Grateful for your insight and sharing your expertise. This awful chaotic takeover by inadequate youngsters is more deeply disturbing the more I know.
A Canadian, I am terrified by what is happening with your Russian asset gangster at the helm. In the interview yesterday with Trump/Vance, the brave President Zelensky referred several times over the shouting to the threat of Russian influence, a direct message to us all.
Our next Prime Minister to replace Justin Trudeau will probably be the former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Mark Carney. I hope knowledge is power. And we are not destroyed by US aggression in whatever form it takes under your authoritarian tyrant Trump.
Stand strong our upstairs neighbors. Know that we're determined to stop Herr Trumpkopf from doing much further damage, and we'll be damned if we let him get away with attacking you, or any of our allies.
From another 🇨🇦: we are terrified too! And tired of being bullied by a Russian asset. I really hope Mark Carney will be our next premier
Thanks to both Paul Krugman and Tankus for such in depth analysis. Terrifying! I hope the good Americans will find a way to stop this, for the whole world not only for them
And yes Zelenskyy would be a better US president , no doubt 🇺🇦
As a retired attorney, I want to suggest what I think would happen if DOGE's apparatchiks somehow managed to stop salary payments going to federal judges:
I think most federal judges would keep on working, at least for quite some time. Most of them have foregone significantly higher salaries they already had - or could have had - in the private sector, because they are truly dedicated public servants.
(I've known a few personally; their dedication nd integrity is beyond reproach.)
We need to stop this fantasyland crap. No, things are not OK. No, they won’t just sorta become OK because Firewall N in an infinite series is definitely going to hold, [subtext:] so worry not.
See how many people liked this? You are encouraging frightened people to think it’ll all be OK, so keep on with the normals. Whether you intend it or not, it’s helping these monsters.
No one is coming to save us. Either we act or it’s over.
I see this self-soothing behavior everywhere, from those who believe our courts will hold to those who believe we aren't yet experiencing a Constitutional crisis.
It feeds into the uniquely American passivity and learned helplessness.
Nathan is a prime example of "somebody doing something".
This is a conversation. When the news is terrifying, it's good to know who will (probably) be on our side. And, God help us, it may be too late for the avg citizen to do anything w/o fear of reprisal.
Not yet it isn't. I don't know about you, but I'm going to Tuesday's protest in front of Faux News headquarters. Let them shoot us. The World Is Watching!
Yes, but it's never too late. We form groups, coalitions, maybe even, dare I say, militias. If we have to go underground, then that's what we do. We have to keep fighting to the end. We need to do everything we can. Even if it's just a little bit. Hell even just posting here is doing something. It's small but meaningful.
So are we supposed to maintain a constant state of anxiety 24/7? My heart goes out to Mr. Tankus having a full-blown anxiety attack because his expert knowledge can see the possibilities. As for me, I hate feeling dismal and resort to all sorts of psychological, chemical, and philosophical remedies throughout the day.
Everyone has their own emotional reactions to the current unbelievable events. I can't help wondering if the people who come down on "self-soothing" don't really find the emotional pain that distracting and, well, painful. Or maybe criticising the emotional reactions of others is their way of managing stress. (Commenting is one of mine, but it doesn't work. ;-)
I believe that new leaders and new voices, such as Nathan, will continue to emerge.
Excellent work is being produced via alternative media sources, and armies of lawyers are working around the clock.
What the rest of us can do now is to focus on what we can control: the media we consume, the intrusion of social media platforms, our individual health, our families, our communities.
If we are stronger individually, and at the local level, we can engage more effectively in an active vs passive resistance movement.
As a society, we have to rebuild this long-dormant muscle vs looking for saviors or easy solutions…strategies that failed us in the past.
I believe that different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Crises affect us all differently, as do traumas, and I can't know what is right and appropriate for others. I also can't guess their highest peaks of resilience and courage, nor their best paths to achieve those peaks. But we have to encourage the journey and keep growing our collective strength and action, each of us contributing as soon and as much as we can. It is a crisis, and it will be a marathon.
Pechmerle is saying no more than that the judges will continue to work without pay if necessary. They will not cave. It doesn’t fix everything or save you from the need to resist in whatever ways you can. It just means there will be others elsewhere resisting too.
The danger is also to the administrative and functional supports, those who switch the lights on, man the computers, clean the floors and many others who live from check to check. Choking off the funds can virtually shut down any system
I just signed up for the Notes on the Crisis newsletter. Just Google the name of the blog, hit the "subscribe" button, and follow the easy to follow directions. I signed up for free for now so I can see if I like it. If I do I will pay for a one year subscription. I think it's important to support stuff like this. Forewarned is forearmed, and the Nathan Tankuses of the world are doing yoeman's work to provide a really valuable service.
I am a 77 year old from the era of legacy systems held together with tape and bailing wire and am grateful for this reporting which is something I can understand. It is beyond terrifying.
Same. And. Me too. And the no one in my circles has a clue. I walk around with my knowledge and all I can DO is recommend everyone I love that they "cash up" 'cause no one has a clue
Could I request a minor correction of the transcript? Urban Academy, not Orbit Academy, is where Nathan went to high school and took the Show me the Money course with two oddball teachers (I was one of them).
Thanks for asking - my co-teacher Avram and I put it together in real time as the financial crisis was unfolding. Neither of us were experts in economics, though we'd both been paying close attention to the news and had a background in political economy.
We tried to incorporate larger economics theory - Smith, Marx, Keynes and Friedman, mostly - while talking about credit default swaps and other financial instruments created since the late 90s that had failed and caused the meltdown.
It was a remarkably successful class - we had about 25 students really delving into pretty in-the-weeds issues - which was partly a function of the burning issue in the world, partly a function of Avram's incredible skills, and partly a function of several students in the class - Nathan first among them who were fascinated and drove full class discussions forward, pulling in information from the reading they were doing outside of the class.
Thank you for these insights, Adam. And most of all, for teaching so creatively, with real-world relevance and impact. Kids/youth crave reality and we adults too often fail to embody, model, deliver it. Sigh. Thank you for being an exception.
