Elon Musk Admits That His Efforts Have Been a Dismal Failure

Oops.

29 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I've never said that I believe the number or not, only that the exercise is well worth the effort and that it continues despite Musk leaving.

Even if it is 40$b then that's saving the ENTIRE federal taxes paid per person for $144k Americans.

There is a lot here to discuss if you really want to. Things like soft power that gives the US sway in all sorts of matters and helps keep things in order. The costs for that are far far less than what it would cost to try to have the same sway thru military hardware/software and personnel.

In any case, I don't understand your numbers. What were you trying to say there? Are you saying a set of 144k American tax payers have a total bill of $40B?

1 hour ago, The Norseman said:

More proof that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about

I've been in IT for 25+ years (and have a hand in the budgets). Please share your credentials.

@The Norseman, for the sake of not going back and forth, i just hope somehow, you're right and we really see some savings. i just don't trust what i hear out of d.c.

3 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

I've been in IT for 25+ years (and have a hand in the budgets). Please share your credentials.

I run business transformations for a global fortune 500 company...many of which are cost optimization initiatives. Software licenses and tech stack consolidations are regularly reviewed.

The issues are simple. Cutting government spending and waste is obviously a worthwhile goal which everyone should support. However, as has been called out for months, DOGE is simply performance theater to give the illusion of action. If you REALLY wanted to cut down on waste, fraud and abuse, you'd do an exhaustive review of every department on a line by line basis and look for cuts. An easier idea would be to mandate required cuts by agency, and then let each secretary spend ~6 months finding ways to make it happen. What you can't do is a hire a couple dozen 20 somethings and have them just randomly announce "cuts" with no actual work or analysis being done...that's how you end up firing everyone working on bird flu and then rehiring them.

Cutting government waste and spending is a difficult, involved and painful job that requires serious analysis. What we got was a chainsaw wielding ketamine freak and a bunch of programmers with no functional understanding of how government works, and no desire to do the hard work necessary.

But that's all of MAGA -- big announcements, big press releases, very little substance. You understand it better when you realize it's all a TV show and Trump is the star. It's about looking good, not actually doing good.

Oh, and none of it matters if the White House and Congress will ignore all of it anyway.

37 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

There is a lot here to discuss if you really want to. Things like soft power that gives the US sway in all sorts of matters and helps keep things in order. The costs for that are far far less than what it would cost to try to have the same sway thru military hardware/software and personnel.

In any case, I don't understand your numbers. What were you trying to say there? Are you saying a set of 144k American tax payers have a total bill of $40B?

I'm saying that if you look at the average American's federal taxes paid it would take 144k American's to come up with 40b. It may be scratch on the iceberg, but not having an agency to constantly review contracts and other wasteful spending is partially what got us into this mess. I don't accept that because these cuts amount to smaller dollars than we had hoped that this isn't a worthwhile exercise.

The big stuff still remains...ie. entitlements. Contrary to popular belief, you can't cut entitlements in reconciliation bills so expecting them to be cut in this current bill was a fools errand. Any real reform to entitlements requires 60 votes.

It will be very interesting to see if those cuts are ever proposed and if so, which party overwhelmingly votes against them.

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

But that's all of MAGA -- big announcements, big press releases, very little substance. You understand it better when you realize it's all a TV show and Trump is the star. It's about looking good, not actually doing good.

this. it's all performance.

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The issues are simple. Cutting government spending and waste is obviously a worthwhile goal which everyone should support. However, as has been called out for months, DOGE is simply performance theater to give the illusion of action. If you REALLY wanted to cut down on waste, fraud and abuse, you'd do an exhaustive review of every department on a line by line basis and look for cuts. An easier idea would be to mandate required cuts by agency, and then let each secretary spend ~6 months finding ways to make it happen. What you can't do is a hire a couple dozen 20 somethings and have them just randomly announce "cuts" with no actual work or analysis being done...that's how you end up firing everyone working on bird flu and then rehiring them.

Cutting government waste and spending is a difficult, involved and painful job that requires serious analysis. What we got was a chainsaw wielding ketamine freak and a bunch of programmers with no functional understanding of how government works, and no desire to do the hard work necessary.

But that's all of MAGA -- big announcements, big press releases, very little substance. You understand it better when you realize it's all a TV show and Trump is the star. It's about looking good, not actually doing good.

They are literally doing both of these things. Agencies have been given targets and are reporting cuts in real time. Doge team members are going line by line to identify contracts, grants and leases

12 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I run business transformations for a global fortune 500 company...many of which are cost optimization initiatives. Software licenses and tech stack consolidations are regularly reviewed.

Oh yeah, are you going to each program and making sure each seat of a license is applied to a head? I just want to remind you that DOGE spent money to tell us there were 120 Photoshop licenses unused or 250 unused VSCode (I sure hope you know that's free) licenses.

Yeah dude, I'm sure this is the type of stuff you are all over

4 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I'm saying that if you look at the average American's federal taxes paid it would take 144k American's to come up with 40b. It may be scratch on the iceberg, but not having an agency to constantly review contracts and other wasteful spending is partially what got us into this mess. I don't accept that because these cuts amount to smaller dollars than we had hoped that this isn't a worthwhile exercise.

