The concern there is that his personality will play too big a role in the policies he tries to enact, such as being vindictive, seeking retribution for personal delights etc. Most of that will be internal to the US, sure, but his brash narcissism may lead him to foreign policy that only serves to embolden those we'd rather it didn't. Not to mention worsen climate action.
Yes, it could not work out well and it could work out well. This is going to be the case with anyone or anything. Harris doesn't have any experience with these issues. He has at least been President before. The world didn't end last time either.
Of course Europe will pick up what slack it can in that regard, but it's not just about supplying arms. First Trump is oblivious, deliberately or otherwise, that Europe currently provides more support to Ukraine than the US. And it's right that we should.
Second, if US reduces its support that will embolden Russia. And likely China as well wrt Taiwan.
Thirdly, his "I'll sort it out in a day" rhetoric likely involves him and Putin agreeing a settlement, and trying to force Ukraine to accept it. Which will embolden Russia etc. Bear in mind that the next country after Ukraine would be a NATO member. Maybe Trump wants to pull the US out of NATO. It would also embolden China that the US would not intervene as and when it goes for Taiwan.
Much of this is just how negotiation works. If he isn't firm, others may be emboldened. If he is, it may work out well. People worked with Reagan because they didn't know what he would do. Things worked out well with the collapse of the USSR and the reunification of Germany. Nixon was a "strongman" and China negotiated and opened up with him. Biden just draws out the status quo. He is doing that with Israel. He has done that with other situations with a lot of restrictions on our soldiers (special forces) and it gets a lot of them killed because it's more of a political decision than a military one.
With regard Musk being head of an efficiency drive, he at least has some experience in that... he took a large well-used profitable company, slashed headcount, and now it is a cesspit of right-wing propaganda, losing vast amounts of money, and no longer an enjoyable place for many that they left. Maybe that'll be in store for the US as a whole?
As for his other companies, his idea of efficiency is to work people as hard as he himself works. By all accounts neither SpaceX or Tesla are particularly pleasant places to work, at least not unless you want to work all hours.
And if he is slashing programs they will of course not include those that his own companies benefit from.
Many companies aren't particularly "enjoyable" to work at. Musk works hard, Americans, in general, work hard. Men who are successful at creating such companies are rarely a piece of cake to work with. People work hard at most tech companies and yet we have more than our fair share of tech companies.
How does SS work in the US? Is there a guaranteed state pension, irrespective of contribution? Or is it all tied to how much you have put in?
There isn't a guaranteed state pension. There is a minimum number of years you have to have contributed and how much you will receive has to do with a certain percentage of your 5 highest earning years (or something like that) and it's capped at a certain level as well.
It isn't really meant to be your sole retirement income. You're supposed to save and invest but it's enough for most people to be able to survive on.
Regardless of that, though, if you treat it like a pension, such that you ring-fence the receipts until the person retires, you have to deal with those currently receiving SS while no longer paying in. This currently costs the US c. USD 1.4 trillion. Some of these people may live 25+ years, some will die tomorrow, so let's say on average 12 years. That means the government would need to pay out c.16-17 trillion - before considering inflation - while not getting in any receipts with which to pay for it (as new receipts will be ring-fenced for the person while they're paying in, as per a pension).
So suddenly the US is going to have to increase their debt by 16-17 trillion or so over the next 25 years or so - front loaded while people gradually die off - while at the same time building up a vast asset for future SS beneficiaries.
As to that asset, if the cost is c.1.4 trillion at present, then if we assume a pot can afford a 4% drawdown and reach zero at end of life, there would eventually be a pot of 35 trillion built up over time. And you want to invest this in a stock market that has a total capitalisation of c.50-60 trillion?
There may be a solution in there, somewhere, that is better than the current system, but it's undoubtedly a bi-partisan issue, and long-term.
Yes, like any system that is broken and where you are trying to fix it, you have to gradually enable the new system whether that's just telling current 20 year olds that they will be in the new system and everyone else will be phased out with the government making up the difference so it could cost more for a few years.
There are other changes one could make. The Social Security tax that is taken out of everyone's salary caps out at a certain high income level. You could not cap it out for a few years to effectively tax high earners more. This could make up the difference and it would come from those who could most afford it.
High earners barely even notice their little Social Security check when they retire since it's capped out at a "low" level. So you remove the cap for taxation but not for what they will receive.
They could also move everyone partially over to the new system so that funds are earning more from the beginning and thereby reducing the cost to the government of making this switch. It's always better to fix something than to continue with the flawed system.
Yes, it would increase the size of the stock market cap. So what?
It's a productive use and the current Treasuries use isn't productive. It's part of the problem.
As for medicare, how would you "fix" it, exactly?
Just expanding Medicare to include everyone is one solution. Or we could basically copy whatever is done in the UK (and the rest of Europe). You cover everyone and you still spend less on that system than we do. if nothing else, just cover everyone immediately for catastrophic costs and let everyone self-insure for the rest. That would be more of an "American" approach IMO. It would bring costs down through transparency. Most wealthier people already essentially self-insure for the smaller stuff because they can afford it and because most people don't need insurance most of the time. That's why it's so profitable for insurance companies. However, I'm not saying that the Trump plan or fix would be self-insuring. That's just a simple approach and it's largely what a more well off person would do anyway.
And re: military budget, if the US wants to decrease, that's not really a problem, but the manner that it is done could be. E.g. a sudden halving to 2% would put global security at risk, and not give other countries time to adequately pick up any slack. But having a President, for example, that lies about how much support US has given to Ukraine compared to Europe doesn't help matters. (US has given c.€85b with a further 15b to be allocated, while Europe has given c.118b with a further 74b to be allocated).
Any reduction of the size of the military wouldn't be sudden. It would be slowly reduced just as used to happen in the pre-Reagan years. It wouldn't necessarily be reduced slowly just to give Europe a heads up. It would be done to give everyone a heads up, including our own companies, military people, local bases, etc.
There's nothing special about any of these changes that I've mentioned. Like any tough problem with large change required, this is how you have to deal with it. Ignoring it, as has been the approach for the last few decades, isn't a solution either.
How is Brexit working out? People made a populist mistake, it didn't help anything and now you have to deal with it.
I've just listed the problems and reasonable, but tough, solutions. I didn't suggest that it was easy and yet these are the only choices. You can't just keep printing money and spending at the same rate. There is a snowballing effect. Our interest payment on the debt each year is now larger than our current military budget and it only gets larger every year.
In a way, a guy like Trump could be the answer to all of our wars. They haven't been productive for quite a while. No one wants them neither at home nor abroad and yet they are easy to get into and hard to get out of. Most people outside of the US complain about our military and our constant fighting...until they want our help. You can't have it both ways and we can't afford it the way it is now.
If Trump just says "no, I won't do it"...that might be a refreshing change. Otherwise we will be fighting China over Taiwan and Iran over Israel and Russia over Ukraine. If that doesn't eliminate human life from Earth then there will be another hotspot after that.
