Can Elon Musk Cut Two Trillion Dollars From the US Budget?

[@PBoyle]

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[@MrObveous777]

Hey Pat! love your content! look forward to watching this video. I am concerned about Trumps tariffs and how that would affect the overall economy. You are literally one of the few objective economists I actively listen to and was really hoping we could get a video on it at some point.

[@ArathiKumaraswamy]

Can you do a series on Argentina and Milieu and how he cut so many departments and balanced budget in 3 months?

[@ArathiKumaraswamy]

Can you do a series on Argentina and Milieu and how he cut so many departments and balanced budget in 3 months?

[@handsanitizer2457]

Wow you bought it

[@freemason4979]

the biggest frauds R committed by the govt officials and the politicians, from starting wars for their friends, to "innocent" things like overregulations in the building industry, causing housing shortages. How 2 fix that ?

[@porkypine602]

surely there will be zero conflict of interest between the richest man in the world with direct government contracts while leading budget oversight for the government

[@will4417]

Yeah, I bet he won't start with Tesla's subsidies and tax incentives to cut that budget lol

[@imacanoli897]

They voted for a billionaire, who is often accused of being a conman, who wants to hire the richest man in the world to head a redundant department that will be named after a meme with the objective of reducing government spending and regulation. How could this possibly go wrong.

[@raawesome3851]

​@@will4417I hate how we've let these guys get into office, to be honest. 🫠

[@AnymMusic]

what?? Effectively privatized government? Nahhhhhh nothing could go wrong. When has the glorious free market EVER failed us

[@Threedogsinatrenchcoat]

Surely they will investigate the richest man in the world again for crypto fraud and find nothing wrong... Again

[@component9008]

In New Zealand, the "Ruthanasia", has led our public services and infrastructure to become severely under-maintained, and has likely cost us economic growth. Now, about 30 years later, we are having to pay the price in terms of higher rates to pay for maintenance of things like water treatment and sewerage, and roads and railways, and have low social housing supply, after new construction was stopped for years.

[@foobarf8766]

I lived through that and remember going hungry. Absolute never-again kind of economic disaster, the National party will never see my vote until they completely replace their caucus from the top down.

[@hwe81]

But you saved SIX WHOLE PERCENT! Don’t be a commie!

[@adamcetinkent]

Six percent a year is absolutely massive!

[@component9008]

@@adamcetinkent Yeah, a massive amount of infrastructure deficit which we are trying to start paying off now for tens of billions of dollars.

[@David-ud9ju]

@@component9008 So what's your solution. Keep spending money until New Zealand becomes Venezuela? Or they just massively increase your taxes, which you complain about as well?

[@theyruinedyoutubeagain]

OK, Patrick casually having a $6M artwork behind him is a great flex

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Paid for with our Patreon subscriptions!

[@aggiinoor]

It's a print.

[@noah4822]

i sold him that banana for 2$.... I thought patrick was one of the good rich people :(

[@loriloretta7639]

Sexy!

[@mpazinambao2938]

I had to look around at the pictures, trying to figure it out, till i looked down😅

[@NimbleBard48]

Elon Musk: "It will be financially hard for you, people, but it's a risk I am willing to take."

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

Lord Farqaad.

[@addanametocontinue]

Accurate. Any spending cuts they make aren't going to impact them, so why would they care.

[@jamesjackovich5886]

​@@addanametocontinue if they cut the 7,500 rebate on EVs and stop giving him loans to build factories and cut the space program that's what I'm hoping for, his entire wealth has been based on grants loans rebates and contracts with the government

[@thomassenbart]

He is right

[@raawesome3851]

​@@jamesjackovich5886as long as trump is his friend, he won't do that.

[@JenDinnXuz-x6m]

In Australia, our government drastically reduced the public sector and instead spent the money on large consultants who not only did a poor job, but also leaked new tax legislation so that their customers could restructure to avoid taxes and took billions of dollars while delivering nothing. As a result, the private sector has the potential to be as wasteful.

[@varbaek]

A lot of government consultants aren't really doing that great a job and sometimes the consultants hired are friends with the people hiring, which means the decision to hire which consultant may not have been unbiased. In the government I would expect less biased decisions compared to the private sector.

[@levbobrov1398]

Thank you, this is a very important point that people often miss. Cutting $10 out of your tax bill doesn't mean anything, if you then have to spend $20 on the same service. Health care would be a prime example. The whole tax preparation industry (hr block and friends) is another. IRS can easily do their own accounting and just send you a bill or a check at the end of the year. But no, you have to pay, sometimes hundreds, to some jerk company to basically do nothing useful.

[@Fireclaws10]

I would say that the private sector is just as wasteful, if not more. They just don’t have the transparent finances for people to look at. Their incentive is to make profit, not deliver a good service.

[@Sarahsmydog]

Most government consultants were government workers before they became government consultants.

[@lexman7179]

I get the impression that it's actually good for these organistions to be bad at there job as they can just string contracts out and get more money for doing a very bad job.

[@JohnSmall314]

In the UK we've had over 40 years of the trickle down fairy waving the 'efficiency' wand and now sfa works. We can't even get rubbish collected on time. It's impossible to get a doctors appointment in good time, hospital waiting lists are through the roof, roads are potholed, trains are the most expensive and least reliable in Europe, School buildings are crumbling, hospital buildings are crumbling, care homes have been sold off to hedge funds who extract maximum profit, courts are so backlogged the justice system has effectively stopped working, prisons are filled to overcrowding and they have to release criminals early. Councils are going bankrupt. University students are mired in debt for most of their working lives. Universities are about to go bust. Housing is low quality and expensive, so that most young people will never own their own homes. Pensions are meagre. Crime is rife. Especially high value corruption, which is never prosecuted. Yet somehow very rich people have become even richer living on government contracts which got shovelled in their direction in return for donations and quasi legal forms of corruption such as the promise of directorships and sinecures In contrast, places like Sweden, Norway, Finland, have high taxes, high government expenditure, and stuff works, Roads are clean, few potholes, public buildings are well maintained, public transport is affordable and reliable, it's easy to get a doctors appointment, hospital waiting lists are very short, University education is nearly free. Housing is high quality and cheap (relative to the UK). Pensions are generous. Crime rates are low. The US economy has very low productivity if you measure productivity in terms of outcomes for ordinary people. Ordinary Americans have a very low quality of life compared with ordinary Europeans. All that 'wealth creating' has resulted in a low quality of life for ordinary Americans. But mega riches for a tiny number of billionaires.

[@user-kb8rc5vq2i]

Even in Sweden we've had a few exercises of this same "efficiency"-cargo cult, and what it resulted in was, among others, a public-private partnership which managed to spend over $4B on a single hospital, and a school voucher system where privately run schools fleece the system by luring in already high-performing students with laptops and other mcguffins while cutting costs on staffing, books, etc. while not actually raising results and instead just giving arbitrarily higher grades when checked against standards testing.

[@TheGIGACapitalist]

Reminder that Americans pay over twice as much in public spending alone on healthcare than any other country per capita and private costs exceed even that.

[@yds6268]

At least there's no (gasp) socialism

[@gonzog8d]

Can you break that down? Doesn't a gap exist between what Americans pay and what the government spends due to deficit spending?

[@veilmontTV]

Medicare for all is cheaper. There isn't a vampiric insurance middle man..

[@igorbednarski8048]

yeah, that's what Americans seem not to understand. They could have universal healthcare just using the current government expenditure, without spending another penny. Instead they have the disadvantages of both the public and private health care systems without any advantages - they need to spend a lot of money out of pocket for treatment and not everyone is insured, but they also pay a shitton of tax money on the system as well 💀

[@007kingifrit]

that's because hospitals rip off insurance companies. we don't need to change healthcare much to fix the issue.

[@JohnSmith-x3y8h]

Getting the Pentagon to pass an audit would be a good start.

