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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

#271

Post by gambiting »

yeyeyeyeyeyeyee wrote: post #254

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 w…

Well, Brexit took the spot previously. Not sure if US can top it, but they sure as hell trying.

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

#272

Post by bbor »

ty6853 wrote: post #259
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.

…youre saying that life was good from 1870-1910? Reconstruction and the gilded age??

I mean, there was technological and medical improvements, sure, and continued urbanization.

But that’s… those are some of our nations most shameful, inequal, racist years in its entire history. The federal government as it exists now was just getting started after we realized we needed it thanks to the civil war, and many local democratic systems were completely broken. More relevantly, we didn’t have cancer researchers, epidemiologists, the NSF, or, most relevantly, nuclear weapons.

Finally, a HUGE majority of the costs of the federal government are social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending. I doubt even the biggest libertarian on here could advocate cutting any those with a straight face, unless they’re young and don’t know anyone older than them, and/or advocates isolationism.

Regardless, this exact story makes it clear that the goal isn’t cutting the size of the government at all — it’s politicizing the civil service, and bringing it under the exclusive control of a supreme executive. They’re not exactly ashamed of it!

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

#273

Post by drawkward »

scarab92 wrote: post #238
drawkward wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this problem What problem? The problem of how people are fired? You dont fix that specific problem by firing everyone! Somw other problem? Show us evidence that there was a problem, before you fire. That's how you do it in a democracy.

[flagged]

>The lack of effective performance management in the federal workforce. >Resulting in poor service provision and wasteful allocation of taxpayer funds.

Alleged. Not proven, alleged.

>No large private sector workforce would have gotten away with such broken processes.

What broken processes? You havent shown them to exist.

Large companies are built to maximixe profit. Governments are not, so why should their organizational choices be similar?

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

#274

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

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).

Revenue is down because they fired most of the salespeople and told their customers to f off. Hardly a wise management strategy.

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

#275

Post by hobs »

ty6853 wrote: post #259
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.

Reverting to the world of 110 years ago in what way resembles today? This sound like you are deeply misplacing your confidence in your personal understanding of the world.

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

#276

Post by joyeuse6701 »

someothherguyy wrote: post #267
ty6853 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think appealing to the gilded age can be taken seriously. See for instance: https://www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-7692919

For better or for worse, that GDP boom was enabled by the massive spending and outcome of the Civil War, much like WW2. To point to these moments and ignore the immediate massive historical events that preceded it seems like a serious oversight in the analysis.

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

#277

Post by sillyfluke »

scarab92 wrote: post #228
daghamm wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong on two accounts. There are plenty of ways for getting rid of underperformers in a goverment organisation. I've seen entire teams being sacked, and also some of the hardest working people I know work for goverment organisations. Also, you cannot run the goverment like an startup that is always running on the edge. A majority of startups fail and that's fine, but one goverment organisation failing could c…

[flagged]

>I fully acknowledge that it will result in mistakes,

The people arguing the other side are not talking about reversible mistakes with minor fallout. They are claiming that taken as a whole the damage will be very difficult to undo. Countering this simply by accepting that there will be mistakes doesn't quite suffice. As pg tried to remind Musk on twitter (I'm paraphrasing): Countless startups come into being and die within the system. But this is the system we're talking about. There is only one.

I take it you want the others to believe this administration geniunely cares about providing the public efficient services without fraud and corruption by establishing highly-efficient meritocratic institutions. There's overwhelming evidence in the events of the past few weeks that this not the case. Just looking at the Eric Adams fiasco and, say, the cabinet picks of Hegseth, Gaetz, Bondi (straight of the movie Idiocracy) show this administration does not care about fighting corruption or hiring people that are most qualified for the job.

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

#278

Post by hobs »

scarab92 wrote: post #228
daghamm wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong on two accounts. There are plenty of ways for getting rid of underperformers in a goverment organisation. I've seen entire teams being sacked, and also some of the hardest working people I know work for goverment organisations. Also, you cannot run the goverment like an startup that is always running on the edge. A majority of startups fail and that's fine, but one goverment organisation failing could c…

[flagged]

> While you might not like his methods, you can't blame him for not wanting to wait 2 years for these issues to be addressed, data to be collected, and then action to be taken.

Yes, I definitely can blame him and anyone who wants to 180 the government in that time - that's stupid, childish, short sighted, and suicidal for keeping the lights on.

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

#279

Post by bigbaguette »

riffraff wrote: post #258
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point was never to turn it into a profitable venture, but to acquire a widely adopted and established communication channel, turn it into an echo chamber and make it run with the least cost possible. It became what was expected of it.

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

#280

Post by jhbadger »

shkkmo wrote: post #263
jhbadger wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's contradictory. By definition, the Left is progressive -- they want society to progress and see a future where the problems of the past and present are solved by moving forward. The Right is regressive by definition -- they believe that modern society is inferior to some past "Golden Age" that needs to be returned to to make things great again -- the 1950s, the 19th century, or even the 18th century.

So the crypto currency people who support Trump aren't progressive or does it only count as the progress is in a direction you like? If this is an unprecedented constitutional crisis as so many keep claiming, how is that 'conservative'? The 'left' isn't a rigorously defined term, so it is pretty hard to make a tautological argument like you are implying.

Libertarian capitalists like crypto currency fans idolize capitalism without any government regulations. That isn't anything new -- that was what we had in the late 19th/early 20th century when "robber barons" like John D Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie had free reign and workers had few rights. It's regression to return to that "Gilded Age".
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