Feels like Chesterton fences are getting torn up left and right by people too young and incurious to possibly understand why those fences might be there.
With the debt ceiling ever increasing, approaching a trillion dollars in interest per year, nearing $6k/year per working individual, I would say the correct time to put any effort, whatsoever, into reducing spending, was 20 years ago.
I think the fundamental problem is we lack adversarial systems within the government: it doesn't like to hurt itself. Trying to cut jobs/waste/find fraud is political/career suicide for anyone in government. Accountability requires a true adversary/"outsider". Should that be DOGE, or its current implementation? Probably not. Should the adversarial concept of DOGE exist? I would enjoy seeing arguments against the concept. It seems like it's severely needed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...
What do you think happens if the debt goes up? Do you think the government is gonna go bankrupt? That’s literally not how it works.
Do you think inflation is gonna happen? Again, literally not how it works. In fact, too low public spending means you get deflation which is even worse than inflation.
I will admit that I don't understand economics, but infinite free money hacks seem too good to be true.
My understanding is that the reason the USD is unusually resistant to inflation is that there's artificially high demand due to international demand for the currency as the global reserve currency.
But yeah, if that effect weakens (and the BRICS are trying to challenge the USD as reserve currency), then I think you'll see the USD weaken/inflation spike in response to large deficits.
You're the one that has no idea what hes talking about.
Debt uncontrollably going up without something to balance it means exactly that. If the debt exceeds the GDP, which is where the US is clearly going, we are looking at a collapse of the US dollar and its global influence. Theres no telling what will happen after that because its unfathomable
This is also why the techbros are staging a coup on the US, so the US doesnt come for the billions when it goes bankrupts
> means you get deflation which is even worse than inflation
2. People regularly come up with this theory that prices dropping is a terrible thing. An extraordinary claim for which I've never seen an argument I accepted and the evidence is as thin as a rake. Typically the countries that experience the horrors of deflation go on to be unusually wealthy and prosperous - I'd like to see more of it. But it is easy to see why the governments would believe deflation is bad that since they are typically enormous debtors and inflation favours debtors.
Frankly I suspect that if prices go down all else equal most people will be better off and able to afford more stuff. Wild take, I know.
US debt as a percentage of GDP doesn't demonstrate the continued ability to pay off the debt, since the ability to pay off the debt is dependent on that debt's interest. The issue with the debt in the current environment is that it is going to start rolling over into higher interest rates. If the debt is structured to pay higher interest then that lessens the ability to pay off the debt even if the debt as a percentage of GDP stays the same.
The problem is EM and DOGE are equating “fraud and waste” to “I think it’s wasteful”, which is a judgement the adversarial auditor should not be allowed to make.
Top 1%: 40.4%
Top 5%: 61%
Top 10%: 72%
Top 25%: 87.2%
Top 50%: 97%
Bottom 50%: 3%
That hardly looks regressive. Is there some other standard by which you are judging whether tax policy is sufficiently graduated enough?
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-...
the 25 richest Americans (by Forbes’ tally) paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.4% on wealth growth of $401 billion between 2014 and 2018.
I know you're making a good faith argument, but you're twisting the definition of regressive. For example, if a country has one citizen with an income of 1 trillion, and one hundred thousand citizens with an income of $10,000 each, the trillionaire would still pay over 99% of taxes even if taxes were proportional.
The point is that with severe income inequality, it is fair that the super rich pay a very, very high proportion of taxes. The 40.4% seems high for the "top 1%" of the population, but if you replace "top 1%" with their actual average income, the comparison is less misleading.
It is not a legit source for progressive tax policy.
The Congressional Budget Office has been the most reputable source for tax policy data. The current director was appointed by Trump 2019 and was retained through Biden's presidency.
The CBO is very wonky and so far as withstood partisan meddling by presidents.
https://taxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/FedData...
(see the footnote)
Now let's see control of assets.
The national debt increased because we increased the amount of the federal government does, it the income tax.
More than 100% of the net improvement is from tech and medical R&D, not the bloated military-welfare apparatus.
In 1960 the top tax rate was 91%. In 1980 it was 70%. Reagan dropped it to 35% and it's stayed below 40% since. Then add in that corporations and the wealthy have moved away from having normal income that isn't taxed (loans backed by assets) and you've lost half the tax revenue that paid for cheap housing, nearly free healthcare and public college and you have a healthy society and middle class.
But then to screw the pooch even more, Bush printed 5 trillion for his wars and two tax cuts. Trump printed money for his tax cuts too. (these expenses were never in the annual budget - they just printed the money)
Tesla, one of the richest corporations in our country just reported 0% tax in three years.
Our national debt has nothing to do with the annual budget and expenses, including USAID and helping Ukraine.
It is 100% because of tax policy.
So what actually is driving the national debt higher? The never popular answer is entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) + interest, which is exasperated by an aging population. In fact, almost all future debt growth is driven by these programs. The rest of the budget is expected to balance out. Tax revenue is expected to increase, and discretionary spending is expected to fall as a % of GDP.
