> The SEC has its budget set by Congress, but the actual funding comes from transaction fees imposed on the financial sector, meaning its operations ultimately cost the taxpayer nothing, according to the agency.
How do you make something that costs nothing more efficient?
By using the word "efficient" without any reference point to what they want to make more efficient. It's similar to Make America Great Again. Great at what? Just GREAT!
It appeals to people who think government is inefficient and wasteful. Government doesn't HAVE TO BE inefficient and wasteful, just people need to believe it. And if media channels are hammering people over the head with the message that government is inefficient, then the official-sounding Department of Government Efficiency will save the day and rid the government of these evil inefficiency.
What these people may not realize is that the US government was intentionally designed to be inefficient. The checks and balances of three branches of government are constitutionally imposed inefficiency to make sure that one individual or group of individuals doesn't take the country in an efficiently harmful direction.
So if people want a hyper-efficient government, then be honest about rewriting the Constitution.
Passively? Actively. A majority of voters handed over all the keys to these guys in full knowledge of the kind of people they are and what they wanted to do.
Assuming I did my sums right, DT won by approximately 1.5%. Hardly a ringing endorsement. He got 31.59% of the voter-eligible (VE) population. I count active yes votes as for a candidate and non-voter passive no votes. Some non-voters support a candidate, but since they didn't vote, their non-votes count against each candidate.
EC %EC pop vote %of ballots %of VE population
Democratic Kamala Harris Tim Walz 226 42% 75,019,230 48.34% 30.66%
Republican Donald J. Trump J.D. Vance 312 58% 77,303,568 49.81% 31.59%
voter eligible population 244,666,890 non-voters 89,278,948
> Passively? Actively. A majority of voters handed over all the keys to these guys in full knowledge of the kind of people they are and what they wanted to do.
I wouldn't say "full knowledge," but it's not like the other guys were any good either. There was a huge spike in inflation and right before the election it became clear they were lying about their leader's obvious incapacity. All the options voters had were bad.
Personally, I blame the Democrats for this. Winning against Trump should've been easy, but they managed to fuck it up in all kinds of ways. They knew the stakes (and said so, loudly), but for some unfathomable reason they thought that meant they could coast. They also don't appear to know what the fuck they should be doing now, and seem to want to keep coasting.
Well, I for once dislike what they are doing, but mostly because what they are doing is both ineffective and loud. Instead of carefully, efficiently dismantling the federal regulatory state into nothing, they are not only failing to actually achieve much but giving the whole project a bad name.
Which protest do I join? "Handsaws, not chainsaws! But do cut the trunk, and as close to the ground as you can!"
1. All three branches of government are controlled by the MAGA Party. I call it the MAGA Party, not the Republican Party, since the Republican Party has long been purged of serious Never Trumper opposition.
2. There are not enough Democrats in Congress to impeach and convict Trump of any unconstitutional acts.
3. There is no mechanism available to recall congresspeople or to trigger a special election, and the next election of congresspeople isn’t until November 2026, a year and a half away.
4. I live in a blue state (California) with blue representatives (San Francisco Bay Area) at the federal level. What good would it do me to write senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla or congressman Mark DeSaulnier?
5. The people who have the most power to change things are people who have red representatives, since they have the 2026 midterm elections to worry about. However, many of the people living in such districts voted for Trump and are largely on board with the MAGA agenda. Why would they write their representatives?
6. We could protest through demonstrations and boycotts, but the protests need to be effective in order for them to not simply be demonstrative. Moreover, protests run the risk of getting hijacked by extremists and saboteurs, and authoritarians love exploiting crises to crack down on dissent. Protesting could be a potential trap.
It’s a very bleak situation right now due to MAGA’s control over all three branches of government. The best we could hope for is:
1. Start planning for the 2026 elections NOW! Elections cost a lot of money and require a lot of planning. If MAGA loses control of Congress in January 2027, this could add a much-needed check to MAGA and could help with the 2028 election season.
2. With the way Trump, Elon, and others in power are carrying on, eventually segments of the MAGA voter base will be harmed by MAGA policies. I particularly see Trump’s tariffs to be quite painful. If enough Republican voters start openly expressing their discontent for MAGA policies, then this is a chance for MAGA to lose absolute control of power in January 2027.
It is a creature of the New Deal where many of its programs exist on shaky constitutional ground, existing primarily because standing with the courts is difficult to achieve
Although the New Deal is heralded in the history books, most programs of the new deal were declared unconstitutional within 10 years, and everything that remains should be heavily scrutinized with that knowledge
The SEC stands out like a sore thumb when you really look at it
When its not blatantly separating classes, it is the state arm of FINRA and openly captured.
Just keep EDGAR for financial reports and thats it. They can’t even explicitly define what insider trading is and isn’t.
