• Wayfarer
    23.5k
    The New York Times reports on Elon Musk's unprecedented intrusion deep into the mechanics of the Federal Government. The world's richest dick man is acting unilaterally with apparently zero government oversight, slashing and burning as he sees fit. He's declared that US A.I.D. (American International Development) should be unilaterally dissolved and the remnants placed under the control of the State Department. Not only does this affect the livelihoods of many dedicated public servants, but it severely impacts a huge numb er of vitally important services all over the world (the sites of which have also gone dark, thanks Elon. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Mr. Musk gloated on X at 1:54 a.m. Monday. “Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”)

    In Elon Musk’s first two weeks in government, his lieutenants gained access to closely held financial and data systems, casting aside career officials who warned that they were defying protocols. They moved swiftly to shutter specific programs — and even an entire agency that had come into Mr. Musk’s cross hairs. They bombarded federal employees with messages suggesting they were lazy and encouraging them to leave their jobs.

    Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy — one that has already had far-reaching consequences.

    Mr. Musk’s aggressive incursions into at least half a dozen government agencies have challenged congressional authority and potentially breached civil service protections.

    Top officials at the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development who objected to the actions of his representatives were swiftly pushed aside. And Mr. Musk’s efforts to shut down U.S.A.I.D., a key source of foreign assistance, have reverberated around the globe.

    Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, is sweeping through the federal government as a singular force, creating major upheaval as he looks to put an ideological stamp on the bureaucracy and rid the system of those who he and the president deride as “the deep state.”

    The rapid moves by Mr. Musk, who has a multitude of financial interests before the government, have represented an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.

    The speed and scale have shocked civil servants, who have been frantically exchanging information on encrypted chats, trying to discern what is unfolding.

    Senior White House staff members have at times also found themselves in the dark, according to two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. One Trump official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Musk was widely seen as operating with a level of autonomy that almost no one can control.

    Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.

    This time, however, he carries the authority of the president, who has bristled at some of Mr. Musk’s ready-fire-aim impulses but has praised him publicly.

    “He’s a big cost-cutter,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go. But I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy.”

    But, remember, this guy has never been elected to any public office. Since buying X (then Twitter) he's become a conduit for and mouthpiece of a lot of right-wing conspiracy-based nonsense, praising neo-Nazi movements and spreading all manner of lies. And he's careening around Washington like an unguided missile. People should be on the streets over it.
  • frank
    16.4k

    In a democracy there is no way to limit government spending. Only an entity who does not answer to the people can do that. It's kind of bizarre that it's Elon Musk doing it, but there you have it.

    This fault in democracy is something the human race has yet to resolve.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    No good trying to kick into the long grass of ruminations about democracy. It’s your breakfast they’re going to be eating. Besides, the leading statement is completely untrue: democracies can limit spending simply by agreeing to do so.
  • frank
    16.4k
    No good trying to kick into the long grass of ruminations about democracy.Wayfarer

    No, it's true. The US has struggled with the problem for decades. There is no solution within the framework of democracy.

    It’s your breakfast they’re going to be eatingWayfarer

    I doubt it.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    So this is about it for you, Frank?

  • frank
    16.4k

    There's a bunch of those. They're all pretty funny.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    There is no solution within the framework of democracyfrank

    So let’s get rid of it.
  • frank
    16.4k
    So let’s get rid of it.Wayfarer

    I believe we're watching the emergence of an authoritarian state spanning North America and Greenland. This kind of thing happens all the time in history books. I've never seen it in real life though.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    You sound remarkably sanguine about it.
  • frank
    16.4k
    You sound remarkably sanguine about it.Wayfarer

    I feel like the USA I grew up in is gone. It seems alien to me, but I think Trump's vision of securing Canada and Greenland is genius. I know how weird that sounds, but it is, partly because of climate change and partly because the Yellowstone caldera is due to blow up.

    The presence of Musk, Vance, and Vought signals that visionaries are gathering around Trump. Musk wants the US government to help SpaceX. Both Vought and Vance want dictatorship. A dictatorial USA will be stronger and more flexible than the old version. That's why all democracies eventually becomes monarchies, historically.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    You just earned yourself a place on my banned list. Have a nice life.
  • frank
    16.4k
    Have a nice lifeWayfarer

    Thanks for the blessing. I am having a nice life.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    Anyone else? Surely there must be an alarm bell ringing somewhere about this?
  • Tobias
    1.1k
    In the whole European Union the alarm bells go off... but they have realized too late they need more integration and should end squabbling.
  • Pierre-Normand
    2.5k
    Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies

    ...and to his substance providers.
  • unenlightened
    9.4k
    In a democracy there is no way to limit government spending. Only an entity who does not answer to the people can do that. It's kind of bizarre that it's Elon Musk doing it, but there you have it.

    This fault in democracy is something the human race has yet to resolve.
    frank


    No, it's true. The US has struggled with the problem for decades. There is no solution within the framework of democracy.frank

    That's completely ridiculous. The US government doesn't even have a health service, and barely an education service. And the resolution of the problem is anyway completely automatic, and built into the financial system. If the government overspends, inflation balances the books by effectively reducing everyone's wealth and earnings. That regime is then liable to be removed at the next election.

