391–400 of 839 posts
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And the Chinese will pick up the pieces in Africa and other places.
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Brexit pales in comparison to the damage that has _already_ been done to the US federal government. The dust just hasn’t settled yet so most of it not visible right now.
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How is firing large amounts of people on a whim going to solve the problem of people not caring about their work? From what it sounds like (w.r.t. Agenda 47 / Project 2025) DOGE is fund seeking for massive planned programs, not returning money to the citizenry or restructuring for efficiency. It sounds like they are illegally looting agencies and programs that congress already funded, so they can fund the admin's pro…
It doesn't look like DOGE is trying to fund anything; at this stage my guess is they're trying to hack off the propaganda arm of the CIA/NSA and the web of NGOs on the theory that it is funding anti-Trump messaging. Otherwise targeting USAID for savings early is a bit pointless; what is $50 billion a year to the US government? They're $36 trillion in debt with no plausible path out of the hole. Annual deficit is arou…
The first part of this plan - destruction - is easier than the second half - creation. If they're successful with the second half, people will be worse off because it's a big step towards neofeudalism /strengthening oligarchy. If they fail, people will be a lot worse off because the structures they're destroying are actually doing important work.
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You have clearly never worked in any sizeable workforce, and I can assure you your basic presumption that large private sector workforces does not have broken processes is childishly naive. The "problem" is you, making assumptions of waste where there is none to speak off, unless you can provide some actual data to back that up. The average federal employee earns about $60k/y, they are not there for the money. Firing…
I've worked in several large federal departments, and private sector companies that are even larger by headcount. Trust me, basic performance management processes that exist in the private sector are almost entirely absent in the public sector.
Since you fall victim to such an obvious fallacy, it makes sense that you would wind up hired into low-performing groups.
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Uppers have this effect on people.
You think Musk is on uppers all the time? This would indeed explain a bunch of things related to his behavior
https://x.com/Dreamshockcom/status/1881383073495048599
Some might say he was just stretching his neck, but personally I love an electronic music gigs, and I've seen that behaviour enough times before. He's not quiet about his ketamine usage either (not an upper per-se, but close to an alcohol-like hallucinogenic from my experience).
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Your use of the word "innocent" there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He did not have a day in court, and what he did was indirect. However, a lot of people consider the supposedly "innocent" guy that got killed a mass murderer. Whether or not you agree with that assessment, it seems like you don't understand a few links in the chain there or are otherwise playing dumb. It is very reasonable for people to not care a…
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If anything this whole DOGE scenario has illuminated is how confused and overconfident many in this country are. We are stumbling fools without systems and rules (organizations, institutions, laws, regulations, ...) to rely on. I wonder how much behavior like this stems from weak regulation in the US to begin with. It seems like it would reinforce the rise of agents that assume they can ask for forgiveness after acti…
There are no organization or institutions or anything else that matters: only people matter. If people don't bother to have integrity then "institutions" (or anything based around them) are irrelevant.
"There are no institutions, only people." — https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1231219728619835395 (possibly quoting Papandreou)
In the US context:
> Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
* https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-11-02-010...
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Your use of the word "innocent" there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He did not have a day in court, and what he did was indirect. However, a lot of people consider the supposedly "innocent" guy that got killed a mass murderer. Whether or not you agree with that assessment, it seems like you don't understand a few links in the chain there or are otherwise playing dumb. It is very reasonable for people to not care a…
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Do you have an argument about why you think what he did wasn't mass murder? Do you not like the specific term, do you think he should have been prosecuted but disagree with the wording, what's your actual position or are you just going to make vague irrelevant platitudes? (Left right politics isn't even relevant to this issue either)
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> If you got your information from economic facts comparing Europe to USA this comment it hilarious I don't understand what you mean. Can you please point me to resources to help inform me instead of pointing and laughing?
Much of Europe is in a recession, or has stagnant economic growth at best. They've had left leaning governments for too long, and economic stagnation is the natural result of that. You can't regulate your way to prosperity.
Left-leaning political ideology implies regulation?
What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
A more convincing argument for me would detail the regulatory frameworks that lead to economic stagnation, not bucketing a whole continent in an attempt to correlate a glut of regulation with economic stagnation.
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"unmoored" is the word. Not or no longer attached to reality.
Sadly true, the wonder is that the idiot has been showing his hand since at least 2015 and he still was been given another term!?! My guess, the first two years will be a type of cringe humor/horror. Mid-terms will be a political slaughter. Never, ever underestimate the ignorance and naivety of the American voter, especially my generation, the boomers.