> Or are we to believe that competence is just arbitrarily cross-applicable?
I would wager that even you are more competent than the average auditor, assuming you know how to program. I'm seeing a lot of appeals to authority and credentialism, and assumptions that people who are hired by bureaucrats and politicians to audit themselves have better aligned incentives than a wildcard entrepreneur. If we can't agree on the fundamental axioms, I don't see this conversation going anywhere.
Independent auditors employed by the independent inspector generals who conduct GAAP audits can’t be trusted…
But an audit by an openly ideological businessperson with dozens of matters before the US regulatory apparatus, stiffening international competition, and zero accounting expertise (public or otherwise)… all good?
Journalists bad, auditors bad, oligarch good.
> I would wager that even you are more competent than the average auditor, assuming you know how to program
Does it follow that someone who knows how to audit is more competent than your average software engineer or is this just typical SWE autofellatio on HN?
I think what’s actually happening here is that you saw hundreds or thousands of tweets of similar quality to the one you’ve conveniently linked here, you’ve accidentally brainwashed yourself, and now you’re stuck making claims like “auditors bad and biased at auditing despite publishing detailed reports using GAAP, oligarch good and fair at auditing despite publishing nothing of substance, dozens of direct financial conflicts, and exhibiting clear ideological motivation.”
You were asked to produce any evidence of a specific instance of fraud, and you instead posted a totally false tweet that (being generous) points to a 1/100th smaller fee paid for subscriptions to industry-specific reporting, and now you’re falling back to “well government should just never pay for reporting.”
Tough spot amigo.
Ah, yes, there are. They're called auditors. They audited USAID 4 months ago.
The entire US government spent only $7.7MM on Politico over the last 12 months. Oooo spooky stuff, if only there was a way to see what for! Turns out there is. You can scroll down and see the shocking revelation that the US government paid a news publication for subscriptions to a news publication!
Similar to how if you work in the energy industry, for example, a smart employer would pay for energy trade publications so you can do your job better.
https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c...
In fact you can drill down all the way to individual line items. Here's the 49 subscriptions to Politico Pro that HHS, an organization with 83,500 employees, purchased. Looks suuuuper abusive... /s
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_75F40120P00453_75...
> to deny that Elon is competent
Please show evidence of Elon being a competent public sector financial auditor. Or are we to believe that competence is just arbitrarily cross-applicable?