Last year he was suggesting the democrats run Jeff Bezos as a candidate saying the party would rally behind him.

The dude realized he was completely out of step with the democrats, so despite constantly trolling Republicans, as you suggested he finally decided to just throw in with them despite still feeling superior to all them (which you can tell by his little "wisecracks" and subtle fuck-yous to the average Repub voter).

True. Not just the All In Guys, but also Tulsi and RFK, even Trump used to be a democrat.

No wonder Musk wants to deregulate everything. Regulation interferes with the telemedicine, gut bacteria powders and various other nonsense that these gentlemen invest in.

The (deliberate?) chaos that Trump/Musk create provides great opportunities for those in the know.

I watched Chamath call in live to a spac scammers live stream. This scammer drove a beater and would pump various spac warrants on his way home from the warehouse job on twitch.

I was like wtf is a former FB executive doing showing up on this scammer live stream.

This particular scammer got lucky on one of his spacs when it actually made a deal and from that he made quite the following.

Chamath used this guy to pump his spacs because if the spac was pumping before there was even a deal it was easier for him to make the deal.

I think all of Chamaths spacs are penny stocks now with multiple reverse splits to stay above $1.

Edit: Except for SOFI the one good deal he made.

Only insiders know to what extent the strategic reserve currency scam will go through and whether to hold or sell.

There was a meme coin scam for insiders.

All these create volatility that could be exploited by front runners.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/private-texts-reveal-worlds-...

Now I have a lot more appreciation for traditional journalistic institutions each time they disclose that they are reporting on a sponsor or otherwise affiliated institution.

For as much as the All-In crowd love to rag against the MSM - they seem far less interested in disclosing their financial interest in the stories they cover.

Celebrities to him are almost what commoners are to rich people. Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster, has <0.1% net worth. Most have far less: they actually need to make money from podcasting and can't afford certain things, whereas 0.001% of Musk's net worth is enough to live an entire life well-off. And it's not just money; I'm sure far, far more people learned about Rogan when he interviewed Musk than vice versa.

Wealth, attention, and power influence people. If you had more of them, or a solid chance at more, you'd be influenced too.

These dingos are wealthy because they've got money in banks and stocks in brokerages.

If the US dollar is managed like the 1980s iraqi dinar, and the stock market is regulated as strictly as the 1980s baghdad stock exchange, what happens to their wealth?

Apologies to the lackeys of Saddam Hussein, some of whom I'm sure were quite professional.

The government is currently $36 trillion in debt with that debt growing at an exponential rate. Our annual expenditure of interest on the debt has exceeded $1 trillion per year and will soon exceed the entire discretionary budget of the US.

And this is happening as growth starts to slow and other countries continue to reduce both their reserves and dependency upon the dollar.

Many don't see this as sustainable, or really even remotely sustainable. And so working to create more sound governance and spending today is motivated precisely by an effort to prevent a catastrophic crash.

Like think about to back before the housing crash. There were numerous shows on TV about people getting a house (often with near 0 deposit), adding granite counter tops, and then reselling it within weeks for a $20k+ profit.

Anybody could see that that sort of economic system could not possibly be stable, but most people have this instinct that a status quo must inherently be stable, but that's just not true. That unstable things have not crashed today is hardly an argument against them crashing tomorrow.

That's not even considering that these agencies can have positive, not negative, financial impact. A well-regulated economy can avoid disastrous recessions and thereby pay for itself manyfold. Hell, the CFPB was put in place to prevent the exact housing crash situation you just mentioned, but now one private citizen is getting rid of it because... he doesn't like it?

USAID's budget was upwards of $50 billion, so cutting that single organization brings us 5-10% of the way there.

And its primary purpose was propaganda of the sort that, when effective, just ends up driving us into conflicts half way around the world and making it very difficult to ever truly improve relations with 'foreign adversaries.' I'm tired of being at war with Eastasia.

And Musk has zero power. He can only make recommendations. The 'President Musk' stuff is a transparent effort to try to foment antagonism between Trump and Musk by exploiting Trump's insecurities.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united...

https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-...

[1] - https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306

[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S

We're only 3.8% above our 1945 peak.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-t...

The 1940's and 1950's reduced it through raising taxes, not cutting social services. There was actually a large expansion of social services and infrastructure projects at the time.

Slash and burn economics/austerity are not the only option.

It plummeted afterwards because of dramatic spending cuts after the war ended in 1945. The budget in 1946 cut discretionary spending (which is what funds the military) by 43% (38.5 billion), and then it was cut another 41% in 1947. Inflation adjusted the spending cut in 1946 was $619 billion.

The 'great expansion' of social services began in the 60s which led (in part, Vietnam and other issues obviously played a huge role) to the US defaulting on its economic obligations under Bretton Woods in 1971, which is when our current economic era of unconstrained completely fiat spending began.

