I'm not American, but it seems this has been going for weeks now. Are these changes/this access to various things actually impacting normal Americans at all? I understand the impact on government workers, but I'm curious if this is actually changing peoples lives in any way.
We were barraged for 6 months about how Twitter would fall over the next day when Elon took over there and took a radical stance, and it just didn't. I'm curious if this will be similar.
Tens of thousands of people are now out of work, with more to join them soon. The job market is already tight. That is going to have ripple effects throughout communities all over the country. We will probably see an uptick in housing foreclosures. At the same time, grant money for community support programs has been turned off, so these folks will have a harder time getting help.
Farmers who produced food that was sent abroad by USAID are not getting paid, and will have stock piling up that they don't have a buyer for.
Scientific and health agencies have been muzzled during a time when we are fighting bird flu (millions of flocks dying), there has been human transmission and there is a high risk of another pandemic (bird flu or anything else) coming along. People will die who wouldn't otherwise have to.
The agency which protects Americans from predatory bank fees has been shuttered, so we can expect our banking (like $35 late fees) to get more expensive.
I could go on and on, but our country is not Twitter; it's not even comparable, on almost any level.
To add to your list, Federal Spending represents 23% of GDP. If you cut Federal Spending you cut GDP. And if you take just a sliver of any of that spending and think about it critically, you can imagine the ripple effects it will cause.
Cutting funding for biotech results in loss of jobs and loss of patent filing. Loss of patent filing means loss of people needed for filing patents. On and on. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out (some pun intended).
Not really since their plan is to cut taxes too. It shifts spending to individuals rather than cutting GDP, though there are always costs associated with such a transition.
Those tax cuts will heavily favor the wealthy. So I guess it depends on your belief in whether trickle down economics works.
Additionally, the Federal Government is the largest employer in the country. If you both lay off a significant portion of that workforce and cut things like unemployment and other social programs, you are going to have significant increase in unemployment unless there is somehow new jobs for everyone. Add inflation to the mix due to tariffs and a perfect storm of economic despair is on the horizon.
Not sure how true it is, but a few housing focused accounts I follow(that are admittedly more doom and gloom) are claiming house prices in and around DC are taking a beating as a result. It makes logical sense, but it's not something I would have immediately connected.
> Tens of thousands of people are now out of work, with more to join them soon.
...and?
This is such a common thing in tech we have entire websites built around it to track the layoffs.[0] In fact, using that site you can see in February (only 20 days so far) we've had 10,950 tech workers laid off. Expanding it further, in 2024 alone there were over 152,000 tech workers laid off. 2023? Only a mere 264,000 layoffs.
Where is the outrage and emotional blackmail over this for the lowly tech worker, yet we're supposed to bend over and take it while saying this is a bad thing for government workers?
Personally, I think they're just finally experiencing the America they run and they don't like it when it bites them like it bites the average American, and I have to assume that's why it seemingly has such high approval ratings among independent voters.[1]
In tech, you get absurd salaries that mean even if you get laid off, you would still take home a lot more than your average government employee.
The number one attraction for working for the government is stability, and that's baked into the salary.
If you want to attract skilled workers to work for the government, have the same experiences getting laid off, and get paid less, they're just going to turn to private industry.
> In tech, you get absurd salaries that mean even if you get laid off, you would still take home a lot more than your average government employee.
Apparently, as of late 2023, the average federal employee made over $101k[0]. "Tech" is vague, but assuming software engineers, the BLS estimated in 2023 a median of $132k[1]. That's not a big enough difference that you wouldn't be worried about layoffs in the private sector. Not everyone gets paid $400k working at a FAANG, and plus, federal jobs have a lot of benefits beyond that headline salary figure.
> The number one attraction for working for the government is stability, and that's baked into the salary.
The longstanding deal was that career civil servants don't get fired every time the White House changes hands and in return, they behave apolitically and implement the decisions made by political appointees (who are responsible to the electorate) in a neutral and expert manner.
That was the whole premise behind stability in government jobs. Back in the days it used to be the case that everyone did get fired between administrations, and they realized this was pretty inefficient.
