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Political Matrix News: Iran's a Mess and So are Local Politics · Palafox Media Network

• Greg Fink: ⁓ back to what we're saying here about Iran and everything. So yeah, I it's a that's a little screwed up mess, i I mean, at the end of the day, I think we're gonna end up getting what we need out of it. And it's not gonna be pretty. And people keep saying all the Democrat all my wonderful liberal democrat friends keep saying that we're giving them so much, we're giving them so much. I'm like, the conditions are so little. Actually, we're just asking them to quit killing people and quit doing terrorism and quit going after nuclear weapons. It's actually pretty minimal conditions. And and and ⁓ that lady, ⁓ Laura Toberk or whatever on Fox News was arguing with advance and saying ⁓ the conditions in this earlier this week on the five on the Fox News show. she was arguing with J D. Vance, ⁓ Vice President Vance, and saying that, you know, these conditions look almost similar to the Obama ones and what's the difference? I'm like, Well I think the biggest difference is Obama never enforced anything. You know, I mean ⁓ Scott: there a and and there actually wasn't a enforcement provision within his nuclear ⁓ nuclear police. We were literally just supposed to take their word for it. Greg Fink: Well, I think there was a slight I think there's a one sentence. No, there wasn't. Well she was saying there was like a sentence in there that we had to check out. ⁓ inspections or whatever. Scott: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. ⁓ no no no no no. Well well let me roll that back. Yeah, let me roll that back. There was a provision that again was never enforced. Greg Fink: Right. And that's the whole thing is I mean, he couldn't even force Fast and Furious for God's sakes. I mean, you think he's gonna enforce this? I mean you know, I mean, Obama, you know, it's ⁓ i it's kind of speechless on how bad of a deal they had with that. But actually here ⁓ what I wanted to bring to the next step is that when Trump took over in sixteen, how come that wasn't even doubled down and more enforced by the Trump's first administration? How come, you know, I mean, probably he had a few too many Democrats in his administration at the time that were still Obama leftovers and ⁓ Obama holdovers and that's actually one of the irritations I had with Trump's first term was that ⁓ he actually I think did a really good on a lot of policies, but he did not clean house where he should have. In fact if he would have cleaned house, he wouldn't have been impeached twice. He wouldn't have had you know, he should have got rid of Comey and all those crazy FBI deep state guys who are going after him with fake phi FISA court records or and warrants and fake stuff. And he should have got rid of all of them in the beginning. And he did do he did learn that this time around. And cleaning house was a little rough, but he cleaned it. Scott: Well, Trump ⁓ Trump was a little naive in the in in his first administration. He thought that he was gonna be able to to, you ⁓ in and that these people were just gonna be subject matter experts and he was gonna be the boss and they were gonna listen to him because he's had people that worked for him before that didn't agree with him and and he a and and they just did what he told ⁓ to do because he was the boss. And that's not how the government works. He doesn't understand that ⁓ didn't seem to understand. the the the the people the employees, like the second and third tier employees at the ⁓ at the Treasury didn't feel like they had to listen to him. They only had to listen to their boss. W versus, you know, Dem so you know, someone in the at Mar-a-Lago at what at the Trump International Hotel. You know, ever ⁓ everyone down to the dang maid knew that the you better listen to pr ⁓ pr ⁓ Trump or you're out of there. Well, you know Greg Fink: Right. Scott: They don't feel like that in the government because they've got the civil service board out there to protect them and the unions to protect them, and you can't get rid of them no matter what you what you do. Well, he learned. Greg Fink: They do. You cannot. Yeah. And this is where we're at right now. I mean, is it pretty? No. Is it ugly and messy? Sure. But is it gonna work? I think it's gonna work. You know, and and and then that that's the whole idea here is get government to work for ya, not against ya. And ⁓ that being said, we had the ⁓ I guess Republican quarterly meeting here in Florida here this last weekend or this weekend actually in real time now. And I guess they're not doing the ⁓ governor debate because ⁓ Byron Donalds did not wanna show up. For the governor's debate, ⁓ because A, I guess he's too far ahead to worry about debating anybody else. I guess the story is that he's thirty or forty points ahead, where you and I both know because it's a bunch of crap. I mean, he's not even above thirty points at all in a in a poll. And and that that that that that's the whole thing, is that I mean, the reality here is that the undecided are thirty points ahead, not Byron Donald's. And