Good for you! I am very impressed with what I read, and love the idea of your class. In fact, I was going to Google the school. Now I’ll have the right name. Thanks
When I first read about the Doge Bros getting access to the systems, it immediately felt like a 'hair on fire' moment. I called my bank to get some sort of reassurance and they were clueless. It's been more than a little anxiety-inducing to wonder if there's a backdoor somewhere and some wonder kids just waiting for the right moment to walk in, grab stuff, and walk out - with no way to trace it....
It would be, but I'm not the one to do it. I got my toes in the water by 1) decades of reading their rants in comments sections; 2) reading about their unhappiness with fiat currency, the value of which can be manipulated by governments; and 3) by delving into how individual cryptos "govern" themselves. (Musk's favorite expression " a fork in the road," is key.)
Paul - thanks for this and the other reporting and analysis that you are doing. I know many people, myself included, who would love to make even a small contribution towards denting the impact of this insanity, but feel powerless. I am grateful that you are doing work that has that promise.
And don't forget to attend the protests! 50501 and other organizations are having one nationwide on Tuesday. Be there or be square! I know, I know, I just dated myself.
Stream of consciousness. Makes me wonder a bit about why my SSA retirement payments were suspended, and then reportedly reinstated. Although I will not believe what I was told until I see it in my account.
Even a single missed payment can cause a lot of problems for someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and has to rely on an SSA check.
The great Feb 3 snafu was a combination of that being the first payment of the month, and the first payment after requiring many recipients to return the "I'm not dead" form.
I got lucky. I sent my I AM NOT DEAD YET form to the US Consulate in Napoli and also to the Consulate General in Roma. The US offices in Italy are: https://it.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/
I can share part of my experience regarding forms:
SSS 561: You mentioned that one already. The letter that I received (somewhat late due to a bad address) mentions that also. It might be wise to file an appeal immediately if one anticipates a delayed or negative response from the SSA.
The IRS and the SSA do have a lot of forms.
I am quite interested in Embassies and Consulates. I have visited or interacted with quite a few thus far, although probably not anywhere near as often as some other people.
True story, the US Consulate in Vienna filed a complaint about me with the Austrian government regarding an inappropriate e-mail that I sent to them back in 2018. I had a little trouble reconstructing what led up to that, but I was able to satisfy the authorities that I was not a threat, or at least did not intend to harm anyone. I was sort of stranded in Austria and needed some assistance, mostly medical.
I had a few other interactions in other countries that were 'interesting'. I lost count of how many embassies and consulates I have interacted with.
There is an "I AM DEAD" form, sort of. i.e. naming a beneficiary to receive any remaining benefits due after one's death. At the relatively advanced age of 67, maybe I should have a will or at least an SSA beneficiary, but why not just let the USA have part of an uncollected payment.
I am confused now. How many dead people were receiving SSA payments ? How many SSA payments were going to unauthorized recipients (a different sort of problem), and what is a I’m NOT DEAD YET form ?
I sent many emails and forms to multiple FBU’s at US Consulates, and I even spoke with a representative from one in Napoli. I think I convinced them I am alive and unhappy about my suspended payments.
They assured me I would be receiving payments again, presumably tomorrow, 3 March. They should include a late fee bonus for me because the suspension has caused undo hardship for me, my friends and family.
I see from a later comment that you found the form. If the form is mailed to you (not everyone abroad is chosen to be sent one), then you have 60 days to return it or benefits are suspended. If you contact the FBU, they will reinstate the payments off-cycle, within a week. March 3 is the next date for the first of the four monthly payment dates; if that is when you get your SS payments your missed payment should still be off-cycle.
The first social security number was issued in 1936. Assuming some 112 year olds signed up, you could have people whose birth would make them 200 years old now. You could also have people who didn't know or couldn't prove their birth date, so the date in the records might have been blank. You could have people whose date was entered incorrectly, which is how you get two people 360 years old, either originally, or when the initial birth data was entered into the COBOL database in the 1950s, or when the original YYMMDD date field was updated for Y2K to YYYYMMDD to comply with ISO8601. On top of that, you have a similar problem for the entry of death data. (But, contrary to what a lot of people have been saying, COBOL doesn't have an epoch like Unix or DOS, so it doesn't default to 1875.)
Just because you can run a report that interprets these fields (and we don't know how the report DOGE ran was interpreting blank fields or field errors (including, perhaps, death dates before birth dates), doesn't have anything to do with whether dead people were receiving SS payments. A fairly comprehensive study found that number was vanishingly small, and so small that the effort to clean the database just wasn't worth it. Millions of people using Quicken so regularly find their data inexplicably wrong that Quicken just automatically offers a placeholder to ignore it.
I got a ‘reprieve’ after about a dozen e-mails and a couple of phone calls, including to the USA. Overjoyed for about 2 days because I got 2 paychecks after doing without one for 1 month, something that makes life difficult for those living paycheck to paycheck. I got to pay some bills, including some taxes owed to the IRS (mostly penalties and interest at this point).But I cannot complain too much. At least I am not homeless and have some prospects for the future. At 67, I should maybe look for regular employment in Sicily. Why ?? Because it is probably folly to rely on the US government.
I am still waiting for my 2 payments to hit my Italian Bank Account. I checked the MySSA website, and it said that the payment was processed on 28 Feb. Normally, I receive payments on the 3rd of the month (normal for those in the EU). Unfortunately, the 3rd has passed and no money in my account yet.
However, they (the FBU in Napoli) did say it normally takes 5-7 days to process (they must be referring to the 2 late payments). So, maybe I should patiently wait another day or 2 ?
However, my lease says that payments are due by the 5th of each month. That does not leave me a lot of wiggle room.
So, maybe I should contact the State of Minnesota and ask them why it is so difficult for me to collect about 230 USD that is owed to me by the State of Minnesota ? What a pain !! Blue Cross of MN owes me money. But, I moved away, so then that was turned over to the State of MN as an unpaid claim.
I contacted that State of MN and even sent them a Power of Attorney, so a third party could process the request, but that has gone nowhere.
