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Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

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Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#171

Post by onetimeusename »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

This whole article is speculation about a war of words on social media from two days ago. You are further stretching the chain of inference and adding in some statistics without any citation.

>One industry source, speaking on background, dismissed the exchanges as “bluster” that neither Musk nor Trump would actually implement

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#172

Post by hermitcrab »

yb6677 wrote: post #17

[dead]

>Trump is a deal maker

Is he though?

He didn't write the book 'The art of the deal'.

He is a terrible businessman. I read that most of his properties are loss making. How many other people have lost money on a casino?

He didn't end the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 24 hours, as he said he would.

What good deals has he made?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#173

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

rchaud wrote: post #156
yongjik wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the positive side, Trump is so unstable that he'll trash your business one day and then the next day he'll reverse course. So, "if people kiss your ass enough, they get contract" does not seem to be a long-term viable strategy. (Exhibit A: Musk.) I'm 90% sure it will lead to America's ruin, but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. Hey, at least it looks more entertaining! :/

> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…

Present circumstances in America are very different. When Putin took power, Russia's economy had been declining rapidly for a decade; then over his first decade, the GDP dectupled. If the US were to somehow achieve $600,000 GDP per capita by the end of Trump's current term, yeah, Americans would probably want to reevaluate their conventional wisdom about what good governance looks like. But I'm pretty confident that won't happen.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#174

Post by SoftTalker »

andrepd wrote: post #157
creato wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the standard for something to be considered improper behavior is (or used to be) the appearance of a conflict of interest. People stopped giving a shit about anything. This is just one of dozens of things that would have been totally unacceptable a few years ago.

The world is no longer a serious place. Everybody is turbo-infantilised via social media. I don't know if that's indeed the root cause or if it's a combination of factors, but the fact remains that people don't even feel the need to _ pretend to care _ about honesty, character, seriousness, etc.

I think they might have figured out that a lot of that honesty and character was a facade. Is the false appearance of morality better than just showing yourself as you really are?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#175

Post by Gigachad »

andrepd wrote: post #157
creato wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the standard for something to be considered improper behavior is (or used to be) the appearance of a conflict of interest. People stopped giving a shit about anything. This is just one of dozens of things that would have been totally unacceptable a few years ago.

The world is no longer a serious place. Everybody is turbo-infantilised via social media. I don't know if that's indeed the root cause or if it's a combination of factors, but the fact remains that people don't even feel the need to _ pretend to care _ about honesty, character, seriousness, etc.

This kind of stuff would not fly in Australia. Not to say that there is no corruption, but that it isn’t absolutely blatant and ignored.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#176

Post by kortilla »

jmyeet wrote: post #18

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering). Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see,…

>For starters, Trump can simply revoke Elon's security clearance. There's no recourse for this. And that makes SpaceX's military contracts real awkward.

This isn't an issue. Execs nor shareholders are required to have clearance and even the ones that have clearance aren't read in to top secret stuff without a need to know. Elon's focus was starship which is quite far removed from any of those contracts (falcon gov launches or starshield). Gwynne Shotwell runs and will continue to run those parts of SpaceX just fine without Elon having clearance.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#177

Post by gambiting »

andrepd wrote: post #157
creato wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the standard for something to be considered improper behavior is (or used to be) the appearance of a conflict of interest. People stopped giving a shit about anything. This is just one of dozens of things that would have been totally unacceptable a few years ago.

The world is no longer a serious place. Everybody is turbo-infantilised via social media. I don't know if that's indeed the root cause or if it's a combination of factors, but the fact remains that people don't even feel the need to _ pretend to care _ about honesty, character, seriousness, etc.

I remember when certain social media networks argued that having a real name policy will lead to a more polite, kinder internet, because people won't be as rude with their real names attached to their posts. Turns out, people really don't care. I see the most vile, disgusting, racist, xenophobic shit on Facebook every single day, with real names and pictures showing smiling happy people hugging their kids on every one of them. Like you said - people don't feel any need to care about honesty, character, or even appearance of politeness or good manners.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#178

Post by cosmicgadget »

peterfirefly wrote: post #123
jmyeet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 of the people who think all this is completely fine are Supreme Court justices. All of this is enabled by the completely illegitimate Supreme Court decision that made the president a god-king by inventing out of thin air the concept of "presidential immunity". Not only is the scope of "official duties" so broad to make prosseuction next to impossible but the majority went out of its way to say you can't even examin…

It was not out of thin air. There's a reason why the impeachment process is in the Constitution -- and why it's perfectly normal for countries to have Parliamental Immunity and processes quite similar to the US impeachment for government ministers.

We have legislative immunity called the speech and debate clause. It doesn't shield lawmakers from other crimes, nor should it, and it certainly doesn't imply some sort of expansive executive immunity.

The founders were rebelling agaisnt an untouchable executive, remember?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#179

Post by decimalenough »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #173
rchaud wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…

Present circumstances in America are very different. When Putin took power, Russia's economy had been declining rapidly for a decade; then over his first decade, the GDP dectupled . If the US were to somehow achieve $600,000 GDP per capita by the end of Trump's current term, yeah, Americans would probably want to reevaluate their conventional wisdom about what good governance looks like. But I'm pretty confident that…

Well, there's an easy way to get to $600,000 GDP per capita, just crash the value of the US dollar by 10x. And this may well be in Trump's reach.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#180

Post by neilv »

alephnerd wrote: post #159
pessimist wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…

Vote banks and patronage politics has always been a thing in the US, especially at the local and state level. The main difference is a significant portion of governance was temporarily de-politicized in the 1960s-90s period as leadership on both sides of the aisle had formative unifying experiences during the World Wars and the Korean War, but has been re-politicized now that activism on both sides of the aisle has r…

Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?
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