USA Today
Politico
Forbes
WoW so... everyone is reporting on this, eh?
The entertainment business understands they need to give the people what they want. This is the attention economy, after all. And want do people want the most? Money! So even if a particular MSM entity doesn't like the new administration they still have to report on something like this. If money is what captures people's attention then attention is what's needed to capture money.
Department Of Government Efficiency...
I'd say D.O.G.E. is a mixed bag at this point. It is pretty wild seeing a random government agency pop up and tap into financial backdoors of other agencies and projects with the technical ability to immediately cut funding. Ironically DOGE seem to be a rugpull machine, but instead of rugging crypto it's rugging the government itself. This has led many to believe... how in the world can this be legal? There does seem to be some debate.
DOGE has drawn widespread controversy and criticism as Musk—who has been unofficially leading the agency—and his team have been quickly working to reduce costs through cancelling grants and contracts and reducing the federal workforce. DOGE has received blowback for its seemingly unrestricted access to sensitive federal data across departments including the Treasury Department and Education Department.
It’s not clear what authority DOGE has to be handling sensitive data, and the agency and Musk are facing a number of lawsuits seeking to answer that and restrict access. DOGE was created by executive order on Trump’s first day back in office last month, and the order declared its purpose was “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
How are they doing this?
Well I saw a rumor on Twitter that Musk, using the power of autistic 22 year-old tech-gurus, was able to tap into backdoors that were created as far back as the Obama Administration. Not only do these pathways make it easy to access all this stuff from a centralized locale, but also the backdoors themselves are approved and legal, making it very difficult for the courts to shut them down... try as they might. No idea if this is true but it would explain a lot of how everything has gone down up until this moment.
An official website of the United States government.
lol...
Good thing it has that label because you'd never know it otherwise! https://doge.gov posts their own social media feed to a government website for status updates... which is just... wild.
"Unconstitutionality Index"
Here's fun little metric that shows us that most of the rules we have to follow, especially in the world of finance, are all just made up by the executive branch by way of unelected bureaucrats in three-letter agencies, rather than congress like it's supposed to be. I'd be lying if the SEC didn't come to mind immediately after taking one look at this bar graph. Of course this would probably be fine if there wasn't blatant corruption and gross conflict of interest, but apparently this is too much to ask.
It's also a bit ironic that the DOGE website puts something like this out there because they... are one of those unelected agencies running around doing crazy shit. I mean let's be real this is 10x crazier than anything other agency has to offer. Or rather it is very loud, very public, and very sensationalist. I guess there's not as much shock and awe for little things like the NSA illegally spying on every American 24/7 and legally declaring everyone's dick pics to be their property.
What I find especially funny is that many democrats who oppose what DOGE is doing here are trying to act like they actually care about following rules and regulations and that boundaries are being overstepped. Yeah no I don't buy that for a second. If it was your team doing the thing you wouldn't be saying a damn thing.
There's almost zero credibility or good faith left. The same people who told me "mostly peaceful riots are a good thing" and "get this experimental injection or we take away your job and your health insurance"... these are the people suddenly worried about rules, regulations, and protocol? Get fucked. Pick a lane, hypocrites; I'm over it.
So why not drum up a little propaganda?
The proposal calls for 20% of DOGE’s targeted $2 trillion in savings to be returned to “the ~79 million tax-paying households,” which Fishback said would result in about a $5,000 return per household.
Ha!
Even just verbalizing that every taxpayer in America has simply a chance to get $5000 creates an immense amount of support for DOGE. Why is that? Because people are greedy and self-serving. Anyone who was on the fence regarding this situation will immediately jump over to the "yeah I like money" side. It's almost like a reverse-bribe. Instead of paying a politician to get support for a thing the politician is paying you to support it. Very weird.
What isn't weird is the theme of this move.
Trump has already stated many times he wants easy money and a weak dollar to stimulate the economy. Something like this would be the easiest way to get dollars directly into the consumers hands to do just that. And the money itself doesn't actually come from DOGE. They could just as easily lie and act like they hit that $2T target and do the $5000 stimmy regardless. This money, if it comes, really has nothing to do with DOGE but they might as well attach it to something they want the public to support anyway.
The pronouncement came on the same day as reporting from USA TODAY showed that DOGE's website published misleading information on the amount of money it has claimed to save, including a nearly $8 billion error.
