On the face of it cutting huge IT govt contracts sounds like a good choice to reduce waste, but with this administration I'm expecting any savings to be funneled to Grok/xAI/Elon.
Oh, it's fine. They can hire help from Russia to secure our infrastructure for a very low price. With the tariffs it doesn't really make sense for China to bid, or they'd be paying US!
Eventual costs, well that's not really a concern and neither is national defense.
Pay isn’t everything. Government civilian GS employees have an extremely generous benefits package and usually excellent job security. Contractors frequently take pay cuts to work directly as a government employee for these reasons.
That ship has sailed now, though. The benefits and job security can no longer be counted on. Government is gonna have to compete more on salary, or accept worse candidates.
I said usually for job security because I am familiar with the current administration’s actions, and the benefits have not been touched and would take an act of Congress to change. Trust me, there are still lots of talented individuals who are eager to join the government workforce, even now.
For poverty wages? In my city government workers with families almost universally qualify for subsidized housing. People in my experience get half my salary, and then half of that goes to housing. Maybe some C tier talent goes to government but not without wfh, pension or other benefits.
Federal IT workers are hardly working for poverty wages. In addition to their base salaries, they receive additional locality pay, generous benefits like paid time off, retirement benefits, inexpensive health insurance and life insurance, training and advancement opportunities, and the opportunity to receive monetary and time off awards. It’s not FAANG salaries, but they are very well compensated and the working conditions are usually great.
A silver lining in all this upheaval is the reduction of price obfuscation (hopefully) by getting rid of deferred compensation schemes that make it difficult for labor sellers to evaluate the market.
Yeah, I was referring to the job security aspect, given all the layoffs.
But yes, the federal package is good, but not fantastic. It's on par with what a typical company provides. Salary is decent, too. Not FAANG, but not below industry average. More or less, just like a typical industry job.
State/city jobs tend to have much better benefit packages, but lower pay (often a lot lower). They also tend to be relatively chill workwise.
Doubt it, many mid/low tier industries still struggle to hire because they pay engineering salaries not tech money. Government salaries are easily 30-50% lower
I was on a 6-month project with some body shop consultants. We were a small, boutique consultancy that outsourced work to a much larger body shop. They barely did any work, and what little work they did was some of the worst quality stuff I've seen in my life. They told us they had completed "phase 1" of a project. It didn't work at all. And we still paid them.
We don't know if they're actually cutting waste here. DOGE has already had to do a massive climb-down from saving $1000B to saving $105B, but most of that $105B has not been shown to be true. Actual cuts may only amount to a few billion.
Do we even have a way of estimating the billions it will cost to resecuritize our infrastructure? What about the cost in lost soft power? The total knock on effect in loss to the economy for not subsidizing basic research, that led to the U.S. being a major power in medicine & pharma? This is the very definition of penny-wise–pound-foolish.
How would you know it is actual waste? This government has a track record of cutting things regardless of their importance, so you can't rely on the fact they did it alone, so what is your source?
Won't even have to wait that long. Elon will be stepping down at the end of his special employee tenure in a month or two in which he expects to save $1T.
Nestle deliberately poisoned baby formula with fake protein to fool third world countries testing it. Malnourishing infants and causing deaths on what shouldn’t have to be a regulated industry in a sane world.
Their president also publicly stated water is not a human right, implying we should let people die if they can’t purchase water from capitalists.
Monsanto will sue you after their “patented” seeds float onto your field and germinate, basically leaving you no options besides using their seed after their local lobbying manipulated the courts to their side.
They're not, they're saying that GP imagines genuine waste-saving will happen, when in fact it's more likely to be fabricated "waste" conjured up by Elmo and his army of teenagers.
I don't totally trust this DOGE crew and think we should keep a hawks eye on them but the whole "they are cutting waste so they can funnel the money to themselves!" conspiracy theories making the rounds are pretty bizarre... And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy? I sure hope I'm wrong.
> $5.3 trillion in deficit-financed tax cuts (the combination of $3.8 trillion of tax cuts assumed to be “costless” under a current policy baseline plus $1.5 trillion in additional deficits permitted), deficit increases of $521 billion on defense and immigration spending, a minimum of $4 billion in spending cuts, and an increase in the debt limit of up to $5 trillion.
So savings plus new borrowing will be funded to tax cuts, which will likely prioritize those already on higher incomes, and corporations.
If you have to explain your conspiracy theory with "the majority of these people suffers from the same special kind of neuroticism", I suggest you get back to your whiteboard.
