DOGE Catch-All | Musk is an Insider Threat with sysadmin access to everything

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rodoheel said:
You missed the fact that on a message board other people besides cford might ask you questions about the things you said in your post?

I apologize. I did not realize you were brand new to message board posting.

There is no such thing as the minimum wage increasing "naturally." That is the clear source of the confusion here. The very idea of a "minimum wage" is a wage that no one can legally pay under.
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I responded to your question. You still assumed I was opposed to minimum wage legislation:

You: “Forced increases” in minimum wage? Isn’t any increase in minimum wage “forced” (by the government) by definition?

Me: The market could force an increase in minimum wage to hire people for certain jobs or in certain locations.

You: Also - as I’m sure you’re aware the federal minimum wage hasn’t increased in 15+ years.

Me: Right, but many states have and those changes would be reflected in federal government data.

"There is no such thing as the minimum wage increasing "naturally.""

Sure there is. Lots of businesses have to pay more than minimum wage to get workers.
 
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ZenMode said:
"There is no such thing as the minimum wage increasing "naturally.""

Sure there is. Lots of businesses have to pay more than minimum wage to get workers.
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This makes no sense at all. A business paying more than minimum wage is not a "natural" increase in the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a wage floor, not a mandated exact wage. Obviously the vast majority of workers make more than the minimum wage; that wouldn't be called an "increase" in the minimum wage.
 
rodoheel said:
This makes no sense at all. A business paying more than minimum wage is not a "natural" increase in the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a wage floor, not a mandated exact wage. Obviously the vast majority of workers make more than the minimum wage; that wouldn't be called an "increase" in the minimum wage.
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I agree that there is a legal minimum wage. There's also a functional "minimum" wage that varies greatly between jobs and geographies.

I see no reason to debate that because, again, the ultimate point is that I was not taking a position against legally established minimum wage as you seemed to assume I was.
 
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farce© said:
The problem with that is we haven’t seen any actual savings from DOGE at this point. Just bunch of bullshit tweets that don’t stand up to even minimal scrutiny.
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I keep thinking that these cuts are all planned and part of Project 2025's scheme to pay for the coming tax cuts that will aimed heavily towards the wealthy and corporations. But given how slapdash and disorganized they have been I'm starting to wonder if there is no long-term plan (at least from guys like Musk) other than to just cause chaos and gut government agencies that have been regulating him or that he thinks are worthless, and if it's being done out of a kind of nihilism. It's almost as if it's just a game to Musk, coupled with extreme pettiness, arrogance, and vindictiveness.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
I keep thinking that these cuts are all planned and part of Project 2025's scheme to pay for the coming tax cuts that will aimed heavily towards the wealthy and corporations. But given how slapdash and disorganized they have been I'm starting to wonder if there is no long-term plan (at least from guys like Musk) other than to just cause chaos and gut government agencies that have been regulating him or that he thinks are worthless, and if it's being done out of a kind of nihilism. It's almost as if it's just a game to Musk, coupled with extreme pettiness, arrogance, and vindictiveness.
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I don’t think Project 2025 anticipated Trump’s infatuation with Elon Musk.
 
rodoheel said:
It wasn't straw manning it was sarcasm, lol. Do you know the difference?

if your position is that there shouldn't be any minimum wage set by the government at all - and that the minimum wage should be set by the market - just come out and say it. We all know you tend to pretty libertarian in philosophy.
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Indeed, very libertarian to be sure, and so unZen-like all the same time
 
ZenMode said:
There's also a functional "minimum" wage that varies greatly between jobs and geographies.
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No, there's not. You're confusing a market-clearing wage -- i.e. an equilibrium wage determined by supply and demand -- with a legislated minimum. They aren't the same thing or remotely comparable. States do have minimum wage laws that exceed the federal minimum in many cases; about that you are correct. But this "minimum" wage is nonsense.
 
superrific said:
No, there's not. You're confusing a market-clearing wage -- i.e. an equilibrium wage determined by supply and demand -- with a legislated minimum. They aren't the same thing or remotely comparable. States do have minimum wage laws that exceed the federal minimum in many cases; about that you are correct. But this "minimum" wage is nonsense.
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market-clearing wage is, as I referenced, functionally a minimum wage. Not literally a minimum wage, but functionally a minimum wage.

If you live in a small, rural town in Iowa and your only doctor is retiring, there is a minimum amount you're going to have to pay to hire a new one. It's not a legally established minimum wage, but there is still a minimum amount/wage you will have to offer and it will be more than the legal minimum wage.
 
ZenMode said:
market-clearing wage is, as I referenced, functionally a minimum wage. Not literally a minimum wage, but functionally a minimum wage.

