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The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurpri

by tw04 2y ago

The ONLY time this occurs in the private sector is when corporate raiders are trying to extract every last penny from a business they plan on killing. Unsurprisingly this follows directly with project 2025s goal of dismantling the federal government and privatizing what departments aren’t filled with party loyalists at the expense of the average US citizen.

QuantumGood 2y ago
96 of 301 projects complete, 58 in progress • https://www.project2025.observer/ https://www.project2025.observer/
- wonderwonder 2y ago
  Whether you support it or not, for government, that's really some incredible efficiency. almost 1/3 complete in 100 days
  - michaelbuckbee 2y ago
    Easier to destroy than create.
    - eru 2y ago
      Not usually for government departments.
  - starkparker 2y ago
    I mean, let's not act like firing people and cancelling contracts without caring if you get sued or break things is substantially more difficult than, say, closing browser tabs
  - dleeftink 2y ago
    The most efficient system is the one that is none. But it also ceases to be a system.
  - miltonlost 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - wonderwonder 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - throwaway29812 2y ago
    [dead]
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    It’s amazing that people so committed to constitutional principles were able to enact the largest tax increase in history without the advice and consent of congress. Impressive even for tax and spend republicans. In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions.
    - monero-xmr 2y ago
      Huh? Trump won the popular vote. Maybe make better arguments in the next election if you don't like the current leader, rather than a violent revolution to overturn a democratically elected leader
      - immibis 2y ago
        Adolf Hitler was also democratically elected.
        wonderwonder 2y ago
        [flagged]
        const_cast 2y ago
        [dead]
      - Spooky23 2y ago
        Trump is President, not king or Caesar.
    - wonderwonder 2y ago
      They absolutely have the consent of Congress. Congress can stop this at any time. They elect not to. Their silence is consent in this case. You can attribute that silence to active support or cowardice but either way they can stop it and don't so they approve of it. "In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions." Not sure if you have taken a look at Britain lately but they absolutely don't care about what the citizens want.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    I'll join you in getting downvoted for absolutely no reason. It's a shitty thing they're doing, but your observation is correct. My job working on NIH-funded research projects is directly in their path, so I wish they weren't stomping a mudhole across science and technology. But they are, and, as you note, they're doing it very effectively and with incredible speed. If it's outside our capability as a community to even acknowledge that they're moving fast, how can we note that they're moving way too fast to be doing it right?
    - lazide 2y ago
      But they are doing it right - by their metric. Which is not the one others want them to be using.
      - karaterobot 2y ago
        By their own metrics, sure, maybe. I don't actually know what the real measurement of success is for them. But, to clarify, I didn't mean doing it right by their metric, I meant in my estimation, or [gestures broadly] our estimation.
        lazide 2y ago
        The crux of the issue IMO, is to quote, ‘what do you mean “we” kemo sabe?’ I bet on any particular issue you can find 3-4 major groups with conflicting opinions.
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    It's easy to destroy things - especially when no heed is paid to laws or down stream effects. I mean, carpet bombing New York City would demonstrate "incredible efficiency" - as it would probably take much less time than demolishing a single building in the city following the laws.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Promises made, promises kept.
CityOfThrowaway 2y ago
The data on hostile takeovers by "corporate raiders" very much does not support the characterization here. The category of PE firms you're talking about buy companies that are deeply troubled. Generally due to the management's unwillingness to accept reality and make change, the company is heading towards oblivion one way or another. Perhaps surprisingly, the vast majority of takeover targets wind up as net job creators on a 5-10 year time horizons. That's despite the fact that they do usually start by divesting assets that don't make sense and laying off non-productive employees. But divested assets aren't generally killed – they are usually sold to somebody else who often does something better with it. Also, companies conduct massive downsizing and rationalization all the time when in distress, and not only when they are taken over by a "corporate raider". In the private markets, these actors are definitely distasteful. They do cleanup work that feels bad, and they often get rich doing it. But they also serve a necessary role in the markets. Companies that are egregiously misusing capital and resources are a drag on the economy. It's a bad thing for there to be a bunch of zombie companies holding onto assets that could be used in better ways. A more generous framing would be something like a home flipper. They buy properties that are a mess, clean it up real good, throw out the old stuff for recycling, install some modern appliances, and sell it to somebody else. One of my laments is that there is no automatic equivalent force in the government. Agencies grow and grow, projects grow and grow, all totally decoupled from whether they are achieving any progress whatsoever towards the agency's mission. I'm not defending the specific actions of this administration (for which I simply don't know enough), but it is refreshing to see the government rummaging through its mess and cutting stuff that is irrational, corrupt, and not serving the mission.
- miltonlost 2y ago
  > One of my laments is that there is no automatic equivalent force in the government. Agencies grow and grow, projects grow and grow, all totally decoupled from whether they are achieving any progress whatsoever towards the agency's mission. There was. It's the GAO and the inspectors general of the agencies, both of which have been gutted by this administration. > I'm not defending the specific actions of this administration (for which I simply don't know enough), but it is refreshing to see the government rummaging through its mess and cutting stuff that is irrational, corrupt, and not serving the mission. LMAO, you're not defending the specific actions, but you know enough about the actions to know that they are "cutting stuff that is irrational". This is a defense of DOGE but with the "no, i'm NOT defending Musk" veneer that doesn't pass muster. You're giving this administration the benefit of the doubt and a large amount of good faith that they have not earned.
