Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#101

Post by nemo44x »

doom2 wrote: post #78
nemo44x wrote: post #21

[flagged]

Is it transparent? Elon got angry when people merely listed the names of some DOGE employees. I still don't think we know the full list of people working under him (and according to court filings, the government claims he isn't even the administrator of DOGE but can't name who is). We also won't be able to get access to DOGE records until well after Trump is out of office [1]. That doesn't sound like maximal transpar…

I’m reading a NYT article about outcomes they’ve claimed to create, looks pretty transparent.

There’s lots of things about organizations, especially government orgs, that aren’t public info. Naming the employees would create stochastic terror opportunities, for instance. Individual contributors should be able to work without being harassed or worse.

The management gives the media daily opportunities to ask questions.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#102

Post by DFHippie »

nemo44x wrote: post #65
_heimdall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not sold on this. I can't yet distinguish if the plan is to get rid of institutions or to gut what's their and rebuild it how the want it. We may not end up with a smaller government, just a different one.

[flagged]

> repopulate with people loyal to you

What happened to merit? competence?

This is the recipe for corruption that was eliminated back in the progressive era of the early 20th century. It's what gave us Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed.

Repopulating organizations with loyal stooges is not constructive.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#103

Post by TomK32 »

cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

Very nice examples, but why then doesn't DOGE go through every project? Why did Trump end all DEI contracts, why cause the disruption by freezing all outgoing money, why fire the Inspector Generals that are inspecting their agencies for waste, why fire all probationary workers, and why the fuck do they want to mess with the IRS, the one agency that brings money in at a very successful rate?

Clearly no one at Musk's DOGE has spent time in actual government bureaucracy.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#104

Post by mlnj »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #79
mlnj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Either that or, you know, we want to keep Hacker News about tech. Lots of us don't want /r/politics here.

Hacker News is not just about tech. There's plenty of discussion about philosophy, science, economics, health, hobbies and trivia.

I doubt we would have much to talk about here if Elon was not deeply involved in this storyline. There's plenty of government stuff that goes on without much to comment on that is Hacker News material.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#106

Post by cuuupid »

chillingeffect wrote: post #92
cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

Great info thanks! Frustrating that we don't see anyone declaring victory by cutting off Palantir contracts.

It’s probably a lot of things causing that:

- new age defense tech companies band together pretty tightly

- you can cut 10 Palantir contracts and save $200M but then you’re stuck with the existing tools (Sharepoint+PowerBI or Salesforce+Accenture) that are usually super shitty and 1-2B$ contracts vehicles for SI

- Palantir actually has really low revenue, as recent as 4 years ago they would have often qualified as a Small Business

- if you cut down entire lines of effort, sweep out the legs from under an entire program, lay off bureaucrats, etc. you can stop more stab wounds and stem bleeding; this is an okay step 1

Ironically the easiest way to quickly fix the deficit is actually to spend money. Most government employees are contractors because a GS-15 can earn maybe 150k while a contractor translating to only a GS-13 can earn 200k while their agency charges the government 600k a head. So if you raise the GS payscale to be competitive with the market, you can attract better talent that is willing to actually work. Then it is easy after a year to layoff 90% of the old bureaucracy with 0 risk as everything is appropriately staffed. Then you can cancel all the PWS contracts. By napkin math this would account for a cool ~$1T over 4 years.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#107

Post by mlnj »

squarefoot wrote: post #70
jimmydoe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan is not destroying, but taking over. Once the cut narrative is fulfilled, these institutions will regrow with Don King's own people. Despite DDoS on the wave length, DOGE will not really gain much in the end, the real matter to balance the sheet will come from selling Ukraine which obviously takes some time to materialize.

You missed the part where they're deleting a ton of scientific papers from government sites.

Just read that the Justice Department deleted the database tracking federal police misconduct. Good luck USA.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#108

Post by nickthegreek »

chillingeffect wrote: post #92
cuuupid wrote: post #84

I think impartial observers have not spent time in actual government bureaucracy. Basically everything will seem like “they’re cutting something important!” Or “they’re stopping critical research!” because every government contract needs justification; so naturally they will all sound good. The data and accounting itself is such bad quality in all cases that it is impossible to be perfect at this; there are entire in…

Great info thanks! Frustrating that we don't see anyone declaring victory by cutting off Palantir contracts.

That didn’t happen. Palantir Has not currently lost any contracts. They lost stock value.

Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

#109

Post by jimmydoe »

squarefoot wrote: post #70
jimmydoe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan is not destroying, but taking over. Once the cut narrative is fulfilled, these institutions will regrow with Don King's own people. Despite DDoS on the wave length, DOGE will not really gain much in the end, the real matter to balance the sheet will come from selling Ukraine which obviously takes some time to materialize.

You missed the part where they're deleting a ton of scientific papers from government sites.

it takes time and resources to review them one by one, so once the King restaffed these institutions, some of these papers will be back, as long as they are not inconvenient for the King.
Post reply on HN