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Speaker 1: You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you

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get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else to

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thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival

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Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot

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com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival

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Network now more than ever.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Carrie, this is Robert Ian with conker Change dot com.

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This past week, on March twenty seventh, there was an

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interview with Elon Musk and about a dozen CEOs who

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participate on the DOGE team. Rettbear on Fox News spent

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about forty minutes trying to frame the larger picture of

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what DOGE is attempting to accomplish. There were many examples

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cited regarding systemic inefficiencies, redundancies from computer systems that are

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very old, many of which do not communicate with each other,

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and outright fraud. The stated goal of DOGE is to

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reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars, essentially cutting it

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in half, and by extension, cutting federal spending from seven

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trillion to six trillion dollars annually, and all of this

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supposedly without affecting critical government services. One of the CEOs

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on the panel said that the criticisms he's hearing about

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DOGE are not lining up with their experience on the ground,

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and that those criticisms tend to be more generalized, to

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which their response has been which line item of the

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cost savings do you disagree with? The messaging was well

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presented and I believe will resonate in particular with younger

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and more technologically aware segments of the population. However, there

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were some rather large unanswered questions that remained throughout the interview,

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and I was actually quite surprised that Bret Bair didn't

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ask more aggressive follow on questions that would dig deeper

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into the ramifications and consequences of what DOGE is certifying

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that they have found. In our discussion today, I'll focus

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on several of those key follow on questions that Fox

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News failed to ask. First, several key findings were presented

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that formed the outline of the interview. The centerpiece of

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the project revolves around the idea that DOGE is applying

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public company standards to the federal government. The CEOs emphasized

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that departments of the US government would not be able

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to pass a financial audit like the audits that public

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companies are required to pass on a regular basis. One

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example cited was the NIH that has twenty seven different

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centers with twenty seven different chief information officers utilizing seven

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hundred different IT systems that apparently can't communicate with one another.

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They indicated that forty percent of the phone calls received

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by Social Security are from fraudsters who regularly attempt to

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convince Social Security representatives to change people's direct deposit information

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over the phone. In the efficiency realm, there's a cap

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on the number of federal employees who can retire each month,

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which is around eight thousand people. The system that houses

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retirement records is paper based and uses filing cabinets, which

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creates a processing bottleneck for the retirement process. An area

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of much concerned discussion and debate is within Social Security.

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It was stated there are over fifteen million people over

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the age of one hundred and twenty who are marked

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as alive in the Social Security system. This has apparently

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been known since two thousand and eight. Several days after

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the interview aired, the DOGE website indicated there were approximately

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twelve million recipients marked is alive over the age of

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one hundred twenty nine point nine million of them were

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now marked as deceased, with another two million to go,

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making the actual number about twelve million instead of the

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previously stated fifteen million. People reading through the doge website

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at doge dot gov will show a long list of

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various contracts being canceled by the auditors. Reminded me of

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Senator William Proxmier from Wisconsin, who started the Golden Fleece

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Awards during his tenure as a US Senator. Back in

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his day, the Golden Fleece Award was considered a sapirical

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award given to frivolous research conducted with government grants. I

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grew up in Wisconsin and was very familiar with this

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branding and marketing stunt used by Proxmire, which resulted in

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giggles and winks from the media and voters alike. However,

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there are no giggles and winks with the activities of doge.

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In some places, there is outright hostility. It's a sad observation,

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but in my opinion, most people will not visit the

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doge website to read and analyze what is being posted. Sadly,

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as with most things, including political items. People tend to

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receive their education in sound bites from the media rather

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than reading the legislation, reports and websites and ultimately making

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their own choices based on the facts they themselves have read.

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And when we do listen to people like Elon Musk

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and the CEOs who are the new face of DOGE,

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we have to listen carefully and not only to what

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is said, but what isn't said as well. In the

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Brettbear interview, there was no follow on questioning or scrutiny

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to an open ended implication that seemed to be left

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hanging for the viewer to infer the answer. The inference

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I'm referring to is the fifteen million people cited as

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alive who were listed as over one hundred twenty years old, which,

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as we now know from the DOZE website, is closer

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to twelve million people listed as over one hundred twenty.

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What was never openly discussed or followed up on is

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if those twelve million people were actually receiving monthly Social

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Security checks or direct deposits. That's actually a really big

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deal because if we assume an average two thousand dollars

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a month's Social Security benefit, times twelve months a year.

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That's twenty four thousand dollars per year per person. If

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we multiply twenty four thousand dollars by twelve million people, well,

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I had to turn my calculator on its side to

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get it to do the calculation. It comes out to

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two hundred and forty billion dollars a year. That's one

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fourth of the money Doze is attempting to save. No

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discussion was made, and sadly, Brett Baer never asked the

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question were those dollars actually being paid out or were

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those people simply marked as alive? And if those dollars

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were being paid out each month each year, social Security

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already has the direct deposit information of the recipients or

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the address of record to where the checks were mailed,

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so they already know who if anyone committed that fraud.

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Where is the discussion from Musk and the various CEOs

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on this critical point of analysis. It's one thing to

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say twelve million people were marked as alive who weren't

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and we've corrected that in the system. It's entirely another

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thing to say or imply that up to two hundred

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and forty billion dollars a year was going to those

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people marked as alive in the system. And if that's

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the case, what will be the consequences for those people

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that committed that fraud. Despite all of the ludicrous Golden

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Fleece Awards style examples now being cited by Doge, there

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are major questions that really need to be unpackaged simply

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and succinctly, namely, who committed the fraud, how much was

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it and what's going to happen to them? Now let's

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get a bit more specific, shall we? And until next time,

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This is Robert Ian with conquer Change dot com. Thanks Carrie,

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thanks for listening to carry Letz's Financial Survival Network, your

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solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to

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Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network

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Speaker 1: Now more than ever,