Or you can keep living in a Disney reality where uncle Scrooges are the norm and not the exception.
I think you might be misunderstanding op's comment. "Because the amoral drive for extreme wealth doesn't stop at a certain level of wealth" is a statement that I read on its face. One does not need to reach for "conspiracy" as a way to explain the behavior of people faced with an opportunity to acquire more money: just look at the 5-6 posts making the same point in this very sub-thread. Did you miss those or did you mean to post this reply somewhere else? Money is a huge motivator for many people.
Nothing misunderstood here. Only someone seriously naïve or disingenuous would arrive at the conclusion that money is the main drive of such people who have already so much that they don't know what to do with it. Especially without proofs, as a "this can only be it!" position.
I'd rather believe wanting power for power's sake than this cartoon idea of an old duck diving into a pool of well-polished coins.
Truth is that beyond a few truly neurotic exceptions, the obscenely rich do use their money. Just not all in supercars and yachts, but also to influence what they can.
> And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy?
When's the last time you heard a billionaire say, "I've got enough money I don't need to get any more" before they're very old and looking to burnish their image with charity work?! If they were the kind of person to be ok with more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes they wouldn't be billionaires in the first place, at least not multibillionaires.
> And to what end, aren't many of these people already extremely wealthy?
I don't know, I really don't know. To this day I can't imagine the day I become a president of a big country I tell my citizens "BUY MY COINS AND THOSE OF MY WIFE!". It's difficult to imagine on so many levels. But yet this guy is doing it. So no conspiracy theory is too weird to at this point.
> Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, xAI, says it’s investigating why its Grok AI chatbot suggested that both President Donald Trump and Musk deserve the death penalty. xAI has already patched the issue and Grok will no longer give suggestions for who it thinks should receive capital punishment.
I thought that was pretty clear; I mean that Grok's "unbiased" training seems to align it with anti-Musk positions pretty regularly. As such, I'm not super fearful of it being picked to run the US government right now.
> For instance, if you ask Grok: “Who is the biggest spreader of misinformation on X?” it replies that “Based on available reports and analyses, Elon Musk is frequently identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X."
If they wind up implememented anyways, the program being cut very short via friendly-fire against the direct perpetrator of its implementation seems like the best bad-case scenario.
Like when Taliban bomb makers accidentally blow themselves up.
With this administration is about destruction of all government spending in order to maximize tax cuts for the top 1% who pay for access to The Hill, it really is about that, and not about efficiency. Also please point me at all the "fraud" they've found and yet for some reason the DOJ isn't charging anyone with "fraud". It's all BS. There are well thought out cuts, and there is what DOGE and Dump are doing.
Which isn't ideal, but easily better than the pentagon that has literally never passed a full audit since they started auditing them in 2018. I'm a huge fan of musk's company's, but I don't want my public tax dollars ever choosing winners/losers
I'm not a huge fan of Elmo but Telsa get's subsidies that all car manufacturers are eligible for. The fact that those manufacturers have to purchase credits from Tesla is their decision. If they can't delivery a quality ZEV the public wants to buy they have no one else to blame.
It isn't now. Tariffs (long-standing ones that have survived both parties in power) in fact are keeping byd from the US market to protect primarily Tesla.
In Tesla because of the brilliant behavior of its precious CEO, will likely be specifically targeted for exclusion from subsidies in the EU, and inevitably at home when this administration passes by
> It isn't now. Tariffs (long-standing ones that have survived both parties in power) in fact are keeping byd from the US market to protect primarily Tesla.
This is a bad take. Nobody can compete with BYD. This isn't a Tesla vs BYD issue, this is a Everyone vs Cheap labor and deregulation issue.
Byd is a product of CCP subsidies, of course they can be competed with
It would simply take a government capable of recognizing the multifold benefits of EV transition: environmental, geopolitical oil independence, energy efficiency, associated alt energy rollout and grid adaptation, lower total costs and associated economic benefits, reduced cancer and air pollution death rates, reduced logistics costs.
That's just off the top of my head and I'm not even that smart
Those subsidies also went to Boing and ULA, who also bid on those contracts.
This is such a debunked argument but I guess its undebunkable because its a branch you can hang onto about how the only reason SpaceX exists is the government.
Question is why hasn't Blue Origin managed the same then, or Arianaspace in the EU.
> Question is why hasn't Blue Origin managed the same then, or ArianeSpace ...
Or any of hundreds of other national space programs and companies, in countries which would have been ecstatic to pay 10X the US Govt's "subsidies to SpaceX", to put themselves or their nation's company into SpaceX's current position of utter global dominance.