But career civil servants broke this rule with Trump's first term, with a lot of opposition to political decisions brought on by people who are supposed to be neutral to the politics of it all. What is being reaped now was sown back then. Of course, it sucks for the people who did their jobs as they were supposed to; there is certainly an element of the whole class being punished for the misbehavior of a few.
> But career civil servants broke this rule with Trump's first term, with a lot of opposition to political decisions brought on by people who are supposed to be neutral to the politics of it all. What is being reaped now was sown back then.
Well, you can't enter a consistent, efficient and well-maintained system with the intention of throwing things around. Resistance is the only natural reaction to such a disruptive approach and now this resistance is missing we see the chaos Trump 2.0 and Musk cause as they follow the Project 2025 playbook.
Exactly! Do they not realize they all sat around (poorly) administrating systems like h1b that have caused millions of us to be laid off with no notice or reason.
I can't imagine crying on linkedin like some of these .gov workers showing up in my feed. I would never be hired again.
Series of posts by former Department of Labor economist and professor starts with:
https://bsky.app/profile/jrothst.bsky.social/post/3liin7up3c...
It seems almost unavoidable at this point that we are headed for a deep, deep recession. Just based on 200K+ federal firings & pullback of contracts, the March employment report (to be released April 4) seems certain to show bigger job losses than any month ever outside of a few in 2008-9 and 2020.
Higher unemployment leads to lower consumer spending - the USA economy is built on consumer spending.
My university announced a temporary freeze on PhD admissions due to issues with federal funding, with many departments announcing that they cannot accept any new students, and I know we're not the only one. A lot of people are wondering if they'll have a job in a year, myself included.
They've already damaged research/education, even if somehow it all gets undone. There's absolutely no reason to cause a brain drain in a country that has historically attracted students from all over the world.
N = 1, but I have friends in the US who lost their job because of the recent budget or grant cuts or whatever it was. They are very much non-tech normal people and considering options to emigrate. So yes, there are real people being affected by this.
In many cases it's not just one job. NIH grant funding, for example, remains frozen with no explanation of when it's going to restart. If I were in biomedical research I'd definitely be looking for options in other countries rather than rolling the dice on a potential 4 year pause in my career.
I guess. In this case maybe normal people that are priviledged enough to consider emigrating. What I meant is people with real and constructive professions. That happen to be affected by federal decisions.
I'm saying that with a bit of self-deprivation. These people in my opinion bring value to society with their jobs. In contrast to many IT roles where that can be a bit questionable sometimes. My own employment included.
>I understand the impact on government workers, but I'm curious if this is actually changing peoples lives in any way.
Well, our inflation rose to 3% in a month, a few people have died over all these illegal spending freezes, we had a repeat of the Saturday Night Massacre[0] where 6 or 7 judges resigned due to Trump wanting to basically hold blackmail over a corrupt Mayor's case to be temporarily dropped. Those are the most immediate and obvious effects seen after one month off the top of my head.
>Elon took over there and took a radical stance, and it just didn't. I'm curious if this will be similar.
I don't know why people say this when Twitter had clear changes to day to day use. Let alone to anyone investing in Twitter. Smaller content creators get even less organic engagement, celebrities are harassed more because of blocking changes, commenters get worse, more toxic community.
The effects only aren't felt if you use Twitter to get news and you avoid comments, or an account. Even then Twitter makes it harder to view stuff without an account. The fall of Rome took years, if not decades. If you're just expecting anything software to collapse like a demolition project you need perspective on how people define "drastic".
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On topic: no, don't compare this to Twitter that no one needs in a day to day. The US economy will get noticeably worse, jobs will be harder to find and more people will be let go, The GDP will fall, and if March goes horribly a lot of old people will be on the the street dying. It's not going to all happen in one day, but lives will be lost over these reckless changes. The US isn't exactly doing too well with foreign policy either so that'll be the most obvious effect for you. Our country will probably shift to rely less on us goods.
> I don't know why people say this when Twitter had clear changes to day to day use. Let alone to anyone investing in Twitter.
That wasn't my point though. Twitter itself changed, which was expected and (I assume) intended. My point was the months of us being told constantly by the media that the sky is falling - the servers would fall over tomorrow, the advertisers would all leave and there would be no money, etc. This was literally daily for at least a month.
