I'm active duty aircraft maintenance. There are a few mirrors on my jet that are smaller than your hand and less complicated than the one mounted to your wall in the bathroom. They each cost over 10k. Thanks Lockheed (:
If the penny is gone I will have to spend more on my wishes at wells and fountains. AND the penny machines at the zoos will be useless. This is where I draw the line Elon
Over here in the Netherlands we effectively stopped using the 1 and 2 eurocent coins back in 2004, only a few years after adopting the euro because it wasn't really worth it for it to exist anymore after implementing a rounding system for physical transactions. If you go to buy something with cash, the price of goods at checkout is rounded to the nearest 5 cent interval, 13,99 becomes 14 euros, 6,77 becomes 6,75 etc, so we just haven't used them for ages, even when they were still in circulation for some time after 2004. I think it's almost inevitable that eventually other higher value coins are gonna follow suit, because the amount of cash transactions is so limited now, almost everyone has a debit/credit card or pays with their phone. The only place I still pay with cash is my barber and I can't even remember the last time I paid for something with any kind of coins.
I thought you meant "penny" as short for "penjamin", thus making a joke about vaping while in Elementary School. But nope, you are talking about literal pennies and I'm fucking brainrotted. Awesome.
Yeah, I was like "how weird, I wrote an essay for school on why we should get rid of the penny in like 2012" and since the government is so slow to do ANYTHING, of course it was an easy win for Elon
I remember seeing John Oliver talk about it in Last Week Tonight at one point as well. Main issue I recall about getting rid of the penny is the company that supplies the metal for the penny lobbies to keep them being made.
Don’t let your kids near them! When I was in year 3 me and my sister found a jar of one and two cent pieces, I live in Australia, and we took them to the school canteen for icy poles! Yum yum yum!
One of my Grandparents gave me a big bucket full of Pennies, they found it at an estate sale of some guy who believed he had rare ones but never sorted them. I guess they all become rare now
The Government Accountability Office already exists. How is it more efficient to create an agency that's going to do the same thing instead of just having people listen to the GAO and make it better?
I've been saying this lol. How is it more efficient to create a whole new entity when the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Budget and Management both exists. Maybe if you got rid of them and combined them but that's not what is happening Although from my understanding "DOGE" is just an informal advisory group and they have zero actual funding as of right now
The GAO is run by the legislative branch, DOGE isn't. The legislative branch is absurdly inefficient and also the cause of almost all of our country's money problems in the first place.
@giant0mantis It doesnt matter since DOGE is also going to be funded by the government at some point. The GAO runs on $888 million per year while they saved $67.5 billion last year alone for the government, a net benefit of $76 per dollar they receive. Beyond that, they've been reporting to congress to either get rid of the penny or replace the metal used since at least 1996. Recently, they've reported the need to replace ALL coins with different metals due to rising costs. DOGE is recommeding something thats been recommended by an already existing efficiency department for 30 YEARS, and haven't even mentioned the other coins like the GAO has been.
Saving 89 million dollars by removing the penny is like taxing an additional 25 cents from each of the 330 million Americans. Small beans, but it’s going to be hyped up by DOGE because people have no sense of how big the US deficit actually is
I think it's stupid to act like it's a huge deal but 89 mil is 89 mil for basically doing nothing. If we can keep cutting useless stuff like this it could add up
@@coeburn9588 yeah it'll add up to a couple billion and won't address any of the actual issues with government inefficiencies, while convincing voters they fixed everything. great!
@@coeburn9588 I mean sure, if they can find another 999 useless things like that to cut it would somewhat matter, but what are the chances that they'll be cutting 20 things worth 89 mil every single month for the rest of Trump's term?
@mrmcawesome9746 1000 things would literally half the us deficit. Just finding 2 a month would reduce the deficit by 5% which would be more then worth it's existence. There are also much bigger items to kill (daylight savings). There is a lot of small things that could help a lot if they can be kicked through, and like them or hate them if there is one thing this administration is good at its going to be forcing things through. Take the small wins where they exist, alot of these things should have been done years ago.
This is absolutely true. Entire companies with range days to magdump into berms, entire motor pools idling to burn fuel, planes flying in circles… Not to mention the inefficiencies from having entire commands fully staffed out in ways that no longer need to exist. Supply? Armory? Quartermaster? Put bar codes or QR codes or tags onto the gear while it’s stateside, and you can run inventory with a couple scanners and an iPad. You don’t need a staff of junior enlisted guys doing handcounts and paper inventory logs for every conex inbound or outbound from the base.
Ok as a serving member of the us military. Personally costs are the least concern in dod spending in my opinion. The real costs come from the merging of dod contractors that supply parts and supplies. Raytheon. General dynamics etc. ive seen ridiculous prices (in the multiple thousands) for stuff that I could either buy or make from stuff from Home Depot for less than $5.00
Yep! But the American people would have to actually read books or do some kind of due diligence to understand even a little defense economics so they just point at the big number and say “CUT IT! (in the progressive case)” or “GIVE THE PENTAGON 5 QUADRILLION MORE!! (in the conservative case)” Who needs a reasonable procurement strategy anyway?
To be fair, I can imagine that an aircraft, for example, shouldn't have the same nuts and bolts that you put in your couch. It's subjected to enormous stresses and has to withstand them without bending, breaking, deforming, etc, because a simple failure under the loads an aircraft is put through can cascade (probably, idk). So I can imagine them needing to develop some tougher nuts and bolts and such that seem like the normal ones but aren't, Now, I dunno if this would reach multiple thousands per bolt or anything, but my guess is that it's reasonable for specialized parts to be more expensive.
@@Jade_Df The United States spends more than the NEXT 9 countries combined to their military. China barely spends a third of it on theirs. $916 BILLION dollars is being spent on which 39% is pure maintenance which, is what Atrioc said is overvalued immensely by contractors and that there are factories that need work every 2 years for new vehicles/planes that ALREADY FAR outperform any other military unit/vehicle/plane/product in the world. As an example; Russia when they invaded the Ukraine, had to use old World War 2 tanks not even a month after their 'current models' that were barely post Soviet Era 90's, because of Ukraine's defense. It took them years for their factories to make the new tanks they're using now and even those are still far below American superiority. The only thing that people are seemingly forgetting is that the United States makes up for 15.8% of the NATO budget which, sounds like a lot but only comes down to 3.5 billion. Which is barely nothing compared to the $916 billion Defense budget. The point is that even with a 10% Military cut by for example, having new vehicles/planes every 3/4 years instead of 2 years, it would allow for about $91 Billion to become available for the countries 33 trillion debt which is only 3%.
I mean, the Pentagon has consistently failed its audits. We don’t know how much money goes towards some of this stuff. I know some stuff is classified, but the amount of money unaccounted for that goes into the Pentagon and never comes back out to the light of day is staggering.
Most stuff is classified because the more information you provide the weaker your defence against espionage becomes. Which in a military confrontation with a "near peer competitor" is a great way to have them exploit your specific weaknesses
@@louiewood7689the US Army chocolate brownie recipe was classified TOP SECRET 😂 Everything is classified because "nobody ever got fired for overclassifying a document"
@@louiewood7689 But in doing so, you are also weakening yourself by pouring way too much money into an 'Unknown hole'. That could've been used for strengthening your own economy.
@7:40 can confirm. We requested better comms gear and the CO bought a bunch of smart TVs instead. This was back when smart TVs were expensive and bleeding edge consumer tech. Smack dab in the middle of the war on terror.
Atrioc should look into the private sector bloat. I read some articles back in when I was enlisted how organizations like Raytheon have deals with the DOD that they not only make money building the planes or equipment. The DOD pays for the parts, work hours, finished product, and any and all travel, per-diem, and research costs for the equipment. EVEN IF THE PRODUCT IS NOT SUCCESFULL. Many failed projects are literal money grabs intentionally knowing that the DOD will pay all of the costs and pay them a paycheck even if they don't deliver!! That's where the bloat really lies. Many of the future warfare and future weapons programs are literal scams!!!
Yup, I remember a video from back in the day on TH-cam of the '1 million rounds per minute gun' Very impressive, insane waste of bullets and money and never been used in actual combat to this day. Not sure if they had a contract with the US military or not but a waste regardless.
