The president-elect, Donald Trump, has revealed some curious cabinet appointments, including a czar to head government efficiency. That person, Elon Musk, has had paradoxically no government experience which then poses questions about his efficiency or more importantly effectiveness.
In fact, effectiveness (that is how well the defense department is able to bolster or support the president's foreign policy) is probably the measure to be focused upon.
Mr. Musk makes Tesla cars and the route he chose has been to manufacture slightly over half his global production in China plus an additional 38 percent of his batteries at a plant in Shanghai. Can he afford to be tough on China?
Of course, he will tell you, all of his cars sold in the U.S. are assembled here. Note the word 'assembled', it means they are made elsewhere. Guess where?
For the defense department, one might also question the actual importance of efficiency. Does it matter if you have one, or two or even five people responsible for ordering equipment that in itself will cost in the billions -- the defence budget for 2022 was $857.9 billion. How about a tighter focus then on the corporations sending bills with regular cost overruns. Note most programs are billed on a cost-plus basis. It means the higher the cost the greater the corporate profit, which is calculated as a percentage of cost. How can such a system be an incentive for cost reduction?
The general whiff from the names issued for various senior posts is that knowledge and experience take a backseat to Trumpian loyalty. If first buddy Musk with zero government experience appears absurd for government efficiency, which itself is absurd as a measure, consider Pete Hegseth, the Fox news host who is to be the new Secretary of Defense -- not Press Secretary which could be understandable but heading an outfit with the largest budget except for Social Security, Health and Medicare, and again to be run by a man with no administrative experience in government.
Trump has chosen Kristi Noem - the South Dakota Governor to head the Department of Homeland Security. Conservative circles lauded her when she resisted government regulations even though they would have slowed the spread of covid infections. She also earned notoriety for revealing in "No Going Back," her new book, how she killed her dog Cricket and her goat. It must have been some years ago for she relates how her (now grown up) children returning from school kept asking where Cricket was as they used to play with the dog.
The dog's crime: he was impossible to train as a hunting dog ... to fetch shot birds etc. And the goat? Well apparently she would butt chickens and other critters. But goats are smart and playful -- confession, the author had one as a child ... and, unlike Noem's, it did not smell. Of course, the dog could not just be a pet -- not in Noem's world.
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