The current protests are tame and quite frankly pathetic. If your protests aren't strong enough that the government fears you, there's no reason to believe an apathetic government will even acknowledge you.
Until the citizens of the US are willing to shut things down, expect nothing to change. Look to other countries for examples of effective protest and understand that effective protest requires sacrifice, not just an afternoon walking around with a sign.
Not entirely an answer, but the judiciary is being somewhat existentially threatened by the effective.
"They" are referring to Tesla vandalism as domestic terrorism (it's criminal vandalism and seriously generous, yes, but if setting a car on fire is domestic terrorism then lots of countries have more terrorists than they thought).
"They" are black-bagging students who dare to suggest that maybe Israel shouldn't bomb Gaza so much.
"They" refer to any difference of opinion as activism from radical lefty loonies.
Fear is being sown in the general populace. But the rowdy Town Halls around the country are great signs of hope and resistance.
The tepid ones are the spineless Republican representatives being actively derelict in their duty to their country, still attempting to defend Trump and Elon despite their legitimately worried and angry constituencies.
> "They" are referring to Tesla vandalism as domestic terrorism (it's criminal vandalism and seriously generous, yes, but if setting a car on fire is domestic terrorism then lots of countries have more terrorists than they thought).
The intent behind the vandalism is what makes it terrorism instead of just vandalism.
Since these guys are mostly targeting non-defense discretionary spending, cutting 15% of the federal budget means cutting literally everything.
I’d guess lots of people don’t actually want the entire government minus the military, social security, and medicaid eliminated, whether they admit it (or realize it) or not. Like the FDIC is pretty nice.
Also non-defense discretionary funding has not actually increased that much in recent years. There was a spike in 2020 due to COVID, but it has returned to pre-covid levels.
They're doing no such thing, of course. They're targeting political enemies and anything that hinders their donors/puppet masters from getting richer at the expense of everyone else. The effect on spending will be minimal, and smaller than the (negative) effect on income.
> The SEC has its budget set by Congress, but the actual funding comes from transaction fees imposed on the financial sector, meaning its operations ultimately cost the taxpayer nothing
sounds like another 'budget-neutral' funding source for the bitcoin stockpile. moon
I can't wait for the Big Balls to do something at SEC that seriously affects SERIOUS money in the financial markets and see what kind of Big Guns come out at them from the Real Business. I am certain they won't know what hit them.
This theory has not yet worked out. Military-industrial complex? Folded like a cheap suit. Top-ranked universities? Same. Blue-chip law firms? Not sure, some capitulation, maybe some signs of life.
It'll be when the mess with the Scientologists. Those people don't play games, they'll sue DOGE, every person in the Trump Organization, their family members, and everyone in a five mile radius of them. All while they infiltrate them and steal all their files. Wouldn't be the first time[1].
Yeah exactly. He is getting robbed and believes the robbers when they simply use the word “efficient”. His brain translates that to “in my interests”.
What any words mean don’t truly matter. Just what gets signaled to his brain. These people are effectively brainwashed. Or it isn’t a person, and is a bot. Who knows.
Yeah I suspect people might start falling off yachts soon. I’ve worked for people who have real money not just valuations and borrowing and you don’t fuck around there.
Readit News
How do you make something that costs nothing more efficient?
It appeals to people who think government is inefficient and wasteful. Government doesn't HAVE TO BE inefficient and wasteful, just people need to believe it. And if media channels are hammering people over the head with the message that government is inefficient, then the official-sounding Department of Government Efficiency will save the day and rid the government of these evil inefficiency.
What these people may not realize is that the US government was intentionally designed to be inefficient. The checks and balances of three branches of government are constitutionally imposed inefficiency to make sure that one individual or group of individuals doesn't take the country in an efficiently harmful direction.
So if people want a hyper-efficient government, then be honest about rewriting the Constitution.
>transaction fees imposed on the financial sector
This is literally a tax.
"Exclusive: Interim SEC chief cast sole vote against suing Musk" - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/interim-sec-chief-cast-sole...
By fraudulently weakening the regulatory body, it makes scamming investors easy. This is more efficient for scammers. Not for investors.
Also I love this argument that’s like “this bad person did bad things, let’s follow their lead and have other people do bad things.
If all the Democrats jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?
What about these people says to you that they are "principled" or "honest" when they've already been outed doing exactly the opposite of those traits?
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Dead Comment
This the most tepid, pathetic generation there has ever been.
Due to the weird way our nation works, it was a minority of voters. (A plurality in this case, though our electoral system also doesn't require that.)
But yeah, the keys were handed over by the populace as much as was required by how our elections occur.
I keep wondering where the line is, for those on the right. It seems like wherever you would draw a line in the sand … we're past that point.