Unlikely. What you'd end up with is higher unemployment and lower wages for everyone because of the large influx of people who no longer have jobs. Just because you cut that spending doesn't mean the current government will divert that surplus to social programs. If anything, they seem more inclined to use it to fund tax cuts (which helps you exactly none if you just got laid off and have no income). Also, the huge labor surplus will end up depressing wages across the entire economy. Great for people who are already wealthy business-owners, probably bad for you. Remember, this isn't just jobs in the defense sector per-se; it's also every sector those companies interact with: logistics, machining, heavy equipment and tools, contracting for everything from IT to building maintenance, food service, raw materials, etc. A better way to get a similar effect is probably to raise corporate taxes, close tax loopholes, go after tax evaders, and tax wealth (investments, assets, cryptocurrency, etc.) more heavily. Offset the government spending (that mostly helps ordinary people in the long run) by putting the brakes on the growth of the private sector (which mostly helps people who are already wealthy). Edit: this would probably also force the private sector to use more of their resources on actually providing goods and services like they're supposed to, instead of doing stock buy-backs, over-paying their executives, spending money on lobbying politicians, gambling on risky corporate debt, etc.
@@walterkruse348 You should also consider that most soldiers when leaving the service end up with no benefits, next to no job skills, no money, and most likely severe trauma from all the crap they went through. Not forgetting the potential for life-altering injuries/diseases. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 98% of veterans experience homelessness as individuals, with 13% of the homeless population being veterans. So it's not like our government is paying our soldiers anything anyways. They may as well be 1800's coal-miners with how their lives are treated.
We need fewer social systems because they often reward those who know how to navigate them while penalizing those who don’t. For example, people living on assistance can often work the system effectively, while the working class frequently struggles. Instead of maintaining countless programs, jobs, and administrative costs, we could simplify things by providing every American with a direct payment, regardless of employment status. This approach would likely result in most of that money being spent, which would boost economic activity and generate more tax revenue through increased spending.
In australia we stopped using pennys (or pence as we called it) decades ago. (Mid 1960s i think they were pulled out of circulation) And today due to inflation the ammount of raw materials in a 5c coin is worth more then 5 cents (5 pennies/pence)
Sadly we need to keep buying from techie arms dealers all the while putting all administrative resources into preventing veterans from getting any compensation for their services.
The real way to save money on the military is to audit this shit so an ikea desk isn’t worth 2k on the books and making it so that a pack of screws doesn’t end up costing as much as the average person’s annual salary Edit: just finished the video and Big A mentioned it, thanks for the credit Glizz Meister
We spend more money on social security and Medicare than the military. But Trump is going to privatize both so your Medicare will cost more and provide less like private health insurance. Except you can't op out of making Healthcare bros richer.
A classic example of defense contractors overcharging for no reason: There's a piece of networking equipment I was working on that used a serial to RJ-45 console cable to console into the device. General Dynamics, instead of using a normal console cable, used some random other pinout so the port isn't compatible with a normal console cable and provided a part number for the cable in case the one provided is lost or damaged. That cable costs $200. A normal console cable costs less than $10 and they could have easily made it compatible.
i have worked in IT and av for over 10 years now... i would love this comment has confused me for multiple reason. would love a private message chat. serial to "rj-45" isnt used pretty much at all anymore as any cat 6 cable type a or not can transmit and receive. which is a limitation for serial commands. my main concern is your comment reads like your in or apart of defense for the government. using that old of equipment is much more of a worry then the cable i imagine you use once in a blue moon to either reprogram the device.
@@dogwort no they cannot refuse it still... it's valid money the same as a bill from 1954 it still has it's original value and worse case if the business doesn't trust the integrity of the payment just go to a bank with your coins...
Bruh I remember hearing in elementary school we might stop making pennies. Now we're actually doing it? 20 years later? Well it's better late than never.
Canada did it a long time ago... all of a sudden you stopped finding pennies on the ground... so sad 😞 but also a good sign that people didn't car about them because if dropped they literally wouldn't be picked up haha
@ That's a real shifty thing to say brugh. Funny since India is one of the most racist countries on the planet, look into how Indians treat Muslims in their country. It's pretty vile. And they aren't joking unlike myself... they are very, very serious with their racism.
When I was in the Marines our unit would get in trouble if we didn’t use our ammo allotment on ranges, field exercises, etc because we would receive less money/supplies next year if we underused the budget. So at the end of the year we would check out all the ammo, reserve a range, and at the end of the day throw all the leftover rounds into the woods. We did this for years until a tracer round started a brush fire and all of the live rounds started cooking off in the tree line, only then did someone higher up decide it wasn’t a smart practice
Why didn't they just set the weapons to burst/or load the SAW's and just burn out the rounds that way? That's what my unit did when we did yearly qualifications at the ranges.
It'd be an idea if unspent budget was put into the equivalent of a piggy bank, where it would accrue interest and only those who the budget was assigned to can withdraw it. That would leave room for infrequent, large scale investments while also reducing waste at all levels, including the administration. The same way that accountants look at yearly expenses and set budgets accordingly you could let those set budgets run for 5 years and just do annual checks and reassess at the 5 year mark whether budgets should be reduced.
The "we don't need more tanks" thing: yes, the military does not need any more M1 Abrams tanks. Yes, it benefits the politicians whose districts and states the factories are in, and that's why they want to keep them open. However, there actually is an important defense industrial reason to keep them open and operating despite the aparent inefficiency of making useless tanks. Tank production is not something you can just shut down and then restart when you need it later. It takes years to restart scale production of complex military hardware like modern tanks. There's also the invaluable loss of the skilled workforce that would occur if we shut down our tank factories, a labor force that could not be easily replaced. And while we don't need new Abrams, we will eventually start replacing Abrams with a new generation of main battle tank. It would be extremely unwise to wait until that day and then spend years we may not have to just restart the factory lines before we can even begin replacing Abrams. If the Russo-Ukrainian war has proven anything, it's that sudden crises and dramatic shifts in technology do happen, sometimes without warning, and the defense industrial base needs to be there to respond to it. It's effectively a defense industrial insurance policy: when you don't need it, you're just spending money. But you're spending that money for the if and when you really need it.
Unfortunately it's pointless because we have nuclear weapons and if we weren't afraid to use them we wouldn't need to spend a single extra dollar on the military
Fun Fact: Calvin Li calculated the penny from the idiom "a penny for your thought" would be worth $5 by now because of inflation. We could just ban coins altogether and we would still have lower denominations than back then.
What's hilarious about budgets in the military is that colleges have EXACT same system in their spendings. I remember student groups making tshirts and ordering food from the budget due to the fact that if they didn't spend the maximum amount, they would receive less the next semester.
@@sky3_ow Any private or government body will try to get the money for themselves because it means more power to do what you want. (This is the reason why they care so much about preserving their budgets). So there is an existing incentive to have/spend as much as possible even if they arn't "incentivized" to do so.
my sister says this exact thing. She works for stracom for a like 4 star general. She complains our military spending would plummet if we made everything in house at the military, and if we just used the things we already had. We have billions+ dollars of equipment sitting in warehouses unused because they “only have 10 year lifespan left”. They are spending a huge amount of money to develop a replacement which fails and they have to find a different contractor to do it. She says it would be better just to use them for that ten years and deal with it when we actually need to instead of being weaken in the present to try and replace it.
I will never understand why there isn’t an understanding between both the military and federal government that whatever isn’t spent in the military can be given to other funds but the military can still retain their budget with the understanding they have a budget that is heavily determined on what happens within any given year.
I work for my local government our financial year ends in October my specific department is general services ( AC repair light bulb changing that stuff ) we had over 150k left in the budget on August so the department bought 3 new trucks everyone got brand new uniforms new shoes and a raise so I can confirm everything atrioc said is 100% true
I worked a few times with the military filming projects on base. They pay TONS of money for being there. My boss at the time was told "take what ever rate you would normally charge for this and triple it." And this way it both means the company got paid tons of money from a powerful client, but it was also leverage to not make mistakes. Its expensive stuff they do, and the last thing their scientists and analysts need is the cameras to not work the moment they need everything for documentation and study.
Real Talk: I agree with doing this anyway, even though, no, it will not make a dent in the deficit. You could get rid of nickels too. Fun Fact: we used to have a haypenny (1/2 cent piece), and when we got rid of that coin it had MORE buying power than nickels do right now. Edit: ...or was that pennies that had less buying power than haypennies? I'm going off of a Vlogbrothers video from, like, 10 years ago. We've had a lot of inflation since then, so it might also be true for nickels now. Regardless, I can count the number of times I've used coins to pay for anything in the last two years on one hand, so don't think I'm going to be that bothered regardless.