[@stankgangsta4105]

Think Trump will let him touch the DoD? That is a branch that makes Trump feel super important.

[@HeitorS.-dh2wl]

Congress will not let this happen anyway

[@rexxpowercolt]

Well, if the Pentagon gets audited, I mean, what are we actually auditing? This is the military we're talking about, and a lot of that information is kept from the public for a reason.. maybe they didn't actually de-arm during the cold war de-escalation, and they're trying to hide all of those nuclear weapons somewhere else.. don't want the bill for that showing up anywhere, do we? I would relate it to opening Pandora's box.

[@thilomanten8701]

They have that certain set of skills to make the audit pass - 24h!

[@emmakane6848]

Apparently there was a law that Congress passed a while back which means that outside agencies actually can’t audit defense spending. I wonder how much the Department of Government Efficiency can actually cut when they aren’t even allowed to look at the single biggest line item.

[@jamesgravil9162]

"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make."

[@ryandee8543]

Some of us will "die" either way. They keep kicking the can down the road. We're out of road. A lot more People will "die" more violently then.

[@be1tube]

I work for a contractor working for the government. I'm giving my opinion not that of the gov or my employer. The most wasteful things I observe are usually measures to keep the government from wasting money. You must spend months justifying a project that anyone involved knows from experience is a good idea. You must make plans a year out because that is how the funding cycle works. Making those plans chews up hundreds of thousands of dollars and the plans need to be either ridiculously vague or cover absurd possibilities to attempt to predict the future. Then, despite your best efforts, unknown unknowns pop up 3 months in and set you back a month or two. And whenever someone wants to make things "more efficient" they ask for lots of reports giving even more justification and you spend months writing those reports rather than doing the thing they are supposedly paying you for. But they never count the waste of all these extra reports and figures and the political maneuvering people do to try to make themselves look better in the reports and the calcifying changes that get put in place to shield people's jobs from "cost cutting." Trust is valuable because it enables efficiency. These mistrustful campaigns waste that precious resource and also increase inefficiency.

[@tonysmith5485]

Yeah, demanding "efficiency" often leads to inefficiency. All organisations have some amount of waste and slack, trying to get it to zero is a fools errand. Good thing President Fool found two more fools to sort it all out!

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

Governments and government agencies would rather waste small amounts of money constantly and everywhere, then large amounts of money infrequently and specifically. Basically they want waste to be boring and hard to define, as opposed to headline grabbing and obvious. Because the latter gets those responsible fired. Which actually wastes more money isn't relevant. It was interesting in the UK during Covid when procurement rules were relaxed because the government was desperate enough not to care about optics. And of course there was a big scandal over wasted money. It was part of why the government got obliterated during the election. But nobody seemed interested in bringing up how many lives were saved by placing orders earlier than would otherwise be possible, or the savings on the procurement process itself. I can't even bring that up without being called a Tory Bootlicker.

[@emptiester]

I worked at federal laboratory. They found a 10k lab oven on the loading dock from 1970. Literally dozens of people were involved in the ordering, procurement process. Zero people confirmed it was received or used. Repeat that scenario by a billion and you get the federal government. Its their job to spend. Thats all they do.

[@jasonbaxter3658]

Same in the UK.

[@bibbidi_bobbidi_bacons]

lol

[@jameshughes3014]

I don't think left leaning americans would claim that this level is spending is 'fine'. I think the disagreement would be in what the government spends money on, and certainly about whether or not privatization actually saves money.

[@brazilstreets7955]

It does

[@3_character_minimum]

​@@brazilstreets7955 not always

[@peege8574]

​@@brazilstreets7955 it doesn't

[@XoroksComment]

​@@brazilstreets7955 Private military contractor's priority is always providing the best value for the government of course

[@riccardoferrazzo8283]

Privatization usually ends up costing more for the users with fewer people covered. The government saves a bit, service gets worse, a selected group of people profit from it.

[@TheSimianDeity]

It should be noted that, at least in theory, Social Security is NOT a part of the US Federal Budget, but rather it's own separate budget. Tax revenue does not support Social Security - it is instead an self-sufficient retirement fund. Of course, that has not stopped Congress from raiding the coffers when it suited them, forever blurring the distinction between Social Security and the rest of the Federal Budget.

[@ipadsrawesome3667]

That is why the republican argument is so disengenioua. They could have segregated that money and invested it similar to other countries but they wanted the deficit to look smaller. Now that they need to pay out they complain about it and want to cut everything

[@marianhunt8899]

Corporation inefficiency is also huge. No-one ever speaks about this. Land fill is filled with corporations excess. Perfectly good food and all manner of goods thrown into landfill just to keep prices high and protect brands. Meanwhile people, yes our fellow humans, dying from hunger and neglect.

[@mechanicalmonk2020]

Yes but you just define efficiency differently and it's no longer an issue 😊

[@henryjones8287]

A former colleague of mine, culture warrior, "libertarian", obsessed with Friedman/Sowell, etc, complained about the sloppiness of the private company we worked for saying "I don't understand why it's being run like a public enterprise 😢" Amazing stuff

[@newagain9964]

Lots of wasteful spending in private sector including all the project managers, sales, lawyers and accountants (BS jobs).

[@user-pn8ke3kf5f]

The key is to get the best of both worlds by using public taxes to funnel money to corporations with almost zero accountability.

[@greebj]

but consumption is all that matters for GDP. New garbage needs to be bought to replace the old garbage that was in last year's figures.

[@CanalTremocos]

If the Pentagon passes one audit in the next 4 years I'll buy a Tesla.

[@Fx_-]

I keep thinking how Mr proper patrick boyle doesn’t like Elon Musk. And then… I think about how jelousy and envy work… Boyle if you’re better since you look down on Elon…. How come you aren’t with a president of the United States fixing the country’s finances? Or having any sort of influence at all? I just wonder. 😂

[@ev.c6]

That will NEVER happen. EVER. The arms industry has very deep pockets into American politics. There will be no meaningful cuts to the defense budget. Specially with Trump.

[@dd-uy5lx]

they pass every year when they visit the congress. trust me

[@spinnakerthegreat2612]

@@Fx_- there is no chance Musk succeeds cutting even 1 trillion ie half of his ambition. Lobbyists have trillions in IOUs from congressmen who owe them 😅. They hold the power of the purse

[@adsfadsfasdasdfasf2439]

@@Fx_- Good point. Since I know you're not a hypocrite, you have never criticized anyone more successful than you in your life, correct? Never said a bad thing about George Soros, I presume.

[@DarkRoomAmbience]

If he starts with all the government subsidies that have kept all his businesses afloat for decades, maybe we can get to that $2T

[@terrifiedanimal]

So you're against incentives to buy EVs or to put solar panels on residential rooftops? Are you saying that the other EV manufacturers go without subsidies? Do you think spending the defense and space program money with Boeing would produce better results? That certainly hasn't been the case in recent years. SpaceX gets no subsidies and received half as much as Boeing for astronaut transport, but did 100 percent of the work.

[@19LonayHofght-h8v]

The banana may be seen in the background

[@Velereonics]

He's such a connoisseur

[@UCjNrKLyRJI-abFA8qiNo92Q]

millions worth of art

[@distantraveller9876]

@@UCjNrKLyRJI-abFA8qiNo92Q It's a replica. No one is dumb enough to spend millions on that lol

[@irrel3vant4545]

@@distantraveller9876 tape is genuine. banana is from tesco

[@StEvUgnIn]

Justin Sun was here

[@jedics1]

Give a billionaire the job of "cleaning up regulation" when his own interests directly benefit, no wonder he was literally jumping for joy in support of Trump. Instead of protest, they cheer for him to get richer by the simpletons who think the trickle down effect is still coming. The only thing trickling down to anybody will be austerity.

[@hillbilly4895]

When that happens, you'll be correct.