Scott: ⁓ that's a bunch of crap. Greg Fink: In order then to not be undecided anymore, actually to make decisions and to be decided, it actually probably like to hear from all the people running for governor. But if the guy doesn't want to show up because, you know, he he thinks that he's a strong guy, it's kinda like he he's trying to pull the whole thing that we see a lot on campaigns where, you know, if you're really far ahead, if you're in the incumbent, you don't give them an opportunity to beat you down. But here's the reality, guys, he's not the incumbent. And he's not that far ahead. And I have no idea who's blowing smoke on him to think ⁓ to make him think that he is, but he's not. I mean, you know, it's ⁓ there's a reality here that even in a general election he's not that far ahead, and that's sad. I mean, you know, that's that that's other polls out there. It's not our polls so I can't verify the accuracy or the veracity of those polls, but the reality here is that, you know, he should be able to talk to the voters. Scott: Well well i if the conventional wisdom was in charge of the party, then Adam Putnam would have been governor and not Ron DeSantis. Because go because ⁓ you well know, ⁓ into the leading into the primary his first primary, Adam Putnam and Gwyn Grant were supposed to be the winners of their respective primaries. And ⁓ everyone the state said that was the case, except us. Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah, not for Yeah, and the first yeah, the first poll we had, we had Putnam like three points ahead. The second poll we had, we had DeSantis twenty points ahead. Third poll, DeSantis twenty points ahead. Fourth poll, DeSantis twenty points ahead. I mean the point is that, you know, DeSantis, like ⁓ or not, got the vote out and he got his ground game together and he has a good ground game. ⁓ ⁓ Putnam did not. And so, I mean Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Greg Fink: i it doesn't matter, the conventional wisdom only goes so far that it's it's who turns out to vote. People keep telling me about this guy, James Fishback and you know poor guys I mean, you know, he's a good guy from what I hear, a good person. He's not qualified I guess to run really. He ⁓ he's not living in in the state properly to run for governor, ⁓ far as what I'm hearing. But he's pulling at two percent. And glad that he's getting the college base and the young people and everything out but He's lower than the margin of error, okay? I mean, the the reality here is that you're this is a pretty daggum big state. I mean, it's Florida for God's sakes. I mean, it's the second or third largest population state in the nation. You're not gonna do anything at two percent. Especially whenever you don't have any name ID already, you don't have a base already, and your entire base is a bunch of college kids, which I'm all for college Republicans. Hey, I was a CR president back in the day at University of West Florida, back in the late nineties and early two thousands, but you know. Whenever I was doing that, I realized they do not show up. They don't turn out. That's why they're not on the call list. That's why they don't we don't poll them. They're not likely voters. They're not gonna be likely voters. At least for at least three or four j cycles. If they show up consistently. Scott: No. Well, the bottom line you know, the bottom line is, you know, you know, young voters will a lot of times vote only because they they registered and they're and and some of them feel like, ⁓ wow, I it's an opportunity for me to go vote so I'm gonna flex and I'm gonna go do it. But the problem is is you don't become a likely voter until you've seen just you've had a lot of experience with just how the government is is ⁓ ⁓ Greg Fink: Exactly. Do they? Scott: dollar and you know and ⁓ you know inch of po ounce of power that you give them. You know, then all of a sudden you're like, no, no, no, you're not gonna do that to me. And that's when they become dedicated voters. It's not until they make that that realization comes into their head. And that doesn't happen, you're twenty two. All you see at twenty-two is mommy and daddy told me I couldn't do this, so mwang Greg Fink: I th No it doesn't. Exactly. And also I think your your criteria, my criteria for likely voters different than most other people's. I mean, most people look at two out of three elections or three out of four elections. I think we usually historically we try to go back around eight or nine election cycles. And mean and yes, it does swing it to where we're most likely people who are forty five or over. But the reality is, survey says those are the ones that turn out. And so that's the reason why we don't for a poll too many people who are under forty five. I mean, y you gotta have some cycles in you, some some election cycles in you to really be that person who's gonna, you know, turn the dime and and and make that choice that's gonna make a difference. And whenever you're not, I don't give a damn about your opinion for a poll. I just really don't because we're talking about billions of dollars in budgeting. We're talking