XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.home.repair
Ben <
lies_areddd@liberal.gov> wrote in
news:10468il$64pe$
1@paganini.bofh.team:
The leftist elite doesn't agree. Raise the debt ceiling to pay for it
all.
When an oligarch confronts an autocrat, guess who wins?
Paul Krugman
Jul 02, 2025
So the Senate has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. True, it
could still be blocked if House Republicans stood by their principles.
But they won’t. This monstrosity will become the law of the land, and
tens of millions of Americans will suffer so that billionaires can pay
lower taxes.
Looking forward, those of us who care about a decent society will have
to do what we can to make sure that Americans understand who ruined
their lives and make the people responsible pay a heavy political
price. But there will be plenty of time for that, so I thought I’d
devote today’s post to a more pleasant topic: The humiliation of Elon
Musk.
Does taking some satisfaction in Musk’s demise make me a bad person?
Maybe, but I’m only human. Should I go easy on Musk because he came
out against the terrible bill that just passed? No.
For one thing, Musk’s opposition predictably made no difference. Musk
and other oligarchs will soon learn just how little political power
their wealth gives them in the political environment they helped
create. More on that in a minute.
Beyond that, Musk was against the bill for all the wrong reasons.
The whole DOGE story remains remarkable on a couple of levels. It’s
not just that Donald Trump temporarily gave immense power over federal spending to someone who had no legitimate basis for that power — he
was neither elected by voters nor, as is normally required for senior officials, approved by the Senate. Beyond that, Trump gave that power
to a man who clearly understood nothing about what the government does
and what it spends money on — but who, in his arrogance, assumed that
he could eliminate trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse.
He couldn’t, of course, and he should have been fired on the spot
after making the absurd claim that millions of dead people were
receiving Social Security checks. But he wasn’t. For months after that episode Musk remained in a position to create chaos and degrade the functioning of the government — oh, and condemn large numbers of
children to death.
Now he’s on the outs — but he still lacks the honesty and courage to
admit what he got wrong. Here’s Musk condemning the Beautiful Bill:
What is the “insane spending” and “pork” of which he speaks? If
there’s huge wasteful spending going on, well, Musk had months of unprecedented power and access to find it — and came up empty. The
truth is that this bill will explode the deficit because of the huge
tax breaks it’s offering to the wealthy and corporations. But Musk
can’t handle the truth.
What about Musk’s threat to form a new political party? It will go
nowhere if he tries. But I don’t think he’ll get anywhere near making
good on that threat. As Trump might say, Musk just doesn’t have the
cards. My prediction is that very soon one of two things will happen.
Either Musk will slink off, tail between his legs. Or he will see his
wealth destroyed, faster than he imagines possible.
Most immediately, Musk’s business interests are unusually dependent on federal support, and hence on the good will of whoever is running the government. I’m not sure whether Musk is really the most subsidized businessman in history, but Trump basically got it right here:
Beyond that, even great wealth offers little protection from the
people in power under an authoritarian regime.
Three years ago NPR’s Planet Money newsletter published a article
titled “How Putin conquered Russia’s oligarchy” that people like Musk
really should have read before throwing their support behind Trump. As
the article explained, Russian oligarchs played a large role in
Vladmiri Putin’s rise to power. But a few years after his ascent,
Putin summoned the wealthiest among them to the Kremlin to explain who
was in charge:
Putin offered the oligarchs a deal: bend to my authority, stay out
of my
way, and you can keep your mansions, superyachts, private jets, and multibillion-dollar corporations (corporations that, just a few years
before, had been owned by the Russian government). In the coming
years, the oligarchs who reneged on this deal and undermined Putin
would be thrown into a Siberian prison or be forced into exile or die
in suspicious circumstances.
And oligarchs who refused to come to heel were replaced by
a new breed of oligarchs, who have accrued wealth and power under
Putin:
the siloviki, which translates roughly to "men of force."
It can’t happen here, you say. Trump can’t arbitrarily punish wealthy
men or seize their property. After all, that would be against the law.
And the rule of law still prevails in America, doesn’t it? I mean,
we’re not the kind of country where masked men claiming to be
government agents kidnap people off the street. Oh, wait.
Still, Musk is a U.S. citizen, which gives him protection, right?
Except the Department of Justice has already announced that it will
soon be seeking to revoke citizenship for many naturalized Americans.
And Trump is already fantasizing about sending Musk back to South
Africa.
OK, I don’t expect things to go that far for Musk or any of the other
Trump- backing oligarchs who may be having second thoughts — not
because I think there are limits to what Trump is willing to do, but
because I don’t think any of these guys will have the courage to stand
up to him.
Just to be clear, much as I hate what Musk has done, I don’t want to
see him exiled or falling out of a window, because I don’t want to
live in that kind of country. But if we do become that kind of a
country, people like Musk will bear much of the responsibility — and, whatever they imagine, may pay part of the price.
Defendant judge: "We never thought the Nazi party
agenda would go that far"
Prosecutor: "Your honor, it went that far the
first time you sentenced someone you knew to
innocent because the Party expected you to"
Judgement At Nuremburg, 1961
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)