[@ifoundz]

@@hillbilly4895 commenting so I can say "we told you so"

[@RolandTHX]

True trickling down has never been tried! This time it will work!

[@robertcambareri1028]

We have been experiencing the trickle down effect.... of rich people's pee.

[@ozyrob1]

I still can't believe any of this is happening. Any minute now I'm going to wake up.

[@danielmikula1375]

Collecting more tax wasn't the point of the higher marginal tax rate: it was decreasing the incentive to take higher pay. Reinvesting or raising wages was the goal, and if the wealthiest people tried to take home higher pay, the government would take much of it from them to use for public works anyway.

[@foobarf8766]

Yes. Important point, and also applies to capital gains tax etc. About incentivising a more redistributive direction of capital flight, not govt' revenue.

[@arnabiarnab3037]

Exactly….. for one reason or another people think the opposite.. Reagan sold the trickle down economy and Americans bought it

[@xela6349]

So a small challenge at the beginning at 3:30 From 1200-1600 we had a completely different conception of how states should be funded and who was the sovereign. It was pretty much exclusively monarchies for bigger states, and those were often funded by private ventures of the kings. Like for example royal farms and such. So of course they don't need as much taxes (and really, they only taxed the nobility a little and worked a lot with tariffs, which by themselves also have harmful effects on the economy). So comparing this time span to modernity compares two different concepts of statehood, sovereignity, as well as the size of those states (in the economic sense). This is not even a thing about left vs. right, this is about the basis underlying everything.

[@HarryBuxley]

Careful now, you are bringing nuance and details to an internet conversation.

[@davidhobbs5679]

I definitely agree, a far more useful measure would be government expenditure. That captures waste far better (since debt is a thing).

[@xela6349]

@@davidhobbs5679 mhh, it would come closer to the true thing maybe. However it doesn't cover non-monetary transactions like feudal obligations. Back then peasants had to work a certain amount of time in a year for their feudal lord, which also has to be accounted into that calculation (essentially taxing time instead of money directly). Why do you think government expenditure is a better indicator? And as someone from Germany, the country with more castles than the US has MCDonalds, I'd also contest the assumption that "governments back then were less wasteful".

[@davidhobbs5679]

@xela6349 fundementally the issue is that the government is becoming too large a part of the economy. Taxation dragging the economy, inflation, or decreases in productivity are side effects of this. The issue is government expenditure, increases in Taxation are a part of it. Goverment expenditure shows the issue more clearly, regardless of revenue stream, as you highlight, Taxation can include none monetary forms, especially during feudal times.

[@foobarf8766]

You make it sound like a return to cyber serfdom using crypto currencies is a bad thing

[@jasontang6725]

Didn't realise you are wealthy enough to afford $6M artwork on a rap news budget. Congrats on your success.

[@Budget-Soda]

His KZbin channel description states that He’s a hedge fund manager and University professor. I’m guessing He does KZbin as a hobby to help us better understand economics and finance related topics 🤷‍♂️

[@ancogaming]

@@Budget-Soda Dude, he talked about the banana on the wall as a joke. It went right over your head, we all know about Patrick and his credentials... makes it even funnier. You should follow the news about RAP music more diligently, then you'd know too.

[@akuhappy3246]

​@@ancogamingshe/he lost sight of the banana

[@buzzlightyear3715]

Patrick was a quant hedge fund manager working for Soro, and others. He made his money already.

[@RolandStenutz]

Over regulation is a major obstacle to innovation. To quote one of Elon's buddies: "Safety is just pure waste" - Stockton Rush

[@dangavel1283]

The trouble with cutting regulations in general is that industry is notoriously poor at policing themselves and when left to their own devices ,will cheat, lie and pollute regardless of the consequences and the public ( as usual ) will foot the bill. Many businesses are lead by sociopaths, they cannot be trusted to do the right thing, as maximum profit is their bottom line and overrides any moral or environmental concerns..

[@monzorella1]

Exhibit A - Boeing

[@ChristopherSadlowski]

Almost every regulation is written in blood, ESPECIALLY in the United States.

[@LayneBenofsky]

Every single "silly rule and onerous regulation" was likely put in place after life and blood of one or many people paid for those mistakes. Just chopping away the mechanisms to regulate or enforce those regulations is shortsighted to a (tragically) comical degree.

[@Joseph-rg7ci]

We must also recognize that a company is a machine and anyone who does something good that hurts the immediate bottom line will be kicked out. No matter what

[@gelinrefira]

It is as though capitalism has terrible incentives that produce horrible results for society and needs to be controlled and regulated.

[@nikholden4345]

The banana taped to the wall is priceless. Love your work.

[@odieostrich7718]

the very opposite of priceless. It's worth $6.2 mill 😉

[@Т1000-м1и]

And I didn't even notice

[@m0ltipleX2000]

This is seriously the best and most informative video i have watched in a long time.

[@johnpienta4200]

This is a reminder that in America you have long wait times in healthcare, service deserts and monopoly pricing. That means you'll sit and wait 6 hours in the ER just like Canada, except you will get a $6,000 bill, our leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical debt, and 1/5 women with stage 4 breast cancer have bills in collections. We pay extra so insurance companies, PBMs, drug companies, device manufacturers, hospital systems can have record profits. Hospitals/doctors are not allowed to charge patients a lower price than the insurance companies get charged, yet insurance companies negotiate to reimburse pennies on the dollar for that same charge. It's cheating in every direction. I'll be shocked if this administration makes anything better for anyone except themselves.

[@travisadams4470]

Dementia Joe and Heels Up Harris would do a lot worse. I'm very interested to see what happens. At least Trump will secure the borders, deport illegals and get rid of Department of Education

[@Rock_Appreciator]

100%

[@travisadams4470]

BS!

[@piccalillipit9211]

I live in Bulgaria - the "poorest" country in the EU. The wait at the hospital ER is ZERO. And our hospitals are super local so you can usually walk to them, I think there are 27 in my city of Burgas, 4 of which are brand new. When I moved here 15 years ago the quality of care was pretty ropy but now its as good as any Western country.

[@Thunderstyle7]

@@piccalillipit9211 I'm glad to hear this. Much love to the Bulgarian people from Estonia.

[@Kaosi]

I'm still not over the "department" of efficiency having... two directors

[@chicitizen]

Very inefficient.

[@MADMOGtheFrugal]

Right because one person overseeing the finances of an entire country is feasible.. Think again

[@uncle-bin1750]

Musk has so many companies to run and so much weed to smoke all the while retweeting conspiracy theories 24/7. I doubt he'll have much time to be efficient. 😅

[@kayunrtd3514]

They're companies that have co-chair structures and work just fine. Remember that the final boss is the president so it can work if you look at it objectively

[@itseveryday8600]

But they are the only employees. Everyone else in the department are going to be volunteers with no pay.

[@piccalillipit9211]

*ITS NOT ABOUT PREVENTING FRAUD* or over billing by companies - its about being nasty to poor people...!!!

[@jameshughes3014]

@@piccalillipit9211 this is the truth. They will happily ignore evidence and truth, and spend money if it gives them the chance to make the poor suffer.

[@protennis365]

Poor people do commit fraud also.

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@protennis365 Let them. All the fraud carried out by all the poor people in Am3ric4 wont come to 1/1000th the cost of the banking crisis in 2008.

[@mr_sanchez]

​@@protennis365 How big do you think the harm done by poor people defrauding the gov is?

[@protennis365]

@@mr_sanchez I live in Pomona, California and poor people over here commit fraud all the time. I had poor people give me counterfeit money when working as a cashier. I had poor people trying to exchange by swapping serial numbers from a broken printer just to get a new one. I had a poor people swap out price tag labels.

[@gusgablaw7375]

No, but together they can leave a 2 trillion dollar hole where your social security used to be.

