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The goal is to dismantle as much of the government as possible. Where possible, they can replace the existing people with their own people, then steer governmen
by tyre 2y ago
The goal is to dismantle as much of the government as possible. Where possible, they can replace the existing people with their own people, then steer government contracts to themselves.
- riskable 2y agoThe way they're going there might not be a government much longer. I really do believe they're that stupid. The entire stock market is premised on the stability of the US government. Without it all their wealth would disappear overnight. All the luxuries they love would cease being produced. They wouldn't be able to fly their private jets anywhere. In the past the rich could stockpile easily-tradable goods like gold in order to maintain a luxurious life even if their government collapsed. When it comes to billionaires that's not possible. The logistics of keeping and moving that much physical currency/gold/etc don't work out in their favor. If they keep this up they're going to lose almost all of their wealth as the world destabilizes. They're also setting themselves and their families up to be assassination targets for the rest of their lives (far, far beyond what they are already). There's people everywhere that will be severely impacted by their actions. There will be nowhere for them to go because the US really is the pillar of the world's economies.
- disqard 2y agoThey can operate this demolition op from the safety of their bunkers in NZ. All they need is a way to send messages to their "useful idiot" new college grad minions. True, instigating a global collapse might eventually get to them, but AFAICT, they just want to personally profit from US dysfunction. Plus, it seems like the rest of the world will simply bypass the US and say "you're not dependable any more, so we're just gonna pretend you don't exist". Ostracism (of the US) seems more likely than the entire world destabilizing.
- bloopernova 2y agoIt'll be just like the 1930s with a deeply isolationist USA. History sure does have an uncanny way of rhyming if not actually repeating. Something that greatly galls me is that the livelihood of tens of millions of families depend on the whims of people who think only in terms of profit. Government is not supposed to make a damned profit! The government's primary role should be to care for everyone, from entrepreneurs to people with disabilities. I'm not saying "handouts for all", I'm saying that the government needs to provide stability, a level foundation for all to build upon. It's like Venkman in Ghostbusters, in the ballroom: he yanks away the tablecloth sending everything flying except "the flowers are still standing!". The rich are the flowers, secure on their own foundation, calm with the knowledge that the guy pulling the tablecloth can't affect them. In other words, the new administration should be carefully enacting new policies not causing chaos by doing everything too quickly. Unless their goal is to destroy the USA, in which case US citizens will need to decide what country they want to live in and whether republicans are capable of delivering that.
- disqard 2y agoThank you for that mental image of the flowers still standing :D > Unless their goal is to destroy the USA I have indeed heard this, even in his first term -- that people were so fed up of politics-as-usual, that they decided to "send a wrecking ball into the White House". After having seen the damage that wrecking ball did the first time around... to send it back must mean that these folks really want to demolish the very ground they're standing on.
- bloopernova 2y agoMy other pet metaphor is that we're all standing on top of wobbling Jenga tower and the republicans want to knock out the blocks beneath us. And thank you :)
- nick3443 2y agoThe US is not a wobbling Jenga tower, that's what the news media wants you to believe. They'll keep pushing that story to peddle fear and outrage until they make it true.
- dkdbejwi383 2y ago> Government is not supposed to make a damned profit! The government's primary role should be to care for everyone, from entrepreneurs to people with disabilities. I'm not saying "handouts for all", I'm saying that the government needs to provide stability, a level foundation for all to build upon. My understanding from both reading a lot online and conversations with Americans in person is that a significant number of them would consider the above statement to be “socialism” which is something they’ve been taught to hate, no matter what. I can’t say I understand it. To me, it’s the most basic raison d’etre for government. I’m not sure what the anti-socialism types in the USA think that the government’s purpose is
- indoordin0saur 2y agoSlightly shaky start to the market today but it largely recovered and is just as high as it was 10 days ago. Seems the markets are divided between worried and cautiously optimistic.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe markets only care about what'll make them money. The markets responded to the tarrifs, then the same-day (temporary) rollback of them. Sometimes they put their finger on the scale a bit, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
- Grollicus 2y agoWhy would they do anything else? Last Trump Presidency caused incredible inflation that for a huge part went into the stock market, because where else can it go?
- nick3443 2y agoThis is pretty much my investment thesis for the foreseeable future.
