This year's winner of the nobel prize is highly organized and ran a parallel election campaign, which was obviously dismissed by the Maduro regime. There is a slim possibility of a peaceful transition given the democratic efforts underway in Venezuela for many years at this point.

POTUS just said she's not involved, won't be involved, doesn't have the support necessary to lead. Who does? Unclear. His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil" and I'm seriously not exaggerating.

> His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil"

In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan. See Carville's "It's the economy, stupid."

Popular support of any government is mostly (a) quality of life & (b) individual freedom. Quality of life is directly correlated to the economy and public finances.

If someone can quickly boost Venezuelan oil production, and therefore state revenue, then all sorts of social funding programs become feasible.

The issue with autocracies is that they selectively enrich key supporter groups (internal police, military) at the expense of others (wider population).

If you can substantially boost public revenue, then you don't have to make a tradeoff -- everyone gets more!

And there are certainly worse beginnings for new governments.

(All of this ignoring the flagrant violation of international law, international ramifications vis-a-vis Taiwan, climate change, etc.)

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m saying it appears to be the entire idea, which makes it a bad one.

He was asked “who will govern” and “when will there be elections” and “will there be boots on the ground” over and over.

His answers were “I don’t know”.

Well, Trump is probably the least qualified person in the administration to ask that question of, while at the same time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.

A bad look, but I seriously doubt the state department doesn't have some sort of plan for continuity of government.

Especially since, in critical difference with post-Hussein Iraq, no one in this administration seems ideologically opposed to working with the old guard, if they put on new colors.

Would be very surprised if the remaining elements of the government aren't put in temporary charge with guidelines (no killing protestors, freeing political prisoners, monitored elections on X date, etc.), then things are left business as usual.

With additional strikes if anyone tries to buck the system.

But higher placed members of corrupt regimes tend to be pretty pragmatic about their own skins when the winds shift, so I'd be surprised if anyone goes to the mat for a leader who's already been extradited.

You can inject as many assumptions as you wish.

Right now the evidence is as I’ve stated it.

"It appears to be the only idea" is a bit strong.

'It's the only information about the plan presented in the last 15 hours' would be better.

Nah, it's really not "a bit strong."

The President of the United States has stated over and over now that there is no transition plan. There is no successor. There is no plan for elections.

This isn't "he hasn't been asked" or "he has declined to comment." He has said affirmatively there is no plan.

So either he's lying or there's no plan.

In either case, my presentation is correct, and your assumptions are completely unfounded.

Trump's Reaganesque in Reagan's weaknesses, without any of his strengths. Except maybe charisma to some people.

At this point in his second administration, I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.

Big decisions? Sure, he makes yes/no. But "Let me hear the plan for day x+1?" In what universe would the Trump we've seen ask that question? We're talking about the McDonald's guy.

So you've said:

> I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.

But at the same time:

> time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.

So they're making plans, but they won't actually commit to any of the plans because in the end the plans are meaningless and Trump is going to push for whatever he wants at the moment. Doesn't that make the actual plans practically worthless?

That seems like an accurate appraisal of the last year.

Sometimes Trump doesn't decide to veer off-script and scupper plans. But it happens more than never!

And rarely, when he does, more informed heads are able to turn him back around. E.g. the bullshit 'Ukraine tried to assassinate Putin' scheme

Under the hood here you're assuming Trump is (largely) incompetent to lead but surrounded by people who 1) know that and 2) are competent themselves.

A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.

I think the people around him believe (1) he's competent to win the popularity contest that is an election & (2) he's vengeful against any perceived disloyalty.

There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).

>In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan.

Building which nation? The despotic dictatorship of USA one would have to assume you mean. The profits are no more likely to go to Venezuela's further development than they are to bring in universal health care in USA.

QoL is nothing if it is bought through the pain and suffering of others.

I don't know why you think this is a new beginning, it's just extension of USA's dictatorship to ensure even more people suffer and the USA oligarchy gets even more insanely wealthy.

I don't think it has dawned on the HN crowd how insatiable the demand for dollars across the world is. This stuff is being used in all corners of the world, and accelerating.

As of 2025, USD stablecoins are a regulated industry. The frequency of uninformed comments like these will asymptotically go to zero.

> As of 2025, USD stablecoins are a regulated industry. The frequency of uninformed comments like these will asymptotically go to zero.

You didn't answer the audit question, which is really important.

Right, but Tether doesn't comply with the law at all. So...

I mean they might, maybe. But you can't point to the law as proof of something when the thing you're defending doesn't follow the law.

That sounds like a perpetual motion machine that the US can get addicted to and then come apart once stable coins suddenly become price sensitive.