umvi 2y ago
Maybe the federal government needs a reset/dismantling/pruning/whatever you want to call it. With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now even though the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget, which itself exceeds the next 9 defense budgets in the world combined.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Current budget is set to expand deficit spending due to tax cuts and certain spending increases, in spite of project cuts to social safety nets and entitlements.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  > With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now Perhaps, and in such a case, the american economy would not be cratering like it has been lately, and americans would be suffering less, and america would be stronger on the international stage. In fact, all things considered, more spending would have been better for america than the current state of things. > the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget There's always taxing the rich, but the plan by the american ruling elites in the republican party currently seems to be to increase the debt sky-high via tax cuts for rich americans, only partially paid for via increased taxes on non-rich americans, with the rest piled onto the american debt burden.
  - umvi 2y ago
    You can't just spend your troubles away forever. It might temporarily alleviate things, but long term it will collapse the entire system. At some point there need to be painful austerity measures - budget cuts, increased taxes, and the like. It's unpopular to do painful things, but it's necessary for survival.
    - tinyplanets 2y ago
      But you also can't just cut taxes forever. The tax cuts being proposed by the current Republican budget are projected to add even more to the deficit.
jcims 2y ago
This is also true for 'big bets' that a company makes that gain enough momentum to stick around but haven't fully been realized or financially reconciled with the corporate strategy. Source: cloud engineering lead at a large financial.
saelthavron 2y ago
Sorry, but it does occur in the private. I recently worked at a company which pretty much did this. They fired all of the contractors and a bunch of employees because they decided change their focus. It is far from dying.
Spooky23 2y ago
Uh, no. I can name a half dozen people who are in roles like this for F500 companies. Hell, my wife was zoning SANs for $300/hr for like 6 years at a big bank. Another friend is essentially a pimp for a bunch of companies providing logistics staff. He takes a vig from the work of like 10k people.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  Why should I care? It has no effect on me. That's between the shareholders and management. Government bloat comes out of my paycheck.
  - spwa4 2y ago
    But ... Trump will increase spending. Musk's financial future is dependent on increasing spending. They want to INCREASE the load on your paycheck, not decrease it.
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      Not really. Trump has cut the budget of NASA which is the part of the government that is the biggest customer of Spacex. They have also want to get rid of EV tax credits which are a huge source of income for Musk. Financially he would be much better off under a Harris administration. I think these are both extremely stupid policies, but its just not correct to say that the Trump administration is increasing spending to benefit Musk.
      - spwa4 2y ago
        The last data is from the previous month. Trump had already started "cutting costs", and requested a budget ... 8% higher than Biden's last budget. Same week data came out, showing Trump has overspent by about 10%. This combines to Trump outspending Biden by about 15% so far. So Trump is increasing spending already. One might also comment this is hardly surprising since he did the same in his previous term, when he overspent by 4.6 trillion (meaning he enacted policies that would cost the US that amount over 10 years), and that was because congress stopped him from doing more damage. Trump is responsible for 20-25% of the entire US public debt in 2025 (Biden at most 5%, and a lot of that was Trump policy, mainly the tax "reduction") Does this benefit Musk? Well, the pentagon announced they're paying about 6 billion to SpaceX, so in one announcement about 3% of their Trump-announced budget increase is going to Musk. They're also buying from Tesla, against just about everyone's advice, but are unwilling to say how much. They're also paying a lot for Starlink and even Xai, but also not known how much.
rayiner 2y ago
[flagged]
- notahacker 2y ago
  tbf, unlike the US government employees selected on the basis of being sufficiently immune to reality to assert that Trump won the 2020 election in their "fidelity to the Dear Leader" tests, those who think that endorsement of such views is "deplorable" might have a point...
  - rayiner 2y ago
    [flagged]
dvdhnt 2y ago
[flagged]
- stonogo 2y ago
  Why has nobody been prosecuted, then? Why was USAID's detailed budget website removed by the current administration? If crimes were being committed, why has there been no accountability? I keep hearing about all this corruption, but nobody seems to be in jail about it.
  - dvdhnt 2y ago
    Accountability is shutting down the agency and shuttering the programs. They did that. The point of a slush fund is that the funds weren't allocated for specific programs by law, they were discretionary. So, while technically not illegal, they are frivolous and unethical. Not to mention, how would half the country and most of the world react if Trump's DOJ started arresting the people involved? They'd call him a tyrant and burn more Teslas.
    - phonon 2y ago
      What exactly do think the Federal Budget is? Discretionary budgeting within USAID is a tiny, tiny amount. Even the items they cherry picked as being wasteful, many were from the State Department (Ambassadors has some discretionary funds to support the local arts.) Congress decides how taxes are spent, not the Executive Branch, and certainly not the accountable to no-one DOGE. https://apnews.com/article/usaid-funding-trump-musk-misinformation-c544a5fa1fe788da10ec714f462883d1 https://apnews.com/article/usaid-funding-trump-musk-misinfor...
    - stonogo 2y ago
      No, if a project does not work then you shut it down. If someone is stealing money then you prosecute them for theft. That's what the DOJ is for. There are plenty of instances of the DOJ prosecuting government employees for crimes. So now, instead, we just have to take some rando's word for it that bad stuff was happening but nobody's going to jail over it because it was "technically not illegal"? And you call that accountability?