[@jamesjackovich5886]

Biggest Republican lie social security was already paid for by the people that retired and they keep borrowing from it like a slush fund

[@TheAdamAdy]

Its a ponzi, not a security

[@jonathantaylor6926]

The money for social security is long gone. It get's spent the moment you pay you taxes.

[@onetwothreefour-s1n]

Yup

[@acenine8149]

I already save for my own retirement, and I will not likely see any of the money that is currently being stolen from me to be put in SS. If Elon gets rid of it, then good riddance

[@andrescorrea125]

Banana taped to the wall .... nice

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

It turns out it was Patrick Boyle that invested in that art work, it will be very valuable in some hundred years

[@antonyloc]

Looks better than a urinal!

[@volvo09]

It would have been hilarious if it fell during the video 😂

[@Chiraisu]

No really. Why is there a banana on the wall

[@adder2488]

@@Chiraisuchuck “banana taped to wall” into google, Luddite.

[@sbfcapnj]

What a phenomenal video. Reasonable, measured, informed, cited, and expert. Patrick, you are setting the bar for journalism right now.

[@thomas316]

The era of big government is over. The era of mega government has arrived, total government!

[@mentalmelonhead2249]

True,very obvious if you live here in Oz

[@marianhunt8899]

No, rule by the Oligarchs with a tiny government doing their bidding, that will be to bully and imprison anyone who disagrees with this.

[@joriankell1983]

​@@marianhunt8899(((oligarchs)))

[@Onomatopoeia4u]

If only there was a word for that... 😅

[@thomassenbart]

Dumb comment

[@AmberSpecter1999]

I realize now that the Elon Musk sink photograph will become as historically relevant as Napoleon's portraits, Lunch atop a Skyscraper, etc. and I envy the future generations, because their history lessons will be extremely chaotic and, thus, extremely entertaining

[@distantraveller9876]

Funny you think there'll be future generations or people around to remember human history.

[@danielch6662]

Lunch atop a skyscraper was staged. It's not fake in the sense that they didn't composite two photographs together. But the workers were posed, and the photo was deliberately framed/cropped in such a way that you think they are hanging out in mid air a hundred storeys from the ground. In actual fact, the completed floors are just one or two level below them. Because that's how skyscrapers are built. A floor or two at a time. You don't just do an open metal frame all the way to the top, and only then start pouring the concrete. Logically, it makes no sense anyway. Why would so many people be having lunch on one beam? They're carrying their lunch with them all morning as they work? More likely, they left their stuff at the highest level with a completed floor, and at break time, go down there to get their food. And since they are already down there, might as well eat before going back up. For if they brought their lunch boxes up to eat on the beam, what are they going to do with the empty lunch boxes after they're done eating? The boxes are usually metal, not disposable, and too expensive to just throw away.

[@kobuseksteen411]

The banana taped to the wall is a nice touch.

[@specialkonacid6574]

people have incredibly short memories concerning elon musk

[@theairstig9164]

Not an accident

[@mypalfootfoot9591]

And Donald Trump! Biden's win in 2020 can be seen more as Trump losing. People forget what a bad job he did, not to mention his playing golf for nearly a year out of his four as President!

[@leejames929]

I think they just have short memories in general sadly

[@mitchpowell608]

What should we be remebering...lol...

[@specialkonacid6574]

@mitchpowell608 pick one, cybertruck, roadster, semi, solar city, hyperloop, FSD, 420 tweet, claiming he was a founder of Tesla and Neuralink, 8 billion humanoid robot buddies, mars colony... jfc 🤪🔨

[@bizzarostormy]

Love the new art piece. Thank you Mr Boyle.

[@gearweel8982]

I think the problem is that there are essentially two big issues to deal with: one is political and the other is administrative. On the political scale, we can't agree on what to actually cut. Regulations do cost money, but they can also save a lot of trouble in the long run (think about how much we spend cleaning up old mines). Its a complicated discussion that is ruined by political pandering. For example, raising the retirement age by two years may save money, but people in their early 60s are a big voting population. On an administrative level, there is little incentive to cut costs. If you can do something under budget in the government, you just get a smaller budget next year, and its harder to get that money back than it is spend more than you need. Though I think its more than just a spending issue; I think it's a return-on-investment issue. If we actually had functional healthcare and decent infrastructure, I think this conversation would be a lot different.

[@IulianYT]

6:30 - hey, I know there are skeptics about IQ reliability, but "high-IQ", or "super smart" people won't work 80+ hours per week. They are not *that* stupid after all.

[@boredphysicist]

Also if you want to promote efficiency, then required 80 hour work weeks is a terrible way to start. Youre telling me you need double full time hours to suggest ways other people should increase efficiency?

[@killdamnation]

When you’re working on short term initiatives 80+ hour weeks isn’t unreasonable if you are willingly agreeing to it. Change is hard and much of the work is understanding the impacts of the change. There are always people willing to work 80 hour weeks - I worked for a decade in the restaurant industry and people on fixed wages worked those hours frequently - I’d say they’ll be paying a lot more for those hours in a government job

[@userblame632]

@@boredphysicist and its a known fact that work efficiency drops the more hours you work, it would be far more efficient to hire 2 people working 40 hours each that both put in higher quality work than one person who will produce sub par work that may have to be went over by another person in the future anyway.

[@HALLish-jl5mo]

They exist. Most people won’t voluntarily work those hours, and won’t be very productive if forced to. But some people will do it happily, and some of those people are smart. I think the bigger problem is going to be getting smart people working for an organisation that will inherently cut their own job just as they’ve flooded the market with unemployed people.

[@marianhunt8899]

Some of Musks 'work' is super easy. He just goes from host show to host show talking about marvellous and super intelligent he is. If he's so incredible, why are the government subsidies (taxpayer monies) he receives so huge?

[@whafrog]

The argument about the 90% tax rate in the 50's is misleading. The point of a higher marginal tax rate on higher income individuals is to keep the wealth gap from getting too extreme. When individuals and corporations can spend billions to sway elections, we've gone from a system where one person = one vote, to a system where one dollar = one vote, which is fundamentally undemocratic. The net effect of a higher marginal rate is that the portion of federal tax receipts coming from the wealthy is greater than currently, where it's the middle and poorer classes who end up funding everything, only to see it being hoovered up by the upper classes.

[@kensmith5694]

Yes that is the main argument for progressive taxes and also for things that work as a wealth tax. You missed the fact that money in the hands of the extremely rich tends not to circulate in the nation.

[@lordofhyphens]

​@@kensmith5694we definitely do not want to help a landed aristocracy out at all

[@MM-vs2et]

​@@kensmith5694 More yet, it doesn't circulate at all. A lot of wealth owned by billionaires and corporations are 'parked' somewhere, not used as investments, or spent at all. Billions and billions of assets just sitting idle in some ledger

[@YamiHoOu]

Yeah I didn't get his argument either. Like people work less when taxes are higher? What? Okay so that should mean the money doesn't rocket all the way to top and stay there then? It's still better to have higher tax on higher earnings no matter which way you look at it.

[@gregmccauley1687]

@@YamiHoOu yeah they do work less when taxes are higher. think of it like this. If you were taxed at 99%, why bother working overtime? Let's say you made 10 million $ last year and the tax rate is 60% vs. 3%. If it's 60%, you'll do everything you can to hide money and exploit loopholes. If it's 3% then you'd probably be content to just cut a check and not mess with all these accounting gymnastics

[@shep9194]

“Hedge fund manager tells you why deregulation is good”

[@shodanxx]

To be clear when they say waste they mean your grandmother's oxygen tank.

[@ianmarsden8568]

Emotive, no!

[@Marl-pk9ii]

that does sound like a waste

[@monzorella1]

​@@Marl-pk9iinah it's you that's a waste of space

[@Marl-pk9ii]

@@monzorella1 my grandmother died 4 years ago. giving her oxygen would be a waste. youre a waste of skin lol

[@shodanxx]

@@Marl-pk9ii This money could have been better spent on oil subsidized for arctic drilling. Might even make so much money to pay enough corporate tax to buy grandma another, small oxygen tank. Your grandma can live without oxygen for a 'lil while right ?

