Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy do not care whether the stories they tell about agencies are true. They’re useful for whipping up hostility to government so that regulations can be cut and the rich can do what they want.

Summary

Billionaires like Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy are spreading false claims to discredit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency protecting consumers from fraud and abuse.

Andreessen falsely accused the CFPB of politically motivated “debanking,” despite no evidence.

This rhetoric aligns with the “DOGE” project, led by Musk and Ramaswamy, which aims to slash government regulations and programs under the guise of efficiency.

Critics warn this effort will harm public services, benefit billionaires, and push privatization at the expense of ordinary Americans.

    • bradd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      1 day ago

      Most of the history that comes to mind predates 1776, which makes sense.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        3·
        21 hours ago

        Stopping your historical studies before things like the end of chattel slavery and the start of the industrial revolution seems like a bad idea. You might have missed one or two significant events.

        • bradd@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          20 hours ago

          I’m sorry I think you’re replying to the wrong person as I didn’t say anything about stopping but hey, go gettem tiger.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            3·
            20 hours ago

            You said this:

            So sure, you didn’t literally use the word stop. You just decided any history post-the third quarter of the eighteenth century was moot. My mistake.

            • bradd@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              19 hours ago

              What I said is straight forward and true and doesn’t say anything about stopping or history being moot, that’s all your baggage.

              We have a lot of history about governments spanning many thousands of years so naturally when you are thinking about governments from a historical perspective, most will predate 1776. It doesn’t mean I am not thinking about what has transpired since but you know its been hundreds of years, and not thousands. Kind of a no-brainer my dude.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                31·
                11 hours ago

                See, the issue here is that you are so ignorant of history that you think 1776 is some important date for governments due to the association with the American Declaration of Independence, rather than the U.S. Constitution that wasn’t written until over 20 years later.

                So essentially what you are saying is that the only history of governments that is worth studying is the history of absolute monarchy, feudalism and the Althing in Iceland… but only those things up to 1776.