For FuX Sake...

I think my referencing the dystopias of Kafka, Orwell and Ogawa in yesterday's post was perhaps a little too close for comfort to actuality in the light of the ongoing attempt at the closing down of USAID currently underway by Musk's team of youthful forensic software stormtroopers in his DOGE. The USAID website went offline over the weekend, its X profile deleted, and 600 email accounts locked from their users, many of whom were told not to bother coming in to work the following day [sources: Wired magazine and The Economist]. This is all borderline legal/illegal, with Congress supposedly holding the whip hand, but Musk and his DOGE, with full support of the President, have steamed in ahead of their sanction, with Musk saying '...it's time for it to die...'. As to the widespread summary dismissals, redundancies and sackings, no heed seems to have been paid to existing employment protection law, despite the protestations of those in the know. Musk's apparent, stated goal is to remove over two million federal employees and reduce discretionary government spending by $1trn: over half the current budget. Meanwhile China have snapped back with their own threat of sanctions on the US, upping the ante by half to 15%. The markets are getting twitchy and at the same time, the UK government has vowed to stay out of anything to do with US sanctions on the EU. This is rapidly turning into just the kind of shit-show that we've become wearingly used to in the last decade-and-a-half of political black comedy. It will only get far, far worse before anything remotely resembling common sense emerges from the chaos, though...