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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

#491

Post by petersellers »

riahi wrote: post #448
nyokodo wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me DOGE is about crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate societies I see absolutely no evidence that the DOGE crowd wants to crash the economy and while they do have a utopian ideology so does the left. Additionally, the DOGE crowd would say they’re trying to dismantle an unaccountable deep state conspiracy that threatens the Ameri…

Man Elon himself said his plan is to crash the economy. When people tell you who they are, listen! https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

That is far different (and much less severe) than the original claim of accelerationism that was being made earlier.

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

#492

Post by somenameforme »

Applejinx wrote: post #266
nyokodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive cuts of workers That is what Trump is doing via DOGE so the burn-it-down camp seems pretty well served, more than anytime since the post-war demobilization anyway. The impasse, if it occurs, is more likely to be with those in Congress that don’t want to reduce the size of government.

I think the burn-it-down camp is better described as true believers in free-marketism, and they genuinely expect business to be booming and things to work great when they've cut back on government functionality. DOGE acts different. It seems to me DOGE is about crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate societies. As such, its actions are inclined…

The US is $36 trillion in debt with that debt growing at an accelerating rate. This is happening at the time that our technological (let alone economic) edge over most of the rest of the world is fading to completely gone, and our own growth rate is starting to decline. To many, this does not seem to have the makings of a sustainable state of affairs.

And not only that but a lot of the spending we engage is a mixture of minimally beneficial and/or outright corrupt. For instance at one point the Air Force was paying $10,000 for toilet seats. It's only after that received extensive publicity that they swapped over to simply 3D printing the seats, probably for a few bucks per seat. [1] There's about a 99.999% chance that the supplier for those $10,000 toilet seats had a rather low degree of personal separation from the person signing off on paying $10,000 for them. And now imagine how much you could save if you started wiping this nonsense out of the entire government.

Government spending, however, is accounted as part of GDP and other economic metrics. Each one of those toilet seats sent the GDP up, improved the economics of the company delivering them, and even created some jobs. So getting rid of this nonsense will obviously 'hurt' the economy in the short-run, but in turn you get a sustainable system, dramatically reduce spending, and create a more competitive economy. When it's even possible to sell toilet seats for $10,000 (easily replaceable by 3D printing), who cares about the private market? To say nothing of the fact that merit/competitiveness is obviously completely nonexistent or farcical for many government contracts.

[1] - https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/07/11/air-force-no...

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

#493

Post by int_19h »

BatmansMom wrote: post #353
rich_sasha wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans? Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of US mechanics of power.

needs 60 votes to pass senate, not just a majority

Filibuster is just a procedural rule that can itself be removed by simple majority, and it has already been watered down on a case by case basis when that was politically expedient, so there's no hard line there. It's actually kind of amazing that we still have it.

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

#494

Post by Jtsummers »

nkurz wrote: post #449
Jtsummers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a buyout. OPM has said that agencies can opt to put people who choose this on administrative leave (but they don't have to, they can keep the people working). So the effect is what the name is "deferred resignation", OPM pinky swears that you won't be cut before 30 September in a RIF or other actions if you take this offer and you'll get your biweekly pay as normal.

What's your source for the assertion that it's not a buyout and it's up to the individual agency if the employee is required to continue working? You might be right that it's not a buyout, but the official Office of Personnel Management FAQ seems to clearly describe it as one: Q: Am I expected to work at my government job during the deferred resignation period? A: No. Q: Am I allowed to get a second job during the de…

> I am certain of my decision to resign and my choice to resign is fully voluntary. I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.

From https://www.opm.gov/fork/

That is what resigners agree to. There is no guarantee of leave and it is up to their agency, not OPM. The FAQ has previously contained information contradicting the OPM Fork letter so it's not surprising the two pages disagree still.

It's not a buyout because it is not a lump sum severance. The payout for annual leave is given to all departing feds (resigning or retiring or RIF'd), it is not unique to this offer.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...

OPM also says that admin leave authority rests with the agency, not them.

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

#495

Post by int_19h »

tsimionescu wrote: post #482
sandworm101 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are irrelevant. It is a second term presidency. What matters are the numbers for those facing reelection in less than a couple years. Even the burn down crowed don't want to remain on a wagon heading for a cliff in four years.

Given the levels of turmoil and also the levels of power grabbing, I think the president's approval ratings are very relevant. For one, if they dip as low as they might given the expected economic hardship and the other cultural issues, you might start seeing rioting. For another, I don't think it's a given this is Trump's final term. There already is a congressman trying to get in legislation to change the constitut…

FWIW the constitutional amendment to enable a third term for Trump is guaranteed to fail. No matter how it is drafted, even if they do a convention, the ratification still requires 3/4 of state legislatures to vote in favor. And Republicans don't have 38 states. They won't have them even if every single state with split legislature goes full red.

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

#496

Post by barfbagginus »

pessimizer wrote: post #228
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…

> 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. I encourage before doing that to find out if the thing is actually illegal, and to cite the law that it violates. This will be better than relying on sounds or smells.

[dead]

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

#497

Post by int_19h »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #119
scarface_74 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-hire people for what? They don’t want a functioning government

OK. What do they want? Seriously, what do you claim they want? A fascist dictatorship? You still need a functioning government for that. (It doesn't function for the people , but it still requires a large number of competent employees.) Anarchy? Mad Max? Everybody dies, so no government employees are needed? Takeover by Canada, Mexico, China, or Russia, so it becomes their problem? Or do you just claim that they're s…

I don't think there's really a meaningful "they" as a single entity there.

It might sound weird, but I believe Musk is genuinely on some kind of a megalomaniac mad scientist superproject that requires taking power of the largest world economy to realize, quite possibly involving Mars. The guy is narcissistic to the extreme, and I think he really wants to end up in the textbooks as some kind of messiah figure on a planetary scale.

Trump's political desires are much too primitive and gut-driven to classify as "fascism"; really any authoritarian arrangement will serve him just fine, but if his inner circle arranges full-on fascism for him, he'll take it.

Then you have the Christian nationalists, who have very specific plans about, well, everything, but are also very sure that what they are doing is in accordance with God's plan and desires and therefore by definition great and cannot fail.

Then there's all the big biz tagging along for the sake of deregulation and lower taxes mostly, but also to try to be there to slow things down wrt stuff that hurts them directly like tariffs.

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

#498

Post by lmm »

djohnston wrote: post #239
scottyah wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They churn through employees fast and they usually exit through burnout (no offloading) and the people wanting to work there skew towards young people who don't know what they're doing. A lot of work gets delayed, dropped, etc and some bad suppliers even take advantage of that ("the last person said they'd do X"). I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot of people would love to hear that the World's…

It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who don't know what they're doing, they've completely decimated any competitors - both public and private.

They've outcompeted by improving their designs faster, by being willing to take risks and do stuff that might work, rather than requiring 9000 levels of process for everything. To my mind that's completely consistent with the kind of company that might lose track of some invoices and not pay until a supplier kicks up enough of a fuss.
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