I'm fully aware (as everyone is).

The 1950's expanded social services considerably, including major infrastructure projects like housing and highways. The cost of the GI bill alone after WW2 was $140 billion in today's dollars.

Cutting military spending is an option but doesn't seem to be on the table.

It's likely to preempt media attacks claiming Trump is undermining US defense and security by cutting military spending, especially if DOGE manages to find some large areas to cut (one can only imagine the headlines...). It's unclear if they would agree (especially when there's going to be immense distrust), but this sort of rhetoric is the most rational and logical that I've seen in decades.

Having a leader with messianic delusions is not necessarily a bad thing it might seem, at least for now.

[1] - https://apnews.com/article/trump-china-russia-nuclear-bbc1c7...

Ultimately, wealth, beyond what you physically control, is only real if everyone else agrees that it's real. Otherwise you're just tapping a rock on another rock and walking out of the store with eggs.

And that 36 trillion in debt was created with a complex dance out in the open; I've got some paper who wants some paper I'll give you number go up in a year if you give me number now! And we can all look at the ledger and there are people in robes in a locked room who protect the ledger when we're not looking.

If instead we've got a ledger, left floating around the house and garage, and all the people in robes have been fired, and all of a sudden we don't need that tedious "pass laws" stuff to "balance the budget" and the ledger's full of sharpie scribblings, what are the numbers in that ledger? The fewer people who believe that number or ledger, the fewer eggs you'll be able to buy by tapping your rock on someone else's rock.

The same goes for other ledgers -- stocks -- the US stock market is trusted only because people trust the numbers that are reported. If you've fired all the regulators, auditors, and enforcers, your stock market will lose trust, and again, the numbers will be the same but worth less because nobody will believe anything.

Of course all that would do is make the dollar worthless and completely destroy the US economy. I think you would obviously agree.

That also means that we must agree that 'money printing' taken to an extreme can have catastrophic effects. So where we disagree is where we are on the line between the points of inherently valuable and stable currency, and lol funny money.

When the interest on the debt is starting to exceed our total discretionary budget, let alone at a major inflection point in global economics/relations, I tend to think we're prettty far down that line.

So we can start on a solid foundation where we both agree. The thing I have trouble with is I don't think the people in government right now talking about reducing the debt by cutting waste and fraud agree with you and me.

The reason I think this is because last time they were in full control of the government they also had talked a good game about reducing the debt, but instead they cut taxes for the richest Americans and added to the debt, substantially. They told us it would pay for itself -- that didn't happen.

They also did it the time before that, during the Bush Administration. They ran up trillions in debt on a war that we didn't need to go into and we ended up losing, erasing an inherited budget surplus.

Now they are talking about ethnic cleansing Gaza, and giving themselves yet another tax break. On the other side of it, they're slashing and burning programs that they oppose on ideological grounds, which as a percentage of the budget won't even move the debt needle a smidge. And they can't show these programs were actually fraudulent or wasteful.

So my question is: why do you trust these people to cut the debt and deficit if they haven't been able to do so at any point in the past 20 years, a period during which they had majority control of the government multiple times, and they're proposing the same failed playbook?

Mandatory is made up of things like social security, pensions, medicare, and so on. That's all automatically funded with no role played by Congress. The money that's left over after is what Congress actually decides how to spend in those thousands of pages long budget bills that nobody reads - that's discretionary spending.

In 2024 the discretionary budget was $1.7 trillion. Exclude the military (which is also discretionary) and you're down to $900 billion for all the projects people typically associate with government - transportation, education, infrastructure, and so on. USAID took up ~$50 billion of that. That's a major reduction!

This discretionary:mandatory divide is also why DOGE is going after the Pentagon next. Slashing mandatory spending is hard, though you might be able to cut e.g. administrative costs. But discretionary spending is just chock full of pork and corruption with negligible accountability.

I agree they're cutting ideological programs - I don't agree this is intrinsically ideological. They're cutting e.g. DEI and atheism propaganda, but not just replacing it with e.g. color-blind society and respect for religion propaganda. They're just dropping the propaganda funding altogether. I'd like to see this carried out everywhere, even in cases where the propaganda might align more closely with my own biases.

You walk into a store, pick up a box of eggs, bonk your rock on another rock, the other rock makes a happy beep or turns green, and you walk out.

There's no scarcity or demand or anything going on besides "everyone with the rocks trusts the rocks"

We're all going to pretend to trust the rocks as long as we can, because the alternative is violent chaos.

This is the reason your money becomes worth less when we print more. A vendor selling whatever will want even more because his product is just as scarce as it was before, but what you're trading for it has become less scarce, and so has less value.

And taken to extremes this value can approach 0 quite rapidly. Trust, belief and all these things don't matter if you're trying to trade me something I see as less valuable than what you want in exchange for it.

https://www.newsbreak.com/raw-story-2096750/3790568619352-go...

