Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast
of the Free Cities Foundation.
Hello and welcome to this episode number 159 of the Free Cities podcast.
Brought to you as always by Veritas Villages, their building off-grid freedom-oriented communities in Latin America.
and according to me at least these communities should appeal to you if you're a freedom lover
looking for a great plan b option or in fact as many have chosen already a plan a home for the
bitcoiners amongst you you can buy your property with bitcoin and you can spend bitcoin at
communities they can even help you mine bitcoin with the excess energy that your self-sufficient
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i've conducted with patrick who runs the company you can listen to him talking about everything
veritas villages and get the best idea of what they're up to and if you would like to do business
with them right. I said last week I'd bring you another dispatch from Honduras this week because
it's Honduran General Elections Week and here it is. However, I was expecting to have an election
result to talk about with you already. By the way, it's Tuesday, the Tuesday after the Sunday
election when I'm recording this introduction and I'm looking at Polymarket right now.
the degenerates over there have been betting on the result and the graph well basically it's looked
like a concertina for the last couple of days that means it's oscillating between two people
fortunately i suppose for us it's fluctuating between two candidates who are favorable towards
zedais that's nasrala from the liberal party and asfura from the national party although i would
say Asfura would be the more favourable for the ZA regime. And in fact, as we saw just before the
election, that was the candidate that Trump openly came out and backed at the last minute. Let's have
a look what the news wires are saying. The BBC is saying the two leading candidates to be president
of Honduras were locked in a, inverted commas, technical tie on Monday, with a razor-thin margin
separating them. People are also, by the looks of it, reporting that Asfura is ahead at the moment,
at least on Tuesday, by 515 votes. God only knows what is going on over there.
It's Honduras after all. At least, though, the authoritarian lefties have been kicked out.
Interestingly, today's guest mentioned the potential problem of these two parties not
joining forces and deciding to campaign separately but in our discussion that was the chance that it
might offer the libre party they're the left-wing party an opportunity to sneak in at the last
minute well that hasn't happened so it's good to see another country in that part of the world
rejecting socialism wholeheartedly right today's guest yes it's massimo mazzone founder and president
of a number of large companies and business conglomerates working in Latin America.
But more interestingly for us, of course, he's the mastermind behind Ciudad Morazan,
the other, in inverted commas, free city in Honduras that we always talk about.
He's a staunch libertarian.
Massimo is a big fan of the book Entrepreneurial Communities, An Alternative to the State.
if you don't know that book give it a look it brings up the idea of entrecoms and this is the
model that massimo has used for his community they seek to replace the functions of a traditional
state across the board if they can the big difference between morazan and prospera the
place you all know is that in an intercom like morazan all property and that's residential or
commercial is leased to people not sold to people in Prospera you can buy property you can invest
in the infrastructure they're looking for outside investment Morazan is a private
service-oriented city offering leases instead of ownership and as far as I understand that
simplifies many things administration and enforcement and ensures that the operator
It retains control over things like standards, maintenance and compliance, etc.
Very different model to Prospera.
Certainly, as Massimo put it last time I spoke to him,
it's the inverted commas project of my life.
He does seem to hold it very close to his heart.
Often referred to as a libertarian city without any libertarians.
morazan's almost exclusively populated by blue-collar local honduran workers living in
quite stark contrast to the neighboring city of cheloma which is state run now you don't ever hear
a huge amount about morazan and according to me this is for two main reasons one is that massimo
initially funded the whole project himself and is not looking for investment so he's not interested
in selling the idea to outsiders. Secondly though, more importantly, probably, the many hit pieces
written about ZAs, which is where a lot of people do actually hear about them,
conveniently choose to ignore Morazan when they're reporting in Honduras. And the main reason for
that is that Morazan doesn't adhere to the usual negative talking points that those kind of articles
love to focus on now i think that's a big shame obviously it's a great project and i could easily
argue this the most successful free city project in the world that depends on which metric you use
of course but if it's number of residents i'm pretty sure morazan is number one right quick
summary from fountain of the key topics of this conversation free cities movement the oligarch
free city conspiracy i'm asking everyone about this one and massimo is a great person to ask
because i i always think of him as an oligarch but he probably doesn't anyway so your dad morizan
in honduras libertarianism and governance economic development and investment politics
in honduras and international influence that really didn't give much away did it
okay it's basically me and massimo having a bit of a chinwag in prague hope you enjoy it many
thanks to our subscribers on fountain and please consider doing the same yourself if you're into
the value for value platforms six dollars a month will give you special access to things like bonus
episodes and early episodes sometimes and more and obviously you just might want to support us
and the work we're doing here at the free cities podcast right if you're not into that well quick
review on Apple or Spotify would be greatly appreciated. It only takes a moment and makes
a huge difference, I'm told. Right, let's jump into the discussion. And if you're watching the
video version of this, you can see that Massimo really is sitting back and relaxing. I didn't
notice this at the time So you probably should do as well Sit back relax and enjoy my conversation with Massimo Mazzoni
Because, you know, when you look at the free cities thing, it's like a spectrum, right?
You've got, you know, you've got the Liberland at one end, full-blown sovereignty.
They're looking to describe, and then you've got intentional communities at the other end.
And all the stuff in between.
but they're moving they're moving together i can see that and now because a lot of the the the
the intentional community end of the market is really starting to buzz which is people just
saying do you know what let's just forget forget all the the sovereignty stuff to begin with let's
just create the place and and and it's easier in a way to start with the thing it's easier i mean if
you are a full-fledged libertarian it's not what you're looking for but they move the overton window
and it helps if they have success like the one of patrick for example they move the overton window
yeah but they are like patrick patrick's thing is i i'm it's funny it's interesting i'm not sure
Patrick realizes how big Patrick's thing could be because he he's got it's a great idea and there's
a demand for it and all you have to do is build it that's my impression of it just by looking at it
and um because I'm seeing now just by talking to people that lots of people are having that same
idea in different ways some people are more public than others some people are quite quiet about it
They just want to do it and be left alone.