How many times does this need to be debunked?
What I think should happen is that the vast majority of legislators (Senators/Representatives) should be furious that the Executive branch is disregarding laws that they wrote themselves. And the justices should be furious that the Executive branch is disbeying their interpretation of the law.
Aren't other countries adversarial enough?
I think these are made up concerns. By and large the US is dominant in the real world, and always will be given its size, location and cultural foundations. And that translates to being able to print and spent a large amount of money, which could be used to solve real world problems, such as:
- climate change and the need to transition energy, transportation over time with some urgency
- chronic housing shortage
- education costs
Instead they're focusing on fake problems and solutions that will make the real problems worse.
Not really. There is a political strategy Republicans have engaged during this time known as "Two Santas" which can explain it:
First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans
control the White House they must spend money like a
drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far
and as fast as possible.
This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus
making people think that the GOP can produce a good
economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes
people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa
Clauses.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans
must scream about the national debt as loudly and
frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our
children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut
spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government,
crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around
the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending
money.
This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own
social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus
shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus
right in the face.[0]
The opposite of that play is:
Voted-in Conservatives: we are the party of fiscal responsibility. We shall reduce govt spending by running services into the ground.
Voted-in Libs: We were voted in to undo all this f*kery... gotta spend those $$$
Conservatives: Didn't we say you can't trust those libs with the $$$?
For the record - I think society needs both parties alternating in power to function properly. Either one in power forever is a mistake
> Voted-in Conservatives: we are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Conservatives are provably not. See[0].
> Voted-in Libs: We were voted in to undo all this f*kery... gotta spend those $$$
This is a common misperception, fostered in large part by the effectivity of the "Two Santas" political strategy.
0 - https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-749929...
Both private and public dept have been rising rapidly since the 70/80's and the introduction of neoliberal policies. Real wages have stagnated, so Americans go into debt. Tax cuts for the rich, so the US has to borrow.
Indiscriminately firing federal workers whose salaries will collectively make up maybe one tenth of one percent of the budget is not at all about reducing debt, that's just the thin justification they are using the destroy any independence and competence within the government that might get in the way of their looting and corruption.
Anyone who thinks that Trump and Musk are serious about reducing the federal debt at this point aren't likely to be swayed by anything I say. But for anyone who genuinely believes that I hope you will look at what the national debt and deficit are right now, and then to check on them in a few years when both are dramatically worse. You will find that two of the most prominent bullshitters in the world are in fact bullshitting on this topic as well.
A socialised medical system would be much cheaper than Medicare.
This. Right. Here.
Also, make all black budget projects that involve underground alien bases public and move it all private, so Elon and other people can just directly invest in those instead of coming out of our taxes through the DOD.
On the policy side they would push for port automation. They would get rid of the Jones act. They could standardize and simplify the tax code (& get rid of loopholes like stepped up basis)
Instead they are breaking random government websites, blocking & politicizing USAID (< 1% of budget), mass firing with seemingly no plan for running various orgs, trying to increase mass incarceration (?) and reinforcing captured markets (like TurboTax).
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primar...
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax...
https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump
https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/extend...
He campaigned (first time) to reduce the national debt and instead exploded it by giving massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest of the wealthy.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-plan-boosts-bud...
Something something promises something kept?
Alternatively, it's possible to increase revenue.
US Government Accountability Office already existed to do this, without it being career suicide for those involved (at least until Trump began attempting to end it despite being nonpartisan)
He now has significant influence over all of those things. Official government communications are only being released on X, incentivizing people to use it. The next NASA contract is going to be awarded by people who know their boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss owes his political career to the owner of one of the bidders. Last quarter, a quarter of Tesla’s net income was unrealized Bitcoin profits – and he’s pushing the government to subsidize Bitcoin so it can get the kind of adoption it hasn’t been able to achieve on merit!
This is why government ethics rules exist, and why high-level officials have public confirmation hearings. Even if he was incredibly scrupulous about not making decisions based on his own interests, it reeks of corruption and provides many avenues for potential abuse (e.g. what if China threatened to seize his factories unless he helped them get a better deal?). The federal employees he’s attacked have annual training reminding them that they can’t accept gifts over $20/year – and really shouldn’t even then – with consequences up to going to jail for a long time.
When Elon runs his companies, he is beholden to shareholders to use the company's resources effectively to generate and maintain value.
Who is Elon beholden to when managing public funding and programs as an unelected non-official? Who will vote him out when he wasn't voted in? Who will revoke his confirmation when he was never confirmed?
- Safety checks are dismantled
- Decisions are made at the whim of an executive
- Executives surround themselves with sycophants
TSLA doubled in value in the month after the election, despite the financials of the company going down. The only reason for the increase in share price is because the market expects Musk to benefit from Trump's corruption, in the form of less oversight and more government subsidies.
