The explosion of another SpaceX rocket is not really part of the 'Musk Plutocracy' but it is at least the occasion for a little wholesome schadenfreude. (The burning fragments witnessed falling to earth might also include fragments of Tesla's plummeting share price.)

More to the point:

It's interesting how narrow minded business people are. The current idea that drives DOGE, Musk and Trump is to improve efficiency. But corporate efficiency relies on a replaceable workforce.

You push costs down, push salaries down in order to maximize what you get out of the workers. You put pressure on your workers to give up on unionized rights, try to manipulate them into valuing the company as a "family" and how their complaints is a negative impact on fellow "family members".

That is the foundation for how CEOs and companies operate. The only thing standing in their way are regulations and union power.

And then you have society, which doesn't run on these metrics. It's the opposite really. The wealth of a nation isn't really counted in how much capital the top leaders have. It's within the pockets of its citizens. The more citizens who has filled pockets, the more they can spend in the economy. It's the people who drives the national economy. So in order to improve a nation, the best way is to not try and take advantage of "workers" because there's no profit in doing so. You can't "fire a citizen" that isn't complying, they will just become a burden on society if they don't participate. And it's not possible to just force them into participating and work, because if they don't have a sense of purpose in what they're doing, they will eventually not be able to participate, regardless of force upon them.

Essentially, it's like having a company in which you try to fire the workers who are bad for your profit, but they stay in the office and continues to consume resources in that office. And while they're doing that, you try to get their children to work for you, but they have to take care of the previous ones let go, so they're down on their knees and eventually also just become people who stay at the office consuming your resources.

This is why a nation cannot be run like a business. It doesn't operate at all like one and is rather dependent on thinking the opposite. To spend money on the people is to profit as a nation.

This means that the well-being of the citizens is at the heart of a healthy economy and national identity. Good health care, good social securities, good security from crime, good infrastructure, good funding of culture, taking care of the sick, weak and old etc.

Since all the workers at the office will always be in the office regardless of working or not, you, as a CEO, are forced to rather make sure that as many of them as possible are healthy and happy enough to want to work for you. The better the conditions for these people, the more likely they will participate and the less people are there just consuming resources.

I think that Reaganomics made people forget this truth about a nation. When people started viewing other people as a disposable workforce in all areas of life and not just the workplace, it influenced politics and pushed business owners into running the nation, trying to operate on the same principles as a company.

And when they faced the fact that the workers "couldn't leave the office", they have been trying to "solve" this problem using continuous strategies that may work for businesses, but not for a society.

Essentially, ignoring the needs to the people, cutting back on health care, on social securities and helping the people seems to be a way of trying to "ignore the problem" and letting them literally die off in order to get rid of them. That's the only way to "fire them" from the office.

These politicians are so indoctrinated into the way of how businesses operate that they are unable to understand how society prosper and becomes healthy. And they've entangled themselves so deep into a web of this thinking that everyone at the top keeps holding actual improvements to society back.

They simply aren't wise enough to be able to improve society for the people.

Musk, DOGE and Trump is just the latest tip of this spear and the most obvious signifier of this mentality. But it runs deep within all politicians in the US.

The only way to change this, is to change the fundamentals of the US, to focus on running society as a society and not as a business. Remove all of these idiots who try to operate society as such.

Or else, this way of running the nation will just deepen until the people have had enough. But since this mentality runs so deep, a revolution will probably just be a new run of the "Animal Farm", leading to new people operating under the same principles.

This is probably the underlying reason why the US doesn't operate like governments in the EU. Why the EU tends to install more regulations and why politics seem to be more stable and work far better. The EU nations generally don't view society as a company. Probably because of its long history with rising and falling empires, all constantly verifying what kinds of society that works and what doesn't. Letting society install guardrails to govern against those who would lead a nation in a direction historically proven to be destructive.

The US has always operated on transactions with other nations. Their entire existence is a rebellion against an empire, to be "free" to operate on business principles, and we're seeing the emergence of the end result of this mentality. The self-made nation. The CEO politics. So in a sense, Reaganomics just became a catalyst of a political journey that's been taking place since the civil war.

The US isn't an empire. It's a pseudo-business who doesn't understand that its actually a society. An office space with workers who may soon unionize a rebellion but lacking an actual philosophy of a true nation.