They don't even want to sell the idea.
They just want to make it for themselves, you know.
And it's, yeah, it's, you know, it's happening.
And people are people that it's a decentralized network of people looking for freedom and autonomy.
And since 2020, there's this massive push of new people starting to think.
And now more, it's like the guerrilla army of people looking for freedom cannot be beaten because they're decentralized.
They're all over the place.
They're hiding and ducking and diving and making this and doing that.
And it's, yeah, it's really, it's really, really super, super.
Yeah, I agree.
COVID increased the demand by 30 times.
There are people that would never be libertarian and then became libertarian.
But Patrick is very effective because he can fill his community pretty far.
If you think about the Free Stater, I mean he's more successful than the Free Stater,
if you think about it, smaller of course, but with all the publicity, advertising,
that the Free Stater had in the United States, they could move only, what, 10, 12,000 people in 20 years.
and he moved hundreds of people.
Yeah.
Well, the funny thing is,
I just mentioned this to Rahim.
I was talking to Rahim before you.
And I was in Liberland recently
and talking to VIT.
But do you know about the setup of Liberland?
On the Serbian side of the river,
they have a small area called,
and they just bought some land.
It's an old campground, really.
It had a clubhouse and stuff.
And they basically based themselves there.
because it's on the other side of the river from actual liberland and it's a place you can go in
it's in a different country it's neutral this kind of stuff and and i was laughing i'm saying
look this is liberland we were in arc i said we're here he said like you don't have any hassle
if you go over there people give you shit they're always trying to knock your houses down they're
doing that but here like we're living this beautiful life swimming in the lake saunas all
this kind of stuff and and it was a joke but there was a lot of truth there you know the idea
and and this is where i think all you all these different parts of the free cities movement come
together the the network state idea the idea that there is this group of people who share this idea
in the case of liberland it's liberland liberland is the idea and you can have a liberland like they
do they've got in um one of the south american countries or central american countries there's
community of Liberland is there that is just living together. So the idea of Liberland is a
decentralized idea, as well as the fact, yes, it is a place. It is a place in Kornusiga, what they call it,
which is that little bit of land that no one claims. But it's also in that little pocket of Serbia. And
that's the best place to be. It sounds almost like a diaspora of, a phantom diaspora, people of
liberland that now are around the world setting their community one day they will go back to their
promised land in the danube yeah maybe that's how that that idea begins life
they're dispossessed people they never even had their land to begin with they just
decided they were dispossessed yeah i don't know it's just i don't know i'm i'm very i'm very
excited i'm excited about what's happening with you as well i by the way i laughed out loud when
you sent me that email i don't know whether you remember yeah i i i could i i was i almost spat
my coffee out um i i won't expose i won't say exactly what it was but i sent you an email so
will you come on the podcast and you you sent back yeah something which is very anti-government
Well, I said that I just don't care what they think.
I mean, last year and the year before, the year before you invited me and I said that my lawyers suggested me not to come because I tend to put the food on my mouth.
But at this point, I don't care what they think.
I mean, we already sued them and so I don't think anything worse can happen.
right well that's in that's where i'd like to start then because i i just did a quick google
search on news to see what people would talk i did it across across all languages and got
chatty butita sort of you know i was trying to get a sense because you know massimo you're the
you're very quiet and secretive not secretive you don't shout and talk about morizan and it's
obvious why you're not interested really in attracting people there necessarily certainly
not in the west you don't need investment there necessarily you know um so you are one of the
projects that i i don't hear much about your sister company your sister well sister project
you know the other z a that everyone knows prosper is always in the news um and they have high profile
people going there and they have all this kind of stuff um so so i did a i did a look to see of
what's happening and there's literally nothing happening even in the news all that there was in
2025 was about you know the ZA Morazan lawsuit new arbitration against Honduras company promoting
ZA Files lawsuit there was nothing else that's the only story right yeah and I mean also because
in Choloma now basically everybody knows us because he has a relative inside or and they just
don't believe anymore to the lies of Libre, the party government.
And so they just let us alone.
In these years, for example, theoretically, we do not exist, right?
But nobody of authority shows up.
the people of the Ministry of Education or, I don't know, the equivalent of the IRS to check the business inside, you know, the small business we have.
The police came once because he said that some of our one tenant of us had stolen a car and it was true I mean the owner had Apple things or something the car was there A tracking device yeah
So we went with our security to talk to the guy, and the guy basically disappeared and left the car there.
so we gave the car back to the police. The owner didn't even want to put a criminal complaint.
So we are even starting to work with the local police. I know my people of security call the local
police when there are new tenants to know if, you know, a little bit of background to avoid
They are marero criminals.
They call sometimes to know if a person,
like a certain person lives with us.
So we are becoming normal in the society of Choloma.
So do you think then that,
because Prospero wasn't left alone, right?
I think people did turn up there and try and close gates
and do all kinds of stuff.
Nothing happened in the end.
But do you think the distinction,
and I'm always, I will always make this distinction between you and Prospero in being that you are basically a place for local Hondurans.
And Prospero is more likely to be a place of incomers.
I know that a lot of people in Prospero who work there are Hondurans, but the kind of, you know,
and you see this a lot when journalists fly to Honduras to find out about the ZAs.
They've never come out.
Almost never come to, you know.
To us, yeah.
