• deadkennedy@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    Lost.

    Not saved. Lost. Elon and the Musketeers lost this nation half a trillion dollars.

    • Jeffool @lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Not “lost” as in “misplaced”, but “lost” as in “missed the opportunity to bring it in, in the future”.

  • Wren@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Let’s qualify this more accurately. It’s not lost. It’s “lost.”

    Let’s all keep an eye out for the shiny new upgrades to putin’s war crimes in Ukraine.

  • PedroMaldonado@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    From what I hear…elon, thief and their cronies are specifically wrecking government to push a corporate takeover…jeeze. it’s like robocop.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      And/or destabilizing the country’s economy and political power worldwide so our enemies like Russia can do whatever they want without the US interfering. The complete destruction of US soft power via things like USAID and the blatant attempts to destroy any collaboration with our allies seems to point more in that direction.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Different groups, different motivations, but they’re headed in the same direction more or less so they’re working together. Trump is working to install himself as a dictator under orders from Putin. He wants to be for the US what Lukashenko is for Belarus. Ultimately he’ll be Putin’s puppet but he’ll largely have free reign within the US which is the only thing he cares about. He’s destroying all the US soft power and doing everything he can to turn all the US allies against it. Domestically he’s painting targets on the backs of as many minorities as he can in order to keep the useful idiots that elected him distracted.

        Musk meanwhile is working to establish an oligarchy and to steal or destroy as much of the US government as he can manage. Ultimately his goals are fairly transparent as he’s motivated entirely by naked greed. Since his efforts hurt US foreign relations as much as the domestic situation he’s a useful tool to Trump in his efforts to neuter the US for Putin.

        Then you’ve got the Christian nationalists in the GOP that don’t really care about what’s going on as long as they’re allowed to trample all over the first amendment and declare Christianity as the official US religion with all the associated bigotry and discrimination. Since that plays to Trump’s efforts to distract his supporters he’s perfectly fine with it, but likely keeping a close eye on that group lest any of them think about usurping his crown, particularly when he still hasn’t really gotten to go full dictator yet.

        • pathos@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          I would disagree on your Musk-analysis. He and the other techbros are not after the money but after the power and influence that being in these positions nets them. The monetary gain is a side-effect. The goal is to enforce their unrealistic ideas about how to reshape society. Look up ‘Longtermism’ and the ridiculous ideas of one Curtis Yarvin. Remember MAGAts are fond of yammering about the World Economic Forum and the Gates, Soros etc? How these are supposedly trying to reshape society into some big brother-esque dystopia?

          That is what the tech-oligarchs are facilitating.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            Well it’s kind of both. While I agree that is a goal it’s ultimately about hoarding wealth to them. Power is wealth and wealth is power. The only reason they care about the peasants is because control over them ensures they can continue to harvest wealth and that nobody can become wealthier. Their goal isn’t any specific amount of wealth but rather they treat it as a game they’re competing in. They don’t care if they have a million dollars or a hundred trillion as long as nobody else has more.

            Everything they do is in service to acquiring more wealth for themselves and denying wealth to others including the accumulation of power. They’ll spend money to acquire power but only if that power then allows for the accumulation of more money. That’s their current play with the US government. They’re destroying the US in order to carve it up and add it to their personal hoard of wealth.

            • pathos@lemmy.world
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              12 days ago

              If it was only that easy. The quasi-religious convictions that Musk specifically holds in regards to Longtermism go ideologically deeper than just lust for power. Why do you think he still propagates his unrealistic ideas about spearheading a mars colonization?

              Greed everybody can understand and reckon with. These ridiculous ideas make people do unintelligible things.

    • Silicon@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Worse than RoboCop, we don’t have a cool robot cop shooting dicks off to show for it

  • oyo@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    Imagine being so fucking dumb you use IRS data to go after immigrants who are paying taxes, thus ensuring no immigrant ever pays taxes again.

        • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          Vance the couch fucker.

          There was a claim that, in the first draft of his book, Vance recounted a teenage sexual encounter with a couch. In great detail.

          This claim came with an image of the text, which is easily found if you want that sort of thing.

          The truthfulness of the claim has been questioned, but Vance just seems like the kind of guy who would fuck a couch.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          you might find things other than loose change behind the cushions when there’s a couchfucker on the loose.

          • sporkler@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            you write a book that gets turned into a movie, help draft the most optimistic plan for turning a reasonable functional democracy into a dictatorship, rock eyeliner at least as well as any 80’s glam-rock start, but you fuck one* couch, and that’s all you’re remembered for.

            • well, you know, the ones in the furniture store didn’t count, and the futon was technically a futon, and I was genuinely concerned that I’d be maimed by the recliner, and when I was drunk didn’t count, and beanbag chairs are barely even a chair…
  • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    They probably just funneled it directly to Russia, and we’ll continue to do so until disassemble them and send them back to the factory

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    The stupid “doge” thing was never about balancing the budget anyway. That’s all bullshit red meat for the dumbasses that voted for donvict.

    • Lasherz@lemmy.worldM
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      12 days ago

      For every dollar spent on IRS staffing, etc, it’s estimated to be at least a 7x return. Any disruptions are going to cost a lot with that in mind. Also, I find it a little misguided to question the IRS, an agency that shows its work’s opinion on DOGE, an “agency?” Which has failed to show its work and has been caught lying frequently.

    • JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee
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      12 days ago

      The fourth sentence of the article explains it

      The Post reports today that the IRS’s internal projections estimate that the DOGE-driven disruptions to the IRS since the inauguration are on track to have reduced tax receipts by more than $500 billion by April 15th. This, to be clear, is not a final tally. It’s not April 15th yet. It’s a projection based on historical data, the number of people who’ve filed, paid owed amounts of tax etc.