If an interest free loan at a time when Tesla couldn’t get a bank to loan them breakfast is not a subsidy then you also agree that none of the banks received any sort of government support either right?
Because even despite many of the companies failing, the govt made a profit on TARP.
“Who is John Galt?” /s He is Schrödinger's Entrepreneur: a self made man when the ego and cult calls for it, but a scrappy startup founder just trying to save the world and get to Mars when desperate for government or Capital market support and intervention.
Most of those subs linked are from direct negotations from the state, and they are in the form of tax incentives, not cash in account.
How are you going to use that against a company that nevada agreed to give them X amount of tax incentives over a year if they build a giga factory there?
Using that as a justification that "tesla only lives because of tax payer money" is ridiculous.
Also, poking around the SpaceX data just seems entirely false too. The biggest 'loan' of $98M to spaceX for "Missle technology development". And when you follow the authorizations it was just a firm fixed price contract.
I am not here to talk you out of your mental model around the cult of Elon. His companies have received almost $40B in various forms of government support, those are the facts. He is a skilled operator, able to whip teams of engineers to success and distort reality persuasively to customers and investors alike, but his ventures would not have survived without the government support he’s received.
Let's not forget he SUED to get SpaceX contracts from the big defense contractors. The GAO was the one who upheld the protest due to the vast price disperities.
"but his ventures would not have survived without the government support he’s received."
Including firm fixed price contracts the company has won from the government for providing essential services is not a good argument. SpaceX's main customer is governments... thats how rocket companies work.
Comparing Tesla’s support to other industries reveals a double standard. The fossil fuel industry has received trillions in subsidies globally over decades (e.g., IMF estimates $5.9T in 2020 alone for fossil fuel subsidies). General Motors and Chrysler received $80B in bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis.
consumer tax credits benefit buyers, not Tesla directly, though they boost demand. Subsidies for infrastructure like Gigafactories are standard for large-scale industrial projects and not unique to Tesla.
It seems i can't be the one to talk you out of your mental model of hating elon.
Phone me when someone else lands an orbital class rocket or offers a cheaper ton to LEO. Until then you're complaining about the lowest bidder. And you're going to have a hard time convincing me that the lowest bidder is doing anything but saving their customers money on a service they were already intent on purchasing, and had previously been spending 2x - 10x for: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/753q6s/economic_comp...
I don’t have to convince you. The only people who matter are government decisionmakers who are unwilling to be held hostage by him. It doesn’t matter how good you are if you can’t be trusted. The premium you pay a non SpaceX launch provider is so that the rug isn’t pulled on you. Do you want to go to space when you want? Or only when he says you can? Cheaper is not always better.
Friend, when your argument evaporates in the presence of the financial numbers and you revert to character assassination, you might be identifying yourself among the untrustworthy. Bad faith arguments really undermine any trust I could build for you through this media.
> The premium you pay a non SpaceX launch provider is so that the rug isn’t pulled on you. Cheaper is not always better.
Again, when one of them manages to land an orbital class rocket, call me. Competition would be great.
He assassinated his own character, my statements are simply observations of how he did it and what’s left of it. My apologies we see character and who you can trust differently.
I expect the next administration will switch SpaceX to cost-plus. Musk may be banking on reaping huge profit margins on those fixed price deals. Well that ain't gonna happen. Elections have consequences.
Why does this matter? Government either gives loans and demands they are paid back, or pays for deliverables. If you have to keep your fingers in the books to feel good about what's happening, it was a badly structured contract.
Because it's my money and I want to know how it's being spent, whether it's the government or a private company spending it. I had no choice in where that money went, so I need transparency on how it's being spent.
That's why every government contractor has to report what they are doing with their government money.
"September 10th, 2001 then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged to the American public that Pentagon can't account for 2.3 trillion" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FWFAs9ffGk
AIUI, the Pentagon failing an audit is essentially akin to most people failing an audit because they can't produce every single paper receipt for everything they've ever purchased. Combine that with the fact that the Pentagon is (I believe) the single largest purchaser on the planet, the fact that much of what it does is compartmentalized in different security buckets, and that the managerial staff tends to be younger than most organizations, and it shouldn't be so surprising that it's persistently in a state of being unable to literally dot every i and cross every t.
They use auditors with clearance. I'd imagine certain programs require very specific auditors to supervise them, like how the FISA court works with specific vetted lawyers at times.
The more mundane problem is things like "drive that truck over there… drive another one back" often result in the exact location of an asset being unclear fairly frequently.
