191–200 of 318 posts
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Do we actually want "I just want a stable job" people being a significant part of the federal governments workforce? I generally wouldn't want those people to work for my company, so not sure why I'd want them to work in my government.
> Money is not the point of a government.
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> an indictment of capitalism. Capitalism is the least bad system we have tried.
I can think of at least one (Northern European style Socialism) that is better to live under via virtually any metric for 99.99% of people - and that includes the majority of users of this site that think they are some sort of tech unicorn. Just not having insurance tied to employment would be such a massive win.
B: What is it then?
A: It's free-market capitalism with good regulation and a comprehensive social welfare system.
B: Well, let's do that!
A: No, that's socialism!
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There's no methodology at work, it's just indiscriminate firings to cull as many people as possible. This is clear from other other departments where they fired everyone they could. "Coding error" is just a modern version of "the dog ate my homework". Lame but people will swallow it. They knew what they were doing, they just regret getting caught. Sadly, once the firings, rehirings, refirings, court cases, and compen…
> There's no methodology at work, it's just indiscriminate firings to cull as many people as possible. That is the methodology, though. Musk's biography (I believe) contains a bit about how one of his business strategies when trying to make drastic changes is to just fire, fire, fire, fire people. And if you don't realize afterward that you fired too many, and have to hire back at least 10% of them, then you didn't f…
Reports from his antics years earlier[1] at Tesla was that he would go on firing sprees, which was a problem they tried to manage because predictably it was enormously disruptive.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-giga...
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Do we actually want "I just want a stable job" people being a significant part of the federal governments workforce? I generally wouldn't want those people to work for my company, so not sure why I'd want them to work in my government.
Do you want to attract talent or people who take anything they can get? People who know what they're worth aren't going to waste investing their time into an employer who can't even guarantee that they'll still have a job next week. Mundane government employees are some of the most dedicated workers I've met. There's a deep array of jobs that aren't flashy but are foundational and depend on staff who can build up lon…
And you think the reason they are dedicated is because they mostly care about having a "stable job"?
The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…
>It is about total benefit to society, period. Money is the best tool we have to measure that. Sure it has pathological cases, but overall it's the least bad version to assign value. In the government case it's much worse at this since it's not voluntary and measuring aggregate government services vs. tax. The consumption/price is completely unrelated, etc. >I know of several people that are 'employed' but net negati…
It does, such as the United States in 2025. We have left the realm of theory, just open your favorite stock market app or read any economic analysis being put forth by literally anybody except the Trump administration. The current policies are disastrous.
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> 8 month severance package Is there any reporting of employees who actually received this, or are you referring to nebulous promise in the "Fork In the Road" email?
There is another offer coming up.
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> Fired federal workers typically do not get a severance. Those impacted by the recent reductions in force are not receiving severance packages. Not true: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi... This is separate from the deferred resignation plan DOGE was offering. Under that plan employees voluntarily resigned and continued being employed for approximately 8 months, with full pay and benefits…
What 8 months? If you believe that, you’re a sucker. Edit: how about all those fired "for cause" even though it's obviously not "for cause"? If you wanna call this shifting goal posts, fine, but consider this - the DOGE is doing something like a "broad spectrum" attack on government employees. Neither their firings nor offers are legal.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/02/federal-worker-buyouts-trum...
The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…
> The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business process. You are literally playing with entire lives here as if they are disposable things. This alone makes what is happening inhumane. This makes no sense. It is not a life, it is a job. The person isn't dead. They get a generous…
People's health insurance is tied to their job. Mass firings by the largest employer in the nation could easily result in several deaths as medical treatments are disrupted and medications missed, delayed, or changed with insurance companies.
Not that death is required to screw up your life either. This is not a great time to be out of work. Household debt is at an all time high. Credit card delinquencies and utility disconnections are skyrocketing, homelessness is at an all time high. People are already struggling. Those problems are likely to only get worse for anyone who suddenly finds themselves out of work. Adding hundreds of thousands of Americans to the already growing pool of unemployed people all at once means that jobs will be harder to find and offered wages will be lowered.
> What are you trying to say here? That once someone is employed, the have to keep being employed forever
Who said anything about forever? Maybe just don't randomly fire vast numbers of Americans indiscriminately and all at once for zero reason disrupting their lives and interfering with services that people want, depend on, and are paying for?
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Anyone with half a brain understands the argument you put forward, and there is not a single doubt on my mind that the current administration does. But the point is not the savings. The point is incapacitating the government to the point where privatization starts to looks like a viable alternative. This has been the strategy since Thatcher and Reagan, look up "starving the beast". This administration is just really…
> The point is incapacitating the government to the point where privatization starts to looks like a viable alternative. Privatization is almost always going to be the worst option. If the true cost to deliver a good or service to the people is $X, the government can do the job for $X. A private company will also need $X to provide the service, but they must charge the public well above $X so that they can stuff thei…
The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…
Also, it's completely destroying an incredibly valuable asset: The reputation of being a stable long-term employer! (This is possibly their corrupt intent.) The immediate "savings" reduced workforce (even assuming the same level of work gets done) can easily be obliterated by the long-term damage of needing to pay more to attract equally-qualified applicants away from the private sector. Some quick napkin-math just t…
Yeah but what's the plan? They already have crappy pay and now it gets unstable - who'd want to work for the government? Only desperates.