Two PRIVATE citizens who are not divesting in charge of cutting regulations! Such an obvious conflict of interest + it’s embarrassing to watch MAGA prop up a kleptocracy
Do you think that career politician should run it? I would think that most partriotic Americans would want their government to be free of waste, fraud, and abusive overregulation
I think it should be run by a private sector executive or a governor. The key qualification would be experience working with complex processes and dealing with the restrictions of a budget, etc. This is an extremely complex job and requires a tremendous amount of work. The good news is that there is a ton of experience in the private sector in reengineering the processes of an enterprise and in sophisticated cost cutting.
I do not see Musk rolling up his sleeves and devoting himself to something as mundane as operational effectiveness. Musk is an entrepreneur who dreams big and builds new shiny things. This is more a job for a process wonk.
Vivek is an entrepreneur. There is a profound difference between growing a new enterprise and reengineering an extant enterprise. Especially one the size of the federal government.
The skill set for entrepreneurial success is vision and salesmanship (and major tolerance for risk). The skill set for improving operational effectiveness is more along the lines of operational engineering, technological engineering, and cost accounting. Two fundamentally different skill sets.
X has yet to turn a profit. They have increased their market share (good) but remain a minor player losing money (bad).
My take on X is still that Musk went overboard ... largely firing people to slash costs ... and did not do the smart (but difficult) work of reengineering the operational processes and reassessing the project portfolio per the new strategy.
But with Musk's money, he can get by with this much longer than most.
Musk runs tesla, starlink, boring company, neuralink, and xAI. He’s a busy guy. Compared to those companies twitter is chump change. If he put more effort into it, i’m sure it would be very profitable. I look forward to seeing what he can do because we all know that nothing will change with establishment pols running things, nothing.
You brought up Twitter, not me. You suggested that Musk has been able to gut an extant company and that all is well so that bodes will for Musk applying his style to the federal government.
It could be a good thing. However, do keep in mind this significant fact: the federal government is NOT a private company. There are 'vast' differences between how to 'run' both types. Additionally, I am full aware that some conservatives want to run the federal system like a corporation, but by definition governments have different and overlapping value systems.
i also brought up the fact that he’s a very busy man running several very successful companies, and the fact that twitter is small potatoes compared to his other companies but lets focus on one very narrow sliver, shall we? Smh.
So what? Twitter was your example and now you claim that the failures of Twitter are due to Musk being busy.
Personally I do not think Musk cares much about Twitter operations because they are not sexy. And he can afford to let it flounder without breaking a sweat.
But that was your example of Musk gutting a company and making it successful as part of your implicit argument that Musk can do similarly with the US federal government without 'missing a beat'.
So what is your new argument encouraging us all why Musk could make major changes (macro rather than detailed, planned, well-conceived) in the federal government and all will be fine?
Ok, let’s go back to the original point. The original point being, he fired 80% of twitter employees and it operates just fine. People can post and read posts just like before. You brought up money, the main reason twitter is losing money is because advertisers pulled out because musk didn’t allow twitter to remain a liberal circle jerk.
So what is your argument for why you think Musk's style of broad stroke, excessive cutting is going to work in the federal government.? Do you think that Musk has enough money to keep the federal government afloat like he can with Twitter?
I never said it will work, i said “I’m all for it. Let’s see what these guys can do.” i also said that “nothing will change with establishment pols running things, nothing.”
Good magical thinking there Greg. It certainly does depend on what Musk cuts, right? And that is my point. Running through the federal government with a machete is a fine recipe for disaster. Improving organization effectiveness is a complex, time-consuming initiative. Things need to be carefully untangled, prioritized, and then phased out. Chopping is exactly NOT what one should do.
Talk about a need for efficiency. . . start with politicians NOT doing what they are paid to do for all of us. And so it is that the 'mission' will have failed before those two can get their hands dirty. . . . Just sitting on one's hands and blocking ideas wholesale is not the proper definition of 'paid service.'
Yeah Gazoo, we all can see that you are willing to let Musk take a shot. That is not the point.
The point is that his style is antithetic to the kind of work required to improve effectiveness in the federal government.
Again, in super simple terms, machete = bad, scissors = good. And 'just do it and we will see what we have when the dust settles' = bad, 'analyze, separate, prioritize, phase-in' = good.
