If MAGAts just found it annoying that would be one thing.
But to pretend an independent, sovereign country deserved to be invaded because they were talking about joining a mutual defense contract with other countries is just plain evil.
Ignoring the Budapest Memorandum is proof that the MAGA cult does not care about the rule of law or international norms. They not only hate America, they hate freedom and democracy everywhere.
Seriously, when you see the conservative hate machine turned against Ukraine despite Russia being the historical enemy of Republicans, it shows how deeply they have lost the plot. These people are brainwashed, and just hate whatever the man on fox news tells them too without question. Its equal parts sad and terrifying.
Sadly, they hate whomever FOX News tells them to hate. FOX has told them that Ukraine is a corrupt, evil little country that attacked Russia, a Godly nation that FOX has spun for over a decade now as being some sort of anti-Woke Christian free-market paradise.
Pretty much anyone with half a brain understands that FOX News is mostly propaganda designed to rile up working class voters, using weird culture war grievances to vote GOP against their own economic self-interests. What I don't think anyone anticipated was that MAGA leadership would eventually start to drink the coolaid and believe their own lies. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
The fact that DOGE has found so little savings — despite having apparent universal access and the ability to literally dismantle entire agencies — is strong evidence that our government is actually operating quite efficiently.
And what little "savings" they have found seem to be in the revenue and income supporting industries.
The Parks and National forests host millions of visitors each year. Trump/Musk have frozen new and seasonal hires. Who will take the fees at the entrance to the parks? Who will empty the trash and fix the bathrooms and trails, etc. Acadia National Park gets around 4 million visitors each year. They hire 150 seasonal workers. There are dozens of hotels, B&Bs, campgrounds, glampgrounds, restaurants and other stores that depend on the revenue from these visitors. Without the 150 seasonal workers, the park will not be able to operate and the local economy will suffer.
Other agencies like the DOE supports the water flow and power generation of hundreds of hydroelectric dams. Musk already fired some of these employees including engineers.
Trump/Musk fired a few hundred FAA employees some of whom create the daily mapping the airline crews and air traffic controllers use. How is this making air travel safe?
And it's not just the terminated employees that will damage the economy. It's also the tariffs. Already, Canada has frozen all imports of US distilled products. And if Trump foolishly goes ahead with the Canadian tariffs, heating oil will increase by 25% and gasoline in the midwest by about $.70 a gallon.
There are NO real savings when you use a chainsaw instead of a scalple. And everyone loses including the oligarchs. But Trump WILL get his tax cut extension for the Oligarchs and the millionaires.
For using a scalpel correctly knowing when to cut, where, how deep - and especially what not to do under any circumstance - apparently requires skill -- AND brains. Both of which escape T & M.
I would really like to see the results of the drug tests of theirs prior to starting in their positions - which is a prerequisite in the business world.
Surgery by explosive! Drop in a turd-bomb and see what happens. I remember a picture that trying to explain direction of entropy..there was a truck with all the materials to build a house on a cliff and ready to drive off the cliff. The question under the picture…’What is the likelihood that a house will appear at the bottom of the cliff after the crash?’ In the infinite universe it might be non-zero but the likelihood has lots and lots of zeros…
That’s what they are doing…pushing the truck (our federal government) off the cliff and hoping for something ‘good’…actually they want the rapacious fight to occur, pitting us all against each other…Fucking up the ‘More Perfect a union! ideal once and for all. And fear is driving the truck!
Great meme. I have been a programmer for over 50 years working mostly as a computer consultant for over 100 Fortune 500 companies. Some small ones as well. Anyway, I get a laugh out of anyone calling Musk's programmers whiz kids. I've worked with over a thousand programmers and I've met less than a handful of what I would actual call whiz kids. And even they didn't walk into an IT department knowing how to mine the data they are looking for. Most of the programmers I know are 7s, 8s and 9s and Musk' kids are likely 2's and 3's at this point in their lives.
About 25 years ago, everything in Silicon Valley went over to hiring people with engineering degrees, rather than computer scientists (disclaimer: I have an MS in Computer Science). Every engineer I've ever met was schooled in FORTRAN and thought they knew how to program better than I. By the time I retired, all of the "programmers" in my field (Telecommunications) couldn't program, but they had to very skilled in using several program packages.
My bet is that these kids aren't even programmers, as I understand the term.
Yeah. Some of the best described "analyses" they have done I could all but write in SQL based on the description. Think the search to find people not marked as deceased over a certain age. Unfortunately, they are the first step in an obvious check for what might be wrong, not the final one. The obvious next steps (asking the employees if this was a known issue, searching to see if those folks were actually getting payments), they didn't do. I'm not sure that I would tell my boss I had found a potential issue before doing more. But they obviously told Musk, and Mush told the world it was massive fraud, and even came up with a bloated estimate of the amount of fraud before they checked any of that. Either of my second step checks would have told them this was a dry well. So far all I know is that they can do a query (maybe in a tool that makes it simple) to search one table. I don't have evidence they can do a join (which the check for benefits payments might have required). They might flunk one of my basic hiring tests.
For those to whom my above note was gibberish, this may help. I would guess that SSA puts at least some of their data periodically into a database used for reporting, and that is what DOGE has access to. In that database, there is a likely a big table with one record per person who has ever contributed anything, with columns for basic information (date of birth and a flag showing whether they are deceased at least, from what we know DOGE looked at, and maybe a bunch of other stuff). There might be other, bigger tables for contributions and benefits records. Table and column names are made up below, and, since different databases have different functions for dates, that part may look a bit different. This uses Oracle.
What we know they looked up could have been done with:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM PEOPLE
WHERE NOT DECEASED
AND DATEOFBIRTH < TO_DATE('1925-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD');
The to_date function just converts the string for the date into the obvious date. The rest just counts all the records where the person isn't marked deceased, and was born before this date. This is easy for anyone part way through a first course on this database system.
What they didn't do was check to see if there are any matching benefits. We know that because they didn't catch the fact that there aren't many. That would require skills later in the first course, but isn't that much harder (though the run time might be long). Something like:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM PEOPLE
WHERE NOT DECEASED
AND DATEOFBIRTH < TO_DATE('1925-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD')
AND EXISTS SELECT 1
FROM BENEFITS
WHERE PEOPLE.SSN=BENEFITS.SSN
AND BENEFITS.PAYDATE>
TO_DATE('2025-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD');
This just tacks on a check to see if there are any records this year in the benefits table for that SSN.
It is a bit higher level skill, but one I would have required to hire someone to do database queries. Not "genius" level, just adequate level.
I don't think they're hoping for something good to happen. I think their radical and destructive behaviors have two objectives:
1, P2025 has been clear in its desire to dismantle the govt., for several reasons. ......................... (a) GOPs know that when govt is underfunded, underserved citizens become angry, and the less-informed can be convinced that govt simply doesn't work -- and those people can then be persuaded to vote for lying faux-populists who promise to fix things (such as mr. "i alone can fix it"). .................................. (b) Without govt. to set regulations or levy fines/penalties, the wealthy are free to do exactly as they please in order to maximize the profits -- and face zero consequences when pollution, train derailments, aircraft accidents etc. sicken or kill people. ..................... (c) Reactionary extremists want to replace the current, nonpartisan govt. with a white-nationalist christofascist govt., staffed by like-minded extremists. ......................... (d) Without a functioning govt, we're exceptionally vulnerable to authoritarian takeover -- all of this is a gift to Putin (see Timothy Snyder's Sub entry titled "Decapitation Strike").
2. These activities are a smokescreen to hide musk's dismantling of agencies that have been investigating, or that want to regulate, his businesses -- which are known to cut corners, cause enviro destruction, and break various laws.
When these folks need someone to work on their expensive sports cars, I doubt they choose some random social media influencer hawking one weird trick to eliminate the need for oil changes...
The oligarchs won't lose - at least not yet. They'll not only get their obscene tax cut, but the destruction of regulation leaves the spoils wide open for them to purloin without (immediate) consequences.
I wonder who the oligarchs are other than the usual suspects -- Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Hamm, the Koch's, the Walton's, Gates, Buffett, etc. But with 2000+ billionaires in the US, what percentage are MAGAs.
