Elon Musk...human? - Political

[Saluki]

1 minute ago, 73 Reds said:

@Saluki, Not sure exactly what you are asking but if we are looking only to a standard that would qualify Mother Theresa, who would be tasked with the job?  Perhaps 30 years ago a man named Buffett would have been perfect.  Do you have someone else in mind?   

 

I don't have a person in mind, but I have a system in mind. A system with career civil servants that are hired based on merit. A system where congress and people in charge of agencies should not be open to corruption and using their influence to grow their wealth. A system where they would be banned from insider trading, and actually prosecuted for it. Does that sound so unreasonable? 

 

It's not difficult at all. How?  

• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may not own individual stocks. They may not have blind trusts either. They may only own publicly traded ETFs or mutual funds that are available to the public. 
• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may only have one bank account with [a specified bank].  Fidelity does all the retirement stuff for federal employees by being the lowest bidder, we can find someone to do all their banking. 
• No member of Congress or head of an agency is permitted to make or receive payments in cash.  A digital trail to root out corruption. No more freezers with cold bars and cash. 
• Change the constitution so that the President's power to pardon does not apply to members of his family, or to members of Congress charged with corruption. 

Use the Singpore model:  well paid public servants, judges and politicians, along with severe punishments for corruption and bribery. 

[cubsfan]

21 minutes ago, Saluki said:

 

Use the Singpore model:  well paid public servants, judges and politicians, along with severe punishments for corruption and bribery. 

 

Be patient - the penalty phase is coming.

[james22]

44 minutes ago, Saluki said:

He had two full time economists spending almost a year to do research and write his doctoral thesis for him. Then they also had to spend weeks afterwards to explain his paper to him so that he could he defend his dissertation to get his Ph.D.

 

Done that.

[John Hjorth]

 

Thank you for your last post above @Saluki,

 

Even asking this question is, to me personally, a demonstration of lack of consideration towards your next - your neighbour. So, please think carefully about it, every time you're even just considering doing something that may eventually make you go totally broke, afterwards - at least for a period - depending on public subsidies.

 

One soul - one vote. It's just crucial to democracry, - if Musk is about to have more than the weight of one in votes, who's  to judge about that? The whole line of thinking about that is is just so out of line, fundamentally flawed - , here on CofB&F.

 

To have a society, you need to have a set of rules of accepted behavior! It reads so trivial , basic simple,-and important! Yet people seem to forget about it - Please don't!

[flesh]

53 minutes ago, Saluki said:

 

I don't have a person in mind, but I have a system in mind. A system with career civil servants that are hired based on merit. A system where congress and people in charge of agencies should not be open to corruption and using their influence to grow their wealth. A system where they would be banned from insider trading, and actually prosecuted for it. Does that sound so unreasonable? 

 

It's not difficult at all. How?  

• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may not own individual stocks. They may not have blind trusts either. They may only own publicly traded ETFs or mutual funds that are available to the public. 
• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may only have one bank account with [a specified bank].  Fidelity does all the retirement stuff for federal employees by being the lowest bidder, we can find someone to do all their banking. 
• No member of Congress or head of an agency is permitted to make or receive payments in cash.  A digital trail to root out corruption. No more freezers with cold bars and cash. 
• Change the constitution so that the President's power to pardon does not apply to members of his family, or to members of Congress charged with corruption. 

Use the Singpore model:  well paid public servants, judges and politicians, along with severe punishments for corruption and bribery. 

I’ll second all of this. I’d add term limits. Not sure what they’d be but way too short to be a career and therefore no pensions, unless proportional to the shortened term limits. 6-8 years max for anyone at any level. Additionally , any high ranking politicians isn’t allowed to work in any area post service that can influence directly future politics. Like lobbying and joining boards that hire lobbyists etc. 
 

Regarding what to cut and where I love it all! Yes cut all stupidity and with what’s at stake now cut every dpt. Defense as well. We don’t need fighter planes we need drones at 1/100 the cost. Etc. 
 

Cutting 10-20% of our current bloated spending is not difficult in govt.. you could do it in most private companies as well. 
 

these ideas could go on forever and I had totally given up on all of them. Now I see some light for some of them for the first time. 
 