What is money if there's someone out there just "number go up" people's accounts?

Say they start fudging numbers at DoL, so only them would know real truth and everyone else is just blundering in the dark.

Combined with ownership of power structures, there is no need for money per se, you can acquire all of the critical infrastructure by applying blunt force. Check your nearest dictatorship for an example, we have plenty to choose from in recent history.

Growth at all costs. Just like a startup. Just like Rome.

I think in this case, it attracts the avaricious rather than changes their beliefs. Joe Rogan can be influenced by poor lunatics as much as rich ones. As much as I can tell of peoples' opinions of the All In pod (never listened), it sounds like they were always sell-outs (or their beliefs have not strayed)

At the same time, I don't think anyone can truly understand what power does to the human brain in general and their brain specifically. It doesn't mean everyone with power is corrupt and certainly doesn't excuse those who are, but IMO it does mean one can't underestimate power's influence and assume they're one of the incorruptible "good ones"*.

* There are ways to mitigate being corruptible, such as planning ahead, delegating power to others, and finding other sources of truth besides your unreliable judgement. They're the same techniques to avoid impulsiveness, dumb crush behavior, and other mental distortions.

But you purport to? :)

Power is such a nebulous term and can mean a lot of things. Of course, persuasive power, such as by reputation or actual charisma (not the case here), is a thing. But I think also in this case, at least as much as I can glean from others, Musk already had them at hello.

He’s like a cross of Rush Limbaugh in his early prime, Howard Stern and Art Bell. Exceptional broadcast talent with a safe space to deliver a message.

Lets not forget how in his “comedy” special, he literally says he is like Elon’s puppy following him around believing whatever he says because he’s a “genius”. He changed.

Honestly, he reminds me alot of Rush. Early Rush was very conservative, but also very irreverent. At some point it flipped and turned into the angry guy issuing the talking points of the day.

I'll also give honorable mentions to some of their most outrageous takes:

1. Friedberg predicting that NYT and CNN would be replaced by blockchain based news reporting.

2. Chamath predicting the Ukraine/Russia tensions were just blustering prior to a deal being signed.

3. Sacks promoting the story that claimed Biden ordered the Navy to blow up the Nordstream pipeline.

That's a bit of a bad faith observation. I support feeding people. I don't support theft. When I see people stealing food I am not dismissing the former.

I wouldn't mind a proper auditing process, but you can also do that without breaking multiple laws. And yes, I also do not think DOGE is acting in good faith. They are spouting about a bunch of non-sense tech solutions to the treasury like buzzwords on an earnings call. They completely failed on their suppoesd transparency claims when formed and are now outright keeping others from working with private guards (that's not how you do a proper audit). They've given me every reason not to trust them.

-------

As a not so hot take, if you want to cut costs, encourage efficiency. The way a lot of government budgeting works is in a "use it or lose it" capacity. Your reward for efficiency is a smaller budget "because you didn't need it last year". Individuals can save surplus income for rainy days, I don't see why governmental organizations can't.

If nothing else, listen to his Tesla earnings call and take note of how much he talks about the actual current business vs. his fantasy of consumer reboots in 2027.

A tangent here, but: Gas taxes paying for roads. There is a relationship between inefficiency and privacy.

I often encounter some libertarian-types complaining about this, that they should only be taxed for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure they personally drive upon. Indirect benefits aside, I try to point out that the billing-system they're asking for requires a creepy surveillance panopticon, something far more ripe for abuse than any gas tax.

It can be hard to tease out since, contrary to belief, gas taxes end up mixed with the general fund in most cases. If you look at total road expenditures against gas tax revenues, drivers don’t come close to paying for the road infrastructure they use.

Note: This isn’t a comment on whether drivers should fully fund roads, or if it is perfectly fine given the external benefits of a robust road network. It is simply a comment about real numbers vs perception.

Either way, the point is that there's a conflict between the demands of "never charge me an extra cent" versus "don't poke your nose into my business."

My point is that gas taxes don’t even cover a majority of it. US roads are paid for out general funds, and pretending that they are paid for out of gas taxes exclusively, or even in a majority is dishonest.

Any argument that argues that gas taxes are a use tax for the road is dead in the water.

1. It's philosophically acceptable since it's not the government doing it, even if I don't like the deal.

2. I shouldn't be forced to have insurance in the first place.

3. That wouldn't happen since I could buy insurance from another competitor that doesn't require it.

At this point, I might be inclined to give a damn about "privacy" when it's not putting us into literal trillions in debt after literal decades of pointing at the problem.

The time for pleasantries passed a long time ago, I am quite fine with taking a very big, very blunt, rocket-powered sledgehammer to the budget because I want shit done already; I voted for this. Collateral damage will happen, even in the best situation it will be inevitable; we can rebuild what we actually need after the fact.