If treasury money is diverted to his private interests, that is waste and perhaps fraud. But to him it achieves the same end (personal profit) as capital efficiency of orgs under his own ownership, not just his control
At this point, it's probably the safer bet to assume Musk isn't the primary reason those companies are capital efficient.
Maybe he runs companies like he plays video games. Someone else drives while he pretends to.
One thing that seems worth think through more is whether the stated outcomes of those agencies is what's actually be optimized for, or whether those are suborned for personal gain by a few parties.
And his buddy the president is happily sending the currency and stock markets up and down with his every idiotic tariff announcement. I wonder if the top man at DOGE is on the list of people who Trump tips off?
Musk, Trump and half this administration are off-the-charts corrupt.
https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-us-federal-go...
You would have to cut entitlements if you're relying on cuts alone, and those require Congressional action to change. It's absolutely wild people actually believed Musk without spending a few minutes understanding the issue.
The first country to pull out has the chance to make like $100 billion by creating the next TikTok competitor that never takes down content for violating anyone's copyright. It'll be like Edison moving to Hollywood all over again! Let the gold rush begin!
We haven't declared war since WWII, but we've waged a number of them.
The Congressional budget process is fundamentally broken and increasingly nondemocratic - the leadership of both parties get "continuing resolutions" passed while they draft a mountainous "omnibus" bill that includes all their pork and graft, then they whip the members of the majority party to pass it without reading it.
The Congressional oversight committees are usually captured by the industries and/or agencies they oversee.
Congressional hearings are not used to inform Congress or the people; they're nakedly partisan acting gigs for committee members.
Congress has unconstitutionally delegated much of its authority to a bureaucracy run by the executive branch, intending to have it operate independently of the president. Now we have a president who is choosing to exercise his authority over the executive branch.
Of course, it is illegal and unconstitutional for the president to eliminate programs that are established by law. But remember the executive branch bureaucracy ONLY exists to allow the president to implement the laws passed by Congress. If the laws aren't explicit or delegate to an executive branch agency HOW they law/program will be implemented, then the president has enormous authority over how to implement it, and there is nothing Constitutionally wrong with that. So if the president says "we don't need 10000 people to implement CFR 1.2.3 section 4, we only need 10", and he can implement the law/program as passed by Congress with 10 people, then he's allowed to do that.
The big problem is that Congress MUST depend on the executive branch to, er, execute. Whatever is required to implement the law, that isn't specified in the law, is up to the executive branch, and the President is the head of that branch.
And all this BS about "classification" again only exists to enable the president to do his job. If the president says someone can have access to something, that is non-negotiable, as two USAID folks found out over the weekend. The bureaucracy has for decades used classification to make a currency out of secrets and to try to avoid oversight. Looks like that ride has ended.
"So Sue them"
It will take a long time to go through the courts, the courts may not care, and even if they do, you can usually appeal and drag your feet long enough that it doesn't matter. Oh, and bonus here, if you become president again you get another reset. It's illegal, but there's no recourse for action.
It's a DDoS on the legal system and he's got all three branches by the balls. The courts can intervene in some of the cases some of the time, but it won't intervene in all of the cases all of the time.
The only way forward here is if everybody in the federal government either does the same thing, or that they become so ineffective and unreliable at _their_ jobs that everything is slowed down enough for the courts to intervene.
Edit: not only that, but they didn't close USAID entirely: they just closed the USAID headquarters, and installed Marco Rubio as the new head of USAID. While this may or may not be desirable, I don't see how this is actually illegal. The specific organization of USAID was established by executive order; this is one of the many consequences of the Republicans winning control of the executive branch of government.
"Gödel told Morgenstern about the flaw in the constitution, which, he said, would allow the United States to legally become a fascist state." [1] Unfortunately Morgenstern never completely specified what this flaw was. As pointed out in the wikipedia article speculation is that "The loophole is that Article V's procedures can be applied to Article V itself. It can therefore be altered in a "downward" direction, making it easier to alter the article again in the future." But given how difficult it is to amend the constitution it doesn't seem like the problem lies there.
Capturing the courts is the first step in a fascist takeover. The Republican controlled legislature isn't going to send the sergeant at arms and arrest him.
There is nothing in the way now. "It could happen here."
Impeach. Subpoena. Then arrest if subpoena ignored. Pass laws (supermajority to bypass veto). Cut funding to executive office. Then go nuclear with things like amendment putting the armed forces under legislative control. Lots options. All require a united front.
Even a Democrat landslide in two years wouldn't change it, because almost all Democratic politicians are unwilling to cause a fuss (or they are secretly happy with what the other branches are doing).
But the people are getting what they voted for, so is it really ethical to intervene in that?
What did Parliament do during the English Civil War?
For all the fetishization of the constitution popular media has led me to believe Americans engage in, when push comes to shove it doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it’s written on.
If they do not disperse the money as directed by Congress to specific causes by the end of the fiscal year then there is a problem, but not until September 30th
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/uslm/COMPS-10...
