Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels

#121

Post by oooyay » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 5:04 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #119

oooyay wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do happen to know a thing or two about them. They're just not silver bullets for veteran suicide, PTSD, or cPTSD in the way you're describing them. They help and should be available for sure. I've advocated for them in the past on this very forum. > 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 tre…

You are literally lying. Psilosibin only needs 1-2 treatments and is very long lasting. Same as ketamine, which might need up to 6. Both are nothing compared to SSRIs. You are lying when you say it needs years of treatment.

I am not "literally lying". Both of these treatments often require therapy up to the point of treatment and then continued therapy after. Most people are not doing weekly therapy for that kind of trauma because it's workshop style work. It takes time to implement. The time between therapy starts to add up quick. The actual dose is one treatment, or in the case of ketamine spread across an array of treatments, but the therapy before and after is what takes the bulk of what I'm talking about. I don't mean you spend years dosing.

Re: Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels

#122

Post by acdha » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #115

acdha wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s 80k people suddenly, thoughtlessly forced to stop contributing to the economy. In some areas, stable federal jobs are the backbone of the local economy and surprise cuts like that mean that small businesses fold and home prices fall because people can’t make mortgage payments without jobs which aren’t there (this was brutal in San Diego in the early 90s because whole neighborhoods near the big defense contract…

> 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. Absolutely. I in no way support what DOGE is doing. But when people think cuts are needed (and the majority of Americans seem to think that's the case), and the options are your position that the country would seemingly collapse if a single job was cut and someone who is going to tak…

I don’t see anyone taking the position that you can’t cut a single job. Most of what I see is basically saying that should be a legal process and at the program level - like don’t randomly break GSA leases, say that next year you’re closing a particular program so you don’t tell people to go to the office which you closed or have an operating federal courthouse with no building staff (Phoenix, currently).

Re: Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels

#123

Post by lenerdenator » Mon, Mar 10, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

bpt3 wrote: post #114

lenerdenator wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's very convenient to sign other people up to pay for your preferred government services and I'm sure your peers are willing to eagerly pat you on the back for your generosity, but ultimately even taxing the wealthy at 100% won't cover the deficit no matter how good it would make you feel. Other people sign me up to pay for their preferred government services all the time. It's called living in a civilization. And…

> Other people sign me up to pay for their preferred government services all the time. It's called living in a civilization. Unless you're one of the wealthy you're talking about (which would be odd to say the least), no one is asking you to pay for government services for somewhere between dozens to thousands of your fellow citizens who pay approximately $0 federal income tax on average, so it's not the same. > And…

> Unless you're one of the wealthy you're talking about (which would be odd to say the least), no one is asking you to pay for government services for somewhere between dozens to thousands of your fellow citizens who pay approximately $0 federal income tax on average, so it's not the same.

Really? You think I don't pay for services I don't use?

> Hint: it's not actually your company. Those people actually employ you.

Do they? What do they know of the company? If I asked the beneficiary of a pension fund what the company does and where it was headquartered, would they know?

> Confiscatory tax rates are counterproductive, other than making the envious far left feel better about themselves.

It's not far left to want general stability in your society. People with too much money and a government with too much debt are destabilizing forces.

The world is literally filled with examples of how this works, if you'd stop pretending that the current system in the US is working.