Twitter has little impact on society if it falters; the opposite is true of the federal government.
That was my point to begin with. That was my original comment that brought forth yours. Don’t try to twist my words. Just stop with the “obnoxious, blatantly dishonest behavior.”
Major surprise here but we disagree, let’s leave it at that, shall we?
I was a C-level executive in two successful businesses and an executive in two others. Three of them dealt with process reengineering / operational effectiveness at the corporate level and typically with Fortune 500 clients.
Now what are your credentials for making such an obnoxious remark?
Musk is a serial entrepreneur. He is not an operational executive/manager. The skill sets of those two roles are substantially different. The former is an idealistic, risk-taking, trailblazing, dynamic role. The latter is a methodical, strategic, moderated, grounded role. That is an oversimplification but my point is to make the distinction clear.
Taking a complex extant enterprise and reworking it during operation is NOT what your typical entrepreneur does. And to make matters much worse, the federal government is enormously complex and interrelated. This is not an initiative for someone like Musk.
So, again, while I am entirely in favor of making the federal government more effective, Musk is not the type of individual who should be leading this charge.
Also, some conservatives wish to think of the government as a "free-market capitalist" organization/racket of sorts. It is not that. The government any government is beholden to its community and it makes proper rules for civil, legal, and public life - amongst a host of public ownings and operations. . . more importantly, this government is beholden to its people—not any sort of private collection of 'holders.' Thus, the rules, regs, policies, transparencies, reportings, investigations, etceteras.
Seems to me that some do not understand the fundamental difference between one who is the very embodiment of an entrepreneur and that of a professional executive charged with improving the effectiveness of an existing, complex enterprise.
I suppose they believe that executives are interchangeable; that there is no significant differences between those who primarily start and grow new enterprises to pioneer new, breakthrough ideas and those who do the tedious work of keeping an enterprise healthy and evolving for the long term.
And you probably think that because he's not a radical progressive means he doesn't know what he's talking about or racist.
No, I don't. At all. I can appreciate talent and separate talents from personalities from political leanings because they are all different aspects of a person.
Would you want a urologist performing brain surgery? A traffic engineer designing a hospital?
No, I don't. At all. I can appreciate talent and separate talents from personalities from political leanings because they are all different aspects of a person.
I agree, yet then you make comparisons not based in reality...
Would you want a urologist performing brain surgery? A traffic engineer designing a hospital?
Perhaps you could explain your opinion on why a genius level entrepreneur, running large companies, isn't capable of examining efficiency?...
I agree, yet then you make comparisons not based in reality...
Then you missed the point. Each person has a specific skill set. This is true with Musk as well. TiG's point, and mine, is that the skill set necessary to start and build a company (What is the saying within the tech field?: "Move fast and break things." ), is different in approach than actually taking an entity and revising it for the long term, especially one as complex as the United States Government.
There are ways of making the government operate with more efficiency. Trump doesn't have a clue how to successfully run a business or a country, as he has shown us many times. Musk, and Ramaswamy's way of "breaking things" is not, in my opinion, the way to go either, not only because of the short term disruption to the economy but to all of the people who will find they no longer have a job, when their job is necessary to the continued functioning of the government.
In short, Musk's process is more of "Shoot first. Aim later", which is kind of a shitty way to run a country. Depending on the robustness of the underlying structure of the economy, we might be able to withstand such a shock to our system. Or we might not. His "it'll hurt for a bit" mentality does not bode well for the country. And I am of the considered opinion that he would do more damage than good.
Perhaps you could explain your opinion on why a genius level entrepreneur, running large companies, isn't capable of examining efficiency?...
It is not that Musk is not mentally capable, it is that the task of carefully understanding the federal government and then untangling the mess to identify the key problems that can be addressed, prioritizing the reengineering initiatives and then working through a phased implementation plan which will create improved processes while keeping the government running requires a methodical / detail-oriented / grounded mind.
That is demonstrably NOT Musk's style.
Musk is a high-energy, impatient, big-idea, risk-taking, dynamic entrepreneur. He is running from one cool thing to the next.
Significantly improving the effectiveness of the federal government —something I have always enthusiastically supported— requires the skill sets of professional managers supported by people who can get into the muck of organizational interrelationships, legal constraints, financial relationships, value-chain relationships, supply-chain relationships, etc. There needs to be some fundamental understanding of the complexity before it can be untangled to the point of where one can identify initiatives that can be rolled out (many in parallel) over time.