As far as the tanks thing goes. If you don't have skilled workers who know how to make tanks, you cannot streamline a ramped up increase in tank production later when you REALLY need new tanks. Instead of on the job training with people who've been making tanks and tank parts for the last decade, you'd need to find a tank manufacturing expert to teach a bunch of new hires over the course of a couple month's, off of a production line, then have them learn on the job with at least the fundamentals taught. I am currently seeing this happen in the semiconductor industry, where we simply don't have enough people to both train the new people AND get the work done. So we have instructors teach the new people over a few months how to do the work, THEN they come into the lab to learn how to actually do the job. So there is at least some good reasons you'd want to make new tanks, even if they go mostly or entirely unused. You can then sell those tanks to allied nations, maintaining dominant military power across the globe by simply being the one who makes all the weapons.
DOGE is a fundamentally flawed idea because it is based on Javier Milei's ministry of deregulation. The reason why his Ministry of Deregulation works is because the president is 110% ideologically motivated and extremely committed to balance the budget, and so, he supports the decisions of the ministry with the full weight of the executive branch. He genuinely doesn't about the political costs, the fact that governors/senators might be get pissed at him if he cuts something important to them, etc. DOGE on the other hand seems like an excuse to change very little while still being able to say "hey, we did something about it..."
DOGE is also flawed because Trump said he will not do cuts to the military, which is by far the most bloated of US departments, something Milei is not afraid to do
Something most people don't bring up when the penny argument comes up, is what the penny is actually useful for. Just one example is with wholesalers, which typically sell huge quantities of goods. For cheap goods, lots of manufacturers will set pricing based around the lowest denomination in a market, or 1c per. Take the penny away, and all of a sudden, these goods would become up to 5x more expensive, since the nickel is 5c & next smallest coin. So whether it be hardware like metal washers used for bolted assemblies, sequins for dresses, candy pieces, whatever, it all needs to be assigned a price by the manufacturers/wholesalers. And all this stuff, in every manufacturing industry, will go up in price. And this increase will directly be passed off to consumers. To me, the 25c it costs each individual American to keep pennies in circulation seems like a low price to pay rather than deal with a widespread increase in prices. Also, nickels cost 12 cents to make btw.
It's all around how a business handles it. Just because we stop producing a coin doesn't make it nul and void. It still spends. The type of sale you are describing would never change. It's rare for bulk sales to be handled in cash. Bank accounts will still calculate for a penny. Business will still charge you a penny. The only situation this changes is paying in cash. Business will no longer be required to have a penny for change. Nothing else actually needs to change. 84cents will still be a chargeable amount on card. If you don't have exact change expect 15cents back instead of 16. This really isn't that deep. Only people like me who actually pay for stuff in cash will foot the increasing prices.
Dude, you 100% hit the head on the military. There needs to be a mass media campaign that goes against the industrial military complex but we might never see that
I mean, we should give everything to China. We aren't capable of running our own country anymore. China's Military is quickly growing to our level because they don't have private Military contractors.
That’s about 180 people’s lifetime tax that has been saved… I’m up for that! The thing is, if you’re not blasé about wasting small amounts, it will change public perception and lead to a change in wastage overall … so though the metric is low when you look at a single change, you have to also look at the accumulative Change that might be brought in through public consciousness and government accountability
Hopefully! The issue is just that big spending does almost certainly mean job loss and less money for states, so it’s possible that people are less likely to want to make the big changes that are needed. I truly hope you’re right though
Another fun one I like to tell people about is how they'll send jet and helos out to go shoot bullets and missiles at the ocean. Sometimes for training purposes, sometimes it's for "training purposes" aka spending more of the budget. And then we'll have maintenance meetings like, "Alright crew, I need to cut more MAF's (write up aircraft deficiencies like corrosion or lense cleaning), we haven't met our quota. And BREAK." If we're under quota for work orders it indicates to higher ups that we need less personnel.
This is exactly what I want DOGE to do. Pointless stuff that doesn’t affect people or fuck stuff up in the future because the decision wasn’t thought through
People were talking about getting rid of it when it was 1.5 cents to produce. I didn't even know it was up to 3 cents. Good move regardless, but it's not enough With regards to military discretionary spending: from what I've heard from someone close is that they have to spend it or else it gets cut in the next years budget. So instead of saving and possibly bringing it over to the next year, they spend it. He told me a story where his unit bought a bunch of pens for like $20+/piece Edit: WOAH HE BROUGHT THAT UP LOL
As a canadian i can say that the removal of our penny made everything more expensive. Your total bill rounds up usually to accomodate the price difference. Its not a good thing, its the direction of a cashless society. Where banks control all currency.
what are you on about ? Do you pay with cash in 2025 ? It's not rounded on card transactions only on physical ones and you can save 2 cents if its 0.02 it's rounded down. Prixes are more expensive because of inflation not the penny removal which hapened in 2012.
@jeanjacques9365 I'm talking about strictly when you pay with cash, you tend to lose a few cents per purchase. As most prices are usually above 5 cents for example, $9.95 is $10 plus tax. You just lost 5 cents not including taxes. It accumulates. Not everyone just uses plastic to pay for things. I'm also doubting Elon is doing this via volunteering, so no I'm sure any money you save. Goes directly in his pockets
@@DerekBoe-h1o no they are not what do you mean 9.95 stays 9.95, prices are usually .99 anyways so you could claim you lose 0.01 on cash transaction but i doubt most people have more than 1000 cash transaction a year so it's less than 10$ a year which is what you likely lose in loose cash falling out of pockets from having 1000 cash transactions a year.
@@jeanjacques9365 that's still a loss dude. Not everyone is a fucking millionaire. A loss of any amount is still a loss. $10 x 30 million people is more than $10
@@DerekBoe-h1o unless you got a family of 30 million then 10$ is just 10$ and that is assuming you do 3 transactions cash everyday. I am no millionaire and i am clenching pennies but i also don't pay things cash most of the time and in the event I do then the extra penny ends up in the next tip jar anyways. I buy groceries and fuel up once every 1-2 weeks so in my case that would be a whole 0.52$ to 1.04$ per year. Everything else is either automated payment : rent, insurances, internet or a non necessary purchase where 0.01 doesn't show up on the budget sheet.
Haha yea, Elon totally just waved right, haha. Bruh. The billionaire isn't gonna love you just cus you suck him off in the comments of a video he'll never see.
I think an interesting thing about how large the military budget is. Is that a lot of the money comes from companies that charge the military 3000% mark up prices for things like pens and soap dispensers
Probably The Dictionary of Modern War by Edward Luttwak. But only a guess as reviews claimed this book while it gives good and useful reference material/information, it's written more like an encyclopedia of information regarding war and war concepts/equipment.
One thing about the tanks, we are quickly learning about Ukraine that these supply chains can be fragile, difficult and very expensive to be reeatablished once closed. Its not just about what we need on a year to year but maintaining the technical experience required to produce a highly technically complex vehicle like a modern MBT. Obviously the congress people are jazzed to have the jobs in their state, but the strategic thinking is we need to maintain that capability. The bonus is our allies might get to buy some cool new tech that we have extra.
I friend of mine works in the German military and well they ran out of paper to print stuff. As there was no money assignes for paper, they had to buy a new printer and use the paper that came with it... The German military is chronically underfunded btw
3:48 I think that this statement is wildly overconfident. The idea that you could cut the US military budget by 70% "without even losing functionality" just sounds on its face absurd. Salaries + Operations and Maintenance alone account for around 60% of the budget (20% salaries, 40% maintenance and operations). The remaining 40% is made of procurement (purchasing of new equipment) and R&D. You don't give any substantive answer for how, just say "efficiency" and say that defence contractors are overcharging. How would you go about stopping this overcharging? What prevents overcharging by any company dealing with the government? Should the government do everything in house to stop this? Removing the political incentives and focusing purely on efficiency could no doubt bring the cost down, but again, not by 70%. That said, as a Canadian, pretty please reduce your defence budget by 70% this would definitely be a good idea thanks. Love the content but this feels a bit like elons claims of cutting the budget by $2 trillion.