Raze it all to the ground and salt the dirt using the tears of the whiners, their crying only strengthens my desire for retribution and fiscal rebalancing and responsibility.

Let's be real if they would be worried about government spending they would start at usaid or the CDC (usaid corresponds to 1.2% of the total budget, not a significant portion of the budget by any measure).

Debt vs president:

https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and...

Was it really just an extension of the Iraqi war?

EDIT: Ahh, the 2008 recession. I didn't realize it was so bad as to reflect similar to Regean's debts. Even Biden's COVID stiumulus didn't register in comparison.

Trump hates wars and his first term track record all but guarantees that we won't "spend big" on (more) wars as you've put it, so we likely won't have to worry about that at least.

>not a significant portion of the budget

These are my and our fucking tax dollars. I want every single fucking cent audited, I don't really care how big or small a portion this is of the whole budget. Americans get audited by the IRS down to their dirty laundry on a common basis, the government should face the same from the people.

if you want government debt to shrink, you need to treat it like optimization: focus on the big problems first and don't sweat the small fry.

If you simply want a better auditing process... Well, whatever Musk is doing sure isn't it. Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]". His "reports" on audits sure aren't trying to take into account "every cent".

>Trump and Musk's bigly sledgehammer will achieve this, screw the details because I don't care anymore.

Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way. Tarriffs and war mongering isn't how we save costs. Arguing about "wow the libs waste so much money" isn't how you audit anything. The last thing you want to do when you need more taxes is cutting capital tax from the richest corporations who can lose 90% of their income and still be worth more than some small countries.

Follow the money. None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.

The biggest line items which are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are off the table as promised during the campaign, for better or worse.

Everything else is fair game, though. That includes everything from the Pentagon (note: never passed an audit) to "foreign aid" and science grants and everything in-between.

>Has he actually revealed any significant spending outside of "wow this thing cost X million dollars. how crazy for [partisan reasons]".

He has revealed that literal millions and billions of our tax dollars (or loans, to make it even worse) are being wasted on questionable ventures at best. I want him and DOGE to dig even deeper so the House is forced to write a clean budget devoid of all this fucking garbage. American taxpayers deserve better.

>Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way.

I agree, which is why it's great that Musk and DOGE are looking into the details of where the sincere fuck our money is going. All these whiners are crying that we shouldn't look at the details, it's all fine! No, fuck them. I want all this out in public view, in bite size chunks consumable by the common man paying for all this, to be scrutinized; anything worth having should be able to withstand any and all scrutiny.

>None of these steps are made with you and me in mind.

I agree again; these steps are made for all of us from the rich to the poor and the progressives to the conservatives. Everyone benefits from a leaner and cleaner budget and a smaller and more efficient government.

You are aware that this is the guy who made the secret service stay at his hotels/golf club to scam tax dollars into his own pockets? Why should I trust him to actually care about tax dollars?

>>Screwing the details is how you enable corruption, by the way.

> I agree, which is why it's great that Musk and DOGE are looking into the details of where the sincere fuck our money is going. All these whiners are crying that we shouldn't look at the details, it's all fine! No, fuck them. I want all this out in public view, in bite size chunks consumable by the common man paying for all this, to be scrutinized; anything worth having should be able to withstand any and all scrutiny.

So will Musk look into the government contracts that he is benefiting from (both Tesla and Space X received significant government funds)? You think he'll be impartial?

I would like a source please. With actual figures, not just "Trust me I'm elon Musk". All I saw were him complaining about charges that are microscopic for preparing that corporate tax break. he's penny pinching while Trump wants to basically give up to 3% of the budget spending to billionaires. A similar percentage of the entire Department of Education btw.

>Everyone benefits from a leaner and cleaner budget and a smaller and more efficient government.

my lifetime alone (let alone the ages of reagan) have shown that trickle down evonomics does not work. None of that "efficiency" is coming to you and me (well, maybe you. I don't know your income level. I'm well compensated but not close to an elite. Not even by HN standards).

Sure. Off the top of my head from a previous conversation about aid(?) to Mozambique[1], that's $83.5 million.

That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.

>charges that are microscopic

Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small? Emphasis on relative. I really want to avoid attacking someone on that because it sounds so disingenuous, but it's increasingly hard to do so.

Tax dollars are a sacred resource, provided by the sweat (and possibly blood) of American taxpayers. As a taxpayer myself, I will not tolerate seeing my and our taxes spent so flippantly.

>None of that "efficiency" is coming to you and me

An efficient government means filing our tax returns wouldn't be anywhere as obnoxious as they are today, or any number of government paperwork we would or could need to do in our lives. Fewer expenses from an efficient government would also mean less justification for government revenue including high taxes and tariffs.

An efficient government (and I do not mean that in a "No True Scotsman" fashion) will be beneficial to everyone everywhere.

