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US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

bbc.com

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Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#171

Post by jononor »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #99
sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

Very similar to the story about the Supercharger network. Apparently the boss of the team was told to make layoffs, she did some but not enough to please Musk, so Musk in a face to face meeting demanded she make more. She said they couldn't without affecting delivery. Musk fired her. Then fired the team. Then hired the team back because she was correct. But not before lots of ongoing projects got stalled because cont…

One goal is to get rid of any critical voices. Only yes-men (or women) will be left standing. It is a test of allegiance, and those that care more about the mission of the organization, or team, customers, users, general public than the boss - are considered to fail. It is core to authoritarianism. Kneel before the king :/

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#172

Post by refurb »

alimw wrote: post #115
refurb wrote: post #84

[flagged]

You must be talking about this one claim? Your comment reads as if you are dismissing the whole article. > That included staff who are stationed at facilities where the weapons are built, according to CNN.

No, that’s the claim of the source on who was fired.

Which may be true, but being true doesn’t make the headline true (I.e. the people fired at the facility could be secretaries and other support staff).

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#173

Post by numpad0 »

jimnotgym wrote: post #105
pjmlp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with ongoing US "experiments" is how much the rest of the planet is dependent on American companies, related economics and politics, regardless of it not being our country, the schockwaves will be felt.

And this is the thing, the rest of the world has agreed to be dependent on American companies, because they believed in the legitimacy of the US and free international trade. If belief in that legitimacy goes away, we will see that dependence shift quickly. Let us begin with Mastercard and Visa where the US taxes every payment transaction in much of the world. Do we really believe that Europe couldn't run its own car…

IMO, to me as layman non-American, it's not an if. The USA is done-for-except-not, just like Twitter has been for a while. This might be able to be undone, hypothetically, but is not being undone. Online armchair generals are already starting to discuss things like escalation strategy for European nuclear forces and so on.

I guess we'll be seeing Mastodon/Bluesky/Threads phenomenon across worlds, both horizontally and vertically in the coming decades, this time in real life with (more)real consequences.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#174

Post by glimshe »

itronitron wrote: post #29
vasco wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't much of a point because federal employees are much more likely to return than Twitter technical staff. Interesting approach, specially because it's not my country.

>> federal employees are much more likely to return Not necessarily. It's generally understood that federal employees accept a lower salary in exchange for career stability. If a career as a federal employee now has higher risk then at least some people will be expecting a higher salary.

The advocates of Musk's firings will say that if these people could command a higher salary, they should be in the private industry producing goods and services for the population rather than the inherently wasteful government positions.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#175

Post by refurb »

watwut wrote: post #126
refurb wrote: post #84

[flagged]

Mainstream media have massively better truth record then non mainstream ones. Especially last years.

That may be true if all non-stream media includes random Facebook accounts.

But it’s kind of an irrelevant point when the mainstream media got important things dead wrong. And not only dead wrong but also so poorly backed up I hesitate to even call them “journalists”. More like “gossip columnists”.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#176

Post by baggy_trough »

nobunaga wrote: post #112
baggy_trough wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees with zero to negative productivity should be on the chopping block because we want the employer to survive. The United States has an highly progressive tax system where the rich pay the vast majority of the taxes. Why isn't that already their "fair share" (a propaganda term)?

Do you really believe that your second sentence is true? wow. So what you are saying is that billionaires, while they do pay taxes, pay their fair share with no attempt to avoid taxes? No overseas accounts or shady businesses? Its all above board? But anyway, lets focus on the low productive people, because that really what is going to bring America out of the rut that it is in. Not the overly powerful rich that are…

Certainly I do. I'd like the United States to change to a simpler and more regressive tax policy so that everyone has skin in the game. For example, eliminating all taxes in favor of a VAT or the like.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#177

Post by baggy_trough »

somenameforme wrote: post #167
namaria wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were it trivial to attribute the performance of complex systems to individuals, they would have no need to seek employment at firms and would be able to get the fair value for their labor in an efficient market.

And what if it turns out that let's say 70% of individuals have a zero to even slightly negative 'value', as seems increasingly possible as organizations shed mass numbers of employees but continue to function just fine? Or we can look at evidence in the other direction where you have companies taking on dramatically more employees yet not showing anywhere near proportional increases in 'productivity' (which I'm usin…

It's definitely a worry I have!

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#178

Post by ProcNetDev »

baggy_trough wrote: post #104
nobunaga wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company gets too big, its not the employees fault, why should they be the first on the chopping block? If a government is too big, is it again the employees fault? Or is it someone elses? The concept that some dude with more money than another can make screwups, then happily go off and impact thousands of lives thinking this is the way forward with no impact on them is utterly mind boggling. Similarly, we, the p…

Employees with zero to negative productivity should be on the chopping block because we want the employer to survive. The United States has an highly progressive tax system where the rich pay the vast majority of the taxes. Why isn't that already their "fair share" (a propaganda term)?

You have provided no evidence that the fired employees provided zero productivity.

Firing thousands of people should not be the decision of one unelected man. Congress funded those agencies congress has to defund them.

The middle class pay the vast majority of the taxes. The mega-rich pay very little as a percentage of their wealth.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#179

Post by 2-3-7-43-1807 »

sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

i don't see how this is (technically) related to the twitter layoffs - and even less how it could be "literally" given that the twitter layoffs where about LAYOFFS and this news item is about reHIRING ... or are you maybe a little challenged with language and what you actually want to say is that in both cases Elon Musk is involved?

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#180

Post by fxtentacle »

jimnotgym wrote: post #105
pjmlp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with ongoing US "experiments" is how much the rest of the planet is dependent on American companies, related economics and politics, regardless of it not being our country, the schockwaves will be felt.

And this is the thing, the rest of the world has agreed to be dependent on American companies, because they believed in the legitimacy of the US and free international trade. If belief in that legitimacy goes away, we will see that dependence shift quickly. Let us begin with Mastercard and Visa where the US taxes every payment transaction in much of the world. Do we really believe that Europe couldn't run its own car…

Starting with this year, Germany has legally mandated free and instant (few seconds) direct account to account transfers. For some shops, you can now either pay by SEPA (for free) or agree to pay a 3% fee for using VISA. They already started cutting out the US middleman.
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