He doesn't actually know what he's talking about. He lived on some military bases as a kid and seems to think he has some sort of deeper insight into the military budget. He also doesn't realize that while we do get overcharged, that level of profit invites a lot of competition for military contracts. That competition ultimately leads to us having greater access to more advanced technology. This is why the US military continues to be on the bleeding edge, while countries like Russia and China continue to deal with QA issues and continue to lie about what their military is capable of. He also seems to have bought into Elon's claims about the F-35, which were never actually based in fact.
had a trucker friend that spent most of his time trucking with an empty load just going up and down the country to spend the 20 mil extra the state had on its budget to not have it cut if they needed it the next year
That would be an increase in the deficit of 876 billion per year. Our current deficit is 1.83 trillion. There is no way the deficit is increasing that fast.
3:06 The US might have enough but we also need to fulfil orders to sell tanks to allies. Sales for tanks and equipment go as high as several billion dollars.
@@foggy_nights Often times those rounds are already set to expire, or its testing though I don't know everything. I did hear of fresh rounds being used but I'm sure it was testing.
Hey Big A, If you ever get into interviews or anything, Ryan McBeth has a lot of interesting insights on the costs of military. I think for example the million dollar wingnut needs a whole lot of extra processing to ensure it doesn't fall off when its used in an airplane.
They'd just use a shell company to bypass it. Say they want to charge the DOD 10,000 for a pencil. Their shell company will create the design and test the pencil. Then the main company can pay the shell company for research, licensing etc to the tune of 5000. Boom, they can charge the DOD 10,000 without violating your law.
Pretty spot-on about military overspending. However, I don’t entirely agree with the idea that drones are the most important focus right now. In the Russo-Ukrainian war, the majority of casualties have been caused by plain old artillery shells. The U.S. primarily uses drones for scouting and reconnaissance, which is a different mission set than what Ukraine is dealing with. We also don’t really need the cheap, disposable drones we’ve seen both sides using over there. For our recon missions, we rely on very advanced (and expensive) drones that can work in tandem with other attack systems. So, overall, U.S. drones are in a pretty solid place for their current mission set. - Random guy who works in industry.
Honestly we just need to make small drones that carry miniature nukes that are more volatile than a regular bomb but not as strong as fat man or little boy. Like the Davy Crockett portable nuclear missile platform. Basically Metal Gear but it flies and blows itself up on a target. With enough range it would become the most dangerous weapon ever, being able to blow up anyone with a small nuke no matter what kind of protection they have.
Doesn't the DOGE already exist in Government Accountability Office aka "the government watchdog"? Seems inefficient to have two of the same things. Lets just get rid of the Justice Department then. Laws are for poor people.
Imma be real, most my pennies end up in a garbage can😂 theyll sit on my night stand or in my cup holder for a couple weeks, and then when I clean I cant be bothered to save em. I almost never use cash anyway, and if I do theres no way Im taking the time to pull out exact change down to the penny.
4:25 This is 100% true. I remember listening to a podcast about a geotechnical engineer whose entire job was running a team of like 20 people to maintain and asset manage the land for THE MILTARIES GRAVEYARDS. A team of 20 people just for graveyards lmao. Imagine how many more are needed for present and relevant commitments.
1) atrioc is speaking from the topic of DOGE, he is not necessarily arguing that the US must always run a surplus. 2) the last thing we need right now is more inflation, which mmt is likely to cause. Theoretically, the government should run deficits in to create jobs and close a recessionary gap, but injecting money into the system *will* cause inflation.
From experience of losing a coin , I can say its worth it but the thing is. People launder and steal money from the small margins left "digitally" from the lost of smaller currency. They also raise prices. It won't help inflation which is the promise your government made.
I think those small margins are minor in comparison to the gain as most are now paying digitally and you still get the 1cent on it and people are in general using coins less and is the price raising instead of 4.95 it would be 4.99?
I'm active duty aircraft maintenance.
There are a few mirrors on my jet that are smaller than your hand and less complicated than the one mounted to your wall in the bathroom.
They each cost over 10k.
Thanks Lockheed (:
I know what you gotta do when you get out. Just start making the mirrors for $1000 each and you'll be rich.
You can buy that off me for 5k! just saying!
I'll do it for 4k
@@clankclankimatank Don't forget to bribe someone in congress
As a non American that invests in Lockheed Martin though...
THANKS Lockheed 😂
If the penny is gone I will have to spend more on my wishes at wells and fountains.
AND the penny machines at the zoos will be useless. This is where I draw the line Elon
Smelt it down, sell it for three...
Oh, right...
Have no fear the penny machines will still work here in canada you put 1$ in and it gives you the squished "penny"
Wish inflation is real
Most places I've been to use blank pennies that they bought themselves, and you don't even have to feed them in anymore
they will just stop production but there will still be pennies in circulation
She balanced on my budget till I deficit
i'm about to SURPLUS
going into depression
*till I defecate
I’m about to undergo INFLATION
Bouta have a RATE CUT FOR MY NUT
People were saying we should get rid of the penny when I was in elementary school.
What "people"? The Jay Oh Oh's? Brugh, that's races.
same, america land of the wasteful
Over here in the Netherlands we effectively stopped using the 1 and 2 eurocent coins back in 2004, only a few years after adopting the euro because it wasn't really worth it for it to exist anymore after implementing a rounding system for physical transactions. If you go to buy something with cash, the price of goods at checkout is rounded to the nearest 5 cent interval, 13,99 becomes 14 euros, 6,77 becomes 6,75 etc, so we just haven't used them for ages, even when they were still in circulation for some time after 2004.
I think it's almost inevitable that eventually other higher value coins are gonna follow suit, because the amount of cash transactions is so limited now, almost everyone has a debit/credit card or pays with their phone. The only place I still pay with cash is my barber and I can't even remember the last time I paid for something with any kind of coins.
Given the average age of Atrioc viewers I take it this was said during a zoom call.
I thought you meant "penny" as short for "penjamin", thus making a joke about vaping while in Elementary School. But nope, you are talking about literal pennies and I'm fucking brainrotted.
Awesome.
the penny cuts are worth about 2 F-35s LMAO
So you're saying I can get two more F35s?
2 F-35s? totally worth.
I want one of those (Aedish can have the other one)
Nice, two more
Worth it
Now if we cut 11 million more we can sign xqc to the government!
priorities lol
We should save up for Adin Ross instead
@@theaccountant5846shot me pls
cgp grey and john green called the penny useless a decade and a half ago.
elon is litterally just a redditor
Yeah, I was like "how weird, I wrote an essay for school on why we should get rid of the penny in like 2012" and since the government is so slow to do ANYTHING, of course it was an easy win for Elon
And the GAO put out recommendations to get rid of the penny since at least 30 years ago. Its literally nothing new.
I think this is the point of DOGE, not to make some genius saving but just to fix the dumb waste like that
rare Canada W, we already got rid of it in 2013
I remember seeing John Oliver talk about it in Last Week Tonight at one point as well. Main issue I recall about getting rid of the penny is the company that supplies the metal for the penny lobbies to keep them being made.
We spend 89 million dollars as a country in less than 15 minutes but this is a great help
Brugh, you sound like really, really poor yo.
@@jennyanydots2389 Jesse we need to cook yo
this guy sounds really really rich. lets listen to him
So what's the plan here. Listen or Ignore?
Chat, type 1 if you think we shoul
JOIN WITH ME MIDDLE CLASS TO DEFEAT THE RICH AND THE POOR
I've got a jar full of pennies that rises exponentially in value to collected. They just became collectors items.
Don’t let your kids near them!
When I was in year 3 me and my sister found a jar of one and two cent pieces, I live in Australia, and we took them to the school canteen for icy poles! Yum yum yum!
One of my Grandparents gave me a big bucket full of Pennies, they found it at an estate sale of some guy who believed he had rare ones but never sorted them. I guess they all become rare now
You can't make any more pennies so they are going to go the moon
Ya Canadian pennies are still worthless despite being discontinued for years, so I don’t think yours have any value
pre 82 pennies are 90% copper. even more valuable
The Government Accountability Office already exists. How is it more efficient to create an agency that's going to do the same thing instead of just having people listen to the GAO and make it better?
How can you expect anybody to care about it if it doesnt have a funny name
But it's not OUR department
I've been saying this lol. How is it more efficient to create a whole new entity when the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Budget and Management both exists. Maybe if you got rid of them and combined them but that's not what is happening
Although from my understanding "DOGE" is just an informal advisory group and they have zero actual funding as of right now
The GAO is run by the legislative branch, DOGE isn't. The legislative branch is absurdly inefficient and also the cause of almost all of our country's money problems in the first place.