- bloopernova 2y agoThe markets have been disconnected from reality for a long time, at least a decade.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nemo44x 2y ago[flagged]
- kelnos 2y agoI agree that there is a lot of junk going on in the US government, but Elon Musk is close to the last person I'd trust to do a good, unbiased job cleaning that up. Especially without oversight or any kind of accountability. Especially when he's flaunting federal law to do so.
- nemo44x 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoAnd sometimes you need to tell the world you're a clown.
- joyeuse6701 2y agoHe's a fool. This is akin to an outside engineer hacking and slashing at code he doesn't understand and then tests it "in production". All of us engineers worth a damn know how that is going to turn out.
- nemo44x 2y ago[flagged]
- crooked-v 2y ago"This decript junk" includes institutional knowledge that will take decades to reconstruct, USAID agents suddenly cut off from all official communication and equipment in the middle of war zones, and basic security guarantees about the payments system used by the US Treasury.
- nemo44x 2y ago
- niceice 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y ago>The goal is to go after waste, fraud and abuse. Why do you believe this? Because Elon Musk said so? Elon says a lot of outright false shit. So does Trump.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago[flagged]
- eightysixfour 2y agoEven people who love Musk need to realize they're cogs in his machine. He's not here to make your life better, he's here to make sure nothing is in the way of the things he wants to achieve. He doesn't care about the quality of your life, the only thing you have, he cares about how much of it can be captured to his ends. For some people, that seems to be fine. They work at SpaceX and Tesla and his other companies. For many of us, life is the journey and the quality of it matters, not the Martian destination, and he can fuck right off.
- ihumanable 2y agoPeople like Musk dislike the government because people have a say. That say is imperfect and often corrupted, but people get to have some amount of input. They can vote, and organize, and they could decide that they'd rather have roads or water or any number of silly things that get in his way. Companies are not democracies, Musk says "get rid of the supercharger team" and no one gets a vote, they just get rid of them. We should all be worried about what goals he efficiently wants to achieve, if you or I were in the way, would he care. The danger is in the unchecked nature of this power, even if someone likes Elon Musk and thinks he's a brilliant genius, what gives him the right to supplant the will of the people with his own. Elon has shown time and again that he will prioritize what HE wants, and if that means some people don't have jobs, well that's just fine. If that means that people should have to sleep on the factory floor and wake up and make cars he can profit off of and then back to sleep on the factory floor, that's also just fine. If that means that USAID doesn't feed the hungry, that's also just fine. And maybe to anyone reading this that's happy with what he's done, you are just fine with it too. But what happens when he decides something you do care about is alright to destroy too to meet his goals, he's just fine with it. What do you do then? How confident are you that your goals and his will stay aligned, forever, that the ax of "efficiency" won't come for you and yours someday. And if that day comes, what will you say to the people that tell you "he's a brilliant genius and he's fine with it so so am I"
- xvector 2y ago[flagged]
- cheesemonster 2y agoWhat is happening is inherently political.
- adastra22 2y agoI know some of the people involved, and named in this article. So do many other people on HN. I pitched my startup to one of these zoomers just a few months ago. I can tell you that whatever this is, it isn't that kind of cronyism corruption. We can do better than such accusations, and that's what the person you are replying to is asking for.
- throw16180339 2y agoTrump is provably corrupt, so why should I give his accomplices the benefit of the doubt?
- adastra22 2y agoWell for one, they don’t come from Trump or Musk.
- throw16180339 2y agoThey're taking orders from bad actors, it's absurd to assume good faith.
- adastra22 2y agoWhy do you assume they are taking orders? This organization is not regimented.
- throw16180339 2y agoWhy would I assume otherwise? They aren't neutral observers from a trusted third party. Neither Musk nor Trump has a track record of honesty, and both have used their power for personal gain. A recent example is Musk moving NTSB announcements to Twitter. From what I can tell, the apparent purpose of DoGE is to benefit Trump and his allies financially, weaponize funding against opponents, and dismantle parts of the government they oppose. Musk’s preference for young engineers may stem from the same logic the military uses with young soldiers — they tend to be more obedient and less likely to push back.
- mbs159 2y agoIf I was a billionaire who wanted to become even more rich by any means possible, I would do exactly that