What should I do ? Should I ask my landlord to apply the remaining portion of my security deposit to this month's rent, and then just move out, maybe to Ukraine this time ? That might be stupid, unless I actually receive my 4000 plus USD before I move.
Interesting. I did receive a physical letter in the Post, but my payment was suspended, I think before a 60 day grace period. Maybe I failed to update my address in a timely manner? It is really difficult for an Ex Pat to update an address with the SSA. The FBU’s are often not very helpful, and calling the US customer service number usually results in a wait time of an hour or more. Even then, they might not make the desired change.
As an Ex Pat, maybe I should move next door to a US Consulate so I do not have such problems in the future ?
Truly appreciate your reporting. A small detail I'm curious about: I work in intelligence, and I can't touch the computers until a big stack of security officials say I can. They sign their unlock decisions, and my every keystroke is monitored after that. I assume that the security apparatus is similar at Treasury. Which security officials utterly failed their duty, by issuing an account to somebody who had not gone through an investigation, and whose intent was obviously malign? Were they paid off, or were they threatened to an extent that they broke all their rules? That's probably more than a firing offense. If a security official in the IC does that, I believe they could be prosecuted.
You seem to not truly understand what is happening here, and why they are saying it's a constitutional crisis, and this quickly went to the courts. It IS illegal. Trump's cabinet is firing anyone who stands in the way. That is, anyone doing what is legally required of them. None of the people working on behalf of DOGE can legally do what they are doing. They are saying the President wants it, and that's all they need. That is the crisis.
I'm sure threats were part of it. My Republican senator from NC told The Guardian (notably not the US media) that he had received death threats, etc, as did many of his colleagues AND THEIR FAMILIES. Many are deciding it's not worth it to oppose Felon47.
This is the story that I keep wishing someone would really go after. Why is the Republic Congress rolling over and playing dead while Trump and DOGE destroy our government? Because they are all quaking in their boots and terrified of Trump loosing the Proud Boys or equivalent goon squad de jour on their wives and children. All of this should be the subject of intense investigative reporting and should be laid bare for all to see. Once we understand what is going on perhaps we can begin to consider what to do about it. Every state still has an attorney general, for example. There are still ways to round these people up and put them away where they can’t hurt anyone.
It would be except the press is being likewise threatened.
As for the attorney's general, a whole bunch of them are working together to flood the courts with cases to stop - or at least slow to a crawl - Herr Trumpkopf's rampage.
I thought something was going on with every republican in congress not going against trumps picks and policies, not following the constitution and laws. They must be receiving death threats to their families and themselves. I am sure a great majority are with Trump,but all of them? It’s a little suspicious to me.
I've been wondering about that lately. The Republicans voted in lock step for a budget bill that will severely hurt their constituents. They know their voters will be coming for them with pitchforks when grandma gets thrown out of the nursing home and most of the health care workers are laid off. So, Elon threatening them with a primary challenge will be moot. That only leaves significant bribery and threat of physical violence. Given all the threats of violence prior to the coup, I'm sure it's exponentially greater now.
I believe the person who was literally standing in their way was escorted out by Federal Marshals at the order of head of Treasury. I might be wrong. There's a lot I don't understand either.
We're not supposed to understand. The more confusion they sew, the easier it is for them to say "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!", and get away with it.
Thank you. Nursing homes could serve as another early warning for Social Security payments. Many serve as representative payee for their residents, so they will see patterns if there is a slow or
This. Such a conflict of interest to make vulnerable nursing home residents designate the nursing home as their rep payee. There’s far too little oversight of this industry. Too few inspectors, opportunities to buy a good inspection, understaffing, increasing falls, infections and deaths. My father died while in “transitional care” where he suffered malnutrition, falls because no one answered his call light, and obviously poor infection control. They should never be allowed to also be rep payee.
Back when I was in a Master's degree program in Computer Science in the early 1980s, I was in a class on software engineering, in the broad sense of all the steps involved in making and changing software, not just the programming part. The professor brought up a major rewrite of the Social Security software. That software was already decades old at the time (it goes back to the 1950s, if I remember correctly). It has pieces that emulated the early computers that actually had one computer emulated on the emulation of another computer.
One number sticks in my head. The system at the time had 13 million lines of code. A good way to think about that is to see how many pages that would be if printed out 50 lines to a page. Here it comes out to 260,000. So in somewhere around 1983, the system was over a quarter of a million pages. At 1000 pages to a book (which is a big book), that is 260 volumes. So these systems are essentially impossible for one person to fully understand. It takes a big, experienced team. Making significant changes requires not just people to do the work, but people to make sure that they didn't break things doing the work. Another stat from that class was that 40% of fixes for software defects cause new software defects.
So far, it sounds like they are intercepting things at the interfaces between systems, which is one of the easier points to do it. But there could still be code they don't know about causing crises. If they redirect the files back to the wrong agency, it might throw off both agencies internal information on what they spent. Maybe the actual sending systems thinks the payments went through, because they never got the Do Not Pay file back. Weirdly, the system that did get them might include a negative amount for any payment rejected, but not the positive amount for the original payment it was supposed to cancel. The reports at both places might stop balancing in a sensible way.
So, yes, things can break in really unexpected ways if the data doesn't behave like the original designers expected it to.
Gary, thank you for shedding light on the mysterious (to me, a not-a-computer-guy) process involved in bug detection (if that is the correct term for what you just described).
It is horrifying to think that so many very sensitive systems have been exposed to Elon’s code warriors, and here we all are, totally helpless to do any whatever to stop them from taking down our entire system, whether by accident or ill intent.
Bug detection would be understood, though informal. You sound more professional talking about defects rather than bugs. To sound academic, you can talk about verification and validation. To be clear, any big system has a frighteningly large number of remaining defects. A few thousand would be a sign they've done a great job for a system this big. Fortunately, the ones most likely to remain tend to have rare or very subtle effects.
They're not defects, they're "undocumented features", LOL
BTW, it's those rare ones I'm most concerned about. Those punks will find a way to hit those edge cases that are hiding in there and really wreak havoc.