Shocking
There has been no indication that DOGE will issue a stimulus check as a result of cost-cutting measures. Any form of stimulus payment issued by the U.S. government would have to be approved by Congress.
Budget experts warn that such a rebate program would require congressional approval, and lawmakers may prefer to use that money in other ways.
IRONY
Imagine the sheer hubris of congress trying to pad bloated spending packages inside of a DOGE refund to taxpayers. That's a classic popcorn moment right there. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Conclusion
People like money, and will more often than not support anything they believe could personally benefit them in this way. Is it a trick? Maybe, but it's also in line with what the administration wants to do anyway, and kicking it off with a bang like this could drum up a lot of unlikely support from unexpected sources.
$5000 is a lot of money to dangle in front of people, especially this day in age when the economy and citizens are struggling as much as they are. Could something like this be the beginning of a more insidious UBI program? Probably not but it's fun to speculate.
Man, Obama has been gone like eight years and they are still trying to pin stuff on him. Pretty sad! This feels like Covid stimulus 2.0. I didn't want that either.
Looks to me from the unconstitutionality chart that the worst years were under Obama.
I'd prefer tax reductions to $5000 payouts.
How on earth does a weak dollar stimulate the economy?!
DOGE seems to me to be all smoke and mirrors, like most things our government does.
The same way that a strong dollar cripples the economy.
I can see why it would be a little counterintuitive.
In a non-debt based system like stocks or crypto, you want strong assets.
In a debt based system it's exactly the opposite.
If I take out a $500k loan to buy a house or start a business... well then wouldn't it be nice if that debt that I owe was suddenly worth less money, and thus easier to pay back. Meanwhile the asset that I purchased with the liability is going up in value.
So not only do low interest rates mean I personally owe back less money but it also means fiat will flood the ecosystem and make it even easier to pay back the principal. Easy money environments pump risk-on assets like tech stocks and crypto to the moon.
A strong dollar does the opposite of everything I just said. The only people who want a strong dollar are the ones holding dollars (which nobody likes doing because the value is always going down no matter what). Higher interest rates strangle the economy and suck liquidity out of the system.
Hopefully that makes sense.
No! It doesn't! lol
I think I am looking at this from an individual's pov, that of an individual who lives on debt, not assets.
Here's where you lose me: the house is not worth less money, it's worth more dollars, because those have been devalued. Assuming the debtor continues to make the same salary, but has to pay more for food etc, he would have fewer dollars to pay his mortgage, no?
When the dollar is weak, it buys less. I suppose this might be good for tangible asset holders. But if the general debt-ridden population can buy less, wouldn't the economy shrink?
I admit I know very little about this stuff. I try to get it, but I just don't. More smoke and mirrors I suspect.
Thank you for the explanation, I will give it some thought.
Okay so now you have a strong dollar and the corporation you work for needs to make cuts to fulfill debt obligations.
Oops you just got fired!
Now you're making $0.
Okay so now you have a weak dollar and inflation is going up.
Why haven't you gotten a raise to at least account for the inflation?
Surely the corporation can afford it because they can charge more for the end product.
The economy is a weird game of trying to take on as much debt as possible while spinning it into something more profitable than it was before. Those who do not participate in this game (most people) are the ones subsidizing it.
It's a very complex topic with a lot of variables.
However I wouldn't call it Smoke & Mirrors anymore than I would call building a computer from scratch Smoke & Mirrors. Just because something is extremely complicated and hard to understand doesn't mean it's a deception. There isn't some simple and transparent way that we could organize the economy but choose not to on purpose just to make it more confusing to fleece the lower class... although the tax code might be a good candidate for that.
There is definitely some deception. Just the name "Federal Reserve" is a deception. That debt allows more money to be "printed" is a deception. It might be complex to the makers of this system, but it is smoke and mirrors to those of us at the bottom of the financial heap.
I really appreciate your explanations. Thank you.
Sure but have you considered that even if we eliminate the FED we are still in a position where retail banks are printing money out of thin air that they don't have? Fractional-reserve banking isn't going anywhere. It's embedded into everything. It can't really be removed until it implodes in on itself. And nobody wants that to happen because the pain it would cause in the short term would be too big a burden to bear on purpose.
I hope we can get a good transition with crypto but I bet it's going to be ugly as hell.
I'm not convinced the implosion can be controlled. Somedays it looks to me as if the implosion will have been deliberate.
