Elon Musk: Mass Murderer

[Dr. Shades]

As I said before, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country. Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

Several people just did explain to you why spending an appropriate proportion of national revenue overseas can be part of the strategy of a prudent government that has the long-term interest of its the country at heart.

Yes, they did. I see their point. But it seems a little too much like bribery to me. It also seems like we can accomplish most if not all of the same goals by refraining from interfering with their internal politics and thus avoiding resentment (which latter part can lead to terrorism). We can also avoid being sucked into wars by simply not allowing ourselves to be sucked into them, which is free.

They also explained about the national debt, deficits, etc. But it is evident that you are not interested in thinking about complicated stuff.

And I responded that national debt, deficits, etc. are hardly beneficial to the 99% who must be taxed to pay the interest on debt held by the 1%.

By the way, to help people understand your position, can you just refer us to an example of a successful and prosperous modern country that has adopted the three policies you outline above?

I can't, because I don't know which ones they are. But I think Israel is able to afford to give its citizens free health care because the United States pays its defense bill for it. I also think the non-U.S.A. NATO countries can afford to give their citizens free health care, too, because the United States is paying for the lion's share of their defense by proxy.

Getting the U.S. taxpayers to pay for your stuff for you is one Hell of a deal. . . as long as you're not a U.S. taxpayer. Sort of like how it'd be a Hell of a deal if New York City got its police department paid for by the residents of Houston.

[canpakes]

To grossly simplify things, every person in the United States receives charitable aid, through expenditures on items like infrastructure and military spending. This is why ajax doesn’t need to spend his own money pouring asphalt for streets to access his business, or drilling his own wells to provide water for his toilet, or needing to stock up on nuclear pitchforks to keep the barbarian Visigoth and Hermunduri hordes at bay. This ‘charity’ via taxation spreads the cost of those tasks around while making all of the benefits much more affordable through efficiencies of scale than if shouldered by the individual directly.

I know all that. But you'll notice that I never said that taxes extracted from Americans should NOT be spent on benefitting AMERICANS.

As I said before, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country. Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

Yes. I can justify sending a single penny - along with many more - to other countries for disease mitigation (think malaria and smallpox), as example. There are many other examples that can be justified but you might remain unconvinced by any of them if your view is absolutist.

Regarding ‘not a single homeless person’ … this is an interesting idea that - on paper - could be solved for as little as $15 billion dollars. Unfortunately, both the reasons for homelessness and the possible solutions are more complex than they might appear on their face. I also believe that actually trying to attain this goal is of absolutely no real interest to just about anyone who wants to attain a debt-free government balance sheet. It simply does not jive with their political and moral opinions. As such, this requirement exists only to guarantee that we will never seriously tackle that challenge or support important foreign aid initiatives for any reason.

[Gadianton]

Ajax's contortions should be more humorous than they are. He's complained about the debt plenty, but he doesn't actually care about that, what he really cares about is whether a person has ever been given a dime that they hadn't explicitly worked for. So while he's not happy that the deficit will be 4.5 trillion under Trump, he'd rather have that than the deficit as 2.5 trillion, but with 79 billion more spent on Medicaid. He's indicated the same about the Church, he's happy to pay tithing, but it seems like that happiness is predicated on the fact that the Church does nothing with it to help the poor. Every time the Widow's Mite report comes out, he breaths a sigh of relief that any and all corruption makes the wealthy wealthier at least. How is a person who by his own account is doing quite well at this point, still so completely undone by the thought that a dime of his money went to help a poor person somewhere? He imagines the person (probably a black person) doing nothing and living it up on that dime and at presumably an exact tradeoff to his own utility.

---

I don't think we can confiscate wealth that easily. Elon's money is all Tesla stock. Tesla stock has a P/E ratio of 173.87 as of today. It's obscene for a company that large to have such a high P/E ratio, but that's the decision of Investors. The cult of Tesla among investors could rival the cult of Trump any day. Elon can't really spend that money, 250 million on an election here and there, but if he were to try to spend anything significant the price would collapse. I also think it makes more sense to block the masses of wealth at inheritance. Billions shouldn't be handed down, that is the backbone of noose-tightening inequality.

----

As far as running a deficit and the debt in general, the dangers are only partially understood. One problem for neoliberal view of reality, is identifying anything in reality that obeys the laws of nature neoliberals believe in. A supply-side nation of shopkeepers with limited government that taxes and spends judiciously sounds nice, but point to the nation that ever arose and thrived that way? We have lots of big powerful nations that became big and powerful from the Keynesian playbook of running deficits. Reagan is sometimes given a pat on the back for burying the Soviets because he outspent them by debt. Russia ran a surplus but it isn't a nation of shopkeepers. The heart of the debt debate seems to get into deep questions about what money actually is. The foundation of the fiat view of money seems to me to have something to do with solving collective action problems. And, in fact, post-Keynesians like to point out (one thing they seem to agree on) is that money is spent and then taxed and burned (or should be burned), not taxed and spent. Why that is important seems to be with the ability of a nation-state to move large numbers of people by running a printing press. And from there, it's a matter of natural selection. Even if 9/10 times the printing press destroys itself early on with inflation, the 1/10 times it works creates something extraordinary, that doesn't seem to have a rival in the real world -- even if future prospects of keeping the scam going are quite uncertain.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I can't, because I don't know which ones they are. But I think Israel is able to afford to give its citizens free health care because the United States pays its defense bill for it. I also think the non-U.S.A. NATO countries can afford to give their citizens free health care, too, because the United States is paying for the lion's share of their defense by proxy.

The US is not paying for other NATO countries’ defense; each member nation funds its own military. For example, Germany pays ~80B/year while we spend ~4B/year to maintain bases there by mutual accord. They also contribute their share to NATO expenses.

