8 ms·

By the time Trump leaves office, the whole federal government will be completely trashed, up to and including the East Wing of the White House being torn down t

by rhelz 28d ago

By the time Trump leaves office, the whole federal government will be completely trashed, up to and including the East Wing of the White House being torn down to a hole in the ground. I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance.

toomuchtodo 28d ago
New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral, the electorate will be angry they don't have cake (unless the taxes are applied disproportionally to the top income and wealth percentiles), and we'll be right back to irresponsible policy. I don't have much hope for the US, but at least the bond market are the adults in the room currently. Congrats to those who strip mined the country successfully.
- rvz 28d ago
  > New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral That debt is never getting paid, I'm afraid.
  - toomuchtodo 28d ago
    US throws off ~$5T in profits per year to shareholders. It can be paid back, you just have to go after it. It's a choice not to. Forward curves go up because we choose to not reduce the debt? All consumer borrowing costs go up accordingly (consumer debt and mortgages are priced off of US treasuries)? A crisis occurs and there isn't any borrowing capacity left to get to the other side? Sucks to suck, try to suck less in the future. Natural consequences are an important component of the learning process. Can't mortgage the economic future of the US forever (which is what treasuries are, borrowing against future US taxpayer revenue), as the bond market is actively demonstrating. Something will give, even if that is "monetizing the debt" and a soft default, with US purchasing power rapidly declining (you thought everyone didn’t like inflation before? Hooboy just wait). Pick your crisis adventure, the message is this fiscal policy is unsustainable.
  - rhelz 28d ago
    I'm old enough to remember when people said that the debt Ronald Reagan racked up would never be repaid. Which means I also am old enough to remember Clinton turning record deficits into record surpluses. I remember when the U.S. Treasury stopped issuing 30 year bonds---no deficit, no need to borrow!! Boy did that scare the bejezuz out of the financial industry though. I read an op-ed in the Wall Street journal about how are we ever going to offer 30 year mortgages if the banks can't buy 30 year treasury bonds? Then the supreme court handed the 2000 election to George Bush, and the financial industry was happy again, because record surpluses turned into record deficits again. The banks still lent money to homebuyers--in fact, so many people took out mortgages that..... The answer is so simple, everybody know it: spend less than you earn, borrow only for things which will pay you back. We can start doing that this afternoon, if we wanted to.
exabrial 28d ago
This started long before Trump. Ironically things quite stable under Clinton. 2nd term Bush not so great, 2nd term Obama not great, Trump post covid not great, Biden was terrible, Trump 2.0 terrible. The only real solution is to enforce the actual debt ceiling, the begin lowering it a few hundred billion each year, destroying things we don't need. Require all new spending be funded by the 2.5x destruction of existing spending and departments.
- pstuart 28d ago
  I loathed the actions of DOGE but believe that "government efficiency" (yeah, lily oxymoronic) should be baked into everything the government does, most importantly, even the programs that one supports. That has been one of many failures of the Dems to both pursue and socialize.
  - 0xy 28d ago
    [flagged]
  - rhelz 28d ago
    The federal government is actually quite efficient in what it does. For example, the overhead for Social Security is between 0.5% and 1%. I.E, less than the mutual funds in my 401k charge per yeah for "administrative fees." When people talk about government waste, what they really are talking about is things the government does which they don't approve of. E.g. ICE--is that wasteful spending? Depends upon whether you like ICE or not. Aide to Israel? Same stuff. That's why DOGE got nowhere. There is no mythical mammoth waste, fraud, and abuse in the government.
    - qzx_pierri 28d ago
      [flagged]
      - fragmede 28d ago
        When things are monitored to such a degree that a startup I was at couldn't bring doughnuts to a meeting because NASA was gonna there and that could possibly be a bribe, I don't know about efficient, but there's a reason why DOGE couldn't really find any waste.
adamredwoods 28d ago
I don't understand how US Republicans talk about fiscal conservation, yet allow rampant profligacy. They must have a different agenda than the one they speak of.
- jleyank 28d ago
  "Talk" and "Walk" aren't the same word although they rhyme. And they only refer to Democrats, who are the only ones with agency in government (Murc's Law).
- pstuart 28d ago
  When they engage in financial conservation it's cover for destroying programs they don't like. The fact that they are cheering on yet another incredibly stupid, expensive, and pointless war proves that they are not "fiscal conservatives."
- nielsbot 28d ago
  What they always really mean is tax cuts for those who need it least
rvz 28d ago
This debt problem was long before Trump and this is why the US dollar is being printed straight to $0, until it loses its reserve currency status.
- jambalaya8 28d ago
  It really already did lose its reserve status, in a manner of speaking. There isn't ever going to be a gold standard again (even if there is, would the actual gold have the sort of real life uses it had when the gold standard was around? Not like people fill teeth with it anymore unless you are some sort of thug).
  - unrented7977 28d ago
    Gold is a fantastically useful element. It's vastly more useful today as our knowledge and application of chemistry has improved. It's probably more in demand as a commodity today than it ever has been.
    - jambalaya8 28d ago
