Been hearing from lots of ex co-workers and colleagues the last few days. It's all brutal. Cultural revolution kind of stuff--and even though it's currently without the organized murder, I fear we just need to give it time. But heck, this isn't being done for some ideology or religion. It's all mindless sadism, twisted notions of vengeance, and gleeful greed. And immensely criminal, both in execution and intent. Yes, people will die because of all this, no question. There are not enough private sector jobs to cover all those who have been fired. Along with the grants and support going away, we are about to have an economic downturn. Of course, the cost of that will pale to the amount of damage being done to the country. Think you'll be able to travel internationally after a few months with no public health system? Nope. We'll be carriers and countries will rightly ban us from entry--barbarians at the terminal. Think if that happens you'll just go see some national parks? Maybe, but enjoy the trash that isn't picked up and the restrooms that are either closed or rarely cleaned (in addition to losing many who have restroom duty, several major parks lost their sewer operators yesterday) and the trails that are not maintained. Think it's OK if eggheads move out of the country? Nope. Brain drains are devastating and immediately diminish the drained country and bolster the countries where the refugees go. They also take a huge amount of time, money, and effort to reverse. Will you let your kids eat meat after the food inspectors are all gone? Nope. Not if you love them that is. Again, they are doing this because they are too weak to govern in the American democratic system. They couldn't pass any of this through normal legislative efforts. The saving grace is that they are high on their own supply, are divorced from reality, and are ignorant about so many things. There are counters that will soon appear, but it will be a long slog and I might be dead before we fully right this.
I genuinely love seeing zero/poor performers get fired after being put through corrective action. Nobody likes the coworker who posts in clutchfans all day with their stupid opinions while everyone else works.
I don't understand the logic tree when leftist say this. Forget the cultish thought-like servitude to political parties like Democrat/Republican. First, Leftist state we need illegal immigration and we should not be deporting the illegals, not because its further entrenching the establishment power with promises of lifetime of welfare, but because there is not enough workers for jobs. Then the Leftist turns around and says we should not be removing useless jobs from the government because, well, they are socialist and believe the government is the last resort of unemployment, therefore, need to provide 'jobs' because there isn't enough jobs available in the private workforce. (which is a complete contradiction to the previous statement). The reality is leftist are communist and we all know how communism works. Same as capitalism except with a different type of people in power. everyone is poor except the party loyalist (take a look at China). The reality is there are plenty of private sector jobs, but nobody wants them because they suck and pay low. So like southerners in the late 1700's, early 1800's, they 'import' the jobs from impoverished lands and abuse the workforce. They are 'lucky' to be here making $15.00 an hour. So instead of paying real prices, entitled leftist (and really all americans to be honest) feel we should abuse impoverished people's labor so we can do not need to pay real labor market prices for key products like fruits and vegetables. So just MAYBE, instead of paying $100k to useless government workers who do nothing but support the socialistic regime, the government should pay the people doing REAL work REAL wages working the fields. The same twisted entitled logic applied to the slave owners 200 years ago - Those poor people who had nothing going for them in Afica should be thankful they are getting food and a roof and basic health care because the slave owner paid (adjusted for inflation) anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 to bring these workers (slaves) to the Americas. Its so bizarre how you people sit on your throne of self righteousness believing that just because an illegal immigrant has the option to leave the country is somehow justification to subject illegals to the same treatment of 1800 slaves. Just because you don't beat them to submission or giving them an option to leave (to go where??) is morally justifiable.