Gary B, that sounds like a great class. Your three paragraphs succinctly describe challenges of working with legacy systems. They are not just big, but brittle and absolutely require a large experienced team. Yes, they are likely intercepting data at the interfaces between systems, or reading extract files which exist for a set of programs written to satisfy a specific business purpose. Even if they are extracting from master files, they don't understand the business logic embedded in the code. I have seen master which have fields with different purpose/content based on the kind of record. Variable length segmented files with same fields at different positions based on type of record, etc. The young geniuses would never know this. I hope there are good backups.
I agree that the system can still be broken. Or jammed, deliberately. A well known modern cyber warfare tactic. Also so grateful to know that Mr. Tankus and colleagues are also somehow watchdogging the banking systems on the receiving end. But in the end, they have gotten in already. So they can essentially do what they want. Which is criminal, illegal, a wanton abuse of power and a violence to American citizens’ lives.
This is terrifying stuff, all the more so because it's so complex and flies under the radar.
But, hey guys, there ARE people out there who can write AI programs that can be trained to ferret out this stuff and flag critical information, and make connections and inferences that are too complex and tenuous that few, if any, people might be able to. I see a synergy here if people like Tankus can bring his expertise to people who know how to write the code that would boost the capability by orders of magnitude
Also, Prof. Krugman, novices can use AI to write those programs, or rudimentary parts of the code. For example, I've used ChatGPT to write Excel code for several of my professional spreadsheets, and it works!. Some of the code I couldn't do without diving more deeply into Excel coding, but most of it is just to speed things up. Writing code I can do, but in 10% of the time.
I'm just saying. All those Musk Rats are susceptible to the same technology that they are using to screw us. It's possible to screw them back.
Interestingly (and terrifyingly), my husband's and my social security checks were ussued on the usual date in February but were in the "pending" part if our bank account for 6 days. That had never happened before and I knew something seemed amuck and now clearly it was. This article needs to be on the front page if the NY Times.
This is anecdotal and matches mine, though inversely so. It's important not to let isolated glitches amplify our fears until we see a consistent pattern. I'd like to know if this happens again. Technical glitches are technical. Note that those close to me experienced an early payment, but granted, I haven't been tracking that as closely as I will going forward. The social security payment system is only now getting DOGE attention (that was the statement in this interview by Nathan) - so our anecdotes are presient if not telling.
"Tankus: Exactly. There's one person in Marko Elez, a 25 year old who used to work at SpaceX. He's, you know—as we'll get to—he's out of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service now, but he's just been sent over to the Social Security Administration."
The payment schedule is very clear—we should know soon enough. Note that if there is a systemic issue, the banks will be the clarion, per Nathan's take here.
Social Security Schedule - based on birth date... I'd like to know if you are delayed next month...
I’m a retired IRS executive. When I heard about the top Treasury exec who quit rather than give access to the payment system, my hair stood on end. This interview with Nathan Tankus makes me understand my visceral reaction better. This is terrifying. While this info is beyond disturbing, I’m going to do all I can to spread the word to everyone I know. Thank you for your reporting.
Grateful for your insight and sharing your expertise. This awful chaotic takeover by inadequate youngsters is more deeply disturbing the more I know.
A Canadian, I am terrified by what is happening with your Russian asset gangster at the helm. In the interview yesterday with Trump/Vance, the brave President Zelensky referred several times over the shouting to the threat of Russian influence, a direct message to us all.
Our next Prime Minister to replace Justin Trudeau will probably be the former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Mark Carney. I hope knowledge is power. And we are not destroyed by US aggression in whatever form it takes under your authoritarian tyrant Trump.
Zelensky for POTUS!
Stand strong our upstairs neighbors. Know that we're determined to stop Herr Trumpkopf from doing much further damage, and we'll be damned if we let him get away with attacking you, or any of our allies.
'Russia, Russia, Russia...and Russia."
QED
From another 🇨🇦: we are terrified too! And tired of being bullied by a Russian asset. I really hope Mark Carney will be our next premier
Thanks to both Paul Krugman and Tankus for such in depth analysis. Terrifying! I hope the good Americans will find a way to stop this, for the whole world not only for them
And yes Zelenskyy would be a better US president , no doubt 🇺🇦
As a retired attorney, I want to suggest what I think would happen if DOGE's apparatchiks somehow managed to stop salary payments going to federal judges:
I think most federal judges would keep on working, at least for quite some time. Most of them have foregone significantly higher salaries they already had - or could have had - in the private sector, because they are truly dedicated public servants.
(I've known a few personally; their dedication nd integrity is beyond reproach.)
We need to stop this fantasyland crap. No, things are not OK. No, they won’t just sorta become OK because Firewall N in an infinite series is definitely going to hold, [subtext:] so worry not.
See how many people liked this? You are encouraging frightened people to think it’ll all be OK, so keep on with the normals. Whether you intend it or not, it’s helping these monsters.
No one is coming to save us. Either we act or it’s over.
Agreed.
I see this self-soothing behavior everywhere, from those who believe our courts will hold to those who believe we aren't yet experiencing a Constitutional crisis.
It feeds into the uniquely American passivity and learned helplessness.
Nathan is a prime example of "somebody doing something".
It feels like coyote has run off the cliff and hasn’t noticed the ground supporting his world is gone.
I used to say that our country was on a life raft.
A third of the people were screaming that we were heading towards the waterfall’s edge.
A third were taking selfies, and the final third were shooting holes in the raft.
...while screaming something about the second amendment and "we have rights!" - just moments before going over the edge.
This is a conversation. When the news is terrifying, it's good to know who will (probably) be on our side. And, God help us, it may be too late for the avg citizen to do anything w/o fear of reprisal.
Not yet it isn't. I don't know about you, but I'm going to Tuesday's protest in front of Faux News headquarters. Let them shoot us. The World Is Watching!
Who what now. Tell us more. This is an NYC thing?
