that are up for reelection this year are not ones that are likely going to flip the composition of the Senate.

So ultimately, I think Republicans will keep the Senate.

But I do think that they'll lose the House.

And so this might be controversial among some Republicans, but that it is what the current polling suggests.

It's what the betting markets are showing.

And it's also historically, my assumption is always that a president will lose the House in their midterm election.

And the reason for that is I think that Americans are generally energized when their side is out of control.

And so when Republicans

Republicans are in control, Trump's in office.

Republicans are not going to show up to vote at the midterms.

This actually has been documented ballot.

In fact, I saw some comments that Trump made that he was going to have his name somehow be on the ballot still, so that way people could vote for him in some way at the midterms, even though he's not running for anything, just to get the turnout up.

didn't make any sense, but many such cases.

So overall, I think that the House will flip.

I think it'll be a divided legislature.

I don't know if that'll have much impact on Trump because he's not really going through the legislature for much right now.

But I don't know.

What do you guys think?

Well, I guess I want to clarify a question.

I thought there was a term like with even the war thing here that moved power back to Congress so that Trump couldn't do quite the same level.

I don't know if you were just in

whatever passed like within the last week or so that put the power back to Congress.

Does that resonate with you guys at all?

I think I saw some stuff about that.

I just don't know what changed.

I mean, it seems like Trump did everything you wanted to do and nothing he didn't want to do as far as I know.

Yeah, this came after the Maduro thing, like whether

that's kind of like more declaration or

the extent to what we can do.

Yeah, I think Congress just said, we're not declaring war on Venezuela.

Like, I think that's kind of what happens, which like, that's fine.

But the problem is it doesn't matter anymore.

You know, it'd be nice if it did.

But.

You know, you can't say we're doing too much in Venezuela when we spent the last 20 years in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Congress and do anything about it.

So

yeah,

yeah.

And there what I did see something where I think the Supreme Court said Trump's not allowed to mobilize the National Guard in.

in a certain way.

But in the decision, it also said he is allowed to mobilize federal troops.

So my take on a lot of these decisions is that there's always this great fanfare of like, oh, we've decided we can stop Trump from doing this thing.

It's actually like just a little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dam.

No, you've just post factoed, you're allowed to say that that was

wrong and he can't do it like that again.

That's my take

on.

Well, where are we at on Greenland?

I think Greenland is settled.

I think we'll get nothing more than we have right now, which is the concept of a deal.

So the other question prediction, which it's harder to have a hard line on this one in terms of like whether you're right or wrong, but who the front runners will be.

Because by the end of this year, I think we're going to start to see some talks of presidential campaigns for 2028.

And so my view, and again, I'm being boring on all this, but my view is it'll be advanced and new some.

I don't see any significant challengers.

Maybe the Democrats will shuffle new some out of there, but it seems like anybody who has tried has kind of failed.

So I don't know, either of you have any different opinions on the midterms or the heirs of parents.

I think a lot of people are trying to make the case for possibly a Rubio or a, and then on the other side,

like booty judge again seems like he's you know got a new goatee or whatever that he's driving around that he's trying to um trying to do a new presidential nomination i don't know i'm actually pretty skeptical that we'll know who the front runners are this year i'm always shocked with how

late in the game, things seem to actually come together in the past couple of years.

Like at midterms during the Biden administration, I was very confident that it would have been DeSantis and not Trump in 2024.

And of course, you would have.

I would have thought there was absolutely no way that Camelot would have been there.

That's its own unique situation, of

course.

And now DeSantis isn't, we're not even talking about him, which is kind of funny, because he's still out there.

I would throw a wild card of Amy Klobuchar from Minneapolis.

So she's talking about throwing her hat in the race for Walls' position.

So she's a senator now.

and she said in the past she didn't want to.

If somehow she takes governorship and somewhat...

makes things better in Minneapolis.

I think there'd be national attention because of what's gone on to say, gosh, look at what she did for Minneapolis.

And she had her hat in the ring before.

So I think that that's an outsider.

I certainly not making that prediction.

I think the Newsom is the is the safe bet.

