The Vomit Test: Friedberg explains the trillions being stolen “legally” from federal spending

My guess, tip of the iceberg, Elon's estimate was 20% of federal spending falls under this kind of fraud camp. Could be more. And then when you add in state and local spending and you start to do the accounting on all of this, we're probably talking about a sizable percentage of overall GDP that is effectively theft through government agencies or government checks being written. And I think that's going to be the great uncovering of 2026 is we're going to see on the order of trillions of dollars of >> trillions >> trillions of dollars of this sort of behavior happening across the economy. And I also think the other side nothing will happen and and I think nothing will

happen because the cost is going to be so significant. It's almost like staring into the abyss. It's going to make people feel sick to try and address it. >> How do you differentiate between legal theft and illegal theft? Meaning I think what the Somali daycarees were doing was outright fraud and is illegal. But when Stacy Abrams creates a NGO in the final days of the Biden administration and that gets stuffed with $2 billion, I mean technically I guess that's legal, but it's clearly a different kind of theft and fraud. >> Would you throw up in your mouth when you heard the news? That's the that's

the test. If you don't pass the common sense vomit in the mouth test, it doesn't matter whether it's legal or illegal. It's up and you'll realize that pretty quickly.