4 ms·

it's a good thing to spring clean, just like it's generally a good choice to change life habits and lose weight. humans get lazy or preoccupied and need to alte

it's a good thing to spring clean, just like it's generally a good choice to change life habits and lose weight. humans get lazy or preoccupied and need to alter the "normal" state they get into that could be unhealthy or not as productive.the government is ran by humans as well, it's no surprise that it's gotten shoddy in some areas and some shuffling and fear has been injected to correct this in government operations and spending. it won't all be fair or kosher for sure and some of the layoffs were already stated as mistakes publicly and jobs offered back to some(though not very many surprisingly). with that being said, i hope even you see a surprising amount of what has been uncovered is clearly bad?

ChrisRR 2y ago
I'm not sure what parts you're referring to as "clearly bad" because so far I haven't seen any examples of that. What actually seems "clearly bad" is the random stripping of funding with little to no research into the knock-on effects. The only example I've seen that is potentially is a good move is removing the penny from circulation, but of course that has its own pros and cons.
- powerfulusers 2y ago
  i guess elon can't run companies and detect inefficiencies, voters should trust this anon internet user instead!
  - kweingar 2y ago
    Elon breaks almost every promise he makes and has constantly been proven wrong on the claims he's made in the past month. It astounds me that someone not connected to him would trust him at all
    - powerfulusers 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - kweingar 2y ago
        I'm not sure what this has to do with Elon breaking most of his promises and being constantly wrong about the government he claims to be fixing
  - ChrisRR 2y ago
    I'm not american, I just genuinely haven't seen any clearly beneficial moves yet PS. Your green username gives you away
  - tombert 2y ago
    Does he actually run companies? This is a genuine question; he’s the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Boring Company, the CTO of Twitter, and the owner of several more companies. If he’s running five or more companies, and trying to run a government department, how involved can he actually be with running any individual one? They can’t all be full time jobs.
    - ajmurmann 2y ago
      I've heard rumors that at least one of his companies has team whose job is to distract him.
      - tombert 2y ago
        I haven't been a fan of his since he called the cave divers pedophiles for not using his stupid submarine, but I at least thought he actually did stuff. But with the recent case where he bragged about being in the top 20 Diablo players in the world, only to find out that he paid people to level his character up for him, makes me think that maybe he doesn't actually do anything. I mean, he's bragging and lying about something that does not matter. No one really cares if the CEO of your spaceship or car company or brain-implant company is good at video games. If it turned out that everyone saw he was bad at Diablo, approximately nothing changes (and potentially people like him even more if he's a good sport about it and laughs it off!), and yet he felt it was important to construct a lie around this so he could brag. If he's going to brag about a completely insignificant false accomplishment, why should I assume that he's going to tell the truth for stuff that people would actually care about? At this point, I'm erring on the side of "Musk doesn't do anything outside of providing initial funding". Maybe I'm wrong, that's certainly possible, but he really killed a lot of his credibility.
        etc-hosts 2y ago
        I think Elon employees a lot of people who sit around and think of ways to be Elon in the most annoying extreme ways possible, then they run it by Elon, Elon nods, and they go do it.
- honeybadger1 2y ago
