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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

#191

Post by throw0101d »

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

> Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes?

"Move fast and break things." /s

Then try to move fast to fix the things you just broke.

(Perhaps government tend to moves slowly for a reason: when a company breaks things customers can go to a competitor, when government breaks where can you go?)

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

#192

Post by computerthings »

krapp wrote: post #170
computerthings wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Destroying government and rule of law and replacing it with a violent movement, giving people implicit permission to be brown shirts ("he who saves the country cannot violate the law") isn't just "populist right" in the same way "cancer" isn't an "inconvenience" -- yeah sure technically you could say that, but you probably wouldn't.

But Trumpism is literally a right-wing populist movement. It's directly influenced by the alt-right/Tea Party and right-libertarianism, accelerationist white supremacy and the Christian right. It would be incorrect to call it a "progressive" right movement, because it stands in direct opposition to what progressivism is commonly understood to be. Doing so would be the same kind of category error as calling the Nazis…

Oh, I didn't disagree that they're populist right, and not progressive. I just think it's so much worse than that. Or maybe I don't associate enough "weight" with "right-wing populist"?

For me it's the difference between someone who has a different opinion on the same facts, as wrong as I may find that opinion (and they mine) -- and a movement that just destroys and creates facts ad-hoc, believes what it wants, and smears and attacks anyone not aligned. It's the difference between someone who disagrees with or even fights me -- and someone who attacks me while they're basically wrestling with the voices in their head, without seeing or hearing me, at all.

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

#193

Post by throw0101d »

surgical_fire wrote: post #130
m_fayer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that a reasonably free, vital, innovative, and prosperous society was compatible with a fundamental respect for human dignity. That's why I moved to Europe. Now it seems I was overoptimistic, but that doesn't mean we should wholly embrace backsliding right into the 19th century version of "progress".

It is the same reason I moved to Europe. I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of.

> I don't think I was overoptimistic. It was literally the best decision I ever made, in every aspect I can think of.

A lot of folks mention the lower salaries in Europe (generally, and especially for tech): has mattered much in your (personal) experience for quality of life and happiness?

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

#194

Post by throw0101d »

glimshe wrote: post #174
itronitron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

> […] they should be in the private industry producing goods and services for the population rather than the inherently wasteful government positions.

In this particular case, the government positions were maintaining the US's nuclear arsenal. Not sure how "wasteful" having a nuclear deterrent is.

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

#195

Post by derangedHorse »

ProcNetDev wrote: post #178
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)?

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.

> The middle class pay the vast majority of the taxes.

This is objectively false [1].

> The mega-rich pay very little as a percentage of their wealth.

This statement is a very different one than the previous and it’s expected since there’s no wealth tax.

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...

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

#196

Post by derangedHorse »

bloomingkales wrote: post #161
ThinkBeat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting bureaucrats to fire each other is met with every delay tactic possible. Might be able to put it off for two years which is all they need. Going in crazy like they are doing now, may serve the administration if they start having department do their own layoffs in a hurry, because they know otherwise it will be done for then.

[flagged]

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#197

Post by someothherguyy »

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…

Imagine the lack of empathy one would need to fire 500 people for being challenged, sociopath antics (assuming the reporting is accurate)

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

#198

Post by someothherguyy »

derangedHorse wrote: post #190
itronitron wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

I think that incentive is part of the problem. Federal employees should get paid more with a reasonable expectation of being fired. The amount of people I know in government positions who give 0 consideration to the quality of their work because they know they won’t be fired astounds me.

How is firing large amounts of people on a whim going to solve the problem of people not caring about their work?

From what it sounds like (w.r.t. Agenda 47 / Project 2025) DOGE is fund seeking for massive planned programs, not returning money to the citizenry or restructuring for efficiency.

It sounds like they are illegally looting agencies and programs that congress already funded, so they can fund the admin's proposed plans (virtual social cleansing, mass deportations, homeless relocation, freedom cities, etc).

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

#199

Post by derangedHorse »

suzzer99 wrote: post #132
somenameforme wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "federal budget" is something people often mention, but it's quite misleading. At least in terms of what we think of. The reason is that the overwhelming majority of the budget is spent automatically - pensions, medicare, social security, and all of these expenses are unavoidable and in a mandatory expenses category. The remainder of the budget, including military, is considered discretionary. That discretionary…

If I spend 90% of my budget on mandatory items, and I cut 10% of my discretionary spending, I've shaved 1% of my total budget. Have I really accomplished that much? Is that going to keep me out of the poor house if something goes wrong? Is it worth a massive sacrifice to obtain? Probationary employees means not just the new hires, but any federal employee who changed jobs internally in the last year. Who's going to w…

Most mandatory spending is on healthcare, social security, interest payments on debt. For anyone who values anything other than those things, every penny should be accounted for. The percentage of the total budget now becomes irrelevant.

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

#200

Post by derangedHorse »

somenameforme wrote: post #186
cycomanic wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note though that the goal is not to reduce debt. The goal is to cut taxes (largely for the rich). I mean if debt was an issue why vote for the guy who has increased the national debt by the most in history and whose spending plans were going to increase the debt by almost twice of his opponent? https://www.investopedia.com/democrats-vs-republicans-who-ha...

The person who wrote that article is remarkably ignorant of essentially all topics that she covered to the point I'd consider that lower quality than an average internet shitpost. I don't know where to start so I'll just bullet point things in no particular order: - The US parties almost entirely ideologically swapped sometime in the 19th century. Some claim it happened with FDR in the 30s, others claim it didn't "re…

The deficit also doesn’t paint the whole picture. The debt significantly increased near the end of the Trump administration which added to mandatory spending via interest payments.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN

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