Here in NYC:
https://events.pol-rev.com/events/a6aaef30-8f4b-43e2-af80-b166e52f1c44
Find the event nearest to you:
https://events.pol-rev.com/@50501_movement
So, if there’s fear of reprisal, you stand down? Kids just have to go right into the physics-guaranteed carbon oven cuz you’re scared?
You owe it to your kids to tell them this fact.
Don't put words in my mouth, please. Just making the point that this is where we are; it's very late in the game.
Yes, but it's never too late. We form groups, coalitions, maybe even, dare I say, militias. If we have to go underground, then that's what we do. We have to keep fighting to the end. We need to do everything we can. Even if it's just a little bit. Hell even just posting here is doing something. It's small but meaningful.
Fair enough.
We need to act, regardless. If we can’t win, then punish.
So are we supposed to maintain a constant state of anxiety 24/7? My heart goes out to Mr. Tankus having a full-blown anxiety attack because his expert knowledge can see the possibilities. As for me, I hate feeling dismal and resort to all sorts of psychological, chemical, and philosophical remedies throughout the day.
Everyone has their own emotional reactions to the current unbelievable events. I can't help wondering if the people who come down on "self-soothing" don't really find the emotional pain that distracting and, well, painful. Or maybe criticising the emotional reactions of others is their way of managing stress. (Commenting is one of mine, but it doesn't work. ;-)
I appreciate your thoughts.
I believe that new leaders and new voices, such as Nathan, will continue to emerge.
Excellent work is being produced via alternative media sources, and armies of lawyers are working around the clock.
What the rest of us can do now is to focus on what we can control: the media we consume, the intrusion of social media platforms, our individual health, our families, our communities.
If we are stronger individually, and at the local level, we can engage more effectively in an active vs passive resistance movement.
As a society, we have to rebuild this long-dormant muscle vs looking for saviors or easy solutions…strategies that failed us in the past.
No, you’re supposed to maintain a constant state of reality-acknowledgement 24/7, taking the usual breaks we all do, and act to reduce the anxiety.
Denial never works. And those who are retreating entirely to self-care are simply weak and selfish. Sorry.
I believe that different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Crises affect us all differently, as do traumas, and I can't know what is right and appropriate for others. I also can't guess their highest peaks of resilience and courage, nor their best paths to achieve those peaks. But we have to encourage the journey and keep growing our collective strength and action, each of us contributing as soon and as much as we can. It is a crisis, and it will be a marathon.
Pechmerle is saying no more than that the judges will continue to work without pay if necessary. They will not cave. It doesn’t fix everything or save you from the need to resist in whatever ways you can. It just means there will be others elsewhere resisting too.
Hopefully.
I might be over overcorrecting in this case—maybe, maybe not. But in general it’s been learned helplessness and delusion—and inaction.
Well, the "we" here who are acting would be the federal judges, right?
You won’t be able to sit this one out without feeling fully justified self-hatred.
Absolutely. Deep gratitude to all the judges that are not being run over by this corrupt administration grifting a nation.
The danger is also to the administrative and functional supports, those who switch the lights on, man the computers, clean the floors and many others who live from check to check. Choking off the funds can virtually shut down any system
Please, don't give them more horrible ideas! They have plenty of their own, but they are an unimaginative bunch of incel bros who follow the "leader."
He's not giving them ideas. It's already in Project 2025.
Still, given the shambolic way in which they approach everything, we may hope that they'll forget.
We can hope, we can only hope. But don't count on it. I'm willing to bet they've got Gantt charts, maybe even using MS Project.
Just turn the electricity off at Supreme Court Cut all funding and salaries let them live on bribes and watch what occurs
I just signed up for the Notes on the Crisis newsletter. Just Google the name of the blog, hit the "subscribe" button, and follow the easy to follow directions. I signed up for free for now so I can see if I like it. If I do I will pay for a one year subscription. I think it's important to support stuff like this. Forewarned is forearmed, and the Nathan Tankuses of the world are doing yoeman's work to provide a really valuable service.
I did as well and appreciate Mr. Krugman's and Mar. Tankus' insight and simple explanations.
As is Prof. Krugman.
I am a 77 year old from the era of legacy systems held together with tape and bailing wire and am grateful for this reporting which is something I can understand. It is beyond terrifying.
Same. And. Me too. And the no one in my circles has a clue. I walk around with my knowledge and all I can DO is recommend everyone I love that they "cash up" 'cause no one has a clue
Could I request a minor correction of the transcript? Urban Academy, not Orbit Academy, is where Nathan went to high school and took the Show me the Money course with two oddball teachers (I was one of them).
Adam,
We owe you a debt. Thanks for your work!
Tim
Congratulations on superb teaching and inspiration! Please say more about the course.
Thanks for asking - my co-teacher Avram and I put it together in real time as the financial crisis was unfolding. Neither of us were experts in economics, though we'd both been paying close attention to the news and had a background in political economy.
We tried to incorporate larger economics theory - Smith, Marx, Keynes and Friedman, mostly - while talking about credit default swaps and other financial instruments created since the late 90s that had failed and caused the meltdown.
It was a remarkably successful class - we had about 25 students really delving into pretty in-the-weeds issues - which was partly a function of the burning issue in the world, partly a function of Avram's incredible skills, and partly a function of several students in the class - Nathan first among them who were fascinated and drove full class discussions forward, pulling in information from the reading they were doing outside of the class.
Thank you for these insights, Adam. And most of all, for teaching so creatively, with real-world relevance and impact. Kids/youth crave reality and we adults too often fail to embody, model, deliver it. Sigh. Thank you for being an exception.
Good for you! I am very impressed with what I read, and love the idea of your class. In fact, I was going to Google the school. Now I’ll have the right name. Thanks
Adam, well done.
When I first read about the Doge Bros getting access to the systems, it immediately felt like a 'hair on fire' moment. I called my bank to get some sort of reassurance and they were clueless. It's been more than a little anxiety-inducing to wonder if there's a backdoor somewhere and some wonder kids just waiting for the right moment to walk in, grab stuff, and walk out - with no way to trace it....
Bingo, especially with crypto..
Crypto was developed by radical libertarians whose fondest hope was to destroy fiat currency and the governments that issue it.
