its own figures add up to just $19 billion
Even this is lying. It's the equivalent of saying you lost weight after you chainsawed your arm off.
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
647 points (99.1% liked)
News
35962 readers
3023 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Fun fact. If they go ahead with that plan that was floated to send every American 20% of the DOGE "savings", based on that $19bn figure (which as you correctly point out, is a total falsehood; nothing is saved by cancelling completed contracts or downsizing revenue producing departments), the result would be that every American would get a one time payment of $10.
That's it. That's what Musk is claiming to have saved the country; a McDonald's happy meal. And for that he's burning down departments like the consumer protection bureau that protects Americans from scams and exploitative business practices.
Well that last part is only natural... He has to make sure he can make a living after all
I mean you kid (I assume), but literally all of the departments targeted so far are ones that have been investigating Musk's companies
I wish I wasn't (for a myriad of reasons, that being the least of which) yet, here we are
The fastest way to lose weight is in fact amputation.
Or the old joke "I lost 200 pounds of useless flab.... I killed my husband."
There's of course no reason for me to mention this in the context of Elon (and Trump)
Or saved money buy not buying food.
Or as I like to call it: The majority of my adult life
He reduced spending. We need to know the societal cost of those reductions before we can talk about savings. I suspect he has impoverished a generation.
In the financial crisis in 2008, many countries deployed austerity programs to cut debts and costs. Their economies shrank and some still haven't recovered from that experiment. And DOGE is austerity with a chainsaw, not with a scalpel. It's going to hurt, a lot.
Just one? You are far more optimistic than I am, clearly
So far. It's only March and it's only the first year
We were already on that trajectory though. He just made it faster. If it sparks a meaningful backlash, it might turn out to have been a good thing.
Even if it adds up to 19 billion, it will never be that number. There are costs to terminating a contract, usually requiring compensation for all materials bought or produced, as well as overhead costs related to the contract. There is a reason that contracts exist and it's to disincentivize the dissolution of an agreement... Termination for convenience is not cheap.
That's not even getting into lawsuits related to direct employee terminations.
And at the end, this is for what? What benefit do we get from tearing up contracts that are half completed and half paid for? What benefit is there in laying off people that wanted to serve and in many cases took a pay cut to do it, knowing that the trafeoff is stability of their employer and the knowledge that they are helping the country.
knowing that the tradeoff is stability of their employer
This shit will haunt us after I die. Trust has been shattered. Good luck calculating the cost of that.
"mess ups". Lol. Call it what it is Daily Beast ... fuck ups. Fuck ups beyond all comprehension. Fuck Ups Beyond All Recognition.
Fubar!
"I'm not seeing it in my German dictionary..."
DOGE’s inexperienced staff, many tied to Musk’s companies, may be unqualified to understand complex government programs.
Yes AND they are doing this on purpose. Evil fucks are trying to lie to their followers who will most likely eat that shit up.
Cmon guys. The math adds up.
19 billion saved for the plebians, 86 billion saved for himself.
Musk describing something as bigger than it really is? Color me surprised.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Measuring the savings is pointless as they were not cut for the money but for the perceived merit to musk and trump. Parroting their stated motivations seems harmful.
The point is to undermine their authority in the eyes of those who believe the propaganda. If they are continuously fucking up and costing money then you may get say a state level clerk telling them to fuck off when they inevitably try to fuck with the states, a clerk who may have allowed them to do some very damaging shit
It's like he's writing a performance report and desperately trying to pad the bullet points because he doesn't have enough to fill the required "what have you accomplished" area.
Like they gave Ukraine 300 billion where in reality it's some 50B and the rest they "pledged" the same way Amber Heard pledged to help poor children...
Are these tools using LLMs for their math?
I get that math is hard to some people, but every computer I've used has had a calculator of some sort.
Unless you let AI do the math...
Damn, the ketamine really is freeing his mind! Freeing it to be worse in every way, that is.
DOGE’s inexperienced staff, many tied to Musk’s companies, may be unqualified to understand complex government programs. Mistakes could be deadly, with one former USAID staffer warning tens of thousands of lives may be lost.
Yeah, but are any of those lives billionaires? Then who cares? -Dogebags, probably.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Is our reality part of a failed Austin Powers script?
I am sorely disappointed in the lack of machine gun jubblies if so.
Maybe that's why it failed
Staff from musks companies, that are used to just spaffing their handout money up the wall, can't figure out real budgets and contacts?
What a fucking suprise.
DOGE’s inexperienced staff, many tied to Musk’s companies, may be unqualified to understand complex government programs.
😲 the hell you say!
The fact they actually put "may" in there is insulting to readers. We KNOW They are totally and completly unqualified for 99.99% of the work they are doing.
Whatever happened to Andrew Yang? That guy could math so much harder than these guys
Elon Musk claims to have saved taxpayers $105 billion
So we're gonna be getting all of the money he saved us back as a tax rebate, right?
....right?
Yea, the whole.ten.dollars.
You're welcome!
Meh, close enough! Drinks for everyone!
view more: next ›