about trillions of dollars in budgeting for some states. We're talking about data that's gonna be used. to make people's lives differently and it needs to be done only with likely voters who are really invested in the system, who have turned out, who've been part of it, because they're the ones, they're the opinion leaders, they're the stakeholders. They're the ones with the most skin in the game politically, to where they've actually gone out, taken off work, you know, got to work late, got to work, you know, ⁓ or got off work early to go vote. And they're the ones who are putting the yard sins in there. They're the ones who tell people how to vote. And so they're their opinion leaders, they're your stakeholders and And whenever you just start doing these registered voter polls or these likely voter polls where two out of five people voted that's a likely voter. That's not a likely voter, guys. I have people telling me this week that we don't think we need to do a survey. We don't think we need to do a poll. And I've had at least a dozen different campaigns tell me that you know, that polls won't make a difference. I'm like, ⁓ well, okay. Polls only will not make a difference if the data is not being used, but Scott: Mm-hmm. Well, I I I I I will agree with them on this. And and you see what what they have is a very, very narrow view of what of of the what their reality that forms their opinion. ⁓ that's that that knowing who is ahead doesn't necessarily help you. I mean it can pro it can provoke you, it can be it can get you, you know, you know, ⁓ you to go do things. But what does give you an opportunity to go ahead is to see which things people are reacting to the most. The issues and the topics are the parts of the polls that may be the the the you know that are beneficial to a campaign. Knowing which things ⁓ wow, I talk to people, I know what I know what they're no, you talk to a handful of people. We're talking to hundreds and thousands of people. You you know j what you're talking to are the people who who are activists who wanna come out and come and talk to you. Not you know, the but the broad majority of people Greg Fink: Exactly. Water cooler poles. Yeah. Scott: Never voice her opinion beyond their kitchen table. Greg Fink: Exactly. I mean, in all reality here, the Listener Group, which is our marketing research division of PowerPox Productions, which is, you know, part of the Political Matrix News and ⁓ wonderful conglomerate and all the different names that we have and everything here. ⁓ the Listener Group has been surveying people since nineteen ninety nine. And we started out in the car industry and the political industry and the automotive industry and the ⁓ manufactured homes and we did a lot of government surveys and we've been doing that since the late nineties. And we've called millions and millions of people. It's not like, you know, this is something that we learned from an AI chat video or something, or it's something that, you know, we went to sleep at a holiday in and woke up and said, hey, we have pollsters. Yay. No, I mean, guys, we we we have a track record of accuracy beyond anybody else's reproach. And I don't match our data up. I don't really don't care actually what the sample size is, because not really even the sample size, it's ⁓ it's the quality of the data. It's the quality of the sample. Answer quality of the questions. I mean, some people say, ⁓ you you should pull two thousand people and not eight hundred people, or some people ⁓ you oversampled, or you under sampled, or I mean, there's always a chick that can go ahead and put on something because everybody doesn't like the data because A, it's not their data, and B, they just want to go ahead and poke holes in anything, 'cause there's so many negative people out there who just wanna basically do nothing but find fault with everybody else. And now I get it. The competition's tough out there. We have zero problem with, you know, picking apart our competitors as well. So I I get the game. But the reality here is that y we tell the truth, period. And Scott: Well, the bottom ⁓ the the bottom line is there's the is that we've we've polled the same issues, the the big the biggest boys, the Trafalgers, the Rasmus, you know McGl yeah, all these people. We we we we we've done all of the ⁓ polled the same th thing that these guys done and come within fractions of a point of the same thing. You know, those are actual actual reputable reputable, you know, you know Greg Fink: McLaughlin's ⁓ gallops. Yeah. Scott: people. They're not I I'm not I'm not gonna name name any of the disreputable ones. Or the ones that I feel I I don't even know that I I would call them disreputable but but they're they are certainly lower quality data. Greg Fink: No, we will not do that. We will not do that. Yeah, I mean you know, I mean th there's a lot of good pollsters out there and the the the thing though is that you have to know I mean, let me correct myself, there's about two handfuls of really good pollsters out there probably. And so I mean a lot of them we're seeing especially in this world of text polling and email polling