Musk does not have patience for doing this job right and certainly does not have an interest in understanding / dealing-with all the details. His style would be to use a hatchet regardless of the consequences. Musk is indeed smart. He could be a professional cost accountant, for example, but he would hate it. That is not what he likes to do. He wants big results and wants them quickly. On top of that, Musk has demonstrated that he does not care about how his actions affect the lives of employees (or customers). He does what he wants.
Now, in general, outside of Musk, it is quite common in the business world for entrepreneurs to build a new company and then have it be acquired or simply step aside and leave the management to professional managers while the entrepreneur moves on to more adventures. Musk's partner in DOGE, Ramaswamy is a fine example of this.
The visual of 'toppling' government if one is not mindful, focused, and consistent.
It all reminds me of 'investors' who come into a system, change it to suit their taste, fashion, and/or liking only to have short-changed those living the everyday experiences of the processes - where once they were covered and unexposed -soon they will be uncovered and exposed to a myriad of potential calamities. The 'investors' having and offering no 'loyalty' to continue as before the new changes to those already locked in on the programs and processes.
It is clearly a great idea to cut waste in government. We all know that the waste is excessive because government has no profit motivation and thus rarely engages in large scale process reengineering / modernization / trimming. This has been something I have called for decades now: apply (at least) basic operational effectiveness techniques and fiscal discipline of the private sector to the public sector. This is the main traditionally conservative notion that I have always supported: fiscal discipline and operational effectiveness.
But such an initiative headed by Trump and managed by Musk (and —give us a fucking break— Vivek Ramaswamy) is going to be ugly. As with Twitter, Musk will be ruthless and extreme. One positive that will result is that Trump supporters will get a better understanding of why the USA should never turn over the power of the presidency to a narcissistic authoritarian who thinks he is above the law (and just might be) and that he is always right. One wonders if they will get the message or simply suck up the propaganda that will accompany this.
To wit, a truly great idea but with the wrong people in charge. We must wait to see what actually happens, and I hope that on this I am wrong and that Musk does the hard work of analyzing and making sensible, incremental changes rather than take a hatchet to that which 'the king' finds unfit. I am not optimistic.
As we have discussed, Musk has won the private sector and now he wants to win the public sector. He can never be PotUS, but he certainly can manipulate a puppet.
Try to think positive and maybe you will be pleasantly surprised at the likely outcome.
I would rather be realistic.
Musk made Twitter leaner and more efficient and less a tool of the radical progressives.
Musk took a hatchet to Twitter. It was simplistic — he fired people.
Do you think Musk should take a hatchet to government operations ... operating in broad strokes per his whim sans a detailed understanding of the relationships and consequences?
Of course it is possible that Musk will be unable to execute. But given Musk's power as a global capitalist, there is a decent chance that he will get what he wants.
A smaller government with less bureaucracy. . . interesting to watch and see. . . if/when it cuts out efficiency for those who need government help the most. Of course, Musk need not a damn thing. . .which makes it suspect that he wants to address/tamper with the systems of the leading country in this world. This has the potential to get ugly really fast. And then what will happen. . . we will 'go' and see.
The irresistible political force (Trump) is about to make contact with the immovable political object (Government). . . neither is capable of breaking; so both are compelled to orbit the other.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Do you think that career politician should run it? I would think that most partriotic Americans would want their government to be free of waste, fraud, and abusive overregulation
I think it should be run by a private sector executive or a governor. The key qualification would be experience working with complex processes and dealing with the restrictions of a budget, etc. This is an extremely complex job and requires a tremendous amount of work. The good news is that there is a ton of experience in the private sector in reengineering the processes of an enterprise and in sophisticated cost cutting.
I do not see Musk rolling up his sleeves and devoting himself to something as mundane as operational effectiveness. Musk is an entrepreneur who dreams big and builds new shiny things. This is more a job for a process wonk.
I can see the lines at the soup kitchens now...
Like Vivek?
Vivek is an entrepreneur. There is a profound difference between growing a new enterprise and reengineering an extant enterprise. Especially one the size of the federal government.