Now, Twitter is still up and running fine (from a technical and assumedly financial perspective). It appears Elons methods worked fine, and all the other major tech companies also went on a mass firing spree to trim the fat.
I'm honestly not sure how this compares with similar changes to a federal government - or if it does at all. But the context of my comment came from the GPs point, fat cutting and applying highly profitable tech start approaches to a federal government is an interesting thought exercise and especially so for a country that values capitalism over people so highly.
Every significant government policy being added or removed has real world impact - both positive and negative. I'm curious if the positives will outweigh the negatives in this case.
>My point was the months of us being told constantly by the media that the sky is falling - the servers would fall over tomorrow, the advertisers would all leave and there would be no money, etc. This was literally daily for at least a month.
That seems to be my point tho. you're imagining Twitter collapsing in a few days and going out of business. That's not really how things work.
Twitter went private so no one really knows how well it's doing. I'd bet any confidence in Twitter these days isnt really in Twitter so much as Musk hype, however.
>. It appears Elons methods worked fine, and all the other major tech companies also went on a mass firing spree to trim the fat.
By waht metric? Financial is dubious of you're following the scene. Workers, certainly not. I guess in the metric that it let him buy the election. That's pretty big, I'll admit. I don't think thst trick will work twice, given his current reputation.
In the sense that "it is operating as a ___domain?" MySpace is still"up and running fine " in 2025. Digg is still up and running in 2025. Such name brands so well known don't really die in a literal sense; someone's going to buy and try to salvage it even after Musk sells it one day.
>MySpace is still"up and running fine " in 2025. Digg is still up and running in 2025. Such name brands so well known don't really die in a literal sense ; someone's going to buy and try to salvage it.
What positives are you imagining? We pay off the defecit? This ephemeral mood of "corruption" is dealt with? That you get a tax cut? Maybe the 3rd one will save you a few thousand a year.
I don't see many upsides here that counter balance this. That's pretty much my whole reservation of this comment. It just seems to be saying "well maybe we get something good out of it" while dimissing the bad that's already come. All on a basis of a company that didn't completely die out from the same cuts and suggesting it "works" because of that.
- Debt repayments are entering a level similar to 1990s due to high rates and debt, meaning the government will eventually have to use inflation to reduce it.
- Trump's hostility to energy and housing, two primary drivers of inflation
- Tariffs
- Deportations of farm workers
Inflation expectations according to surveys and rates markets are back up to 2021 levels.
The only thing pushing against inflation is a relatively strong real economy, which isn't guaranteed to last if the tariffs and deportations happen.
March is when congress decides on a budget. Aka the first legal time in Trump 47 administration that they can actually influence the budget. Some GOP propositions propositions include Medicare cuts and overall trying to lower the budget by 33% IIRC. I'd bet good money we're going to see a bloodbath in the Capitol, be it among congress, or among the people reacting to whatever results happen.
Medicare "cuts", it's 100% of Medicare, and big % of foodstamps as well. And increasing debt ceiling, seems like most of it will go to tax cuts for the rich.
Just to be precise, it's a cost equivalent of 100% of 2024 Medicaid (sorry, I typed the wrong one) spending, amortized over 10 years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't mean it's cutting all of Medicaid at once, right?
It's still drastic, though. 10% every year means 100b in cuts to Medicaid. More money than what's allocated to the DoED
Medicaid spending was 15% higher in 2023 than in 2019, after adjusting for inflation. (40% before adjusting for inflation.) So a 10% cut would just bring it back to pre-pandemic levels.
How much would you like to bet? Is 20k a good number? Can you be more specific about how you’d define bloodbath so we can agree if it does or does not happen?
>Can you be more specific about how you’d define bloodbath
Sure, there's 3 vectors I'm looking at here.
Legislative:
- The government shuts down for 3 or more days before deciding a budget. 1990 shutdown was the most similar situation (which includes Medicaid cuts, but ironically enough was trying to raise taxes) and lasted that long.
Executive:
- Trump vetoes the budget more than once. 1990 as a reference once again, H.W. Bush vetoed the 2nd proposal , once total.
Judicial:
- Trump and congress decide on a budget but judges intervene on the allocation. I'm not sure if this ever happened, but I couldn't find any accounts. So I'd say involving all 3 branches qualifies
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- I'll also lump in any significant attempts at violence or death (natural or otherwise) over any politicians involved in such budget debates as part of that (the most literal "bloodbath" possible)
Those seem like fair enough criteria?