>I don't know your income level.

I'm squarely in the lower to middle part of the middle class, with our family business (which I work for) that is classified as a small business (it's an official legal term, for those who aren't aware) which make up the core of American businesses.

[1]: https://datarepublican.com/award_search/?keywords=RZ4NKR9DQN...

> Sure. Off the top of my head from a previous conversation about aid(?) to Mozambique[1], that's $83.5 million.

> That's probably one of the better examples because I think that fighting STDs is an honorable cause, but $83.5 million when we're both trillions in debt and have pressing concerns at home? Yeah no, we need to help ourselves first if we can spend that kind of money on a whim.

You are aware that this sort of aid is part of the US foreign policy to get support for initiatives? Do you really thing the US would be in the position that it is today if it wasn't for the money they spend overseas? I mean do you think the US would have won the cold war if it wasn't for the Marshall plan?

> Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small? Emphasis on relative. I really want to avoid attacking someone on that because it sounds so disingenuous, but it's increasingly hard to do so.

> Tax dollars are a sacred resource, provided by the sweat (and possibly blood) of American taxpayers. As a taxpayer myself, I will not tolerate seeing my and our taxes spent so flippantly.

So why are you not shouting about Trump having the secret service pay $2 million to stay at his golf clubs? Is that not spending taxes flippantly?

1) It's 83m dollars over 5 years : https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_NU2GGH002369_7523

Amortized cost per year is 16.6m dollars a year. The CDC gets 10b in funding per year, so they would be spending around .2% of their budget every year on such a grant.

Again, microscopic. I don't think enough people understand the scope of how much money the government has, and even how much of that allocation to other departments is when they budget items.

2) this is a publicly visible grant on a website simply querying USAspending.gov. This was not some hidden agenda Musk was needed for in order to find. This sounds more like something a niche youtuber can make a career on than whatever is happening with DOGE.

>Am I actually correct in assuming y'all are trying to tell me I shouldn't care that my taxes are being wasted just because the sum is relatively small?

Yes. Because We the People don't set the budget. We vote represenatives (we vote on 3/535 of them each) who appropriate a budget. And even those 535 individuals can't always agree in time.

If we're being frank, and this is a bipartisan issue, if you let Americans vote on spending, it'd be no different than giving a kid 100 dollars for groceries. Lots of candy, maybe a few pieces of jerky, and no vegetables. Someone else with better knowledge needs to understand what is good for us vs. what feels good to have. Congress putting 60%+ into Healthcare and various social aid shows we haven't at least gone off the deep end... yet.

Regardless of how I feel on how congress allocates funds, I sure as hell do not trust a billionaire who only knows how to slash limbs off his company to make number go up to make a better budget. Keep in mind he he's been given billions in grants from the Feds compared to this 82m dollar allocation as well. He has extreme conflicts of interest that would make Carter's peanut farm look like a toddler's temper tantrum.

>An efficient government means filing our tax returns wouldn't be anywhere as obnoxious as they are today

They were trying to simplify tax filing for years. Blame Turbotax/H&R Block for that one. I think all of us are in agreement there except those who make their salary off confusion.

Even then we recently suceeded: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-106933

So, another thing making strides without hasty invasive "auditing". It's a large ship, it has to steer slowly and deliberately. Lest we get stuck in a canal and everyone suffers.

"I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

I said earlier that this cost could be one cent, $0.01, and I would still be against it. I don't want my taxes wasted on this bullshit, even good ones, when there are more pressing matters including just erasing the line item all together.

If we can't(won't?) get our expenses in order then I support the reduction or even elimination of taxes even more because Americans should not have to pay for this shit. Any of it. The government can default from the rejection of fiscal responsibility for all I care as a taxpayer, we tried giving a reasonable out many times over. Cutting expenses, especially frivolous ones, is part of Budgeting 101.

I'm not sure what else I can say to hammer this point home, nobody is going to change my mind.

>Yes. Because We the People don't set the budget. We vote represenatives (we vote on 3/535 of them each) who appropriate a budget.

And those Representatives enjoy the most appalling popularity polls year after year. Clearly there's something lost in translation between We The People and "Representative" Democracy and Trump's second victory is a resounding rejection of that failure to convey and represent.

>He has extreme conflicts of interest

Again, "I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

Whatever CoIs he or Trump may have are better than the CoIs of Congressmen or Executive bureaucrats. The state of US governance is that fucking bad as far as I am concerned, I just don't care anymore about being amicable and fine and gentlemanly let alone being perfect.

Burn this entire fucking shithouse down, we'll figure out what to do with the rubble later. We did it before in 1776 and we can do it again as declared in our Declaration of Independence, though ideally with no boomsticks firing and instead more figurative tea dumped into figurative bays, it's the 21st century after all.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

A simplistic approach--sounds nice to simpletons, won't have the effect they might desire.