The skill set for entrepreneurial success is vision and salesmanship (and major tolerance for risk). The skill set for improving operational effectiveness is more along the lines of operational engineering, technological engineering, and cost accounting. Two fundamentally different skill sets.
Great idea. Wrong people in charge.
If by that you mean the people who have the least buffer and depend more on the safety net will be the first to suffer, I agree.
Musk (like Trump) does not give a single shit about others.
How dare he try to make government bureaucracy more efficient and effective!!
Musk took over twitter and cut 80% of its workforce. Twitter didn’t miss a beat. I’m all for it. Let’s see what these guys can do.
X has yet to turn a profit. They have increased their market share (good) but remain a minor player losing money (bad).
My take on X is still that Musk went overboard ... largely firing people to slash costs ... and did not do the smart (but difficult) work of reengineering the operational processes and reassessing the project portfolio per the new strategy.
But with Musk's money, he can get by with this much longer than most.
Musk runs tesla, starlink, boring company, neuralink, and xAI. He’s a busy guy. Compared to those companies twitter is chump change. If he put more effort into it, i’m sure it would be very profitable. I look forward to seeing what he can do because we all know that nothing will change with establishment pols running things, nothing.
You brought up Twitter, not me. You suggested that Musk has been able to gut an extant company and that all is well so that bodes will for Musk applying his style to the federal government.
I rebutted that. You now move the goalposts.
It could be a good thing. However, do keep in mind this significant fact: the federal government is NOT a private company. There are 'vast' differences between how to 'run' both types. Additionally, I am full aware that some conservatives want to run the federal system like a corporation, but by definition governments have different and overlapping value systems.
i also brought up the fact that he’s a very busy man running several very successful companies, and the fact that twitter is small potatoes compared to his other companies but lets focus on one very narrow sliver, shall we? Smh.
“It could be a good thing.
i agree and look forward to seeing how it turns out.
So what? Twitter was your example and now you claim that the failures of Twitter are due to Musk being busy.
Personally I do not think Musk cares much about Twitter operations because they are not sexy. And he can afford to let it flounder without breaking a sweat.
But that was your example of Musk gutting a company and making it successful as part of your implicit argument that Musk can do similarly with the US federal government without 'missing a beat'.
So what is your new argument encouraging us all why Musk could make major changes (macro rather than detailed, planned, well-conceived) in the federal government and all will be fine?
Ok, let’s go back to the original point. The original point being, he fired 80% of twitter employees and it operates just fine. People can post and read posts just like before. You brought up money, the main reason twitter is losing money is because advertisers pulled out because musk didn’t allow twitter to remain a liberal circle jerk.
So what is your argument for why you think Musk's style of broad stroke, excessive cutting is going to work in the federal government.? Do you think that Musk has enough money to keep the federal government afloat like he can with Twitter?
He won't have to, it should free up enough federal funds that they can keep themselves afloat....
I never said it will work, i said “I’m all for it. Let’s see what these guys can do.” i also said that “nothing will change with establishment pols running things, nothing.”
Good magical thinking there Greg. It certainly does depend on what Musk cuts, right? And that is my point. Running through the federal government with a machete is a fine recipe for disaster. Improving organization effectiveness is a complex, time-consuming initiative. Things need to be carefully untangled, prioritized, and then phased out. Chopping is exactly NOT what one should do.
And I made the case that Musk is the wrong person to be taking on this initiative.
I am (and have forever been) all in on cutting federal waste. But it has to be done sensibly and that is not Musk's style.
Talk about a need for efficiency. . . start with politicians NOT doing what they are paid to do for all of us.
And so it is that the 'mission' will have failed before those two can get their hands dirty. . . . Just sitting on one's hands and blocking ideas wholesale is not the proper definition of 'paid service.'
He’s a highly successful businessman. I’m willing to let him take a shot at it. As i said before, establishment pols will do nothing to end the waste.
I don't know, if it's been tried to be addressed more precisely and is still a problem perhaps chopping is exactly what is needed.....
I know, magical thinking...
“And so it is that the 'mission' will have failed before those two can get their hands dirty. .
I hope not. I’d really like to see them succeed.
Yeah Gazoo, we all can see that you are willing to let Musk take a shot. That is not the point.
The point is that his style is antithetic to the kind of work required to improve effectiveness in the federal government.