and all the lazy especially I love this here when it started out with social media polling. Hey, just go ahead and throw up a Facebook poll or a or a LinkedIn poll and and and And that's just gonna give you your scientific accuracy and blah blah blah. I'm like, guys, you it's it's a water cooler pull, okay? Scott: Mm-hmm. And Yeah. I I I mean, you know, it's ⁓ but yeah, but even more than that, you know, ⁓ you know, ⁓ between the guys trying to cut costs or to find the the data that they need in order to make the contacts that they need with between those two people. And then the third class of them that are just y you know, I mean there are there's a class of them that have no idea how how to do it. And there's another class of them Greg Fink: And that tells you what your your buddies will tell you. I mean Scott: that make the mistake that well they don't really ⁓ you know you know they they feel like it's more important to to I we we we were talking about a push poll the other day that so that that someone ⁓ someone out. I mean it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. You between people self identifying as likely voters or or or just or or the pollsters themselves just wanting to make sure that Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Scott: You know, their the their customer gets the gets the answers that they're looking for so they can go tell their fundraisers, Yeah, see we're we're winning, we're winning, you need to raise us more money. Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah. And the whole thing is that and ⁓ don't realize the difference and there is this very strong difference between message testing polling and push polling. And first of all, message testing is when you're putting out a different message or a different narrative and you wanna see how it how it registers or how I g how it gauges with the voters. Is it is it worthy talking about or not? Is it is it worthwhile to talk about or not? A push poll is when you're basically putting out false data and you're putting out a false narrative. And so actually push polls I think are illegal in Florida. It should be illegal everywhere, because you're basically perpetrating a fraud. You're putting out data, you're exaggerating, you're exacerbating, you're, you know, embellishing facts and issues to go ahead and push an agenda. And that's not message testing. I mean, if you and ⁓ well actually let me correct myself, it is message testing if your message is based on lies. If you if you want to have a message based on lies and inaccuracies, then you know, it's it's messed up. Scott: Well, I I mean I don't really make a distinction between message testing and po and push polling. Push polling is really just a pejorative anyway. You know, i it's ⁓ i i it's and the reality is that that you know in the most generous of circumstances, like if we do a statewide poll, we'll probably call between six and eight hundred people, all right? Well, that's six and eight hundred people out of twenty-three million people, all right? So Greg Fink: It is. Exactly. Scott: It you know, the you know, the reason it's a pejorative is they say, well, they just wanna put the they're they're making all these calls to people and they're just basically calling and telling people all these things and disguising it as a poll. Well, if people understood how hard it is to get eight hundred people, even in a school a s ⁓ you know, a pool of twenty three million, to pick up the phone and answer a few questions. Yeah. Yeah, and and and it's ⁓ well, you ⁓ you gotta make twenty, thirty thousand calls to get eight hundred. Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah. You gotta call at least twenty or thirty thousand people. Exactly. Exactly. Scott: It it's like because the majority of the you know ninety percent of those people never answer the phone. But there's enough of them that do that give you a a relevant point and and frankly the people who are inclined to answer those polling calls, you know, are are do have a legitimate point of view. Greg Fink: Exactly. Which is the Exactly. Yeah, they do. I mean and they do have an internal bias and that those are actually the ones who actually do answer the polls. They they want their opinion to be heard. And that's actually the entire ever levid part of a poll is that you don't if people always say that, you know, you never polled me. I'm like, Well, obviously you don't want to be heard because A, you probably didn't provide your number to the elections office or the SOE or some other third party data who collects the da your number, or B, yeah, you did see the call come in. It probably says scam likely, most likely. You didn't answer it. You know? ⁓ you wanna be ⁓ a poll, then recognize ⁓ answer a number you might not recognize. It might be ⁓ guy selling you insurance or health care or it might be ⁓ a real actual poll and a real actual survey and you actually might get your voice out there. So quit complaining about not being called, 'cause believe me, you're being called. All y'all are being called. You just gotta answer the dag on phone. Scott: Right. Yes. Yes you