That means that the President can’t wipe it out as an independent agency unilaterally. He could go to the members of his party in the legislature and ask them to create a bill rechartering the agency but then it would get public debate and they’d have to own what they’re doing, so he took the path of daring anyone to enforce the law. It’s like hot-wiring your buddy’s car because you don’t want to ask if you can borrow it, except that it’s disrupting millions of lives.
I didn't see where the chartering is in that, all the refs I saw assumed the group's existence, and only a few referred to it as an "agency"--but maybe I missed it?
Most of what I saw was that USA was supposed to follow the guidance of the Secretary of State, or work with other departments. That was Rubio's claim, that not only did it not work with the State Department, but it subverted that department's work and that there was no cooperation with Congressional oversight committees.
However, disagreeing about the interpretation of the constitution when it is not actually that "plainly" clear, it has been supported by precedent is not the same as ignoring the constitution. In fact, it sets up a challenge for the Court to decide and it will almost certainly find in favor of this kind of citizenship.
Many presidents, including Obama, have put forth orders and supported legislation that was ultimately found to be unconstitutional; it does not mean they were running a monarchy or whatever the left is implying.
Besides all of that, there is the danger that if Democrats try to play the 14th card against him, Trump will declare the immigrants enemy combatants. At which point they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the United States at all, and he can do more than simply deport them. The left has been out-maneuvered at every step here, it's unlikely that this is the point at which they start winning.
> It'd be interesting to find out why people think moving the USAID organization under the Secretary of State is unconstitutional.
If there are no existing laws to prevent this, then it probably is legal. Given the voluminous laws in existence, I would not be surprised if there was one out there which is relevant.
> If they do not disperse the money as directed by Congress to specific causes by the end of the fiscal year then there is a problem, but not until September 30th
While this might be a "strict letter of the law" kind of thing (again IANAL), violating the spirit of a law is still illegal. Disbursement schedules are a real thing, with real-world impact when they are not adhered to, and can cause very real problems.
I remember you pushing this idea (that the independence of independent executive agencies are unconstitutional, or unaccountable, or similar) heavily in a thread a couple days ago. Where is it coming from? AFAIK virtually everyone on both sides has agreed that the independence of these agencies was a Really Good Thing for the last hundred years.
In some constitutional democracies there is a court that sits above the apex court, and they rule on constitutional matters only. I feel this is is an effective check/balance, as it makes the interpretation of the constitution completely unambiguous.
Some more recent constitutions have established a separate court that only rules on constitutional issues, but the US doesn't have that.
What does it even mean to say that the state department is by definition political? There are political appointees, but the overwhelming majority of the state department is career foreign service or career civil service, which are apolitical. The same is true for USAID.
None of what you're saying makes any sense or has any relation to reality.
Marco Rubio (head of the state department) stated that they refused to audited. So did other congressmen. https://x.com/cspan/status/1886473339201360210
Do you disagree with what he says in the above video? They denied to be audited. The US in USAID stands for United States. Can we not ask what they spend the money on?
USAID was not created by congress. It was created by executive order 10973 by JFK. It can be undone by executive order. It's function can be rolled into the state department.
This same court invented prisidential immunity out of thin air. They invented "history and tradition" doctrine out of thin air (and then selectively applied it). They invented "major questsions" doctrine to allow them to act as all three branches whenever they want to.
There is absolutely no opposition to any of this. There are only the perpetrators and the controlled opposition who are 100% complicit with what's going on.
Nobody is coming to save you and certainly not the courts.
No one is stopping the people at the top of the US Government from doing what they want. In fact, there is a whole apparatus in place, at this point, to protect their ability to continue to operate unchecked.
Irrespective of whether our system of checks and balances is working (it isn’t) it’s still worth pointing out exactly what rules and norms are being broken.
At this point, who cares? The democrats in power have proven themselves wholly incapable of doing anything for many years now.
https://www.crisesnotes.com/elon-musk-wants-to-get-operation...
And can incite people against anything he chooses on X, like:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885964969335808217
and he can certainly act quicker than any checks and ballances. We'll see how the system works to get rid of the chaos monkey on the inside.
This is a problem for the left and for neo-cons; they flouted the constitution for so long, that now that someone else (Trump) is doing it to them, the left/neocons don't really have a base that responds well to cries of "Unconstitutional!".
This source apparently talks about it, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14359253/joni-ernst...
Occams razor would instead suggest that either a recession or some other form of social instability is not an externality but an objective.
It makes me scared for what the ultimate aim is, but I think at this point it's beyond giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Sleep deprivation, stress and overwork, controlling the lives of participants, targeting at risk populations, etc. are cult programming techniques.
15 of those days are national defense.
9 of those days are what Elon hopes to cut in half.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
The deficit is a huge problem. I don't know how to fix it. But, what DOGE has done so far is exactly the opposite of what makes sense.