And why the fuck, are they so opposed to raising the Federal minimum wage to $15/hour. This would actually raise revenues because more taxes would be paid, but also they would spend 100% of the money or close to it whereas the oligarchs take it in and invest it.
The (bizarre) rationale against raising the minimum wage to half of an actual living wage is as follows:
1. Wall St. has followed the mantra "hold the line on upward salary pressures" for decades now. This would disrupt that.
2. Hypothetically, raising wages is an increase in corporate expenses, thus cutting into profiteering.
3. The oligarchs are sadistic psychopaths who enjoy making the proletariat suffer, and raising the minimum wage would deprive them of the entertainment value.
Those who oppose an increase in the minimum wage know that a person who works 60 hrs/week in order to pay for the basics has zero time or energy to participate in politics, write to a rep/sen, march in a protest, etc.
Also, living in a state of constant economic uncertainty is corrosive. I know this bc I've lived thus since the Great Recession, which not only took my job but torpedoed my profession. The govt gave me exactly $0 so I could rebuild my life / train for a new profession, and I never recovered. (Unemployment was so high that I couldn't get even temp clerical work, despite having worked as a FT secretary for almost three years approx. 10 years earlier.)
People who are anxious typically become angry (bc anxiety is disempowering, whereas anger can at least fuel a person to do *something*) -- and that anger is easily exploited by lying, grifting GOPs, as we've seen for 40+ years during which low-income white ppl have continued to vote for the party that has destroyed them economically. (I've never voted for a GOP, nor will I ever -- bc I'm a high-info voter, and I know that even the greediest Wall Street Dem is marginally better for the US than is any GOP.)
Good take. I also got tanked by the recession, and almost made it back, I was up 100k at the start of the pandemic, and got tanked again and became disabled. Now we are close to retirement age with no net worth or assets. It's daunting to say the least, we were both educated, frugal and industrious with good jobs and now this. Fuck these asshats of privilege.
Part of issue is that few are actually long-term thinkers, systems are complicated…you’d think they would hate The Donny-John Sewer Circus—festering/featuring the MuskyTurds! Perhaps they do but don’t yet actually care…enough...yet.
Presumably all the natural resource thieves, oil, coal, mining of any kind will have moved in by then to create their usual poisonous destruction so no park staff will ever be needed again.
If is actually a total waste of efforts and will decrease services, impact broader economies and generally fuck things up! How is that good? We forget that these investment give us a significant return…something The Muski-boy doesn’t seem to appreciate, but no surprise, his dream is of Mars with AI and robots. Hope he can grow his own food?
I think Musk is just an idiot and Trump is the savant. I mean, the guy basically has the ability to mind control 40% of the population. That's a form of genius. Musk just won a bunch of dice rolls.
What this demonstrates is that one dumb guy with piles of cash he didn't earn has convinced an even stupider guy with smaller piles of cash he didn't earn that he(the 1st guy) is some kind of business genius and he has a plan to gut the government to their mutual benefit. They are just berserkers following Vlad's playbook. We are really screwed!
With all the AI investments Musk has been making, ie stand-out project Colossus, it appears that his plan is to replace thousands of government employees with his AI technology. Getting filthy rich in the process and providing T with the "promised" results.
Keep in mind, that Musk, in his current SGE (special government employee) status he can only work in that very function for 138 days in a year - that may be the reason of the speed at which things occur.
Clowns in the sense that they have no clue about what they are doing.
I have worked for many companies that wanted to reduce their expenses. But, the senior management didn't want the stink of being the ones to lay people off. So they would bring in a consulting firm to do their dirty work. It started with a 4-8 week study and ended with an employee buyout or early retirement of the most senior non-management people in the company. Why these people? Because they had the largest salaries and they could get rid of the fewest people.
What usually ends up happening, is they get rid of the people that know what they are doing who are near retirement and the senior management is happy. That is until it becomes apparent that the people they got rid of actually run the company and they end up hiring 1-3 people to replace them.
I won't name the company that most of them used, but as soon as it was mentioned they were coming in many of us knew exactly what was going to happen.
And this is kind-of what Musk is doing only in reverse. He is getting rid of the newbies and the ones that were recently promoted that looked like newbies. Not the worst strategy, but you're going to throw out a lot of babies with the bathwater doing this and hiring untrained newbies to replace them.
I saw this in a firm for which I worked. They got rid of people who were approaching their two year service, and the ones close to five years, and the ones who could retire early. Why? Because at two years you are partially vested in pension benefits. At five years, you are fully vested. The company could claw back the funds they had reserved for pensions for these people. As to the early retirees, their benefits were much less than people who reached full retirement age.
Why not target the people who were close to early retirement age? That was illegal.
The babies with the bathwater might or might not be pertinent with that firm, but the company no longer exists.
The goal also may be to replace fed staff with AI. A Georgian Republican told his town hall audience that the fired staff at CDC could be replaced by AI. H'm, who might benefit from that?
Why would giving fElon access to the US Treasury payment system allow him to find waste?
That's the payment system, not the authorities that approved the payments. What scares me the most is that the US Treasury has info on every taxpayer and everyone who has ever received a payment from the US Treasury. Why should fElon need access to that? What is he going to do with that information?
I listened to Kara Swisher and Sarah Longwell. Seems our government information is soloed, but accessing it all collectively gives Elon access to our data. That and mitigating checks on his defiance of regulation is what he is after.
He will never sell these data to others. They are his golden egg that will propel his own AI firm to surpass all competitors that can’t amass such a comprehensive dataset of all Americans.
According to Lexi's Substack, he is probably trying to set up a centralized payment system that would run thru X. Lexi is a software engineer with 20 yrs experience in cyber defense and cyber security, and she paints a very dark picture of what's possible if Musk is not stopped.
No, he only has information on the credit card that I've used for these systems. He doesn't have info on my financial institutions. He will have that when he gets the income tax databases. If he manages to get data from any of the three credit rating organizations, then he'll have it all.
This tempting thought would only be supported by the stated evidence if DOGE itself were efficient. Which, on the face of it, it is not. Conclusion: DOGE should eliminate itself!
Agree some areas hanging in there but others are losing the ability to function as well as they should. We’ll see once wildfire season starts in earnest or national parks are a mess or tax refunds aren’t processed or even more veterans die (maybe your family member) or you are ripped off by your financial institution with no place to go to seek relief. Could go on but you get the idea. What is the cost of unemployment for states?
It could also be evidence of the fact that DOGE is a bunch of children who have no understanding of the systems they’re dealing with—I wouldn’t take their work as evidence of anything except that the federal government is big and complex and not something a bunch of amateurs can figure out in a couple of weeks.
I have no idea if out government is actually operating quite efficiently. But I don't believe Musk and his minions have the knowledge to determine how to actually find and determine fraud or viable ways to save funds other than to destroy and wreck institutions and peoples' lives.
They're not actually interested in efficiency, or even genuinely finding "waste, fraud and abuse". In any case, if they really want to identify "waste, fraud and abuse" all they have to do is look in the mirror.
It wouldn't matter if they did find savings, the funding of programs is law that duly elected representatives and president signed off on. I wish people keep that in the forefront of communicating about what Elon and Don-old are doing: it's illegal, but the executive branch is law enforcement, so who can make them accountable? I think if D.C. was a state, it would be the state law enforcement, but Congress runs D.C.
It just proves that the Founding Fathers were all good people. They couldn't think of all the loopholes that evil minds have found to exploit.
"The District of Columbia has a mayor–council government that operates under Article One of the United States Constitution and the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. The Home Rule Act devolves certain powers of the United States Congress to the local government, which consists of a mayor and a 13-member council. However, Congress retains the right to review and overturn laws created by the council and intervene in local affairs. "
Neither Trump nor Musk have even vague notions of how the US government actually works. So their "fix" is roughly akin to handing your computer to a pack of monkeys with hammers and expecting them to fix your software problem.
Fabulous analogy of what the idiot Muskie the freakie is doing, taking a hatchet to everything, and saying that’s fixing it, that’s the extent of his very warped “mentalitie”…
This circus leads me to wonder how much pile of hot garbage are the annual reports & financial statements from Musk's publicly owned companies? Should those be scrutinised again as well to see what's been inflated or wrongly reported? Why would those be any different than reports from DOGE, if that's how he likes to handle things?
