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DOGE has revealed that 400 million are rookie numbers when it comes to phony deals. Forcing the government to spend money has always been the infinite money gl

DOGE has revealed that 400 million are rookie numbers when it comes to phony deals. Forcing the government to spend money has always been the infinite money glitch. On one side you have healthcare and pharma companies making sure everything is excessively overpriced, then they lobby the government to make sure everyone has government sponsored healthcare, i.e.: turn all tax revenue into healthcare revenue. Then they pay the media to convince everyone that it is their moral obligation to subsidize $1000000 insulin while making it a taboo to ask why healthcare is so expensive. On another side you have mass incarceration where each inmate costs more per night than a 5 star hotel. On another side you have nonsense conflicts where the weapon of choice are thousands of single use weapons that cost at least 100,000 each. Or to simply leave it behind for the enemy so then it has to be repurchased. On another side you have tax loopholes of billions of dollars. Everyone is stealing. Did you pay 30% tax and then sales tax on everything you bought with your income? Is your effective tax rate around 50%? then you worked 6 months for the government so they can take that 6 months of your life and turn it into a dumb single use weapon to destroy a $1 tent.

JackYoustra 2y ago
Specifics are the enemy of populism: - healthcare and pharma is overpriced because of information frictions, institutional supply constraints (this mostly means strict immigration controls), and people just really want healthcare relative to other wants! See: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/1gsezga/comment/lzx9wmf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/1gsezga/comme... also biden made insulin capped at a price so. - mass incarceration is a SUPER populist thing! How many times do we hear "we need to be tough on crime"? This sure seems like the voters behind it, it's not like people are clamoring for shorter sentences. - Indeed, our military is expensive partially because we require domestic production and have to pay really high domestic costs, and partially because the way the US fights war places a SUPER high value on human life. Desert storm was both expensive and only resulted in ~200 coalition deaths to take down the world's 4th largest military, whereas Russia has made it not very far into ukraine and taken over 200k deaths (and it hasn't even been substantially cheaper to boot, just a bit cheaper). - The tax loopholes exist and are bad, although I challenge you to give me specific loopholes that cost high billions and should obviously be repealed in a way that both constituents are clamoring for and the representatives don't actually do. I don't think they exist. You know what does actually degrade the fiber of the country? The richest person in the world taking personal control over every payment and arbitrarily destroying institutional knowledge by firing every government employee he has control over or who stands up to him. But no, instead we get "he's saving money" when (see the earlier comment from me) we're not even making outlays go down! A script kiddie who randomly rewrites lines into bad assembly while destroying the build system isn't a perf eng, they're a danger.
- 29athrowaway 2y ago
  In the US healthcare system a bag of water with salt costs hundreds of dollars. You can cap the price of one thing and then the whack a mole game starts. The conflicts in the middle east costed trillions of dollars and there is absolutely nothing to show for it. Quantitative easing costed trillions of dollars, most of the people responsible for causing the crisis got a big pay day from it. If someome became "the richest person" probably you can learn something from that person. Without SpaceX, the US would have to use Russian rockets to put stuff in space because NASA shuttles were retired. Is that something you would like more? The US is at the verge of bankruptcy and it is not because of $400m in trucks. And it is not a Democrat or Republican issue, as I said, everyone is getting rich at the expense of the taxpayer, even taxpayers that haven't even been born yet are in debt already thanks to a wasteful mentality.
  - JackYoustra 2y ago
    Would you bet the republic on your understanding of QE? I sure hope not
    - 29athrowaway 2y ago
      Whatever solution to the crisis I think it should have involved some jail time.
      - programmerpass 2y ago
        Agreed

JackYoustra 2y ago

Specifics are the enemy of populism: - healthcare and pharma is overpriced because of information frictions, institutional supply constraints (this mostly means strict immigration controls), and people just really want healthcare relative to other wants! See: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/1gsezga/comment/lzx9wmf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/1gsezga/comme... also biden made insulin capped at a price so. - mass incarceration is a SUPER populist thing! How many times do we hear "we need to be tough on crime"? This sure seems like the voters behind it, it's not like people are clamoring for shorter sentences. - Indeed, our military is expensive partially because we require domestic production and have to pay really high domestic costs, and partially because the way the US fights war places a SUPER high value on human life. Desert storm was both expensive and only resulted in ~200 coalition deaths to take down the world's 4th largest military, whereas Russia has made it not very far into ukraine and taken over 200k deaths (and it hasn't even been substantially cheaper to boot, just a bit cheaper). - The tax loopholes exist and are bad, although I challenge you to give me specific loopholes that cost high billions and should obviously be repealed in a way that both constituents are clamoring for and the representatives don't actually do. I don't think they exist. You know what does actually degrade the fiber of the country? The richest person in the world taking personal control over every payment and arbitrarily destroying institutional knowledge by firing every government employee he has control over or who stands up to him. But no, instead we get "he's saving money" when (see the earlier comment from me) we're not even making outlays go down! A script kiddie who randomly rewrites lines into bad assembly while destroying the build system isn't a perf eng, they're a danger.

29athrowaway 2y ago
In the US healthcare system a bag of water with salt costs hundreds of dollars. You can cap the price of one thing and then the whack a mole game starts. The conflicts in the middle east costed trillions of dollars and there is absolutely nothing to show for it. Quantitative easing costed trillions of dollars, most of the people responsible for causing the crisis got a big pay day from it. If someome became "the richest person" probably you can learn something from that person. Without SpaceX, the US would have to use Russian rockets to put stuff in space because NASA shuttles were retired. Is that something you would like more? The US is at the verge of bankruptcy and it is not because of $400m in trucks. And it is not a Democrat or Republican issue, as I said, everyone is getting rich at the expense of the taxpayer, even taxpayers that haven't even been born yet are in debt already thanks to a wasteful mentality.
- JackYoustra 2y ago
  Would you bet the republic on your understanding of QE? I sure hope not
  - 29athrowaway 2y ago
    Whatever solution to the crisis I think it should have involved some jail time.
    - programmerpass 2y ago
      Agreed