      I hear platinum is the way to go. Or iron.
    - rhelz 28d ago
      Gold is a useful element, for sure, but there's no where's near enough of it to serve as a reserve currency. E.G. the U.S. reserves are worth about $1.2 trillion (changes each day, of course). Compare that to a national economy which has a GDP of over $30 trillion. All these old gold bugs just can't wrap their heads around what exponential growth really looks like. But we can grow our productive capacity far, far faster than we can grow the supply of gold.
0xy 28d ago
The East Wing argument is such a weird hill to die on. Even Obama era staffers admitted it was embarrassing to welcome foreign dignitaries to a muddy patch of grass rather than a fit for purpose room. It's also majority private sector funded, and numerous admins have made substantial changes to the White House. Bush 2 and Obama made substantial renovations to the White House, as did Clinton. Trump has a massive and growing pile of rightful criticism and you're focusing on a project which costs 1/1,000th the cost of the Iran War and Obama staffers admit is necessary? Priorities?
- Jtsummers 28d ago
  The major issue with the East Wing was how it was done, not that it was done ("it": renovations in general, possibly even tear down and full rebuild). Also the costs have been ballooning and the "no taxpayer funding" claim turned out to be a lie.
- rhelz 28d ago
  How embarrassing is it to welcome foreign dignitaries to a building which has been partially torn down? I man, if he actually had replaced it with a ballroom, that would be different. But that's not what we get from Trump. He can't even maintain a reflecting pool--we're not going to get a ballroom. No, he's going to leave the White house much worse than he found it. Which is his style.
  - 0xy 28d ago
    There's a long history of the reflecting pool having severe algae issues dating back to the early 2000s. Obama spent $30m on repairs that ultimately failed. Is your argument that the pool continuing to fail as it has done under successive governments is exclusively the fault of the admin that has far larger and far more serious points to criticism them on?
    - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 28d ago
      The argument is that massive fuckups are solely the responsibility of the party that initiated them when said party goes out of their way to avoid the established mechanisms for proposing, approving, and implementing those plans. If there's a problem with a plan then there's a problem with the plan. If there's a problem with the implementation then there's a problem with the implementation. But when you bypass that entire process and go roll out a bunch of changes and efforts that you claim will be flawless and dole out no-bid contracts that balloon past their estimates despite ending in complete or near complete failures then that's entirely on the leadership that kicked it off. There is no transparency here and it's not even possible to point to specific things that went wrong because it's effectively all undocumented and intentionally done outside of the existing systems and rules. And it happens again and again with different projects. Each time it's the leadership's fault because they chose to step outside the normal processes and accountability leaving us with no way to learn from mistakes made during the exercise beyond "the processes exist for a reason, stop ignoring them".
conartist6 28d ago
The challenge now is that we have to have a vision for what we want to build.
- krapp 28d ago
  Half the country does have such a vision, and they're getting exactly what they want. The question is why the other half can't seem to do shit about it.
  - conartist6 27d ago
    The system as it works is made to cause partisan balance to stay close to the competitive 50/50 That may make it seem like nothing every changes, and much wind is spent on it. Real change is often so deep and slow that it just isn't even news. That's because politicians don't usually lead, they follow
frogperson 28d ago
Citizens United ruined the great american experiment. if you have seen the chart of campaign financing since CU, you would understand. Politicians have zero need to represent citizens because they know unlimited funds are available for marketing to keep/earn your seat. America simply is no longer a democracy or representative democracy.
- qeternity 28d ago
  It is still people, not money, who votes for them over and over again…
  - oth001 28d ago
    Well when the choice is between two corrupt and/or bribed politicians...
    - JKCalhoun 28d ago
      Agree, vote for the most wildly corrupt.
  - Timon3 28d ago
    And the primary reason for people voting like this is the ungodly sums of money spent on elections, combined with the media apparatus built up by the right. I don't think any democracy could survive Fox News. Unfortunately the global right is colluding to export this concept across the globe...
    - otterley 27d ago
      If money won elections, then the outcome of every election could be predicted with accuracy based solely on the relative spending by or on behalf of each candidate. In reality, that's not how it works. There are countless examples of candidates who outspent their opponents and lost. Money gets you reach. It doesn't get you guaranteed results. Besides, the voters don't get any of that money, nor do they even know most of the time who got more financial support. They'd be insulted by even the slightest suggestion that money is driving their vote.
blooalien 28d ago
> I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance. ^^^ 1000% this right here. Right there with ya (sadly)... Not at all the world we were promised as children. "Star Trek" vs "Mad Max"/"Terminator"? Humanity chose the latter. We ain't gonna survive long enough to escape this planet.
- JKCalhoun 28d ago
  Star Trek must have looked a little too DEI, and we all thought we were somehow going to be Immortan Joe…
JKCalhoun 28d ago
"I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens." I'm with you, brother/sister.