Well, that's the whole point of eviscerating the regulators. If there's nobody left to scrutinize Skunk Musk's companies, he can get away with anything.
And he has. The WSJ coded their language, but they reported that X executives & lawyers extorted advertisers to come back to their platform — noticeably, Morgan Stanley gave them 3 billion in cash at a valuation of 44Billion despite X being obviously worse off than before Musk bought it. X CEO (former AD exec) told intergroup or interpublic executives (idk the correct company name) their currently pending M&A would not go through if they did not return to X.
OMG THANK YOU for saying this! I have spent YEARS trying to get ANYONE to see the similarities between Musk and Holmes! Congressman, news media, tech folks, influencers... you name it. ANYONE
No one could recognize his scams right before their very eyes. Announcing technology that doesn't exist on repeat cycles to drive up stock prices, launching untested products to drive up stock prices at the expense of the public as guinea pigs, crypto pyramid scheme, robots that don't exist, armored cars that aren't armored with windows that you can punch your fist through...
The list goes on and on and on. He's nothing but a con, a nazi, and a terrorist.
Although the markets may be slow to respond, the economic indicators are not looking good. I pulled my retirement out of the government system and for now put it in a high yielding savings account. The market “slowness” allowed me time to think and respond, which honestly is unusual. What is usual is what you stated. Those who are inside see the writing on the wall before the rest of us and act in their own best interest, leaving the rest of us with the consequences.
If I had any, I'd stuff some cash under the mattress. With the CFPB shut down, the banks are free to act on a whim. It also raises the question: can we still trust the FDIC?
Removing the Federal Government from a partnership to fight off the effects of massive unemployment ( and , in fact, be one of the root causes of the firings in the first place) will make the next recession a hum dinger .
We are already seeing reduced individual savings , corporate debt is high - so it is dubious to think that the consumer and or business investment will pull us out of a recession.
Prices may be sticky for awhile- but my fear runs more along the lines of deflation.
WaPo columnist mentioned the Thrift is and remains independent (G fund has been used) and continues to be safe place for your retirement. Got way conservative with mine but I am concerned as I got caught up in the last couple of crashes. Can no longer afford to. I thought of moving it elsewhere but where? Safety deposit box?
Depending on your age (at least 59.5), you can move it to a traditional IRA or Roth. One major benefit is if you need to withdraw funds, you can choose the fund to pull funds from, unlike TSP. If you withdraw from TSP, the pull from you existing investments equally. Plus, TSP will only send funds via a paper check sent via snail mail. You have more options outside TSP.
I don't know the government retirement system well enough to comment on pulling out of it, but I suggest that any retirement funds should be diversified into mutual funds. I also keep a significant amount in cash deposits that are currently earning an average of about 45, not princely, but better than inflation so far. Diversification should include foreign stocks and bonds as well as American.
That is wise. It's also wise to invest slowly and dollar-cost average, as you may know. In the long run, if you invest in good funds with low fees, timing is not as important as with individual stocks.
"...have gone through that DOGE list, and found that it’s a steaming pile of, um, DOGEshit."
That was awesome.
"...it’s not clear which is the other’s sidekick."
I've been wondering about this since the [strikeout] coronation [/strikeout] inauguration.
"I’m ashamed that my country is led by people who find the courageous defense of freedom annoying rather than inspiring."
Me too.
And so here we are on day 35 of the unprecedented coup, and King MAGAMaggot is wreaking havoc - just like he promised. Market responses are often inexplicable, but are bound to eventually react violently. That's when the DOGEshit will hit the fan.
"What happened? Part of the answer is an uptick in the prices of eggs and other groceries, which isn’t Trump’s fault "
I absolutely believe that Trump deserves blame for the rising price of eggs. I have a reason for this.
When I grew up, my mother always used to tell us that a broken promise is a lie -- because when you made the promise, you said something untrue. It's an interesting idea, because it changes one's view of *when* the sin was committed. The real sin in breaking a promise is not the breaking, it's the making. You shouldn't promise things you won't fulfill, or that a reasonable person would know you can't be relied on to fulfill.
When Trump promised to lower egg prices on day 1, he accepted responsibility for egg prices. When George Bush said, "Read my lips. No new taxes," he told a lie. That raising taxes when Bush did it was the right thing to do doesn't let him off the hook. He became president on the strength of a promise he could not keep. That Trump has no knob he can turn to lower egg prices doesn't let him off the hook. He was elected on the basis of a promise he should have and probably did know he could not keep.
The only promise of Trump's that we should pay attention to is the one about retribution. Musk is the cherry on top for two reasons: 1) he did give Trump a quarter billion buckaroos 2) Musk is doing all the nasty things Trump wanted and the hope is that he'll take the blame, leaving Trump relatively intact. I doubt Trump will evade blame, but the way things are in MAGA land, it may take quite a while for disenchantment to trickle down to his giddy masses.
The House GOP is in some turmoil right now as constituents have been going to meetings with congresscritters and were vocal about the cuts and Musk. How much that will influence the haggling over the budget is something we will learn this make or break week.
The GOP has had decades to disinform its voters and reinforce the notion that government is too big and very bad. Compared to today, Grover Norquist's "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" is a pretty tame statement.
It's too bad Democrats, at any point they had the chance, never did anything about truth in media. In today's news, donors are mad at the Democrats and withholding money.
The cost-cutting isn't about cost cutting. It's about filling the already overfull pockets of the oligarchy and consolidating control over the population to retain absolute power. It's also about turning on our allies. Our allies are recalibrating their relations with us through a variety of means, including shifting economic policy. Europe is something Americans should pay close attention to. What they are doing now will affect us very soon.
The 'cost-cutting' is just a cover to distract the rubes; what Musk is actually doing is stealing all our data. Remember, it's 2025, and data is king, it's what all AI companies seek and what extortionists need.
All that data on individuals and corporations will be used to plot financial schemes and will be used to assure supreme power, as they can blackmail individuals or entire companies to do their bidding. Not least among individuals is every person in the Capitol building and every state Capital.
For instance, we know Mayor Adams is crooked, but what if some Dem Governor has been a naughty person? Well, that data Muks just hoovered up could contain the clues and proof needed to turn said Governor to obey nasty orders.
This is the hair-on-fire issue here, not 'savings'.
You mentioned donors withholding money from the Dems right now, and I agree. I might pony up for a local candidate, but the national party can take a hike. Biden and Harris had money, and Harris is still asking (or some ActBlue scammer). If they couldn’t win with what they had, why should I trust them with my money now? Let’s see how they vote. That’s where the rubber meets the road.
What? Did I miss where Harris had an entire national news network and social media platform working for her? Did Biden really spend every weekend of his presidency holding rallies, like Trump? How the H did he get those terrific hires in place (and they were) and manage to process the infrastructure, investment, labor, climate, energy grants and get tens of thousands of programs underway?
As I mention in my linked opinion piece, there needs to be a complete change in the way Democrats approach voters. One thing I recommend you look into is attending your local or state Democratic party meetings and get to know prospective candidates for any office, whether local, state, or federal. Same goes for constituent calls and in-person meetings with current officials and quiz them about their approach to our current situation.
You may also want to suggest on your own blog that people run for office. Here in the blood red South, it's very hard to find people to run for many local offices, though the Democratic Party would back them if they did. We have candidate training classes and other means of support.
DOGE has Biden era federal loans for Musk rivals in the crosshairs as they cuts expenses.
The Rivian factory planned in Georgia could produce up to 400,000 EVs each year, starting in 2028, but not if the $6B loan agreement from Biden's IRA is halted. 8,000 EV chargers were removed from federal buildings, and the support for the rest halted. Do we know DOGE aren't shifting US assets to off-shore accounts? We don't. Doesn't any Republican Senator or Rep wake up at 3 AM wondering? His private protection guys are in federal buildings with guns. Elon's guy at Treasury still runs his Cloud gig, and Bloomberg said his rash of firings led to huge security lapses. Does Tom Tillis ever break into a sweat in that expensive suit? He worked as an underqualified, well-dressed young hire at places like Wang and Price Waterhouse. He knows what can happen.