@giant0mantis It doesnt matter since DOGE is also going to be funded by the government at some point. The GAO runs on $888 million per year while they saved $67.5 billion last year alone for the government, a net benefit of $76 per dollar they receive. Beyond that, they've been reporting to congress to either get rid of the penny or replace the metal used since at least 1996. Recently, they've reported the need to replace ALL coins with different metals due to rising costs. DOGE is recommeding something thats been recommended by an already existing efficiency department for 30 YEARS, and haven't even mentioned the other coins like the GAO has been.
Saving 89 million dollars by removing the penny is like taxing an additional 25 cents from each of the 330 million Americans. Small beans, but it’s going to be hyped up by DOGE because people have no sense of how big the US deficit actually is
I think it's stupid to act like it's a huge deal but 89 mil is 89 mil for basically doing nothing. If we can keep cutting useless stuff like this it could add up
@@coeburn9588 yeah it'll add up to a couple billion and won't address any of the actual issues with government inefficiencies, while convincing voters they fixed everything. great!
89 milliondollars is a new school or new firedepartment
@@coeburn9588 I mean sure, if they can find another 999 useless things like that to cut it would somewhat matter, but what are the chances that they'll be cutting 20 things worth 89 mil every single month for the rest of Trump's term?
@mrmcawesome9746 1000 things would literally half the us deficit. Just finding 2 a month would reduce the deficit by 5% which would be more then worth it's existence. There are also much bigger items to kill (daylight savings).
There is a lot of small things that could help a lot if they can be kicked through, and like them or hate them if there is one thing this administration is good at its going to be forcing things through. Take the small wins where they exist, alot of these things should have been done years ago.
i got a friend in the military and at the end of the month they just shoot a bunch of ammo at a range to spend money sometimes
Isn't it because if they don't their budgets will get cut
@@iiiiiic9823 yeah, Big A talks about that in the video and I was sharing an additional anecdote.
This is absolutely true. Entire companies with range days to magdump into berms, entire motor pools idling to burn fuel, planes flying in circles…
Not to mention the inefficiencies from having entire commands fully staffed out in ways that no longer need to exist. Supply? Armory? Quartermaster? Put bar codes or QR codes or tags onto the gear while it’s stateside, and you can run inventory with a couple scanners and an iPad. You don’t need a staff of junior enlisted guys doing handcounts and paper inventory logs for every conex inbound or outbound from the base.
@@dcgamer1027they should just ship that shit to Ukraine or something
@@John.VanSwearingenbut the hierarchy!! /j
Ok as a serving member of the us military. Personally costs are the least concern in dod spending in my opinion. The real costs come from the merging of dod contractors that supply parts and supplies. Raytheon. General dynamics etc. ive seen ridiculous prices (in the multiple thousands) for stuff that I could either buy or make from stuff from Home Depot for less than $5.00
Meant personnel costs
Yep! But the American people would have to actually read books or do some kind of due diligence to understand even a little defense economics so they just point at the big number and say “CUT IT! (in the progressive case)” or “GIVE THE PENTAGON 5 QUADRILLION MORE!! (in the conservative case)”
Who needs a reasonable procurement strategy anyway?
To be fair, I can imagine that an aircraft, for example, shouldn't have the same nuts and bolts that you put in your couch. It's subjected to enormous stresses and has to withstand them without bending, breaking, deforming, etc, because a simple failure under the loads an aircraft is put through can cascade (probably, idk). So I can imagine them needing to develop some tougher nuts and bolts and such that seem like the normal ones but aren't, Now, I dunno if this would reach multiple thousands per bolt or anything, but my guess is that it's reasonable for specialized parts to be more expensive.
@@Jade_Df The United States spends more than the NEXT 9 countries combined to their military. China barely spends a third of it on theirs. $916 BILLION dollars is being spent on which 39% is pure maintenance which, is what Atrioc said is overvalued immensely by contractors and that there are factories that need work every 2 years for new vehicles/planes that ALREADY FAR outperform any other military unit/vehicle/plane/product in the world. As an example; Russia when they invaded the Ukraine, had to use old World War 2 tanks not even a month after their 'current models' that were barely post Soviet Era 90's, because of Ukraine's defense. It took them years for their factories to make the new tanks they're using now and even those are still far below American superiority.
The only thing that people are seemingly forgetting is that the United States makes up for 15.8% of the NATO budget which, sounds like a lot but only comes down to 3.5 billion. Which is barely nothing compared to the $916 billion Defense budget.
The point is that even with a 10% Military cut by for example, having new vehicles/planes every 3/4 years instead of 2 years, it would allow for about $91 Billion to become available for the countries 33 trillion debt which is only 3%.
I mean, the Pentagon has consistently failed its audits. We don’t know how much money goes towards some of this stuff. I know some stuff is classified, but the amount of money unaccounted for that goes into the Pentagon and never comes back out to the light of day is staggering.
Most things are classified simply to be classified. Great system in theory though.
Most stuff is classified because the more information you provide the weaker your defence against espionage becomes. Which in a military confrontation with a "near peer competitor" is a great way to have them exploit your specific weaknesses
The military will never succeed an audit even if they do “on paper” often times they’ll disguise something super illegal as 10k for a lightbulb
@@louiewood7689the US Army chocolate brownie recipe was classified TOP SECRET 😂
Everything is classified because "nobody ever got fired for overclassifying a document"
@@louiewood7689 But in doing so, you are also weakening yourself by pouring way too much money into an 'Unknown hole'. That could've been used for strengthening your own economy.
@7:40 can confirm. We requested better comms gear and the CO bought a bunch of smart TVs instead. This was back when smart TVs were expensive and bleeding edge consumer tech. Smack dab in the middle of the war on terror.
Batman crumbling onto the floor now that his comically large penny is worthless thanks to Elon Musk.
It only went up in value as pennys can still be used just not in production anymore.
Atrioc should look into the private sector bloat. I read some articles back in when I was enlisted how organizations like Raytheon have deals with the DOD that they not only make money building the planes or equipment. The DOD pays for the parts, work hours, finished product, and any and all travel, per-diem, and research costs for the equipment. EVEN IF THE PRODUCT IS NOT SUCCESFULL. Many failed projects are literal money grabs intentionally knowing that the DOD will pay all of the costs and pay them a paycheck even if they don't deliver!! That's where the bloat really lies. Many of the future warfare and future weapons programs are literal scams!!!
Yup, I remember a video from back in the day on TH-cam of the '1 million rounds per minute gun' Very impressive, insane waste of bullets and money and never been used in actual combat to this day. Not sure if they had a contract with the US military or not but a waste regardless.
Job loss from cutting military budget would be fine. Because the country could afford actual social systems if the money wasnt wasted on military
True and the jobs lost would likely filter to the market, probably generating more revenue
no job should EVER be a sacred cow.
Unlikely. What you'd end up with is higher unemployment and lower wages for everyone because of the large influx of people who no longer have jobs.
Just because you cut that spending doesn't mean the current government will divert that surplus to social programs. If anything, they seem more inclined to use it to fund tax cuts (which helps you exactly none if you just got laid off and have no income).
Also, the huge labor surplus will end up depressing wages across the entire economy. Great for people who are already wealthy business-owners, probably bad for you.
Remember, this isn't just jobs in the defense sector per-se; it's also every sector those companies interact with: logistics, machining, heavy equipment and tools, contracting for everything from IT to building maintenance, food service, raw materials, etc.
A better way to get a similar effect is probably to raise corporate taxes, close tax loopholes, go after tax evaders, and tax wealth (investments, assets, cryptocurrency, etc.) more heavily. Offset the government spending (that mostly helps ordinary people in the long run) by putting the brakes on the growth of the private sector (which mostly helps people who are already wealthy). Edit: this would probably also force the private sector to use more of their resources on actually providing goods and services like they're supposed to, instead of doing stock buy-backs, over-paying their executives, spending money on lobbying politicians, gambling on risky corporate debt, etc.
@@walterkruse348 You should also consider that most soldiers when leaving the service end up with no benefits, next to no job skills, no money, and most likely severe trauma from all the crap they went through. Not forgetting the potential for life-altering injuries/diseases.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 98% of veterans experience homelessness as individuals, with 13% of the homeless population being veterans. So it's not like our government is paying our soldiers anything anyways. They may as well be 1800's coal-miners with how their lives are treated.