by rhelz 28d ago

toomuchtodo 28d ago

New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral, the electorate will be angry they don't have cake (unless the taxes are applied disproportionally to the top income and wealth percentiles), and we'll be right back to irresponsible policy. I don't have much hope for the US, but at least the bond market are the adults in the room currently. Congrats to those who strip mined the country successfully.

rvz 28d ago
> New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral That debt is never getting paid, I'm afraid.
- toomuchtodo 28d ago
  US throws off ~$5T in profits per year to shareholders. It can be paid back, you just have to go after it. It's a choice not to. Forward curves go up because we choose to not reduce the debt? All consumer borrowing costs go up accordingly (consumer debt and mortgages are priced off of US treasuries)? A crisis occurs and there isn't any borrowing capacity left to get to the other side? Sucks to suck, try to suck less in the future. Natural consequences are an important component of the learning process. Can't mortgage the economic future of the US forever (which is what treasuries are, borrowing against future US taxpayer revenue), as the bond market is actively demonstrating. Something will give, even if that is "monetizing the debt" and a soft default, with US purchasing power rapidly declining (you thought everyone didn’t like inflation before? Hooboy just wait). Pick your crisis adventure, the message is this fiscal policy is unsustainable.
- rhelz 28d ago
  I'm old enough to remember when people said that the debt Ronald Reagan racked up would never be repaid. Which means I also am old enough to remember Clinton turning record deficits into record surpluses. I remember when the U.S. Treasury stopped issuing 30 year bonds---no deficit, no need to borrow!! Boy did that scare the bejezuz out of the financial industry though. I read an op-ed in the Wall Street journal about how are we ever going to offer 30 year mortgages if the banks can't buy 30 year treasury bonds? Then the supreme court handed the 2000 election to George Bush, and the financial industry was happy again, because record surpluses turned into record deficits again. The banks still lent money to homebuyers--in fact, so many people took out mortgages that..... The answer is so simple, everybody know it: spend less than you earn, borrow only for things which will pay you back. We can start doing that this afternoon, if we wanted to.

