This is spot on. And I don't think either side of the aisle is all that interested in fixing it.
The Onion buys Infowars
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
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If this DOGE thing is at all serious (and I’m skeptical) then we will get a chance to find out when these things get passed over to Congress.
That said, government inefficiency isn’t where the bulk of our fiscal pain comes from. But it’s a start, anyway.
At best this is a band aid. It's really nothing but theater.
I think you are trying too hard to condemn and criticize Musk. That couldn’t be because he supports Trump, is it? Musk is an innovator and a very creative guy. He has shortcomings and arguably has skin in the game. Even with that, there is nobody, and I mean nobody, better suited to change the unsustainable government paradigm than him.
Musk is okay with ending retail subsidies for EV’s. That will help Tesla and hurt others. Even though Musk is Tesla’s largest shareholder, he only owns <25%. Regardless of how much benefit he personally gets from ending the subsidy, it’s still a good idea to end it.
I think a lot of important things go on in government at every level that are not out in the wide open.
I'm guessing he's not even in the team picture for possible "best suited person" to change the govt. paradigm. I don't understand this at all.
He's a good businessman and engineer.
The problem with the federal government is the result of decades and decades of legalized corruption. Ike warned us about the military industrial complex and he was right. His warning was peanuts because the corruption he warned about metastasized into energy, health care, climate, social services, and hundreds of unproductive areas of “research” that are nothing but thousands of mini- boondoggles. I have no expectations that Musk and Ramaswamy can change this in the next four years. But I do expect them to call out the problems, and plant the seeds to begin substantial changes in our public spending, both in the so- called discretionary side, and the so-called entitlement side. It’s a tall order. But if not them who? If not now when?
He bought Twitter and fired 80% of the employees without a noticeable loss of function. He cut the cost of launching a kilo into orbit by 75%. He brought high speed dependable internet to rural America, and to most of the world, for around $100 per user per month. There is no team here. He is the guy.
I agree. I think a lot of people conflate “makes obscene amounts of money” with being good at everything.
The purpose of a firm is to make money, right? Twitter's revenue has dropped 84% since he took over!
Bill Gates is exhibit “A”. The guy has really done nothing innovative. MS Dos was created by smarter people, Gates turned that into obscene money. He has done some pretty good things with education, but he really has t changed the world in which he operates.
Musk? He single-handedly created a rocket-ship company that the whole world can’t match, including China. He made gobs of money with Falcon and Starlink. Starship, according to Shotwell, (Space X CEO) will be bigger than both.
There is no doubt that Musk is a great innovator and that he's the hands-on, driving force behind his businesses, but "single-handedly" is a reach. How many people does he employ?
I read an authorized biography. I think single handedly is an apt description. He was very hands on with the falcon and Merlin engine. Obviosly he hired (and fired) a lot of people. Gwen Shotwell had been with Space x from the beginning, I’d love to read her memoir if she ever writes one.
I think subsidies of any kind are virtually always a bad idea.
If the government has cause to be a buyer of something (and it often does), then that's fine. Let them be a buyer just like any other buyer. But to tax X and Y activities in order to promote Z activity (as tempting as it may be, when somebody puts a large value on Z) is sophistry.
And trying to affect that, even if you're sure you have good reason, can be extremely costly. The government-directed "transition" to EVs happening right now is a terrific example. Thus far, it's been a costly failure.
Yeah, I agree with this.
Entitlements are the major problem...and nobody has an appetite to touch them. I find that incredibly ironic, BTW. Nobody poses a bigger threat to Medicare and Social Security than people who insist they not be touched. Left alone, they will surely default. And, yet, it's the people who say we shouldn't leave them to collapse who get all the flak. I guess that's predictable, though. It's just irresistible for cynical politicians to try to gain from taking a flamethrower to anybody who even hints about doing something painful, unpopular, and necessary.
I was heartened when Obama established his fiscal commission...and disheartened (but not surprised) when he disregarded their bipartisan roadmap to fiscal terra firma.
That said, I have nothing against going after discretionary spending. I wish Elon and Vivek all the luck in the world -- they're going to need it once their suggestions are sent over to Capitol Hill.
Nobody accomplishes anything of note without the inputs of other people...all of whom are similarly acting out of their own interest.
Collectivists often point to this as an argument in favor of their worldview....basically that the individualist worldview is one which sees man as Robinson Crusoe, doing everything by himself and for himself.
This is completely wrong.
This became a matter of substantive debate back in the Obama years when he made his comment about "you didn't build that!" He actually lifted that line from Elizabeth Warren, as I recall. They were referring to public infrastructure. But they were also noting that successful entrepreneurs rely on the labors and inputs of others (employees, suppliers, contractors, creditors, insurers, etc.).
So where's the disconnect?
Well, it's that everybody does most of what they do out of self-interest. Adam Smith captured this perfectly in Wealth of Nations:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.”
Collectivism and altruism are ideas that center around the concept that we should do what we do in the interest of the collective or of others...that our self-interest should come second, at best.The reason this doesn't work is that it defies human nature.