Can you please give more history behind the machinations of the technoradical libertarians. It would be a useful public service.
It would be, but I'm not the one to do it. I got my toes in the water by 1) decades of reading their rants in comments sections; 2) reading about their unhappiness with fiat currency, the value of which can be manipulated by governments; and 3) by delving into how individual cryptos "govern" themselves. (Musk's favorite expression " a fork in the road," is key.)
Yes, please. I'm rather behind in my knowledge.
Google Curis Yarvin, that'll get you going. Thiel is big into this.
When Trump said he wanted to launch 10 new cities, this is what he's talking about. They want to end democracy on principle.
Except that they have no principles.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/30/curtis-yarvins-ideas-00201552
Better build those cities uphill.
Paul - thanks for this and the other reporting and analysis that you are doing. I know many people, myself included, who would love to make even a small contribution towards denting the impact of this insanity, but feel powerless. I am grateful that you are doing work that has that promise.
Throw down for the ACLU, Indivisible, Sunrise, Freedom for Immigrants…. Plenty of opportunity to give as much as you can.
I've thrown down for ACLU and Indivisible and thank you for the two other organizations. Keep spreading the word!
Lots more orgs for sure!
Voteriders, which does everything it can to ensure people have everything they need to legally vote despite the torrent of voter suppression going on.
And don't forget to attend the protests! 50501 and other organizations are having one nationwide on Tuesday. Be there or be square! I know, I know, I just dated myself.
Yep. We’ve significantly upped our commitment to ACLU. Have wondered about merits of contributions to Democracy Forward and Chris Murphy’s initiative.
Stream of consciousness. Makes me wonder a bit about why my SSA retirement payments were suspended, and then reportedly reinstated. Although I will not believe what I was told until I see it in my account.
Even a single missed payment can cause a lot of problems for someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and has to rely on an SSA check.
The great Feb 3 snafu was a combination of that being the first payment of the month, and the first payment after requiring many recipients to return the "I'm not dead" form.
Nobody got the form though because they fired the people who were supposed to mail them out. Then they closed the post office.
?? What ??
You haven't heard? Trump is seizing control of the USPS
https://apnews.com/article/trump-postal-service-usps-what-to-know-672db6c590837411ca3ba36966e374e1.
You can always appeal if you do not like a decision. That is, if you are not dead yet.
https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-561.html
That is if there is anyone left at SSA to process your appeal.
I got lucky. I sent my I AM NOT DEAD YET form to the US Consulate in Napoli and also to the Consulate General in Roma. The US offices in Italy are: https://it.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/
I can share part of my experience regarding forms:
CMS-1763: Withdrawal from Medicare Part B: Useful if you do not want Part B Premiums taken out of your check while residing in a foreign country: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/cms-forms/cms-forms/downloads/cms1763.pdf
SSA-1199 Forms: Direct Deposit Forms: https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-1199.html (Don't be surprised if the SSA stops making payments)
IRS-8822: Change of Address: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8822.pdf
SSA 7161 and 7162: Proof of LIfe, etc., including for those instances in which the beneficiary is incompetent or otherwise disabled.
https://www.ssa.gov/foreign/ssa7161ocrsm.pdf
https://www.ssa.gov/foreign/ssa7162ocrsm.pdf
SSS 561: You mentioned that one already. The letter that I received (somewhat late due to a bad address) mentions that also. It might be wise to file an appeal immediately if one anticipates a delayed or negative response from the SSA.
The IRS and the SSA do have a lot of forms.
I am quite interested in Embassies and Consulates. I have visited or interacted with quite a few thus far, although probably not anywhere near as often as some other people.
https://diplomacy.state.gov/what-is-a-u-s-consulate/
True story, the US Consulate in Vienna filed a complaint about me with the Austrian government regarding an inappropriate e-mail that I sent to them back in 2018. I had a little trouble reconstructing what led up to that, but I was able to satisfy the authorities that I was not a threat, or at least did not intend to harm anyone. I was sort of stranded in Austria and needed some assistance, mostly medical.
I had a few other interactions in other countries that were 'interesting'. I lost count of how many embassies and consulates I have interacted with.
There is an "I AM DEAD" form, sort of. i.e. naming a beneficiary to receive any remaining benefits due after one's death. At the relatively advanced age of 67, maybe I should have a will or at least an SSA beneficiary, but why not just let the USA have part of an uncollected payment.
Supporting Statement for Form SSA-1724
see: https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-1724.pdf
Claim for Amounts Due In The Case of a Deceased Beneficiary
20 CFR 404.503(b)
OMB No. 0960-0101
I am confused now. How many dead people were receiving SSA payments ? How many SSA payments were going to unauthorized recipients (a different sort of problem), and what is a I’m NOT DEAD YET form ?
I sent many emails and forms to multiple FBU’s at US Consulates, and I even spoke with a representative from one in Napoli. I think I convinced them I am alive and unhappy about my suspended payments.
They assured me I would be receiving payments again, presumably tomorrow, 3 March. They should include a late fee bonus for me because the suspension has caused undo hardship for me, my friends and family.
I see from a later comment that you found the form. If the form is mailed to you (not everyone abroad is chosen to be sent one), then you have 60 days to return it or benefits are suspended. If you contact the FBU, they will reinstate the payments off-cycle, within a week. March 3 is the next date for the first of the four monthly payment dates; if that is when you get your SS payments your missed payment should still be off-cycle.
The first social security number was issued in 1936. Assuming some 112 year olds signed up, you could have people whose birth would make them 200 years old now. You could also have people who didn't know or couldn't prove their birth date, so the date in the records might have been blank. You could have people whose date was entered incorrectly, which is how you get two people 360 years old, either originally, or when the initial birth data was entered into the COBOL database in the 1950s, or when the original YYMMDD date field was updated for Y2K to YYYYMMDD to comply with ISO8601. On top of that, you have a similar problem for the entry of death data. (But, contrary to what a lot of people have been saying, COBOL doesn't have an epoch like Unix or DOS, so it doesn't default to 1875.)
