How to make Elon Musk’s budget-slashing dreams come true
E LON MUSK and Vivek Ramaswamy are keen to whip the American government into shape. On November 14th their newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced it wants to hire “super-high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” to get to work on cost-cutting. It is easy to ridicule the enterprise. Mr Musk has talked of ripping $2trn out of the federal budget; a cut of that magnitude, done swiftly, would leave public offices incapable of performing many basic functions and plunge the economy into a recession. Moreover, Donald Trump has given DOGE less than two years to get the job done. And the entity is a small advisory body, not an actual department, with a name inspired by a joke cryptocurrency.
Existing measures of discomfort are failing to predict elections
Indicators of market volatility have plunged
Rich countries need not reinvent the wheel
America’s president-elect wants to reshape trade, capital and labour flows
We take a look at the leading contenders for the job
Are bitcoin bros right to be so thrilled by Donald Trump’s victory?
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/11/17/how-to-make-elon-musks-budget-slashing-dreams-come-true