My desire is small(er) government and a lean(er) budget with little to no waste and absolutely zero corruption/fraud. Trump and Musk's bigly sledgehammer will achieve this, screw the details because I don't care anymore.

The correct amount of fraud is not Zero.

Maybe the world is just too complicated for you to understand? Are you just throwing a petty tantrum? Does that really result in a better, stronger US?

0% costs you ($10M + $100M) - $2M

1% costs you ($10M + $2M)

If we end up $2 million or $100 million less to eliminate fraud that's what we have to pay. Fraud is unacceptable, period. Defrauding people's taxes is heinous, shame on you for defending it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

The only reason you're defending fraud is because you hate Trump and Musk who are prosecuting it. Take a step back and understand what it is you're arguing for, you're throwing away even the simplest of ethics and duty to scream Orange Man and Rocket Man X are bad.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-firing-inspectors-general...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trumps-firing-of-independe...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/18/how-trumps-second-term-could...

https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/trump-advisers-bank-r...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/10/trump-doj-foreign-corrupt-pr...

The person who's company committed tax fraud and is getting rid of independent watchdogs, FBI investigators, the FDIC, banking regulations and pausing enforcement of bribing officials is 'prosecuting fraud' ?

But I was not actually asking you to justify which is worse because the point I was making was I disagree with you — so what system do we use to resolve our differences?

But we are talking about fraud. Fraud is deliberate misuse or theft of funds, which is made even worse because the funds are American tax dollars. This isn't a question of whether I agree with reducing fraud to zero at any cost, simple ethical logic dictates that any fraud especially of taxes is absolutely and unconditionally unacceptable because of its malicious nature.

If we are fine with excusing $1 of fraud because dealing with it is "too expensive", we might as well be fine with excusing trillions of dollars of fraud because it's the same thing: It is ultimately acceptable to misuse and steal taxpayer money. That is absolutely not a great society to live and participate in.

Even if an expense larger than the fraud is incurred the fraud must be eliminated, because the principle of the matter is much more important than the funds themselves.

>so what system do we use to resolve our differences?

Ideally, Congress should be auditing and prosecuting fraud themselves as stipulated by the Taxes and Spending Clause of the Constitution.

Obviously though, in reality they clearly haven't filled those shoes adequately, or the Executive Branch would not have to be rifling through the budget as we speak let alone all the complaints from the people about government waste and corruption.

> Ideally, Congress should be auditing and prosecuting fraud themselves as stipulated by the Taxes and Spending Clause of the Constitution.

Not "ideally Congress should be", "Congress must be" -- according as you point out, to the Constitution. And they are prosecuting and auditing. For instance, USAID just passed an audit in the Fall, and despite all his noise, Musk has not yet been able to show fault with that audit.

What you advocate in your "obviously though.." paragraph is an extra-constitutional power grab of the Executive branch. Their job is to "faithfully" (that's the operative word) execute the laws, and they aren't enabled by the Constitution to do what they are, which is shut down Congressionally chartered federal agencies that the American people want to exist. If we follow this to its logical conclusion, that means as soon as the other side is in power, they'll just negate all laws and rights of the other side.

Congress exists so this does not happen, and that's why it's not the ideal solution, it's the only Constitutional solution we can use unless you're fine with rule by edict. Which, if that's what you're getting at just say it plainly. I get the feeling I'm arguing with people here who actually want a dictatorship but don't want to admit it yet. Because the process you're defending is a dictatorship by construction.

None of us voted for him. That's part of the issue. He wasn't approved by congress, he wasn't given clearance by the government. Good odds are that you in that same position (and maybe same mindset) would do much better.

>Raze it all to the ground and salt the dirt using the tears of the whiners

he's going to raze it to the ground using the blood of all of us. let's not fall into identity politics over this. These for federal institutions that every citizen relies on.

I voted for Trump and his campaign was explicit that Musk would be part of the new government. I certainly voted for him and by extension Musk/DOGE, as did the majority of American voters, even if most of the people here obviously didn't.

>These for federal institutions that every citizen relies on.

If that were the case Trump and his policies would not have been voted in.

Also worth noting, the core of "institutions every citizen relies on" which is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are exempt (for now) from the cutting and slashing as promised during the campaign. That alleviates the vast majority of citizens' concerns about reducing the government.

Given the approval ratings even in the beginning, I don't think as many Trump voters knew he was a package deal. Or thought he'd be more of a spokesperson at best. Even during election night his approval rating was only 46%, the supposed peak of honeymoon.

>If that were the case Trump and his policies would not have been voted in.

Well "take down the treasury" was defiitely not part of his campaign. I believe he focused on the Dept. of Education at best (but I think that also came about more post-election night). He mostly focused on lowering grocery prices and ending inflation based on my conversations with everyman republicans (not the elites; their goals are fairly obvious).