    Surely there must be an alarm bell ringing somewhere about this?Wayfarer

    Here is the alarm bell ringing in my ear. The climate catastrophe is eating your wealth, burning, flooding, blowing away, desiccating your assets faster than you can increase them. This results in some desperation amongst the electorate and makes them vulnerable to populist snake oil salesmen with promises of easy solutions involving making some other pay.

    Now that you have elected said populists to power, you find that their purpose is to manipulate the markets by random acts of economic destruction that because they have inside knowledge of, they can profit from big time at your expense.

    Such acts of destruction include the whole fabric of government , but prioritising anything relating to "checks and balances", "healthy and safety", or "quality control". This is how disaster economics works; most people are impoverished and immiserated, while a very few celebrate with a nazi victory salute.
  • frank
    16.4k
    Wow. There's a lot of strong emotions about this.
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    You've been ruled by oligarchs for decades, but now that 'your team' has temporarily lost the upper hand suddenly the world is ending?

    Hysterical, hypocritical, etc.

    I wish the admins would start to crack down on these low quality posts that amount to nothing more than coping over a lost election.

    Grow up.
  • Outlander
    2.2k
    You've been ruled by oligarchs for decadeTzeentch

    But not you somehow? Just, other people, but not you. No, of course not, you're simply too smart for that to have happened. It's simply impossible. Ah, the human ego. As flexible as it is frail. Willing and able to contort itself into positions previously thought unfathomable.

    The world's richest dick man is acting unilaterally with apparently zero government oversight, slashing and burning as he sees fit.Wayfarer

    Any system that doesn't have proper safeguards is bound to such a fate, surely? I mean, it'd be foolish to think a vulnerable system would be eternal and never be exploited, wouldn't it? As a religious "good will prevail" type of person I naturally don't believe the worst outcomes you might imagine will ever be allowed to happen. Alas, I'll never be able to prove it. The irony of faith, eh? :grin:

    If you don't believe a system was designed to withstand and inevitably survive abuse and the inevitable nature of those who its meant to coalesce with, did you really believe in it at all? :chin: :eyes:
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    But not you somehow? Just, other people, but not you. No, of course not, you're simply too smart for that to have happened. It's simply impossible. Ah, the human ego. As flexible as it is frail. Willing and able to contort itself into positions previously thought unfathomable.Outlander

    I could just as easily have used 'we'. You can stop projecting now.
  • Outlander
    2.2k
    I could just as easily have used 'we'. You can stop projecting now.Tzeentch

    That's fair but it makes it seem to a person in the heat of debate that you're implying there's some "better" almost "intrinsic" "way of life" you seemingly have been blessed to be under, some deep unyielding freedom that is exclusive to you and only you and those reading should seek to understand or become knowledgeable of.

    You can't just pass off these real and valid concerns by using recently-cheapened and now "buzz words" of psychological flavor as if it elevates you above the underlying logic just because it has that affect on the average person. You are not an average person, I can tell, and this is not an average place. Therefore, my sentiment and corresponding concern were both wholly appropriate.
  • Philosophim
    2.8k
    The main problem is that congress is also under the control of Republicans. The one failure of the founders was to not realize that congress actually has an incentive to give up its own powers to allow the responsibility to rest on the executive or judicial branches. This will likely be the weakness that allows America to fall.
  • unenlightened
    9.4k
    Wow. There's a lot of strong emotions about this.frank

    Here's a little education, to tame some of those strong emotions.

  • frank
    16.4k

    And Trump's approval rating is at an all time high. This is what Americans want.
  • unenlightened
    9.4k
    Always happy to help.
  • frank
    16.4k
    Always happy to help.unenlightened

    :smile: Cutting costs is a veil for eliminating opposition.
  • unenlightened
    9.4k
    I think the more serious problem with democracy is that it mandates short-termism in policy. Any problem that can be kicked down the road by 5 years isn't worth the cost of solving, any investment that won't show a profit within 5 years is not worth making. Either is liable to be an expensive free gift to one's opponents.
  • frank
    16.4k
    I think the more serious problem with democracy is that it mandates short-termism in policy. Any problem that can be kicked down the road by 5 years isn't worth the cost of solving, any investment that won't show a profit within 5 years is not worth making. Either is liable to be an expensive free gift to one's opponents.unenlightened

    As long as the Soviet Union appeared to be an existential threat, the US government could be consistent over time. As a lone superpower, there are no limits on anything.
  • unenlightened
    9.4k
    As long as the Soviet Union appeared to be an existential threat,frank

    You guys are still not convinced climate change is an existential threat? Well I guess we'll find out the hard way if there are limits or not.
  • frank
    16.4k
    You guys are still not convinced climate change is an existential threat? Well I guess we'll find out the hard way if there are limits or not.unenlightened

    Why do you think he wants Greenland and Canada?
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