We need fewer social systems because they often reward those who know how to navigate them while penalizing those who don’t. For example, people living on assistance can often work the system effectively, while the working class frequently struggles. Instead of maintaining countless programs, jobs, and administrative costs, we could simplify things by providing every American with a direct payment, regardless of employment status. This approach would likely result in most of that money being spent, which would boost economic activity and generate more tax revenue through increased spending.
0:33 they been trying that for decades
In australia we stopped using pennys (or pence as we called it) decades ago. (Mid 1960s i think they were pulled out of circulation)
And today due to inflation the ammount of raw materials in a 5c coin is worth more then 5 cents (5 pennies/pence)
Yea and tbh it’s not a bad thing but it’ll just make coin collectors foam at the mouth lmfao
@@nathanblanck9566 well... they love hate it.
Scarcity breeds rarity
Imagine if 75% of the military budget went to infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, environment.... Sigh.
That would fix 90% of America’s problems but we would lose influence around the world.
Sadly we need to keep buying from techie arms dealers all the while putting all administrative resources into preventing veterans from getting any compensation for their services.
The real way to save money on the military is to audit this shit so an ikea desk isn’t worth 2k on the books and making it so that a pack of screws doesn’t end up costing as much as the average person’s annual salary
Edit: just finished the video and Big A mentioned it, thanks for the credit Glizz Meister
We spend more money on social security and Medicare than the military. But Trump is going to privatize both so your Medicare will cost more and provide less like private health insurance. Except you can't op out of making Healthcare bros richer.
Imagine if even 2% of the military budget went towards literally anything public goods related. That's 16 BILLION dollars.
A classic example of defense contractors overcharging for no reason:
There's a piece of networking equipment I was working on that used a serial to RJ-45 console cable to console into the device. General Dynamics, instead of using a normal console cable, used some random other pinout so the port isn't compatible with a normal console cable and provided a part number for the cable in case the one provided is lost or damaged. That cable costs $200. A normal console cable costs less than $10 and they could have easily made it compatible.
Well you see, scamming the government is very profitable for these businesses. That's it.
i have worked in IT and av for over 10 years now... i would love this comment has confused me for multiple reason. would love a private message chat.
serial to "rj-45" isnt used pretty much at all anymore as any cat 6 cable type a or not can transmit and receive. which is a limitation for serial commands.
my main concern is your comment reads like your in or apart of defense for the government. using that old of equipment is much more of a worry then the cable i imagine you use once in a blue moon to either reprogram the device.
Big A idk if you care but i feel this example is either wrong or not fully understood
this isnt an attack im just curious and i do this for a living so i finally have a use in the comment section haha
canada did this like 15 years ago yall are behind
13 years ago, 2012 was the last year and i am totally not a coin collecting nerd that remembers the date because of that.
Australia did it 35 years ago
yeah but it wasn’t until like6-7 years ago that companies stopped actually accepting them as valid payment
@@dogwort no they cannot refuse it still... it's valid money the same as a bill from 1954 it still has it's original value and worse case if the business doesn't trust the integrity of the payment just go to a bank with your coins...
Bruh I remember hearing in elementary school we might stop making pennies. Now we're actually doing it? 20 years later? Well it's better late than never.
MIGHT be actually doing it. we will see, hopefully we will, shit is a massive waste at the moment
Canada did it a long time ago... all of a sudden you stopped finding pennies on the ground... so sad 😞 but also a good sign that people didn't car about them because if dropped they literally wouldn't be picked up haha
My president is not Donald trump, actually I am from India
I thought I smelled curry powder
@@jennyanydots2389Curry in powdered form is a white people thing
I thought I smelled unoriginal race jokes
@ That's a real shifty thing to say brugh. Funny since India is one of the most racist countries on the planet, look into how Indians treat Muslims in their country. It's pretty vile. And they aren't joking unlike myself... they are very, very serious with their racism.
@ So, which call scam center are you currently working out of?
When I was in the Marines our unit would get in trouble if we didn’t use our ammo allotment on ranges, field exercises, etc because we would receive less money/supplies next year if we underused the budget. So at the end of the year we would check out all the ammo, reserve a range, and at the end of the day throw all the leftover rounds into the woods. We did this for years until a tracer round started a brush fire and all of the live rounds started cooking off in the tree line, only then did someone higher up decide it wasn’t a smart practice
Why didn't they just set the weapons to burst/or load the SAW's and just burn out the rounds that way? That's what my unit did when we did yearly qualifications at the ranges.
elongated muskrat strikes again
Welcome to Canada in 2012
It'd be an idea if unspent budget was put into the equivalent of a piggy bank, where it would accrue interest and only those who the budget was assigned to can withdraw it. That would leave room for infrequent, large scale investments while also reducing waste at all levels, including the administration. The same way that accountants look at yearly expenses and set budgets accordingly you could let those set budgets run for 5 years and just do annual checks and reassess at the 5 year mark whether budgets should be reduced.
The "we don't need more tanks" thing: yes, the military does not need any more M1 Abrams tanks. Yes, it benefits the politicians whose districts and states the factories are in, and that's why they want to keep them open. However, there actually is an important defense industrial reason to keep them open and operating despite the aparent inefficiency of making useless tanks. Tank production is not something you can just shut down and then restart when you need it later. It takes years to restart scale production of complex military hardware like modern tanks. There's also the invaluable loss of the skilled workforce that would occur if we shut down our tank factories, a labor force that could not be easily replaced. And while we don't need new Abrams, we will eventually start replacing Abrams with a new generation of main battle tank. It would be extremely unwise to wait until that day and then spend years we may not have to just restart the factory lines before we can even begin replacing Abrams. If the Russo-Ukrainian war has proven anything, it's that sudden crises and dramatic shifts in technology do happen, sometimes without warning, and the defense industrial base needs to be there to respond to it. It's effectively a defense industrial insurance policy: when you don't need it, you're just spending money. But you're spending that money for the if and when you really need it.
This is 100% true and is the real reason
Unfortunately it's pointless because we have nuclear weapons and if we weren't afraid to use them we wouldn't need to spend a single extra dollar on the military
Big A finally increased the thickness of the MS paintbrush so we can actually see what he's scratching on there thanks big dawg
8:26 this is sooo funny because it’s the zoomer version of the episode “Surplus” from The Office LOL
You wont believe what happens next
@@prod2k_ Joe Smith is a man of great forsight.
Fun Fact: Calvin Li calculated the penny from the idiom "a penny for your thought" would be worth $5 by now because of inflation.
We could just ban coins altogether and we would still have lower denominations than back then.
What's hilarious about budgets in the military is that colleges have EXACT same system in their spendings. I remember student groups making tshirts and ordering food from the budget due to the fact that if they didn't spend the maximum amount, they would receive less the next semester.
Idk if it's possible to come with better incentives so that everyone is motivated to use less
@@DemsWits not about rewarding smaller spending, its about not punishing it.
@@sky3_ow Any private or government body will try to get the money for themselves because it means more power to do what you want. (This is the reason why they care so much about preserving their budgets).
So there is an existing incentive to have/spend as much as possible even if they arn't "incentivized" to do so.
my sister says this exact thing. She works for stracom for a like 4 star general. She complains our military spending would plummet if we made everything in house at the military, and if we just used the things we already had. We have billions+ dollars of equipment sitting in warehouses unused because they “only have 10 year lifespan left”. They are spending a huge amount of money to develop a replacement which fails and they have to find a different contractor to do it. She says it would be better just to use them for that ten years and deal with it when we actually need to instead of being weaken in the present to try and replace it.
if the penny were to be discontinued wouldn’t that imply allowing people to smelt them?
they would still be in circulation and people would value them as collectors items so the price would be above the price of the metal.
@@boy123istacken Yeah probably, I was just thinking to when the U.S. discontinued silver coins and later allowed people to legally smelt them
I will never understand why there isn’t an understanding between both the military and federal government that whatever isn’t spent in the military can be given to other funds but the military can still retain their budget with the understanding they have a budget that is heavily determined on what happens within any given year.
I work for my local government our financial year ends in October my specific department is general services ( AC repair light bulb changing that stuff ) we had over 150k left in the budget on August so the department bought 3 new trucks everyone got brand new uniforms new shoes and a raise so I can confirm everything atrioc said is 100% true
I worked a few times with the military filming projects on base. They pay TONS of money for being there. My boss at the time was told "take what ever rate you would normally charge for this and triple it." And this way it both means the company got paid tons of money from a powerful client, but it was also leverage to not make mistakes. Its expensive stuff they do, and the last thing their scientists and analysts need is the cameras to not work the moment they need everything for documentation and study.
