Lost.
Not saved. Lost. Elon and the Musketeers lost this nation half a trillion dollars.
So far.
And don't forget the 10 trillion in lost war plane sales due to "toning them down in case our allies turn on us', just like he has turned on Canada and Europe.
You're spinning it wrong. "With the doge cuts, we saved you half a trillion dollars in taxes"
…that’s not what happened.
This is like a fuck off huge gas turbine generator spinning at full chat and then just starting to take parts off of it and snipping fluid lines. One of the features of turbines is that they will continue to run for a bit even when they’re heading in the direction of catastrophic failure, since it’s all angular momentum and no reciprocation. But it IS going to catastrophically fail.
This is the system just eating itself and money being - at best - siphoned into someone’s pockets, or more likely, just being outright wasted. The USAID cuts, for instance, basically locked an absolute shitload of consumables and perishables in warehouses to spoil. That’s what we’re talking about. And that’s only the most obvious example.
Another 4 months and they could have lost enough to forgive all student loans. :/
Trump did say he's only just getting started.
Well April 2nd is our supposed "national day of prosperity". Which analysts think means he is going to enact global tariffs as well as all the retaliatory tariffs he is planning.
I think we should organize and go demand everyone working for DOGE... stop. And not demand like with funny signs and chants, but like with 2nd amendment arms.
It should be blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that the "Department of Government Efficiency" isn't really about efficiency.
Just like the "ministry of truth" isn't about the truth.
And now the "environmental protection agency" is about extracting profit at the expense of the environment
Environmental Plundering Agency
It's the TSA of efficiency
Remember, they're talking about efficiency all day long, but they're not mentioning effectivity with a single word.
Efficiency is how fast/cheap/ressource-less you can get something done. Effectivity is if you're even doing the right thing at all.
You can be super efficient, but still not be effective by doing something, so....
I mean we can just say they aren't about efficiency because they don't research anything before they start making cuts it's simply I don't like USAID let's gut it, I don't like the SSA so let's gut it.
They know what they're doing even if Trump somehow gets the boot we're looking at probably 50 years or more to get back our world position if they don't fuck our economy up so badly it's effectively impossible to comeback.
Effectivity is if you’re even doing the right thing at all.
Not exactly. It's more about whether or not you've accomplished the thing you set out to do, irrespective of resources and irrespective of "right" or "wrong".
So in this case, if DOGE's actual goal is the dismantling of the administrative state (literally spelled out in Project 2025), then I would say that they've been very effective.
They don't seem to care about the efficiency aspect.
Wait till you see how much we loose from killing the Department of Education. Education is like the easiest ROI
It's not the quickest though. ROI timeline is 18 years minimum for tax from non-degree level jobs, 22/23 years for degree level, and 26 to 30 years for post doctoral.
It's sad. The quarterly pressure to generate value is one of the worst economic forces of capitalism which drives enshitification, job-instability from the "fire bottom performing 10%" so that you can post more "profits" from cost cutting, and the general short-term thinking that pervades all aspects of the culture.
It's the reason "nobody" builds things to last or metaphorically plants something now for the future: it's not profitable quick enough.
Totally agree. Was talking to my brother who worked for the US Corps of Engineers. He said they have a decades long outlook for their projects. So if they want to remove a dam or something, studies are done to make sure that is the smartest move not just for the next few years, but the next several decades.
So refreshing vs the typical "new CEO wants to fire x% of the workforce to generate 1% more profit this year (ignore the fact that customers will leave when it's that much shittier here... That's next year's (and next Ceo's) problem)".
Just like in corporate america, the savings hit this quarter so bonuses all around. Then the CEO jumps ship and it's someone else's problem next quarter.
Oh so sad. Elect a clown expect a circus.
Install an unelected billionaire, expect theft.
MAGA/DOGE were bragging about getting like 100 billion dollars over ten years from tariffs while the US gains ~1.5 trillion dollars every year in income tax revenue.
Everything is bad right now.
Not for the rich, but that was the plan all along
I think DOGE should send out stimulas checks because of all the money that is going to be saved.
This would be more than reasonable if they were actually doing what they said.