Yeah. In fact, I'm always calling them out. I mean, there's a, in fact, there's a new one. You're going to love this, right? Actually, I want to know your opinion on this because recently, this was like a few, like about a week ago. There's, I doubt you know this person, but there's a, there's a very, I, someone who I respect, a very well respected sort of investigative journalist called Whitney Webb. Have you ever heard of her?
she does whitney webb is very um thorough in investigations and she tends to join the dots
very high levels corruption conspiracy this kind of stuff right and but they also syndicate
articles by other authors and she she syndicated an article by a british journalist it was called
city states without limits right and it's a massive article really long like a thousand you
know like 10 000 words all about so almost a book yeah yeah and in two parts i mean i'm guessing
10 000 words it took me a long time to read it i don't normally read things that long but but i was
just enthralled because basically because in fact i you're the perfect person to talk about this
actually i'll give you a synopsis of it basically the synopsis was this guy had basically put
together and like i say it was going out on a very legitimate channel that i thought that i
normally respect it said a powerful group of silicon valley oligarchs are pushing for the
construction of privatized city states aligned with a global network and they want to move away
from nation states to create an international network of city states so it's a conspiracy of
oligarchs now i kind of well it's respectfully call you an oligarch okay i'm not not a tech one
But I think in that case, they were referring to the network state of Balaji.
Yes, they are.
This is pretty open.
I mean, Balaji is like this.
They want to create a network of city-state with a certain level of autonomy from the state.
We just happen not to have anything to do with that.
We are completely another segment.
I hope they are successful, but if Banachi come to Sudamora-san, I would go away disgusted by the idea of living in a place like that.
I know, but the point is, the point is, Massimo, that the way it's written is it's a grand conspiracy.
It's literally a conspiracy of tech oligarchs who want to live in city states and outside of the rule of the government and stuff, which, like I say, is kind of true.
But it's not a conspiracy.
They openly say that.
Yeah.
OK.
So you don't, I mean, do you think there's any dark way to look at this?
No, it's not dark.
I mean, it's a political aspiration of Palazs in Naval and this group.
We don't know really how many people they are.
And yes, it does as a part of natural rights.
But it's especially frontier.
It's a part of utilitarian.
I mean, they realize that in a place in which there is not a political process as suffocating
as there is everywhere in democratic states, they could do great things.
And they are open about that.
and I don't think they really want to secede or to have a complete,
they just want to have a pretty advanced level of autonomy,
so it's not easy, but not necessarily seceding.
And the thing is, it's not a conspiracy,
because Balaji talked about this one day and the day after also.
I think that the way it was pitched was that someone like Peter Till, for example, who's getting a lot of bad press at the moment.
He's he's he's I think anyway, and certainly where I look, he's been painted as the Antichrist, almost Peter Till, because he's part of Palantir and he's part of this and that.
But the idea is that they they believe and there's this new thing called the dark enlightenment, which is an idea that there needs to be an elite class that rules and all this kind of stuff.
and they're part of it and you know i mean i can i i certainly can kind of see that there's truth
in it in a way and they certainly do believe this stuff but whether or not it's a massive conspiracy
is is a is a strange concept because i i i'm part of this movement in a way and i see the people and
i interact with them and you know like say take destiny or uh destiny is a good example because
he's a he's a what do you make of destiny for example what's your impression of knowing what's
going on there and knowing who's involved first of all it's extremely serious i mean there are
surely tens of millions and very likely hundreds of millions behind destiny it they spent at least
five years, maybe more on that.
And there are people that are another order of magnitude
in terms of the resource they can move compared to the usual people
we're talking about, with the exception of these guys in Silicon Valley.
And so I'm extremely happy that they did it because,
Because as I told you last time, I really don't care which one of the various ways of
reaching liberty is going to happen.
I just want at least one to work, right?
So it's another option.
Now I had the opportunity to talk with Olivier once and he's clearly a libertarian.
It was a strange position that it's not only against the coercive state, it's also for some
reason against the power of corporation so it doesn want a corporate governance in destiny And as you know my model which is the Entrecom is totally corporate
But the idea is that if you have 50,000 Entrecoms in competition, liberty comes from that.
So it's very different, if you want, inside libertarianism.
but still a libertarian place.
And I actually tried to challenge him and said,
but you're a libertarian place.
So if I buy some land and I build some building
and I rent them and being my land,
I decide that there are some rules,
like not spitting the floor or things like this.
So how are you going to stop me?
I mean, it's not very libertarian to stop me
if I buy from other people.
And it didn't really have an answer.
Anyway, any one of these things,
small like a small community that has nothing in terms of autonomy,
or big like destiny, or super big like the Brunei thing,
any one, it's another opportunity that something will stick in the wall.
And the good thing of this is that if one stick, it will create an ecosystem because it will suck the capital and the best people from the world.
The people that want to be free, which means they don't want endouts from the government.
They want to produce themselves for themselves.
And these are the people that pay most of the taxes in the world.
So once one of these places works, it will be a magnet and the other country will have to compete.
And the only way to compete is to offer something even better.
So I am extremely optimistic that if something sticks, then it will work.
There is obviously, actually, before I go on, can you do us a favor?
Can you put that bottle on that side? Thanks.
I agree that theoretically
it will make the state
have to compete more
but often we don't see that
we see the opposite
the state just basically decides not to compete
and just makes new laws and legislations
or blocks things
that seems to be the modus operandi
at the moment
if you look to Europe
I'm talking about other states
but yes
now you have
centripetal forces of cartelization, for example, the 12% minimum.
So on one side, they say, okay, to avoid that this guy use their feet
to look for the best place to stay, let's do this law of 12%.
But then to have a cartel of so many countries is difficult.
So at the same time, they stab the other in the back, like the Italian law that you pay
100,000 euro and you don't have to pay other income taxes.
It's unbelievable.
But there are a lot of people that are going to Italy.
I mean, it was unthinkable because taxes were so high.
Now, Italy, it's a place where you live very well.
So if you don't have the problem of taxes, it's actually a pretty good place to go.
And they were so successful that they went to 200 and now to 300.
And yeah, and then Spain and Portugal tried.
