Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trashing of a (hopefully) dying octopus.
hopefully to be replaced by something less rotten
it won't be lol, this is the capitalist class stripping the copper out of the walls.
DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
371–380 of 1001 posts
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#372[deleted]
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> To not have the money that you want to spend is, to me, the definition of spending too much. That's not how a reserve currency works. You borrow to fund growth and let inflation take care of the debt.
> That's not how a reserve currency works. You borrow to fund growth and let inflation take care of the debt.
Inflation might take care of the debt, but it is terrible for currency holders.
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#374For 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. US GDP estimated GDP in 2024 is $29 trillion. According to your first source, U.S. Federal Spending was 23% of GDP. If that were reduced to the 2014-2019 average of 20%, that would trim $870 billion from federal spending. That seems like good progress toward avoiding a potential debt crisis. 2. Reduce defense overall and make the process of getting money to the needy more efficient. 3. No comment. Healthcare is me…
The more competitive the market, the less that companies are able to pass on income tax increases (as opposed to input tax increases - like tariffs). If companies are able to pass along income tax increases, it means that they have pricing power.
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without looking it up, what do you think is the military budget in comparison to the whole budget.
Europe has a problem trying to spend a minimum 2% of GDP. We easily to 10x that.
So do you think that the US GDP is $4.21 trillion, or do you think that the US spends $5.83 trillion on the military?
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
Congress is well within its rights to delegate such authority. That would of course never make it through Congress. Counselor, you know better than to beg the question like that. It's disappointing to see such an intelligent person resort to such fallacious arguments.
> Congress is well within its rights to delegate such authority. Right, Congress told the executive “here’s three billion dollars, spend it on foreign development.” That means the executive decides how that money will be spent. It is entirely within its rights to cancel particular grants. Though eventually it will have to seek rescission as to the $3 billion if it doesn’t use all the money. That’s a long ways away. A…
Yes, the executive branch can decide how that money is spent. But it was intended to be spent. DOGE is simply arbitraging the recission period for political capital.
And I’m quite confident I’m not going out on a limb when I say line items for “DEI in Serbia” would never make it through congress.
Why not? You might (or might not) recall the US became heavily involved in a war in the Balkans 30 years ago the point of carrying out an extensive bombing campaign. To the extent that the US has an interest in that region being peaceful and the countries there staying or becoming more aligned with US geopolitical and economic interests, a small subsidy to that end may make strategic sense.
Bombing, peacekeeping, and reconstruction costs for the Balkan war ran into the tens of billions. A few million a year to nurture a more pluralistic civil society in the region (and thereby increase trade flows with the US) seems cheap by comparison.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/15/balkans https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/usa/partner/s...
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#377Frankly, this doesn’t matter. What matters is that an unofficial agency of the executive branch is deciding unilaterally - with no oversight - to stop payments that were voted on by Congress. Even if Musk and team were geniuses and doing brilliant work, it would be outside the rule of law.
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This feels willfully ignorant. They're not talking about reallocating USAID's budget, they're talking about shutting it down entirely to save money. This is not compatible with claims that they are merely overriding where the money goes.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/02/politics/usaid-officials-leav...
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#378This was basically the same shtick he did with Twitter. He "open sourced" the "algorithm" but it was basically a git repo of BS that rarely gets updated and doesn't seem to match what actually happens.
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#379For 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. The federal government has been bloated for a long time, as you mention. Getting back closer to 10% of GDP is a better target.
2. As we've seen with DOGE, there's clearly a lot of waste and inefficiencies. So first cutting out all of that, plus the grift, etc. would go a looong way, as we're seeing with DOGE currently. Also obviously the healthcare system has a lot of grift and inefficinecies on a massive scale that can drastically reduce the spent on healthcare, but this applies to so many systems that government is involved in, again DOGE is clearly proving this to be the case.
3. Yes definitely healthcare needs DOGE
4. Corporations should and do, but corporations are also made of people who also already pay their fair share of keeping national debt in check
Re: DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes
#380Earlier 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…
I know of at least one source arguing that in fact, population health (mainly obesity and gun violence) explain upwards of 70% of the difference in healthcare spending between the US and other developed nations.[1] To me, this seems like the most likely explanation because I believe we have pretty similar diagnostics and treatments to other developed countries, and I don't feel like a British doctor would give me any…
> I know of at least one source arguing that in fact, population health (mainly obesity and gun violence) explain upwards of 70% of the difference in healthcare spending between the US and other developed nations
I have my doubts. Over the last 50 years the ratio of US per capita health care costs and European per capita health care costs (or per capita health care costs for most of the rest of first world countries) has stayed about the same.
In other words, health care costs have risen at about the same rate throughout the first world over the last 50 years. So if in 1970 the US was paying say 3x per capita what some other country paid the US would still now be paying about 3x what they are now paying. Both would be paying maybe 35x now than they were in 1970.
Over that same time both US and European obesity rates went up, but they went up way more in the US. If obesity was a major factor driving health care costs then I'd expect US health care costs to be rising significantly faster than European health care costs.