Or, an alternative, and hear me out, maybe this could also be called "an economy"

Confidence in crypto will go poof when there's a big enough run that the measly 7 transactions per second can't keep up with demand. We just haven't seen a crypto bank run yet. The $100 / transaction is nothing compared to what it could be. When that happens "stable" coins will lose their stability and the smoke and mirrors behind audit-free coins will collapse. You couldn't pay me to hold crypto.

Totally, utterly, completely false. An honest discussion of this matter has no space for tether truthers stuck in the year 2015.

Can you provide their audits then please?

Otherwise I'm not sure how you can be so certain.

I am not sure about Tether but I see Paxos provides regular reports by KPMG https://www.paxos.com/usdp-transparency#usdp-attestations

The auditor BDO publishes attestations every quarter.

https://tether.to/en/transparency/?tab=reports

If tether wants to maintain their dominant position (they do) then they will work to be compliant with the LAW, on a timeline deemed appropriate by the law makers.

Take your conspiratorial trutherism elsewhere.

The LAW is spelled "keep in good standing with the President". He might feel his little coin grifts are left behind.

On a timeline deemed appropriate by the law makers is making a lot of heavy lifting here. The (GOP) lawmakers won't lift a finger to do anything unless the Leader says so.

You keep calling out people who ask reasonable questions about Tether/crypto truthers. If I were you I'd probably rethink that strategy as it doesn't seem to be working out well.

Like, even Enron and Wirecard passed audits, so it's pretty weird that Tether can't.

You're right that Tether claims they could not previously get an audit and need the government to smooth the way (https://www.reuters.com/technology/tether-is-talks-with-big-...), but why would that be the case? Companies get audited all the time. Tether seems to have their own "conspiratorial trutherism" in mind, where the Biden administration secretly told all the major audit firms that they mustn't allow Tether to be audited because that might make crypto look good. And even that doesn't explain why they couldn't get an audit from 2017 to 2020.

To me the obvious explanation is that they would not pass an honest audit, and hope having the CEO of their primary brokerage in the Cabinet will help them cheat.

Tether's main problem is money laundering regulations, probably not so much not having the money.

This number will continue to climb and I am confident before the decade ends, stablecoins broadly will be the largest holder of US debt. The interests are fully aligned between the issuers and US govt - issuers keep the interest, US has a price insensitive buyer of debt.

This is ultimately good for the world, good for democracy, and good for the downtrodden and underprivileged members of corrupt countries such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Lebanon, and Turkey, who have suffered their own currency crises to the great detriment of their citizens. With only an Internet connection, US dollar stablecoins give them property rights which can't be voided through an act of the corrupt ruling class.

Before the tether truthers come out, update your priors. This industry is very different than it was in 2015. It has grown up substantially. The GENIUS act is the largest banking and financial reform of the last 100 years, and the consequences will shape the 21st century and local currencies globally.

What happens to these people if, hypothetically, a malicious U.S. president subverts the Federal Reserve and wildly inflates the dollar?

The point is that this is massively less likely to happen than with their local currency.

If the dollar starts undergoing wild inflation, then the whole world has a whole lot of problems, not just stablecoins.

Something much, much less unpleasant than what will happen to the rest of us.

> US has a price insensitive buyer of debt.

>This is ultimately good for the world, good for democracy, and good for the downtrodden and underprivileged members of corrupt countries such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Lebanon, and Turkey.

Wow, US has found a gold mine: The super full wallets of Venezuelans, Nigerians and Lebanese! They will buy a trillion of USDT to prop up US debt!

Unironically yes, and their communities will prosper as a result. I see no problem here.

>I see no problem here.

You mentioned 4 countries that are dirt poor and need to buy food, not stablecoins. The people in those countries who have money don't need stablecoins to invest in the US.

Money can be used to buy goods AND services! Stablecoins are money! Wow!

Yes, Trump now says he got 22 trillion dollars from foreigners! It's increasing all the time.

"Better off with a locally managed currency" wow, please research the counties I mentioned for five minutes.

It's a luxury opinion to view the USD as trash. It means you have options. USD is the best many people in the world can hope for.

I'm not arguing for those local currencies; I'm just saying that the USD is never going to be managed with nigerians in mind and it'd be ridiculous to imagine it would be.

Hell, the USD isn't even managed with americans in mind. We just happen to live here.

Except any country can make up their own crypto "stable" coins.

Was this comment sent from an office in the Cayman Islands, by any chance?

Not a chance.

Tether and their "original" "bank" were in The Bahamas, not the Caymans!

Stablecoins are now a regulated industry with laws in place to address this very concern. Tether is currently not compliant, but as the largest player in the space, has a great incentive to maintain its dominance.

Regulated industry.. like banking, stocks, and mortgage origination!

What would the regulation ... enforce?

Some sort of behavior by Tether and others?

Regulators also have enforcement functions.