But the case of Portugal was, you know, that they eliminated it because the local socialists said that they were taking all the best houses.
So at the same time, there is a tendency to cartelization, which is awful.
But nature, competition, also push them to separate and to provide something new.
So I am hopeful and relatively optimist that in the next three, five years, something will become more.
I actually think more than one.
And then some, this type of competition will force other country to compete.
Well, we'll see.
What about Europe, though?
A lot of people think of Europe as a bit of a lost cause in that sense.
I mean all the places where you know free city projects are popping up don't tend to be
the UK Europe these kind of places yeah and it doesn't look like they will either because
they're not desperate enough I was with I met what's the name of the guy that invented
Paul Romer.
Paul Romer 12 years ago.
So it was the first version, not the red.
And he wanted to meet potential entrepreneurs
that were interested in doing that
because there was nobody interested.
I mean, the typical families,
they were not interested in these things.
It was an idea of Pepe Lobo, Juan Orlando,
or Otavio Sanchez and him.
And so he asked me at the end,
so what do you think about it?
I said, living in Honduras is great.
I've been a libertarian all my life,
and it's here, it's happening.
So I'm very happy.
Being a libertarian in general,
I would have preferred that this would have happened
in a place with rule of law and space.
So I made the example of Canada, Australia, Finland.
And he looked at me as I was stupid and he said, only desperate countries do desperate things.
And Europe is not desperate enough.
There will come a moment.
And the political class, it's even kind of committing suicide, allowing all this unfiltered immigration.
It's creating a blowback enormous.
I don't understand why they do it.
I don't understand what is for them.
Well, I mean, there's two answers to that.
One is it's incompetence, and the other one is it's an intentional thing.
There's a grand conspiracy.
I think probably if you actually dig down into it,
there's an incentive model that basically draws the wrong people into positions of power now
because they don't compete in the in the real world very well so they choose the kind of
the the legislative world or the political world where they never lose their job and as a result
you end up with the shit show we've got now which is all the terrible people in power and all the
all the productive people basically trying to release themselves from from the terrible people
and more often than not that these days it just means leaving it just means arbitrage with another
country right right but it doesn't make too much sense in the public choice sense i mean
politicians are not necessarily stupid usually they are not they are parasites but they are not
stupid so yes they are corrupt because they need money for the campaigns but to allow i mean what's
but in your country, I mean, what is happening with,
it just doesn't help Stammer, what's the name of you?
Stammer.
Stammer, it doesn't help him,
it just create a blowback for the blowback.
So, it's-
Yeah, but Stammer, I think, is-
A true believer.
Is involved, no, no, I don't think,
I mean, he is a, he's very sociable,
Socialist at heart. I mean, when you look back to his past, he's been involved in very socialist movements and ideas.
So there's that side of it. But also he's one of those politicians who's very much not an independent thinker.
And he's part of a much bigger blob, the World Economic Forum, this kind of stuff.
And I don't know. I don't know what happens at that level.
it might but but i think at that level people talk about things on a much bigger scale and they do
talk about i don't know maybe you know people they do talk about the movement of people on mass from
one place to another in order to elicit some you know result or you know the the rise and fall of
nations you know there's kind of stuff that someone like me i can i can speculate on but i'll never
at the moment be sat at a table discussing an actual plan to create those things the question
is does that stuff happen i think it does i mean maybe you know you've probably sat at a lot bigger
tables than me but not really right okay politicians right but but that might be a i mean with one of
the solutions that i i look at when i think about it because i've when i look at someone like starmer
He's not a very impressive person at all.
He's really the opposite of an impressive person.
He's very limp-wristed.
And when he speaks, he can't speak candidly
because he has to think about everything he says
because basically he's saying what someone else has told him.
He could never sit down like you and me here
and just talk shit or whatever.
He couldn't do that because in the end,
I would be able to run rings around him intellectually
because I could just point out the idiosyncrasies of what he's saying and then it would all go to
shit. So I don't know. I think something's happening in the world. I think you could
easily say that, you know, like we all know that the financial system needs to be reset, right?
That seems blatantly obvious. You know, everyone's now middle class people all over the world are
starting to realize shit things aren't good for us at the moment and we know that historically
things get reset normally wars big wars tend to reset an economy they you know whether they have
that option now who knows but there's other there's other ways to reset and maybe at that
high level these are the conversations that are being had and they involve the destruction of
things that normal people hold very close to their hearts.
I don't know.
I think this is a little bit conspirative.
Sure, sure.
If you read, for example, the typical example is the rumble of August or July
before the First World War.
I mean, there were just stupid people stumbling toward the war.
It was not a conspiration at all.
it was just stupid and ego-driven people
that it was like a chronicle of a foretold death of Garcia Lorca.
So I don't know.
I tend not to believe in these things.
But I do believe that there are reset
because the current Ponzi scheme that is the Western state,
I mean, what killed it completely is the demographic crisis.
And they could solve it with immigration,
but not with immigration they are living now,
because this guy comes to live, most of them, not all,
but most of them come to live at the expenses of people
that already live at the expense of a few guys.
and so something will happen i hope it's not going to be disruptive and violent like a war
maybe our movement will be a solution in a way because people will start to move and and
and the state will have to bring because they don't have the money so they will have to bring
down the welfare and to check to change the incentive of society well i mean not only that
but our movement will be able to release the pressure.
I mean, look at Dubai.
People flock to Dubai,
but nobody goes there to take welfare.
I mean, the more places like Dubai that exist,
the more opportunity there is for people to just do stuff
rather than go somewhere.
And that does work.
I mean...
Absolutely.
I live in Monaco.
It's the perfect example.
They don't have any taxes.
the only taxes there is 20% VAT that they have to split with the French.
So with 10% VAT, they have the most functioning city I saw in my life.
It's perfect.
Yeah.
