Doge

[bpj]

Excellent point. I agree completely.

Something I've been tossing around in my head (bad habit, I know): What expertise do Musk and Ramaswamy in cutting costs? Seriously. They became billionaires by creating top line value (revenue), as far as I know. If I want to, for example, get rid of a bunch of environmental regulations, or stop funding research on the behavior of bisexual mice, I don't need a billionaire to tell me how to do it.

Let's see how easy it is. I'm open minded and curious, but by no means do I think it will easy.

fyi As I said earlier in this thread, Elon cut 80% of twitter's work force and it is still better than ever.

How do you define better? One way is to value the firm, but of course now that X is private, there is not an objective way. Last I looked, Fidelity says it has lost .... could it be 80%? ... of its value since Musk bought it.

Of course, it begs the question, what the HELL were those 80% doing, and was there some genius business sense in deciding who to cut and who to keep? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm curious also as to why Fidelity feels the company is worth so much less.

They feel it's worth less because they're anti-Elon and anti-conservative.

X keeps surpassing records for usage.

I'm certain advertising revenue is down, which is probably their main determining factor of current value. But, X is making 1/4 of their typical revenue just from subscriptions now, and that will continue growing imo.

[auroraave]

fyi As I said earlier in this thread, Elon cut 80% of twitter's work force and it is still better than ever.

How do you define better? One way is to value the firm, but of course now that X is private, there is not an objective way. Last I looked, Fidelity says it has lost .... could it be 80%? ... of its value since Musk bought it.

Of course, it begs the question, what the HELL were those 80% doing, and was there some genius business sense in deciding who to cut and who to keep? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm curious also as to why Fidelity feels the company is worth so much less.

They feel it's worth less because they're anti-Elon and anti-conservative.

X keeps surpassing records for usage.

I'm certain advertising revenue is down, which is probably their main determining factor of current value. But, X is making 1/4 of their typical revenue just from subscriptions now, and that will continue growing imo.

Didn't the entire stock market plunge due to Bidenomics printing money sending the economy spiraling into inflation while devaluing the dollar? Has that been factored in? Of course not because Elon is aligned with Trump therefore only negatives can apply - just ask CNN and The View.

What is lost in all of this is that Musk is tasked with improving efficiency - not valuation - which he has shown capable of by eliminating 80% of the work force and the platform not missing a beat. Second, he is in charge of one of the worlds most high profile car companies whose heartbeat is an assembly line whose goal is efficiency. We haven't even gotten into SPace X and how efficiency is necessary for payload and fuel demands for rockets.

But other than that, Musk is definitely a hack who has no idea what he is doing. What we need more of are DEI hires like Buttegieg who ignored the supply chain crisis because he was 'on maternity leave'. He was definitely 'qualified' as a DEI box check hire.

The adults are in charge - they'll figure it out - and I bet none will need 6 months maternity leave immediately out of the gate in a crisis situation. Jesus what an absolute embarrassment.

[gil]

How do you define better? One way is to value the firm, but of course now that X is private, there is not an objective way. Last I looked, Fidelity says it has lost .... could it be 80%? ... of its value since Musk bought it.

Of course, it begs the question, what the HELL were those 80% doing, and was there some genius business sense in deciding who to cut and who to keep? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I'm curious also as to why Fidelity feels the company is worth so much less.

They feel it's worth less because they're anti-Elon and anti-conservative.

X keeps surpassing records for usage.

I'm certain advertising revenue is down, which is probably their main determining factor of current value. But, X is making 1/4 of their typical revenue just from subscriptions now, and that will continue growing imo.

Didn't the entire stock market plunge due to Bidenomics printing money sending the economy spiraling into inflation while devaluing the dollar? Has that been factored in? Of course not because Elon is aligned with Trump therefore only negatives can apply - just ask CNN and The View.

What is lost in all of this is that Musk is tasked with improving efficiency - not valuation - which he has shown capable of by eliminating 80% of the work force and the platform not missing a beat. Second, he is in charge of one of the worlds most high profile car companies whose heartbeat is an assembly line whose goal is efficiency. We haven't even gotten into SPace X and how efficiency is necessary for payload and fuel demands for rockets.