by tw04 2y ago

QuantumGood 2y ago

96 of 301 projects complete, 58 in progress • https://www.project2025.observer/ https://www.project2025.observer/

wonderwonder 2y ago
Whether you support it or not, for government, that's really some incredible efficiency. almost 1/3 complete in 100 days
- michaelbuckbee 2y ago
  Easier to destroy than create.
  - eru 2y ago
    Not usually for government departments.
- starkparker 2y ago
  I mean, let's not act like firing people and cancelling contracts without caring if you get sued or break things is substantially more difficult than, say, closing browser tabs
- dleeftink 2y ago
  The most efficient system is the one that is none. But it also ceases to be a system.
- miltonlost 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    [flagged]
- throwaway29812 2y ago
  [dead]
- Spooky23 2y ago
  It’s amazing that people so committed to constitutional principles were able to enact the largest tax increase in history without the advice and consent of congress. Impressive even for tax and spend republicans. In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    Huh? Trump won the popular vote. Maybe make better arguments in the next election if you don't like the current leader, rather than a violent revolution to overturn a democratically elected leader
    - immibis 2y ago
      Adolf Hitler was also democratically elected.
      - wonderwonder 2y ago
        [flagged]
        const_cast 2y ago
        [dead]
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      Trump is President, not king or Caesar.
  - wonderwonder 2y ago
    They absolutely have the consent of Congress. Congress can stop this at any time. They elect not to. Their silence is consent in this case. You can attribute that silence to active support or cowardice but either way they can stop it and don't so they approve of it. "In democracy loving areas of the British Empire, that type of arbitrary action led to revolutions." Not sure if you have taken a look at Britain lately but they absolutely don't care about what the citizens want.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  I'll join you in getting downvoted for absolutely no reason. It's a shitty thing they're doing, but your observation is correct. My job working on NIH-funded research projects is directly in their path, so I wish they weren't stomping a mudhole across science and technology. But they are, and, as you note, they're doing it very effectively and with incredible speed. If it's outside our capability as a community to even acknowledge that they're moving fast, how can we note that they're moving way too fast to be doing it right?
  - lazide 2y ago
    But they are doing it right - by their metric. Which is not the one others want them to be using.
    - karaterobot 2y ago
      By their own metrics, sure, maybe. I don't actually know what the real measurement of success is for them. But, to clarify, I didn't mean doing it right by their metric, I meant in my estimation, or [gestures broadly] our estimation.
      - lazide 2y ago
        The crux of the issue IMO, is to quote, ‘what do you mean “we” kemo sabe?’ I bet on any particular issue you can find 3-4 major groups with conflicting opinions.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  It's easy to destroy things - especially when no heed is paid to laws or down stream effects. I mean, carpet bombing New York City would demonstrate "incredible efficiency" - as it would probably take much less time than demolishing a single building in the city following the laws.
rayiner 2y ago
Promises made, promises kept.