[@needlebacklessons4950]

One of the most amusing things about this whole affair is that Tesla has to keep pretending like Musk is contributing anything in his CEO role there when he is already clearly oversubscribed (not to mention tweeting at all hours).

[@SusCalvin]

I'm worried about how much value is tied to the personal brand of company officers. If they are valued that much, what is the actual company worth. Zuckerberg also has provisions that guarantee his job security. Facebook can't remove him.

[@3_character_minimum]

Not to mention all the gaming he is doing

[@Werevertumoto]

Tesla shareholders are more than happy with all the free advertisements and political influence he provides for his companies. As well as influx of talent that want to work at his companies, which allows them to hire top talent for a very good price.

[@3_character_minimum]

@@Werevertumoto tesla is overpriced

[@kotenoklelu3471]

​@@3_character_minimumso is Uber. I heard Uber never made a profit

[@MarKeMu125]

Maybe if the gov stopped all the neoliberal crap and actually just did stuff instead of going through 5 different consultancy firms and 10 different firms to actually carry out any piece of work.

[@apothes1970]

Oh wow it was Patrick who won the Cattelan Banana auction...

[@derpmansderpyskin]

Shocked to learn that you own duct tape.

[@3_character_minimum]

The Gamekeeper had some.

[@phonyalias7574]

One thing I want to point out, is that the costs of goods and services as a percentage of household spending have also shifted over time. Today for example, the cost of rent or a mortgage is a bigger percentage of income than it was in times past, and for many people this is simply a symptom of wages not keeping up with the cost of living. I want to suggest that taxes also broadly follow the rise in wages, and so when the cost in living outpaces the growth in wages, the percent of GDP that must go to taxes to cover services also goes up.

[@lettersathroughz100]

it is irresponsible to talk about Social Security without mentioning it has a seperate fundung channel from the main government spending fund. SS tax is all that pays for SS once the SS trust fund runs out in ~10 years. we young people are told it will go bankrupt, but only the trust will. we will still see 85% of benefits which is not "getting little out of it" efficency would be removing the SS tax cap on income over ~170k earnings. make the rich pay their fair share

[@chriswest6988]

Yeah even if you cut every cent of social security spending, you're also cutting over a trillion in revenue alongside it, so the effect on the deficit is not going to be as exciting as you'd hope.

[@foobarf8766]

Tend to agree, but that is double edged sword because inflation is covariant with social security yield. Fed ends up being the meat in the sandwich.

[@sertorius3319]

The funding method for Social Security is crucial to how it got passed and why no one’s been able to repeal it, for precisely this reason.

[@fatboydim.7037]

Well if it was that easy why didn't Trump do it last time in office instead of adding 7.2 trillion to the debt pile in the USA. There are only two areas you can feasibiliy do this Defence or Medicaid to have any meaningful impact. So something here is not adding up with Musks sums.

[@stampedetrail2003]

He ain't the best at math. See Cybertruck.

[@Budget-Soda]

Half of Trump’s contribution to the national debt was due to the Covid Pandemic. Most of the covid spending were in the form of PPP loans and stimulus checks to help business owners retain their employees and all citizens stay afloat. Other than that Trump’s contribution would roughly be the same as Biden’s.

[@andyfreeze4072]

@@stampedetrail2003 its not maths , its their sense of entitlement and hubris.

[@dsbau]

In Australia our govt cut the public sector massively and spend the money on big consultants who not just did a worse job, they did things like leak new tax laws so that their clients could restructure to avoid tax, and take billions of dollars and deliver nothing. So, the private sector can be just as wasteful.

[@plainlake]

Anyone who has worked in a large private enterprise know that bloated bureaucracy is not just an governmental thing.

[@Whatshisname346]

Exactly, I’ve seen private sector companies waste obscene amounts of cash on PR and entertainment and then turn round and tell workforces that these is no money for training or improved equipment which would improve efficiency.

[@AlexWatson-t1f]

NO. Elon wants endless taxpayer subsidies, pardon me, contracts for SpaceX

[@stonedaurelius6496]

No he does not. He said so. He is okay with everyone losing subsidies.

[@kensmith5694]

Yes and that is likely the least of his conflicts of interest.

[@jonathantaylor6926]

When you provide a service to the government, like delivering payloads to space, you get paid.

[@AlexWatson-t1f]

@@jonathantaylor6926 Of course you do. But the US is broke. So it can't afford a government space program

[@AlexWatson-t1f]

@@stonedaurelius6496I doubt any claim Elon makes. Elon is the taxpayer subsidy king. He built his empire off the back of government largesse.

[@algodmen]

And I've never understood the argument that we can't go back to Eisenhower-era marginal rates because of either a) People will avoid the high marginal rates with tax shelters or b) income taxes relative to GDP were unaffected by the tax cuts since the 1960s. Well, OK, if high marginal rates don't affect what people pay in taxes then neither should tax cuts. In other words if raising taxes has no actual effect then neither should cutting taxes -- a position that nobody seems willing to take

[@user-pn8ke3kf5f]

The first one is especially ridiculous. Like ok, nobody will pay 90%. Let's add that tax bracket and find out.

[@MrRedsjack]

People are more mobile than ever. I worked with wealthy Americans tired of their high federal tax that moved out of the country and got new citizenships. You can still spend 6 months per year in the us but save millions per year in taxes. It's really easy and even fun. With the savings of a single year of US taxes you can get 3 different new nationalities that together allow you to travel most of the world without visas. (Saint Nevis and Kitts, Italian or Hungarian and Cambodian) each of the 3 has areas that are visa free and 2 of them have very convenient tax systems. You can live between tropical paradise islands and the Italian coast and alpine sky resorts and all living near tax free. It's an amazing option in particular if you come from places like new York where being a multi millionaire doesn't even make you feel upper class. And all these 3 countries have lower violent crime rates than in the US. If the US raises its tax rate substantially I will become rich from Americans that want to leave the country asking for my help. People are already doing it with the current tax rates. People are always less tied to a specific country and flying around the world is very easy and cheap, you can run a business from anywhere thanks to increasingly reliable internet worldwide.

[@hanifarroisimukhlis5989]

@@MrRedsjack And yet over half of Americans never leave their country...

[@tonysmith5485]

@@hanifarroisimukhlis5989 They're still paying off the bill for the band-aid & aspirin from their last hospital visit.

[@danielch6662]

​@@MrRedsjack so the super rich leaves. So? You don't tax them, they stay. You tax them, they leave. What difference does that make? How is the government worse off?

[@raoulduke3000]

"... to launch rockets into the Indian Ocean that can barely carry a banana onboard" 😂 I watch your videos mainly for the sake of dry humor and subtle cynicism, much appreciated! Also, how much for the banana on your wall?

[@LordHelmets]

How does the inability to negotiate drug prices affect the cost and efficiency of Medicaid and Medicare? It cannot be zero, can it?

[@jamesjackovich5886]

@@LordHelmets Americans were paying 350 dollars a month for insulin 10 times more than 30 other countries, corporate price gouging by big pharm should have stopped 50 years ago, Biden got it down to 35 a month so people could stop dying for profits, now the monkeys are out of their cages again

[@ryanlcooper]

You should do a video on the problems with policy complexity and tax expenditures. If you count tax credits like the CTC as spending, which they are, then the US actually has a European level of benefit spending. They’re just so inefficient that much of it is wasted. A further problem is that programs are so complicated that there are large compliance costs that leave people out and waste even more. CMS has to keep a health profile stat on every single Medicare enrollee to keep private Medicare Advantage providers from ripping off the government, but they constantly rig the program anyway.

[@anish749]

The humour in this video is just too much!! I had to pause the video to laugh at the banana (comedian) joke!

