This article is part of Macro Hive’s 2025 Grey Swan series, where we let our imaginations loose to try and predict low-probability, high-impact events that almost no one expects. You can read the full list here.
DOGE Steps Up a Gear
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cannot be faulted for not trying hard enough. CEOs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy picked la crème de la crème of the US elite. Only Ivy league graduates with perfect SAT scores and GPA need apply. Musk made the descriptions of the ideal candidate clear – super high IQ, willing to work 80-hour plus weeks, and of the job – tedious work, make lots of enemies and zero compensation.
Many hopeful young men, and a few young women, threw their hats into the ring. Musk and Ramaswamy picked only the best of the best.
Our ardent defenders of the public purse worked tirelessly for weeks. They put in longer hours than investment banking first-year associates. They put themselves through more grueling challenges than the Navy SEAL BUD course. They held themselves up against the highest standards the US civil service had ever seen.
All the hard work paid off. DOGE came up with extremely powerful (if not all new) ideas. Eliminate earmarks. End corporate welfare, cut military spending in half (who needs 800 bases around the world anyway), cut Medicare reimbursements 30%, end farm subsidies, and get SNAP recipients to grow their own urban gardens.
But then a mysterious phenomenon happened. Musk and Ramaswamy held weekly meetings with senior Congressional Republicans to inform them about their progress. They entered the meetings brimming with enthusiasm, walking at the hard pace of the CEOs who had already conquered the world once, almost charging.
The meetings took place behind closed doors, in a secure room. They lasted for hours, with participants requested to leave their phones and other electronic devices behind and go through metal detectors.
Musk and Ramaswamy invariably left the meetings at a much slower pace than they had entered them, lost in their thoughts, gazing at a lost horizon. It was as if the meeting room discharged their inner energies. Staffers who queried them afterwards on the outcomes of the meeting would only get vague answers if at all. DOGE ignored all queries and requests for comments.
The process went on for weeks. Meanwhile, budget preparations made brisk progress, with House and Senate Republicans creating a reconciliation package in record time. President Donald Trump triumphantly announced the new budget – within 100 days, another kept promise.
Ultimately, the contrast with the budget success was too great. DOGE could no longer behave like a besieged moat. It had to formulate its own revolutionary proposal – end the trade war with China!
DOGE argued tariffs were bad for growth and consumer incomes. They lead to higher prices for consumers, reduce overall trade volume, discourage investment, and can trigger retaliatory tariffs from other countries, harming domestic businesses and limiting market access, thereby hindering economic expansion.
The DOGE report goes on for much longer, but you get the gist.
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