Just because you can run a report that interprets these fields (and we don't know how the report DOGE ran was interpreting blank fields or field errors (including, perhaps, death dates before birth dates), doesn't have anything to do with whether dead people were receiving SS payments. A fairly comprehensive study found that number was vanishingly small, and so small that the effort to clean the database just wasn't worth it. Millions of people using Quicken so regularly find their data inexplicably wrong that Quicken just automatically offers a placeholder to ignore it.
I got a ‘reprieve’ after about a dozen e-mails and a couple of phone calls, including to the USA. Overjoyed for about 2 days because I got 2 paychecks after doing without one for 1 month, something that makes life difficult for those living paycheck to paycheck. I got to pay some bills, including some taxes owed to the IRS (mostly penalties and interest at this point).But I cannot complain too much. At least I am not homeless and have some prospects for the future. At 67, I should maybe look for regular employment in Sicily. Why ?? Because it is probably folly to rely on the US government.
I am still waiting for my 2 payments to hit my Italian Bank Account. I checked the MySSA website, and it said that the payment was processed on 28 Feb. Normally, I receive payments on the 3rd of the month (normal for those in the EU). Unfortunately, the 3rd has passed and no money in my account yet.
However, they (the FBU in Napoli) did say it normally takes 5-7 days to process (they must be referring to the 2 late payments). So, maybe I should patiently wait another day or 2 ?
However, my lease says that payments are due by the 5th of each month. That does not leave me a lot of wiggle room.
So, maybe I should contact the State of Minnesota and ask them why it is so difficult for me to collect about 230 USD that is owed to me by the State of Minnesota ? What a pain !! Blue Cross of MN owes me money. But, I moved away, so then that was turned over to the State of MN as an unpaid claim.
I contacted that State of MN and even sent them a Power of Attorney, so a third party could process the request, but that has gone nowhere.
What should I do ? Should I ask my landlord to apply the remaining portion of my security deposit to this month's rent, and then just move out, maybe to Ukraine this time ? That might be stupid, unless I actually receive my 4000 plus USD before I move.
Interesting. I did receive a physical letter in the Post, but my payment was suspended, I think before a 60 day grace period. Maybe I failed to update my address in a timely manner? It is really difficult for an Ex Pat to update an address with the SSA. The FBU’s are often not very helpful, and calling the US customer service number usually results in a wait time of an hour or more. Even then, they might not make the desired change.
As an Ex Pat, maybe I should move next door to a US Consulate so I do not have such problems in the future ?
https://pl.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/cons_fbu_SSA-7162.pdf
That might be the 'I AM NOT DEAD' or 'PROOF of LIFE' form.
See: https://www.americansabroad.org/social-security-administration-notice-regarding-forms-ssa7161-and-ssa7162
Truly appreciate your reporting. A small detail I'm curious about: I work in intelligence, and I can't touch the computers until a big stack of security officials say I can. They sign their unlock decisions, and my every keystroke is monitored after that. I assume that the security apparatus is similar at Treasury. Which security officials utterly failed their duty, by issuing an account to somebody who had not gone through an investigation, and whose intent was obviously malign? Were they paid off, or were they threatened to an extent that they broke all their rules? That's probably more than a firing offense. If a security official in the IC does that, I believe they could be prosecuted.
You seem to not truly understand what is happening here, and why they are saying it's a constitutional crisis, and this quickly went to the courts. It IS illegal. Trump's cabinet is firing anyone who stands in the way. That is, anyone doing what is legally required of them. None of the people working on behalf of DOGE can legally do what they are doing. They are saying the President wants it, and that's all they need. That is the crisis.
And everyone just says, well, if Agent Orange says it, it’s ok by me? Except for the brave few who resigned…
OMG, Agent Orange! Good one!
The payoff was a cool quarter billion toward Trump's election.
...and that's what was >above< the table.
I'm sure threats were part of it. My Republican senator from NC told The Guardian (notably not the US media) that he had received death threats, etc, as did many of his colleagues AND THEIR FAMILIES. Many are deciding it's not worth it to oppose Felon47.
This is the story that I keep wishing someone would really go after. Why is the Republic Congress rolling over and playing dead while Trump and DOGE destroy our government? Because they are all quaking in their boots and terrified of Trump loosing the Proud Boys or equivalent goon squad de jour on their wives and children. All of this should be the subject of intense investigative reporting and should be laid bare for all to see. Once we understand what is going on perhaps we can begin to consider what to do about it. Every state still has an attorney general, for example. There are still ways to round these people up and put them away where they can’t hurt anyone.
It would be except the press is being likewise threatened.
As for the attorney's general, a whole bunch of them are working together to flood the courts with cases to stop - or at least slow to a crawl - Herr Trumpkopf's rampage.
I thought something was going on with every republican in congress not going against trumps picks and policies, not following the constitution and laws. They must be receiving death threats to their families and themselves. I am sure a great majority are with Trump,but all of them? It’s a little suspicious to me.
I've been wondering about that lately. The Republicans voted in lock step for a budget bill that will severely hurt their constituents. They know their voters will be coming for them with pitchforks when grandma gets thrown out of the nursing home and most of the health care workers are laid off. So, Elon threatening them with a primary challenge will be moot. That only leaves significant bribery and threat of physical violence. Given all the threats of violence prior to the coup, I'm sure it's exponentially greater now.
It was just a performative vote. It'll never become law - and they know it.
Typical mafioso move.
I believe the person who was literally standing in their way was escorted out by Federal Marshals at the order of head of Treasury. I might be wrong. There's a lot I don't understand either.
We're not supposed to understand. The more confusion they sew, the easier it is for them to say "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!", and get away with it.
Thank you. Nursing homes could serve as another early warning for Social Security payments. Many serve as representative payee for their residents, so they will see patterns if there is a slow or
Intermittent rollout
This. Such a conflict of interest to make vulnerable nursing home residents designate the nursing home as their rep payee. There’s far too little oversight of this industry. Too few inspectors, opportunities to buy a good inspection, understaffing, increasing falls, infections and deaths. My father died while in “transitional care” where he suffered malnutrition, falls because no one answered his call light, and obviously poor infection control. They should never be allowed to also be rep payee.