  well, im a tech bro american living in miami, from poor alabama to a bigger-city life and mid-income from basically working in IT infrastructure and datacenter operations. i've worked my way into some kinda something and worth basically through savings and working a lot of hours and also now operating in a leadership role for a $20B privately owned company. i myself know first hand wasteful spending and putting in minimal effort would have never afforded me where i have gotten today. i lived with roommates, bad neighborhoods in altanta, birmingham, all to save money and get by and build myself up to where i needed to be. so my 1st hand experience or anecdotes will highly sway my own viewpoints, so im saying all of this to say i will not be without bias when it comes to accountability and wastefulness. now with that all being said, when i see contracts like this: "Telephone Based Mindfulness Training to reduce blood pressure in black-women" $2million(https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_4740_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474...) "South Sudan Gender Aware Sustainanable Water and Sanitation": $40Million (https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_7200_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72...) State Department Spending on Social Media Influencers:$4M (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REPORT-2024.pdf https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP...) Just some random example of currently killed or going to be killed contracts....I feel like all I had to do is have friends in government to basically just suck money off of the people while adding nothing back to society as a result of it. There are hundreds to many thousands of discovered "projects" and funds with these type of numbers. This is a plague in my viewpoint and does nothing to benefit society and move the needle, which engineers so pride themselves in doing...
  - kweingar 2y ago
    I'm confused, I thought we were talking about laying off federal employees. Now we're talking about contracts?
  - xyst 2y ago
    yeah man, you got yourself out of the salt mines of Alabama. So time to pull up the ladder, right? > "Telephone Based Mindfulness Training to reduce blood pressure in black-women" $2million(https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474...) The link you provided indicates funds were for repair to some bridge at port of entry in TX - "YSLETA, LAND PORT OF ENTRY PAVEMENT REPLACEMENT REPAIRS PROJECT, EL PASO, TX AWARD WAS MADE WITH LOW EMBODIED CARBON FUNDING" > "South Sudan Gender Aware Sustainanable Water and Sanitation": $40Million (https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72...) "tech bro American" doesn't want clean water for people in Sudan and promotion of basic hygiene practices. https://dt-global.com/projects/afia-wash/ https://dt-global.com/projects/afia-wash/ > State Department Spending on Social Media Influencers:$4M (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP...) There's so much wrong with this source material. It is so biased. All of these "killed" contracts you deem as wasteful yet turn a blind eye to the _billions_ that public companies pour into stock buybacks. Minimal investment back into the company. This only helps _rich_ cunts and foreign investors.
pavlov 2y ago
Let’s imagine a Fortune 50 corporation wants to improve efficiency and audit its books for fraud. Should they: 1) Hire professional auditors and business consultants to perform the undoubtedly massive review; 2) Ask the CEO of one of their suppliers to do the review as a fun side gig, let the CEO bring in a tiny team of teenage whiz kids, and give them full god mode access to the company’s books and databases and HR systems so they can fire anyone at will and ask questions later? The approach chosen by America’s chief executive is bafflingly #2. It’s worth noting that Trump has no experience managing a large corporation. All his businesses are partnerships with very few employees. He has no competence for this kind of thing, so he’s delegating everything to Musk who is the proverbial fox in the hen house, shutting down regulators who affect his own businesses.
- honeybadger1 2y ago
  Being on HN and someone posting a pro-consulting firm post is...rich...
  - ChrisRR 2y ago
    Yes. Many times hiring experts is 100% the correct approach. Getting a rando with next to no experience or knowledge of the product to spend an hour looking before making sweeping changes isn't
  - thesuitonym 2y ago
    Both options are a consulting firm, one just has experience and expertise, the other is DOGE.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  To be honest, I’d choose the door #2 anytime.
- toyg 2y ago
  > Trump has no experience managing a large corporation And the little experience he has is of repeated bankruptcies and dodgy dealings, saved only by his political adventures (which now bankroll his Mar A Lago resort with public money).