That truism was coined by Rick Wilson, a Republican operative for many years, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, and author of the book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.”
#45 has little to no business acumen. His father propped 45 up during the father’s lifetime. I read at least three books about #45 before the 2016 election. He overpaid for properties, stiffed contractors and suppliers, lied incessantly, had six business bankruptcies, and managed to bankrupt two(?) casinos. He was looking at financial disaster when Mark Burnett created The Apprentice, where 45 played a businessman on TV. #45 also did not write any books. The Art of the Deal was written by Anthony Schwartz, using some of 45’s words. He had a terrible time trying to get around 45’s short attention span, impulsivity, ignorance, etc. #45 is a con artist, and con artists have to leave town before their sham is discovered. The bill always comes due. 45’s bottomless need for attention will be his undoing. Nothing about him is true, but the gullible refuse to believe that truth.
I did too and read the news articles (page 12) about the small business owners he F’d over, many forced out of business. Why these people buy his BS is beyond me.
Yes to all that, but why is he not only still around but also was reelected as the 47th president with current majorities in Congress and SCOTUS and with the world's richest man at his side. He has to be a genius at manipulation and persuasion, albeit an empty soul. I’ve been waiting since 2015 to see him fail in politics — for the good of our country.
Remember when he said "I love uneducated people". Uneducated people actually thought he meant that literally, not realizing that what he really meant was that, like all con artists, he loves an easy mark! He's a genius at manipulating and persuading idiots.
He stiffed his lawyers too. Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen were just the most prominent examples. There were many more. You'd think people smart enough to pass the bar exam would know better.
"I’m ashamed that my country is led by people who find the courageous defense of freedom annoying rather than inspiring." I believe it is time to get angry, not ashamed. We should never be ashamed when thugs take over, wherever we find ourselves to be. Many of us all over the world had to go through unbearable tragedies when democracy gives in to fascism, some of us losing our countries to war and destruction. There is something deeply worrisome I always felt during my tenure in the US: an almost divine belief that this great country is immunised of such problems. Such beliefs/feelings are as dangerous as fascists movements that bring destruction, for one wakes up to the reality too late.
Analysts from the big banks just aren’t talking about the enormous political event taking place in the US. They ignored Brexit as well since presumably they just didn’t want to get involved in politics. On DOGE Morgan Stanley said in the main they didn’t expect much saving although one mentioned he was more hopeful (more hateful was my take). There’s talk about tariffs and a background hum about deficits.
Ukraine: what would ‘peace’ mean for particular stocks and what would happen to European deficits when they up defence spending.
Yet views on the spread of the right, what it means, how the exceptionalism of the US has been due to competition/rule of law etc. which may now be smashed: not a peep.
Doesn’t mean markets are determined by the bank research departments, but just for what it’s worth.
I’m wondering how likely people think a recession is? Are many economists predicting this?
As for the markets it’s a funny one. On the one hand I hate their complacency as it’s an extension of people never ever taking Trump at his word - we are hearing Trump voters getting their proverbial faces eaten by the leopards, but all of it is stuff Trump said he’d do.
On the other hand haven’t markets been right to some extent!? He has chickened out of many of the tariff threats. I guess though that the confidence could still turn out to be quite brittle - if he does go through with some of the tariff threats against allied countries maybe there will be a panic.
In other words the markets are right about trump until they're not; and then it all falls apart.
I have no idea whether economists are predicting a recession, but I, an ordinary if somewhat knowledgeable citizen, think it will happen. Inflation is going up, not down, and summarily firing thousands of workers in government and in corporations cannot be a good sign. Unemployment will go up as well. Trump's plan to send stimulus checks will increase inflation, too.
70% of wealth, and therefore the market, are owned by 10% of the people. There is a non-zero chance the market never collapses but instead rampant inflation makes that wealth percentage worth less.
very likely....and it is crazy.....today we have so much more knowledge and so many tools than in 1929. I thought after Clinton and Greenspan we no longer even needed a smart man at the White House. That is what got W in. He and Trump have proven that stupidity in that job means a recession. Trump is the stupidest man I have ever seen in a high-profile position. He will drop the egg carton. It is only a matter of when.
I agree, but I don't think you need the qualifier, "...in a high-profile position..."
Echoing the reported opinion of former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Lebowitz thinks the biggest danger of Trump is that he is a moron. “Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.”
Dr K video cast this weekend inferred the economy is behaving a bit like the dot.com era if I recall correctly. They will be the first to tell you they can not predict the future. I decided to become far more conservative as I can no longer afford crazy stock market. IMPO, I think MuT will tank the economy after they ripped off everything they can get. Again, my opinion.
However, my dear American friends speak it up in all your streets, and repeat it 1 billion times, and again:
TRUMP: "Make LIES Great Again!"
Unfortunately, time for intelligent analyses will come only when at least 20% of Trump adepts change their minds, and looking at reality is evidently not sufficient for them to understand.
As I understand it, the folks in Ukraine want to remain independent and they want a Western style economy and society based on "liberal capitalism" where there is the rule of law and honest courts.
Unlike Putin's Russia where his cronies muscle in and take over successful businesses and the courts rule the way Putin and the oligarchs tell them.
Something that disappoints me about American corporations and businesses is that they don't seem to stick up for the rule of law and honest courts. Think about it. A lot of what we do each day is based on trust. I assume that the businesspeople with whom I deal will do what they say they will do. And the vast majority of them do. When corporations enter contracts, they assume that most will be fulfilled and if not, then the courts will require their completion.
Maybe I am naive, but I think that most court decisions are honest and according to law.
Donald would love to bend the courts and legal system so that they support what he wants.
"I’m ashamed that my country is led by people who find the courageous defense of freedom annoying rather than inspiring." - Paul Krugman
Amen, brother!
If MAGAts just found it annoying that would be one thing.
But to pretend an independent, sovereign country deserved to be invaded because they were talking about joining a mutual defense contract with other countries is just plain evil.
Ignoring the Budapest Memorandum is proof that the MAGA cult does not care about the rule of law or international norms. They not only hate America, they hate freedom and democracy everywhere.
Seriously, when you see the conservative hate machine turned against Ukraine despite Russia being the historical enemy of Republicans, it shows how deeply they have lost the plot. These people are brainwashed, and just hate whatever the man on fox news tells them too without question. Its equal parts sad and terrifying.
Sadly, they hate whomever FOX News tells them to hate. FOX has told them that Ukraine is a corrupt, evil little country that attacked Russia, a Godly nation that FOX has spun for over a decade now as being some sort of anti-Woke Christian free-market paradise.
Pretty much anyone with half a brain understands that FOX News is mostly propaganda designed to rile up working class voters, using weird culture war grievances to vote GOP against their own economic self-interests. What I don't think anyone anticipated was that MAGA leadership would eventually start to drink the coolaid and believe their own lies. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
Not"annoying", actually infuriating. They give every sign of feeling personally wronged by it.
Me too. Horrible.
Agreed. Very touching last sentence to an admirably clear piece of writing.
The fact that DOGE has found so little savings — despite having apparent universal access and the ability to literally dismantle entire agencies — is strong evidence that our government is actually operating quite efficiently.
And what little "savings" they have found seem to be in the revenue and income supporting industries.
The Parks and National forests host millions of visitors each year. Trump/Musk have frozen new and seasonal hires. Who will take the fees at the entrance to the parks? Who will empty the trash and fix the bathrooms and trails, etc. Acadia National Park gets around 4 million visitors each year. They hire 150 seasonal workers. There are dozens of hotels, B&Bs, campgrounds, glampgrounds, restaurants and other stores that depend on the revenue from these visitors. Without the 150 seasonal workers, the park will not be able to operate and the local economy will suffer.
Other agencies like the DOE supports the water flow and power generation of hundreds of hydroelectric dams. Musk already fired some of these employees including engineers.
Trump/Musk fired a few hundred FAA employees some of whom create the daily mapping the airline crews and air traffic controllers use. How is this making air travel safe?
And it's not just the terminated employees that will damage the economy. It's also the tariffs. Already, Canada has frozen all imports of US distilled products. And if Trump foolishly goes ahead with the Canadian tariffs, heating oil will increase by 25% and gasoline in the midwest by about $.70 a gallon.
