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

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

#311

Post by Supermancho »

ziddoap wrote: post #298
reverendsteveii wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for purposes of debating what someone should do illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as legal and if we're only concerned about outcomes it's rational to treat them as equivalent.

> what someone should do illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as legal Illegal + unenforced can generate the same outcome as legal. Or someone can get arrested later when the enforcement begins. There's a big difference.

> There's a big difference.

There's no difference in the short term. Something being illegal, doesn't mean it will stop anytime soon in this political situation. Remaking the same obvious point is tedious and smacks of word games to try a to make a backdoor political statement. Yes, some act is odious and against a law. Not relevant to whether or not it will have the desired consequence, regardless of who is ever held accountable.

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

#312

Post by spacemanspiff01 »

jameshart wrote: post #282
ryandrake wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal" but it's only illegal if the law gets enforced. I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic xxxx. EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this particular thing is le…

If you work for a local government, say, and your boss says ‘hey, here’s my plan: you stop coming to work, and I’ll make sure you get paid anyway for a few months’, if you accept those terms and go along with that plan, and then later on it turns out your boss was not allowed to do that, and you got paid a bunch of government money illegally… Normally that might come back to bite you, potentially years later. That’s…

I like the analogy, additionally, it seems like just 'stopping coming to work' is something that you could be fired for cause for. So if it comes up later that hey, this person has not been working due to a agreement that the government had no right to agree to.

Well we'll be nice and just fire them, won't even ask for salary to be returned.

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

#313

Post by dgfitz »

dcrazy wrote: post #98
dgfitz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It’s not illegal to pay someone who is frustrated by circumstance in performing the duties of their government job. It’s possibly illegal to pay someone for a government job that doesn’t exist anymore.

My understanding is that when a job is available, it is because a job billet has been approved, which means that the position is funded through the lifecycle of the position.

The job isn’t going away, the person is going away. Was the job needed? Look at any employer and ask that.

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

#314

Post by AnimalMuppet »

scarface_74 wrote: post #277
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do. And to do that, they need a functioning society, at least functioning well enough to produce the things that the military and the police need and want. (And that means that the police can't steal too much from people.) A dictatorship can't be just a thugocracy. It has to keep society running, perhaps not up to western capitalist standards, but at least above the point of collapse.

How do you explain North Korea? And there is always prison labor that you can depend on. Especially with private prisons. Prison labor is already being used to fight wildfires in LA for instance and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. That’s cheap labor and another benefit it’s all those “drug dealing thugs” anyway.

Fair point. North Korea is the one that I can't explain.

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

#315

Post by dgfitz »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #100
dgfitz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's because of a then ongoing pandemic and making an allowance. That's completely different than just do nothing for 6+ months then quit. If you can't see that, there's no hope for this discussion.

If you can’t see that precedent has been set for this already, given the implementer and their proclivities, there is indeed no hope for this discussion.

Or were you just trying to bash trump because you’re angry?

That’s cool if you’re angry, but you’re missing the actual debate.

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

#316

Post by labster »

ty6853 wrote: post #288
Workaccount2 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is abundantly wealthy mostly on the back of it's delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As was Enron...

Enron is making a comeback now: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-jo...

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

#317

Post by buzer »

ryandrake wrote: post #176
tstrimple wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've clearly not been paying any attention to what has happened to the judicial system in this country. Trump and Elon are both infamous for ripping people off and often getting away with it via the (compromised) court system. https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-se...

And even if they were to 1. find an uncompromised court, and 2. win a judgment to get paid... Who is ordered to pay them? The Treasury, which is under the control of...? You guessed it! The very people who do not intend to pay.

If they get judgement from US court can they enforce it in another country where US government has some assets?

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

#318

Post by ziddoap »

Supermancho wrote: post #311
ziddoap wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what someone should do illegal and unenforced generates the same outcomes as legal Illegal + unenforced can generate the same outcome as legal. Or someone can get arrested later when the enforcement begins. There's a big difference.

> There's a big difference. There's no difference in the short term. Something being illegal, doesn't mean it will stop anytime soon in this political situation. Remaking the same obvious point is tedious and smacks of word games to try a to make a backdoor political statement. Yes, some act is odious and against a law. Not relevant to whether or not it will have the desired consequence, regardless of who is ever hel…

>try a to make a backdoor political statement.

Yikes. Not trying to make any statement other than legality and enforcement are two distinct concepts. I think it's important to consider all 4 combinations.

What political statement do you think I'm trying to make? I can't even identify what side of the aisle the statement you think I'm trying to make would fall on.

Sometimes a comment is just a comment, not a secretly coded political message.

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

#319

Post by bongodongobob »

justin66 wrote: post #120
root_axis wrote: post #93

My personal and probably not unique prediction is that these people will be let go and not be paid - same thing he did with twitter.

There are some pretty significant differences between Twitter employees and federal government employees, starting with the fact that a lot of latter group are part of a powerful union.

Yeah well some dude from South Africa is running around in government buildings fucking with computers and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Anything goes these days. Union or not.

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

#320

Post by alkonaut »

Shank wrote: post #15

I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations. It would be an i…

If they don’t fulfill their end of the agreement (paying until the date in question) then surely any agreement to quit in return for X months pay would be broken? So you’d still be employed unless the pay out is made?

This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”

The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.

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