- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
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It should be blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that the “Department of Government Efficiency” isn’t really about efficiency.
To their credit they’re destroying government to pave the way for oligarchy very efficiently
They are already an oligarchy, they are paving the way for an authoritarian dictatorship now.
Does it seem stupid only to me to destroy the environment they thrived in?
The thing is that the environment they thrive in just isn’t sustainable.
Food & water scarcity is going to really hurt in 20 years time.
Trump doesn’t care because he will be long dead. He just likes signing executive orders because it demonstrates how powerful he is.
Musk knows that in troubled times the wealthy are held accountable. Billionaires will only be able to exist in a dystopian hellscape.
They are not smart. They are just pathologically greedy people born to wealth.
They know a climate apocalypse is coming, so they all have doomsday bunkers and shit. They see themselves as the future neo-feudal rulers of whatever remains.
If the population is culled in some way or another, prior to said climate apocalypse, then maybe it can be mitigated or averted. And they see themselves as the future neo-feudal rules of whatever remains.
This is how they think. Some of them are just preparing for the former. Others are actively trying to bring about the latter.
I saw someone here a while back refer to it as “Immortan Joe fantasies” if you’re familiar with Mad Max: Fury Road.
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
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.
Or efficacy
They just use the word efficiency because it sounds good. Its not like they actually care about any of what you said.
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.
It’s the TSA of efficiency
It makes the government more efficient at increasing waste, fraud, and abuse perhaps.
(Judging by the downvotes, it seems some people think DOGE actually decreases waste?)
So the government is collecting 500 billion less this year. They didn’t lose anything because they never had it in the first place
Incorrect. By law that money is owed to the government as taxes. Doge hasn’t changed that. They have only ensured they don’t have the staff to collect.
What I mean to say is that the money has not been pissed away
The money is being pissed away by tax cheats who are stealing from the American public.
Aha! Just like my local food bank didn’t lose funding - it just didn’t receive its next funding installment! Good job on the useless pedantry, Batman!
This is logic only a moron can understand. What are you even trying to say?
He’s saying the government didn’t collect the money, so it never had it, so it could never lose it.
Just pedantry that serves no useful purpose.
What I mean to say is that the money has not been pissed away
That’s like saying if I don’t pay my loan the bank hasn’t lost any money.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct!
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.
He looks like a right pervert so I wouldn’t be surprised
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.
- well, you know, the ones in the furniture store didn’t count, and the futon was technically a futon, and I was genuinely concerned that I’d be maimed by the recliner, and when I was drunk didn’t count, and beanbag chairs are barely even a chair…
They probably just funneled it directly to Russia, and we’ll continue to do so until disassemble them and send them back to the factory
The article doesn’t explain how, where the money went, or how the IRS knows this.
For every dollar spent on IRS staffing, etc, it’s estimated to be at least a 7x return. Any disruptions are going to cost a lot with that in mind. Also, I find it a little misguided to question the IRS, an agency that shows its work’s opinion on DOGE, an “agency?” Which has failed to show its work and has been caught lying frequently.
Yeah the article is just rehashing a wapo article that’s linked, the original one is much clearer
If only it weren’t paywalled
Download the “latest” .xpi file from here and install it in your browser. Bypasses almost all paywalls.
.ru no thank you
It’s used to dodge DMCAs, the extension is trusted by many.
any better suggestions?
I usually try archive.org 's wayback machine to see if they have any archived site images
The fourth sentence of the article explains it
The Post reports today that the IRS’s internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax etc.
Cutting staff thereby reducing the IRS’s ability to find and go after wealthy tax cheats.
Thanks! I wasn’t doubting the article, just wanted more info.
deleted by creator
You mean “saved billionaires trillions” /s
The stupid “doge” thing was never about balancing the budget anyway. That’s all bullshit red meat for the dumbasses that voted for donvict.
Making big losses attracts investors. - Elon Musk
Yes! Baby! We did it!
By we, I mean like you know… They. They did it!
We’re number 1 at loosing 1 trillion!!!
So much winning. Tired of winning yet?
From what I hear…elon, thief and their cronies are specifically wrecking government to push a corporate takeover…jeeze. it’s like robocop.
Worse than RoboCop, we don’t have a cool robot cop shooting dicks off to show for it
Best I can do is cartwheels and handstands
More like breaking wheels and handmaids.
Yet.
That we know of.
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.
Well it’s kind of both. While I agree that is a goal it’s ultimately about hoarding wealth to them. Power is wealth and wealth is power. The only reason they care about the peasants is because control over them ensures they can continue to harvest wealth and that nobody can become wealthier. Their goal isn’t any specific amount of wealth but rather they treat it as a game they’re competing in. They don’t care if they have a million dollars or a hundred trillion as long as nobody else has more.
Everything they do is in service to acquiring more wealth for themselves and denying wealth to others including the accumulation of power. They’ll spend money to acquire power but only if that power then allows for the accumulation of more money. That’s their current play with the US government. They’re destroying the US in order to carve it up and add it to their personal hoard of wealth.
If it was only that easy. The quasi-religious convictions that Musk specifically holds in regards to Longtermism go ideologically deeper than just lust for power. Why do you think he still propagates his unrealistic ideas about spearheading a mars colonization?
Greed everybody can understand and reckon with. These ridiculous ideas make people do unintelligible things.
Oh so sad. Elect a clown expect a circus.
Install an unelected billionaire, expect theft.
I guess we will lives like Russian and drink cheap American alcohol to forget it all happened.
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.
they’re costing the US an insane amount of money
How exactly does that work? Seriously don’t think you’re right about that.