There are NO real savings when you use a chainsaw instead of a scalple. And everyone loses including the oligarchs. But Trump WILL get his tax cut extension for the Oligarchs and the millionaires.
For using a scalpel correctly knowing when to cut, where, how deep - and especially what not to do under any circumstance - apparently requires skill -- AND brains. Both of which escape T & M.
I would really like to see the results of the drug tests of theirs prior to starting in their positions - which is a prerequisite in the business world.
Surgery by explosive! Drop in a turd-bomb and see what happens. I remember a picture that trying to explain direction of entropy..there was a truck with all the materials to build a house on a cliff and ready to drive off the cliff. The question under the picture…’What is the likelihood that a house will appear at the bottom of the cliff after the crash?’ In the infinite universe it might be non-zero but the likelihood has lots and lots of zeros…
That’s what they are doing…pushing the truck (our federal government) off the cliff and hoping for something ‘good’…actually they want the rapacious fight to occur, pitting us all against each other…Fucking up the ‘More Perfect a union! ideal once and for all. And fear is driving the truck!
Great meme. I have been a programmer for over 50 years working mostly as a computer consultant for over 100 Fortune 500 companies. Some small ones as well. Anyway, I get a laugh out of anyone calling Musk's programmers whiz kids. I've worked with over a thousand programmers and I've met less than a handful of what I would actual call whiz kids. And even they didn't walk into an IT department knowing how to mine the data they are looking for. Most of the programmers I know are 7s, 8s and 9s and Musk' kids are likely 2's and 3's at this point in their lives.
They were not hired for expertise. They were hired for their naivety, radicalization & willingness to break the law.
About 25 years ago, everything in Silicon Valley went over to hiring people with engineering degrees, rather than computer scientists (disclaimer: I have an MS in Computer Science). Every engineer I've ever met was schooled in FORTRAN and thought they knew how to program better than I. By the time I retired, all of the "programmers" in my field (Telecommunications) couldn't program, but they had to very skilled in using several program packages.
My bet is that these kids aren't even programmers, as I understand the term.
Yeah. Some of the best described "analyses" they have done I could all but write in SQL based on the description. Think the search to find people not marked as deceased over a certain age. Unfortunately, they are the first step in an obvious check for what might be wrong, not the final one. The obvious next steps (asking the employees if this was a known issue, searching to see if those folks were actually getting payments), they didn't do. I'm not sure that I would tell my boss I had found a potential issue before doing more. But they obviously told Musk, and Mush told the world it was massive fraud, and even came up with a bloated estimate of the amount of fraud before they checked any of that. Either of my second step checks would have told them this was a dry well. So far all I know is that they can do a query (maybe in a tool that makes it simple) to search one table. I don't have evidence they can do a join (which the check for benefits payments might have required). They might flunk one of my basic hiring tests.
For those to whom my above note was gibberish, this may help. I would guess that SSA puts at least some of their data periodically into a database used for reporting, and that is what DOGE has access to. In that database, there is a likely a big table with one record per person who has ever contributed anything, with columns for basic information (date of birth and a flag showing whether they are deceased at least, from what we know DOGE looked at, and maybe a bunch of other stuff). There might be other, bigger tables for contributions and benefits records. Table and column names are made up below, and, since different databases have different functions for dates, that part may look a bit different. This uses Oracle.
What we know they looked up could have been done with:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM PEOPLE
WHERE NOT DECEASED
AND DATEOFBIRTH < TO_DATE('1925-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD');
The to_date function just converts the string for the date into the obvious date. The rest just counts all the records where the person isn't marked deceased, and was born before this date. This is easy for anyone part way through a first course on this database system.
What they didn't do was check to see if there are any matching benefits. We know that because they didn't catch the fact that there aren't many. That would require skills later in the first course, but isn't that much harder (though the run time might be long). Something like:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM PEOPLE
WHERE NOT DECEASED
AND DATEOFBIRTH < TO_DATE('1925-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD')
AND EXISTS SELECT 1
FROM BENEFITS
WHERE PEOPLE.SSN=BENEFITS.SSN
AND BENEFITS.PAYDATE>
TO_DATE('2025-01-01’,'YYYY-MM-DD');
This just tacks on a check to see if there are any records this year in the benefits table for that SSN.
It is a bit higher level skill, but one I would have required to hire someone to do database queries. Not "genius" level, just adequate level.
I don't think they're hoping for something good to happen. I think their radical and destructive behaviors have two objectives:
1, P2025 has been clear in its desire to dismantle the govt., for several reasons. ......................... (a) GOPs know that when govt is underfunded, underserved citizens become angry, and the less-informed can be convinced that govt simply doesn't work -- and those people can then be persuaded to vote for lying faux-populists who promise to fix things (such as mr. "i alone can fix it"). .................................. (b) Without govt. to set regulations or levy fines/penalties, the wealthy are free to do exactly as they please in order to maximize the profits -- and face zero consequences when pollution, train derailments, aircraft accidents etc. sicken or kill people. ..................... (c) Reactionary extremists want to replace the current, nonpartisan govt. with a white-nationalist christofascist govt., staffed by like-minded extremists. ......................... (d) Without a functioning govt, we're exceptionally vulnerable to authoritarian takeover -- all of this is a gift to Putin (see Timothy Snyder's Sub entry titled "Decapitation Strike").
2. These activities are a smokescreen to hide musk's dismantling of agencies that have been investigating, or that want to regulate, his businesses -- which are known to cut corners, cause enviro destruction, and break various laws.
When these folks need someone to work on their expensive sports cars, I doubt they choose some random social media influencer hawking one weird trick to eliminate the need for oil changes...
Hence their use of a chainsaw.
The oligarchs won't lose - at least not yet. They'll not only get their obscene tax cut, but the destruction of regulation leaves the spoils wide open for them to purloin without (immediate) consequences.
I wonder who the oligarchs are other than the usual suspects -- Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Hamm, the Koch's, the Walton's, Gates, Buffett, etc. But with 2000+ billionaires in the US, what percentage are MAGAs.
And why the fuck, are they so opposed to raising the Federal minimum wage to $15/hour. This would actually raise revenues because more taxes would be paid, but also they would spend 100% of the money or close to it whereas the oligarchs take it in and invest it.
The (bizarre) rationale against raising the minimum wage to half of an actual living wage is as follows:
1. Wall St. has followed the mantra "hold the line on upward salary pressures" for decades now. This would disrupt that.
2. Hypothetically, raising wages is an increase in corporate expenses, thus cutting into profiteering.
3. The oligarchs are sadistic psychopaths who enjoy making the proletariat suffer, and raising the minimum wage would deprive them of the entertainment value.
Those who oppose an increase in the minimum wage know that a person who works 60 hrs/week in order to pay for the basics has zero time or energy to participate in politics, write to a rep/sen, march in a protest, etc.
Also, living in a state of constant economic uncertainty is corrosive. I know this bc I've lived thus since the Great Recession, which not only took my job but torpedoed my profession. The govt gave me exactly $0 so I could rebuild my life / train for a new profession, and I never recovered. (Unemployment was so high that I couldn't get even temp clerical work, despite having worked as a FT secretary for almost three years approx. 10 years earlier.)
People who are anxious typically become angry (bc anxiety is disempowering, whereas anger can at least fuel a person to do *something*) -- and that anger is easily exploited by lying, grifting GOPs, as we've seen for 40+ years during which low-income white ppl have continued to vote for the party that has destroyed them economically. (I've never voted for a GOP, nor will I ever -- bc I'm a high-info voter, and I know that even the greediest Wall Street Dem is marginally better for the US than is any GOP.)
Good take. I also got tanked by the recession, and almost made it back, I was up 100k at the start of the pandemic, and got tanked again and became disabled. Now we are close to retirement age with no net worth or assets. It's daunting to say the least, we were both educated, frugal and industrious with good jobs and now this. Fuck these asshats of privilege.
Part of issue is that few are actually long-term thinkers, systems are complicated…you’d think they would hate The Donny-John Sewer Circus—festering/featuring the MuskyTurds! Perhaps they do but don’t yet actually care…enough...yet.
Lots and lots of Silicon Valley EC in there. Sam Altman suddenly seems suspect too.