Well, talking of functioning cities then, let's talk about Morazan.
And what can you tell me about the current state of play with the ZA law?
Here's my take from, I mean,
I'm obviously in I'm investigating on the internet but it looks like the law was rescinded
the government were then sort of pushed into a corner to make a move because they they said right
you're illegal and they didn't do anything and they didn't actually do anything and this suit
that as per the agreement you had the right to then sue them for an extremely large amount of
money all the ZAs could and that was part of the backup plan if this ever happened which went into
effect and now I'm told that politically the consensus there are there the the the the politicians
that were saying we're going to shut down the ZAs are now saying we've beaten the ZAs and what they
mean is there's no new ZAs coming
online, which is true
but the ZAs that exist
are basically, looks like you're
going to survive. So we have to unpack
this. Regarding your
first question, why they
are us, prosper
much more than us, it's
I believe, first of all, because
they're much more visible
but also because
they have a few
person in crawfish
rock that have an incentive
because they are receiving money, but not from the government necessarily,
from international stupid ONG to harass Prospera.
We don't have anybody like this.
At the beginning, they thought we were going to expropriate because of all the lies,
but now they don't care.
Many works in Sudamora San.
So we don't have any group of people that really want...
as an incentive to keep, you know, motoring every day.
The government itself, it's like it's afraid of moving.
And so in our case, the only thing it did, which is important,
is to take out the custom office.
And I understand that they did the same with Prospera,
but they didn't do it with Orchidia,
because if they did with Orchidia,
there is a revolution there,
because all the city of San Marcos de Colón
lives because of Orchidia.
And it's like they think that we get a better opportunity
opportunity of getting more money if they come to us. I don't think there is any difference.
So they basically left us alone Now with the election of course they have to say something because people ask they kind of stupid also because they said if the opposition arrive they will let the ZD work
But, I mean, you just said that you eliminated the ZD for good with the decision of the Constitutional Court.
And now you say that they have to vote for you to avoid the ZD.
I mean, it's strange.
But they are starting to use it.
You know, the election is going to be in 29 days, the 29th of November.
So now it's a very hot moment in politics there.
And so in the last few weeks, there is a little bit more talk about the ZD.
And also the decision of the Supreme Court came the week after the famous video of Carlos Zelaya surfaced.
I don't know if you know all this inside baseball of Honduras.
There was the brother of Mel Zelaya, which is the husband of Osomar Zelaya, the president, and Mel is the boss.
Carlos Zelaya is a famous
Narcotrafficker, everybody knows
He's a narcotrafficker
They're related
He's the brother of men
Really?
Carlos Zelaya
And he was
The vice president of the Congress
Because he's in the
You know
After his brother
And they caught him
Well they caught him
probably the American let out a video in which is with three famous
narcotraffickers that now they are in jail forever in the US in which this guy
were giving him money and so there was a moment in which there was a lot of
attacks in the press everywhere again because they did the attorney general
which is a person of them, didn't do anything.
And so there was a lot of pressure of civil society.
And so mysteriously, the constitutional court
that had three years to decide, decided in that week.
They had to divert, to bring a new different cycle of news.
Sorry, interrupt you.
No, no, I was about to interrupt you.
Sorry, I just got to get this straight. I don't know who these people are and how they're related to each other
the
What the guys you would then the narco guys and then they can this story you're just telling
Explain again who that was in the political sense
Carlos Zelaya is the older brother of Mel Zelaya
Mel Zelaya is the one that was president at 12 years ago and right
Right. But he's not running again in the new elections, right?
Mel Zelaya.
Yeah.
No, because there is still the article in the Constitution that says that a president cannot be re-elected.
Right. So that has a negative impact on the ZAs because his brother was the guy that basically was in power when the law was created.
I don't think the ZA has nothing to do with that.
I mean, the video that surfaced, I think it had a very bad impact on them, on the Partito
Libre.
And so they needed a new cycle of news.
And so they called because they packed the cold in a disgusting way.
So they, you know, like the meme that says, the one of the meme that says,
release the bomb or release a new news to make.
Keep everyone watching.
Yeah.
And because there was no reason to decide in that moment for the Constitutional Court.
So, and is there any relationship between the current opposition, who seem to be doing quite well, and this government?
Are they, this former government, are they, is that going to have any effect on them and on their ability to win the next election?
There is a relationship between the Liberal Party, the National Party, with the Libre,
with the party in government.
Well, first of all, there is always relationship because these guys are the same political economic
elite.
They're mixed up.
But of course we are under election and now it's getting very hot.
I mean there are something that is dangerous.
The head of the UNFORCE asked to get the result of the election before it's published.
He said according to the Constitution it's completely smoking because the Constitution
doesn't say it.
Why?
There are many theories. I think it's actually a good sign because I think Libre asked him
to defend. He's a man of the current government of Libre. And I think he has been asked to
defend fraud and in the army there are lower levels, at the level of coronel or so, that are
clearly not going to do that. So this guy Roosevelt, as his name, wants to have the real result
in order if he has to intervene, and will probably be the need to intervene because somebody will
come in the street, he can show the guys, his people, the ones that go hitting in the
head the protesters or even shooting, that the real results are that.
I think this is the only reason.
There are other theories, but when you see the politics of Honduras, it's like when you
read the Sasha, it's an old Italian writer.
is like it appears there are a lot of last time we spoke you said that you'd stopped building
you'd you'd stop the industry was moving out i think at the time what's the current state of
no we we built since then uh industry left the because it's simple i mean these guys
sell stuff in Honduras
or export and they
are at the mercy of
the government so they could not stay
there. They left. Now the
industrial space is completely
rented but it's
rented as a warehouse
of a company outside
so they don't have
workers. Their workers are
not inside because if they are inside
they have to follow our labor
law and if they follow our
they are afraid that the government will go against them.
