Gently, softly, calmly, let’s talk about what’s happening in DC right now.
Friends, have you ever been through a ZBB process? If not, let me give you my take. So, in a corporation where expenses are out of control, you have to put the entire company through a zero based budgeting process. It is one of the most painful things that people in a company experience.
You basically have to justify every. single. expense. And you also cut a bunch, and then only add back after you’ve gone through a proper ZBB cycle.
The US government is going through a ZBB right now. And that is necessary because spending is out of control. The complexity is so vast that I expect it will take AI to decipher.
You cannot tell me that a government that accidentally wires hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban has its finances in order. That signals an underlying disaster. That signals bad stewardship of resources.
In fact, it is a disaster. Over the last 20 fiscal years, the US government has made ~$2.7 trillion in "improper payments," according to the US Government Accountability Office. Trillion! With a T!
That financial management disaster was not caused by @elonmusk. And there is no painless way to clean it up.
Elon is doing what any executive would do walking into a giant mess. You ZBB and then build back.
So, I don’t believe that America is going to be on the wrong side of global right and wrong, as some are saying. I don’t believe that America is going to be permanently isolationist. I do believe that unwatched finances will get out of control in any human system, and that the GAO has been trying to ring this bell for years, and that scaled complexity requires scaled financial management.
Because the US has the largest budget in the world, it will now go through the single most complex ZBB ever undertaken in the history of the world.
Some states do ZBB, but it's never been done at the federal level. President Jimmy Carter tried, but the bureaucratic systems were too complex, and President Ronald Reagan abandoned the attempt.
So, if there is one person in the world chosen to lead this Grand Canyon of projects, we would hope for the president to choose one of the best capital allocators on the planet. Better if that human is also one who can leverage AI and technical talent to manage the massive complexity.
Anyone who has lived through a ZBB at the corporate level will tell you that it’s hell and everyone hates it. This is why I feel really bad for federal workers -- I have a lot of empathy for civil servants and people doing a great job every day for the United States. No doubt, the uncertainty is trying and stressful for many. It's an unfortunate situation.
So, that's my take. I don't want to speak beyond what I know and can observe from the other side of the country. I've worked both in the private sector and the public sector -- the cultures are different. And an Elon-Musk-style culture is going to be the most hard core of them all. No doubt, it's jarring. It's gonna be a lot.
But what I also know is that every time I have ever doubted Elon, I ended up being the one who was wrong.
🧵🧵DOGE - A Lawyer’s Perspective on the @elonmusk@realDonaldTrump Policy Centerpiece
I inherently do not trust the media so I decided to look into DOGE myself and see what is under the hood. Initially I was quite concerned about the legality of a “new agency” created by executive order but that - just like everything else - is a lie put out by the mainstream. The order is here and the thread is below:
@VigilantFox
"The thing that gets me about Washington is they don't feel they have to respond to anything!"
Columbia Univ. professor Jeffrey Sachs has given a disturbing assessment of the U.S. government's ongoing cover-up of the Trump assassination attempt.
"We don't know what happened, it's absolutely shocking, we don't know the story and whether we ever will know the story is, like so many things now that are huge events," Sachs said.
On Tuesday, whistleblowers told @HawleyMO that agents assigned to former President Trump at his Butler rally were pulled off child exploitation cases and put onto protective detail with nothing more than 2-hour online training.
The Secret Service higher-ups initially wanted to deny Trump a counter-sniper team. They issued strange verbal instructions to agents telling them not to request more security for the Trump rally.
But the U.S. media pretends like the Trump assassination attempt never happened and the U.S. government pretends like the people aren't owed actual answers.
"Assassination attempt on Trump, isn't that weeks ago?" Sachs added. "That's old news, we don't even talk about that anymore! We have no attention span, we have complete lying from the government, we have secrecy and confidentiality, so we never solve any of these issues."
Sachs expressed his frustration with Washington elites who feel like they can lie endlessly without ever solving any problems.
"You watch the spokespeople... they smirk! Right in your face to tell you you are nothing! We can tell anything to you! They smirk!"
That is what Washington elites are giving the American people instead of solutions to their problems: Lies and more lies.
America's politicians are investigating issues to death instead of giving us answers. We are approaching a breaking point or something's going to have to give.
A Real life Hero! This is pretty incredible.👀
Back in 1926, Gladys Ingle saved her fellow stunt pilot by REPLACING a tire that fell off his plane thousands of feet up in the air.
🍩 Glazed, jelly-filled, with icing, in our bellies 😏 ... we're fans of donuts over here! We heard Yankee Doodle Donuts has some of the freshest in Pinehurst & Magnolia. So, we had to taste that sweet, fried dough for ourselves. Craving more? Watch here👇 https://t.co/D22uPUY2JE
The Tonca is an event in Trento, Italy, where every 19th of June a ceremonial jury sentences the local politician that committed the year's worst blunder to be locked in a cage and dunked in the river.
Tradition is important. 🤣 Happy June 19th !!!
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