are. If you are a real vote a real likely voter. Greg Fink: If you're if you really are a likely booter. Now I do remember one guy, he asked us to go ahead and fix the data and everything and and go ahead and call more people of this race or more people of this gender. I'm like, we've called them all equally. It's up to them to answer. And so I mean, we can keep calling and keep skewing and keep skewing and keep skewing, but I will go ahead and tell you right now the accuracy and is not is gonna be as high or the confidence level is not gonna be there in my opinion. I mean, I could be an idiot. Maybe skewing data is a accurate thing, but I don't think so. I don't think so. Scott: I don't know, you know, you know ⁓ pe we we get a lot of criticism criticism because, you know, you know, peop people wanna say well you know the that these larger firms have ha you know have a staff of statisticians statisticians and and and researchers and stuff that that ⁓ you know adjust the the balance of of their poles so that more re reflects more reality. And it's funny how they s they do that or they say they do that. Greg Fink: Yes, and Scott: and yet don't get any better results than we get. Greg Fink: Yeah, so yeah. The reality here is that we ⁓ we do also and ⁓ you know Scott: And yeah, and and and I I don't want to beat beat the dead horse about about us, though it it's really not even about us, it's just about if you see if you w when you see polls in the media, the overwhelming majority of them, unless they're from a very short list of of polls who have the same same philosophy that we have, are there to send a message. They're not there to reflect reality, they're trying to invoke a reality. Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah. And so with that being said, ⁓ what w what's the next topic we want to talk about today? Scott: I don't know, we talked about ⁓ we talked about Iran, we talked about what else what else is going in the world, man? Shoot. Greg Fink: I don't know, right we're testing out this ⁓ live process here. So for those who of y'all who are watching us live, if anybody is, that's it'd be great. But we are testing out the ⁓ live ⁓ podcast. We have never actually done this before. We see a lot of other people do it, and we thought we'd give it a shot and see what kind of ⁓ snafoos happened. Actually, yeah, I guess starting out we didn't even have cameras. Ha ha! I forgot to turn the cameras on. that being said, you know, we figured that part out. All 10 minutes in, my gray hair kicked in. Turned dark all of a sudden. It got smarter. Kind of like you, your dark hair. But ⁓ but yeah, so I mean it's ⁓ you know, it it's anyway, I'm speechless with that. But no, the to the ⁓ back to the news of the day. ⁓ I mean we got the Iran thing, it's pretty much the biggest thing going on right now, and J.D. Vance is making all the T V show circuits and everything, talking about the Iran deal. And I think he was on Bill Maher here last week or so, and so he was on there. Scott: Yeah. Greg Fink: Talking to that crowd and it looks like the Bill Maher crowd is more of a moderate Democrat crowd instead of woke Democrat crowd. So we'll see ⁓ we'll see how it all turns out. I mean it's ⁓ it's interesting the PR side of this whole thing, the the logistical side of this whole thing. I just can't wait for gas to drop personally myself. But that's all processes in the in the works. We'll see how long it takes. Scott: Yeah, I know. There's a there's there's a lot going on. Greg Fink: So right now I'm just very disappointed in all the ⁓ the reporters out there who just don't want to give full coverage to all the different people running, like Paul Renner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody say, You guys are biased for Paul Renner, your polls are biased. I'm like, no, yes, I am biased for Paul Renner 'cause I do like him better. But no, our our polling, our data is not biased. It never has been biased. That's the thing, we have zero trouble telling anybody how they're standing in any survey. ⁓ ⁓ and you know, it doesn't really matter. Scott: Mm-hmm. Greg Fink: who they are and you know, our polls are done independently, secondly, of any campaign. So that being said, it's ⁓ you know, you're allowed to have an opinion personally out outside of your work of who you like and who you don't like. I think that's legitimate. ⁓ the thing is the data is a data, period. Scott: The data is the data. I mean you know, peop people can't just, you know like You I I just keep going back to media polls, you know. I I I I sit there I sit there and watch the ⁓ w watch these pe you know, this CNN. You know, ⁓ my favor ⁓ my favorite quote ever was know, one time during the ⁓ God which I w was I don't remember if it was the governor's race ⁓ it was a presidential race, but for whatever reason, you know, the ⁓ was in ⁓ was in town and literally r in front of my office. They literally said I mean ⁓ you know Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah, the media poles are jokey. ⁓ yeah. That's a governor's right. Scott: It was a b it was a ⁓ I I I I used to have an office in a really beautiful