What If?
What if your financial advisor sent you a statement that the value of your portfolio was $80,000, and you later found out that what he meant to say was that it was only $80? How long would you keep that advisor? That is exactly the scope (3 zeros) of the mistake made by Elon Musk and his crack team of “geniuses.” His report about the savings he managed to make at ICE was $8B when he meant $8M.
He also went on to “save” $232M at the Social Security Admininistration, but it was actually $560,000. That’s a 414% mistake. In another instance he counted one $650 million cut three times. We can add to that the fact that around 40% of his cuts won’t yield any savings.
The White House was forced to scramble when nuclear safety workers were fired by mistake. DOGE made massive layoffs to food safety staffers at the FDA. When the seriousness of the cuts were realized, the FDA was forced to quickly re-hire them to correct yet another mistake. Workers at the USDA working on the bird flu epidemic were also “accidentally” fired.
At USAID, workers were fired and told they had 15 minutes to clear out their offices before they were escorted out by federal officers. They were given specific instructions to not bring weapons, including spear guns, firearms, or hand grenades when they showed up with boxes and bags at their former offices. I’m sure it was just a thoughtful reminder of existing government policy. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, USAID workers were left stranded and forced to flee for their lives leaving their homes, possessions, and family pets behind as violence broke out in the capital city of Kinshasa. One worker’s home was looted and burned.
Cuts at the FAA were not supposed to involve flight safety but 130 of an initial batch of 400 people laid off were aviation safety assistants, maintenance mechanics, and nautical information specialists. These are the types of workers tasked with helping aircraft safety inspectors, those who repair air traffic control facilities, and those who update digital maps that pilots use in flight.
While the FAA said that individuals who are certified to actually do the inspections were not fired, some support personnel who aided that work were cut. Work on critical infrastructure like radars could now fall on those certified technicians as they would now have to do the work of fired maintenance mechanics. With cuts to nautical aviation specialists, digital map updates will take longer. Support staff cuts of safety inspector staff will mean that the workload will fall to inspectors so it will take longer to inspect aircraft. I’m sure none of them will be tempted to cut any corners. Wow, I feel better already.
Elon Musk can't be held responsible for this mayhem, as he is only an unpaid advisor. The real scapegoat will be Amy Gleason, the top-secret government employee finally identified after the press wouldn't stop asking, "Who runs DOGE?" Employees at DOGE found out this information after reading it in the press because, before that, nobody knew this. When the press tried to contact Ms. Gleason it was learned that she was in Mexico on vacation.
After all of this, Trump’s agenda still calls for adding trillions of dollars to the U.S. debt. The predictions of a ripple effect where not only federal workers will be unemployed, but contractors will also be forced to fire staff. As many as one million people may be added to the unemployment rolls in the coming months.
The White House was forced to scramble when nuclear safety workers were fired by mistake. DOGE made massive layoffs to food safety staffers at the FDA. When the seriousness of the cuts were realized, the FDA was forced to quickly re-hire them to correct yet another mistake. Workers at the USDA working on the bird flu epidemic were also “accidentally” fired.
At USAID, workers were fired and told they had 15 minutes to clear out their offices before they were escorted out by federal officers. They were given specific instructions to not bring weapons, including spear guns, firearms, or hand grenades when they showed up with boxes and bags at their former offices. I’m sure it was just a thoughtful reminder of existing government policy. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, USAID workers were left stranded and forced to flee for their lives leaving their homes, possessions, and family pets behind as violence broke out in the capital city of Kinshasa. One worker’s home was looted and burned.
Cuts at the FAA were not supposed to involve flight safety but 130 of an initial batch of 400 people laid off were aviation safety assistants, maintenance mechanics, and nautical information specialists. These are the types of workers tasked with helping aircraft safety inspectors, those who repair air traffic control facilities, and those who update digital maps that pilots use in flight.
While the FAA said that individuals who are certified to actually do the inspections were not fired, some support personnel who aided that work were cut. Work on critical infrastructure like radars could now fall on those certified technicians as they would now have to do the work of fired maintenance mechanics. With cuts to nautical aviation specialists, digital map updates will take longer. Support staff cuts of safety inspector staff will mean that the workload will fall to inspectors so it will take longer to inspect aircraft. I’m sure none of them will be tempted to cut any corners. Wow, I feel better already.
Elon Musk can't be held responsible for this mayhem, as he is only an unpaid advisor. The real scapegoat will be Amy Gleason, the top-secret government employee finally identified after the press wouldn't stop asking, "Who runs DOGE?" Employees at DOGE found out this information after reading it in the press because, before that, nobody knew this. When the press tried to contact Ms. Gleason it was learned that she was in Mexico on vacation.
After all of this, Trump’s agenda still calls for adding trillions of dollars to the U.S. debt. The predictions of a ripple effect where not only federal workers will be unemployed, but contractors will also be forced to fire staff. As many as one million people may be added to the unemployment rolls in the coming months.
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