But, the demographic crisis means that moving forward our growth in entitlement spending for the growing population of seniors is far outpacing our growth in GDP from our slowing population of workers.
We can't tax or cut out way out of this. Elon's cuts are going to be performative at best. Real cuts would put tens of millions of seniors, vets and disabled people into destitution. Taxing the billionaires more would be nice. But, taxing them to zero would only paper over a few years of the problem.
The only way out I see is through massive investment to increase per-capita GDP long term. As a super duper liberal, I'm gung ho on "Bring manufacturing back!" in the form of
1. Re-prioritize trade schools and trade skills so we can actually perform high-skill work in factories if/when we build them. 2. Do everything we can to catch up with China making locally-built green energy tech dirt-cheap and highly effective. 3. Figure out how to incentivize the market to local build the interconnected web of advanced manufacturing capabilities needed to produce high tech goods fast and cheap.
I see the work of https://www.hadrian.co/ as an example of what I'm talking about. I'm starting to see some senators act like they need to stop talking about it and actually do something about it. But, the "best" I've heard from Trump is "Drill, baby. Drill!" and "Tariffs are magic."
If Trump laid out a plan for how to target tariffs surgically and use those proceeds to build up manufacturing, I'd be on board. But, he hasn't. Instead, he has made it clear his only plan is to create chaos, achieve performative concessions, and declare personal triumph while netting great harm for everyone in the end.
My point is that a lot of people seem to be in an "ends justify the means" mindset here where it's OK to rubber-stamp over laws, security, any sort of requirements for competence, or even basic understanding of what's being destroyed because in the end, this is chaos is going to have such a tremendous impact.
But, it's not. It mathematically can't. Even if it all turns out amazing it will be a small dent in the problem it's claiming to solve.
So, in the end, all of this is actually just chaos for sake of chaos. In the process, a whole lot of real people will be hurt in real ways. It's not bad at the same scale that "Turn off Medicare until we understand how it works" would be. But, it's nonsensically destructive in exactly the same way.
Turning off the entire flow of money is unnecessary, even counter-productive, to understanding how the money is flowing. Even if half of the money is waste, turning off the other half is causing tremendous real harm for no reason.
It is completely unnecessary and horrific to rubber stamp around national security protocol for something as incomprehensibly impactful as the federal payments system.
And, in the end, what are we going to get out of all of it? What I'm seeing out of Elon is propaganda about programs like "studying shrimp on treadmills" which was an microscopic piece of a very sensible study on marine safety and security. That's exactly the kind of work the government is supposed to be doing. But, if you frame it badly enough, you can destroy it for everyone and claim it as a victory.
it isn’t good when a group of people tries to destroy the entity that’s making those investments. These shitheads are basically corporate raiders coming in to tear things apart for personal gain.
Ironically, it is the “fiscally responsible”, “WhY nOt RuN gOvErNmEnT lIkE a BuSiNeSs” gang who want to destroy any fiscally responsible investment.
If they want to reduce spending meaningfully, they need to cut defense, social security, and Medicare. They won’t, because it’s political suicide.
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/pete-buttigieg-did-not-sp...
Hint: it's not China, the UK or any other foreign government.
It's us silly. We owe ourselves. :)
The only potential problem here is that "we owe ourselves" simplifies things given that some individuals are owed much more than others, i.e. there's inequality. Other than that? The whole debt charade is just political groups weaponizing (and perpetuating) the lack of fairly basic macro-economic understanding in the population.
People like to bring up places like Argentina and Venezuela, but their debts weren't denominated in their own currencies, so they had to collect dollars in order to repay debts in dollars. As a currency issuer, since we create dollars, we can never run out of them. Nor do we have to round up dollars and take them back from currency holders before we can repay a debt. Doing so just takes those dollars away from the non-government so that the issuer can zero out a ledger somewhere. The interest is interest we choose to pay, for some reason. The only way we could default on our debt is if we decide to. The only way to "pay off" the "debt" is to take all the dollars away from the non-government, which is _us_.
> The interest is interest we choose to pay, for some reason.
Perhaps this is the best point to talk about, because the precise way in which it's untrue is very concrete. The US government doesn't choose how much interest it feels like paying; it sells securities which promise a specific payout schedule according to an auction-set interest rate. If investors want to buy at a high interest rate, there's no mechanism for the government to demand they accept a lower one.
It's looking like this was at least larping as a 40+ billion dollar slush fund. There may have been some legitimate (useful) spending, and they will find out after auditing the system, but it also looks like there was lots of waste and once-removed (one degree of separation) self-dealing.
The US maintains monopoly on this free money cheat through goodwill driven manufactured consent, diplomacy, financial bullying and military might. Each subsequent tool being more heavy handed & less preferred than the last. Heavy handed tools while effective, break more than they fix. This prudence sustains Pax Americana.
In 2025 America, good will is at an all-time-low. Mechanisms for classical diplomacy are being actively dismantled by Elon-Trump. Financial bullying is now the cudgel of choice. Pax Americana is under threat.