Assuming I did my sums right, DT won by approximately 1.5%. Hardly a ringing endorsement. He got 31.59% of the voter-eligible (VE) population. I count active yes votes as for a candidate and non-voter passive no votes. Some non-voters support a candidate, but since they didn't vote, their non-votes count against each candidate.
voter eligible population 244,666,890 non-voters 89,278,948https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...
I wouldn't say "full knowledge," but it's not like the other guys were any good either. There was a huge spike in inflation and right before the election it became clear they were lying about their leader's obvious incapacity. All the options voters had were bad.
Personally, I blame the Democrats for this. Winning against Trump should've been easy, but they managed to fuck it up in all kinds of ways. They knew the stakes (and said so, loudly), but for some unfathomable reason they thought that meant they could coast. They also don't appear to know what the fuck they should be doing now, and seem to want to keep coasting.
Dead Comment
Which protest do I join? "Handsaws, not chainsaws! But do cut the trunk, and as close to the ground as you can!"
1. All three branches of government are controlled by the MAGA Party. I call it the MAGA Party, not the Republican Party, since the Republican Party has long been purged of serious Never Trumper opposition.
2. There are not enough Democrats in Congress to impeach and convict Trump of any unconstitutional acts.
3. There is no mechanism available to recall congresspeople or to trigger a special election, and the next election of congresspeople isn’t until November 2026, a year and a half away.
4. I live in a blue state (California) with blue representatives (San Francisco Bay Area) at the federal level. What good would it do me to write senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla or congressman Mark DeSaulnier?
5. The people who have the most power to change things are people who have red representatives, since they have the 2026 midterm elections to worry about. However, many of the people living in such districts voted for Trump and are largely on board with the MAGA agenda. Why would they write their representatives?
6. We could protest through demonstrations and boycotts, but the protests need to be effective in order for them to not simply be demonstrative. Moreover, protests run the risk of getting hijacked by extremists and saboteurs, and authoritarians love exploiting crises to crack down on dissent. Protesting could be a potential trap.
It’s a very bleak situation right now due to MAGA’s control over all three branches of government. The best we could hope for is:
1. Start planning for the 2026 elections NOW! Elections cost a lot of money and require a lot of planning. If MAGA loses control of Congress in January 2027, this could add a much-needed check to MAGA and could help with the 2028 election season.
2. With the way Trump, Elon, and others in power are carrying on, eventually segments of the MAGA voter base will be harmed by MAGA policies. I particularly see Trump’s tariffs to be quite painful. If enough Republican voters start openly expressing their discontent for MAGA policies, then this is a chance for MAGA to lose absolute control of power in January 2027.
https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/comments/1jatnk4/chuck_schume...
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5327600/house-democrats...
This is the worse thing to happen to the US since Trump got back into office.
It is a creature of the New Deal where many of its programs exist on shaky constitutional ground, existing primarily because standing with the courts is difficult to achieve
Although the New Deal is heralded in the history books, most programs of the new deal were declared unconstitutional within 10 years, and everything that remains should be heavily scrutinized with that knowledge
The SEC stands out like a sore thumb when you really look at it
When its not blatantly separating classes, it is the state arm of FINRA and openly captured.
Just keep EDGAR for financial reports and thats it. They can’t even explicitly define what insider trading is and isn’t.
It's easy to accuse others of being "tepid and pathetic" from the comfort of your own home.
Until the citizens of the US are willing to shut things down, expect nothing to change. Look to other countries for examples of effective protest and understand that effective protest requires sacrifice, not just an afternoon walking around with a sign.
"They" are referring to Tesla vandalism as domestic terrorism (it's criminal vandalism and seriously generous, yes, but if setting a car on fire is domestic terrorism then lots of countries have more terrorists than they thought).
"They" are black-bagging students who dare to suggest that maybe Israel shouldn't bomb Gaza so much.
"They" refer to any difference of opinion as activism from radical lefty loonies.
Fear is being sown in the general populace. But the rowdy Town Halls around the country are great signs of hope and resistance.
The tepid ones are the spineless Republican representatives being actively derelict in their duty to their country, still attempting to defend Trump and Elon despite their legitimately worried and angry constituencies.
The intent behind the vandalism is what makes it terrorism instead of just vandalism.
I’d guess lots of people don’t actually want the entire government minus the military, social security, and medicaid eliminated, whether they admit it (or realize it) or not. Like the FDIC is pretty nice.
Also non-defense discretionary funding has not actually increased that much in recent years. There was a spike in 2020 due to COVID, but it has returned to pre-covid levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7kQNwJ4H_w
Best of luck, and allow yourself to be forgiving of your past self.
Dead Comment
sounds like another 'budget-neutral' funding source for the bitcoin stockpile. moon
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
What any words mean don’t truly matter. Just what gets signaled to his brain. These people are effectively brainwashed. Or it isn’t a person, and is a bot. Who knows.
The big guns you see and hear about are complete amateurs.
Deleted Comment
I wonder when companies will start stock manipulations ?