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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
Taking government efficiency seriously means having an actual vision—a goal, a deliverable, a KPI, whatever you want to call it—and then figuring out the bottlenecks in your way. Sometimes, that means cutting staff and rules. But sometimes, it means ADDING staff and rules. You actually need to articulate the vision in order to know what the bottleneck is! When the bottleneck is—as it was for China in medical regulation—"we have a backlog of drug applications and our team doesn't have time to go thru it all," it's probably not a good idea to fix the problem by *firing* 100 people; that just makes the backlog worse. Among my many frustrations with this administration's approach to governance is that a lot of the initial cuts have nothing to do with any clearly articulated vision. "Let's begin by decimating global health and epidemic tracing." What? "We're gonna start by firing probationary, upwardly mobile young staff in divisions overseeing high tech areas." Why? "We're slashing all longitudinal research on education outcomes for 4th and 8th graders." Because ... DEI? What?
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Richard Hanania
@RichardHanania
The Economist on how China has sped up clinical trials and seen its biotech sector rise. China’s government identified biotech as a strategic priority nearly two decades ago. But it was not until 2015 that things really took off, after the national drug regulator launched
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David Watson 🥑
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Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
There's a book coming out soon about—among other things—how politics, governance, and everything else would be better if our leaders articulated a positive vision for the future and then ruthlessly focused on the bottlenecks in the way of that vision
Abundance
From amazon.com
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José Ancer
@ancerj
Unfortunately Derek we don't get to mail-order the candidates that were made available to us. A chaotic change agent is still better than EU-style sclerosis and slow decline. One can hope the new admin will evolve a building mentality with time.
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José Ancer
@ancerj
personalities come in double-edged packages. boldness that drives willingness to pursue goals "normals" avoid is same trait that leads to rash judgment, overshooting. that's why if you want dynamism, get comfortable w/ bumps and mistakes. there are no "reasonable" pioneers.
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CeeCee
@CHNchilla89
There's no concept of "failure" with this administration. The entire reason that there are no KPIs or goals is so they can claim success. The illusion of doing something is more important than any kind of vision or verifiable progress.
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Sir Jeff Garzik
@jgarzik
But, like it or not, agree with the approach or not, you understand the iterative process, yes? 1. Cut stuff that looks like it needs cutting 2. Observe results 3. Iterate and make adjustments 4. Go to step #1 Push the envelope, and see what pushes back. Fix collateral
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Metal_Lawyer 🎸 🤘 ⚖️
@LegalDistortion
So much of this admin’s plan of attack has been to “make things more efficient”, which in MAGA/DOGE speak seems to mean “just cut everything”…which works sometimes, but may not always be the best solution—and certainly not if you’re cutting things (I) for arbitrary reasons,
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Tim Galebach
@TimGalebach
Such a measured approach was impossible, because the exec agencies stonewalled any requests for internal auditing by the incoming admin. (Same thing in 2017) If they were more reasonable, this could be done more reasonably, but here we are.
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Tim Chermak
@timmychermak
You forfeit the benefit of the doubt of having surgical, granular discussions about “government efficiency” when the deficit is $2 trillion dollars.
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P Breit 🇺🇸
@pbreit
That's how you might do it. But that's not how the most effective person in the world appears to be doing it.
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Jordan Cieslak
@jordancieslak75
Not sure you really want to use Communist China as an example of how to be efficient. This is a country that contributes to 35% of the world’s carbon dioxide pollution because they can’t be bothered by regulations. If you have ever worked in a large corporation you would know
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Al-droner
@alden_olms
If you don’t understand the damage DEI has done to society then the answers to none of your other questions will make sense to you Derek. DEI is like termites in a house. All the wood is rotten.
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Nick
@NickTroehler
Derek, you're assuming a vision for governing the country when they obviously have no intention in governing. They are plundering. Do better.
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Ryan Boger
@rboger12
Hanania had a piece recently that kind of speaks to the vision - that it isn't so much efficiency as it is to eliminate opposition. It was an interesting perspective, particularly as we're seeing how Elon speaks to Trump as kind of the solo representative of the people.
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Ken Damon
@czechnologist75
Exactly. Anyone who's run a business without government handouts has had to look at a product line or service and decide "this is inefficient, we need to get out of this" or "this is inefficient, but worth it, let's expand our capabilities." Musk doesn't have that experience.
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YIMBY Manatee
@Yimbymanatee
Would you agree with me that it is vastly more important to go slashing regulations, costly and time-consuming procedures, removing various ways other parties can block and delay, etc., than it is on cutting staff?
@DKThomp
IMO, my list are the things stifling supply.
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Giggs
@Gareth_giggs
I think the vision and mandate is “own the libs” so yeah, these people fucking suck and are going to make life worse for everyone in the world in the process
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ThameBo
@PSUinGA
All cuts should have been preceded by a needs assessment. This administration has a “cut everything first and fix the problems later” mentality that will certainly hurt (likely kill) many vulnerable working class and poor Americans, but it won’t matter to insulated wealthy ones.
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Company User
@CompanyUser123
To play devil's advocate on the main idea Musk and DOGE area, in many areas, just trying to burn down the house, which I am ok with. Libs will try to re-build these departments when they get back in power so blowing them up and causing chaos makes that a lot harder.
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André Sobolewski
@AndreSobolewski
Reducing the size of government is the pretext. Eliminating any form of accountability, any opposition to Trump's governance, any opposition to unfettered exploitation of resources, including climate change, and any support for average Americans, are clear-eyed KPIs.
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Deshdeepak
@rkdeshdeepak1
Drug applications are inefficient and illegitimate in the first place, making it efficient is a horrible not actually efficient .
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s.m.
@sho_of_hands
Democrats should stop measuring success in dollar spent and start embracing accountability in spending.
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Richard Hanania
@RichardHanania
DOGE claims to have saved $55 billion. WSJ is able to find $2.6 billion over a multiyear period. Only 2% of savings are related to DEI. The rest is stuff like a clinical test for a a drug to help with Alzheimer's. Now that's some real government efficiency.
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Alice
@AliceFromQueens
WHAT I GOT DONE LAST WEEK 1. Ignored baby-mamas 2. Unfollowed baby-mamas 3. Shadow-banned baby-mamas 4. Sued baby mamas 5. Got ratioed by astronauts
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Kareem Rifai 🌐
@KareemRifai
The moment Glenn Greenwald is confronted over his pro-Kremlin lies about Ukraine, he starts incoherently screaming. An absolute must-watch.
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