Sounds good.
White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off
More than two million US federal civilian employees have been invited to resign as of September 30, 2025, with incentives promised for those who agree to quit by February 6, 2025. The sweeping offer comes from the White House’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as part of the Trump administration's plan to drastically …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:32 GMT Jou (Mxyzptlk)
Yea, but Mr. upturned-leek-hairdo would have loved to do so, just to prove "I am right and you are wrong". And after the destruction the typical political interpretation of "taking responsibility": Run away and let others deal with the outcome. A really historically sad catastrophe which happened to Britain. And as usual: The youngest generation has to suffer most.
Oh, BTW, the German FDP politician Patrik Lindner does the improved version of "taking responsibility": He lets others "take responsibility" for him, i.e. let them leave for the mess he is responsible for.
Result: Will be out of parliament with the next election 'cause they won't manage the "minimum votes of at least 5%" hurdle. From 11.4% down to 3.9% (current prognosis). He did too much a*licking of Porsche, for example with that embarrassing e-fuel nonsense in EU-parliament. E-fuels themselves are fine for end-of-the-world places, like mid-jungle, somewhere up high mountains, antarctic and so on, but not generally in Europe.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:49 GMT codejunky
@James Hughes 1
"The UK had Austerity"
When? We had increased spending beyond Browns years, just a bit less of an increase than Labour planned. That is not austerity.
"And there is no money to actually fix it."
Of course not, the government has a huge debt and large deficit as well as taxing more and more which reduces growth. But the only way to pay off this through is through growth and not spending like a drunken sailor.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:56 GMT heyrick
Re: @James Hughes 1
When? A forever of public sector pay freezes (except MPs of course). An equal forever of continually cutting back local and regional council budgets. Austerity has been pretty much the Tory catchphrase since around the time of John Major. We little people all have to tighten our belts and pay more so the government can offer attractive tax breaks to the parts of society that don't pay their fair share.
And now? Infrastructure is in a deplorable mess, privatised infrastructure (looking at you Thames Water) is in a deplorable mess. There is so much that needs fixing that it isn't even a bad joke, and guess what - no money. It's been far too austere for far too long, I'm not sure if some of the things are fixable now...
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:24 GMT codejunky
Re: @James Hughes 1
@heyrick
"It's been far too austere for far too long, I'm not sure if some of the things are fixable now..."
And yet government has been spending more and more and the 'austerity' was increased government spending. Remember that Labour spending on things like the NHS were blowout investments where they made bad contracts, sold gold and simply borrowed for this unsustainable 'investment' they made. And spending has increased since then. The government portion of GDP is still well above what was 'normal' under Labour before the 2008 crash-
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298478/public-sector-expenditure-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/
https://fullfact.org/health/spending-english-nhs/
"We little people all have to tighten our belts and pay more so the government can offer attractive tax breaks to the parts of society that don't pay their fair share"
Is this where the recent crying over rich people leaving because of the disproportionately large portion of the tax contribution they make? Reeves doing a great job at stalling the economy by increasing this 'fair share' taxation which is going to put more burden on we little people and force us to tighten our belts?
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Thursday 30th January 2025 12:10 GMT localzuk
Re: @James Hughes 1
Your post is misleading at least, dishonest at worst. Comparing public sector spending against GDP is near enough a worthless measure, as GDP doesn't consistently increase - we had many years of GDP contraction during the last decade.
Spending has gone up, but so has tax income, and so has population side, not to mention so have costs. The NHS budget *in real terms* has not increased all that much, yet the population of the country has increased by around 7 million since 2011. When you take population growth into effect? The NHS budget hasn't increased really at all. Yet we've got crumbling buildings, a massive shortage of staff etc...
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Thursday 30th January 2025 13:18 GMT codejunky
Re: @James Hughes 1
@localzuk
"Your post is misleading at least, dishonest at worst. Comparing public sector spending against GDP is near enough a worthless measure, as GDP doesn't consistently increase - we had many years of GDP contraction during the last decade."
Actually it is about the best measure we have. GDP being the measured flow of money through the economy and with its rise or fall changes the amount of taxable money flowing through the economy. If it is private money then it is tax money that goes into these services. If it is public money it is tax money and government borrowing flowing into the economy that gets taxed. The more public money the more is lost.
Spending more = spending more, it doesnt matter what the excuses are. Austerity is spending less. If you want to blame population growth (valid) then you need to look at the drivers of that not being productive enough to cover their costs or how to limit such growth.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 13:28 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: @James Hughes 1
The NHS budget *in real terms* has not increased all that much, yet the population of the country has increased by around 7 million since 2011
Problem with that is.. what exactly do you mean by 'real terms'? Which is why per-capita metrics might be more useful. But then there are exceptions, like the cost of dealing with Covid. Or that not all population are equal, ie if there's been an influx of a couple of million needing or wanting healthcare, that would create a cost increase. Or related spend like providing translators, or just new treatments becoming available.
