Should Elon Musk be the Head of US Efficiency?

@SunshineGirl Perhaps not, but he might be quite good at the job to which he has been appointed.

@MartinII He has absolutely no experience of government and he plucked a figure out of thin air. He has made no empirical argument to support the alleged waste. He is simply playing to popular prejudice.

@SunshineGirl You are confusing two points. One is whether there is indeed waste in the US federal government. I don't know, and I'm pretty sure you don't either. But I can assure you there was plenty in the UK government when I worked for it. As to whether Musk is a good choice for the role, I don't know about that either. But I do think lack of experience of government is a positive advantage in this particular role.

@MartinII He has concluded in advance that there is waste in federal government and pledged to cut $2tn of spending. Embarking on a task before defining the "problem" is not terribly smart.

In the UK the civil service has been subjected to 14 years of austerity. HMRC staff have been cut back to the point that it lacks the capability to collect democratically approved taxes . . on a conservative estimate £16bn of VAT is fraudulently witheld each year. Even the most ardent neo-liberal would be hard pressed to find any "fat to trim".

@SunshineGirl 14 years of austerity? You really must be joking! Look at the public expenditure figures. Look at the size of the public sector. Those 14 years have seen a considerable amount of incompetence and drift, but "austerity" is a figment of the imagination of politicians, of both parties.

My own view, based on a lifetime's experience of government and business, is that there are always savings to be made. It's not just that there are too many people for the work, though there is usually some of that. It's also that some things are done that don't need to be done, things that can be done differently etc. There's a natural drift in big organisations which has to be attacked from time to time.

Going back to the US, it is the President-elect who has concluded that the government sector needs to be reduced in size, and has tasked Musk and Vereswamy to deliver. Let's see how they get on.

@MartinII Increases in public spending during that period were exclusively confined to the NHS, welfare benefits (mainly in the form of pensions), education, and sorting out Brexit. Good luck finding savings there. All other government departments experienced severe real term cuts. Public sector salaries were frizen for 7 years.

I think anybody who is faintly in touch with the reality of growing social inequality in Britain will tell you that austerity is far from fictional.