Their UHC predates NATO. They pay less for their healthcare, with better outcomes, because they control costs more effectively. Our healthcare policies are meant to fleece us, while theirs is meant to heal them.

- Doc

[Chap]

I can't, because I don't know which ones they are. But I think Israel is able to afford to give its citizens free health care because the United States pays its defense bill for it. I also think the non-U.S.A. NATO countries can afford to give their citizens free health care, too, because the United States is paying for the lion's share of their defense by proxy.

The US is not paying for other NATO countries’ defense; each member nation funds its own military. For example, Germany pays ~80B/year while we spend ~4B/year to maintain bases there by mutual accord. They also contribute their share to NATO expenses.

Their UHC predates NATO. They pay less for their healthcare, with better outcomes, because they control costs more effectively. Our healthcare policies are meant to fleece us, while theirs is meant to heal them.

- Doc

Indeed. Shades 'thinks' wrong.

Trump fostered the flat wrong idea that European members of NATO pay the USA to defend them - thus, when he was claiming to have succeeded in getting European countries to up their defence spending, he said "The money is pouring in". Nonsense, of course, but the kind of nonsense that MAGA bots love to hear.

And let's not forget: the only country ever to have invoked the NATO treaty clause that allows a member to demand support from fellow members if it is attacked is the USA, after 9/11. Just saying.

[ajax18]

Then, unfortunately, someone who has no authority or power granted within the document regarding how money is spent decides to cut the previously approved funds authorized by those democratically elected representatives.

Nobody voted for Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee for president either. And as many on the left pointed out this doesn't matter because nobdy on the left was complaining about it, only people on the right. I didn't vote for Elon, but I did vote for Donald Trump and support his decision to put Elon in charge of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. Within that I abuse I also include the abuse of the American taxpayer. If I would have told you that millions of dollars were spent on condomns for some African country, I'd have been banned from social media and likely thrown in jail for pedaling conspiracy theories. But hey, the real definition of democracy means hiding information from voters and taxpayers that might result in taxpayers voting against doling out more and more of their earnings in the form of global welfare!

Oh and before I forget, Happy Juneteenth

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Then, unfortunately, someone who has no authority or power granted within the document regarding how money is spent decides to cut the previously approved funds authorized by those democratically elected representatives.

Nobody voted for Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee for president either. And as many on the left pointed out this doesn't matter because nobdy on the left was complaining about it, only people on the right. I didn't vote for Elon, but I did vote for Donald Trump and support his decision to put Elon in charge of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. Within that I abuse I also include the abuse of the American taxpayer. If I would have told you that millions of dollars were spent on condomns for some African country, I'd have been botted from social media and likely thrown in jail for pedaling conspiracy theories. But hey, the real definition of democracy means hiding information from voters and taxpayers that might not result in taxpayers voting against doling out their more and more of their earnings in the form of global welfare!

Oh and before I forget, Happy Juneteenth

You’re losing your mind, you psychopathic donkey.


This isn’t about left vs. right—it’s about facts and accountability. People across the political spectrum care about government waste and transparency, but that doesn’t mean every sensational claim is automatically true or meaningful.

1) No one is being thrown in jail for criticizing foreign aid.Condoms for Africa is part of long-standing global health programs under both Republican and Democratic presidents. *cough* George W. Bush’s PEPFAR *cough*

2) Elon “suckling at the teat and wasting taxpayer dollars on SpaceseX” Musk wasn’t elected or confirmed to any government role. If taxpayer money is being misused there are oversight committees to deal with it.

3) Democracy doesn’t mean hiding information. It means being able to discern between propaganda and policy, which is why you are an evil piece of crap and a fakeass Mormon-Christian.

- Doc “volunteering to Battle to the Death with Mr. 18-88” camnc4me

FDT, FMAGA, Fevilassdemonspretendingtobechristians

[ajax18]

1) No one is being thrown in jail for criticizing foreign aid.Condoms for Africa is part of long-standing global health programs under both Republican and Democratic presidents. *cough* George W. Bush’s PEPFAR *cough*

And I for one am glad that I am no longer paying for condoms in Africa. In fact I haven't heard anyone on the right complaining about not having to continue to pay for that. That's what we voted for. When you get back in charge, you can sock it to the working man until you put the country into eternal debt slavery. In meantime, don't be surprised that I'm happy your efforts to continue to do that have stalled.

[Analytics]

And I for one am glad that I am no longer paying for condoms in Africa. In fact I haven't heard anyone on the right complaining about not having to continue to pay for that. That's what we voted for. When you get back in charge, you can sock it to the working man until you put the country into eternal debt slavery. In meantime, don't be surprised that I'm happy your efforts to continue to do that have stalled.

I’d be interested in what you and the working man think of the following.

On May 21, 2025, the USAF accepted a 13-year old 747 from the Qatari royal family that is valued at $400 million. It is now being retrofitted using tax dollars so that it can serve as AirForce one. The retrofitting is estimated to cost taxpayers about $1,000,000,000 (one billion), and is hoping to have it ready for use by 2028, although the Air Force says it probably won’t be ready until 2029.

Then when Trump leaves office in January of 2029, the plane will be given to Trump for his presidential library.

Do you think the $1,000,000,000 being used to retrofit this plane is a wise use of your tax dollars?

[Moksha]

Also, we seem to be forgetting that there are plenty of people here in the United States that need charitable aid. In my opinion, the government has no business sending a single penny overseas until A) the national debt is completely paid off, B) the deficit is reduced to $0, and C) there is not a single homeless person in the country.

Can anyone justify the government sending a single penny overseas while those three conditions remain unmet?

China has gained many friends and allies through its Belts and Roads Initiative, while Trump has cost us dearly by losing friends and allies.