- Brian Klaas at The Atlantic on Elon Musk’s flawed view of “waste,” i.e. any kind of preventative measures to spend money now to avoid spending much more money later;
- And simpleton measures about measles from RFK Jr.
- Paul Krugman on how the two most powerful men in America have gone stark raving mad.
I am fairly certain that none of the DOGE-driven cuts in government employment are the result of any kind of considered analysis. Just fire half of them, seems to be the reasoning, and the half we’ll choose will be the newest hires. That’s the depth of their analysis. This is combined with what I’ve long observed to be the relative simple-mindedness of conservatives. The MAGA fans cheering DOGE on are thinking, how could some Washington agency need 25,000 employees? If I can’t imagine what 25,000 people could possibly be doing, then they must be bloat. Get rid of ’em! How they decide that 10% of the staff should be cut, or 25%, or 50%, seems to be arbitrary. They have no idea.
Side issue: sure, there’s always *some* inefficiency in every organization. But there’s a point at which working to root out that inefficiency costs more than the inefficiency itself. Zealots seem not to realize this.
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This piece is about how the zealots think preventative measures are “waste.” They prefer immediate profits, and the costs of disasters that could have been prevented will be borne by someone else.
The Atlantic, Brian Klaas, 12 Mar 2025: DOGE Is Courting Catastrophic Risk, subtitled “Musk has turned a dangerously flawed view of ‘waste’ into a philosophy of government.”