[@chrisl4999]

I think *anyone* could trim 2T from the US budget. I’m not sure you’d even have to work too hard to do it. The question is what it would do to the economy.

[@theairstig9164]

Just do it slowly over 4 years. Start with putting caps on the amount of money a hospital can charge for admissions. An insane amount of money is siphoned off from the health care system to overseas investors. It should not be run for a profit. That only occurred because lobbyists managed to “convince” congress to let private companies buy and run hospitals already paid for by the tax payer

[@newagain9964]

@@theairstig9164actually most hospitals are non profit. And greedy af

[@sentryion3106]

@@theairstig9164 Good fucking luck with how entrenched the Insurance, PBM, pharma, hospital network is. Sure if say Bernie with a progressive congress and SC says this then I can see it happening, but if Trump or Elon say it I'm pretty sure the only that happens will be cutting more and more people out or make the insurance claims harder and harder.

[@warbler1984]

How does cutting private business rates cut government spending???!? ​@theairstig9164

[@HammerShock23]

That's like saying you can lose 30 pounds in a day, it just involves a tourniquet and a chainsaw.

[@YourComradeChris]

I cant imagine why anyone would doubt him... Not all that long ago, people (well, at least *person*) thought that $44bn was what Twitter should cost. Nobody on Earth would buy it now, of it would cost them $44bn, or even half of that. You really can't argue with results like that. 😂

[@DangRenBo]

Half that? Maybe. Twitter/X has an estimated value of about $10B on its own, but also a 25% stake in xAI, which is valued at $50B, and expected to rise quickly as it catches up to other players. (It started only recently and has moved up fast with good hiring and hardware acquisition.)

[@tonysmith5485]

@@DangRenBo I'd be dubious of that xAI valuation given whose rear that number was pulled out of. For Twitter to have value implies someone wants to buy it, and I'm not sure that's true. I don't think the remaining office furniture is worth much. And as is often pointed out about Tesla's valuation - umm why exactly? The world of fake money is weird.

[@TknWhyBoy]

And he knew it wasn’t worth that much, but you know what was worth $44bn? Free speech! Now the left can’t just shut people down when they like and companies can’t force opinions onto people.

[@koumorichinpo4326]

@@DangRenBo 👈😂

[@bigjared8946]

It's the same as the answer to the question: Can he make the functional Hyperloop he claimed he could? No, but also nope.

[@TSI9001]

Around the 4m mark, in criticism of the argument for taxing the rich to rectify debt, Boyle states that higher marginal tax rates (with the top in the US being ~90% in the 50s) failed to produce higher tax receipts as percentage of GDP and attributes that to deferment and people opting to work less; however, he fails to note these thresholds were much higher then-eg, inflation adjusted (2014 dollars), the top marginal rate in '46 was $2.41M compared with $142K in '91.

[@chriswest6988]

It does point to closing loopholes, funding enforcement etc being important parts of a better approach, rather than brute force marginal rate increases alone. But it's strange that he instead treats it like getting people to actually pay a higher tax rate is inherently a lost cause.

[@tubekrake]

@@chriswest6988 It has become so easy to leave the country nowadays and slash all your taxes. They probably would need to mine the borders so their tax payers don't just leave.

[@DangRenBo]

14:30 SS taxes are capped after $100k+. Just removing this cap will help out SS for another couple of decades. Separating the SS budget from the fed completely would guarantee its viability.

[@yusufalapan5120]

yeah taxes, aspecially taken form the more weathy are one of the few redistributive policies. I am not sure its main purpose is to cover government spending. It helps rich or richer to fund social policies that evereone uses. Marginal tax rate basically redistributes the wealth accumulated on the top.

[@sertorius3319]

If I recall correctly, FDR once passed an income tax law that created a top bracket that only applied to one person - Rockefeller. Even if the people in question aren’t taking advantage of loopholes, there might not be enough of them for it to matter.

[@Nick-cs4oc]

The problem is that more and more of the GDP goes to the smallest group of people, the whole might be taxed the same but all the gains of efficiency and productivity are going to the same people. Who don’t actually make money off of their labour, but from owning things. Taxing the people who make the most money off of just owning things, is like the whole point

[@3_character_minimum]

Ain't gonna happen. Trump 1.0 slashed taxes to the top, permanently. And gifted some tax cuts to the rest, temporarily.

[@GrowBagUK]

Too many rentiers extracting wealth from the productive workers...

[@nyarparablepsis872]

Unlike most of Patrick's viewers, who are here for his rap videos and the occasional tidbit on finance, I appreciate vids like this one for the fire of inspiration they bring! Writing a dystopian near future setting for a horror game, there are really no better ways to find some gutpunch detail that drives home the overarching theme (which is, of course, rap) than videos like this one.

[@andylemon80]

A meaningless role in a nonexistent department, lacking both budget and authority. Adding to the irony, they establish a so-called ‘DOGE’ department-incurring extra expenses under the guise of cutting costs. Complete scammers.

[@HAL9000_ICantDoThat]

It's a think tank for proposals and suggestions. Doesn't need legislative authority. As for incurring expenses? Lol. Vivek & Elon are both working for free :) Amazes me how people can be against this idea to make your taxes, your money actually be accountable!

[@andylemon80]

@ Ah, I see-you’re one of those who voted for a president promising to hike tariffs and launch a trade war, all to ‘reduce taxes and regulations’ for his billionaire buddies like Elon Musk. Spoiler alert: you’ve been played into bankrolling the MAGA oligarchy. Well done!

[@travisadams4470]

FCC has no teeth. We don't need Federal Department of Education. DOD can't pass a damn audit. I'm looking forward to seeing what they find and what Congress will do about. At least Trump and DOGE are on the right path. Heels up Harris would do a lot worse

[@ThomasSmithTx]

They are working for free so.....

[@robertcambareri1028]

And this is from the party (GOP) of small government. First it was the Dept. of Homeland Security, now the Dept of Efficiency. The level of scam is amazing.

[@nickarmstrong6080]

Is the answer yes but at what cost? Some regulations seem silly, unless you understand the details. Will musk care about the details?

[@ev.c6]

Not in this context.

[@tomizatko3138]

He will not.

[@Threedogsinatrenchcoat]

So long as he is not taxed on 50b of self awarded stock, not investigated again for crypto fraud (buying $2b bitcoin claiming tesla would only accept that as payment then selling it), and is supplemented by repurchasing twitter at 19b to incur a 26b loss he will play ball.

[@Cynsham]

Has Musk ever cared about the details?

[@jameshughes3014]

@@nickarmstrong6080 no

[@bubblebobble9654]

If Patrick had an invitation to Elon's Christmas party, he does not anymore

[@WesBrazas]

Patrick, how about a discussion on the GDP equation? Most people don't realize government spending is included in GDP. A 2 trillion cut in 27trillion GDP is roughly a 7% cut in the overall economy plunging the US into a recession. Add the lowered trade from tariffs and can easily spiral into depression. We were warned there would be "some pain".

[@foobarf8766]

Great point

[@Varun2799]

Strictly speaking it might be good if it is purely for efficiency gain in the long term Imagine we had a job to dig a hole You can either give 1000 people spoons to dig the hole GDP will be higher this way but super inefficient Or You can give 50 people shovels More efficient but less gdp Or You can have a hole digging machine with 1 operator Low gdp but super efficient Which would you rather have? Keep in mind when efficiency increases, more production happens in the economy so standard of living rises for everyone in the long term The net losers are the people who were using spoonsto dig a hole But for everyone else They now have the hole at a much less cost

[@marshalLannes1769]

Mr. Genius , How do you suggest government pay 35 trillion dollar debt? Which increases by 2 trillion dollar every years....