In real life, they're costing the US an insane amount of money, and working class taxpayers will carry the burden of paying for it as usual.
It could easily set a new record for largest transfer of wealth from the workers to the rich in human history.
From what I hear.....elon, thief and their cronies are specifically wrecking government to push a corporate takeover...jeeze. it's like robocop.
And/or destabilizing the country's economy and political power worldwide so our enemies like Russia can do whatever they want without the US interfering. The complete destruction of US soft power via things like USAID and the blatant attempts to destroy any collaboration with our allies seems to point more in that direction.
Different groups, different motivations, but they're headed in the same direction more or less so they're working together. Trump is working to install himself as a dictator under orders from Putin. He wants to be for the US what Lukashenko is for Belarus. Ultimately he'll be Putin's puppet but he'll largely have free reign within the US which is the only thing he cares about. He's destroying all the US soft power and doing everything he can to turn all the US allies against it. Domestically he's painting targets on the backs of as many minorities as he can in order to keep the useful idiots that elected him distracted.
Musk meanwhile is working to establish an oligarchy and to steal or destroy as much of the US government as he can manage. Ultimately his goals are fairly transparent as he's motivated entirely by naked greed. Since his efforts hurt US foreign relations as much as the domestic situation he's a useful tool to Trump in his efforts to neuter the US for Putin.
Then you've got the Christian nationalists in the GOP that don't really care about what's going on as long as they're allowed to trample all over the first amendment and declare Christianity as the official US religion with all the associated bigotry and discrimination. Since that plays to Trump's efforts to distract his supporters he's perfectly fine with it, but likely keeping a close eye on that group lest any of them think about usurping his crown, particularly when he still hasn't really gotten to go full dictator yet.
I would disagree on your Musk-analysis. He and the other techbros are not after the money but after the power and influence that being in these positions nets them. The monetary gain is a side-effect. The goal is to enforce their unrealistic ideas about how to reshape society. Look up ‘Longtermism’ and the ridiculous ideas of one Curtis Yarvin. Remember MAGAts are fond of yammering about the World Economic Forum and the Gates, Soros etc? How these are supposedly trying to reshape society into some big brother-esque dystopia?
That is what the tech-oligarchs are facilitating.
The stupid "doge" thing was never about balancing the budget anyway. That's all bullshit red meat for the dumbasses that voted for donvict.
Imagine being so fucking dumb you use IRS data to go after immigrants who are paying taxes, thus ensuring no immigrant ever pays taxes again.
You gotta give it to Elmo, few people would have been able to pull off that feat. I mean, losing that much money takes hard work and dedication, and I'm not even kidding hete. It actually takes a certain skill set (extreme incompetency combined with an unending unearned confidence) to be able to lose that much money that quickly. I was impressed with the money he lost from Twitter, but that's peanuts now, that's a rounding error in comparison to what he's losing the US now.
Hey now, let's not demean little Donny two-scoops, who has an almost equally well honed ability to lose money where it should be impossible.
That money isn't lost, I think we all know who's going to divvy it up when all is said and done.
Making big losses attracts investors. - Elon Musk
Anyone checked behind the couch cushions?
while vance is vp? ew, no
Dare I ask what you mean by that?
Vance the couch fucker.
There was a claim that, in the first draft of his book, Vance recounted a teenage sexual encounter with a couch. In great detail.
This claim came with an image of the text, which is easily found if you want that sort of thing.
The truthfulness of the claim has been questioned, but Vance just seems like the kind of guy who would fuck a couch.
The truthfulness of the claim has been questioned, but Vance just seems like the kind of guy who would fuck a couch
But not the truthiness of the claim, which I think is the more important part.
you might find things other than loose change behind the cushions when there's a couchfucker on the loose.
you write a book that gets turned into a movie, help draft the most optimistic plan for turning a reasonable functional democracy into a dictatorship, rock eyeliner at least as well as any 80's glam-rock start, but you fuck one* couch, and that's all you're remembered for.
The article doesn’t explain how, where the money went, or how the IRS knows this.
Cutting staff thereby reducing the IRS's ability to find and go after wealthy tax cheats.
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