Post-WW2 peace is among mankind's most remarkable civilizational achievements. It isn't self-evident and it definitely isn't the historic norm. How long until nations start questioning the deal ? How many decades of work is being dismantled within days ?
May be hyperbole, but the locks on Chesterton-Pandora's box are being opened. It might work out, but Elon's aggressiveness seems so unnecessary at a time when the American economy is doing exceedingly well.
I don't know how anyone isn't.
If the dollar falls further from being the global reserve currency (something which both administrations did their best to ensure it will happen) that will be an even worse blow.
That there are people in bubbles believing it's all fine, or they never been better, is also a contributing factor to all this.
In which parallel reality do you live? Some metrics:
- U.S. share of global GDP (nominal). 40% in 1960 to around 24% nowadays.
- Share of global exports from the peak of 17% in 1963, to around 8.5% today (China is 14%).
- Global R&D expending from the 1960 peak of 69% to 30% today with China closing the gap currently at 23%.
- Reserve currency status of the Dollar dropped from 71% to 59%.
- Share of outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) 47% in 1960 vs 22% in 2022.
Even the strongest selling point of the american economy of being the largest consumer economy is strongly dependent on high levels of consumer debt as well as the ability to sustain gigantic trade deficits based on the global appetite for the dollar and US bonds.
And then we have some other points of concern: In 1950, manufacturing represented 28% of GDP, while FIRE was 10%. Today, manufacturing is 10%, and FIRE is 20%. FIRE’s dominance reflects financialization — prioritizing short-term profit through financial engineering over productive, long-term investment. It encourages Rent-Seeking vs Productive Activity, for example, in Finance, much of the sector’s growth comes from fees, interest, and speculative trading (e.g., derivatives, high-frequency trading) rather than financing innovation or infrastructure. In Real Estate Rising prices often reflect speculation rather than new construction or improved living standards. This leads to inequality amplification, FIRE disproportionately benefits high-income earners (e.g., Wall Street, landlords). The top 1% owns 53% of stocks and 40% of real estate wealth (Fed data), which exacerbates wealth gaps without broadly improving household economic security. Real Estate alone now accounts for ~60% of corporate profits, something that create obvious systemic risks.
The US is still the richest and most powerful country in the world, but it is far from being as economically dominant as it was in the past, exactly the contrary of what you said.
I understand that after the gains we all had in the stock market in recent times, we might be tempted to consider this as a measure of the health of American Economy and considering market capitalizations, its global dominance. But that is a mistake. Stock Prices reflect investor sentiment, not fundamentals, they are driven by factors like speculation, liquidity and future expectations, not direct economic performance. Also, a handful of mega-cap companies dominate indexes, which introduces a lag that could mask broader economic issues. For example, the "Magnificent Seven" drove around 75% of the S&P 2023 gains, while small-cap stocks lagged. Also, tech and finance dominate markets, but they are not labor intensive, and thus they can't contribute as much to employment. Also, as the top 10% of the households own almost 90% of stocks, rising markets enrich the wealthy but don't reflect wage growth or living standards.
Also, a lot of the stock market exhuberance has been driven by things like stock buybacks, inflating share prices at the expense of investment and wages.
Rather than make any specific point, I'd recommend acoup's detailed post about the US's overwhelming dominance across a huge swath of areas:
https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-stat...
I think he makes a good case there, even if you are right and by some measurements the US did better in the past.
The US watched the rest of the world burn itself down during WW1 (partially) and during WW2 (almost completely).
There were basically 0 industrialized countries doing better in 1945 than they were in 1928.
The US reached those insane peaks because of a total aberration. It was never going to last.
China and India, for example, have been between 1/3 and 1/2 of the world economy for multiple millennia.
After the Age of Discovery Europe as a whole took over at least 1/3 itself.
The US would do well to adjust to this new reality, but I guess the temptation to make America great again is too strong.
That may be true if you look at the US in isolation, they're much richer now compared to 1950, but they've never had a strong a contender as China is right now. The Soviets were matching them militarily back in the Cold War years but they were never close to surpass them economically, like China is now in the process of doing.
Inflation was because of pandemic and wars. Rest is absolute nonsense.
Instead, The biggest oil pipeline in the US was shutdown on day one and increased regulations led to our current situation with inflation.
The democrats are also war mongers and want to have perpetual wars to line their pockets.
It's telling when there isn't one negative story about Biden/the democrats (especially when we found out they were colluding with big tech to suppress the speech of average citizens) in 4 years, and we immedialy get slop hit piece articles about Trump and Musk.
Whether that fear is justified is a totally different topic
Also, China did try it only a few decades ago. Murder, starvation, horrific torture, reeducation camps, brainwashed children denouncing their parents... impressively evil. Not that Tiananmen Square or Uyghur ethnic cleansing or kidnappings of expat dissidents are so much better.