CityOfThrowaway 2y ago

The data on hostile takeovers by "corporate raiders" very much does not support the characterization here. The category of PE firms you're talking about buy companies that are deeply troubled. Generally due to the management's unwillingness to accept reality and make change, the company is heading towards oblivion one way or another. Perhaps surprisingly, the vast majority of takeover targets wind up as net job creators on a 5-10 year time horizons. That's despite the fact that they do usually start by divesting assets that don't make sense and laying off non-productive employees. But divested assets aren't generally killed – they are usually sold to somebody else who often does something better with it. Also, companies conduct massive downsizing and rationalization all the time when in distress, and not only when they are taken over by a "corporate raider". In the private markets, these actors are definitely distasteful. They do cleanup work that feels bad, and they often get rich doing it. But they also serve a necessary role in the markets. Companies that are egregiously misusing capital and resources are a drag on the economy. It's a bad thing for there to be a bunch of zombie companies holding onto assets that could be used in better ways. A more generous framing would be something like a home flipper. They buy properties that are a mess, clean it up real good, throw out the old stuff for recycling, install some modern appliances, and sell it to somebody else. One of my laments is that there is no automatic equivalent force in the government. Agencies grow and grow, projects grow and grow, all totally decoupled from whether they are achieving any progress whatsoever towards the agency's mission. I'm not defending the specific actions of this administration (for which I simply don't know enough), but it is refreshing to see the government rummaging through its mess and cutting stuff that is irrational, corrupt, and not serving the mission.

miltonlost 2y ago
> One of my laments is that there is no automatic equivalent force in the government. Agencies grow and grow, projects grow and grow, all totally decoupled from whether they are achieving any progress whatsoever towards the agency's mission. There was. It's the GAO and the inspectors general of the agencies, both of which have been gutted by this administration. > I'm not defending the specific actions of this administration (for which I simply don't know enough), but it is refreshing to see the government rummaging through its mess and cutting stuff that is irrational, corrupt, and not serving the mission. LMAO, you're not defending the specific actions, but you know enough about the actions to know that they are "cutting stuff that is irrational". This is a defense of DOGE but with the "no, i'm NOT defending Musk" veneer that doesn't pass muster. You're giving this administration the benefit of the doubt and a large amount of good faith that they have not earned.

umvi 2y ago

Maybe the federal government needs a reset/dismantling/pruning/whatever you want to call it. With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now even though the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget, which itself exceeds the next 9 defense budgets in the world combined.

tomrod 2y ago
Current budget is set to expand deficit spending due to tax cuts and certain spending increases, in spite of project cuts to social safety nets and entitlements.
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
> With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now Perhaps, and in such a case, the american economy would not be cratering like it has been lately, and americans would be suffering less, and america would be stronger on the international stage. In fact, all things considered, more spending would have been better for america than the current state of things. > the debt is so huge that interest payments on the debt now eclipse the defense budget There's always taxing the rich, but the plan by the american ruling elites in the republican party currently seems to be to increase the debt sky-high via tax cuts for rich americans, only partially paid for via increased taxes on non-rich americans, with the rest piled onto the american debt burden.
- umvi 2y ago
  You can't just spend your troubles away forever. It might temporarily alleviate things, but long term it will collapse the entire system. At some point there need to be painful austerity measures - budget cuts, increased taxes, and the like. It's unpopular to do painful things, but it's necessary for survival.
  - tinyplanets 2y ago
    But you also can't just cut taxes forever. The tax cuts being proposed by the current Republican budget are projected to add even more to the deficit.

jcims 2y ago

This is also true for 'big bets' that a company makes that gain enough momentum to stick around but haven't fully been realized or financially reconciled with the corporate strategy. Source: cloud engineering lead at a large financial.

saelthavron 2y ago

Sorry, but it does occur in the private. I recently worked at a company which pretty much did this. They fired all of the contractors and a bunch of employees because they decided change their focus. It is far from dying.