exabrial 28d ago

This started long before Trump. Ironically things quite stable under Clinton. 2nd term Bush not so great, 2nd term Obama not great, Trump post covid not great, Biden was terrible, Trump 2.0 terrible. The only real solution is to enforce the actual debt ceiling, the begin lowering it a few hundred billion each year, destroying things we don't need. Require all new spending be funded by the 2.5x destruction of existing spending and departments.

pstuart 28d ago
I loathed the actions of DOGE but believe that "government efficiency" (yeah, lily oxymoronic) should be baked into everything the government does, most importantly, even the programs that one supports. That has been one of many failures of the Dems to both pursue and socialize.
- 0xy 28d ago
  [flagged]
- rhelz 28d ago
  The federal government is actually quite efficient in what it does. For example, the overhead for Social Security is between 0.5% and 1%. I.E, less than the mutual funds in my 401k charge per yeah for "administrative fees." When people talk about government waste, what they really are talking about is things the government does which they don't approve of. E.g. ICE--is that wasteful spending? Depends upon whether you like ICE or not. Aide to Israel? Same stuff. That's why DOGE got nowhere. There is no mythical mammoth waste, fraud, and abuse in the government.
  - qzx_pierri 28d ago
    [flagged]
    - fragmede 28d ago
      When things are monitored to such a degree that a startup I was at couldn't bring doughnuts to a meeting because NASA was gonna there and that could possibly be a bribe, I don't know about efficient, but there's a reason why DOGE couldn't really find any waste.

adamredwoods 28d ago

I don't understand how US Republicans talk about fiscal conservation, yet allow rampant profligacy. They must have a different agenda than the one they speak of.

jleyank 28d ago
"Talk" and "Walk" aren't the same word although they rhyme. And they only refer to Democrats, who are the only ones with agency in government (Murc's Law).
pstuart 28d ago
When they engage in financial conservation it's cover for destroying programs they don't like. The fact that they are cheering on yet another incredibly stupid, expensive, and pointless war proves that they are not "fiscal conservatives."
nielsbot 28d ago
What they always really mean is tax cuts for those who need it least

rvz 28d ago

This debt problem was long before Trump and this is why the US dollar is being printed straight to $0, until it loses its reserve currency status.

jambalaya8 28d ago
It really already did lose its reserve status, in a manner of speaking. There isn't ever going to be a gold standard again (even if there is, would the actual gold have the sort of real life uses it had when the gold standard was around? Not like people fill teeth with it anymore unless you are some sort of thug).
- unrented7977 28d ago
  Gold is a fantastically useful element. It's vastly more useful today as our knowledge and application of chemistry has improved. It's probably more in demand as a commodity today than it ever has been.
  - jambalaya8 28d ago
    I hear platinum is the way to go. Or iron.
  - rhelz 28d ago
    Gold is a useful element, for sure, but there's no where's near enough of it to serve as a reserve currency. E.G. the U.S. reserves are worth about $1.2 trillion (changes each day, of course). Compare that to a national economy which has a GDP of over $30 trillion. All these old gold bugs just can't wrap their heads around what exponential growth really looks like. But we can grow our productive capacity far, far faster than we can grow the supply of gold.

0xy 28d ago

The East Wing argument is such a weird hill to die on. Even Obama era staffers admitted it was embarrassing to welcome foreign dignitaries to a muddy patch of grass rather than a fit for purpose room. It's also majority private sector funded, and numerous admins have made substantial changes to the White House. Bush 2 and Obama made substantial renovations to the White House, as did Clinton. Trump has a massive and growing pile of rightful criticism and you're focusing on a project which costs 1/1,000th the cost of the Iran War and Obama staffers admit is necessary? Priorities?