The multitude tightens its hold.
The odyssey had a purpose...
One day… my arm had changed…
Gallop on Rocinante! Justice will prevail!
Let's visit the world of wonders.
I have concieved an idea most ingenious!
The US military is actually just the high school gym teacher unchecked
Real Talk: I agree with doing this anyway, even though, no, it will not make a dent in the deficit.
You could get rid of nickels too. Fun Fact: we used to have a haypenny (1/2 cent piece), and when we got rid of that coin it had MORE buying power than nickels do right now.
Edit: ...or was that pennies that had less buying power than haypennies? I'm going off of a Vlogbrothers video from, like, 10 years ago. We've had a lot of inflation since then, so it might also be true for nickels now.
Regardless, I can count the number of times I've used coins to pay for anything in the last two years on one hand, so don't think I'm going to be that bothered regardless.
As far as the tanks thing goes. If you don't have skilled workers who know how to make tanks, you cannot streamline a ramped up increase in tank production later when you REALLY need new tanks.
Instead of on the job training with people who've been making tanks and tank parts for the last decade, you'd need to find a tank manufacturing expert to teach a bunch of new hires over the course of a couple month's, off of a production line, then have them learn on the job with at least the fundamentals taught.
I am currently seeing this happen in the semiconductor industry, where we simply don't have enough people to both train the new people AND get the work done. So we have instructors teach the new people over a few months how to do the work, THEN they come into the lab to learn how to actually do the job.
So there is at least some good reasons you'd want to make new tanks, even if they go mostly or entirely unused. You can then sell those tanks to allied nations, maintaining dominant military power across the globe by simply being the one who makes all the weapons.
And don't forget "use it or lose it" cause that's where a lot of the budget goes too.
4:15 so basically it cost us nothing to send stuff to Ukraine because the military has so much of a surplus.
correct!
DOGE is a fundamentally flawed idea because it is based on Javier Milei's ministry of deregulation.
The reason why his Ministry of Deregulation works is because the president is 110% ideologically motivated and extremely committed to balance the budget, and so, he supports the decisions of the ministry with the full weight of the executive branch. He genuinely doesn't about the political costs, the fact that governors/senators might be get pissed at him if he cuts something important to them, etc.
DOGE on the other hand seems like an excuse to change very little while still being able to say "hey, we did something about it..."
DOGE is also flawed because Trump said he will not do cuts to the military, which is by far the most bloated of US departments, something Milei is not afraid to do
Something most people don't bring up when the penny argument comes up, is what the penny is actually useful for. Just one example is with wholesalers, which typically sell huge quantities of goods. For cheap goods, lots of manufacturers will set pricing based around the lowest denomination in a market, or 1c per.
Take the penny away, and all of a sudden, these goods would become up to 5x more expensive, since the nickel is 5c & next smallest coin. So whether it be hardware like metal washers used for bolted assemblies, sequins for dresses, candy pieces, whatever, it all needs to be assigned a price by the manufacturers/wholesalers. And all this stuff, in every manufacturing industry, will go up in price. And this increase will directly be passed off to consumers.
To me, the 25c it costs each individual American to keep pennies in circulation seems like a low price to pay rather than deal with a widespread increase in prices. Also, nickels cost 12 cents to make btw.
It's all around how a business handles it. Just because we stop producing a coin doesn't make it nul and void. It still spends. The type of sale you are describing would never change. It's rare for bulk sales to be handled in cash. Bank accounts will still calculate for a penny. Business will still charge you a penny. The only situation this changes is paying in cash. Business will no longer be required to have a penny for change. Nothing else actually needs to change. 84cents will still be a chargeable amount on card. If you don't have exact change expect 15cents back instead of 16. This really isn't that deep. Only people like me who actually pay for stuff in cash will foot the increasing prices.
Dude, you 100% hit the head on the military. There needs to be a mass media campaign that goes against the industrial military complex but we might never see that
I mean, we should give everything to China. We aren't capable of running our own country anymore. China's Military is quickly growing to our level because they don't have private Military contractors.
US can't manufacture enough military hardware to even defend Ukraine. Not enough ammunition, not enough drones, not enough artillery shells.
people have been saying "get rid of the penny" for decades. It's like this dude is literally taking is plans from grandma's facebook posts.
Thank you for the stock stream you guys made me get back into investing :D
WWII, there was a point in France where they would drop their unused bombs because they were required to not have any on the return trip
That’s about 180 people’s lifetime tax that has been saved… I’m up for that!
The thing is, if you’re not blasé about wasting small amounts, it will change public perception and lead to a change in wastage overall … so though the metric is low when you look at a single change, you have to also look at the accumulative Change that might be brought in through public consciousness and government accountability
Hopefully! The issue is just that big spending does almost certainly mean job loss and less money for states, so it’s possible that people are less likely to want to make the big changes that are needed. I truly hope you’re right though
How will it reduce wastage overall? They've cut social programs by this much before and that didn't inspire anything
This was advocated for 30 freaking years.
Another fun one I like to tell people about is how they'll send jet and helos out to go shoot bullets and missiles at the ocean. Sometimes for training purposes, sometimes it's for "training purposes" aka spending more of the budget. And then we'll have maintenance meetings like, "Alright crew, I need to cut more MAF's (write up aircraft deficiencies like corrosion or lense cleaning), we haven't met our quota. And BREAK." If we're under quota for work orders it indicates to higher ups that we need less personnel.
John Green did it first... 14 years ago
I watched the whole video, and let me just say, great opinion. And the part at 5:50? amazing.
I read the whole comment, and let me say, great opinion. And the part in the second sentence ? amazing.
He looks and has the energy of fantastic four era Chris Evans
This is exactly what I want DOGE to do. Pointless stuff that doesn’t affect people or fuck stuff up in the future because the decision wasn’t thought through
My stepmom worked in the military for 20 years. When they had extra money they would buy just a shit ton of sun glasses, sometimes Ray-Bans
People were talking about getting rid of it when it was 1.5 cents to produce. I didn't even know it was up to 3 cents. Good move regardless, but it's not enough
With regards to military discretionary spending: from what I've heard from someone close is that they have to spend it or else it gets cut in the next years budget. So instead of saving and possibly bringing it over to the next year, they spend it. He told me a story where his unit bought a bunch of pens for like $20+/piece
Edit: WOAH HE BROUGHT THAT UP LOL
Would love to see military budget just be efficient cost wise
BIg A editor very fast. good job aedish
my god... please keep going with this series
As a canadian i can say that the removal of our penny made everything more expensive. Your total bill rounds up usually to accomodate the price difference.
Its not a good thing, its the direction of a cashless society. Where banks control all currency.
what are you on about ? Do you pay with cash in 2025 ? It's not rounded on card transactions only on physical ones and you can save 2 cents if its 0.02 it's rounded down. Prixes are more expensive because of inflation not the penny removal which hapened in 2012.
@jeanjacques9365 I'm talking about strictly when you pay with cash, you tend to lose a few cents per purchase. As most prices are usually above 5 cents for example, $9.95 is $10 plus tax. You just lost 5 cents not including taxes. It accumulates. Not everyone just uses plastic to pay for things.
I'm also doubting Elon is doing this via volunteering, so no I'm sure any money you save. Goes directly in his pockets
@@DerekBoe-h1o no they are not what do you mean 9.95 stays 9.95, prices are usually .99 anyways so you could claim you lose 0.01 on cash transaction but i doubt most people have more than 1000 cash transaction a year so it's less than 10$ a year which is what you likely lose in loose cash falling out of pockets from having 1000 cash transactions a year.
@@jeanjacques9365 that's still a loss dude. Not everyone is a fucking millionaire. A loss of any amount is still a loss. $10 x 30 million people is more than $10
@@DerekBoe-h1o unless you got a family of 30 million then 10$ is just 10$ and that is assuming you do 3 transactions cash everyday. I am no millionaire and i am clenching pennies but i also don't pay things cash most of the time and in the event I do then the extra penny ends up in the next tip jar anyways. I buy groceries and fuel up once every 1-2 weeks so in my case that would be a whole 0.52$ to 1.04$ per year. Everything else is either automated payment : rent, insurances, internet or a non necessary purchase where 0.01 doesn't show up on the budget sheet.
I was thinking about that office clip instantly when people asked for it to be explained lol.
0:08 careful there Big A, dont want anyone getting the wrong idea
Haha yea, Elon totally just waved right, haha.