But other than that, Musk is definitely a hack who has no idea what he is doing. What we need more of are DEI hires like Buttegieg who ignored the supply chain crisis because he was 'on maternity leave'. He was definitely 'qualified' as a DEI box check hire.

The adults are in charge - they'll figure it out - and I bet none will need 6 months maternity leave immediately out of the gate in a crisis situation. Jesus what an absolute embarrassment.

If the stock market plunged, I missed it (so did my retirement accounts).

I don't know how Fidelity came up with the valuation, but I'm surprised that they are considered anti-conservative. Any proof of that?

I don't doubt Musk knows how to run a company, but I'll stand by this point: If you were to have thought 2 months ago, what are the top things you think about Tesla or SpaceX, I doubt "cutting costs" or "efficiency" would be top of the list. These companies, that Musk built, have done really well because of innovation.

Bigger point: I hope they can come up with $500 billion in cuts. I hope 2 years from, now we can say the country is more prosperous and safer. I hope we can say the world is more secure. Let's give the new president a chance.

[D-train]

Guessing Tesla and Space X are a bit more efficient than the government.

[gil]

Guessing Tesla and Space X are a bit more efficient than the government.

Yes, "everybody knows" government is inefficient, but the scientist in me would love to see some quantification, not simply anecdotes. Does anyone know of any empirical studies? I suspect that measuring efficiency would be different across different agencies, e.g., efficiency at FEMA would not look the same as efficiency at the VA.

I've also been thinking that if you really want expertise in efficiency, you would look to companies in low margin industries, where profits come from reducing expenditures. Successful businesses in these industries have corporate cultures of cutting costs and getting the most out of each dollar spent. I'm thinking Walmart, Kroger, and FedEx. Maybe Amazon.

But I don't know how much "DOGE" is going to get into the weeds of making individual departments or agencies more efficient. Did anyone see the op-ed Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week? (it's behind a paywall.) https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ra ... b-fa51c020

They wrote that they will "pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory recisions, administrative reductions and cost savings." My suspicion is that a big part of their agenda will be getting rid of regulations, and administrators who deal with those regulations.

In my mind this is more political that about efficiency. For example, is it efficient to have all the regulations that currently exist regarding food safety? I suspect I could not answer that question without a deep knowledge of how federal food safety regs work. But it doesn't take much knowledge to say "let's just get rid of regulations on food additives; food manufacturers know what's safe and will always prioritize the health of their consumers." (I wonder what RFK, Jr., would say about that one!)

[D-train]

The government is like Communism. There is zero incentive to be efficient. The only incentive is to acquire bigger and bigger budgets and staff under you. There is no accountability or pressure to make a profit.

[gil]

The government is like Communism. There is zero incentive to be efficient. The only incentive is to acquire bigger and bigger budgets and staff under you. There is no accountability or pressure to make a profit.

Obviously there should be incentives and controls, at all levels (individuals, departments, managers), to perform efficiently and effectively. I think one problem in government organizations is that you don't have a simple metric like profit to measure performance.

For example, if President Trump's new administration decides to arrest and deport 1 million people here illegally, you don't have profit as a measure, do you? So how do you decide if the deportation program worked? You plan for how much it's going to cost for which kinds of personnel and activities, and then you measure as it goes on how much it costs per deportee. (At least I hope they do something like that. I don't want my tax money going to programs without performance target and goals. ... Or maybe I should go into government efficiency planning.)

[douche]

The government is like Communism. There is zero incentive to be efficient. The only incentive is to acquire bigger and bigger budgets and staff under you. There is no accountability or pressure to make a profit.

Sad but entirely true.

[bpj]

Amazing the lengths these libs will go to to try and downplay what Trump and Musk are doing.

But I don't know how much "DOGE" is going to get into the weeds of making individual departments or agencies more efficient.

You have no idea. Yet here you are trying to argue that they won't be able to.

Compare SpaceX and NASA. It's not even close.

[Walla Walla Dawg II]

Amazing the lengths these libs will go to to try and downplay what Trump and Musk are doing.

But I don't know how much "DOGE" is going to get into the weeds of making individual departments or agencies more efficient.

You have no idea. Yet here you are trying to argue that they won't be able to.

Compare SpaceX and NASA. It's not even close.

And he considers himself a politically-central person. Just reading his post, he doesn't believe that they can trim anything....and actually sounds like he hopes they fail.