And they'll get to buy up as much property as they can get their grubby little hands on when the economy crashes.
Oh yeah, when they say they want it all, they mean it quite literally.
Presumably all the natural resource thieves, oil, coal, mining of any kind will have moved in by then to create their usual poisonous destruction so no park staff will ever be needed again.
Here in Tucson, the two Saguaro National Parks have already announced closures on Mondays "until further notice." https://www.nps.gov/sagu/index.htm
If is actually a total waste of efforts and will decrease services, impact broader economies and generally fuck things up! How is that good? We forget that these investment give us a significant return…something The Muski-boy doesn’t seem to appreciate, but no surprise, his dream is of Mars with AI and robots. Hope he can grow his own food?
Musk is, at best, an idiot-savant and Trump, at best is an idiot.
I think Musk is just an idiot and Trump is the savant. I mean, the guy basically has the ability to mind control 40% of the population. That's a form of genius. Musk just won a bunch of dice rolls.
Though not stable...
The biggest and best park is in California. Trump HATES California.
And that observation peels back part of the pretense that they were ever about efficiency to begin with. The ugly truth starts to emerge.
What this demonstrates is that one dumb guy with piles of cash he didn't earn has convinced an even stupider guy with smaller piles of cash he didn't earn that he(the 1st guy) is some kind of business genius and he has a plan to gut the government to their mutual benefit. They are just berserkers following Vlad's playbook. We are really screwed!
With all the AI investments Musk has been making, ie stand-out project Colossus, it appears that his plan is to replace thousands of government employees with his AI technology. Getting filthy rich in the process and providing T with the "promised" results.
Keep in mind, that Musk, in his current SGE (special government employee) status he can only work in that very function for 138 days in a year - that may be the reason of the speed at which things occur.
A Republican Congressman from Georgia said just that, replace CDC staff with AI
The ugly truth is that the true purpose is 1. to replace the work force with loyalists 2. Get the data for AI
3. Use AntiDEI to discriminate against women and minorities. Replace them with White Christian men
4. Get rid of the offices people can call to get services and answers like “where’s my check”.
With the ultimate purpose being to plunder what remains. Remember, these clowns are all about raking in whatever there is to rake in.
Please do not think of them as clowns. We underestimate them and the power of their intimidation and control.
Clowns in the sense that they have no clue about what they are doing.
I have worked for many companies that wanted to reduce their expenses. But, the senior management didn't want the stink of being the ones to lay people off. So they would bring in a consulting firm to do their dirty work. It started with a 4-8 week study and ended with an employee buyout or early retirement of the most senior non-management people in the company. Why these people? Because they had the largest salaries and they could get rid of the fewest people.
What usually ends up happening, is they get rid of the people that know what they are doing who are near retirement and the senior management is happy. That is until it becomes apparent that the people they got rid of actually run the company and they end up hiring 1-3 people to replace them.
I won't name the company that most of them used, but as soon as it was mentioned they were coming in many of us knew exactly what was going to happen.
And this is kind-of what Musk is doing only in reverse. He is getting rid of the newbies and the ones that were recently promoted that looked like newbies. Not the worst strategy, but you're going to throw out a lot of babies with the bathwater doing this and hiring untrained newbies to replace them.
I saw this in a firm for which I worked. They got rid of people who were approaching their two year service, and the ones close to five years, and the ones who could retire early. Why? Because at two years you are partially vested in pension benefits. At five years, you are fully vested. The company could claw back the funds they had reserved for pensions for these people. As to the early retirees, their benefits were much less than people who reached full retirement age.
Why not target the people who were close to early retirement age? That was illegal.
The babies with the bathwater might or might not be pertinent with that firm, but the company no longer exists.
Evil clowns. Think Pennywise or John Wayne Gacy.
The goal also may be to replace fed staff with AI. A Georgian Republican told his town hall audience that the fired staff at CDC could be replaced by AI. H'm, who might benefit from that?
Why would giving fElon access to the US Treasury payment system allow him to find waste?
That's the payment system, not the authorities that approved the payments. What scares me the most is that the US Treasury has info on every taxpayer and everyone who has ever received a payment from the US Treasury. Why should fElon need access to that? What is he going to do with that information?
I listened to Kara Swisher and Sarah Longwell. Seems our government information is soloed, but accessing it all collectively gives Elon access to our data. That and mitigating checks on his defiance of regulation is what he is after.
So that he can sell that data to various data brokers, identity thieves, or anyone willing to cough up the fee. It's very lucrative.
Or manipulate data using AI.
He will never sell these data to others. They are his golden egg that will propel his own AI firm to surpass all competitors that can’t amass such a comprehensive dataset of all Americans.
I'd say both.
According to Lexi's Substack, he is probably trying to set up a centralized payment system that would run thru X. Lexi is a software engineer with 20 yrs experience in cyber defense and cyber security, and she paints a very dark picture of what's possible if Musk is not stopped.
Elon already likely has access to your payment info because you were dumb enough to buy things on eBay and use PayPal.
No, he only has information on the credit card that I've used for these systems. He doesn't have info on my financial institutions. He will have that when he gets the income tax databases. If he manages to get data from any of the three credit rating organizations, then he'll have it all.
I have bought many nice things on ebay.
This tempting thought would only be supported by the stated evidence if DOGE itself were efficient. Which, on the face of it, it is not. Conclusion: DOGE should eliminate itself!
Agree some areas hanging in there but others are losing the ability to function as well as they should. We’ll see once wildfire season starts in earnest or national parks are a mess or tax refunds aren’t processed or even more veterans die (maybe your family member) or you are ripped off by your financial institution with no place to go to seek relief. Could go on but you get the idea. What is the cost of unemployment for states?
We're in for an ugly year.
Four years (at least).
Try to think positive, we've got the midterms coming up.
It could also be evidence of the fact that DOGE is a bunch of children who have no understanding of the systems they’re dealing with—I wouldn’t take their work as evidence of anything except that the federal government is big and complex and not something a bunch of amateurs can figure out in a couple of weeks.
Bunch of children? You're being too generous.
I have no idea if out government is actually operating quite efficiently. But I don't believe Musk and his minions have the knowledge to determine how to actually find and determine fraud or viable ways to save funds other than to destroy and wreck institutions and peoples' lives.
They're not actually interested in efficiency, or even genuinely finding "waste, fraud and abuse". In any case, if they really want to identify "waste, fraud and abuse" all they have to do is look in the mirror.
It wouldn't matter if they did find savings, the funding of programs is law that duly elected representatives and president signed off on. I wish people keep that in the forefront of communicating about what Elon and Don-old are doing: it's illegal, but the executive branch is law enforcement, so who can make them accountable? I think if D.C. was a state, it would be the state law enforcement, but Congress runs D.C.
It just proves that the Founding Fathers were all good people. They couldn't think of all the loopholes that evil minds have found to exploit.
Congress doesn't run DC.
DC is a city with city government, but there is nothing between federal and city, because it's not a state. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_District_of_Columbia
"The District of Columbia has a mayor–council government that operates under Article One of the United States Constitution and the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. The Home Rule Act devolves certain powers of the United States Congress to the local government, which consists of a mayor and a 13-member council. However, Congress retains the right to review and overturn laws created by the council and intervene in local affairs. "
Neither Trump nor Musk have even vague notions of how the US government actually works. So their "fix" is roughly akin to handing your computer to a pack of monkeys with hammers and expecting them to fix your software problem.
...and then seize absolute power. They're already corrupted absolutely.
Animatronic monkeys.
With the voltage doubled.
Fabulous analogy of what the idiot Muskie the freakie is doing, taking a hatchet to everything, and saying that’s fixing it, that’s the extent of his very warped “mentalitie”…
This circus leads me to wonder how much pile of hot garbage are the annual reports & financial statements from Musk's publicly owned companies? Should those be scrutinised again as well to see what's been inflated or wrongly reported? Why would those be any different than reports from DOGE, if that's how he likes to handle things?
Well, that's the whole point of eviscerating the regulators. If there's nobody left to scrutinize Skunk Musk's companies, he can get away with anything.