People aren't widgets, so setting budgets isn't as simple as running a factory. In the old days, hospitals used to keep 'winter wards' closed most of the year, but could be opened up when winter hit, and especially if there was a bad flu season. Then came 'efficiency savings' and layers of manglement that could produce spreadsheets showing bed occupancy rates and decide wards could be closed, or reallocated, and if you got sick outside of their planned times, that's too bad, join the waiting list. Or just die. Especially when population growth exceeds hospital capacity, meaning there's even less of a chance to deal with any 'unexpected' demand, even though increased winter demand is entirely predictable, just not necessarily quantifiable.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:26 GMT collinsl
Re: @James Hughes 1
We may well have had increased spending since 2008, however we also have a larger population than in 2008. Raw figures are useless unless you interpret them correctly.
Spending per head of population is what matters here and that went down under the Conservatives - it's a common political trick to use absolute numbers to state a position or refute the position of your opposition, rather than using useful numbers which actually reflect the situation per person or per unit of whatever.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:36 GMT codejunky
Re: @James Hughes 1
@collinsl
"We may well have had increased spending since 2008, however we also have a larger population than in 2008. Raw figures are useless unless you interpret them correctly."
That is a great argument for effective border and immigration enforcement but doesnt change the facts of forever increasing spending not being austerity no matter how you play with the figures. You cannot spend more and say you are spending less without lying.
As we are spending too much and generating too little then the obvious solution is less spending and more productivity which is as I said.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 12:12 GMT localzuk
Re: @James Hughes 1
You literally can say you are spending less... Per person. Which is what matters. Not the total amount. Not to mention, immigrants generally pay more tax than native Brits, so immigration arguments are demonstrably incorrect.
The problem with spending less is it reduces confidence - so people spend even less themselves, meaning businesses then invest less and hire less staff. You end up with a downwards spiral. Its why the entire idea of "balancing the budget" in government is delusional.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 13:26 GMT codejunky
Re: @James Hughes 1
@localzuk
"You literally can say you are spending less... Per person."
Well done, you need to add a qualifier to make the lie the truth. So we are spending more (not less).
"Which is what matters. Not the total amount"
You try it. Add someone elses bills to yours and then pay more, but tell me you are paying less. You can even call it austerity because your money has to stretch further.
"Not to mention, immigrants generally pay more tax than native Brits, so immigration arguments are demonstrably incorrect."
Fantastic so that means your population growth argument doesnt work as they will all be paying more and government spending into the economy will be less than private? No?
"The problem with spending less is it reduces confidence"
Fantastic, so you spend your wage, max out your credit card, take out loans and see how confident you feel. Again I guess no.
"so people spend even less themselves"
Keeping up with the Joneses is a certain way to go broke.
"meaning businesses then invest less and hire less staff"
Or as reality is hitting Reeves at the moment- tax the balls off the economy and you get less investment and less hiring.
"Its why the entire idea of "balancing the budget" in government is delusional."
Nope, its sense. As Reeves is finding out currently with bond yields and over taxing hitting limits in what people want to lend to the UK government who is overspending and underperforming.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 13:37 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: @James Hughes 1
You literally can say you are spending less... Per person. Which is what matters.
Nope. You might be spending less because treatments are better, patients are cured, or able to be treated more easily/cheaply and not require expensive inpatient care.
Or one of my favourites, because fagflation is about to increase everyone's water bills. So tobacco duty rates get massive increases, allegedly because of the cost to the NHS. As a result, there are far fewer smokers, so cost to the NHS should have been falling.. Which it doesn't seem to be. If the policy has been a success, then the portion of the NHS budget allocated to deal with smoking related illnesss should be reduced. Which is also true of a lot of other supposed 'Public Health' initiatives. If those actually worked, then costs and thus budgets could be lowered. If there are constant demands for more money for the NHS, then clearly those initiatives have failed, and the people responsible fired and rehired as hospital porters where they might do less harm.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 14:29 GMT Jou (Mxyzptlk)
Re: @James Hughes 1
Regarding your smoker example: Tell the non-UK-lers here what time frame you talk about. Less smokers = less cancer take about 40 years to really manifest at NHS level with considerable lower cancer rate - maybe even more. And when i look at Germany: A surprisingly large percentage of smokers here, especially in IT. Chain smokers mostly died away (looking at my parents, which both could still live...), but "a few cigs per day" are still high in number compared to other countries like USA.
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Saturday 1st February 2025 12:33 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: @James Hughes 1
Regarding your smoker example: Tell the non-UK-lers here what time frame you talk about. Less smokers = less cancer take about 40 years to really manifest at NHS level with considerable lower cancer rate - maybe even more.
