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DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes

nytimes.com

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

#461

Post by dustingetz »

amarcheschi wrote: post #417
bamboozled wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the narrative that some how “startups are efficient”. I’ve worked at 6 startups, they basically all failed due to “inefficiency”, burned through money before they made money or were acquired. I’ve worked for one major success story, and that was the most inefficient startup of all, they just had some luck and the founder was a great salesman. We literally hired morons at scale to appear bigger and more success…

Most of the startups fail, I hope we don't want that in government things

in evolutionary biology, almost all cells die, but some of those that survived evolved to become humans

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

#462

Post by dustingetz »

bamboozled wrote: post #287
christophilus wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a few weeks working at a contractor who specialized in VA contracts. I put my two week notice in after the first few weeks. There’s no way I could “work” like that. They had teams and teams of people doing the job of a single person at a normal startup. I’ve never seen such bureaucratic waste anywhere in the private sector. It made my stint at Microsoft look like a lean startup by comparison. I talked to them…

I love the narrative that some how “startups are efficient”. I’ve worked at 6 startups, they basically all failed due to “inefficiency”, burned through money before they made money or were acquired. I’ve worked for one major success story, and that was the most inefficient startup of all, they just had some luck and the founder was a great salesman. We literally hired morons at scale to appear bigger and more success…

absolutely startups can be inefficient but government projects are at a wholly different order of magnitude. Some startups will crush $20M and then die, and yet the best ones, such as facebook, return 100,000x ROI on that same $20 mil. Govt projects will crush $200M, deliver nothing and then go to recompete so another vendor can have a turn.

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

#463

Post by enriquec »

LargeWu wrote: post #445
cwalv wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average...? Why should it scale linearly with GDP? I can see an argument that it should scale linearly with population (maybe), but if GDP per capita increases, you could also expect better tech/productivity to allow gov spending per capita to decrease. > What do you think should be cut, an…

Scaling with GDP, rather than population, implies that government spending is scaling with the country's ability to provide services commensurate with prosperity.

Who said the problem is solely deficits? I don't think spending should just "scale" with anything and there is empirical evidence that that is a horrible way to run an economy.

You are literally just suggesting we spend more no matter what. Obviously, there is a massive difference in types of spending right? And we have an incredible amount of bad spending. In fact, in places like public education and health, we continue to spend more to get worse outcomes.

You're making large, sweeping generalizations and most of the positions espoused are more political than scientific.

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

#464

Post by llsf »

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…

"Your margin is my opportunity"

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

#466

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

michpoch wrote: post #436
qgin wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number 3 can’t be overstated. Healthcare costs for the exact same care are 2x-3x what they are in Europe. Global health insurance plans usually come in two flavors: 1. Global coverage 2. Global coverage excluding United States (for half the monthly premium of the first plan) The United States in an extreme outlier in terms of cost. This is separate from rationing care. This is separate from even population health (ex…

> Healthcare costs for the exact same care are 2x-3x what they are in Europe. And so are the salaries.

>> Healthcare costs for the exact same care are 2x-3x what they are in Europe.

>And so are the salaries.

The original estimate was off by at least a factor of ten, so alas your comeback falls apart.

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

#467

Post by pclmulqdq »

rayiner wrote: post #217
pclmulqdq wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at the CBO's reports on this. Most of the budget is spent maintaining Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. The sleight of hand involved in the idea that the military budget is "most" of the spending is by calling large parts of the government's spending (but none of its military spending) "mandatory," and then slicing up the "discretionary" portion only, most of which is the military. However, the d…

The full budget is $6.9 trillion, not $4.4 trillion.

I am bad at addition, but I was going from 2023's numbers, which were indeed close to $6.4 trillion, not $4.4 trillion. Mandatory spending alone was $3.8 trillion.

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

#468

Post by d_burfoot »

sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

1. Public debt 120% of GDP, higher than it has been since WWII [1]

2. I would support cuts in all of those categories. Pete Hegseth has ordered the DoD to begin budget cuts. [2]

[1] https://www.capitalgroup.com/individual/insights/articles/us...

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/19/pete-hegseth-orders...

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

#469

Post by pclmulqdq »

thrance wrote: post #391
ruraljuror wrote: post #210

Keeping Musk’s interests in mind helps clarify what’s going on. Scorching earth and constantly lying is the playbook for dismantling agencies with oversight into the companies he runs and agencies that promote potential growth of competitors (e.g. pulling the ladder up behind him after the DoE’s Tesla loan). The Canada/China tariffs will cripple other automakers who depend on trade while Tesla’s integrated manufactur…

Yup, that's basic class consciousness on Musk's part. The American people simply forgot that billionaires' interests are diametrically opposed to theirs, a fact they knew well in FDR's time. Hopefully this situation will act as a booster shot, and not slip into full-blow oligarchy.

He doesn't have "class consciousness." He has consciousness of his own interests. That is what pretty much everyone has.

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

#470

Post by digitaltrees »

cwalv wrote: post #426
sxyuan wrote: post #248

For those who want to have a substantive discussion on the federal budget and believe these cuts are justified, I have a few questions (putting aside questions of constitutionality for this thread): 1. There are claims that federal spending is out of control. How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average going back to at least th…

> How do you square that with the fact that spending as a percentage of GDP is only slightly elevated compared to the historical average...? Why should it scale linearly with GDP? I can see an argument that it should scale linearly with population (maybe), but if GDP per capita increases, you could also expect better tech/productivity to allow gov spending per capita to decrease. > What do you think should be cut, an…

It scales linearly because the same ratio of services to people continues. There aren’t suddenly less kids to educate, less elderly that need health care or less cases in federal court as the population grows.

—- As someone that has been in healthcare for 12 years it’s broken because of the corporate structure and administrative state of companies. The payors and providers share the same incentive to raise rates because they each collect a percentage of premiums. This is a solved problem in every OCED country in the world except here. RFK isn’t going to fix this, he hasn’t even labeled the problem correctly. He has some ok ideas around nutrition but the rest of his ideas range from futile to dangerous.

—- Corporate tax contributions aren’t at fair levels the national debt is increasing even while spending isn’t. They get access to markets created by society and government and yet as debts increase their ratio of tax payments is going down. The fair level would cover social service costs. I haven’t even gotten to the companies that receive subsidies or pay workers so little that they are in social support.

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