101–110 of 123 posts
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What would be the appropriate number to hire, and how do arrive at the answer?
No new headcount. Layoff the bottom 5% of the institution per year based on performance reviews and replace them with new hires. When someone leaves, replace every 3 people leaving with 1 new hire.
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I really hate this attitude. "$24 billion a year is nothing compared to the deficit so we should just ignore it and keep spending." Spending cuts have to start SOMEWHERE. Saying $24 billion is ignorable is insane. We are in a critical debt situation and my children's future is at stake.
It's an intentionally deceptive framing, so you should hate it. $24 Billion is $183 per taxpayer per year. I sure as hell think $180/year is a lot of money, and if the government is going to forcibly take 1/4 of my friggin' salary every year, they really ought to be at least as careful with my money as I am!
If you want to cancel it out, there are many easier ways to do it, including things like more IRS auditing for tax evasion. There’s roughly a 10:1 return rate for enforcement, with an estimated gap of over half a trillion dollars.
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It's an intentionally deceptive framing, so you should hate it. $24 Billion is $183 per taxpayer per year. I sure as hell think $180/year is a lot of money, and if the government is going to forcibly take 1/4 of my friggin' salary every year, they really ought to be at least as careful with my money as I am!
I don't think blindly saving $183/year is worth throwing a wrench into our economic engine that provides everyone else an ecocomy that allows us to have jobs and things. I think we we need more thoughtful cuts rather than just thoughtlessly making cuts. Speed doesn't kill, the sudden change in velocity is what kills. All these cuts so quickly is going to kill the economy. This desire for instant gratification/change…
This is why we end up with indiscriminate and thoughtless cuts, because the alternative is people who seem to believe that every penny of government spending is absolutely essential the second after the line item is conceived, and the only way to fix any issues that exist is with more spending.
Holy hell, they hired 83,000 people since 2019? Does no one care we are $36T in debt? 40% of our income taxes go to paying just the interest on our debt!
> Veteran suicide can be massively helped with psilosibin and ketamine therapy, things that I hope RFK Jr will implement quickly.
This take combined with the immediate cuts at the VA when DOGE opened up are reminiscent of when Trump publicly toyed with putting us all on antidepressants [1]. I'm curious when people who hold the opinions you do just pull the wool off and admit you'd prefer (or just be okay with) us drugged up or dead? Are you afraid someone will judge you for saying you'd rather have a dead veteran than doing what the American people promised to the people who fought their wars?
1: https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-veterans-spr...
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No new headcount. Layoff the bottom 5% of the institution per year based on performance reviews and replace them with new hires. When someone leaves, replace every 3 people leaving with 1 new hire.
This is a good way to destroy productivity and morale, but if that’s not your goal you need to expect your managers to earn their pay. Laying off the bottom 5% presumes that you’re measuring that accurately and that individual workers have control over their productivity, both of which are unlikely to be true - and if you get either wrong, you just incentivized playing political games and shying away from work which…
If your entire org is filled with lazy low performers, then it doesn't matter if productivity and morale is destroyed, because they don't have high productivity or morale in the first place.
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Citation required that we are losing "experts" or that people can't learn any government job in weeks/months with higher efficiency.
NOAA just fired hundreds of weather forecasters. World class ones, literally some of the best meteorologists in the world. And they knew how to interact with NOAA's systems to gather data and publish forecasts, issue realtime watches and warnings, and a thousand other things. Realtime forecasts are _vital_ to hundreds of different industries and save thousands of lives a year, and part of that is because they are abl…
Holy hell, they hired 83,000 people since 2019? Does no one care we are $36T in debt? 40% of our income taxes go to paying just the interest on our debt!
Elsewhere you commented this: > Veteran suicide can be massively helped with psilosibin and ketamine therapy, things that I hope RFK Jr will implement quickly. This take combined with the immediate cuts at the VA when DOGE opened up are reminiscent of when Trump publicly toyed with putting us all on antidepressants [1]. I'm curious when people who hold the opinions you do just pull the wool off and admit you'd prefer…
Unlike SSRIs which changes brain chemistry and you need to be on it for the rest of your lives, most people suffering from PTSD recover after a single treatment. That's why ketamine and psilsobin therapy is being pushed by everyone who cares about veteran suicides.
Educate yourself.
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This is a good way to destroy productivity and morale, but if that’s not your goal you need to expect your managers to earn their pay. Laying off the bottom 5% presumes that you’re measuring that accurately and that individual workers have control over their productivity, both of which are unlikely to be true - and if you get either wrong, you just incentivized playing political games and shying away from work which…
This is false. It's a great way to INCREASE productivity and morale. Good workers HATE working with lazy, dumb and inefficient workers. But constantly getting rid of the low performers and replacing them with better people, you are instilling confidence in the system. If your entire org is filled with lazy low performers, then it doesn't matter if productivity and morale is destroyed, because they don't have high pro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think blindly saving $183/year is worth throwing a wrench into our economic engine that provides everyone else an ecocomy that allows us to have jobs and things. I think we we need more thoughtful cuts rather than just thoughtlessly making cuts. Speed doesn't kill, the sudden change in velocity is what kills. All these cuts so quickly is going to kill the economy. This desire for instant gratification/change…
How exactly is cutting VA headcount back to 2019 numbers "throwing a wrench into our economic engine"? This is why we end up with indiscriminate and thoughtless cuts, because the alternative is people who seem to believe that every penny of government spending is absolutely essential the second after the line item is conceived, and the only way to fix any issues that exist is with more spending.
If you wanted to cut things responsibly, you’d plan it in advance and think about how to avoid shocking the economy into a recession.
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Elsewhere you commented this: > Veteran suicide can be massively helped with psilosibin and ketamine therapy, things that I hope RFK Jr will implement quickly. This take combined with the immediate cuts at the VA when DOGE opened up are reminiscent of when Trump publicly toyed with putting us all on antidepressants [1]. I'm curious when people who hold the opinions you do just pull the wool off and admit you'd prefer…
It sounds like you know NOTHING about ketamine or psilosibin therapy and are just talking hot air. Unlike SSRIs which changes brain chemistry and you need to be on it for the rest of your lives, most people suffering from PTSD recover after a single treatment. That's why ketamine and psilsobin therapy is being pushed by everyone who cares about veteran suicides. Educate yourself.
> most people suffering from PTSD recover after a single treatment.
That is incorrect. Ketamine therapy for PTSD or cPTSD (what most at the VA have) requires years of treatment. Psilocybin therapy is the same; I live in Oregon where we have clinics and practitioners for this stuff. None of those clinics claim that one time treatment will cure you.
I am a veteran and obviously do care about veteran suicide otherwise I wouldn't be calling out this gobbledegook you're spreading on a public forum in lieu of all the various different kinds of work the VA does.