place. It was it was right there overlooking the harbor and and they did their little stand up there and and I sat back and watched the producer ⁓ talk about it. And I mentioned to him, I said, Hey, you know, if you you know it might be a good angle on your story if you included some polling by by people from the local area 'cause it 'cause it was a story about the local I'm pretty sure it was a presidential thing, so the presidential primary candidates were were rolling through town. Greg Fink: It's beautiful down there. ⁓ it was, yeah. Two hundred sixteen. Scott: The producer literally told me that they had their own they had their own polster and it was a woman. And I'm like, well what does the gender of the polster have to do with anything? But as soon as she said it, I knew there was no point in arguing with her or even or or in continuing the conversation because her agenda was not accuracy. Her agenda her agenda was to it was Greg Fink: What does that have to do with the thing? Right, it wasn't. Scott: They liked the message that their pollster was giving them. And that's all these guys are doing in the media. They they find a pollster that will say what they want to say and then that's the story they report. Unfortunately, some pollsters just can't you run out of pollsters who can credibly lie. Greg Fink: Right. Scott: Yeah. So they try. Well, I mean event eventually they they still are stuck with ⁓ with the data that they got because even their pulsers who had previously given ⁓ the data that they wanted, you know, just have to bend it to re to reality at some point. Greg Fink: There's th there's a lot of them out there that try. They do. Right. Yeah, like ⁓ people are calling ⁓ calling us out on the poll we were doing on District twenty, the congressional district and Democrat poll, down there with Elijah Manley and you know, Uncle Luke from ⁓ Two Life Crew and Debbie Washman Schultz and Sheila McCormick and Dale Holness and some other person I forgot. Anyway, ⁓ the point is that, you know ⁓ yeah, Debbie and Elijah are the two leads and nobody wanted Sheila there at all and Scott: Yeah yeah. Greg Fink: Why she's rang again after resigning is a incredibly stupid. I mean, we had done a poll back in I think March where eighty percent wanted her to resign and I guess she didn't believe that poll. ⁓ she should, because do. And she's she's almost second and last in the Scott: Well well she she's used to paying for li ⁓ she's using ⁓ she's used to paying for liar's polls. Greg Fink: Well she is. I mean she's paying for a lot of it with COVID money allegedly. And so I mean you know, I mean the the reality is that, you know, Debbie's running in a race that the ⁓ you know, she shouldn't be running in. I mean, granted, everybody can run whenever they want to run. I get it. You know, that's cool. But she should be close enough to retirement with all the inside trading that she's allegedly done over the years where she should be able to have enough money packed back to go ahead and step down and have a good life the rest of her life. I mean, she's not in her younger years anymore. She, you know Scott: Yeah, well. Greg Fink: Zarie corrupted Lenuf systems allegedly throughout the DNC chairmanship and fixing the election for Hillary and changing all the rule counts and all the counts and everything else that got rid of Bernie and got him, you know, basically neutered out of the entire race. And ⁓ she rigged that one pretty good. Hey yeah, by the way, Democrats cheat too, ⁓ and against each other. ⁓ And that's a funny thing I had with the voter fraud is like Talked to a Democratic consultant last week that says Democrats never cheat. I'm like, no, everybody cheats, guys, okay. It's a voter fraud is party blind, and happens everywhere. And I'm getting sick and tired of everybody saying that it doesn't happen when you know our corruption is local, ⁓ just like politics. It really is. It starts at the smallest level and it's bottom up and it goes from there. I mean, we actually right now currently have ⁓ I'm getting data for absentee ballots in different counties and some of the data's duplicated. Curious. I'm asking, you know, how come I'm getting the same list for two different days? That's the exact same list. Maybe I'm wrong. Scott: If you don't think that Republicans cheat in elections, why is it that you think that we can't pass the Save Act? Greg Fink: Exactly. Scott: It's my i I I mean, w we we have enough of a majority and enough tools ⁓ tools at our disposal to pass that months ago. But the the problem is it's go you know, th there are Republican strongholds ⁓ you know well not even the strongholds, there are Republican places that are kind of on the bubble that r rely on questionable means. Greg Fink: Yeah. Yeah, and and this is not us calling out, you know, we're both Republicans in full disclosure. Okay. I I'm a big conservative, okay? That and that and nobody should ever doubt that or question that. But however, cheating is party blind, okay? I mean it people it goes back to a old story, follow the money. Just follow the money, baby. I mean, you you gotta see where the contracts are