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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

#251

Post by samus »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #7
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

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

That's like popping your tires to figure out that you need them for driving, and then discovering there is only one spare in the trunk.

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

#252

Post by gdhkgdhkvff »

rsanek wrote: post #215
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

> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. more guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why is that a guideline?

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

#253

Post by bagels »

NewJazz wrote: post #47
ben_w wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so. Twitter lost 84% of its revenue. Do you want the USA GDP to shrink that much over the next few years?

The good news is that GDP is positively correlated with greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. Lower GDP, lower temp. I mean the famines will certainly "help"... I don't think the Senate will let it get that far, though. Only takes a few Rs in the House to impeach. 67 senators is a hard climb but 0% YoY GDP decline could do it... Or it could give Trump the stimulus he so badly craves.

They won't go hungry. I don't think famine will stop them. They don't want to lose their dictator that is willing to advance their agenda.

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

#254

Post by yeyeyeyeyeyeyee »

The US is busy making the biggest own-goal one could imagine.

From a position of world-wide dominance and respect, it is being destroyed at a rate that is too quick for most to even start to comprehend what the outcome of these actions will be. I suspect the consequences of these actions will be carried for the rest of our lives, as they are not so easy to turn back.

Lots of other countries are standing by watching while the USA has seemingly found enough rope to hang itself.

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

#255

Post by pfdietz »

throw0101d wrote: post #194
glimshe wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The profit-making part is when we pull back from being world policeman and instead sell nuclear weapons and weapon systems. Sorry, we won't go to war for you, but how about some H-bombs, Taiwan?

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

#256

Post by mschuster91 »

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

> Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

It's not about achieving results primarily, it's a public perception game. Trump and Musk are going for the perception of "they do what they say from day 1" - it doesn't matter if what they plan succeeds at all (and if it's struck down by judges, it's just additional fodder for "un-American judges!!!" propaganda), or if what they do actually has the outcome they promised.

The GQP voter base no longer cares about anything but the appearance of "winning", and it's aided by completely off-the-rockers media and influencers.

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

#257

Post by dralley »

scarab92 wrote: post #208
CogitoCogito wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean when you say "it's an effective strategy"? It's hard to say for certain since Twitter is now private, but it certainly seems to have lost value since Musk took over. What would "work in the public sector" entail for you?

Operationally, Twitter is performing better than it did when it had 5x the headcount. According to reports, revenue is down, but that's more due to advertisers objecting to Musk content moderation decisions (plus politics no doubt).

They are objectively in a worse financial position.

I wasn't getting advertisements for female sex toys (I'm male) on Twitter before Musk took over. That's a long way to fall.

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

#258

Post by riffraff »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #7
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

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

Valid point, but Twitter's development post acquisition stalled and the company was massively devalued, so I'm not sure that can be considered a positive case.

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

#259

Post by ty6853 »

someothherguyy wrote: post #201

If anything this whole DOGE scenario has illuminated is how confused and overconfident many in this country are. We are stumbling fools without systems and rules (organizations, institutions, laws, regulations, ...) to rely on. I wonder how much behavior like this stems from weak regulation in the US to begin with. It seems like it would reinforce the rise of agents that assume they can ask for forgiveness after acti…

Feds consumed It's hard to take these apocalyptic premonitions about federal government reduction seriously.

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

#260

Post by r4make »

Musk himself has received billions in social security in the form of subsidies, government contracts and stock market rallies fueled by nepotism.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/20/business/elon-musk-wealth...

Where will the money he purportedly saves in the bureaucracies go? Will houses be built for the Appalachian voters that were oh so important before the election?

Will it be use to subsidize another telemedicine scam for all-in podcast members, who are also on Megyn Kelly's show now?

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