And he has. The WSJ coded their language, but they reported that X executives & lawyers extorted advertisers to come back to their platform — noticeably, Morgan Stanley gave them 3 billion in cash at a valuation of 44Billion despite X being obviously worse off than before Musk bought it. X CEO (former AD exec) told intergroup or interpublic executives (idk the correct company name) their currently pending M&A would not go through if they did not return to X.
Mind blowing. The oligarchs are even ripping off each other.
OMG THANK YOU for saying this! I have spent YEARS trying to get ANYONE to see the similarities between Musk and Holmes! Congressman, news media, tech folks, influencers... you name it. ANYONE
No one could recognize his scams right before their very eyes. Announcing technology that doesn't exist on repeat cycles to drive up stock prices, launching untested products to drive up stock prices at the expense of the public as guinea pigs, crypto pyramid scheme, robots that don't exist, armored cars that aren't armored with windows that you can punch your fist through...
The list goes on and on and on. He's nothing but a con, a nazi, and a terrorist.
And, of course, stock buybacks to drive up stock prices.
He has ten straight years of saying driverless cars will be coming next year and people still think he is genius. It’s insane.
Although the markets may be slow to respond, the economic indicators are not looking good. I pulled my retirement out of the government system and for now put it in a high yielding savings account. The market “slowness” allowed me time to think and respond, which honestly is unusual. What is usual is what you stated. Those who are inside see the writing on the wall before the rest of us and act in their own best interest, leaving the rest of us with the consequences.
If I had any, I'd stuff some cash under the mattress. With the CFPB shut down, the banks are free to act on a whim. It also raises the question: can we still trust the FDIC?
When inflation hits 10% per year, that cash in the mattress might not be doing much better than the market (in real dollars).
That's true. OTOH, if everything ultimately comes crashing down - which it could - the cash under the mattress might be all that remains.
Removing the Federal Government from a partnership to fight off the effects of massive unemployment ( and , in fact, be one of the root causes of the firings in the first place) will make the next recession a hum dinger .
We are already seeing reduced individual savings , corporate debt is high - so it is dubious to think that the consumer and or business investment will pull us out of a recession.
Prices may be sticky for awhile- but my fear runs more along the lines of deflation.
My baseball cards won’t be worth much if the
currency of the future is ammunition.
Welcome back to 1929 - squared.
Yep - when prosperity was just around the corner.
Ammo would probably be more valuable at that point.
Lead will be worth its weight in gold.
Is that why gold is at an all-time high?
Fair points.
If I did the similar thing with the G-Fund, legally Trump could have borrowed from it to do his bidding. Not on my watch.
WaPo columnist mentioned the Thrift is and remains independent (G fund has been used) and continues to be safe place for your retirement. Got way conservative with mine but I am concerned as I got caught up in the last couple of crashes. Can no longer afford to. I thought of moving it elsewhere but where? Safety deposit box?
Depending on your age (at least 59.5), you can move it to a traditional IRA or Roth. One major benefit is if you need to withdraw funds, you can choose the fund to pull funds from, unlike TSP. If you withdraw from TSP, the pull from you existing investments equally. Plus, TSP will only send funds via a paper check sent via snail mail. You have more options outside TSP.
Under the mattress - like they did in the '30's.
I did the same, before he was sworn in. I know I’m right, too, even though I may miss out on some short-term gains.
You (we) may miss “something” but I’ll bet you sleep better at night! I know I do!
I do!
Ditto, we've gone all-cash thanks to our financial advisor putting out a warning on tRumpification = enshittification of the economy.
I don't know the government retirement system well enough to comment on pulling out of it, but I suggest that any retirement funds should be diversified into mutual funds. I also keep a significant amount in cash deposits that are currently earning an average of about 45, not princely, but better than inflation so far. Diversification should include foreign stocks and bonds as well as American.
They will be. Just holding off for a bit until things settle down, then will slowly diversify. Right now I’m being extremely conservative.
That is wise. It's also wise to invest slowly and dollar-cost average, as you may know. In the long run, if you invest in good funds with low fees, timing is not as important as with individual stocks.
"...have gone through that DOGE list, and found that it’s a steaming pile of, um, DOGEshit."
That was awesome.
"...it’s not clear which is the other’s sidekick."
I've been wondering about this since the [strikeout] coronation [/strikeout] inauguration.
"I’m ashamed that my country is led by people who find the courageous defense of freedom annoying rather than inspiring."
Me too.
And so here we are on day 35 of the unprecedented coup, and King MAGAMaggot is wreaking havoc - just like he promised. Market responses are often inexplicable, but are bound to eventually react violently. That's when the DOGEshit will hit the fan.
Watch where you step.
We'll all need high boots - they've already spread it all over the place, thicker and heavier as they go along.
"What happened? Part of the answer is an uptick in the prices of eggs and other groceries, which isn’t Trump’s fault "
I absolutely believe that Trump deserves blame for the rising price of eggs. I have a reason for this.
When I grew up, my mother always used to tell us that a broken promise is a lie -- because when you made the promise, you said something untrue. It's an interesting idea, because it changes one's view of *when* the sin was committed. The real sin in breaking a promise is not the breaking, it's the making. You shouldn't promise things you won't fulfill, or that a reasonable person would know you can't be relied on to fulfill.
When Trump promised to lower egg prices on day 1, he accepted responsibility for egg prices. When George Bush said, "Read my lips. No new taxes," he told a lie. That raising taxes when Bush did it was the right thing to do doesn't let him off the hook. He became president on the strength of a promise he could not keep. That Trump has no knob he can turn to lower egg prices doesn't let him off the hook. He was elected on the basis of a promise he should have and probably did know he could not keep.
So, yeah, I blame Trump for egg prices.
According to this agriculture expert, Trump does have a knob he could turn, but won't: https://www.patreon.com/posts/egg-prices-bird-122048302. So yeah, blame Trump for egg prices.
The only promise of Trump's that we should pay attention to is the one about retribution. Musk is the cherry on top for two reasons: 1) he did give Trump a quarter billion buckaroos 2) Musk is doing all the nasty things Trump wanted and the hope is that he'll take the blame, leaving Trump relatively intact. I doubt Trump will evade blame, but the way things are in MAGA land, it may take quite a while for disenchantment to trickle down to his giddy masses.
The House GOP is in some turmoil right now as constituents have been going to meetings with congresscritters and were vocal about the cuts and Musk. How much that will influence the haggling over the budget is something we will learn this make or break week.
The GOP has had decades to disinform its voters and reinforce the notion that government is too big and very bad. Compared to today, Grover Norquist's "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" is a pretty tame statement.
It's too bad Democrats, at any point they had the chance, never did anything about truth in media. In today's news, donors are mad at the Democrats and withholding money.
The cost-cutting isn't about cost cutting. It's about filling the already overfull pockets of the oligarchy and consolidating control over the population to retain absolute power. It's also about turning on our allies. Our allies are recalibrating their relations with us through a variety of means, including shifting economic policy. Europe is something Americans should pay close attention to. What they are doing now will affect us very soon.
We're an oligarchy now and this is war.
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Today's daily news post:
Things Musk (and Trump) Did... Day 35 | Blog#42
https://rimaregasblog42.substack.com/p/things-musk-and-trump-did-day-35
Opinion: The Way Out of DOGE for Democrats | Blog#42
https://rimaregasblog42.substack.com/p/opinion-the-way-out-of-doge-for-democrats
The 'cost-cutting' is just a cover to distract the rubes; what Musk is actually doing is stealing all our data. Remember, it's 2025, and data is king, it's what all AI companies seek and what extortionists need.
All that data on individuals and corporations will be used to plot financial schemes and will be used to assure supreme power, as they can blackmail individuals or entire companies to do their bidding. Not least among individuals is every person in the Capitol building and every state Capital.
For instance, we know Mayor Adams is crooked, but what if some Dem Governor has been a naughty person? Well, that data Muks just hoovered up could contain the clues and proof needed to turn said Governor to obey nasty orders.
This is the hair-on-fire issue here, not 'savings'.
You mentioned donors withholding money from the Dems right now, and I agree. I might pony up for a local candidate, but the national party can take a hike. Biden and Harris had money, and Harris is still asking (or some ActBlue scammer). If they couldn’t win with what they had, why should I trust them with my money now? Let’s see how they vote. That’s where the rubber meets the road.