So, yes, we have been building, but the original budget,
the one that we were executing, I mean, we've been unlucky
because we got the charter in December 2020.
And the objective was to spend 150 million in three years
to complete the community.
But then arrived COVID in March just three months after And yes we could work but everything was slow So we could probably do in that year one fifth of what we were supposed to do
And then in November 21, this guy won, the Libre won.
And so we didn't build much.
At that point, I decided not to build anymore to see what was happening.
But there is a lot of enthusiasm.
When I go there, I see all this guy that says, my tenants, I live very well here.
Why don't you build other houses?
My mother wants to come here.
and a big school outside arrived, asked us to come to Ciudad Morassan because it's safe.
And we are now building the building of the school, because before we had only 25 kids
or something like that, so they were inside houses. We didn't need a building.
This school already has 250 kids apart of our 25.
So we have to build and rent something for them.
So there is all this enthusiasm.
And so I'm probably investing $2 or $3 million per year,
no more than that, just to keep the ball rolling.
It's nothing to do with the original.
I mean, $50 million per year in Honduras,
you will see thousands of people working there.
Now you see 80, 100, no more than that.
it's small constructions so if so you're building again but but um tentatively and is that residential
yes what since the last time we talked we finished 44 houses the new block of 44 houses
the townhouse like before we just finished one month ago the or two months ago the building with
70 studios and seven commercial spaces.
And we wanted to build something not really industrial, logistical,
like small warehouses, like the one in the US.
But then the school arrived.
So we have only one group of people that build.
So we diverted the people to the school
because in February they start,
and the school in Honduras start in February
and finish in November.
So there are 250 people coming in,
and I have to find a place.
But on the 29th of November, when the election happens,
if it goes the other way, so if it goes to the right,
is that a signal to you that full speed ahead again?
No, no, because we have to reach an agreement. So let's see. And the percentage have improved, right?
But to be able to start again, there must be a series of things. Each one is very plausible, but everything has to happen.
So the first thing is that this government must lose. And politically, this government is at the end.
I don't believe there is more than 20% of people that would vote Libre.
But unfortunately, the opposition didn't go with a single ticket.
In Honduras, there is no second round.
So if they do some fraud, I mean, fraud is possible.
5%, maybe 10%, or you go to the fraud like the one of Maduro in Venezuela.
But this was not even fraud, it was just fake, the results that he said.
And there is no way the Americans would allow something like happening in Venezuela.
But they can still 5, 6, 7, I don't know.
Because in that case, you do it at the ballot.
You basically pay money to the representative of the other party.
and so they change the count.
If the opposition would go together,
there was no way Libre would have won.
But in this case, if the opposition is going separated,
you can win with a plurality.
Still, I think Libre will lose.
Let's say that there is 80% possibility that the opposition wins.
but even if the opposition wins
we have to reach an agreement
and the well is poisoned
and so even the opposition
doesn't want to again take
at the end of the day
Libre with the calling the Supreme Court
resolved the problem for them
so for them to proactively
go back to this issue, can happen only if Prospera wins something they cannot pay.
Which I, my estimate, if it's more than $500 million,
probably they do not have the money to pay and they will try to get an agreement.
But would they pay even if it was $250 million? Would they actually pay that?
Well, they have to pay because 10% of the GDP of Honduras is international cooperation.
Technically, international cooperation, at least 50% of it, is not a gift.
It's a loan.
Yeah, but we're talking about governments here, Central American ones as well.
They don't keep their promises often, do they?
No, but if they don't pay arbitration of the CIADI, of the ICSID, the worldwide cooperation, most of it, technically cannot give money to Honduras.
The money of the cooperation is 10% of the GDP of Honduras.
It's $2,500 million per year.
And given that most of it is theoretically loans, everybody knows that these loans will
never be paid, right?
But they are technically loans and they are prevented to make loans to people that it's
a dead pit at the SIAD, at the ICSID.
So they cannot not pay.
That's impossible.
If they don't have the money to pay, they have to reach an agreement.
So the first thing is that I'm sure Prosper, I'm sure we will win, but it must be big enough
to make the government move.
And I estimate that this is maybe 500 million, because it also gives a political cover to
the guy of the opposition.
Look, I am against the ZD myself, but if I pay $1 billion, we are basically bankrupt.
So I'm trying to fix the problem.
The good thing is that I'm going to fix with these three ZDs and we won't have other ZDs.
I mean, it gives a good political cover.
Now I don't know what will be the money given to Prospera.
I talking about Prospera because we compared to Prospera small mosquitoes right But Prospera is coming with something big By the way you probably know that they brought back from 10 to 1
You heard it, right?
The famous 10.7 that they asked two weeks ago,
they said that they reduced it to 1.7 billion.
I really don't know why.
Also because we are close to the election.
It's not nice for us,
but they must have
the reason. But Prosper did that themselves
Yes I understand
so in the Sioux now Prospera
is asking not for
10.7 which frankly
between us was a ridiculous amount
but it's asking for 1.7
which is still a lot of money
Well maybe that was a PR thing
because there was a little bit of a backlash
wasn't there?
It doesn't necessarily make
Why do it one month
before the election. I don't understand.
Yeah, pass. I don't know.
There's something that they know. I don't know. But anyway, 1.7 is still a lot of money.
They actually spent 250 million. Now, you know that the exit doesn't look what you spent,
but the NPV of future flow. But at the very minimum, I assume they have to give back what they
they spent. So it should be between, at this moment, I guess it's between 250 and theoretically
1.7. But I hope it's going to be like 1 billion, right? So in this case, the government has
to. But what are the possibilities of 1 billion? I have no idea. Let's say 50%. So we had
The first thing Libre has to lose, 80%, and then 50%.
So the possibility of 40% now.
At this point, okay, there is the interest of the government to reach an agreement, but
they actually have to reach an agreement with Prospera.