For sure this country has its own flawed history with slavery and treatment of Native Americans, but China is absolutely on its own level with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
And there's nothing the US can do. Cutting government spending and starting trade wars with neighbours is not going to stop it. Building up a totalitarian state with deep government influence into businesses is not going to work and will be actively resisted, since Big Government is so against the principles of the current regime's voters - and China has been working on this for decades now. Free market won't work either, as it's already very free in the US itself - but the aggression of US companies in their sales practices, tax dodging, and privacy violations have caused their foreign customers like Europe to raise the defenses.
TL;DR, while I can see how totalitarianism can in theory create a strong economy, it isn't going to fly / work in the US.
Judging from his last term, at some point Trump is likely to get tired of Musk, kick him out of the administration, declare he always thought Musk was a bad guy, and pretend like he never listened to him. If Musk tries to stay in after that, it could be a coup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
For a recent example see the events in South Korea with President Yoon.
Democracy becomes non democracy by illegal acta, typically.
He can't just delegate power to an unelected civilian like this.
To invoke Godwin's law, Hitler was democratically elected, Austria democratically voted to join the Reich, the people of the UK voted in favor of leaving Europe. Just because it doesn't technically meet your definition of a coup, doesn't mean it's a hostile takeover of the country's government and systems. But if you'd rather argue semantics that's fine too. If this keeps up, the US government will shut down by March and people will die - or, more will, as there's a link between the plane crashes and the Trump admin's cutting down on already understaffed air control staff.
So congress, for example, cannot delegate making laws to some other entity. The courts, for example, cannot give their judicial power to others.
Similarly, the president can't delegate significant executive authority to others.
Where are the limits of this?
It's usually about delegating significant amounts of power or functions that the constitution explicit calls out as being owned.
But the limits are not tested often, so not tons of cases.
In the case of agencies, the executive branch also has no power in the first place to either set up, or disband, agencies. This is a power that congress owns. They can't, per above, delegate it, even if they wanted to.
1. USAID Employees Have Legal Employment Protections
USAID employees—both civil servants and Foreign Service officers—are protected by federal employment laws. A presidential aide cannot simply tell them to stop working without a legal order, such as an official reorganization approved by Congress or a government shutdown following a funding lapse.
Under Title 5 of the U.S. Code, federal employees cannot be arbitrarily removed or prevented from performing their duties. The Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. § 1341) prohibits government officials from unilaterally stopping agency operations without congressional authorization.
2. Locking USAID Buildings Would Violate Security & Property Laws
Physically locking the doors to prevent USAID employees from entering their offices would likely violate:
18 U.S.C. § 371 (Conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government) if it were done to obstruct lawful government operations. 18 U.S.C. § 1361 (Willful injury of government property) if it involved unlawful restriction of access to a federal facility. Federal Continuity Directives require that government agencies maintain essential functions even in emergencies.
3. Presidential Authority Has Limits
The President does not have unilateral authority to suspend an entire federal agency’s operations without following proper legal processes.
Only Congress can permanently dissolve an agency like USAID by repealing its statutory mandate.
Even if a president wanted to reorganize or defund USAID, they would need to work through legal channels—such as submitting a restructuring plan to Congress.
What Could Happen If Someone Tried This?
If an aide illegally ordered staffers to stop working and locked the doors, several things could happen:
Congressional & Legal Challenges – USAID officials or Congress could sue, arguing the action was unlawful. Federal Court Intervention – A court could issue an injunction blocking the order.
Potential Criminal Charges – Any official involved in obstructing a federal agency’s work could face legal consequences.
Historical Precedents
Trump’s 2018-2019 Government Shutdown: While federal agencies, including USAID, were partially shut down due to funding lapses, career employees were still required to follow proper procedures.
Nixon’s Attempt to Defund Agencies: President Nixon tried to defund programs by impounding funds, but Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, limiting executive control over funding.
Bottom Line
Simply ordering USAID employees to stop working and locking the doors would be blatantly illegal and would likely lead to immediate legal challenges, congressional intervention, and possible criminal liability for those involved.
Where do you base that on? China’s GDP is huge. It overtook the whole EU’s GDP.
USAID played a huge role in the Vietnam War by supporting things like “civil defense forces” arming villages against Viet Cong, land reform and “open arms” program to get defectors from the North.
https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/assistance/...
It had little to do with no strings attached foreign aid. It’s mostly been an arm of US covert activities in other countries (providing cover) and a massive, massive slush fund for the CIA (hence the billions going to “undisclosed recipients”).
But of course, that’s exactly what would be oligarchs want.
So you're saying they hired a bunch of undistinguished Berkeley drop-outs just because they're libertarians? A sort of affirmative action for libertarians?
It's always projection with these guys.
Elon is the definition of Dunning-Kruger. He seems smart (maybe) when he's talking about something you know nothing about but as soon as he talks about something you do know about, the illusion quickly shatters. Many here learned this after the Twitter takeover when he started talking about software and technical infrastructure.