The reality is none of this will get done unless it’s done now. 

[cubsfan]

^^^ Term limits and restrictions on post-private sector jobs would be awesome.

Edited 22 hours ago by cubsfan

[73 Reds]

1 hour ago, Saluki said:

 

I don't have a person in mind, but I have a system in mind. A system with career civil servants that are hired based on merit. A system where congress and people in charge of agencies should not be open to corruption and using their influence to grow their wealth. A system where they would be banned from insider trading, and actually prosecuted for it. Does that sound so unreasonable? 

 

It's not difficult at all. How?  

• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may not own individual stocks. They may not have blind trusts either. They may only own publicly traded ETFs or mutual funds that are available to the public. 
• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may only have one bank account with [a specified bank].  Fidelity does all the retirement stuff for federal employees by being the lowest bidder, we can find someone to do all their banking. 
• No member of Congress or head of an agency is permitted to make or receive payments in cash.  A digital trail to root out corruption. No more freezers with cold bars and cash. 
• Change the constitution so that the President's power to pardon does not apply to members of his family, or to members of Congress charged with corruption. 

Use the Singpore model:  well paid public servants, judges and politicians, along with severe punishments for corruption and bribery. 

@Saluki I'd agree with all of your suggestions.   

[Blugolds]

@Saluki these are excellent recommendations, and they seem like common sense for the avg joe. 

 

The problem is that you would have to convince a very large group of very wealthy people to vote for change that is not in their best interest. As ideal as this is (and I want to believe) the chances of this happening are slim to none. 

 

I'd also repeal Citizens United...although if you set the constraints correctly as you outlined above, that would do a lot to reduce the damage Citizen United was able to do.  

[Parsad]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/business/elon-musk-faa-air-traffic-control-failing-spacex/index.html

 

He wants Verizon's traffic controller contract for Space X.  But of course he's not getting paid for his work at DOGE.  Cheers!

[cubsfan]

Musk haters have real impact!

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-25/tesla-sales-fall-45-in-europe-as-rivals-ev-registrations-soar

 

Congrats!

[Hektor]

Law firms should see a lot of business during this administration, I guess. Are there publicly traded law firms? 

[73 Reds]

6 minutes ago, Hektor said:

Law firms should see a lot of business during this administration, I guess. Are there publicly traded law firms? 

LOL, that's a good one.

[Saluki]

22 minutes ago, Hektor said:

Law firms should see a lot of business during this administration, I guess. Are there publicly traded law firms? 

 

That's an interesting question and the answer is no. Lawyers have an ethical duty to put their client's interests ahead of their own, so the American Bar Association does not want business people involved in owning law firms. There is one jurisdiction that had a pilot program (DC maybe?) where they allowed an accounting firm to own an interest in a law firm. I don't think it ever caught on.

 

There was a lot of controversy when the Wall Street firms went from partnerships to corporations and went public. Ditto for consultants. It may happen eventually for law firms too. 

 

[73 Reds]

14 minutes ago, Saluki said:

 

That's an interesting question and the answer is no. Lawyers have an ethical duty to put their client's interests ahead of their own, so the American Bar Association does not want business people involved in owning law firms. There is one jurisdiction that had a pilot program (DC maybe?) where they allowed an accounting firm to own an interest in a law firm. I don't think it ever caught on.

 

There was a lot of controversy when the Wall Street firms went from partnerships to corporations and went public. Ditto for consultants. It may happen eventually for law firms too. 

 

I think the issue is that Lawyers are not permitted to share fees with non-lawyers.

[DooDiligence]

4 hours ago, Saluki said:

 

I don't have a person in mind, but I have a system in mind. A system with career civil servants that are hired based on merit. A system where congress and people in charge of agencies should not be open to corruption and using their influence to grow their wealth. A system where they would be banned from insider trading, and actually prosecuted for it. Does that sound so unreasonable? 

 

It's not difficult at all. How?  

• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may not own individual stocks. They may not have blind trusts either. They may only own publicly traded ETFs or mutual funds that are available to the public. 
• All members of Congress and heads of agencies may only have one bank account with [a specified bank].  Fidelity does all the retirement stuff for federal employees by being the lowest bidder, we can find someone to do all their banking. 
• No member of Congress or head of an agency is permitted to make or receive payments in cash.  A digital trail to root out corruption. No more freezers with cold bars and cash. 
• Change the constitution so that the President's power to pardon does not apply to members of his family, or to members of Congress charged with corruption. 

Use the Singpore model:  well paid public servants, judges and politicians, along with severe punishments for corruption and bribery. 

 

I watched a bit of CNA recently and saw a documentary that covered anti-corruption efforts in Singapore over the decades. Pretty draconian at times. Let's do it and let's start with everybody in DC left and right, now.

 

https://www.cpib.gov.sg/about-corruption/legislation-and-enforcement/prevention-of-corruption-act/

 

 

[lnofeisone]

5 hours ago, james22 said:

 

You could well be right (we'd probably save more by eliminating the Post Office, rather than giving it more responsibilities), but the fact that it didn't pencil out once before doesn't convince me it isn't worth trying again (technologies and politics both change).

 

The current state isn't sustainable.

Sure. There will be contracting firms happy to support this effort and in the end it will look just like McKinsey's NYC trashcan value-add (https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-orders-4-million-mckinsey-study-on-whether-trash-piles-would-be-better-inside-containers) but it will somehow be sustainable. 

 

 

[lnofeisone]

1 hour ago, Hektor said:

Law firms should see a lot of business during this administration, I guess. Are there publicly traded law firms? 

BUR, is probably as close as you can get.

[Hektor]

1 hour ago, Saluki said:

That's an interesting question and the answer is no. Lawyers have an ethical duty to put their client's interests ahead of their own, so the American Bar Association does not want business people involved in owning law firms. There is one jurisdiction that had a pilot program (DC maybe?) where they allowed an accounting firm to own an interest in a law firm. I don't think it ever caught on.

 

There was a lot of controversy when the Wall Street firms went from partnerships to corporations and went public. Ditto for consultants. It may happen eventually for law firms too. 

Thanks @Saluki

[lnofeisone]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

Musk haters have real impact!

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-25/tesla-sales-fall-45-in-europe-as-rivals-ev-registrations-soar

 

Congrats!

How are you not concerned that Musk and the current administration fudged a past contract to go from $500k to $500M with the US government and all its budget imbalances but somehow find consumer reaction appalling? 

https://electrek.co/2025/02/26/teslas-400-million-armored-ev-us-gov-contract-was-indeed-shady/  h/t @Saluki

 

Nvm that Musk's current enterprises qualify him as the biggest welfare queen in the US. 

[Hektor]

56 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

I think the issue is that Lawyers are not permitted to share fees with non-lawyers.

Thanks @73 Reds Any idea why? Is it to avoid conflict of interest?

[Hektor]

9 minutes ago, lnofeisone said:

BUR, is probably as close as you can get.

I'll look them up.

[73 Reds]

2 minutes ago, Hektor said:

Thanks @73 Reds Any idea why? Is it to avoid conflict of interest?

Yes; I believe the reasoning is that lawyers are required to retain their independence and avoid any influence from outside sources in representing their clients.   

[Hektor]

Just now, 73 Reds said:

Yes; I believe the reasoning is that lawyers are required to retain their independence and avoid any influence from outside sources in representing their clients.   

[Gregmal]

At the end of the day the solution will never be perfect or appease everyone. But the route of the evil is that the growth of the cancer never stops because whenever someone tries to stop it, you get obstructionists who want to present every reason why it’s not gonna work while offering no alternative solution. So the answer or action taken often ends up being “nothing gets done” until the next regime change and the beast gets to grow again. 

[Saluki]

25 minutes ago, Hektor said:

 

26 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

Yes; I believe the reasoning is that lawyers are required to retain their independence and avoid any influence from outside sources in representing their clients.   

 

Yes, for instance if your client runs out of money during a criminal trial, your ethical duty is to still represent him and pay for things like expert witnesses, if needed. It would be an interesting conversation if an MBA was involved. 

 

And the ban on fee sharing is pretty common in other industries, to prevent shady practices. For example FINRA Rule 2040 or NFA Rule 1101 prohibit fee sharing with unregistered people.