this can’t be real
He put them together at the kids table that doesn’t exist I’m fucking crying
its easy to make fun of this (and i think we should) but its also important to note the description of this new department that trump has given
[transcript: "together, these two wonderful americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies - essential to the 'save america' movement," trump wrote. "i look forward to elon and vivek making changes to the federal bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all americans."]
to be clear: trump is planning to create a new department whose purpose is literally to deregulate and defund government oversight. this will lead to corporations having greater freedom to fuck over consumers while making more money, and he is putting two billionaires in charge of it.
sure, maybe this is just a ploy to keep them quiet. giving them the illusion of power in exchange for backing him. but lets not forget all the regulations trump cut during his last term
which has directly led to the constant recalls of consumer goods and foodstuffs over the past several years. the recent e coli outbreak at mcdonalds? the boars head listeria recall? these are the products of deregulation. getting rid of laws and standards that protect consumers by making sure money hungry corporations dont cut corners.
the funny name is a smokescreen. keep your eye on these fuckers.
Thing is, it ISNT a ploy
But neither Musk nor Ramaswamy has the smarts or the skills to turn it into anything real, so I expect it to (a) serve as a smokescreen, (b) make a few annoying but trivial cuts, and (c) fall apart when Musk loses his shit over the ending of Electric Vehicle subsidies (i.e. Tesla) Look at Musks initial proposed 'wastage' of $900bn or so - half of it is interest on government debt, which is only fixable at the price of suspending the government debt (thus crashing the bond and stock markets horrendously, AND fucking up the ability to export/import bc noone will accept promises of payment from the US govt), and the other half is 'government overpayment' which .. noone knows how to fix, except by suspending all government payments, which would make the suspension of government debt look like a seaside outing by comparison, and make the Great Depression worldwide look like a joyous occasion. On the bright side, if they DID do both of those, it'd help a lot with climate change - the world population would shrink to under a billion inside 2 years, industrial production (and its pollutants) would crash to essentially nil, oil consumption for vehicles would shrink by 90% (although coal for home fires would probably increase) ... now all that remains is to be one of the less than 12% still alive by then.
