Latest / Financial Survival Network / Elon Musk, DOGE & the $1 Trillion Question: What Fox News Didn’t Ask - Robert Ian Reports

Transcript

Elon Musk, DOGE & the $1 Trillion Question: What Fox News Didn’t Ask - Robert Ian Reports · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Network now more than ever.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Hey, Carrie, this is Robert Ian with conker Change dot com.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: This past week, on March twenty seventh, there was an
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: interview with Elon Musk and about a dozen CEOs who
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: participate on the DOGE team. Rettbear on Fox News spent
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: about forty minutes trying to frame the larger picture of
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: what DOGE is attempting to accomplish. There were many examples
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: cited regarding systemic inefficiencies, redundancies from computer systems that are
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: very old, many of which do not communicate with each other,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and outright fraud. The stated goal of DOGE is to
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars, essentially cutting it
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: in half, and by extension, cutting federal spending from seven
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: trillion to six trillion dollars annually, and all of this
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: supposedly without affecting critical government services. One of the CEOs
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: on the panel said that the criticisms he's hearing about
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: DOGE are not lining up with their experience on the ground,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and that those criticisms tend to be more generalized, to
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: which their response has been which line item of the
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: cost savings do you disagree with? The messaging was well
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: presented and I believe will resonate in particular with younger
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and more technologically aware segments of the population. However, there
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: were some rather large unanswered questions that remained throughout the interview,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: and I was actually quite surprised that Bret Bair didn't
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: ask more aggressive follow on questions that would dig deeper
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: into the ramifications and consequences of what DOGE is certifying
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: that they have found. In our discussion today, I'll focus
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: on several of those key follow on questions that Fox
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: News failed to ask. First, several key findings were presented
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: that formed the outline of the interview. The centerpiece of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the project revolves around the idea that DOGE is applying
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: public company standards to the federal government. The CEOs emphasized
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: that departments of the US government would not be able
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to pass a financial audit like the audits that public
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: companies are required to pass on a regular basis. One
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: example cited was the NIH that has twenty seven different
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: centers with twenty seven different chief information officers utilizing seven
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: hundred different IT systems that apparently can't communicate with one another.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: They indicated that forty percent of the phone calls received
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: by Social Security are from fraudsters who regularly attempt to
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: convince Social Security representatives to change people's direct deposit information
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: over the phone. In the efficiency realm, there's a cap
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: on the number of federal employees who can retire each month,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: which is around eight thousand people. The system that houses
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: retirement records is paper based and uses filing cabinets, which
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: creates a processing bottleneck for the retirement process. An area
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: of much concerned discussion and debate is within Social Security.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It was stated there are over fifteen million people over
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: the age of one hundred and twenty who are marked
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: as alive in the Social Security system. This has apparently
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: been known since two thousand and eight. Several days after
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the interview aired, the DOGE website indicated there were approximately
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: twelve million recipients marked is alive over the age of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: one hundred twenty nine point nine million of them were
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: now marked as deceased, with another two million to go,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: making the actual number about twelve million instead of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: previously stated fifteen million. People reading through the doge website
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: at doge dot gov will show a long list of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: various contracts being canceled by the auditors. Reminded me of
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Senator William Proxmier from Wisconsin, who started the Golden Fleece
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Awards during his tenure as a US Senator. Back in
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: his day, the Golden Fleece Award was considered a sapirical
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: award given to frivolous research conducted with government grants. I
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: grew up in Wisconsin and was very familiar with this
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: branding and marketing stunt used by Proxmire, which resulted in
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: giggles and winks from the media and voters alike. However,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: there are no giggles and winks with the activities of doge.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: In some places, there is outright hostility. It's a sad observation,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: but in my opinion, most people will not visit the
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: doge website to read and analyze what is being posted. Sadly,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: as with most things, including political items. People tend to
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: receive their education in sound bites from the media rather
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: than reading the legislation, reports and websites and ultimately making
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: their own choices based on the facts they themselves have read.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And when we do listen to people like Elon Musk
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: and the CEOs who are the new face of DOGE,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: we have to listen carefully and not only to what
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: is said, but what isn't said as well. In the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Brettbear interview, there was no follow on questioning or scrutiny
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: to an open ended implication that seemed to be left
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: hanging for the viewer to infer the answer. The inference
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I'm referring to is the fifteen million people cited as
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: alive who were listed as over one hundred twenty years old, which,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: as we now know from the DOZE website, is closer
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: to twelve million people listed as over one hundred twenty.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: What was never openly discussed or followed up on is
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: if those twelve million people were actually receiving monthly Social
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Security checks or direct deposits. That's actually a really big
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: deal because if we assume an average two thousand dollars
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: a month's Social Security benefit, times twelve months a year.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: That's twenty four thousand dollars per year per person. If
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: we multiply twenty four thousand dollars by twelve million people, well,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I had to turn my calculator on its side to
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: get it to do the calculation. It comes out to
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: two hundred and forty billion dollars a year. That's one
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: fourth of the money Doze is attempting to save. No
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: discussion was made, and sadly, Brett Baer never asked the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: question were those dollars actually being paid out or were
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: those people simply marked as alive? And if those dollars
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: were being paid out each month each year, social Security
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: already has the direct deposit information of the recipients or
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the address of record to where the checks were mailed,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: so they already know who if anyone committed that fraud.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Where is the discussion from Musk and the various CEOs
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: on this critical point of analysis. It's one thing to
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: say twelve million people were marked as alive who weren't
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: and we've corrected that in the system. It's entirely another
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: thing to say or imply that up to two hundred
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: and forty billion dollars a year was going to those
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: people marked as alive in the system. And if that's
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: the case, what will be the consequences for those people
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that committed that fraud. Despite all of the ludicrous Golden
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Fleece Awards style examples now being cited by Doge, there
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: are major questions that really need to be unpackaged simply
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and succinctly, namely, who committed the fraud, how much was
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it and what's going to happen to them? Now let's
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: get a bit more specific, shall we? And until next time,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: This is Robert Ian with conquer Change dot com. Thanks Carrie,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: thanks for listening to carry Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Now more than ever,