Again, in super simple terms, machete = bad, scissors = good. And 'just do it and we will see what we have when the dust settles' = bad, 'analyze, separate, prioritize, phase-in' = good.
Twitter has little impact on society if it falters; the opposite is true of the federal government.
You’ve never run a business it seems. Or should I say successful business.
That was my point to begin with. That was my original comment that brought forth yours. Don’t try to twist my words. Just stop with the “obnoxious, blatantly dishonest behavior.”
Major surprise here but we disagree, let’s leave it at that, shall we?
I was a C-level executive in two successful businesses and an executive in two others. Three of them dealt with process reengineering / operational effectiveness at the corporate level and typically with Fortune 500 clients.
Now what are your credentials for making such an obnoxious remark?
Yes, and I disagreed with your wishful thinking of Musk and I explained why. Then you argued with me and I rebutted.
Something that I do not think you recognize.
Musk is a serial entrepreneur. He is not an operational executive/manager. The skill sets of those two roles are substantially different. The former is an idealistic, risk-taking, trailblazing, dynamic role. The latter is a methodical, strategic, moderated, grounded role. That is an oversimplification but my point is to make the distinction clear.
Taking a complex extant enterprise and reworking it during operation is NOT what your typical entrepreneur does. And to make matters much worse, the federal government is enormously complex and interrelated. This is not an initiative for someone like Musk.
So, again, while I am entirely in favor of making the federal government more effective, Musk is not the type of individual who should be leading this charge.
LOL...
In what way is this humorous?
I didn’t argue with you, i explained my position.
"Succeed. . . " depends on specifics. For all or some - THAT is the point!
I agree with this. I remember something about that from management chasses. The idea man needs the operations man to make his plans work.
Also, some conservatives wish to think of the government as a "free-market capitalist" organization/racket of sorts. It is not that. The government any government is beholden to its community and it makes proper rules for civil, legal, and public life - amongst a host of public ownings and operations. . . more importantly, this government is beholden to its people—not any sort of private collection of 'holders.' Thus, the rules, regs, policies, transparencies, reportings, investigations, etceteras.
Ironically...
Because the idea man's 'job' is to start a business. . . not to stand still and 'nurse' it in/out/back to 'good' health.
Vague
Directly answered.
You probably think that just because he is rich that must mean that he is omni-talented and conversant in whatever he chooses to speak on.
Some people should stay in their lane.
Seems to me that some do not understand the fundamental difference between one who is the very embodiment of an entrepreneur and that of a professional executive charged with improving the effectiveness of an existing, complex enterprise.
I suppose they believe that executives are interchangeable; that there is no significant differences between those who primarily start and grow new enterprises to pioneer new, breakthrough ideas and those who do the tedious work of keeping an enterprise healthy and evolving for the long term.
And you probably think that because he's not a radical progressive means he doesn't know what he's talking about or racist.
Agreed...
No, I don't. At all. I can appreciate talent and separate talents from personalities from political leanings because they are all different aspects of a person.
Would you want a urologist performing brain surgery? A traffic engineer designing a hospital?
I agree, yet then you make comparisons not based in reality...
Perhaps you could explain your opinion on why a genius level entrepreneur, running large companies, isn't capable of examining efficiency?...
Then you missed the point. Each person has a specific skill set. This is true with Musk as well. TiG's point, and mine, is that the skill set necessary to start and build a company (What is the saying within the tech field?: "Move fast and break things." ), is different in approach than actually taking an entity and revising it for the long term, especially one as complex as the United States Government.
There are ways of making the government operate with more efficiency. Trump doesn't have a clue how to successfully run a business or a country, as he has shown us many times. Musk, and Ramaswamy's way of "breaking things" is not, in my opinion, the way to go either, not only because of the short term disruption to the economy but to all of the people who will find they no longer have a job, when their job is necessary to the continued functioning of the government.
In short, Musk's process is more of "Shoot first. Aim later", which is kind of a shitty way to run a country. Depending on the robustness of the underlying structure of the economy, we might be able to withstand such a shock to our system. Or we might not. His "it'll hurt for a bit" mentality does not bode well for the country. And I am of the considered opinion that he would do more damage than good.
What do you base that opinion on?
Watching what he does.
It is not that Musk is not mentally capable, it is that the task of carefully understanding the federal government and then untangling the mess to identify the key problems that can be addressed, prioritizing the reengineering initiatives and then working through a phased implementation plan which will create improved processes while keeping the government running requires a methodical / detail-oriented / grounded mind.