And we have nothing to say here because the level of autonomy that Prospera needs is much,
much higher than the one we need.
So whatever is good for Prospera, it's good for us.
On the other hand, the government will never reach an agreement with us and not Prospera.
If they reach an agreement, it's for the two.
So basically, I'm out of the negotiation because I don't count anything.
It's Prospera and the government.
And so what is the possibility they reach an agreement?
Prospera really needs a pretty strong autonomy.
Eric is a tough negotiator, by the way.
Sometimes I think too tough.
And there are things that are very difficult to accept for the government.
So how many possibilities do they reach an agreement?
There is also the possibility that maybe Prospera finds something in Africa
and says, give me the money, give me the $800 million.
Fuck you.
I mean, I tried to do it, but I'm going there now.
So again, I don't know how to give this possibility, but let's say another 50% that if the government has intention to reach an agreement, they actually reach an agreement.
So the 40% that we were, it's going to be 20% because these things are sequential, right?
So even if the possibilities are still very low.
I estimated close to 10% last year.
And what I think it changed is the possibility of Libre going down a lot
to no more than 20%.
And the possibility of reaching an agreement
if there is a strong decision of the exit
increased a little bit
because I see that
many people in Honduras
not only in Choloma
start to question the narrative
start to say
I mean, say the only thing
that brought is work
work especially
not in Prosper and not with us
but in Orkidia
place where to live
which is our case
and a lot of exposure with important people
and even celebrities with Prospera.
I mean, people with tens of billions of dollars
came to Prospera.
You know who they came.
Even the Kardashian came.
So, yeah, one of the Kardashians.
I think the fat one came.
One of the three.
I don't know that.
I know the tech guys that came and stuff.
Yes, but so the people in...
Well, for the Kardashians, for the day-to-day people, the population in Honduras is more
important than Tim Draper, definitely.
So they say, fuck it, this thing is working.
And they basically are not doing anything bad.
After four years, I don't see anything bad.
So a lot of people are starting to question the narrative.
Not enough, but maybe it will help the politician to do something more to make a Prospera happy.
Are you saying that according to the litigation, according to the suing part of this deal, will nobody ever agree on just dropping that if they just say, look, you know, they re-resinned the law or something like that?
Or is that just never going to happen?
Does it have to go down the route of suing the government, even if the new government get in and they kind of and they obviously kind of pro-ZEA?
Look, I mean, we are in Honduras.
So, in theory, the finding of the Supreme Court cannot be changed.
So, in theory, we do not exist.
If they want to bring again the Z, they have to do a new law.
There is no other way.
So, they will negotiate.
Now, being Honduras, they can even say the next constitutional court that the
previous constitutional finding was anti-constitutional. No, no, I saw things
more radical than this. So I don't know, they might find a way of inventing that
in that case the Constitution. I mean, just to understand the enormity of
the finding of the Constitutional Court. The head of the Constitutional Court is a lady
whose book is the Constitutional book in the university and it's written that the decision
of the Supreme Court cannot be exalted. And it's written in the Constitution that cannot
be exalted. And they do it, and I don't know if they wrote it in the finding, I think they
wrote even in the finding, but definitely they said in an interview, yes, the Constitution
impede us to take a decision ex ante, but this was so grave that we decided to take an
ex ante definition.
I mean, this is the level.
We decided that we, the guardian of the Constitution, we decided that the Constitution do not apply.
So I mean, in Honduras, the Constitutional Court is political.
The problem is the Constitutional Court changes every seven years, so they will still have
like three years.
On the other end, the Constitutional Court members have a tendency of changing political
tendency when there is another guy in power.
And there is also the possibility of taking out, I mean, to create a crisis and to nominate
a new constitutional court.
So everything can happen.
So what do you, so, all right.
up in a sec, but what, what are you, you yourself, you know, Massimo, what are you preparing for?
Like you say you're starting building again, tentatively. Is that, is that for the foreseeable
future? Is that what you're going to keep doing? Let's see what happened now.
at the end now it's becoming a charity because given that I don't have the the
seventy thousand dollar of taxes that I had when for more than one year I have
to put some money if I have the rent but with the public service I'm putting
like 25-30 thousand dollars every month. So there will be one day that I have to stop
this. But this is the most important project to my art that I have. So it's very difficult
for me to cut. So I will see. Now in one month, let's see if the government is kicked off.
And if the new guy comes, I will probably wait for one or two years if they reach an
agreement we see well that's i'm i'm going to take that as a positive i think that's pretty positive
i honestly don't believe you'll ever stop doing it to be honest massimo i think you can say that
now but i think when it comes to it when you're at a town hall meeting and you can see all those
people in front of you i don't think you'll ever give it up yeah but you have to consider that i am
really a libertarian and I believe that destroying money it's actually a negative for society.
I don't have anything against charity but charity is sterile. I mean when the person that put the
money dies or is not interested anymore the initiative is killed. If you invent a new business
model like we I don't know if we invented already existed but our business model was working so
So when it works, not only you can grow with the flow that it creates,
but other people copy you.
So there is an entire new industry.
And this makes me proud.
I mean, yes, there is, in a libertarian logic,
there is the beauty of the market working,
not even the money that you make,
but you are creating almost in a prometheus sense.
You're creating something new from...
But you can do it when you make money.
If you don't make money, you're actually destroying wealth.
And also, yes, the eyes of the kids that play safe in the night,
it's very nice.
And there is the profit if you make profit.
There are all reasons why an entrepreneur does this.
But starting to lose money and sending the money there is really against my deep belief.
Because I believe it a form of destruction of money Frankly it not much for me the It really doesn change the needle But it ideological against everything in me to lose money
Would you do another one then?
Would you take it to another country if an opportunity arose?
I've been asked.
I am 60, Tim.
I'm kind of tired.
These things need decayed.