ChrisRR 2y ago

I'm not sure what parts you're referring to as "clearly bad" because so far I haven't seen any examples of that. What actually seems "clearly bad" is the random stripping of funding with little to no research into the knock-on effects. The only example I've seen that is potentially is a good move is removing the penny from circulation, but of course that has its own pros and cons.

powerfulusers 2y ago
i guess elon can't run companies and detect inefficiencies, voters should trust this anon internet user instead!
- kweingar 2y ago
  Elon breaks almost every promise he makes and has constantly been proven wrong on the claims he's made in the past month. It astounds me that someone not connected to him would trust him at all
  - powerfulusers 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - kweingar 2y ago
      I'm not sure what this has to do with Elon breaking most of his promises and being constantly wrong about the government he claims to be fixing
- ChrisRR 2y ago
  I'm not american, I just genuinely haven't seen any clearly beneficial moves yet PS. Your green username gives you away
- tombert 2y ago
  Does he actually run companies? This is a genuine question; he’s the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Boring Company, the CTO of Twitter, and the owner of several more companies. If he’s running five or more companies, and trying to run a government department, how involved can he actually be with running any individual one? They can’t all be full time jobs.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    I've heard rumors that at least one of his companies has team whose job is to distract him.
    - tombert 2y ago
      I haven't been a fan of his since he called the cave divers pedophiles for not using his stupid submarine, but I at least thought he actually did stuff. But with the recent case where he bragged about being in the top 20 Diablo players in the world, only to find out that he paid people to level his character up for him, makes me think that maybe he doesn't actually do anything. I mean, he's bragging and lying about something that does not matter. No one really cares if the CEO of your spaceship or car company or brain-implant company is good at video games. If it turned out that everyone saw he was bad at Diablo, approximately nothing changes (and potentially people like him even more if he's a good sport about it and laughs it off!), and yet he felt it was important to construct a lie around this so he could brag. If he's going to brag about a completely insignificant false accomplishment, why should I assume that he's going to tell the truth for stuff that people would actually care about? At this point, I'm erring on the side of "Musk doesn't do anything outside of providing initial funding". Maybe I'm wrong, that's certainly possible, but he really killed a lot of his credibility.
      - etc-hosts 2y ago
        I think Elon employees a lot of people who sit around and think of ways to be Elon in the most annoying extreme ways possible, then they run it by Elon, Elon nods, and they go do it.
honeybadger1 2y ago
well, im a tech bro american living in miami, from poor alabama to a bigger-city life and mid-income from basically working in IT infrastructure and datacenter operations. i've worked my way into some kinda something and worth basically through savings and working a lot of hours and also now operating in a leadership role for a $20B privately owned company. i myself know first hand wasteful spending and putting in minimal effort would have never afforded me where i have gotten today. i lived with roommates, bad neighborhoods in altanta, birmingham, all to save money and get by and build myself up to where i needed to be. so my 1st hand experience or anecdotes will highly sway my own viewpoints, so im saying all of this to say i will not be without bias when it comes to accountability and wastefulness. now with that all being said, when i see contracts like this: "Telephone Based Mindfulness Training to reduce blood pressure in black-women" $2million(https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_4740_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474...) "South Sudan Gender Aware Sustainanable Water and Sanitation": $40Million (https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_7200_-NONE-_-NONE- https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72...) State Department Spending on Social Media Influencers:$4M (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REPORT-2024.pdf https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP...) Just some random example of currently killed or going to be killed contracts....I feel like all I had to do is have friends in government to basically just suck money off of the people while adding nothing back to society as a result of it. There are hundreds to many thousands of discovered "projects" and funds with these type of numbers. This is a plague in my viewpoint and does nothing to benefit society and move the needle, which engineers so pride themselves in doing...
- kweingar 2y ago
  I'm confused, I thought we were talking about laying off federal employees. Now we're talking about contracts?
- xyst 2y ago
  yeah man, you got yourself out of the salt mines of Alabama. So time to pull up the ladder, right? > "Telephone Based Mindfulness Training to reduce blood pressure in black-women" $2million(https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_47PH0825C0001_474...) The link you provided indicates funds were for repair to some bridge at port of entry in TX - "YSLETA, LAND PORT OF ENTRY PAVEMENT REPLACEMENT REPAIRS PROJECT, EL PASO, TX AWARD WAS MADE WITH LOW EMBODIED CARBON FUNDING" > "South Sudan Gender Aware Sustainanable Water and Sanitation": $40Million (https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_72066821C00009_72...) "tech bro American" doesn't want clean water for people in Sudan and promotion of basic hygiene practices. https://dt-global.com/projects/afia-wash/ https://dt-global.com/projects/afia-wash/ > State Department Spending on Social Media Influencers:$4M (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-REP...) There's so much wrong with this source material. It is so biased. All of these "killed" contracts you deem as wasteful yet turn a blind eye to the _billions_ that public companies pour into stock buybacks. Minimal investment back into the company. This only helps _rich_ cunts and foreign investors.

pavlov 2y ago

Let’s imagine a Fortune 50 corporation wants to improve efficiency and audit its books for fraud. Should they: 1) Hire professional auditors and business consultants to perform the undoubtedly massive review; 2) Ask the CEO of one of their suppliers to do the review as a fun side gig, let the CEO bring in a tiny team of teenage whiz kids, and give them full god mode access to the company’s books and databases and HR systems so they can fire anyone at will and ask questions later? The approach chosen by America’s chief executive is bafflingly #2. It’s worth noting that Trump has no experience managing a large corporation. All his businesses are partnerships with very few employees. He has no competence for this kind of thing, so he’s delegating everything to Musk who is the proverbial fox in the hen house, shutting down regulators who affect his own businesses.

honeybadger1 2y ago
Being on HN and someone posting a pro-consulting firm post is...rich...
- ChrisRR 2y ago
  Yes. Many times hiring experts is 100% the correct approach. Getting a rando with next to no experience or knowledge of the product to spend an hour looking before making sweeping changes isn't
- thesuitonym 2y ago
  Both options are a consulting firm, one just has experience and expertise, the other is DOGE.
notpushkin 2y ago
To be honest, I’d choose the door #2 anytime.
toyg 2y ago
> Trump has no experience managing a large corporation And the little experience he has is of repeated bankruptcies and dodgy dealings, saved only by his political adventures (which now bankroll his Mar A Lago resort with public money).