How Will the Economy Improve?

[RVonse]

Despite the crowing of the democrats, DOGE is precisely focused on fixing the spending part of our problems.

It'll amount to diddly squat unless Congress goes after defense contractors and allows the DoD to function in the manner the active duty military does.
If you've ever wondered why there is always bipartisan support for defense spending...
View attachment 50155

Our current budget is not just sub optimal, it is not survivable.

And unless I am missing something, DOGE did not work since they have not come close to saving $1 trillion yet. There was some obvious savings but not near enough to save the country. I do still give Musk credit for trying and exposing himself and his company to vicious cruel attacks by the democrats however.

So I actually agree with you. Recovering waste and fraud out of the military appears the last hope at this point. We can't do $1.2 trillion deficits as far as we can see.

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

 

[ImGod]

Despite the crowing of the democrats, DOGE is precisely focused on fixing the spending part of our problems.

It'll amount to diddly squat unless Congress goes after defense contractors and allows the DoD to function in the manner the active duty military does.
If you've ever wondered why there is always bipartisan support for defense spending...
View attachment 50155

Our current budget is not just sub optimal, it is not survivable.

And unless I am missing something, DOGE did not work since they have not come close to saving $1 trillion yet. There was some obvious savings but not near enough to save the country. I do still give Musk credit for trying and exposing himself and his company to vicious cruel attacks by the democrats however.

So I actually agree with you. Recovering waste and fraud out of the military appears the last hope at this point. We can't do $1.2 trillion deficits as far as we can see.

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

We will have larger deficits this year with DOGE and all they are doing then we had last year.

How will you explain that? When the Trump administration they doesn't actually reduce the deficit.

They could have cut $500 billion out of defense and shut diwn half of the bases overseas but haven't. Break it then see how many they need to bring back for it to sort of function. Cancel all defense contracts until further review. That's how they have been handling every other department.

But we all know taxes will be going down and deficit spending up. That's why the Republicans are increasing the debt ceiling by $4-5 trillion. They plan on adding that much debt.

 

[TomC]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

How about reversing the Republicans tax cuts on big corporations and the super rich?
Tom

 

[Elixir]

Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

I’m just sitting around waiting for Trump to die.
Everything will rapidly improve after that.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Despite the crowing of the democrats, DOGE is precisely focused on fixing the spending part of our problems.

It'll amount to diddly squat unless Congress goes after defense contractors and allows the DoD to function in the manner the active duty military does.
If you've ever wondered why there is always bipartisan support for defense spending...
View attachment 50155

Our current budget is not just sub optimal, it is not survivable.

And unless I am missing something, DOGE did not work since they have not come close to saving $1 trillion yet. There was some obvious savings but not near enough to save the country. I do still give Musk credit for trying and exposing himself and his company to vicious cruel attacks by the democrats however.

So I actually agree with you. Recovering waste and fraud out of the military appears the last hope at this point. We can't do $1.2 trillion deficits as far as we can see.

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

We will have larger deficits this year with DOGE and all they are doing then we had last year.

How will you explain that? When the Trump administration they doesn't actually reduce the deficit.

They could have cut $500 billion out of defense and shut diwn half of the bases overseas but haven't. Break it then see how many they need to bring back for it to sort of function. Cancel all defense contracts until further review. That's how they have been handling every other department.

But we all know taxes will be going down and deficit spending up. That's why the Republicans are increasing the debt ceiling by $4-5 trillion. They plan on adding that much debt.

My understanding is with the number of staff reductions at the IRS along with those people normally opposed to paying taxes feeling more emboldened with Trump in office, DOGE will actually be in the red.
Musk went through and slashed XX% at various agencies with the understanding that the job can be done with less. While this may be true, many of these employees cannot be shuffled around or pick up additional duties. They are protected by a union and do not have to do anything not within their job description.

Reduction of military bases does happen under the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. In the past, politics largely stayed out of it. There was a lot of bitching when the recommended lists came out but the realignments and closures still happened. The last was 2005. Another attempt was made in 2015 but failed to get funded.
If Trump/DOGE was serious, they'd push the GOP to commission another. It would likely be realignment into the Pacific.

If DoD could do their job without interference from Congress, we'd be getting much cheaper and more efficient unmanned systems coming into the military. China spends nearly a quarter of what the US does and as near as I can tell is accomplishing a lot more, at least in shipbuilding they are.

We'll see about these tax cuts and debt increases. The bond market is already jittery from these ill thought out tariffs.

 

[KCFlyer]

I do still give Musk credit for trying and exposing himself and his company to vicious cruel attacks by the democrats however.

