The Plot Against America

[Lonestarblue]

9. These tech billionaires are the US version of Russian oligarchs who gained immense wealth after the USSR breakup.

The Russian oligarchs accumulated wealth by privatizing state assets. Musk’s comment that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme is merely a prelude to privatizing it “for the benefit of its participants.” Of course, once in private hands, all decisions about who gets benefits and how much is then made by private managers who will also set extravagant fees for their management of the program. The USPS has long been a target for privatization, and I believe that will happen within a year. Half of Medicare has already been privatized through the Advantage plans. The support for the guy who murdered the United Healthcare CEO demonstrated how frustrated many Americans are with insurance executives denying medical care, but I expect Trump to force everyone into Advantage plans.

Musk has already said he wants to replace air traffic control with his Starlink system, and when he gets around to decimating NASA, he’ll ensure that his company replaces them. Techies like Peter Thiel are salivating at monetizing all the private data on every American that they will now have access to. And the AI folks are equally salivating about replacing the majority of government workers who make decisions that affect people’s lives with algorithms to make those decisions. You never see any media person ask what happens to all those people who no longer have jobs and aren’t paying taxes that support the government and indeed the country. AI doesn’t pay taxes.

I wish I had more optimism, but Trump/Musk and the lack of effective pushback are discouraging.