If you live in a small, rural town in Iowa and your only doctor is retiring, there is a minimum amount you're going to have to pay to hire a new one. It's not a legally established minimum wage, but there is still a minimum amount/wage you will have to offer and it will be more than the legal minimum wage.
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It's not functionally a minimum wage either. First, that concept makes no sense. The minimum wage is a type of law to boost wages in the event that the market clearing wage is too low. In other words, the mimimum wage is a check on the market. It's a negation of the market-clearing wage when the market produces unacceptable outcomes. So how can the market clearing wage be "functionally" its own negation?

Look, I don't know what point you are trying to make here. Maybe you have a good point in there, but you're expressing it terribly. Why don't you try again, and ditch the whole "functional minimum wage" stuff? Try a different approach.
 
superrific said:
It's not functionally a minimum wage either. First, that concept makes no sense. The minimum wage is a type of law to boost wages in the event that the market clearing wage is too low. In other words, the mimimum wage is a check on the market. It's a negation of the market-clearing wage when the market produces unacceptable outcomes. So how can the market clearing wage be "functionally" its own negation?

Look, I don't know what point you are trying to make here. Maybe you have a good point in there, but you're expressing it terribly. Why don't you try again, and ditch the whole "functional minimum wage" stuff? Try a different approach.
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'Why don't you try again, and ditch the whole "functional minimum wage" stuff? Try a different approach."

Pass. This started as a simple question to cford and has morphed into something that is not worth continuing.
 
open.substack.com

The Power of Myth

The Centrality of Narrative in Contemporary Politics
open.substack.com open.substack.com

“This mythic nature of these notions makes the liberal attempts to fact-check or dispute their contents piecemeal a futile exercise. The positivistic approach of liberal pundits, as expressed most characteristically in the unimaginative vox.com mentality, is completely out of its depth when it tries to deal with the policy merits or demerits of these new right-wing myths.

Such an approach is even counterproductive in that it helps try to rationalize and make more palatable to rationalistic liberals what is inherently—by design—irrational. The facts are secondary to the story that they are being woven into. In contemporary right-wing usage, ‘DEI,’ ‘CRT’ or ‘Wokeness’ do not refer to any particular suite of policies that can be rationally assessed. No, they are signifiers that are meant to conjure images of the ideological unsoundness, mental unworthiness, and racial impurity of vast swaths of federal and private employees. In like manner, ‘IQ’ might seem like the most scientistic concept available: but it is not, it’s a myth that suggests an intrinsically worthy but unrecognized mass, held back by a fake meritocracy that unfairly privileges women and minorities.

Trumpism itself is a mythic conception: a pragmatic, no-nonsense businessman who will ‘clean up the mess’ of American government.”
 
ZenMode said:
'Why don't you try again, and ditch the whole "functional minimum wage" stuff? Try a different approach."

Pass. This started as a simple question to cford and has morphed into something that is not worth continuing.
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Fine. But when you say that the market clearing wage is functionally a minimum wage, you come across as silly and unserious. Because those are literally opposite concepts. Well, maybe not pure opposites, but almost.
 
Probably should have put this here instead of the Musk thread:

www.theatlantic.com

DOGE Has ‘God Mode’ Access to Government Data

The president’s special commission now has an unprecedented ability to view and manipulate information at many federal agencies.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

DOGE Has ‘God Mode’ Access to Government Data​

The president’s special commission now has an unprecedented ability to view and manipulate information at many federal agencies.

"...Among the federal agencies we reported on, USAID is the only one where we could confirm that DOGE has acquired God-mode access across the entire digital system. (The Trump administration has sought to effectively shut down USAID since the inauguration.) But as Musk and his acolytes enter a growing number of federal databases and IT systems, their unfettered access at USAID offers a sense of what they might be able to do elsewhere. At NASA, for example, it could mean access to knowledge about sensitive government technologies used for defense. At the CDC, such ability could expose millions of Americans’ health data and allow DOGE to access labs that store deadly pathogens. At Treasury, such access would allow Musk’s employees to view Americans’ names, Social Security numbers, and financial information. “It is not ridiculous to think they’d have bank-account and routing numbers for every single person in the United States,” the senior USAID source said. “What do you do with this information? I had to ask myself, Do I file my taxes this year or not? I had to sit and debate that.”

The federal government does not typically grant such wide-ranging access to a single entity, let alone one that is effectively under the control of an unelected, erratic, and politically extreme actor such as Musk. The group is working on behalf of Donald Trump, but sources we spoke with emphasized that the level of access DOGE possesses means that the organization may already be able to siphon data that Musk or his agents could hold on to forever, long after his time as a government liaison, or even after a potential falling-out with the president. ..."
 
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