But I think there's a chance that she could be an up and comer.

Yeah, should either be to be radioactive or right or rising star.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Go ahead, Justin.

Sorry.

It seems like I've noticed a lot of people complaining that the time has been alone for doing things like passing legislation about voter ID and securing, like, eliminating a bunch of the mail and ballot stuff that kind of went wild during COVID.

And I've heard a lot of people on the right say, like, this was time that was wasted.

Trump administration spent a lot of time doing big stuff via executive order that can easily just be repealed by the next person.

Instead of doing things like fixing these systemic issues, which the argument goes enable a kind of electoral fraud and fixing that would have been the more important thing to do.

Do you see any progress being or any changes being made on like a national voter ID act or anything before the midterm?

No, I don't think so.

I think both chambers are too close, especially Trump's alienation of some of the Republicans in the Senate, like going after Rand Paul or, you know, Massey's in the House, but Massey, I think he's alienated enough of his people or MTG being another one that he's going to have a hard time pushing through anything as closely divided as those are.

So yeah, I

mostly agree that it seems like the time for that sort of thing is gone.

But, you know, you never know, in politics.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

I wanted to circle by real quick to the Vance versus Rubio.

I think Vance by a long shot because I don't think Rubio resonates with people like Trump resonated, but I think he speaks more cleanly and better.

They might be thinking we get that, whereas Rubio, I think under different circumstances, I like Marco Rubio, but...

But with Vance and the current Trump movement, I think Vance wins by quite a bit over Rubio

Vance is really savvy on online like they made all these weird memes about him You know like the chubby face and the big like Jerry curl hairdo and then he's savvy enough to like repost that and He he plays into

trolling in a way that kind of helped Trump in 2016.

And you're right, I don't see Rubio doing that at all.

And that can, I mean, for better or worse, he does seem to be arousing the kind of the same passion that helped Trump get rid of a bunch of the old hat GOP.

Yeah.

The Jebs of the world.

Yeah.

Okay.

Peter kind of shut me down on Greenland, but I'm here to say on public prediction, we own Greenland.

It's coming.

Now, I say that when I say own, it might not become a state or something, but some sort of more direct control is my prediction on Greenland.

And whether it's a territory, whether it's something, but something different than what it is today.

It will

not be under Denmark's control.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think it's coming our way.

And the reason I think that is I think the people of Greenland would support that.

And I don't even know that really.

I'm kind of mostly making things up and I remember.

I remember hearing that before.

What is their population, 55,000 or something?

And so I kind of feel like we can sweeten the pot much better than what Denmark ever could.

And so I think that'll eventually come to some sort of vote.

And again, it'll escalate our relationship with them away from Denmark.

Okay.

I bet it's going to be some kind of weird NATO protectorate.

And

Peter, you're saying status quo more or less?

Yeah, we'll get some treaty of like, we can have some number of troops or yada yada, but it'll be under Denmark.

That's my expectation.

Okay.

All right.

Well, this looks like a good spot for our break.

So when we come back, we got to hit some sports, some Bitcoin updates and a few other areas.

So we'll be back in just a

bit.

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 Gorton 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.

All right, so we're back.

And I thought Bitcoin might be a good spot to start.

I really don't even pay attention to it very closely, even though I am a proud owner of Bitcoin because I listened to Dr. Clark's advice and did a little bit of thinking on my own.

I'm not a believer in just taking what other people say.

But nonetheless, what's Bitcoin predictions this year,

Justin?

Let's see.

Well, last year, I think our question was whether or not it would hit 100K.

Yes, I believe you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I predicted it would, but I had also been predicting that every year prior to that.

If we go back to four years.

Yeah.

Every year.

But I, I think I could be wrong about this, but I actually think that your prediction was spot on.

I think you predicted it would go to 100K, but then that would create a back down, which is exactly what has happened.

So I could be wrong.

Maybe I'm giving you more credit in my head than I should, but I think I remember you saying

that.

Yeah.

No.

And I did say that if it.

The way it usually goes is it goes to some new high and then craters back down to right.

around the previous high, right?