A small business owner would be considered an idiot if they spouted their political leanings the way Leon does. He might not have been a target if he and been a little "weaker" and showed at least a HINT of empathy. Instead, we have the richest (or formerly the richest) man in the world who is the face of his company slashing and burning and ruining lives...treating them as the dregs of society. and after that, running around in a drug induced state with a fucking chainsaw and CELEBRATING what he's done. ANd then he's almost tearful as he whines to Hannity "I haven't done anything awful". The whines about how tasteless it was to prance on stage with a chart of teh Tesla stock price, why less than a month earlier he is soaking in the love with a fucking CHAINSAW to celebrate the awful things he has done. He said the left was supposed to be the empathetic side, yet he has said the single biggest weakness of the western world is empathy. HE is getting everything he deserves.

 

[jonatha]

If Musk ran SpaceX the way he's trying to run the Federal government he'd be removing engines 5 at a time until Starship didn't move...

 

[Elixir]

If Musk ran SpaceX the way he's trying to run the Federal government he'd be removing engines 5 at a time until Starship didn't move...

Why? As long as it can still blow up, what’s the difference? Taxpayers will pay for it anyway and Musk still gets his billions.

 

[Ford]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

Quite a bit, actually.

DOGE isn't "finding fraud and waste.". They didn't do anything close to an audit of the agencies they claim were wasting money. They just started slashing based on the right wing's political agenda. Take the Dept of Education. They've been trying to get rid of it for years, and you can't tell me that DOGE found massive fraud and waste after looking for a week or two. Anyone who believes that has been suckered.


As for debt and deficit being unsustainable, there was a book about how the debt would ruin the country and we'd be bankrupt. It was taken as an inevitable conclusion on some right wing talk radio shows.

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

The country stubbornly refused to go bankrupt over 4 trillion in debt. In fact the Clinton administration left behind a budget surplus.

 

[bilby]

The US need not worry too much about her debts, as long as tax revenue is adequate, bond yields are low, and economic growth is generally positive.

Trump has demolised each of these three supports, so any collapse is due not to the existence of a debt, but to the harm inflicted by the current occupant of the Oval Office.

 

[ZiprHead]

And unless I am missing something, DOGE did not work since they have not come close to saving $1 trillion yet. There was some obvious savings but not near enough to save the country. I do still give Musk credit for trying and exposing himself and his company to vicious cruel attacks by the democrats however.

DOGE's IRS cuts will cost us far more in lost revenue than employment and department cuts ever will. Estimated to be 1/2 trillion dollars per year.

 

[RVonse]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

Look at how a divisive POTUS (Trump) that half the population can't stand got elected and then re-elected again.

That kind of stuff just does not happen until an empire reaches it's doom loop crises phase IMO.

Fasten your seatbelts.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

 

[RVonse]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

 

[scombrid]

The DeVos family has been funding right wing politics with their ponzi schemes for decades and the Democrats destroyed the unions?

 

[Elixir]

They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

Yes, that is precisely when America will be Great Again, according to the Trump formula.

 

[Ford]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

That's logic so twisted a bag of pretzels would go "daammmnnn."

Trump made both of his campaigns about "bringing manufacturing back to America." He claims to want it so bad he wants to trash everything Biden did to actually bring high tech manufacturing jobs back with the Chips Act. Rather than spur investment in American manufacturing by bringing jobs back that were outsourced, Trump is cutting off all that investment and spurring countries to AVOID setting up shop in the US by his idiotic trade wars.

Furthermore, it was Republicans who have been destroying unions, starting with Reagan and the traffic controllers over 40 years ago. Democrats have been trying to bring unions back, because if there are good-paying union jobs, people will be less dependent on social programs. Instead, the GOP plan is for people to work for pittance wages and what does that lead to?

WalMart and Amazon employees who depend on food stamps and housing assistance. You've got things exactly backwards.

 

[Axulus]

Where is this idoitic idea coming from that, even if manufacturing jobs increase due to the tariffs, that they will pay any better than the jobs the people who will fill them currently hold?

 

[Elixir]

Just musing here ...
I think any federal elected official should have to report any equity or derivative purchase in real time. I want to know when MTG &friends dump another wad into calls when Trump is expected to "speak" on lifting tariffs again.
Others should be able to see it live, for any or all of the elected officials. There should be an automatic alert that would be searchable by the public. They should not be allowed to benefit while in office from any transaction done outside their registration for automatic instant reporting of their activity. Might that curtail some of the corruption?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

Trump's Anti-Worker Record

At every turn Donald Trump and his appointees have made increasing the power of corporations over working people their top priority. The list of the damage done to working people by the Trump Administration is long, and growing every day.

cwa-union.org