Spooky23 2y ago

Uh, no. I can name a half dozen people who are in roles like this for F500 companies. Hell, my wife was zoning SANs for $300/hr for like 6 years at a big bank. Another friend is essentially a pimp for a bunch of companies providing logistics staff. He takes a vig from the work of like 10k people.

fallingknife 2y ago
Why should I care? It has no effect on me. That's between the shareholders and management. Government bloat comes out of my paycheck.
- spwa4 2y ago
  But ... Trump will increase spending. Musk's financial future is dependent on increasing spending. They want to INCREASE the load on your paycheck, not decrease it.
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    Not really. Trump has cut the budget of NASA which is the part of the government that is the biggest customer of Spacex. They have also want to get rid of EV tax credits which are a huge source of income for Musk. Financially he would be much better off under a Harris administration. I think these are both extremely stupid policies, but its just not correct to say that the Trump administration is increasing spending to benefit Musk.
    - spwa4 2y ago
      The last data is from the previous month. Trump had already started "cutting costs", and requested a budget ... 8% higher than Biden's last budget. Same week data came out, showing Trump has overspent by about 10%. This combines to Trump outspending Biden by about 15% so far. So Trump is increasing spending already. One might also comment this is hardly surprising since he did the same in his previous term, when he overspent by 4.6 trillion (meaning he enacted policies that would cost the US that amount over 10 years), and that was because congress stopped him from doing more damage. Trump is responsible for 20-25% of the entire US public debt in 2025 (Biden at most 5%, and a lot of that was Trump policy, mainly the tax "reduction") Does this benefit Musk? Well, the pentagon announced they're paying about 6 billion to SpaceX, so in one announcement about 3% of their Trump-announced budget increase is going to Musk. They're also buying from Tesla, against just about everyone's advice, but are unwilling to say how much. They're also paying a lot for Starlink and even Xai, but also not known how much.

rayiner 2y ago

[flagged]

notahacker 2y ago
tbf, unlike the US government employees selected on the basis of being sufficiently immune to reality to assert that Trump won the 2020 election in their "fidelity to the Dear Leader" tests, those who think that endorsement of such views is "deplorable" might have a point...
- rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]

dvdhnt 2y ago

[flagged]

stonogo 2y ago
Why has nobody been prosecuted, then? Why was USAID's detailed budget website removed by the current administration? If crimes were being committed, why has there been no accountability? I keep hearing about all this corruption, but nobody seems to be in jail about it.
- dvdhnt 2y ago
  Accountability is shutting down the agency and shuttering the programs. They did that. The point of a slush fund is that the funds weren't allocated for specific programs by law, they were discretionary. So, while technically not illegal, they are frivolous and unethical. Not to mention, how would half the country and most of the world react if Trump's DOJ started arresting the people involved? They'd call him a tyrant and burn more Teslas.
  - phonon 2y ago
    What exactly do think the Federal Budget is? Discretionary budgeting within USAID is a tiny, tiny amount. Even the items they cherry picked as being wasteful, many were from the State Department (Ambassadors has some discretionary funds to support the local arts.) Congress decides how taxes are spent, not the Executive Branch, and certainly not the accountable to no-one DOGE. https://apnews.com/article/usaid-funding-trump-musk-misinformation-c544a5fa1fe788da10ec714f462883d1 https://apnews.com/article/usaid-funding-trump-musk-misinfor...
  - stonogo 2y ago
    No, if a project does not work then you shut it down. If someone is stealing money then you prosecute them for theft. That's what the DOJ is for. There are plenty of instances of the DOJ prosecuting government employees for crimes. So now, instead, we just have to take some rando's word for it that bad stuff was happening but nobody's going to jail over it because it was "technically not illegal"? And you call that accountability?