Are you asking how laws work?

I’m just curious what is being enforced to prevent what exactly.

I think I’m missing what scenario people are thinking of in general.

LG Energy Solution supplied the lithium-ion battery racks/modules (TR1300 using LG JH4 NMC cells) for Vistra’s initial 300 MW/1,200 MWh Moss Landing system; Fluence was the system integrator/GC.

Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units (LFP chemistry) manufactured at Tesla’s Lathrop, CA “Megafactory.”

> Interesting how they never mention that these are Tesla Megapack 2 XL units

It's a story about California's battery storage. Tesla hasn't built all of that capacity.

For a Tesla (or other battery producer) press release? Sure. For an article about the general phenomenon? Irrelevant to the point that if it were included I'd be suspicious of the article being a plant.

If you google any article about eland it literally says they use tesla batteries that were built here in the US

i think tesla has built MOST of the capacity

By my estimate (GPT5) Tesla has up to 17% of all front and behind the meter battery storage in CA, and is also the vendor growing the fastest in CA. The California battery storage story is also a Tesla story, but based on the positive tone of the article, it clearly made more sense to leave Tesla out of it.

> By my estimate (GPT5)

You know treating a thing that makes stuff up as a source of truth is the same thing as making stuff up right? You might as well have written By my estimate (as revealed to me in a dream)

But is he wrong?

> is he wrong?

Yes.

“Nearly 75 players are active in the CAISO battery storage ecosystem. Top players include EIG Management Company, NextEra Energy, Arevon Energy, Hectate Energy, and Cultivate Power, all of which have eight or more projects underway” [1].

Tesla isn’t yet a player in utility storage. (They’re at the table, but only starting to bid, and they’re more or less politically fucked in America for the time being on that front.$

[1] https://blog.yesenergy.com/yeblog/the-caiso-energy-storage-r...

I would be more inclined to check and see if someone’s dream revelation was correct than be a human search engine for people that don’t want to use one.

> By my estimate (GPT5)

Please don't do this.

What's your source?

Are you asking Criscross if they have a source for your statement?

That information does not fit the narrative so it is left unsaid.

> That information does not fit the narrative so it is left unsaid

This is a good opportunity to calibrate your sense of truth.

The LA Times is owned by this South African-born immigrant [1]. (Himself the the son of "Chinese immigrant parents who fled China during the Japanese occupation.") He is, like Elon, pro-Trump (after, like Musk, supporting Democrats when they were in power) [2]. And he, like Elon, has censored his publication to reflect his views, including by opposing anti-Musk content [3].

If you're reading an article in the LA Times and, being upset it isn't mentioning Tesla, concluding it's part of an anti-Musk conspiracy, you're dead wrong. But you're probably also wrong about other adjacent hypotheses.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Soon-Shiong

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/13/la-times-owner-mane...

[3] https://www.status.news/p/los-angeles-times-patrick-soon-shi...

It does mention another battery manufacturer, Spark. Where do they fit in to the narrative?

> Where do they fit in to the narrative?

What narrative? If you're saying even a pro-Trump pro-Elon newspaper whose owner has a history of weighing in for Musk has a bias against him, you're saying Elon's massively lost not only standing but also sympathy across the aisle.

If that's true, his companies are toast. That doesn't seem to be the case. So maybe revisit the hypothesis when the data reject it.

The LA Times famously a left leaning publication and its stories are written and edited by the employees who are likely to be anti Musk, Trump hating woke types. The owner is a business man and will let the editors write for the audience's biases.

How do you know that's the reason?

> How do you know that's the reason?

Just noticed that their profile basically taunts that they're a troll [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hagbard_c

If openness equals trolling you're absolutely right but if that is the case it does raise the question whether the site name covers the site content.

Making a claim without evidence is akin to trolling

If observing a trend and finding behaviour which fits the trend is enough to base a hypothesis on [1] it is certainly enough to mention it here. That 'claim without evidence' is quite silly and can be disproven by anyone by doing a few web searches. Here's what I get as the first 10 results on the query 'site:www.latimes.com Elon Musk', using SearXNG pointed at the usual gaggle of search engines. There are thousands of results like these, #11 on the list was 'Elon Musk is an anti-semite' but it did not make the mark. Do you notice a trend in these first 10 results? If you don't trust my results you can repeat the experiment using whatever search engine you prefer. Take the first X results and mark them as 'positive'/'neutral'/'negative' with regard to their impact on Musk. You can do the same experiment with whatever 'famous person' or 'famous company' or 'popular subject' you want and judge the results. If you're into that newfangled 'AI' thing and trust the results returned by those models you could leave this task to one of those, something the LA Times itself experimented with for a while.