Absolutely right! My sister suffered lethal neglect in a so-called nursing home during Covid. Much more oversight and accountability essential.
Back when I was in a Master's degree program in Computer Science in the early 1980s, I was in a class on software engineering, in the broad sense of all the steps involved in making and changing software, not just the programming part. The professor brought up a major rewrite of the Social Security software. That software was already decades old at the time (it goes back to the 1950s, if I remember correctly). It has pieces that emulated the early computers that actually had one computer emulated on the emulation of another computer.
One number sticks in my head. The system at the time had 13 million lines of code. A good way to think about that is to see how many pages that would be if printed out 50 lines to a page. Here it comes out to 260,000. So in somewhere around 1983, the system was over a quarter of a million pages. At 1000 pages to a book (which is a big book), that is 260 volumes. So these systems are essentially impossible for one person to fully understand. It takes a big, experienced team. Making significant changes requires not just people to do the work, but people to make sure that they didn't break things doing the work. Another stat from that class was that 40% of fixes for software defects cause new software defects.
So far, it sounds like they are intercepting things at the interfaces between systems, which is one of the easier points to do it. But there could still be code they don't know about causing crises. If they redirect the files back to the wrong agency, it might throw off both agencies internal information on what they spent. Maybe the actual sending systems thinks the payments went through, because they never got the Do Not Pay file back. Weirdly, the system that did get them might include a negative amount for any payment rejected, but not the positive amount for the original payment it was supposed to cancel. The reports at both places might stop balancing in a sensible way.
So, yes, things can break in really unexpected ways if the data doesn't behave like the original designers expected it to.
Gary, thank you for shedding light on the mysterious (to me, a not-a-computer-guy) process involved in bug detection (if that is the correct term for what you just described).
It is horrifying to think that so many very sensitive systems have been exposed to Elon’s code warriors, and here we all are, totally helpless to do any whatever to stop them from taking down our entire system, whether by accident or ill intent.
Bug detection would be understood, though informal. You sound more professional talking about defects rather than bugs. To sound academic, you can talk about verification and validation. To be clear, any big system has a frighteningly large number of remaining defects. A few thousand would be a sign they've done a great job for a system this big. Fortunately, the ones most likely to remain tend to have rare or very subtle effects.
They're not defects, they're "undocumented features", LOL
BTW, it's those rare ones I'm most concerned about. Those punks will find a way to hit those edge cases that are hiding in there and really wreak havoc.
Thirteen million lines. Whew! I wouldn't want to tackle that by myself. I wouldn't even care to see the documentation - if there even is any.
Just for reference, and English translation of War and Peace I once read is about 1049 pages - including the second epilogue.
Gary B, that sounds like a great class. Your three paragraphs succinctly describe challenges of working with legacy systems. They are not just big, but brittle and absolutely require a large experienced team. Yes, they are likely intercepting data at the interfaces between systems, or reading extract files which exist for a set of programs written to satisfy a specific business purpose. Even if they are extracting from master files, they don't understand the business logic embedded in the code. I have seen master which have fields with different purpose/content based on the kind of record. Variable length segmented files with same fields at different positions based on type of record, etc. The young geniuses would never know this. I hope there are good backups.
I agree that the system can still be broken. Or jammed, deliberately. A well known modern cyber warfare tactic. Also so grateful to know that Mr. Tankus and colleagues are also somehow watchdogging the banking systems on the receiving end. But in the end, they have gotten in already. So they can essentially do what they want. Which is criminal, illegal, a wanton abuse of power and a violence to American citizens’ lives.
This is terrifying stuff, all the more so because it's so complex and flies under the radar.
But, hey guys, there ARE people out there who can write AI programs that can be trained to ferret out this stuff and flag critical information, and make connections and inferences that are too complex and tenuous that few, if any, people might be able to. I see a synergy here if people like Tankus can bring his expertise to people who know how to write the code that would boost the capability by orders of magnitude
Also, Prof. Krugman, novices can use AI to write those programs, or rudimentary parts of the code. For example, I've used ChatGPT to write Excel code for several of my professional spreadsheets, and it works!. Some of the code I couldn't do without diving more deeply into Excel coding, but most of it is just to speed things up. Writing code I can do, but in 10% of the time.
I'm just saying. All those Musk Rats are susceptible to the same technology that they are using to screw us. It's possible to screw them back.
Excellent, and good on you for putting it out for free. Too important not to.
As they say, “the devil is in the details”. This helps me understand the threat of Musk’s takeover, and I appreciate you sharing it with us here.
"the devil is in the details". Literally.
Interestingly (and terrifyingly), my husband's and my social security checks were ussued on the usual date in February but were in the "pending" part if our bank account for 6 days. That had never happened before and I knew something seemed amuck and now clearly it was. This article needs to be on the front page if the NY Times.
Judy,
This is anecdotal and matches mine, though inversely so. It's important not to let isolated glitches amplify our fears until we see a consistent pattern. I'd like to know if this happens again. Technical glitches are technical. Note that those close to me experienced an early payment, but granted, I haven't been tracking that as closely as I will going forward. The social security payment system is only now getting DOGE attention (that was the statement in this interview by Nathan) - so our anecdotes are presient if not telling.
"Tankus: Exactly. There's one person in Marko Elez, a 25 year old who used to work at SpaceX. He's, you know—as we'll get to—he's out of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service now, but he's just been sent over to the Social Security Administration."
The payment schedule is very clear—we should know soon enough. Note that if there is a systemic issue, the banks will be the clarion, per Nathan's take here.
Social Security Schedule - based on birth date... I'd like to know if you are delayed next month...
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10031-2025.pdf
Tim
I’m a retired IRS executive. When I heard about the top Treasury exec who quit rather than give access to the payment system, my hair stood on end. This interview with Nathan Tankus makes me understand my visceral reaction better. This is terrifying. While this info is beyond disturbing, I’m going to do all I can to spread the word to everyone I know. Thank you for your reporting.