Donald Trump
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Give it 6 months and he'll have fallen out with all of them.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Musk's 'department' appears to be only an 'advisory' one, rather than 'co-president of the entire galaxy', so he might be wondering if his largesse of $200m was worth it.
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The "Department" is specifically outside of government according to the release. It's only called a Department so Elon Musk gets to make his weak joke.
The Fox guy makes sense to me - the only aim is to get good coverage on Fox and to raise maximum outrage on CNN. And he has got a military background so can be justified.
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In the clips of Fox and Friends, Pete Hesgeth was never the stupid one, that's Brian Kilmeade.
He was the guy who threw an axe at a target, missed it and hit a drummer though.
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Of course it was worth it. Trump will put 60% tarrifs on BYD or anyone competing with Tesla in its biggest market. He could have spent 5 times as much and it would still be worth it.
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Actually he is the "I never wash my hands, germs aren't real because I can't see them" guy.
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Monetarily, certainly yes, but from the narcissist's POV, that 'Joint President' was the ultimate prize, and all he's got is some toothless quango.
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It's great that what gets him that role is sacking half of twitters staff to save money, and it not immediately failing but gradually becoming terrible.
Maybe the idea is to solve the net immigration stats by getting people to leave, and he's definitely got expertise there.
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While I can see you have reservations based on who is involved in running this new US 'Efficiency department', the overall aims are pretty sensible - and probably needed: to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure government agencies.
Also imagine how much fun we could have here in the UK with a published leader board of the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars”.
That said, with Labour in charge there's not much chance of that happening over here.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
Sorry, can some one explain what the DOGE joke is.
I think I'm glad I'm not quite that online
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
I think USA is about to find out what it is like to be ruled by the elites.
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The boring thing about government departments is that they generally provide services that are essential to someone, albeit inefficiently. So if some bright spark comes in an cans half the department in a wave of Cummings-like "creative destruction" then voters start suffering PDQ (*). Whilst such things are fine in the private sector (if they work then that's great; if not, then it's just a load of fools easily parted from their money with other organisations happily waiting to step in and fill the void) they're not really suitable for the public sector. Obviously that won't stop someone like Musk gambling with others' wellbeing as he's not in the "politics" game to make anyone's life (other than his own) better.
(*) Even if it's "only" things like processing passport applications, driving licences etc.
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Like all good populism, you can't argue with the stated intention.
Good luck implementing it without various segments of the great unwashed having to suffer.
Populist Policy = free cake. Unintended consequence = cake manufacturer over charges government for cake.
Populist Policy = amalgamate free cake and free school meals departments and renegotiate all contracts.
Unintended consequence = no cake at any price because the cake and school meals provider can only make gruel at the new contract price, and gruel for school meals unless you can afford the school meals top up subscription
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Dogecoin (DOGE) is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin".
Department of Government Efficiency. I guess the joke being the traditional media with have to keep referring to it as DOGE.
I think the amusement has limited reach to be fair, It's more of a trot than a canter.
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The aims are definitely good ones, unless you're in favour of bureaucracy, excess regulation and waste (I'm sure quite lot of lefties secretly like those things because it often means more spending). But let's see how they get on, rather than going all 'Minority Report' on them.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I do feel like public sector efficiencies are basically vapourware at this point. The idea that the SpaceX CEO is going to be anywhere near a role that advises on govt spending should surely just set off all the alarm bells.
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He should give Esther McVey a call. She knows all about this sort of thing.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Gotta love the almost religious belief of it all. There always efficiency savings to be made and unnecessary regulation to be repealed despite no-one ever finding them.
May as well claim they are going to end all wars forever.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
My guess is that this will bother precisely zero voters who favoured the Orange One last week.
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He said there's $2trillion savings to be made.
Trump has said he's going to eliminate the Department of Education which sounds a bit extreme, but I guess would stop all those sex changes they are doing.
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If you take the 'No problem, here, nothing to see' approach then nothing will get done. That seems to be what Labour are doing. The US target looks way high but if there is not some savings/efficiency/waste reduction in the public sector then I'd be very surprised.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
How did the Tories get on with that in the 10 years before covid?
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I'm sure you could spend less. Whether that is more efficient or better is an entirely different question.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
True, although greater efficiency usually leads to lower cost for a given output (or maybe more done for the same spend). As for waste (which is also in scope), reducing that is generally better.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Populist policy = make everything great again.
Detailed plans for implementation = repeatedly tell everyone this is happening.
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It looks more like a cost and waste cutting exercise to me, but there you go.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Nah, they tried that one before and it didn't work. "The war to end all wars."
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Populist policy = cut costs and waste
Detailed implementation = apply cuts and say. the things that are cut are waste.
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So you are starring in Minority Report II?
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0