There are 1.87 million federal civilian workers, with an average pay of $106,382 annually. Eliminating 20% of the federal workforce (374,000) would save approximately $40 billion annually. To put that in perspective* $40 billion is 0.6% of the $6 trillion U.S. budget (6.3T in 2024) The Republican draft budget resolution proposed a $4.5 trillion tax cut (likely to vastly benefit the top 5%) over a decade, which amounts to approximately $450 billion annually. If both of these happen**, the overall national debt would increase by ~$4.1 trillion (450-40B * 10) over the next decade. *not adjusted for yearly inflation **not considering economic variability US federal workers: Key questions and employment trends | Pew Research Center
Key word corrective action. Trump just got into the white house and is firing folks like it's a race with no follow up plan whatsoever. Like in what world is firing folks who watch over our nuclear supplies/weapons ASAP a good idea? It should take time to fire folks and weed out the bad apples. It sounds good on paper to save the american tax payer "money" but if you use the saving to enrich yourself or others it's counter productive. Its like the ceo firing a sht ton of folks to save a few bucks just to give himself or his friends a massive pay raise that dwarfs the amount of money saved.
Jesus. If true, and I have no reason to doubt it at this point, what a stupid thing to do. We are being run by kids and idiots.
I think you're being hyperbolic, but if you're not, I'll wager against you on this one. I've spent time in dozens of third world countries with all sorts of health issues. You can go anywhere as long as you're vaccinated and you have money. I also don't think we're falling into that dystopia you're imagining, but who knows.
IIRC correctly, Musk fired many that he needed to rehire at Twitter. I think his philosophy was that if you don't cut deep enough where you need to backtrack, then you haven't cut deep enough. I don't think that plan works the same when running a country, but here we are.
I prefer the U.S. government not risk local, regional, national, or global security and human lives over what essentially accounts for less than 1% of the overall national budget. He has 2 years; there is no need to rush through things so recklessly. FWIW, his layoffs at Twitter account for about 20% of their budget, and he claimed they were on the brink of bankruptcy. Of course, Twitter also does not (at least directly) risk nuclear accidents, global health, terrorism, or people's lives... so, yeah, not at all the same thing.
I more or less agree. It will take a minor miracle for his reckless not to have direct impact on something really bad happening. And if that minor miracle happens, it'll just embolden him to be more reckless. Kind of a crappy unstable situation this country is in.
If the culling doesn't result in efficiency or cleanliness of parks, which Americans on both sides love, there will be complaints and it will be righted. But proobationary workers being fired isn't any kind of game changer, nor is consolidation of job operations. Let's give it 6-9 months and then mount an evidence based retort.
It's all about operations. twitter didn't shut down or get taken over by hackers, it operated the same. Of course, the algorithm changed and trashy click bait became the norm but that's all social media. But from an operations perspective it stayed the same even if the initial firings went a bit overkill (which was then amended).
Twitter is a social media platform run on software (and yes, algorithms). The U.S. government is NOT a social media platform run on software (and no, not on algorithms either). There are no Twitter employees in the field dealing with nukes, viruses, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami detection, radar, terrorists, etc. I think you get the picture.
National Institute of Food and Agriculture took some hits this week with a bunch of scientists fired. That's the crop science arm of USDA. They study things like nematodes, pesticides, biotechnology, invasive pests, crop yields, soil health, water recommendations during droughts, and a host of other issues. They also support a bunch of ag research grants at land-grant universities. They are a target because you can't talk about those things without considering climate change. This will have an eventual effect on US agriculture--and likely unforeseen consequences--which will affect US food prices.
Well, the CDC just removed all info from their websites about flu vaccines. There's a fair chance we don't have easy access to a current vaccine come the fall. Perhaps we will be able to travel, but it will be with a visa and we'll need to show vaccine info and maybe take other steps. The idea of hopping over to Europe at a moment's notice with just a passport seems like it is in danger.
Where I live, small town of 4k. Just got word that 30+ forest serve workers were let go due to the cuts. That may seem like small potatoes on the grand scale but it will have a negative affect on our community. Plus, I would guess 80% of the forest service workers vote R here. Let’s just say they are not too happy and have been very vocal. Government cuts always seem like a good idea until it happens to you. Americas problem is that they don’t know what the government actually does for them. Heck, I bet some people don’t even realize they work for the government. “I don’t work for the government, I work for the Forrest service.”
Majority of people if not all wouldn't think it would happen to them. By the time it does, it's already too late.