The big stuff still remains...ie. entitlements. Contrary to popular belief, you can't cut entitlements in reconciliation bills so expecting them to be cut in this current bill was a fools errand. Any real reform to entitlements requires 60 votes.

It will be very interesting to see if those cuts are ever proposed and if so, which party overwhelmingly votes against them.

So less than 1% of the taxpayers and it won't change the number of tax statements that have to be processed. The cost savings is going to be eaten by other spending and also tax cuts.

Again, a very very minor little cookie of savings in the big scheme of things and a MASSIVE amount of noise and dysfunction incurred. Plus damage to international power and influence channels that we've enjoyed since WWII.

To be brutally honest, I'm not seeing a net positive here overall. Quite the contrary.

2 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

To be brutally honest, I'm not seeing a net positive here overall. Quite the contrary.

Even people in the Trump administration have come to this realization. We're a few months away from "Hey, at least they tried"

1 minute ago, Paul852 said:

Oh yeah, are you going to each program and making sure each seat of a license is applied to a head? I just want to remind you that this team spent money to tell us there were 120 Photoshop licenses unused or 250 unused VSCode (I sure hope you know that's free) licenses.

Yeah dude, I'm sure this is the type of stuff you are all over

I am not, but people that work for me are. So, yes, we do license reviews every two years....depending on the system. On many systems, it's done via an expiry & renewal processes that requires you to re-justify your need for a license every two years.

I suspect the US Government has no such renewal justification process and without a regular audit, you'd be paying for a lot of licenses you don't need. Why on earth wouldn't you want to audit that?

Just now, The Norseman said:

I suspect the US Government has no such renewal justification process and without a regular audit, you'd be paying for a lot of licenses you don't need.

Sure they do. You know the government shares license with contractors too, right?

21 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Cutting government waste and spending is a difficult, involved and painful job that requires serious analysis. What we got was a chainsaw wielding ketamine freak and a bunch of programmers with no functional understanding of how government works, and no desire to do the hard work necessary.

But that's all of MAGA -- big announcements, big press releases, very little substance. You understand it better when you realize it's all a TV show and Trump is the star. It's about looking good, not actually doing good.

This is exactly what we've been watching. All bark and no bite.

1 minute ago, Paul852 said:

Sure they do. You know the government shares license with contractors too, right?

Sure, most large entities do.

4 minutes ago, Paul852 said:

Even people in the Trump administration have come to this realization. We're a few months away from "Hey, at least they tried"

I'm trying to go easy here to help nudge him over the line and back into sanity.

1 minute ago, DrPhilly said:

I'm trying to go easy here to help nudge him over the line and back into sanity.

The problem is that your definition of sanity is more of what we had over the last four years.

4 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I am not, but people that work for me are. So, yes, we do license reviews every two years....depending on the system. On many systems, it's done via an expiry & renewal processes that requires you to re-justify your need for a license every two years.

I suspect the US Government has no such renewal justification process and without a regular audit, you'd be paying for a lot of licenses you don't need. Why on earth wouldn't you want to audit that?

The govt typically tries to stay away from subscription based licensing and requires an active reup after the main period of 1-2 years. Most of the agencies require it. I just went thru a bunch of that with the US govt in my last gig. Our stuff was critical so we had to keep the licenses working anyway while we chased the reup and the subsequent payments. I'm not saying there isn't subscription stuff there but...

1 minute ago, The Norseman said:

The problem is that your definition of sanity is more of what we had over the last four years.

Absolutely not. I'm the biggest "both sider" in here. That comes with its own issues of course.

11 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

So less than 1% of the taxpayers and it won't change the number of tax statements that have to be processed. The cost savings is going to be eaten by other spending and also tax cuts.

Again, a very very minor little cookie of savings in the big scheme of things and a MASSIVE amount of noise and dysfunction incurred. Plus damage to international power and influence channels that we've enjoyed since WWII.

To be brutally honest, I'm not seeing a net positive here overall. Quite the contrary.

Let's be honest, you wouldn't "see the net positive" even if we agreed that the number was $180b.

3 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Sure, most large entities do.

So there would be open licenses for these purposes. Large entities have to bulk purchase licenses in the hundreds to thousands so the idea that you'll find significant savings because some licenses aren't associated with a person/machine just isn't true. The new employee onboarding process is going to require licenses be available. Also, firing thousands of people all at once will free up licenses as well.

The thing is, I know you know all this.

5 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

The govt typically tries to stay away from subscription based licensing and requires an active reup after the main period of 1-2 years. Most of the agencies require it. I just went thru a bunch of that with the US govt in my last gig. Our stuff was critical so we had to keep the licenses working anyway while we chased the reup and the subsequent payments. I'm not saying there isn't subscription stuff there but...

The government isn't nearly as bad at this as these people think.

1 hour ago, The Norseman said:

Isn't there a children's forum you can go to somewhere to post this kind of nonsense?

There is but going there would require a lot of bravery on my part.