Voting Blocks Swinging, Israel & Iran, The Price of Chocolate

What do those three topics have in common? Scott Beekin, the Beeline Blogger. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's been a really fun journey.You know, this show offers us the
opportunity to make really engaging, enlightening, helpful friendships with people in the most
unique ways. Because one of ourresearch assistants, who's a dear friend,

(00:25):
Rob, we got introduced to somethingcalled the bee line and you can find
it at bline blogger dot blogspot dotcom and it's the work of Scott Beacon.
And I started referencing a lot ofScott's research digging kind of number crunching,

(00:47):
and next thing, you know,we get introduced to Scott and I
look forward to having him be atleast a monthly visitor on the program.
And we welcome back Scott b.And right now, Scott, how are
you, sir Preston. I'm doinggreat and a fantastic back with you and
your listeners today. How's the golfgame? It could be better? But

(01:11):
isn't that always the case? Yes, it is, everybody except Scottie Scheffler
saying that right about now exactly,You've written a lot of great content and
I want to focus on three recentblogs you've pushed out. Let's start with
the kind of the dynamics of what'sgoing on in the lead up to the

(01:32):
twenty four election, because there's ashift that you've noted, especially with younger
voters. Tell us what you've learned. Well. I enjoy looking at the
polls, you know, I thinkthere's voice questions about how accurate they are,
sure, but I think they showsome trends. And I think one
of the interesting trends that I'm noticingis that the support of younger voters,

(01:53):
particularly those eighteen to twenty nine,appears to be eroding for Biden. And
I think it's very interesting looking atthe data. For example, he won
that demographic by some twenty four pointsin twenty twenty. Compare that to Hillary
only won that demographic by nineteen intwenty sixteen, but a recent NBC poll

(02:20):
shows him only up by eight overTrump in that demographic, and a Fox
News poll actually showed Trump up byeighteen. So whether you believe those polls
or not, and they're probably bothinaccurate, but you look at the broader
trend and it clearly shows a disillusionmentof the young with Biden. Whether they'll

(02:42):
move to Trump as a question,but I think that's an interesting trend to
keep an eye on. You know, one of the things we noted.
We came across a story back acouple of weeks ago where a Democrat operative,
a guy who is really highly thoughtof as a consultant inside the Democrats,
were he was screaming at the topof his loans to party insiders to

(03:06):
stop registering kids to vote on collegecampuses. He said, you're registering Trump
voters. They're swinging. Yeah,very interesting, very interesting. Now,
just on the other side of thatis the thing that's a little concerning for
the Trump supporters is we're seeing oldervoters who have kind of been a lynch

(03:29):
pan of support for the Republican Partyover a number of years, seem to
be moving away from Trump. Sothat's going to be interesting to see both
camps how they try to bring eachof those groups back into the fold.
But you know, those that don'tbelieve this younger voter moving, I mean,
just look at what Biden is doingwith regard to student loans. I

(03:51):
mean, he's already been told clearlyby the Supreme Court that it's unconstitutional right
to try to forgive these loans,and yet here he is out hitting that
again and again. And I thinkthat shows you how concerned they are about
the young voters. I don't thinkit can be viewed in any other way
other than he's trying to buy votesand he's doing it in the only way

(04:12):
he's got available to him, evenif it is illegal. Right. Well,
it's very unfortunate too, because youknow, they know that any court
action is not going to be doneuntil well after the election. So it's
really sad to see how they're tryingto use young voters this way, because
clearly this is unconstitutional and it willbe shown again, I think after the

(04:35):
election, but at that point it'sgoing to be too late for the young
voters. Good morning, and welcometo the Morning Show with Preston Scott.
Scott Beacon my guest this morning.Scott, you weighed in on the Iran
Israel. I don't know what wewould call it where we are with that
right now. It seems like everyside has a spin to what's happening there.

(04:59):
I know where I side, Myallegiance is always going to be with
Israel. That said, your observations, well, I think where we are
right now is trying to figure outwhat the next move is for Israel.
I mean, they're in a toughspot here they're obviously getting a lot of
pressure from from the Biden administration tonot do anything more, just to kind

(05:23):
of take this and leave it andnot up the ante, so to speak.
But you know, I think you'vegot to put some of this in
context. You know, they hadthe Israel had three hundred and thirty one
projectiles at their territories from Iran,you know, came in Saturday night,

(05:44):
you know, sixty tons of ordinance. Now to put that in perspective,
you know, we talk about theMoab bomb that the US has has dropped
in Afghanistan. That's for propective,that's eleven tons. So what was coming
to them was almost equal to sixmo Ab bombs when you put all those
three hundred and thirty one missiles anddrones coming at them. So to ask

(06:08):
them to stand down, I thinkit's a big ask with regard to to
Israel, and it's going to beinteresting to see, you know, where
they go with this. You Know. The other thing I think it's been
interesting is how the mainstream medium playsthis and even what Iran's position has been.
Well, they were just retaliating becausetheir embassy was attacked. But if
you really look at what was goingon. Their embassy was fully intact.

