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America is Trapped in a Burning Tesla (Surprise! The madman stuff wasn't an act) [View all]
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/america-is-trapped-in-a-burning-teslaOne thing that really struck me from Rattner’s piece — something I’ve heard from other sources — is that big businessmen think Elon Musk is doing a good job. I guess this is one of those cases where power and privilege make you blind to things that are obvious to everyone else.
What those of us not cocooned in our corner offices see is that Musk let a bunch of Dunning-Kruger kids — too incompetent to realize that they’re incompetent — loose on federal agencies, where they began firing workers without trying to understand what these workers do or why it might be important. These firings have been followed in several cases by desperate attempts to rehire the lost workers, who turn out to have been doing things like, um, securing the nation’s nuclear weapons.
Now, Musk’s DOGE claims that it has already saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but it has provided no evidence to back those claims. Instead, last month it released what it called a “wall of receipts,” purportedly documenting some of the claimed savings. That document, however, turned out to be riddled with huge errors, including misreading an $8 million contract as $8 billion and counting the same canceled contract three times. Last week it released a revised, much smaller “wall” — but that version also turns out to be full of major errors, and DOGE has already retracted 5 of its 7 biggest claims about cost savings.
Imagine how a private business would react if it hired a supposed efficiency expert who quickly fired crucial employees while making grandiose claims about the money he’s saving, but kept releasing progress reports that were full of ludicrous errors. You wouldn’t keep him on; you’d have security escort him out of the building and immediately change all the locks. But Trump went out of his way to praise Musk, who is still wreaking havoc that goes beyond the immediate impact of the layoffs. Think about what his actions must be doing to the morale of those federal workers who remain.
Sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, important things are going to break.
What those of us not cocooned in our corner offices see is that Musk let a bunch of Dunning-Kruger kids — too incompetent to realize that they’re incompetent — loose on federal agencies, where they began firing workers without trying to understand what these workers do or why it might be important. These firings have been followed in several cases by desperate attempts to rehire the lost workers, who turn out to have been doing things like, um, securing the nation’s nuclear weapons.
Now, Musk’s DOGE claims that it has already saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, but it has provided no evidence to back those claims. Instead, last month it released what it called a “wall of receipts,” purportedly documenting some of the claimed savings. That document, however, turned out to be riddled with huge errors, including misreading an $8 million contract as $8 billion and counting the same canceled contract three times. Last week it released a revised, much smaller “wall” — but that version also turns out to be full of major errors, and DOGE has already retracted 5 of its 7 biggest claims about cost savings.
Imagine how a private business would react if it hired a supposed efficiency expert who quickly fired crucial employees while making grandiose claims about the money he’s saving, but kept releasing progress reports that were full of ludicrous errors. You wouldn’t keep him on; you’d have security escort him out of the building and immediately change all the locks. But Trump went out of his way to praise Musk, who is still wreaking havoc that goes beyond the immediate impact of the layoffs. Think about what his actions must be doing to the morale of those federal workers who remain.
Sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, important things are going to break.
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