   1: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-04-28 › elon-musks-companies-face-at-least-2-37-billion-in-potential-federal-penalties-trump-doge-tesla-spacex-blumenthal
   Musk's conflicts: $2.37 billion in possible federal penalties, report says

   Elon Musk and his companies faced at least $2.37 billion in potential federal fines and penalties the day President Trump took office. 


   2: https://www.latimes.com › entertainment-arts › books › story › 2023-09-12 › interview-with-walter-isaacson-about-his-biography-elon-musk
   Inside 'Elon Musk,' Walter Isaacson's billionaire biography

   12 Sept 2023 ... The 688-page opus details Musk's brutal treatment of workers and colleagues, his impulsive business moves and his chaotic romantic life. 


   3: https://www.latimes.com › entertainment-arts › story › 2022-11-02 › column-elon-musks-twitter-and-the-con-of-online-media
   Column: Elon Musk, Twitter and the con of online media

   Elon Musk (pictured after testifying in a Delaware court in 2021) is coming to a realization those who work in traditional media reached years ... 


   4: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-03-27 › elon-musk-trump-doge-conflicts-of-interest
   These departments investigating Elon Musk have been cut by DOGE ...

   Reuters reported that DOGE cuts eliminated the jobs of employees overseeing Elon Musk's Neuralink company, which is testing a brain implant ... 


   5: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2022-11-14 › elon-musk-toxic-boss-timeline
   Is Elon Musk a bad boss? Ask Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter workers

   Elon Musk's track record as a boss is an endless scroll of impulse firings, retribution, tone-deafness on race — and the impregnation of a ... 


   6: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-03-13 › i-bought-my-tesla-years-before-elon-musk-went-maga-dont-judge-me
   I bought my Tesla years before Elon Musk went MAGA. Don't judge me

   "When did the brand of car I drive become a political statement?" asks a reader who drives a Tesla with 112000 miles on it. 


   7: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-02-11 › americans-want-fiscal-responsibility-but-no-one-elected-elon-musk
   Americans want fiscal responsibility, but no one elected Elon Musk

   There are legal ways to enact fiscal responsibility. Having an unelected billionaire target federal agencies isn't one of them. 


   8: https://www.latimes.com › opinion › letters-to-the-editor › story › 2025-02-25 › elon-musk-is-any-private-business-nightmare-of-a-ceo
   Elon Musk is any private business' nightmare of a CEO

   Indiscriminately firing nuclear safety workers is the kind of recklessness that would get a CEO fired — but not Elon Musk. 


   9: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2025-01-14 › elon-musk-sued-by-sec-over-late-disclosure-of-twitter-stake-in-2022
   Elon Musk sued by SEC over late 2022 disclosure of Twitter stake

   The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Elon Musk on Tuesday, alleging failure to timely disclose that he bought more than 5% of ... 


   10: https://www.latimes.com › business › story › 2022-05-18 › how-does-elon-musk-get-away-with-it
   Hiltzik: How does Elon Musk get away with breaking the law?

   In his takeover adventure with Twitter, it seems more likely than not that Elon Musk has broken the law. In some respects, his lawbreaking ... 


 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_test

A tether truther, in this day and and age? 2017 called...

The passing of GENIUS act marks one of, possibly the largest banking regulatory changes in the US. The stablecoin industry is very legitimate, has very firmly established guardrails and rules, and tether is working fast to become fully compliant.

This "TeTheR iS a SySTEmiC RiSK tO eVEryThiNG" mentality is fully dead. Tether is compliant in a regulated industry, tether is backed, and tether is quickly running away with the entire market.

How does the GENIUS act apply to Tether, given they're not in the US and their product is not officially available in the US?

When that happens then it'll be relevant, but I don't see how it means everything is fine now.

A company actively navigating a huge regulatory change is not the same as a flagrant scam hiding in plain sight.

I don't know why I'm bothering to reply. Tether truthers are modern day financial luddites, willingly blind and ignorant of the sea change taking place in plain sight after the passing of GENIUS.

I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't much care about crypto and know pretty much nothing about Tether beyond the fact that they have a USD-linked coin, plus what I just read on Wikipedia. "They're on the up-and-up because they say they're going to be complying with US law in the future" just isn't a very convincing argument.

> I don't know why I'm bothering to reply. Tether truthers are modern day financial luddites, willingly blind and ignorant of the sea change taking place in plain sight after the passing of GENIUS.

Well they must be regulated somewhere, right? Where are the reports from regulators that all is OK, or at the very least an audit.

And if you can't get one of the Big 4 to sign off on your finances, then you have big big problems. Even Wirecard and Enron managed that.

Did you miss the announcement that USDT will not attempt to comply with the GENIUS act?

Yes, because they will migrate to a different compliant one. Maybe you missed that headline?

Nothing's going to migrate.