>How much would you like to bet? Is 20k a good number?
I'm sadly still a part of an extended job search, so I have no real money to bet. But if this was 2022, I'd probably put 5k onto it in terms of confidence.
To be honest, I lost track of which ones they wanted to cut. It probably was Medicaid instead. I wouldn't be surprised if Medicare and even Social Security come down the line at this point.
98% of Americans 65 and older are on Medicare and are overwhelming happy with it. This is true both for those on traditional Medicare and on Medicare Advantage.
For most of them having to switch to any of the existing ways that people under 65 can get health insurance would cost them significantly more and significantly reduce their coverage.
For those who are on traditional Medicare it would also mean going from being able to see nearly any non-HMO doctor (over 90% of non-HMO doctors accept Medicare) to going to managed care insurance where they have to deal with in network vs out of network and where the insurance company is practically looking over your doctor's shoulder and interfering in your care.
Messing significantly with Medicare would thus seriously piss off about 60 million people over the costs and reduced coverage that alternatives provide, and piss of the 28 million of those who are on traditional Medicare even more because of having to switch to managed care.
45% of those people have guns in their households. Most probably wouldn't resort to violence, but there are 27 million of them. That's enough that I'd be surprised if that doesn't leave thousands who would resort to violence.
Look at how many people seem to think the UHC CEO killing was justified, and this would be a lot more disgruntled people.
> understand the impact on government workers, but I'm curious if this is actually changing peoples lives in any way.
The effects have started to be felt, but nowhere near the lecel they will be if things continue much longer this way; as well as the directed impacts, a generale economic slowdown is expected as a fairly near-term second ordee effect. Lots of direct job losses plus people holding off spending because of a cloud of uncertainty is a great way to make a recession.
Twitter is replete with bots, videos rarely work, and it’s almost entirely tilted to the right side of the political spectrum. Twitter didn’t fall over the next day but there’s no disputing it’s a worse platform than it was.
A homeless shelter down the road will be closing in a few days and putting ten families onto the street. It's colder than your freezer outside, and the city already cleared out all the camps a year ago, so these people might literally die. Children. Babies. People who have lived here for generations but consistent ratcheting up of rents means they can no longer live anywhere.
The expanded ACA tax subsidies are very unlikely to be renewed. This will result in about 5.6 million Americans (26% of the people with marketplace insurance) who can no longer afford healthcare and are left to rely on emergency rooms, which is a cost we all end up bearing anyway.
Our allies have lost all trust for us. They already hated Trump in his first term because he was stupid and confrontational and transactional in a truly ignorant way, and him getting re-elected after some pretty obvious poor governing means that our allies no longer trust not just our government, but the actual people who voted him in. The ignorance and pettiness and hatred of the American voter means investing in the US as an ally has become a very stupid thing to do.
I'm cancelling a vacation outside the US because I have no interest in interacting with border agents who feel empowered and vindictive. I already cannot travel to certain US states where a pregnancy scare can become a crime.
Our state economy has been buoyed nicely by the shitload of Asylum seekers from all over the world who are educated and just want to work, but are often not allowed to for dumb reasons. Lack of funding and a hostile immigration environment will only hasten the death of our state, which has a very old population.
Three large parts of our economy are: Lumber trade with Canada, Tourism with a lot of that coming from China, and selling lobster to China. With another trade war, that's all fucked. Before China became a buyer of our lobster, the industry was dying because they were catching too much and they had to keep selling lobster for cheaper than ground beef.
The farmers up state who grow potatoes will be fine, since it's been industrialized since before I was born. Everything else we grow is going to get a lot more expensive with less migrant labor, so I hope you don't like broccoli. Alternatively, we replace migrant labor with chain gang workers from the local prisons and enjoy the (literal) fruits of slavery.
The average American files their tax return with the IRS once a year. The IRS just lost 15,000 employees. This tax season is going to make 2020 look smooth and efficient and fast.
We were barraged for 6 months about how Twitter would fall over the next day when Elon took over there and took a radical stance, and it just didn't. I'm curious if this will be similar.