The US is pretty much doomed to fall as a nation eventually. Under its own weight of misunderstandings of what a nation and society actually is and what it needs.

The only way to change this, is to change the fundamentals of the US, to focus on running society as a society and not as a business. — Christoffer

In other words, Vote Democrat.

In other words, Vote Democrat. — Wayfarer

Temporary band-aid - It's not a solution. It's just putting the feet on the breaks into a stand-still for a moment only to continue down this path later.

This is a fundamental problem within the very essence of US culture.

Don't agree. The US system has its problems, but it has held up for 237 years - until now. And now a convicted criminal and secessionist with an emormous ax to grind and hatred of government has been put in charge of it. He may well succeed in destroying the constitutional order, but it's not the time to try and devise a new model. What's important is not letting Trump destroy it. The kind of cynicism 'the whole thing is broken' is only going to make it easier for Trump's nihilism to come out on top.

Don't agree. The US system has its problems, but it has held up for 237 years - until now. And now a convicted criminal and secessionist with an emormous ax to grind and hatred of government has been put in charge of it. He may well succeed in destroying the constitutional order, but it's not the time to try and devise a new model. What's important is not letting Trump destroy it. The kind of cynicism 'the whole thing is broken' is only going to make it easier for Trump's nihilism to come out on top. — Wayfarer

Trump and his kin isn't a one-off. We've seen a constant escalation of his type creeping its way into the top. And democrats seem to be totally oblivious to the problems in society popping up under their terms.

You can't just put hope into democrats, they will probably win the next term, put the nation into some pause while these idiots now in power return in force again after that.

It's a downward spiral, two steps back - one step forward. There's no solution in the status quo of the side who wins on doing essentially nothing.

If democrats keep dancing around their liberal centrism, they're part of perpetuating the status quo.

When people started viewing other people as a disposable workforce in all areas of life — Christoffer

The Nazis called them "useless eaters".

Thinking of a nation as a business is as wrong as thinking of a business as a family. The scales are totally unmatched; the purposes are disparate; and only families are natural -- man + woman = children.

This means that the well-being of the citizens is at the heart of a healthy economy and national identity. Good health care, good social securities, good security from crime, good infrastructure, good funding of culture, taking care of the sick, weak and old etc. — Christoffer

Absolutely!

They simply aren't wise enough to be able to improve society for the people. — Christoffer

Politicians actually have been able to improve society for the people on numerous occasions. Examples: Social security law; auto safety laws; civil rights laws. So have cement workers, civil engineers, farmers, agronomists, weather forecasters, people who dance in the chorus line, professors, elementary school teachers, et al.

The US is pretty much doomed to fall as a nation eventually. Under its own weight of misunderstandings of what a nation and society actually is and what it needs. — Christoffer

Well, Christoffer, in the fullness of time all nations are doomed; everyone is going to die, much sooner than they imagined, quite often. Ultimately, in the very long run, all our efforts are futile. What we do, how we do it, to whom, and why DOES MATTER a great deal in the short run--this year, this decade, this century.

One of the lessons of history is that things go haywire much of the time. But people carry on. They get things done, bring the crops in, cook meals, make clothing, keep society humming along.

The outcomes of the effort to dismantle civil service are now changing the lives of my friends and family. From the dissolution of pensions to suddenly having careers arbitrarily negated, some of the hardest working people I know are being kicked to the curb.

The delight taken in their trouble will be remembered.

This means that the well-being of the citizens is at the heart of a healthy economy and national identity. Good health care, good social securities, good security from crime, good infrastructure, good funding of culture, taking care of the sick, weak and old etc. — Christoffer

Above all, a nation state isn't just a service. It simply isn't similar to going to the market and buying stuff or a service. True patriotism, love of your country, is one of those few ideas and values that a poor man and a rich man can share. It creates a lot that isn't transactional.

...with tornado season looming, our access to valuable weather information is under threat. The U.S. government‘s stellar weather information service is being torn apart and likely sold for parts as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency implement another destructive chapter of the Project 2025 playbook: experienced scientists fired, senior meteorologists forced into retirement, broken radars left unrepaired, weather forecasting balloons not launched, and leases for vital forecasting units canceled. The loss of expertise is profound, and the impact will be widespread. We’ll all be less safe, the economy will suffer and, yes, those popular weather apps could miss the next big storm. — The Contrarian

Bernie is showing how it is done with the withdrawal of the GOP from its people.