Ugliest for those of us who have none, for sure. And where I now live in a hillbilly town, that's everyone but me. I haven't been able to convince one single person to even so much as open an account at an exchange with the ten dollar giveaway. Diversification, people, does not mean investing everything you have in fiat only.
Ah it is fun to speculate this would lead to UBI and CBDC doom-porn death to all freedom and you need to get every vaccine for fleas and shit.
The Obama piece is quite accurate, this shit started back then as it always does. I think the Patriot Act started in the mid 90's but they couldn't pass it until they had a need.
This is what I would call a smoke screen. It's not going to happen, and I can bet a toe out of my left foot (obviously not the right one) that this will be the case.
The White House just yesterday released a statement that Elon Musk was not the head of Doge, that he was not employed by Doge, that he was just an advisor to President Trump.
Why? Well, because protests have started and there is a lot of programs that are being cut that are beginning to hurt real people. Anyone can lookup the FAFO videos with farm owners. They are becoming a common thing on youtube these days.
Also, there's a bunch of lawsuits coming down the pipeline for Elon, and his approval numbers (yeah, we are measuring that now) are quite low at the moment.
This means that this tactic is perfectly suited to "fix" their current situation.
I don't want your toes, bruv. But, if what you're saying about people getting mad about their subsidies being cut is true, that's more pressure to cut checks to voters. The madder a couple hundred farmers get, the bigger the checks will need to be.
I suppose everybody has their price, but I’d need a bribe of a lot more than 5k to sell my soul to demons.
So, cutting taxes is selling your soul to demons?
I honestly find this political theory baffling.
Cutting taxes to the 1% is not high up on my list of priorities.
Paring demonstrable graft and laundering schemes from budgets clearly isn't harming the tax cattle on the hook to repay the despicable lending scheme fraud that has been foisted on the clueless hoi polloi.
Frankly letting Luigi have at the investors in the Fed is the righteous solution to much of the woe of the world today, IMHO.
Demonstratable? I’ve seen a lot of bluster and assertions from Elon, but no actual evidence of audits having been done.
That, I can’t argue with.
I haven't seen anyone request any evidence of the audits, but I have seen claims that there is evidence publicly posted.
The fact that crooks are competing to control their gang doesn't make any of them righteous, unfortunately for folks that side with one or another.
Kill 'em all, and God can sort them out.
That's weird, they're saying the exact same thing about the other side!
Apparently these government I.T. systems that Elon got access to were running COBOL!!? (Source BBC news lol)
Nobody has used COBOL since the 1970's and I doubt anyone would know what to do with it?...Wait....AI 😂🤦♂️👍
What happened to the checks and balances or was no one in charge all of this time?
!popcorn if that's still a thing lol
Just one clarification, all government agencies are unelected, not just DOGE. Only the President and VP are elected.
I thought this was clarified pretty well by the doge website itself.
But yeah the executive branch has quite a lot of power.
This is so over the top.
I agree that Americans are so over it that this Doge spectacle seems to be the biggest thing going on today. It’s a potentially historic shrinking of the Federal Bureacracy. It is really bad for all those families though.
I suspect Average Americans know there is a lot of corruption and waste, so they are extremely happy to see an aggressive attempt to clean it up.
Add a 5k stimi check and like the Emperors of Rome giving away bread, you will have the populist eating out of your hand.
We live in historic times for government, politics and cryptocurrency. It’s a shame I have to work for a living, I could spend all day watching the news.
😂🤣😱
Nothing in politics (or business for that matter) is what it appears to be. There are ALWAYS other "real" reasons for what is happening that you are privy to knowing. It's been a sham for all of eternity and exemplifies the human condition. Power corrupts.
Pretty sure you mean 'you are [not] privy to knowing.'
Also, I don't believe power corrupts anyone. I believe that corrupt people seek power, and then are corrupt wielding that power. They, all liars to a man, lie and say 'the power corrupted me' when they get caught. But, they were corrupt before they ever got the power.
If you look really hard, you can find examples of people that weren't corrupt when they sought power, and were not corrupt when they got power. The power did not corrupt them, and they were not corrupt with, or without, power.
Corrupt people corrupt power.
There are far too many who give in to the temptations of greed when put in positions of power that the adage still holds true. Politics is just the major leagues where they get to put all the practice in the corporate world to use.
My point is that them availed such temptations seek such opportunities with the fury of 1000 suns, and that is why such corruption is all but ubiquitous in every position in institutional hierarchies.