>Also worth noting, the core of "institutions every citizen relies on" which is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are exempt (for now) from the cutting and slashing as promised during the campaign.

Given the level of tax cuts he wants to give to corporate tax (the one Trump was most specific about), I don't think they truly are. Those tax cuts alone are projected to cost us 100-200 billion. SS/Medicare/Medicaid make up some 40% or so of 2024's 6.75 trillion dollar federal budget (that doesn't even include Healthcare budgets).

It doesn't pass the sniff test. Either they are cutting defense spending (unthinkable), gonna cut off SS/Medicare/aid, or we're gonna balloon our deficit. All these stunts of slashing smaller departments like the DoE and mass laying off federal workers aren't going to cut it. All educational budgeting (not just the DoE) totals to 52b dollars, for reference.

He could always lie and end up raising taxes to make up for giving billionaires more money, too.

I would advise you that pollsters have quite literally never managed to accurately measure him, so poll numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. One reason the Democrats lost is because they assumed the polls were usefully accurate.

>Well "take down the treasury" was defiitely not part of his campaign.

It is, broadly speaking. Trump is continuing his "Drain the swamp!" promise from 2016 in addition to pressing for efficiency in government which is all-encompassing. No part of the Executive Branch, of which the Treasury Department is a direct subordinate to the President, is off limits save for Social Security, et al. as mentioned.

If the House actually works together with Trump on this, then truly no part of government is safe except for Social Security, et al..

>He mostly focused on lowering grocery prices and ending inflation based on my conversations with everyman republicans

Indeed, that was the biggest reason for his victory and hopefully we will see all that brought to fruition soon along with all the other things.

>cutting defense spending (unthinkable)

The Pentagon apparently never passed a financial audit in recent history, which is patently indefensibly ridiculous. It should get investigated thoroughly and the defense budget appropriately slashed in due course. They are not (should not be) safe because the only things Trump promised to not touch were Social Security, et al..

If this leads to NATO and other "allies" whining something fierce, well I don't really care. I'm honestly tired of subsidizing other countries' defense budgets when they clearly don't appreciate it.

If the Military Industrial Complex whines, I really don't care.

firstly, that's not how the treasury works. secondly; Yeah, I don't trust them. if they just want to break into classified areas, who's gonna stop them from touching social security?

>nd hopefully we will see all that brought to fruition soon along with all the other things.

How soon? He passed 100 EO's day one and couldn't add in a price control for eggs, probably with a huge subsidy to make up for loss revenue? He had the priority to remove intelligence members who "conspired against him" but can't take the time to make sure DOGE is appointed as usual? He could give a half a trillion grant to AI but also wants to "reduce spending"?

His actions do not agree with his words. And of course some of his actions are beyond his control. He can't force the FEDS to reduce the interest rates (not that that would lower inflation. Quite the opposite).

>If this leads to NATO and other "allies" whining something fierce, well I don't really care.

Well I'm glad you're accepting of World War 3. I'm not going to acquiesce as easily.

This also isn't 1850, so if we have a Civil War 2 we will not survive whoole. Whoever "wins" gets overwhelmed by China and we lose a huge chunk of America to the East. At the very least we no longer have a "West Coast" and we're in a trade nightmare. NATO won't help out because we decided to piss them off and dismiss them as "crybabies". Canada won't help out because we keep pissing them off because "tarriffs" is trump's favorite word in the dictionary (his words, not mine); heck, Having China as a nearby trading partner would probably benefit them more than US at this point.

I live on the West Coast so I care a lot more about that than you would. I don't want my house under Chinese territory just because you're mad about not being on the congress board to argue over spending. That issue is fixable for you if you wish to go that route. The way our geography is basically means we need to defend all of North America at the bare minimum. defending a continent isn't cheap.

Firstly, that's how the Treasury works. It is literally the Department of the Treasury, headed by the Secretary of the Treasury who serves at the pleasure of the President.

President Trump can be his own Treasury Secretary if he were so inclined, he just doesn't have to.

>who's gonna stop them from touching social security?

Literally President Trump whom Elon Musk answers to and serves at the pleasure of. Trump made safeguarding Social Security, et al. a campaign promise and he is, by and large, a man of his word to a far greater degree than any other politician.

>He passed 100 EO's day one and couldn't add in a price control for eggs

If circumstances like the bird flu get too severe he might have to play hard ball, but in the interests of the free(er) market it probably is better to be less conspicuous.

Regardless, it's not even 1 month into a 4 year term. If Trump thinks that cleaning the government out is a more pressing matter than lowering grocery prices, I can't say I disagree, I voted for that policy too.

>can't take the time to make sure DOGE is appointed as usual?

He doesn't need to ask for Senate confirmations because the law doesn't say so.

>He could give a half a trillion grant to AI but also wants to "reduce spending"?

