( screenshot of snippet from Paul Krugman Substack ) The 20-somethings Musk is deploying to take over, locking out those old hands and pushing aside the people who know how the system works, almost surely don’t understand enough to politicize payments right away. As Nathan Tankus, the go-to expert on these matters, says, I 100% believe that the primary barrier to Elon Musk gaining control of the Treasury payments system is COBOL. For readers mystified by the reference, COBOL is a very old programming language that was once pervasive in the business world but in which hardly anyone under 60 knows how to program — yet is still widely used in government. (During Covid, the state of New Jersey put out a frantic call for people who knew COBOL to implement expanded unemployment benefits.)