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

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441–450 of 839 posts

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

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of us really know Twitter's financial position, given it's now private. The rumours I'm hearing are that EBITDA is now above pre-acquistion. The fact that debt is trading hands without a haircut suggests that's probably accurate. There was a lot of waste at Twitter. Given that headcount was cut by 80%, and advertisers are returning, I'd suggest it's doing fine.

It's wild — people that look at employment of the citizens of this country as just data to feed into some kind of profit/waste equation that needs to maximize profit, discard any hint of waste. It's not waste when those employed have paychecks to spend in the economy. What would Corporate think if half the population of the U.S. were unemployed and/or homeless? I guess that's fine as long as profits have been maximiz…

Right? I am astounded by these takes. If every corp and every job was this way, our country would be a high-stress, unemployed wasteland. Any org will drop thousands in a heartbeat. Your family would never be safe.

We work so hard already. We already have such high stress. I do not believe we need to eke out the last %s of profit to pass to shareholders and create crushing stress and work on those remaining.

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

#442
post #9

Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a…

Cringe. How on earth this guy was elected again?

The Democrat Party failed to field a credible candidate that was democratically elected.

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

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I love the fact that the Democrats are considered 'left'. The US electorate has the choice between a right-wing free-market capitalist party, or the Republicans.

Left and right are always relative to a centre, and different in every country.

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

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government employees shouldn't be immune to layoffs. If the government goes bankrupt, everyone is much worse off. The longer these systems stay down the worse things can go, this is the most humane way to do what needs to be done. Which is take away the power (money) that the parasitic relationship between business and DC is built on and make sure we don't go bankrupt. They will be able to collect unemployment, do we…

This comment definitely appear to be written a bit too fast and with disregard to the context. Firing is not an issue. The issue is fire to rehire. It is not only indicative of poor leadership, but also does it break down institutions - one of the key values government provides. to contextualize: Do you think you can get people to go to war for the US if you can not make up your mind on whether or not to keep them on…

I am aware that it is about the fire and rehire. If no one can say why something should exist, then yes, the quickest solution is turn it all off and see what breaks. You might not agree with it but it is a valid strategy given all the dynamics at play. Your definition of leadership isn't my definition.

I don't think we should go to war at all.

I don't think you understand why Trump was elected or middle America culture. The popular vote was a vote against deterring and corrupt institutions that already exist

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

#445
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the public voted for someone openly stating they'd carry out DOGE. Majority is just a collection of tiny minorities, in this case my minority opinion partially aligns. As it turns out minority isn't aways what you think.

This RMG survey reports 19% of all voters knowing what DOGE was in December of 2024. https://napolitannews.org/posts/19-percent-of-voters-know-wh... (PDF) https://napolitannews.org/assets/pdfs/67633dc0cced7-gcm24-12...

Less than 19% knew what the nuclear safety team was, so be careful with the point you're making. There was probably more informed consent for DOGE than many eliminated positions.

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

#446
post #259

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.

But that growth period also came after the largest Marxist redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor that's ever happened in America.

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

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not tied to failing and increasingly irrelevant EU? What is significantly worse, is the governing clases continuing the same pre-Brexit policies and deals post-Brexit, to nullify it.

The UK is becoming a destination country for hiring low-cost services labor. Not exactly an endorsement of future success.

Low cost compared to what? California and New York? That’s also true of many states where finance and tech companies have smaller offices.

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

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your use of the word "innocent" there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He did not have a day in court, and what he did was indirect. However, a lot of people consider the supposedly "innocent" guy that got killed a mass murderer. Whether or not you agree with that assessment, it seems like you don't understand a few links in the chain there or are otherwise playing dumb. It is very reasonable for people to not care a…

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No, the democrats lost because their fundamental offering was conservatism but they didn't own it, but rather let their latent expectation for progress be filled in with perfunctory and performative identity politics.

The republicans stepped in with their simplistic answers to complex problems (effectively "kill the patient to cure the cancer"), that the party had been courting to generate grassroots energy for decades before it escaped their control.

If we had had more occurrences of Luigi-accountability over the past several years, we could have likely released enough frustration, had societal conversations about real reforming concessions, and ever-increasingly-squeezed people might not have fallen for the siren song of a fascist strongman. Alas.

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

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people think it’s a good idea to put this wealthy dickwad in charge of one of the most (allegedly) important projects in the current admin is beyond me. Move fast and break things is a stupid policy to apply to public policy.

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Whether or not it's a good strategy for either companies or the government, this particular case involved randomly firing a bunch of folks who build and maintain nuclear weapons and then almost immediately trying to un-fire them. There wasn't enough time to see if anything broke (not that you'd see that with nuclear weapons until it was way, way too late) but now you've managed to piss off a bunch of people who are likely only going to come back long enough to find a new job, if they come back at all, and you've probably also damaged your ability to retain even the people you didn't fire or attract new prospective employees. It's basically all damage with zero value and it certainly isn't going to fix any performance management problems.

I think it's a questionable strategy anyways, especially when applied to government, but carrying out the strategy in such a ham-fisted way seems unlikely to be the secret to making it successful.

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

#450
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This RMG survey reports 19% of all voters knowing what DOGE was in December of 2024. https://napolitannews.org/posts/19-percent-of-voters-know-wh... (PDF) https://napolitannews.org/assets/pdfs/67633dc0cced7-gcm24-12...

Less than 19% knew what the nuclear safety team was, so be careful with the point you're making. There was probably more informed consent for DOGE than many eliminated positions.

You're moving the goalposts. People did not, in fact, vote for DOGE.
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