Why on earth would they need something as visible and aggressive as DOGE to extract data?
Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending (especially spending viewed as ideological) doing far more harm than good?
Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending (especially spending viewed as ideological) doing far more harm than good?
I won't pretend to know what the actual motives were, but financial "efficiency" seems suspect to me.
This is the actual waste that needs to be looked before the checks are even signed. No way in hell DOGE or anyone in the current administration will actually look at bad spending. Specially now this administration likes the name Department of War. These are the same companies that bribe ... I mean donate to politicians to retain this corrupt funding.
Israel wouldn't take the Bradley Fighting vehicle because this know it was bad just by looking at it but the Pentagon doubled down and flawed designs.
Reminds me not to get tunnel focused with-in a company and keep looking around to see what outsiders are doing.
The talk about the AR-15 being flawed but not why. 1) Sold as a firearm that did not need to be cleaned and maintained which is 100% false. 2) It was a gas based system that push the debris in the barrow into the chamber. This is why Vietnam solders would place condoms over the end of the barrow. It took years to move it to the gas piston system which people use now.
Citing doge as a source shows that your viewpoint is built on provenly bad info.
And Frankly it’s insulting to HN readers that it’s being cited given how well published it was that their estimates were grossly inflated, unreliable, and kept trying to claim credit for cutting things that were already ended.
Okay so you somehow haven’t seen any of the many many accounts of doge being extremely unreliable but today you’ve seen people tell you they are unreliable.
After hearing that, to you, surprising new info did you consider googling it or cross check it in anyway before replying?
have you so much as tried googling “are doge estimates reliable?” After hearing other people call them into question?
Anyway here’s the AI google summary for you to get you started:
Based on analyses of the "wall of receipts" posted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in early 2025, their savings estimates are not considered reliable by budget experts, government contractors, and media outlets. Investigations have revealed that the claimed savings are heavily overstated, often misleading, and sometimes factually incorrect.
Tesla is a meme stock and will one day explode like a game of hot potato.
Going online and defending every poor decision musk makes won’t change the reality that these days musk is a drugged out buffoon with a penchant for white nationalism who pays people to cheat at videos games for him.
His main selling point these days is how He has a loyal core group of cheerleaders that sticks with him no matter what. It’s prolonging the inevitable.
The son of the apartheid, musk, even literally videoed in to Germany’s modern day extremist party, the afd, that same day.
Not a coincidence - musk is a racist white nationalist.
How did I not realize the thousands of reports suggesting otherwise were actually all examples of nefarious propaganda by the consortium or haters. How unjust! We must reject anything that paints the angel in bad light!
I sincerely appreciate being enlightened!
I think this is obvious. It was one of many goals, that aligned under an umbrella of activities. Asking for specific data creates a paper trail and triggers regulation. Restricting access, taking outright possession of hardware, and firing people along the way, helps shield the activity.
> Can't it simply be a case of aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending
aka "Aww shucks, we were just doin our best."
No rational organization would take many of the actions that were taken, if one of their primary goals was accountability. It was a smash and grab (disorganized would be fair to say), with an ad-hoc rationalization that was never reasoned.
To hide the true purpose behind a curtain of "aggressive and overoptimistic attempts to cut spending".
Maybe they were naive and useful idiots, but that doesn't just happen by accident.
That said, lack of evidence isn't necessarily exonerating. DOGE's MO has often been to take over the CIO and/or front office of the agency to ensure there is nothing to monitor them. It's basically like if the CEO of the bank sends all the security guards home and lets robbers in through the side door. You can't prove they took anything necessarily (my bank metaphor falls flat here, because data can be copied but if money were stolen, you could count it), but also it IS often shady as hell too.