Bruh. The billionaire isn't gonna love you just cus you suck him off in the comments of a video he'll never see.
+2
+2
Lol that's great
I think an interesting thing about how large the military budget is. Is that a lot of the money comes from companies that charge the military 3000% mark up prices for things like pens and soap dispensers
What if I balanced the budget first
What's your game plan
Excellent idea. I suggest we start off by creating a glizzy ration. It can only go up from here.
3:20 those tanks will be pretty useful when the current ones get destroyed
i didnt know the us still has pennies
From my engineering experience, working in defence is like an infinite money glitch for spending…
What is the book 'Modern War' cant find it on google 6:23
Also looking, did you find it?
Probably The Dictionary of Modern War by Edward Luttwak. But only a guess as reviews claimed this book while it gives good and useful reference material/information, it's written more like an encyclopedia of information regarding war and war concepts/equipment.
It's the little things that add up. Inefficiencies here, lost funds there, govt contracts that pay cost plus. Little by little it can help
*Knock knock knock* Penny *Knock knock knock* Penny
Penny: ☠️
Elon killed Sheldons neighbour 😢
*laugh track*
Shocked it took this long and that it was actually fixed
The US military, on average, spends that 89 million dollars every 57 minutes. So it's... uhhh... not significant.
One thing about the tanks, we are quickly learning about Ukraine that these supply chains can be fragile, difficult and very expensive to be reeatablished once closed. Its not just about what we need on a year to year but maintaining the technical experience required to produce a highly technically complex vehicle like a modern MBT. Obviously the congress people are jazzed to have the jobs in their state, but the strategic thinking is we need to maintain that capability. The bonus is our allies might get to buy some cool new tech that we have extra.
if we have extra M1 Abrahams they should be shipping them straight to Ukraine
I friend of mine works in the German military and well they ran out of paper to print stuff. As there was no money assignes for paper, they had to buy a new printer and use the paper that came with it...
The German military is chronically underfunded btw
Consider my wallet filled
My pants are filled but it's not because of my wallet.
I lived nearby a Navy Air Base, and I remember hearing so many jets and planes in October. It was crazy
3:48 I think that this statement is wildly overconfident. The idea that you could cut the US military budget by 70% "without even losing functionality" just sounds on its face absurd. Salaries + Operations and Maintenance alone account for around 60% of the budget (20% salaries, 40% maintenance and operations).
The remaining 40% is made of procurement (purchasing of new equipment) and R&D.
You don't give any substantive answer for how, just say "efficiency" and say that defence contractors are overcharging. How would you go about stopping this overcharging? What prevents overcharging by any company dealing with the government? Should the government do everything in house to stop this?
Removing the political incentives and focusing purely on efficiency could no doubt bring the cost down, but again, not by 70%.
That said, as a Canadian, pretty please reduce your defence budget by 70% this would definitely be a good idea thanks.
Love the content but this feels a bit like elons claims of cutting the budget by $2 trillion.
He doesn't actually know what he's talking about. He lived on some military bases as a kid and seems to think he has some sort of deeper insight into the military budget. He also doesn't realize that while we do get overcharged, that level of profit invites a lot of competition for military contracts. That competition ultimately leads to us having greater access to more advanced technology. This is why the US military continues to be on the bleeding edge, while countries like Russia and China continue to deal with QA issues and continue to lie about what their military is capable of. He also seems to have bought into Elon's claims about the F-35, which were never actually based in fact.
had a trucker friend that spent most of his time trucking with an empty load just going up and down the country to spend the 20 mil extra the state had on its budget to not have it cut if they needed it the next year
gotta axe the dollar bill as well, we replace them every third year or so and coins last 30 years
Due to inflation, strippers make less money every year. By removing the dollar the average stripper would get a huge raise.
Just food for thought.
Boggles my mind why they don't use dollar coins in America
yea the smallest note needed is a 5$ and 1$ can be coins with 2$.
We did for a little bit and it failed because of a loophole@CoryPchajek
@boy123istacken nah that's what the Euros do, I'll riot if the $2 bill goes
"maybe the military should get at making the things?" Welcome comrade!
the u.s. deficit increases by over 100 mil per hour, so we basically got rid of 4/5ths of an hour
That would be an increase in the deficit of 876 billion per year. Our current deficit is 1.83 trillion. There is no way the deficit is increasing that fast.
Did you mean u.s. debt and not deficit?
They should send me 80m I'll use it very well
"no dimes bc they're all at my house..."
- ædish
3:06 The US might have enough but we also need to fulfil orders to sell tanks to allies. Sales for tanks and equipment go as high as several billion dollars.
But also they fire off thousands of rounds into the dirt a year just to cycle the budget. It's still wasteful
@@foggy_nights Often times those rounds are already set to expire, or its testing though I don't know everything. I did hear of fresh rounds being used but I'm sure it was testing.
9:01 I deliver packages to military bases and I know exactly when they have to do this crazy spending because my workload goes up like 10x
4:42 But how else am I to subsidize my secret underground research, development, testing, and manufacturing complex :(
Hey Big A, If you ever get into interviews or anything, Ryan McBeth has a lot of interesting insights on the costs of military. I think for example the million dollar wingnut needs a whole lot of extra processing to ensure it doesn't fall off when its used in an airplane.
4:44 we should just make a law that forces the company’s to no overcharge as much(like max 100% profit margin) and that should cut the spending down.
They'd just use a shell company to bypass it.
Say they want to charge the DOD 10,000 for a pencil.
Their shell company will create the design and test the pencil. Then the main company can pay the shell company for research, licensing etc to the tune of 5000.
Boom, they can charge the DOD 10,000 without violating your law.
Pretty spot-on about military overspending. However, I don’t entirely agree with the idea that drones are the most important focus right now. In the Russo-Ukrainian war, the majority of casualties have been caused by plain old artillery shells. The U.S. primarily uses drones for scouting and reconnaissance, which is a different mission set than what Ukraine is dealing with. We also don’t really need the cheap, disposable drones we’ve seen both sides using over there. For our recon missions, we rely on very advanced (and expensive) drones that can work in tandem with other attack systems. So, overall, U.S. drones are in a pretty solid place for their current mission set. - Random guy who works in industry.
Honestly we just need to make small drones that carry miniature nukes that are more volatile than a regular bomb but not as strong as fat man or little boy. Like the Davy Crockett portable nuclear missile platform. Basically Metal Gear but it flies and blows itself up on a target. With enough range it would become the most dangerous weapon ever, being able to blow up anyone with a small nuke no matter what kind of protection they have.
Doesn't the DOGE already exist in Government Accountability Office aka "the government watchdog"? Seems inefficient to have two of the same things. Lets just get rid of the Justice Department then. Laws are for poor people.
It is a trivial saving, but it is still a sensible thing to do. I remember there was a CGP Grey video about it a few years back
Imma be real, most my pennies end up in a garbage can😂 theyll sit on my night stand or in my cup holder for a couple weeks, and then when I clean I cant be bothered to save em. I almost never use cash anyway, and if I do theres no way Im taking the time to pull out exact change down to the penny.
CGP Grey has a great video on pennies
4:25 This is 100% true. I remember listening to a podcast about a geotechnical engineer whose entire job was running a team of like 20 people to maintain and asset manage the land for THE MILTARIES GRAVEYARDS. A team of 20 people just for graveyards lmao. Imagine how many more are needed for present and relevant commitments.
7:10 elon musk mentioned
doge quite literally cutting pennies of the dollar
Atrioc has a fundamental misunderstanding of the national debt. This comment will probably just go into the void, but please read The Deficit Myth
Explain further?
Explain
Mmt is a niche theory. It is understandable to default to the consensus around fiscal policy (year on year defecits are bad) if you are a layman.
Read the cato rebuttal. MMT leads to high inflation.
1) atrioc is speaking from the topic of DOGE, he is not necessarily arguing that the US must always run a surplus. 2) the last thing we need right now is more inflation, which mmt is likely to cause. Theoretically, the government should run deficits in to create jobs and close a recessionary gap, but injecting money into the system *will* cause inflation.
now prices will be in increments of 5 cents
From experience of losing a coin , I can say its worth it but the thing is. People launder and steal money from the small margins left "digitally" from the lost of smaller currency.
They also raise prices. It won't help inflation which is the promise your government made.
I think those small margins are minor in comparison to the gain as most are now paying digitally and you still get the 1cent on it and people are in general using coins less and is the price raising instead of 4.95 it would be 4.99?