Even with Sudamora San, I knew I could have brought it maybe to 50,000 people and then
maybe somebody else in 50 years would have completed.
Now, it's not only, it's first of all a question of age.
Second, it's a question of geography.
Honduras, I spent 20 years of my life in Honduras.
I mean, if I have an opportunity to do it in, say, Tanzania, I don't know shit about Tanzania.
I go there at 60 years old and I start to build.
Surely I will invest money with some entrepreneur
that will do things like this,
but I most likely will not be the entrepreneur.
Well, let's stay positive then.
Let's end on a positive one.
Yeah, but we are positive at the beginning.
there are so many things that something will happen yeah but massimo i'm positive i've got
the luxury of observing more than it being involved i love i i'm involved as much as i can
but there's a limit my my strengths are in you know putting the message out often and things
like that i'd love to be involved in different ways but i've ended up doing this in in this
movement and I love it and it's very important as well but it does give me the luxury of being
somewhat um disconnected from the actual day-to-day bullshit that you have to deal with which is what
you're describing here and and I have I have other parts of my life that have drudgery and bullshit
as well and I don't like them and I come here for the refuge you know but if this place is the place
that you try to run away from because there's a lot of bullshit and a lot of this and a lot of
socialism and a lot then yeah i mean i i don't know how these things operate i don't know what
the what the mechanism is um i just know that there's a lot of people who are getting turned
on to the idea of free places in all their myriad of forms and what you're doing has been
as one of the pioneering ones and one of the best.
I think what I love about Morazan is it's like a really honest version
of what we're trying to do here.
And you were the person, Masmo, that turned me on to the idea
that free cities are for local people.
And I had never thought of it before until I spoke to you
Because I came in with the kind of digital nomad, sort of prosperer, sort of, you know.
And the truth is when you actually think about it when you go home and think about it yes you are creating free places not for libertarians just for normal people
And I've kind of got Mark Edge to thank for that as well.
He was, you and him together, talking to you guys separately, made me realize, yeah, libertarian utopias, in inverted commas, and I know there's no utopias,
but they're not necessarily places where loads of libertarians come.
They're places where normal people go looking for a better standard of living.
And the better standard of living is freedom.
And freedom is the thing.
Freedom is the thing which is causing people to,
their preference to change to saying, I want to be there, not here.
And that's what I love about what you're doing,
because you've kind of unashamedly done that.
And you don't publicize it much.
Very hard to find out anything about Morazan.
If they have taped it, watch my presentation today
because 80% of the time it was Ursula, the mayor, that talked.
And she said exactly that.
I came with my...
She's a madre soltera, a single mother.
I came with my daughter to find a safe place.
I couldn't believe it. It was so easy.
Then I opened the cafeteria without asking for permission.
I decided on Saturday and on Monday it was open.
And at that point I asked around, there was Alex.
Alex is always there.
He said, yes, we are libertarian.
And she started to learn about libertarianism.
And he said, I am libertarian, she said.
And she also started to read books and started to grow a solid doctrine behind.
But the reason she came is that it was a nice place to live without bullshit, without the
police that extortionate you, with the school that works and with the developer that at
the end is, if you want, the guy that put the money like the state that actually go there
and listen to things like you have to fumigate more and the day after there is a fumigation.
Because they are customers, I have to fulfill the customer.
And it's exactly what you say.
I mean, these are everyday people that find a libertarian society.
It's the best society to live.
And people that move to Choloma prefer to come to us than to go to somewhere else.
Do you think it's important to put a name on it? You just mentioned the lady I just met recently, the one who was speaking. Ursula. Ursula, who came there basically for a better standard of living. And now she's reading, I don't know, whatever, Ayn Rand, whoever.
Is it important to know all that?
Does that help solidify that idea?
Or is it just like okay I like it here I going to stay here Is it important to put a name to it libertarian No So most of them they say when they know
ah, they're libertarian, oh, good, nice thing.
But others are more curious, like Ursula, and started to ask.
But the effect can even be, I mean, she told you that,
I knew about the mother because mother and father are separated,
but she told me also the father, they were both hard libre.
I mean, the party that is against us.
And they said, and I was talking with them a few,
a couple of months ago, with the mother, not with the father.
And she told me, I will never vote again libre in my life
because they lied to me.
I mean, now my daughter is here.
I come here to see my granddaughter and I realized this beautiful place that does nothing.
I was lied and I will never vote.
And she doesn't really even maybe, definitely shared about the word libertarianism, but she's
not interested at all to understand what this libertarianism means.
But the idea that this party betrayed her, it's a vote less for the son of a bitch.
Well, look, I'm grateful for the place.
And I think you're actually one of the best examples of this,
specifically because of that thing.
And I love that about it because I think amongst libertarians,
especially Western libertarians, the idea is that, right,
we need to get all the libertarians together and everything will be fine.
And that's actually probably...
It's the old Dine Rand idea of Gerd Gurch.
the problem if you put the two libertarian together they start to fight immediately
well look good luck with with it all obviously you don't need my luck and i don't think you'll
ever give it up um massimo i think you'll be doing it till the day you die even if it gets
really bad because um otherwise what's the point what's the point if you you know i i i understand
I understand your point about it being antithetical to an ideology that destroying capital is a bad thing.
But maybe in the longer term, it's not.
It's more short-term destruction of capital, long-term creation of capital.
Who knows?
You know, the chart's up to the right.
Anyway, thanks for coming in.
Really appreciate it.
I love talking to you.
Thank you.
I mean, coming here, we talk only to the interview.
but really seems like seeing an old friend and catching up.
It's beautiful.
Good.
Very.
And we shared a coffee downstairs, which is very Italian.
I know you're Honduran, but you can't take the Italy out of an Italian.
So thanks for coming in.
And yeah, I'll see you in another year or so.
Thank you.
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