Jtsummers 28d ago
The major issue with the East Wing was how it was done, not that it was done ("it": renovations in general, possibly even tear down and full rebuild). Also the costs have been ballooning and the "no taxpayer funding" claim turned out to be a lie.
rhelz 28d ago
How embarrassing is it to welcome foreign dignitaries to a building which has been partially torn down? I man, if he actually had replaced it with a ballroom, that would be different. But that's not what we get from Trump. He can't even maintain a reflecting pool--we're not going to get a ballroom. No, he's going to leave the White house much worse than he found it. Which is his style.
- 0xy 28d ago
  There's a long history of the reflecting pool having severe algae issues dating back to the early 2000s. Obama spent $30m on repairs that ultimately failed. Is your argument that the pool continuing to fail as it has done under successive governments is exclusively the fault of the admin that has far larger and far more serious points to criticism them on?
  - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 28d ago
    The argument is that massive fuckups are solely the responsibility of the party that initiated them when said party goes out of their way to avoid the established mechanisms for proposing, approving, and implementing those plans. If there's a problem with a plan then there's a problem with the plan. If there's a problem with the implementation then there's a problem with the implementation. But when you bypass that entire process and go roll out a bunch of changes and efforts that you claim will be flawless and dole out no-bid contracts that balloon past their estimates despite ending in complete or near complete failures then that's entirely on the leadership that kicked it off. There is no transparency here and it's not even possible to point to specific things that went wrong because it's effectively all undocumented and intentionally done outside of the existing systems and rules. And it happens again and again with different projects. Each time it's the leadership's fault because they chose to step outside the normal processes and accountability leaving us with no way to learn from mistakes made during the exercise beyond "the processes exist for a reason, stop ignoring them".

conartist6 28d ago

The challenge now is that we have to have a vision for what we want to build.

krapp 28d ago
Half the country does have such a vision, and they're getting exactly what they want. The question is why the other half can't seem to do shit about it.
- conartist6 27d ago
  The system as it works is made to cause partisan balance to stay close to the competitive 50/50 That may make it seem like nothing every changes, and much wind is spent on it. Real change is often so deep and slow that it just isn't even news. That's because politicians don't usually lead, they follow

frogperson 28d ago

Citizens United ruined the great american experiment. if you have seen the chart of campaign financing since CU, you would understand. Politicians have zero need to represent citizens because they know unlimited funds are available for marketing to keep/earn your seat. America simply is no longer a democracy or representative democracy.

qeternity 28d ago
It is still people, not money, who votes for them over and over again…
- oth001 28d ago
  Well when the choice is between two corrupt and/or bribed politicians...
  - JKCalhoun 28d ago
    Agree, vote for the most wildly corrupt.
- Timon3 28d ago
  And the primary reason for people voting like this is the ungodly sums of money spent on elections, combined with the media apparatus built up by the right. I don't think any democracy could survive Fox News. Unfortunately the global right is colluding to export this concept across the globe...
  - otterley 27d ago
    If money won elections, then the outcome of every election could be predicted with accuracy based solely on the relative spending by or on behalf of each candidate. In reality, that's not how it works. There are countless examples of candidates who outspent their opponents and lost. Money gets you reach. It doesn't get you guaranteed results. Besides, the voters don't get any of that money, nor do they even know most of the time who got more financial support. They'd be insulted by even the slightest suggestion that money is driving their vote.

blooalien 28d ago

> I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance. ^^^ 1000% this right here. Right there with ya (sadly)... Not at all the world we were promised as children. "Star Trek" vs "Mad Max"/"Terminator"? Humanity chose the latter. We ain't gonna survive long enough to escape this planet.

JKCalhoun 28d ago
Star Trek must have looked a little too DEI, and we all thought we were somehow going to be Immortan Joe…

JKCalhoun 28d ago

"I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens." I'm with you, brother/sister.