That $500 billion is private money coming from the companies who signed on to Project Stargate. I'm going to assume this was just simple naivety and wasn't deliberate mischaracterization.

>Well I'm glad you're accepting of World War 3.

Biden's policies brought us closer to World War 3 than ever before. Contrasting that to the only President in my lifetime who has not started a war of his own, I'll take this any day of the century over the prior status quo.

>I live on the West Coast

Me too. As a Japanese-American I share your sentiment that China is an enemy to be appropriately feared and respected.

I personally suspect Pax Sino is coming some time this century regardless of anything we do at this point, though. The ship already sailed out.

>The way our geography is basically means we need to defend all of North America at the bare minimum. defending a continent isn't cheap.

Our defense budget pays for significantly far more than just the United States of America, let alone the North American continent (this should be an equally shared responsibility between the US, Mexico, and Canada.)

Our defense budget pays for defending the entirety of NATO and all our other allies; we effectively defend the better part of the entire fucking globe. And yet our "allies" continue to whine, especially NATO. I'm tired of it, I'm sick of sending our servicemen to serve in other countries who don't even want them and seeing our tax dollars spent on countries who don't appreciate it.

Obama already declared we aren't the world police anymore, the world can fend for itself while we figure out our god damn finances. If that means accelerating Pax Sino, well, "I don't really care, Margaret."[1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7rk8djJek

I mean I think we've most all seen literally the exact same thing at any reasonably large institution.

Let's be real. You're upset because they're conservatives now, and you don't like it when people disagree with your leftist ideas.

Seriously, have you ever heard them say anything bad about Elon, Trump, or the Republican agenda even one time in the last year? We know that none of those entities are perfect, they know that none of these entities are perfect, and yet they dare not say it. This is same as having politicians that are bought, and it’s maddeningly frustrating how two faced the whole ordeal is. The hosts will look at you directly in your eyes and tell you they’re being honest, and they just want to know the truth like you do. But the lie is hiding in plain sight, and everyone sees it.

What’s the point of it all? They're so narcisstically working and using the show to further their own interests. Especially sacks for whom it paid off handsomely. And they do this at the direct expense to their audience who (many of whom may not know better), doing their part to build a more morally confused and bankrupt nation in the process.

I still tune in every week, to happily outrage myself the convolution and lies and insane double standards that they get find themselves in in each conversation. I don't know why I do, I guess there's no other show that I find discusses politics and tech otherwise in a way that's satisfying. I wish a moderate panel (or even a liberal) one existed to counterbalance all of their BS but I haven't found that.

I mean, there are outcries. But nowhere near the outcry proportional to how dire this is. So maybe the host is right?

I particularly disliked listening to them openly talk about the clout they were developing and, I don’t know, bragging and boasting about their popularity. Ego is repulsive when it’s laid on so blatantly.

I find it shocking and absurd too, but in moments of self-honesty I notice myself doing it too. My sense is that the only contribution one can make to changing this pattern is to notice it in oneself and then shift a bit. That's the only place one has a chance to modify anything.

Getting mad at other people for doing it doesn't change anything, and nobody can be persuaded to change.

"It’s obvious they treat Musk like a god."

"Unfortunately, it seems that everyone does it. Can you point to anyone who doesn't?"

^^

> "blindly support everything one of their own does".

And of course the same in the opposite direction, blindly opposing everything the other tribe does.

As Orwell described it https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

But doing it all the time? No. It's something to overcome. None of us may be perfectly non-partisan and intellectually honest all the time, of course, but there are still two general directions: giving in to that, and wading out of it.

To be super mean about it, because that's how I feel about it in my heart of hearts: insofar people were just an extension with a tribe they identify with, they could be replaced by another member of that tribe. And if every member in that tribe had no content and only a reference to the tribe, the whole thing could get garbage collected.

There's a real mechanism where we don't even feel the need to examine, much less justify, things we claim or support just because we feel we're with the in-group. As in, I don't know what I'm talking about or what it means, I just need to know that it's approved by those with the biggest stick, or that "history will judge me correct" or anything like that. But IF I can argue the point on my own, what do I care that others agree? And if I can't, what does it help me?

Calling that out isn't necessarily "getting mad at it" tho, it's just calling it out. Anyone who makes a podcast or gets behind any other type of podium, even this comment, is up for scrutiny. But I'd agree that we shouldn't get self-righteous about it. As in, I criticize this for being partisan because being partisan is thoughtless, but not because I never do it, and also because I want "my own" to criticize me in the same way, where applicable.

And yes, it's much easier to see how crude it is, how gross to cloak something in supposed wisdom, nuance or other good things when it's really just partisan hackery (when the rationalization came after the decision to be loyal no matter what), when others do it with something we disagree with. We overlook it constantly when people do it in service of what we think is good, and the blind spots when we ourselves do it are giant. But that just means more work cut out for us :P