[@cantacann]

I guess they would cut taxes and lower debt interests at the same rate

[@azmah1999]

​@@marshalLannes1769 Government (or even corporate for that matter) debt is not the same thing as debt for the everyman like you and me. How will they pay for the debt? Like basically any governments and companies, by refinancing it, which is an option us mortals don't have. By refinancing, I mean taking new debt to pay the old debt. Which, I agree, might at first raise alarm bells, but its not because governments (and companies, don't forget they use the exact same strategy) have a distinct feature differentiating them from you and me. They are potentially immortal. The problem with me refinancing my debt is that there will come a time where I die and the debtor is left with a loss, which is a huge risk lenders aren't willing to take. But for governments the risk is much less, so lenders are willing to lend. But no seriously, there is a reason why government bonds are very much appreciated by the finance world, they basically are the lowest risk investment ever. And moreover, it's not like all this debt is due next January, or like all of it is due at one specific date. So in the end, the government only spend a fraction of the nominal amount of the debt servicing it. Government debt is probably one of the biggest boogeyman in politics. As long as you use it efficiently (which isn't a simple ROI calculation, since many of the benefits the government provide are not monetary), it's fine

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

there was absolutely extraordinary damage done to the u.s. budget, by any metric, by the bush era tax cuts. not sure why that didn't get mentioned? literally no amount of discretionary spending is equivalent to that amount of lost revenue that said, sure, social security programs are between a rock and a hard place. either we do nothing and they run out of money around 2035~ (which doesn't mean nobody receives payments anymore, but that they can no longer pay out the full benefits), or we make decisions now to try and shore it up. both decisions suck; either you can do something like move the retirement age, which means people can't access benefits when they may need to due to aging out of work, or you just wait until the programs dry up and can only pay out 80% (and ever declining, until hitting some equilibrium) of the benefit (which is already meager)

[@jameshughes3014]

@@ItWasSaucerShaped if we stop spending so much money on making sure that recipients aren't stealing 20 bucks, well have millions more to spend. There are plenty of ways to trim waste without cutting benefits

[@bradbradson4543]

It's also worth noting that deregulation doesn't just cut costs, it causes harm down the line, which causes more costs. I think most of this will be short term along with marketing themselves as good at cutting spending, while wrecking important systems

[@MrCalindor]

The space spending was literally the first thing I thought of when I heard that he was going to be appointed head of DOGE😂😂

[@me0101001000]

We're going to hear a lot of, "Oh... looks like we needed that"

[@3_character_minimum]

I can say from UK austerity (See Cameron through to May)... Lots of austerity happened. Lots of things are broken, but there is a muddle on what was necessary and how to get it back.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@3_character_minimumno actual austerity happened in the UK. All that happened was that the state started growing slightly slower.

[@3_character_minimum]

@peterfireflylund maybe on the macro. But on the micro. Things where cut an gone. And had cosequenceies... Look at the court estates alone and how austerity as totally bugger the court system. Or if you really want to learn a thing or two about the damage of austerity and why councils suck. Real about what Erik Pickles was doing as community minister and the impact that all had.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@3_character_minimum not “maybe”. Definitely.

[@3_character_minimum]

@peterfireflylund I was just being nice.... I think your a moron if you think no austerity happened in the UK. Just cause it didn't do what you dreamed of. Didn't mean it didn't happen. Go touch grass and read a book.

[@uribar-ner5055]

Excellent! thanks.

[@rickwilliams9001]

One mans waste is another mans paycheck.

[@mityaboy4639]

actually “taxing the rich” is still needed. you simply can not expect nor accept that societies spend billions upon billions to help the rich and corporations out - but then when society needs funding for things like education or healthcare then the rich goes “nah, i will skip that” dont get me wrong: i am okay spending my tax money on helping out others including the rich, but only if they also pull their weight when thats needed. i get all the circumstances that if we dont help people would lose their jobs and other bits, but it still does not justify to make them exempt from playing together. anyway…

[@joriankell1983]

Cool. I can really use some cash. Can you venmo it to me?

[@mityaboy4639]

@ as we learned; venmo is used for different reasons now :) (khm Matt Gaetz) but no :) if you need money; ping the government and they will lend you some from the tax bucket. If you are rich; you wont have to pay it back… if you are poor (relatively speaking) ; then you might need to sell a kidney or two

[@TesterAnimal1]

@@joriankell1983but you’re a liar.

[@MrRedsjack]

When the military spends 3000$ on an hammer i think there is a lot of efficiency to be brought into the department of defense. The department of defense REALLY needs to be kept in check for inefficient spending. You could probably cut 25% of it's budget and have no negative impact just by cleaning up procurement procedures and holding weapons companies more accountable to gigantic cost overruns. I think in total cutting half a trillion is realistic.

[@jamesjackovich5886]

@@MrRedsjack no accountability for over 50 years that and billionaires and corporations roughly paying 3.5 percent in taxes while the family median is 13 percent

[@Avaricumstudios]

Are you by any chance suggesting that Trump and Co have incoherent and contradictory policies?

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Probably more coherent than Harris. Yeah, let’s just let in another 12-20 million and completely defund the polis. See how that works. 😵‍💫

[@distantraveller9876]

@@sirrathersplendid4825 You're an utter fool.

[@7177YT]

This is the most intellectually dishonest take of this channel to date. Increasing regulation isn't just an unfortunate tendency of state bureaucracy to grow, it's just plain necessary in an increasingly complex society. Those regulations aren't just invented to obstruct business, they are made to protect consumers or patients for instance. /:

[@specialkonacid6574]

protected from what? side effects of medical interventions maybe? oh wait...

[@blueyandicy]

Thank you!!!

[@CharFred-vr1ti]

He's not necessarily claiming that regulations are good nor bad. Maybe you should watch this again.

[@dennisbolink7659]

The problem is people say they want an efficient government but in reality what they want is an effective government

[@nietur]

15 million US-Americans drinking lead it crazy

[@sciencefliestothemoon2305]

Literally, going by the effects of lead on the brain

[@travisadams4470]

I wonder which cities and states are having lead issues. I'm willing to bet most of them are in Democrat run cities

[@nietur]

@@travisadams4470 Actually, 50% of voters drink lead, the other 50% doesn't. One half is very bad and completely irrational. The other half is very smart and ethically good.

[@Notme-s5t]

@@travisadams4470 It doesn't matter Democrat or Republican, it's all theater. Michigan governor was a republican when they started poisoning people for profit and Obama came there to have a press meeting to support him.

[@melmaciandissenter2324]

During a rally in 2016 in Detroit, Trump said "when I was young in the 70's, all the cars where built in Michigan and you couldn't drink tapwater in Mexico. In 2016, all the cars are built in Mexico, and you can't drink tapwater in Michigan. What happened ?"

[@adder2488]

My god the comment section is full of Musk stans!!! Help!!

[@ianmarsden8568]

Thought it was the other way round.

[@nichtsistkostenlos6565]

Scrolling through, I have seen maybe 1 in 20 comments trying to defend Musk, the vast majority are criticizing or at least neutral.

[@adder2488]

@@nichtsistkostenlos6565 I’m talking about the replies.

[@gemelwalters2942]

I don't think anyone on either side disagrees that government spending needs to be better managed. What ppl are arguing, and what is clear is that Elon Musk is a moron who has no idea what he's doing 90% of the time. Hoping that tech bro will solve this issue in that remaining 10% isn't something anyone is comfortable with, not when the fallout of his silly suggestions could be catastrophic. Not for him of course, just for the middle and lower class.

[@HAL9000_ICantDoThat]

Elon being a moron is nothing most would associate with him. What silly ideas in particular are you referring to?

[@gemelwalters2942]

@@HAL9000_ICantDoThat Watch the video, that has already been answered. Throwing out a 2trillion dollar cut is moronic. No intelligent official, economist or any reasonable individual just pulls out numbers out of thin air just to get likes from a crowd. There are several examples already highlighted in the video so I won't waste anymore time here. If you think "most" people belief Musk to be intelligent then that tells me you live in an echo chamber and we would be wasting each others time. Someone being popular doesn't equate to intellect. It just means they have enough wealth to be in the public eye.