and somebody was actually telling me in And they're la laughing like, You mean the road contracts and the bridge contract? People would actually cheat to keep those contracts and there's there's no such thing. There's of course co there's no competition out there. They're the only horse in town. I'm like, Are you kidding me? There's always competition and come out there and get that road contract. It's all pay to play, man. I mean i in the naivety that people think that these local contracts which are only fifty million or only a hundred million or only twenty million are are a little chunk change, that's like What what do you think is paying for all the RVs and boats and Mercedes and Range Rovers and everything else? I mean, guys, it's wake up. Scott: y look, all y you know here's how much money there is in in paving. All right. ⁓ One small of paving, you know I understand that the actual laying of the asphalt and the road base and all that stuff is something hard for people to wrap their head around. Let me tell you something that's not hard to wrap your head around. The painting, the striping and stuff on on these c things. So I'm building an complex right now, just 86 units. Not that big of a place on four and a half acres. Not that big of a place. Greg Fink: Yeah. Scott: The the paving the the the paving is probably about a hundred grand. Just painting the stripes ⁓ the ⁓ the darn pavement is forty five thousand dollars. If you think these guys aren't making money hand over fist, you are not paying attention. Greg Fink: Yeah. Well well guess what? The the school board here in Flagler County, I and this is a thing I heard, the the baseball pin for the for the ⁓ for whenever they're like testing, you know, the baseball and they have like a big fence behind ⁓ and the fence goes over to the batting cage. A hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a batting cage. It's nothing but fence. Scott: Mm-hmm. And they can do it and they build it in one day. Greg Fink: One day, a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Pressure washing a a government building, four hundred thousand dollars. I mean, guys, and then then they want to talk to us about the budget cuts and the budget problems. ⁓ that's probably gonna well, we're gonna wrap it up. The the the the ⁓ Florida issues here. ⁓ we are talking about Florida. the the property tax cuts and everybody's crying about all the governments are gonna be out of business and the municipalities that will be bankrupt and everybody will be out of business, blah, blah, blah. Everything will be cut. Everything will be ⁓ down the tubes and there'll be no money for anything. And and I get it, you know. Yes, government will lose a lot of resources. And Blazeglosia, Angol ⁓ forgot how to pronounce his last name. Angolia, ⁓ the CFO here of Florida, was right. And ⁓ you know, I actually thought I was critical of him at first, thinking he was just cherry picking a lot of the doge stuff here in Florida just to justify cutting property taxes, but then I sort of looking at a lot of different budgets. I'm like Scott: Blazing Golia. Greg Fink: The budgets have increased like 30, 40, 50% over the last four or five, six years. Nobody's income has increased that much. The spending should not have increased that much. The vendors should not have increased that much. In fact, you and I both have a lot of experience with government vendors, they will do anything they do, they need to do to keep that government contract. I mean, they are not gonna the inflation in the private sector is not gonna reflect inflationary. In the government sector. If it is, you need to find a different negotiator. You know, you need to find a different person at the county or your city to get these government contracts. Because if you're gonna go ahead and get raked over the coals because you think everything's going up, and you don't have any leverage as a government agency to ⁓ keep prices down, because guess what? It ain't your money. It's taxpayer money. It's the taxpayers' money. It's it's not private dollars for this stuff. And the fact that y'all are using it so ⁓ in justifying raising taxes and raising village rates and raising exercise ⁓ taxes and all the numerous different fees in your county and your city, you're justifying all that to pay for the fire and safety, get over it, guys. Learn how to budget properly. Scott: Well, I mean i you know th that's the thing about government and frankly it it's it's probably for me the most compelling reason against socialism. Because you know, in capitalism, you know, when w i in a in a private business, if you know, th they spend months and months and months coming up with ⁓ you know, understanding with a plan for a thing that they want to do and this is this is how we're gonna do it, this is how we're gonna solve this problem, ⁓ then they roll out their plan and And then within weeks they realize they made a they made a fundamental error like, ⁓ crap, this ain't gonna work. And then they ch they they pivot and go a different way and maybe wind up saving some of it. And the government, once they commit to it, the only answer to a problem is more of the same, more government. The answer to bad government is supposed to be more government. Well, wrong. But that's why it gets more ex so expensive. Greg Fink: Right. Exactly. No, and yeah, I mean, we haven't even polled the issue on the property tax cuts 'cause I don't even think it's worth polling. 