And the previous high was like 67k before this big run up.

And so I think that did, I mean, not right to 67, but it dipped into like the 80s and stuff.

I think I actually stopped paying attention when it was doing its drop back down because I don't think it's good for my mental health to be watching that all the time.

But I just looked actually yesterday, I think, for the first time in maybe a month and a half.

And it's in the 90s, high to mid 90s.

And it's high last year was, I think, 127.

And so I guess my question this year, my question is, is it whether or not it will break 100k?

I think it's hovering around that anyway now.

So it's kind of trivial if it does.

And it's not 100k, wouldn't be an all-time higher in new ceiling.

I think the question is, like,

is 200.

Okay.

And so there's a big divide I think in the Bitcoin community now about whether or not we're in the actual like four year trough or whether this was just a blip and we're still in the rise that led it to 127.

And I don't know anymore.

And I guess there's probably a lot of listeners that they might think

it goes from 90 to back to 20.

So another way of thinking about this prediction is you're not thinking that at all, right?

What's the, here's a good one.

What do you think would be the lowest it will go in the upcoming year?

Like is it there now or do you think it might even get down to 80 or who knows, something else?

Low 80s?

Yeah.

So low 80s would be the floor in your opinion, your prediction.

Yeah.

If it dropped below low 80s, I'd be surprised.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And ceiling, I'd be absolutely shocked if it went above 250.

In this coming year, but you wouldn't rule that out.

No, I think 250.

5% chance, 1% chance, half a percent chance, 20% chance.

Five.

I mean, five.

It seems like to me, those are the two options, whether or not we're in a bliff on the

in the rise that led it to 127, in which case the bull case for the max there is something around 250.

Or we are already in the trough in between peaks, in which case a low of 80 seems like it makes sense.

And I have no idea which one of those we're in.

I will say having made a successful prediction last year,

Right.

I'm virtually guaranteed to have a wrong prediction this year.

But what's interesting, listeners, if Justin knows the most about Bitcoin of anybody I know, and that's the volatility he's thinking of, even though he knows the stuff very good.

So it is not a get in and get out and get rich.

I'm in it for the long term, and you have to make your own decisions, but there's no...

No guarantee and a lot of uncertainty.

Yeah.

And I was thinking, you know, the set it and forget it plan is best not only for your portfolio, but all but more for your personal sanity.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that we could go kind of on a similar.

I don't have any Bitcoin thoughts.

I no idea if it could go up, could go down, could stay the same long term.

I think it'll be up, but I don't know what long term means.

But economically, I think that there's room for some other predictions.

I think

This is going to be a year of returning inflation.

I don't say that happily, but the Fed's easing off on rates and we've had...

Most of the dollar creation during the COVID era has been accounted for with inflation, but I think there's still some outstanding.

So I expect inflation this year.

That's my economic prediction.

I don't think recession or anything like that could be wrong.

No idea.

You know, the first thing the economists will tell you is we can't actually predict those things.

If we could, then, you know, you could be rich off that.

But I do expect inflation to pick up because of the Fed's actions.

I don't think that we're... I don't think the fundamentals have changed in any way that warrants us to cut rates and not have inflation.

So, but if the Fed explicitly targets like 2% inflation, then when you say you expect inflation, what kind of floors and ceilings are you thinking of?

Yeah, so like, I don't know, back in the four to six range, probably, rather than 2%.

I mean, that's not that bold of a prediction, because I think we're still hovering around 3.5% or something like that, Russ, you could correct me if I'm wrong.

But yeah, I see it taking back up to what it was, you know, a year or two ago.

And that honestly wouldn't be that hard.

I mean, a lot of what's driving inflation is just a few things like gas is real low right now, energy prices in general are pretty low.

Certain grocery store items like eggs are very low.

I don't think it'll take very much for those to

back up and I think the lower rates and Trump you know pumping money in through to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all that stuff he is

He aspires to centrally plan, and so I do think that the inflation is going to be the way that that manifests.

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

I'd like to thank you all for listening.

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Other than that, be fruitful and multiply.

Thanks.

Thank you.

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.