[@gemelwalters2942]

@@HAL9000_ICantDoThat Well the video already highlight this and gives several examples. But since it needs to be said, no intelligent person, economist or rational individual just throws out a 2Trillion number just for the likes from the crowd. "Most" people know Elon because he's in the public eye..i.e. celebrity does not equate to intelligence. It simply means he has enough wealth to seek public validation at every turn.

[@HAL9000_ICantDoThat]

@@gemelwalters2942 You conveniently missed out the part in this video that the $2T number was not just thrown out there. He would have done some work to get around this number and clearly knows more than us on the matter. Will it be difficult? Incredibly so but Elon makes to like bold goals. No point aiming low in a once in a generation moment to make real change! Remember they are on the clock and only have 18 months. As for intelligence? You clearly do not know much about Elon, if you believe it's more derived from being a celebrity.

[@risingdough8078]

Musk is so smart, he even knows what cutting 2 trillion will mean to everybody, especially for the poor and the middle class. And after he's received the Herbert Hoover Lifetime Achievement Award in Economics for surpassing 1929's performance, his mission in life will be complete- no one will ever forget him. Ever.

[@wirebrush]

What you did there...I see it.😂

[@ToppledTurtle834]

"It is not reasonable to think Musk is telling the truth" Musks lawyers

[@thorin1045]

the two trillion comes from the fact that that is the amount missing from the balance. to reach balance without more taxation that much needs to be cut. the only issue is where you can find that much. since it is more than the entire military and debt cost, and zeroing those two would be a strange option, as well as cutting social security or other similar stuff. so mostly either needs to find more than fifty percent inefficiency in several part of the government (not impossible) or do actions that not really expected.

[@Tripskull]

One of the greatest and influential rappers of all time. Lmfao. The objective deadpan.... beautiful

[@gloofisearch]

How much was that Artwork on the wall? Epic. Even better, "I have heard that they been paying a guy billions of Dollars to launch rockets into the Indian Ocean that can barely carry a banana"...Awesome;-)

[@ulfpe]

Tax rebates for buying Tesla cars

[@3_character_minimum]

Government handouts of tesla cars.

[@larrydugan1441]

And Ford and GM and......

[@lajko666]

One day you could use FTX to buy a banana... and tape it to the wall as art. I am glad to see we live the future now.

[@operator8014]

I wonder if SBF could buy such high art for his cell.

[@klobasa007007]

OMFG i just noticed taped banana, i mean "the work of art" 15minutes in the video....next level trolling hahahahahahah

[@aplatin3094]

What I got from this excellent video is how near impossible it will be to obtain significant cuts in the budget, certainly not anywhere near two trillion dollars, a number which I think Elon made up on the spot. Too much of the budget is nondiscretionary, and attempted cuts to the discretionary part will come up against the political electoral realities you mentioned. This is all assuming DOGE is even a serious venture, and I have my doubts about that. Trump has never shown an interest in the boring topic of government efficiency. Perhaps even more importantly, I do not see Trump giving Elon that much power in his administration. I predict that DOGE will go the way of the "big, beautiful wall" that Mexico was supposed to pay for and be forgotten after the inevitable falling out between Trump and Elon.

[@lassataest5604]

The Banana...Hilarious

[@FutureCommentary1]

What a... Comedian!

[@rajshekargudapaty1741]

Man you have a great mocking skills😅 I love it😊

[@justjustgord]

24 minutes in .. I just noticed the taped banana wall art .. brilliant !

[@charlesblithfield6182]

That whistleblower fraud mechanism using suing and compensating the whistleblower seems like an efficient way too root out fraud.

[@EtnoZam]

The 6.5M$ piece of artwork in the back gives this video a super boost of credibility 😂❤👍

[@crypticnomad]

Since 2000, U.S. national debt has outpaced inflation in USD by roughly 3x. If we maintain the same inflation rate, GDP growth, and debt-to-GDP ratio trends over the coming decade, the GDP-to-national-debt ratio will likely reach between 195% and 200%. Additionally, the interest on that debt is projected to consume approximately 6.5% to 8% of GDP annually. Such a trajectory is clearly unsustainable. If this trend continues, the burden will grow exponentially. Over the next 50 years, interest payments could consume as much as 40% of GDP. This projection assumes the same inflation rates, GDP growth, and national debt growth over the next 50 years as we have seen since 2000. While this is a simple projection and lacks nuance, the basic message remains clear: action must be taken to prevent such an outcome. Edit: Projecting the same numbers we've seen since 2000 into the future suggests that by roughly 2038, the U.S. could reach a point where 50% of federal revenue is consumed by debt payments.. While a default is not guaranteed at these levels, reaching the 50% revenue threshold would mark a critical point, likely ushering in severe economic challenges for the U.S.

[@cisium1184]

Doesn't sound like many in the comments are emotionally ready to face up to this, though.

[@crypticnomad]

@@cisium1184 It really is an issue that will only be exacerbated by the demographic problem. With low birth rates and an aging population, mandatory spending will naturally increase, especially on programs like Social Security and Medicare. The problem with the basic estimations I made is that they don’t take factors like demographic shifts-or even potentially positive changes-into account. The estimation simply states: "If we do nothing and things stay roughly the same, then this will happen." It is simplistic for sure, but it’s something most people who have had to balance a business or even a household budget will intuitively recognize as unsustainable.

[@foobarf8766]

This is certainly not new, in 19th-20th century Britain the Social Credit movement (the actual Social Credit and not the euphemism for CCP authoritarian rule) modelled it with an 'A+B' theorem that remains true to this today, AFAIK.

[@foobarf8766]

Cumulative interest repayments go exponential it's not unique to the USA, basic BEDMAS, Einstein called it the eighth wonder of the world.

[@crypticnomad]

Some of the comments seem to trivialize the points I made, as if they are common knowledge or something. I mean, anyone can look at the numbers themselves, but I don’t hear many-or really any-people being specific and saying, “If nothing changes between now and roughly 2038, there will be an economic disaster.” I’m not being alarmist either. I actually left the U.S. almost four years ago due to projections I made back then. Similarly, I quit a well-paid salary position back in 2008 due to projections I made (working for wage/salary-based compensation combined with renting is a long-term losing strategy). I’m now very close to renouncing my U.S. citizenship because the projections I’m making now suggest that maintaining that citizenship will become increasingly burdensome over time. These aren’t just ideas I talk or think about-I take real-world actions based on these concepts. It seems there are quite a few people content to simply complain about the state of the world while trivializing critiques from others. They’ll do things that couldn’t possibly change the outcome for themselves or the group as a whole, yet pretend they are fulfilling their “civic duty.”

[@puhhaka]

I hope Musk can cut some government spending.

[@jameshughes3014]

@@puhhaka maybe he could start by cutting the government handouts that space x and Tesla get

[@firerocket7343]

This guy's jokes are so subtle you would miss them if you're not listening carefully enough, or you would laugh so hard you need to pause every time you catch them.

[@nickellingham1764]

I hope you didn't trade in your vintage camera for the banana. 420 Trillion or 69 Trillion would be a far wiser figure surely?

[@kaymish6178]

Who better to tackle fraud and cyber crime than a fraudster who is also a cyber criminal? They're a subject matter (well not expert because they got caught) but they're familiar with it.

[@cbongiova]

SS and Medicare will have tons of waste in those budgets. There will be opportunities to reduce spending in those items.

[@FutureCommentary1]

0:26 People being happy at having the farm bill that gives subsidies to farmers disappear, research grants, Pell grants, subsidies to rural schools, Medicaid, Medicare... Oh gosh. They really think the money is going to come from more efficency spending on Defense? The thing that makes Elon rich? Lol.

[@frozenyetimug]

How does defense spending help Elon?