'Cause I think ⁓ you tell people that they're gonna get a huge homestead reduction on their taxes and vote for or against it and you know they're g they're gonna vote for it, no matter how compelling the argument is that you're gonna lose services and and you're only losing services because your county leaders want you to lose services. That's because they're not reprioritizing their budgets or they're locked in their budgets or something. their end that's shorting them. I mean, the reality here is you don't have to pay fifty bucks for a screw. You you really don't. I mean Scott: Well, y y you do when it's the government. Yeah, you know ⁓ to right t an and here's the only thing about that. That that that was a a ⁓ an out of context talking point. now there are there are lots and lots and lots of abuses. ⁓ and I'm not gonna say that that particular eye example wasn't a wasn't an abuse, 'cause it probably was. But it also was probably something that they had to do in order to make up for something else that they had Greg Fink: You don't though. I know. ⁓ there are. Yeah. Scott: you know, that the government cheated them on because I'll tell you what the government cheats us all the time on these HUD projects that we gotta eat stuff all the time that in a private context we wouldn't have to eat because it's not fair for us to have to eat it. You know, it's something it's something that the owner made us do or that the or that HUD made us do that wasn't in the original contract and we and we just gotta d suck it up and eat it. But but there are other changes but but heaven forbid there's some Greg Fink: ⁓ they do. Like Yeah, back in Exactly. Scott: Tiny little ridiculous thing that we can call a change order, and then that's where we get to make the money back. Greg Fink: Lots of them. Exactly. And ⁓ for me I was in when was in the Air Force, I had a I was in the ⁓ shop, I was ⁓ doing all the inventory, I had to order a lot of parts for the ⁓ F fifteen engines in the shop and stuff like that. So I got to see a lot of the prices. And we're paying five hundred dollars for a toilet seat, and we're paying ⁓ a hundred and fifty dollars for a for a Craftsman hammer. And I'm sure that a lot of the costs and everything else was obviously very high and very inflationary. But, you know, you're right, it's probably to to to cover up for something that was shorted somewhere else. So I wasn't privy to that part of the budget. Scott: But right, but then the double edged sword of that is is that once you realize you can you can do that, then you know, then the abuses come. You'd be i you'd be a lot better off i or these government agencies would be a lot better off if they would just treat people fairly, but they don't. Greg Fink: They all do it. It does. No, they did not. And so, I mean, you know, if if they started treating everybody fairly and started doing their budgets properly, I mean, we see ⁓ you and I have found this here website that pulls up all the public officials ⁓ payroll here in Florida. We're surprised that these city managers of towns like five thousand or people or less are making six digits. Which I it's a hard job, I get it. But it should be based proportionally based on your population, just like the elected officials are. I mean Scott: Mm-hmm. Greg Fink: Elected officials' salaries are based on population. How come the appointed officials' salaries are not based on the population? How come there's no reflect or if it is, explain that to me. How does a city manager of a town of less than ten thousand people make over a hundred twenty thousand a year? I'd love somebody to give send us a comment and explain that. I mean, and then it might be a good reason. Like we said, we could be wrong. That's great. I just don't think we are. I don't think we are. Scott: We could be wrong, but ⁓ so something tells me we're not. Greg Fink: It's kinda like Dennis Miller always used to say, you know, I could you know, it it's my opinion, but I could be wrong. But ⁓ you know, ⁓ it is what it is. But guys, I guess we're gonna go ahead and call it a ⁓ show here. ⁓ we have a couple of breaks in this episode here, so we're gonna go ahead and ⁓ and edit and clean this up here and put up a ⁓ a polished version of this here. But we are testing out the live ⁓ broadcast today, and hopefully we'll be doing this again. Scott: Mm-hmm. Anyway. Look forward to it. Greg Fink: Okay, Scott. Well you have a good evening there, sir. Scott: All right, buddy you too. We're talking to you soon. Greg Fink: And and follow us on other platforms by the way. We're on all of ⁓ Just pick one. Scott: Yeah, h help us out. It i it it really helps us out if you'll if you'll like, follow and share. Sharing in particular. Algorithm hates us. Greg Fink: Is the algorithm ha algorithm hates us? It does. night. Scott: Yeah.