What? Did I miss where Harris had an entire national news network and social media platform working for her? Did Biden really spend every weekend of his presidency holding rallies, like Trump? How the H did he get those terrific hires in place (and they were) and manage to process the infrastructure, investment, labor, climate, energy grants and get tens of thousands of programs underway?
As I mention in my linked opinion piece, there needs to be a complete change in the way Democrats approach voters. One thing I recommend you look into is attending your local or state Democratic party meetings and get to know prospective candidates for any office, whether local, state, or federal. Same goes for constituent calls and in-person meetings with current officials and quiz them about their approach to our current situation.
You may also want to suggest on your own blog that people run for office. Here in the blood red South, it's very hard to find people to run for many local offices, though the Democratic Party would back them if they did. We have candidate training classes and other means of support.
Will do. I was planning on following up on that post. Thanks for the suggestion.
You're welcome!
DOGE has Biden era federal loans for Musk rivals in the crosshairs as they cuts expenses.
The Rivian factory planned in Georgia could produce up to 400,000 EVs each year, starting in 2028, but not if the $6B loan agreement from Biden's IRA is halted. 8,000 EV chargers were removed from federal buildings, and the support for the rest halted. Do we know DOGE aren't shifting US assets to off-shore accounts? We don't. Doesn't any Republican Senator or Rep wake up at 3 AM wondering? His private protection guys are in federal buildings with guns. Elon's guy at Treasury still runs his Cloud gig, and Bloomberg said his rash of firings led to huge security lapses. Does Tom Tillis ever break into a sweat in that expensive suit? He worked as an underqualified, well-dressed young hire at places like Wang and Price Waterhouse. He knows what can happen.
I forget who coined it, but every mention of Trump should conclude with ETTD - Everything Trump Touches Dies.
That truism was coined by Rick Wilson, a Republican operative for many years, a co-founder of The Lincoln Project, and author of the book, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.”
#45 has little to no business acumen. His father propped 45 up during the father’s lifetime. I read at least three books about #45 before the 2016 election. He overpaid for properties, stiffed contractors and suppliers, lied incessantly, had six business bankruptcies, and managed to bankrupt two(?) casinos. He was looking at financial disaster when Mark Burnett created The Apprentice, where 45 played a businessman on TV. #45 also did not write any books. The Art of the Deal was written by Anthony Schwartz, using some of 45’s words. He had a terrible time trying to get around 45’s short attention span, impulsivity, ignorance, etc. #45 is a con artist, and con artists have to leave town before their sham is discovered. The bill always comes due. 45’s bottomless need for attention will be his undoing. Nothing about him is true, but the gullible refuse to believe that truth.
I did too and read the news articles (page 12) about the small business owners he F’d over, many forced out of business. Why these people buy his BS is beyond me.
Decades long propaganda. They've been doing the anti-immigration and adoration of the rich for decades.
Yes to all that, but why is he not only still around but also was reelected as the 47th president with current majorities in Congress and SCOTUS and with the world's richest man at his side. He has to be a genius at manipulation and persuasion, albeit an empty soul. I’ve been waiting since 2015 to see him fail in politics — for the good of our country.
as someone perceptive said during his first term, he's an idiot but he's very good at it.
Remember when he said "I love uneducated people". Uneducated people actually thought he meant that literally, not realizing that what he really meant was that, like all con artists, he loves an easy mark! He's a genius at manipulating and persuading idiots.
He stiffed his lawyers too. Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen were just the most prominent examples. There were many more. You'd think people smart enough to pass the bar exam would know better.
Unfortunately people have short memories. That's what allows Trump to avoid disaster. The luckiest man in America!
Thanks for sourcing this.
...and lands belly up.
My current term for the would-be king is DIC (Dictator-in-Chief).
"I’m ashamed that my country is led by people who find the courageous defense of freedom annoying rather than inspiring." I believe it is time to get angry, not ashamed. We should never be ashamed when thugs take over, wherever we find ourselves to be. Many of us all over the world had to go through unbearable tragedies when democracy gives in to fascism, some of us losing our countries to war and destruction. There is something deeply worrisome I always felt during my tenure in the US: an almost divine belief that this great country is immunised of such problems. Such beliefs/feelings are as dangerous as fascists movements that bring destruction, for one wakes up to the reality too late.
Never in a million years did I think we would end up here when I spent a short time in Santiago, Chile in 74. Never.
Analysts from the big banks just aren’t talking about the enormous political event taking place in the US. They ignored Brexit as well since presumably they just didn’t want to get involved in politics. On DOGE Morgan Stanley said in the main they didn’t expect much saving although one mentioned he was more hopeful (more hateful was my take). There’s talk about tariffs and a background hum about deficits.
Ukraine: what would ‘peace’ mean for particular stocks and what would happen to European deficits when they up defence spending.
Yet views on the spread of the right, what it means, how the exceptionalism of the US has been due to competition/rule of law etc. which may now be smashed: not a peep.
Doesn’t mean markets are determined by the bank research departments, but just for what it’s worth.
Their apparent complacency will catch up to them - and us.
I’m wondering how likely people think a recession is? Are many economists predicting this?
As for the markets it’s a funny one. On the one hand I hate their complacency as it’s an extension of people never ever taking Trump at his word - we are hearing Trump voters getting their proverbial faces eaten by the leopards, but all of it is stuff Trump said he’d do.
On the other hand haven’t markets been right to some extent!? He has chickened out of many of the tariff threats. I guess though that the confidence could still turn out to be quite brittle - if he does go through with some of the tariff threats against allied countries maybe there will be a panic.
In other words the markets are right about trump until they're not; and then it all falls apart.
With a helter skelter administration like this one, anything can happen at any time.
I have no idea whether economists are predicting a recession, but I, an ordinary if somewhat knowledgeable citizen, think it will happen. Inflation is going up, not down, and summarily firing thousands of workers in government and in corporations cannot be a good sign. Unemployment will go up as well. Trump's plan to send stimulus checks will increase inflation, too.
70% of wealth, and therefore the market, are owned by 10% of the people. There is a non-zero chance the market never collapses but instead rampant inflation makes that wealth percentage worth less.
The leopards promised not to eat their faces, but not to not bite their asses.
very likely....and it is crazy.....today we have so much more knowledge and so many tools than in 1929. I thought after Clinton and Greenspan we no longer even needed a smart man at the White House. That is what got W in. He and Trump have proven that stupidity in that job means a recession. Trump is the stupidest man I have ever seen in a high-profile position. He will drop the egg carton. It is only a matter of when.
I agree, but I don't think you need the qualifier, "...in a high-profile position..."
Echoing the reported opinion of former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Lebowitz thinks the biggest danger of Trump is that he is a moron. “Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.”
~Fran Lebowitz
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/20/fran-lebowitz-you-do-not-know-anyone-as-stupid-as-donald-trump
Dr K video cast this weekend inferred the economy is behaving a bit like the dot.com era if I recall correctly. They will be the first to tell you they can not predict the future. I decided to become far more conservative as I can no longer afford crazy stock market. IMPO, I think MuT will tank the economy after they ripped off everything they can get. Again, my opinion.
I agree with this analysis fully, as usual.
However, my dear American friends speak it up in all your streets, and repeat it 1 billion times, and again:
TRUMP: "Make LIES Great Again!"
Unfortunately, time for intelligent analyses will come only when at least 20% of Trump adepts change their minds, and looking at reality is evidently not sufficient for them to understand.
Thanks!!!
As I understand it, the folks in Ukraine want to remain independent and they want a Western style economy and society based on "liberal capitalism" where there is the rule of law and honest courts.
Unlike Putin's Russia where his cronies muscle in and take over successful businesses and the courts rule the way Putin and the oligarchs tell them.
Something that disappoints me about American corporations and businesses is that they don't seem to stick up for the rule of law and honest courts. Think about it. A lot of what we do each day is based on trust. I assume that the businesspeople with whom I deal will do what they say they will do. And the vast majority of them do. When corporations enter contracts, they assume that most will be fulfilled and if not, then the courts will require their completion.
Maybe I am naive, but I think that most court decisions are honest and according to law.
Donald would love to bend the courts and legal system so that they support what he wants.