I'm in my country I am a conservative. I've voted the conservative party, I support them, I've never voted or supported the social democrats. Still, I think they are reasonable people who do love also this country and can be negotiated with. They won't destroy my country. That's democracy.

In the US, I'd naturally hope a centrist democrat would take over the Democratic party and kick the elderly out of the ruling positions. Or conservatives would take back the Republican party from the MAGA Church after the American Nero has burnt Rome.

But heck, I'm just a puny foreigner. Hence the likely counter movement against Trump's MAGA Church and the oligarchy will come from the left. And as @Paine said, one likely person might be Bernie.

Perhaps Bernie should try get Trump and the MAGA-talking heads to get raving mad. And what better way to do it is to be openly declaring what he is, a social democrat, sorry, a democratic socialist. There's nothing to being a social democrat. Keir Starmer, Tony Blair, Miterrand, all basically are social democrats. But in the US media discourse, that's something that makes Republicans and likely the MAGA media to see red and be really, really angry. The political pundits would laugh at it. Not in the US, the GOP can eat them for breakfast. Yet I think it's important to do something that gets things up from the malaise that the democrat party is now in. Hillary stating that Trump supporters were "deplorables" was the highest moment for MAGA, because that kind of condescending attitude energizes a political movement. Especially made up of from people that think they have not been heard, that the system isn't working for them. Yet simply going against the oligarchs and the corruption would be the way here forward and then to talk how badly things are going.



Move to the right creates a countermove to the left. And someone like Bernie Sanders would still be in the "normal" range of politics. Bernie isn't a Hugo Chavez. The worst possible outcome after Trump would be a leftist populist like Chavez who wouldn't value democracy, actually. Populist are always bad, because they start from the juxtaposition of them being for the people and others being the enemy of the people. Not actually a position that is healthy for a democracy.

The Bernie move needs to be seen in the context of the GOP being afraid to talk to the electorate that put them in office. The actions being taken by the present administration are so detrimental to the well-being of citizens that people want to talk about it. It does not mean that these people will suddenly want a form of polity that Sanders has championed during his career.

Other politicians are thinking of holding similar events. I hope they don't get too promotional.

The actions being taken by the present administration are so detrimental to the well-being of citizens that people want to talk about it. It does not mean that these people will suddenly want a form of polity that Sanders has championed during his career. — Paine

Bernie could easily go to talk to the MAGA crowd. The rednecks, the hicks, and so on in the fly-over country where they have voted for Trump.

He has done it before. I don't understand your observation as a counter to mine.

It's not a counterargument. I agree that not much else is happening than old man Bernie getting crowds to listen to him.

How old was Bernie?

My proposal is that listening to people is powerful. Sanders will not be running for President again. Everybody knows that.

Let me put the matter in a different register. The Agricultural Industry voted for Trump by a large margin. They are and will be receiving direct damage from the new policies. They backed a player who does not even understand their situation. Realizing that is more important than advancing any policy.

A couple of months old:

Musk examines how to oust Starmer as UK prime minister before next election
^{— Anna Gross, Joe Miller, Lucy Fisher · Financial Times · Jan 9, 2025}

Yet, kind of telling. Seems like Musk's efforts haven't paid off.

On another note, in late Feb, Macron and Starmer gently corrected Trump in public on separate occasions. I guess no one really cares any longer.

Traditional conservatism respects Congress as the supreme law of the land. The executive and judiiciary are there to keep balance. Neither have more power than the other. State soverrenty applies to each state for their own culture and laws. When laws from Congress contradict a local law, the local statute must give way for Federal rights. Or they can go to court. Freedom and union. Now and forever

How old was Bernie? — ssu

83 -- not that old if you are still in good shape which Bernie seems to be.

At least he is articulately and energetically criticizing Trusk, the corrosive duo--something that few Democrats and no Republicans are doing.

Taking a page from the IWW: Now is the time to fan the flames of discontent!

Came across this, from @Wayfarer long ago, while browsing...

ENRON CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your public-listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt / equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

Elon's fortune is of this ilk.