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STOPThat $5000 free money will create a bubble if all of this stimulus package will go to crypto market. Might stimulate the alt season this year!
That $5k is only 20% of the money DOGE is cutting from USG expenditures. That means that the taxpayers are still robbed of 80% of the money DOGE cuts from the budget, that presumably Trump's USG will buy Trumpcoin with.
Gah! Now I'm in a bad mood.
My point is the USG got ALL the money DOGE is cutting from the budget from US taxpayers. It's not free. We worked at our jobs to earn it - well, to pay it back after the shyster Shylocks that own the Fed (which is a private bank) lent it to the USG.
We'd probably be financially better off if that money was returned to the thieving banksters that are getting paid interest on it, TBH, and reduce the national debt. We're on the hook for ~$35T of this 'free money' today. Dropping that to ~$33T may not seem like much, but that's about $200k less debt per American today, leaving each of us on the hook for only ~$3.3M more. Each. However, that calculation was based on a US population of 350M, while the Elon mentioned 79M taxpayers. Since 80 is about 1/5 of 350, the actual debt owed by taxpayers is ~5 x ~$3.5M. Each. Somewhere around $15M for each taxpayer is how the current US national debt shakes out.
If you (as I do) pay federal taxes each year, that's how much money you owe the privately owned US Federal Reserve Bank - not a federal agency, but a private bank owned by investors.
However it is free money to the investors that own the Fed. They just conjure it out of thin air. They don't actually have the $35T they lent the USG. In the debt based financial system that is operant today, money is created by lending it. That entire sum of $35T was simply conjured into existence by lending it to the USG.
--https://surveys.gobranded.com/blog/where-does-your-money-come-from-understanding-the-creation-and-source-of-money/
That's why government spending is inflationary, BTW. The same amount of things for sale are now being sold in a market with more money in it. People with more money can pay more and get those things, while people that don't have more (not investors in the Fed, for example) can't buy as much stuff.
That $5k is not free money. It's debt, payable to private investors at interest. However, since they never had it to lend it to the USG, I reckon Luigi is the solution to the equation. They never lent out $35T, and it's fraud to claim we owe them $35T. The courts will take too long to sort this out, and they're corrupt anyway. Luigi is the only realistic solution to the US national debt.
tell me how you really feel
I am Luigi.
Trump's Mafia Shakedown destroys....{insert your #TooFuckeh choice here} !LOLZ
For a few years I have been pointing out that ww3 would be an economic war. We are well into it now.
This DOGE idea was a failure before it got started. It was created on a whim and is filled with extremely reactive processes. If you can call it a process. The first clue that this idea is #TooFuckeh is in the name. The primary focus is on efficiency. At best, the result will be an efficient system that is ineffective.
No matter the situation, I am always able to find something good from an unwanted situation. So I give Trump credit for motivating Canadians to be more aware and believe it or not, more patriotic. Speaking and behaving in a patriotic manner was something that identified our American neighbour. Canadians just assumed that everyone love and would die for their country. It was never something that needed to be said. What kind of a mindset do you have when you call our Prime Minister a Governor and say you Canadians have nothing that USA needs. Hard to believe US society could be so busy calling each other names while their leadership rapes and pillages everyone in the country and the world.
Where there is chaos there is money to be made. So, get your ducks in a row or you will be on the losing side of the chaos.
!BEER
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@fjworld(3/20) tipped @edicted
UBI seems to be ramping up everywhere.
Really good article thanks for your work
Things are getting even crazier than I thought, haha!
the $5000 amount of money can be very worth to some people
my opinion is that this kind of plan could have something fishy at the back
gee Thanks to Obama! and ye.. starship troopers are doing their part!
$5k? yes pls!! 👊😎🤙
I will buy some Hive with that.
well I hope a lot of people go buy some crypto with those dollars if they really get it
There is certainly a lot that they could do with these savings. If done correctly it really could become a golden age in my opinion.
If the forever wars are stopped and the military is pulled back and all this BS funding of other countries.
I'm down for a bottom up approach. If they drop that money on everyone and force credit card companies to top at 10% people are going to spend.
There is so much wasteful spending that it's out of control for the last 60 plus years.
i heard the UBI program they are drumming up will have to do with how we loan our data out to the tech companies. they should pay us for that data and thats how we win the AI wars.