20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says • Hacker News Board

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#241

Post by drawkward » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #47

derektank wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of people that, due to their living situation, wouldn't be able to comply with the new executive order banning work from home. If the choice is between being fired either way, I can see many people opting to take the possibility of a severance while they find alternative work

Finding new work is going to be freaking great with rapidly dropping consumer confidence and the random ass tariff changes scaring the hell out of businesses.

President Trusk is going to completely screw the economy.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#242

Post by reverendsteveii » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

iamEAP wrote: post #181

_qbxi wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal acts should be called out, even if our government is failing to enforce the law. Otherwise it will become easy for the acts to get ignored entirely.

Unless you’re a member of congress or a civil servant in the executive branch, paying any attention to this is wasted energy. We already saw this play out in his last term. Directing how laws are enforced is a function of the executive branch. Nothing will be done. Your energy is better spent identifying and articulating the values you hold that these actions are an affront to and shouting that out.

This. Remember when he literally did a commercial for Goya products from the resolute desk? His justification was that they were being "cancelled" and that the law surrounding the white house endorsing products for political support was his to enforce or not and he was just not gonna enforce it.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#243

Post by ipaddr » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:01 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #215

_qbxi wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum, drawing people's attention to the ongoing issues can result in a different batch of congressional representatives in the future. Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.

We are kind of locked into what we have. A single digit percentage of House races are ever contested. The vast majority of House districts are won by the party that already holds them[1]. 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/30/decade-af...

If 4% or 18 seats were switched four years ago why wouldn't that matter because currently the majority is thin and only a few seats. That could flip in two years. My guess after the gaza comments is more likely than not to switch.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#244

Post by drawkward » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

Molitor5901 wrote: post #24

manbart wrote: post #2

Doubt it... You'd be a fool to think you'd actually get the money

[flagged]

This is a very naive comment, given the blatantly unconstitutional behavior that has happened in the last two weeks.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#245

Post by 9283409232 » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

chairmansteve wrote: post #200

The plan seems to be to fire almost all government emoloyees. The only historical parallel I can come up with is the De Baathification program in Iraq 2003.

RAGE is one of the main points of this entire department. Retire All Government Employees.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#246

Post by djohnston » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:03 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #173

olalonde wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not American here. Isn't Congress controlled by Republicans? If I understand correctly, it would take 5+ Republicans voting against the party line for a Republican bill to fail to pass? Is this common?

I think the number is only 2 or 3 because once some people are confirmed for the cabinet, they have to leave the House of Representatives.

Really? There must be some replacement who steps in though, no? Otherwise districts would have no representation, which seems unlikely.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#247

Post by drawkward » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

mateus1 wrote: post #130

nielsbot wrote: post #12

Related: “Will Employees Who Resign Have a Remedy?” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950301

These topics are being routinely taken down by the mod team.

HN is sufficiently MAGA as to not require bad faith actions by dang.

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#248

Post by breadwinner » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:05 PM UTC

carom wrote: post #233

Larrikin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.

To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed it. [1] 1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...

How about this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismis...

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#249

Post by dingnuts » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

mostlysimilar wrote: post #175

yapyap wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh brother, totally agree. but also, legality is a thing of the past in the new way of things it feels.

That's called giving up and it's exactly what they want you to do. Do not concede without a fight. Call your elected representatives and tell them you expect them to hold these people accountable and to be loud about it.

which representative? the one that "represents" a cracked district and doesn't see me as a constituent? or the senator who also doesn't see me as a constituent because of my address?

Re: 20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

#250

Post by robocat » Wed, Feb 05, 2025, 10:06 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #192

Larrikin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay. Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime. For some reason, links to st…

The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55 million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2023")

It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.

I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.

Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).