The only thing going on here is some performative cuts to mollify the base and make some headlines. The real goal here is looting the public purse for the (further) benefit of the ultra-wealthy.
Welcome to the kleptocracy.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/EU/CHN/USA
In not too long, China's GDP will eclipse ours and their cooperative foreign policy as opposed to our full spectrum dominance policy will yield major benefits. Dedollarization is proceeding apace, and it accelerates with each sanction and aggressive and arbitrary move by the US. Other countries used to have no choice, but now choices are opening up. The end of dollar dominance ends the most powerful tool of U.S. hegemony and turns us into a mere great power, not the lord of the world.
https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/currencies...
Trump's policy is about corruption yes, but also likely about wringing more efficiency out of American industry by reducing worker protections and reducing middle management positions. They are trying different methods to juice growth. I don't think it will work for very long.
The US tried tariffs during Japan's rise as an automobile powerhouse. Look where that's left the American auto industry.
Sanctions have their place as a carrot and stick mechanism. But Trump offers no carrots. Only stick.
You can bet your ass he still voted for Trump. "I don't even like the guy" he insists.
The farmers that voted for Trump in droves in 2016 got FUCKED by his tariffs and retaliation from China. Trump had to sign off billions of dollars to offset their losses. They still voted for him in droves. Vibes don't care about the very clear data on the spreadsheet.
A huge portion of my state's lobster industry goes to China, because there literally is not a big enough market here in the states. Selling to China took the industry from barely staying afloat and selling lobster for cheaper than beef half the time, to being a healthy industry that didn't have to worry about oversupply. They will be fucked if China notices. They still voted for Trump.
All these people have FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE with how much Trump hurts our economy. They don't care. "immigrants" or some bullshit. Funny, the guys up north growing potatoes sure love the immigrants come harvest time, especially when they were paid under the table. Of course, these dumbasses in NORTHERN MAINE insist on flying confederate flags to honor their "heritage". They are from NORTHERN MAINE, their heritage is: Being harassed and assaulted by the KKK for daring to be catholic, freezing to death in ice storms, being mistaken for Canadians, and murdering the hell out of confederate slavers for the glory of the Union
They're outright racists is what I'm saying. My brother has bitched and moaned about "affirmative action" for decades. The horror that a black person might be somewhere they don't "deserve" is their only concern. It's funny to blame anything on affirmative action when you come from a town with single digit black people, and without affirmative action in the past, you would be just like the rest of the white trash.
Yes, the US is the biggest economy. This doesn’t mean its ability to pay liabilities is infinite. Every amount of income has a particular amount of debt and interest that it is able to pay.
Take the largest company. It would not be able to service infinite debt. Apple could not service $5 trillion in debt, just like the US could not service 300 trillion.
I get why some people are concerned about the US’s liabilities and its global police status.
Also stopping giving many other countries billions of dollars a year after might be drastic. But I see why some people may not like this. Individuals can give to charities instead if this is really such a problem for them.
Now cutting research and other things is really dumb. Glad they reversed that quickly. Also needlessly licking fights with our neighbors is also really dumb.
Now only if we can reduce our military spending as well.
now look at the deficits.
It’d be a problem if we had to pay it all off tomorrow, but we don’t.
have a look at this: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-payments...
it is like borrowing at higher rate than the rate at which are are growing our income.
You can argue whether the chosen approach is right, but no matter what, a drastically different course is needed as 'business as usual' is a sure way to disaster.
I for one hope the US get their act together at home rather than dragging the world into WWIII.
Now, the problem is - what to do about how badly informed you and millions of Americans are. That you cheer for the destruction of valuable and painfully built state capacity for completely spurious reasons. It’s almost funny, except for all the innocent people who get hurt along the way.
As I see it that debt counter is compounding fast, and with BRICS gaining steam your abilities to keep shoving it onto the rest of the planet are diminishing.
They did already and are planning to again add trillions to our deficit. Go look at it, it's laid out very clearly.
There is no good faith here, these actions are a plundering of the state.
Why is USAID needed most in times when the US is very "economically dominant"?
Look at how that turned out for Bismark's Germany after he was gone. His successors were high on their own supply, and in pursuit of short-term wins, destroyed the careful network of relationships and alliances that he curated.
Beijing is, no doubt, finding this entire folly amusing.
I was asking specifically about how US economic dominance is a factor. Why is USAID more important when US economic dominance is high.
If these programs are so small, why aren’t they going after the real grift? It’s too hard? Why the small, more relevant to citizens programs get cut first?
Because its easy to avoid the military spending and the black box that represents.
First, these are symbolic, it is very hard to concretely argue that these programs are good for Americans, since even proponents of these programs say it's about "soft power". Corollary to this is that cutting something like social security is seen as cutting benefits to Americans (ditto with Defense)
Second, these programs are seen as funding "professional democrats" in a way that social security or defense are not. So this is also about cutting out their opponents support structures.
If these programs are so small, why do you care so much?
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=trump+t...