(06:30):
It was a building neck to theirembassy which they claimed to be a consulate.
But that constance so happened to havethe head commander of the KODS force
there along with six other high levelcommanders. So what it begs the question
is that really a diplomatic mission orwas that really harboring you know, some
terrorist forces with regard to the IRGC, that really sows a lot of terrorism

(06:56):
throughout the Middle East. Well,I made the argument that is real intelligence
is about generally, I mean,everyone makes mistakes, but generally is about
as good as it gets. Theyclearly, I you know, authored a
very precise strike at a very precisetarget, and it was meant to do
what it did. It was meantto send a message, and it was
meant to target people that they believedand had intelligence were responsible for some of

(07:21):
what has been going on in theregion. Scott, I've been making the
argument, if you start the fight, you don't get to dictate the terms
on how it ends exactly. Andyou know, the sad thing is is
the Iranian people in all of this. You know, I had a note
in my in my blog post itwas kind of interesting that if you go

(07:42):
back to nineteen seventy eight, whenthe Shaw was still in power, it
took seventy one realls to equal onedollar. That's now six hundred and sixty
five thousand reawlls. I mean,it's an incredible amount of suffering economically that
the Iranian people have taken with theMullos and charge there. So, yeah,

(08:03):
the endgame here, I don't knowwhere the endgame is, but it
wouldn't it be poetic justice if outof all this we ended up with a
regime of Iran coming down and theIranian people could be free. That would
be marvelous. Scott standby. Iwant to ask one more question relative to
Iran and Israel and kind of broadenit into the problem this country's facing with

(08:26):
regard to oil and where Iran fitsinto all of that. And then we're
going to talk about something else thatwe mentioned briefly, and to look into
the world of Coco, a productthat my life just cannot live without in
its various forms WSLA on your phonewith the iHeart radio app, and on

(08:46):
hundreds of devices like Alexa, GoogleHome, Xbox, and Sonos. So
here we go in ihearts radio seasonvisiting with Scott Beacon. He's the Bline
Blogger. It's Bline Blogger dot blogspotdot com. And you can subscribe to

(09:07):
the newsletters and trust me, youwill really really like the content. It's
well researched, thoughtful, and itprods just enough get you thinking past what
you might read in the mainstream mediaout there. Scott, I want to

(09:28):
just put a bow on the topicof Israel and Iran. Clearly, one
of the first things Joe Biden didwhen he took office was hurt our energy
independence. In fact, pretty muchend it. What happens if Israel targets
Iran's only source of revenue, whichwould be it's oil, Well, you

(09:48):
know, I think we live onoil. I mean that's the way it
is. I mean a lot ofpeople don't want to believe that right now,
but that is the reality in theworld today. And you know,
I was around in the Arab oilcrisis back in the mid seventies. We
had gas lines that would extend formiles. And you know, if things

(10:09):
get disrupted over there, either whetherIsrael attacks the oil facilities or you can
see Iran, it takes retaliation andtries to do something with the straits or
moves or whatever. We can havea major disruption in oil, and obviously
the biggest problem we have right nowis we prepare for that eventuality with the
strategic patrollum reserve. But Joe Bidenhas drained half of that off in the

(10:31):
last over the last year, andwe really don't have the reserves that we
did at one time if we havea real disruption in oil. He's kind
of used it for political purposes,which is concerning. And that's a big
concern that I've had. I've writtenabout several times in bline. You know,
what do we do if we havea true disruption, a true emergency

(10:52):
and not a political emergency, whichis how he's basically used it. Yeah,
it's been problematic. We've noted itas well, and and it certainly
hasn't fallen under the category that we'vedefined as the purpose of having the strategic
reserves. But it is what itis and where it is right now.
You wrote another piece back earlier thismonth, just about six seven days ago

(11:13):
in fact, dealing with chocolate,and I think a lot of people,
you know, they look at whatthey spend at the grocery store right now.
And buried within these prices are thesesubplots, and one of them is
coco. Share what you've written about, Well, now we're into something really
important. I think, so thechocolate, that's right, And this is

(11:39):
how I kind of write sometimes,you know, you kind of get these
nuggets that you aren't aware of.And I have no idea. I happened
to see something that the price ofcocoa had risen to over ten thousand dollars
a ton. So that doesn't meanmuch if you don't have context, right,
But the thing that really amazed mewas that it now is more expensive

(12:00):
to buy a ton of cocoa thanit is to buy a ton of copper.
And we see these stories every daywhere people are stealing copper off of
houses and going into infrastructure to sellit to recycle it because the price of
you know, copper has risen aswell. But to think that coco is
now more expensive than copper, youbetter lock up your chocolate because someone might

(12:26):
be coming for it in the nearfuture. Now, the other interesting subplot
about this is, you know,I always want to delve in, well
why is that? How could theprice which has normally been about two thousand
dollars a done. How did itall of a sudden rise ten thousand dollars
a ton, right, And itappears that it goes back to three quarters
of the production of cocoa in theworld is going on in Africa, and

(12:48):
a lot of those are done bysmall farmers over there, and they've had
three consecutive years of yields where they'vegot met the production they've seen in the
past, and so immediate at least. The other interesting subplot in this,
you know, the climate alarm mustcome out and say, well, it's
due to climate change. Obviously dueto climate change, and you kind of
look further at that and say,well, it's really not climate change.

(13:11):
The real reason is these farmers whoare poor, and we remember with a
fertilizer price was really high in twentyone and twenty two, they couldn't afford
to fertilize their trees and a lotof the trees are older, so the
yields drop because they didn't fertilize thetrees. And why was the price of
fertilizer high, Well, that's becausewe had the natural gas fight, you

(13:35):
know, coming up, which thatevil fossil fuel. So it's kind of
interesting the way all these things kindof work, and sometimes it's completely contrary
to the narrative you hear. ButI think eventually this will pass. I
mean, you've got short cellars,You've got a lot of that transportation goes
to the Red Sea with the Hoothys, so there's a lot of things going

(13:56):
into this thing. But right nowcoco is more expensive than copper in the
world commodity markets. That's incredible.We could talk for a very long time,
my friend. I'll settle for havingyou come on next month. I
appreciate your time, Okay, Ialways enjoyed Preston. Thank you, sir,
Scott Beacon with us and again thewebsite bline Blogger dot blogspot dot com.

(14:26):
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