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Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

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Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#401

Post by motorest »

winrid wrote: post #382
amrangaye wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. And “figure out a government ledger” sounds like a friend who would ask why google spend so much money when “it’s just one page with a search box”. Government spending and the amounts involved in budgeting and appropriation etc are far more complex than that, even for small countries.

You don't need to type +1, there's a button for that. Also, it must not be that complicated since they have already discovered tons of waste. They don't have to understand the whole thing, even 10% might be enough to be useful.

> Also, it must not be that complicated since they have already discovered tons of waste.

You need to be terribly gullible to believe that propaganda nonsense.

You're talking about a bunch of morons who tried to pass off a public health program to fight the spread of AIDS in Mozambique as funding for HAMAS just because they stumbled upon the keyword "Gaza".

> They don't have to understand the whole thing, even 10% might be enough to be useful.

Their goal is to fool gullible morons, the kind who go on online forums parroting "they have already discovered tons of waste" when they don't even know what "waste" is supposed to mean.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#402

Post by krishnazden »

Copem.All those criticising doge team haven't created anything worthwhile. All these people secretly wanted twitter to fail post elons take over. Bigballz is much better than all those who are criticizing you. I have seen detrimental effects of usaid creating social havoc in other countries.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#403

Post by JetSpiegel »

tim333 wrote: post #310
afpx wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know. I feel like we're so far past the point of no return. I'm sure they're all eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to be a Duke in Peter Thiel's new global Monarchy.

High tax on the rich. We did it in the UK in the first half of the 20th century with tax as high as 90%. But to do that you have to vote it in and it's not really popular with the electorate these days.

It's popular, but no party run with that agenda.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#404

Post by 3vidence »

GiorgioG wrote: post #344
3vidence wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you genuinely tried to compare the salaries vs cost of living in the US vs other countries? You would genuinely be surprised. Financially the thing that leads most Americans to bankruptcy is medical debt. Another factor primarily lead by private industry taking advantage of people.

The US is a big place. Living NYC is not cheaper than London. If you live in the middle of the US, you're not making NYC money.

The height of money in NYC is almost unlike anything in the world, including London.

The mediums of places like Pittsburgh is still much higher than most cities on earth.

Americans struggle with wealth inequality not raw wealth. One of the mechanisms to redistribute wealth is the government itself.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#405

Post by tomrod »

ctrlp wrote: post #400
tomrod wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always helpful to review the guidelines. Thanks for the opportunity to do so [0] > In Comments > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2,…

tomrod, you're a serial abuser of the guidelines. You should take some time to think about what you say and do on HN and whether you are adding to the discourse are detracting from it. I think you could adjust your tone on almost all your political comments to be more thoughtful and less combative. It would be less work to point out cases where you observe the spirit of these guidelines than where you violate them. I…

Agree to disagree on your general take. Best to you.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#406

Post by tomrod »

ianburrell wrote: post #368
tmikaeld wrote: post #293

As an outsider trying to make sense of all this. Is America taking the hammer down on all types of spending because America is desperate to bring down debt from 120% of GDP?

There isn't enough spending for them to cut the $2 trillion deficit. The federal spending is $6.75 trillion. Discretionary spending is $1.7 trillion, that is most of the departments and all of the military. The rest is entitlement spending that hard to be touched. The only way to balance budget is to cut taxes, but Trump wants tax cuts.

On your last bullet, I think you mean raise taxes. Is that right?

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#407

Post by tomrod »

afpx wrote: post #222
GiorgioG wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've learned the hard way that many people in this country do NOT actually care about democracy. Our democracy has been eroding for decades. Congress collects paychecks while gridlocking progress, even on bipartisan issues that could help ordinary citizens. Super PACs and "campaign contributions" (aka bribes) ensure the wealthy control both parties. Democrats and Republicans both spend recklessly and divide the nat…

How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know. I feel like we're so far past the point of no return. I'm sure they're all eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to be a Duke in Peter Thiel's new global Monarchy.

> How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know.

This has been a topic of research for a long time in social science. Wealth redistribution via taxation, education, and strong social safety nets. There is some deadweight loss due to taxation in a single-shot model, but allows for more stable regimes when considering the long term.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#408

Post by tomrod »

EnergyAmy wrote: post #330
rayiner wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we’re seeing a lot of culturally rooted assumptions about the nature of government bubbling to the surface. There’s a lot of people who subscribe to progressive managerialism, which was championed by Woodrow Wilson. This is the dominant culture of knowledge workers. What Trump is doing is deeply upsetting to them. They will invoke things like records laws or the Impoundment Act or whatever, but nobody gets th…

That's a weird take. Given your other comments in this thread, you have ideological blinders on. People are worried because Musk is doing whatever the hell he wants, dismantling power structures that could oppose him, and installing lackeys that are loyal to him. He won't face consequences for doing anything illegal because he has a puppet in the White House that the Supreme Court says has absolutely authority to par…

So, having read through the thread a few days after participating, and being more or less fully on the anti-current-actions camp by DOGE, I think raiyner is actually doing a pretty strong job presenting the facts as he, she, or they see it.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#409

Post by ianburrell »

tomrod wrote: post #406
ianburrell wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't enough spending for them to cut the $2 trillion deficit. The federal spending is $6.75 trillion. Discretionary spending is $1.7 trillion, that is most of the departments and all of the military. The rest is entitlement spending that hard to be touched. The only way to balance budget is to cut taxes, but Trump wants tax cuts.

On your last bullet, I think you mean raise taxes. Is that right?

Yeah, have to raise taxes to balance budget.

Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

#410

Post by btreecat »

rayiner wrote: post #391
btreecat wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could choose to direct the same billion to DOE, or FCC instead and end up with very different outcomes. Let's assume it is all one giant slushfund for the executive. What now enables checks on the slush funds use? If Congress says "here's 10 billion to spend on X and Y but not on Z. And the executive says "nah, I'm going to actually not spend it on X, but Y and Z sure." So Congress says "ok here's half as much so…

To be clear, I don’t think the executive can just ignore the difference between a billion to the FCC versus a billion to USAID. My point is that, having given a large slush fund to USAID with only vague guidance on how to spend it, they’ve put the ball in the President’s court. The President isn’t obligated to spend the money on the priorities career USAID people want to spend it on. He can spend it on whatever smart…

> To be clear, I don’t think the executive can just ignore the difference between a billion to the FCC versus a billion to USAID. >

Right, he tried that last term with the wall and didn't win in the courts.

> My point is that, having given a large slush fund to USAID with only vague guidance on how to spend it,

How certain are you that it's as vague as you claim?

>The President isn’t obligated to spend the money on the priorities career USAID people want to spend it on. He can spend it on whatever smart lawyers can justify as being within the broad terms of the corresponding appropriation bills.

I think it's a large assumption to say the POTUS can spend the money for an organization on lawers meant to defend dismantling the organization.

What statues do you believe enable this? >Congress never specifically appropriated money for grants to bankroll left wing labor organizations in Bangladesh. The executive did that and the executive can undo that.

Not familiar with the specifics you are waving at, do you have more information?

> And it’ll take time to see whether he’s going to end up spending less than appropriated for statutory programs, such that there’s an impoundment.

So logically the lawyers mentioned earlier by you, could demand a fee sum large enough to ensure the spending, and try to prevent any impoundment?

> Remember, USAID isn’t going away, it’s keeping 600 or so mission critical employees.

You don't have to take all the water away from a tree to kill it, but take away enough water, for long enough time, and it can only wither and rot.

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