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Superhero or snake-oil merchant?

Elon Musk made a post on X yesterday. He said:

Earlier, Musk said he'd uncovered that benefits were being paid to people who had no social security number or even a temporary ID number.

He also told the media "When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately."

So what does all this mean to the various federal government departments involved and for welfare recipients in the US?

To be honest, I have no idea.

However, some are claiming that this is an attack on the poorest people in the USA from the richest man in the USA, while others are cheering loudly from the sidelines and praising Musk's razor gang for the savings they claim they will make.

The DOGE department he overseas is proposing that all federal agencies implement a structured coding scheme to make it easier to identify and accurately audit payments being made under the myriad of different programs.

He believes that around $100 billion has been incorrectly paid out in recent times and that there are huge savings to be made by addressing this waste.

This is pretty ground-shaking stuff and clearly it would make a lot of sense to ensure that all payments are appropriate, legal and legit -- however, I can't help but also wonder whether there's not a degree of grandstanding involved here.

Musk is sweeping in like the super-hero we've all wished for. The guy who will deal a deathly blow to bureaucratic incompetence, mismanagement and corruption. Unfortunately, there's always the risk that being overzealous and wishing to be seen to be even more effective than he is, Musk may throw the baby out with the bathwater -- effectively crippling the agencies he's trying to streamline.

As an outsider, living in New Zealand, I have to say that I was really concerned when I saw pictures in the media today of Musk and his toddler standing alongside Trump in the White House.

That one person, unelected and already extremely powerful and influential, should be placed in a position where he clearly has direct control over the President of the world's largest superpower, should be grounds for everyone to worry.

This situation is only acceptable if we can be 100 percent sure that Musk's intentions are pure and altruistic. Sadly, my own real-world experience leads be to believe that nobody becomes the world's richest man through selfless devotion to the principles of altruism.

Both Trump and Musk are no strangers to bullshitting the public. Musk was going to build the Hyperloop, put men on Mars by 2024 and is currently sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars paid by gullible consumers for a Tesla Roadster that has never even been put into production, years after delivery was promised.

Trump is also a master of hype. Remember how he was going to stop the Ukraine/Russia war on his first day in office?

How can anyone not be worried that so much power is concentrated in two individuals who are so out of touch with reality and so very good at deceiving the public by way of empty promises.

My popcorn is at the ready...

Carpe Diem folks!

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