That is demonstrably NOT Musk's style.
Musk is a high-energy, impatient, big-idea, risk-taking, dynamic entrepreneur. He is running from one cool thing to the next.
Significantly improving the effectiveness of the federal government —something I have always enthusiastically supported— requires the skill sets of professional managers supported by people who can get into the muck of organizational interrelationships, legal constraints, financial relationships, value-chain relationships, supply-chain relationships, etc. There needs to be some fundamental understanding of the complexity before it can be untangled to the point of where one can identify initiatives that can be rolled out (many in parallel) over time.
Musk does not have patience for doing this job right and certainly does not have an interest in understanding / dealing-with all the details. His style would be to use a hatchet regardless of the consequences. Musk is indeed smart. He could be a professional cost accountant, for example, but he would hate it. That is not what he likes to do. He wants big results and wants them quickly. On top of that, Musk has demonstrated that he does not care about how his actions affect the lives of employees (or customers). He does what he wants.
Now, in general, outside of Musk, it is quite common in the business world for entrepreneurs to build a new company and then have it be acquired or simply step aside and leave the management to professional managers while the entrepreneur moves on to more adventures. Musk's partner in DOGE, Ramaswamy is a fine example of this.
The visual of 'toppling' government if one is not mindful, focused, and consistent.
It all reminds me of 'investors' who come into a system, change it to suit their taste, fashion, and/or liking only to have short-changed those living the everyday experiences of the processes - where once they were covered and unexposed -soon they will be uncovered and exposed to a myriad of potential calamities. The 'investors' having and offering no 'loyalty' to continue as before the new changes to those already locked in on the programs and processes.
It is clearly a great idea to cut waste in government. We all know that the waste is excessive because government has no profit motivation and thus rarely engages in large scale process reengineering / modernization / trimming. This has been something I have called for decades now: apply (at least) basic operational effectiveness techniques and fiscal discipline of the private sector to the public sector. This is the main traditionally conservative notion that I have always supported: fiscal discipline and operational effectiveness.
But such an initiative headed by Trump and managed by Musk (and —give us a fucking break— Vivek Ramaswamy) is going to be ugly. As with Twitter, Musk will be ruthless and extreme. One positive that will result is that Trump supporters will get a better understanding of why the USA should never turn over the power of the presidency to a narcissistic authoritarian who thinks he is above the law (and just might be) and that he is always right. One wonders if they will get the message or simply suck up the propaganda that will accompany this.
To wit, a truly great idea but with the wrong people in charge. We must wait to see what actually happens, and I hope that on this I am wrong and that Musk does the hard work of analyzing and making sensible, incremental changes rather than take a hatchet to that which 'the king' finds unfit. I am not optimistic.
Only one thing about government interests Musk, and that is how much power he can suck out of it and transfer to himself.
As we have discussed, Musk has won the private sector and now he wants to win the public sector. He can never be PotUS, but he certainly can manipulate a puppet.
Power = Money !
Try to think positive and maybe you will be pleasantly surprised at the likely outcome.
Musk made Twitter leaner and more efficient and less a tool of the radical progressives.
Trump is right about a lot of things, and the larger electorate chose to believe him after four years of an incompetent and corrupt
Biden administration.
I would rather be realistic.
Musk took a hatchet to Twitter. It was simplistic — he fired people.
Do you think Musk should take a hatchet to government operations ... operating in broad strokes per his whim sans a detailed understanding of the relationships and consequences?
Trump is a dangerous buffoon.
There is a non zero chance this is just a title without any actual authority in the real world. These sort of commissions are legion.
Of course it is possible that Musk will be unable to execute. But given Musk's power as a global capitalist, there is a decent chance that he will get what he wants.
A smaller government with less bureaucracy. . . interesting to watch and see. . . if/when it cuts out efficiency for those who need government help the most. Of course, Musk need not a damn thing. . .which makes it suspect that he wants to address/tamper with the systems of the leading country in this world. This has the potential to get ugly really fast. And then what will happen. . . we will 'go' and see.
The irresistible political force (Trump) is about to make contact with the immovable political object (Government). . . neither is capable of breaking; so both are compelled to orbit the other.