But does it? So cancers are basically faulty error correction. Cells have a limited lifespan, so need continuous replacement. If transcription errors occur, the wrong kind of cell might be produced. If our error correction processes can't detect that, cells may continue to grow and we get a cancer. Which is also why they're so hard to treat because they're often a healthy cell, just growing in the wrong place. Then there's the stuff that might increase the risk of mutations, so actual or potential carcinogens.
There are some fun ones around that. So anti-smoking FUD often picks up on tobacco smoke containing polonium, especially after the death of Litvinenko. He was murded by polonium poisoning, tobacco contains polonium, FUD time..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium-210
Once inside the body, 210Po concentrates in soft tissues (especially in the reticuloendothelial system) and the bloodstream. Its biological half-life is approximately 50 days... In particular, 210Po attaches to, and concentrates in, tobacco leaves.
Or pretty much any leaf. Or vegetable. Which is one of those science vs FUD issues. So 210Po is found in soil, and organic fertilsers, exists as a decay product of radon, so if you're a vegan living in Cornwall growing your own organic veg, maybe you should't also take up smoking.
But then back to correlation and causation. You say '40 years', but why would this be the case? So I quit smoking. I've removed the causative agents. My cells are continually being replaced, and the half-life of stuff like 210Po is reducing rapidly to the point where it's very unlikely to be in any way dangerous. But plucking a number out of the air. Suppose smoking is responsible for 50% of lung cancers. If smoking rates drop by 50%, at some point, I'd expect to see that reflected in a fall in cancer rates.. But the correlation isn't really there. But then there are a whole slew of other environmental factors, like particulates from EVs and roads, all the solvents and potions & lotions we spread around our homes to make them smell 'fresh' etc etc.
Or just assorted solutions that cost money and might be rather ineffective. So my GP referred me to a 'smoking cessation' service, which was basically a table plonked in a shopping mall, that gave me a couple of leaflets and told me to come back next week and let them know if I'd quit or not. The NHS paid for that garbage.
Which is why making bold claims about funding, or lack of funding can gloss over a lot of waste, or mismanagement. Smokers were an easy target because a lot of people don't like smoke.. Which then got amplified by all the PR that was intentionally aimed at ostracising smokers, even though smoking is still legal. Point out the problems and costs of obesity due to dietary and lifestyle choices, and you'll get shouted down for 'fat shaming'.. But first, they came for the smokers and all that.
One of my relatives is a medical statistician working for the MRC, so I get to have some interesting chats about the challenges in producing public health guidance, and sorting out correlation vs causation, or misinformation from lobbying. They gave an example of lactose intolerance, which on a per-capita basis is increasing. Is this because of some environmental factor causing people to become lactose intolerant, or because of demographic shifts that mean we just have more naturally lactose intolerant people living in the UK now? Some conditions are more prevalent in some ethnicities than others.. All of which have to be factored into NHS budgets, spending priorities, research etc.. Along with wading through the FUD from drug dealers who use 'relative risk' to hype their latest wonder drug, that may cost the NHS a lot of money and not be very effective.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 12:24 GMT notyetanotherid
Re: @James Hughes 1
Indeed.
Real-terms (adjusted for inflation) spending across the Osborne austerity years was pretty much flat overall, falling slightly over the coalition years before rising again once out of coalition. Heath and pensions spending rose slightly across the period, education and welfare spending fell, etc.
Per-capita spending at 2019 prices in 2011 (first full year of Cameron coalition) was £13,908 and in 2019 was £12965.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:50 GMT heyrick
As a person living in France, the problem isn't the number of public sector employees, it's the fact that right hand seems totally unaware that left hand exists, never mind knowing what it is doing.
For a very good demonstration, look at the shitshow that is the CAF.
Fewer people won't fix that, the entire process is wrong, not the headcount. Maybe, maybe, the headcount can be reduced - later on, when things actually work. But to say "big government bad, everybody piss off" is just going to take a bad situation and make it infinitely worse to the point where nothing gets done.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:12 GMT Jellied Eel
Fewer people won't fix that, the entire process is wrong, not the headcount. Maybe, maybe, the headcount can be reduced - later on, when things actually work.
This seems to be the plan, and the intent behind DoGE. So making government more efficient and 'rightsizing' the business. But as you say, you can't really do that without analysing the processes to identify inefficiencies, overlaps etc. Plus government is a bit special compared to other businesses, ie entities like FEMA become more of a warm-body problem, when there are emergencies to manage. But when those occur, flying in 1,000 FEMA staff might not be a very efficient solution, or manage an emergency very effectively.
But the idea seems to be staff can opt for a generous (by pretty much any standard) redundancy package now, or wait and roll the dice until after reviews have been conducted and their positions are RIF'd anyway. Which then risks the usual problem when businesses wave the RIF-stick and the best staff take the deal, knowing that they can probably walk right in to another job.
I also don't quite get why people are objecting to this bit-
Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit.
A good thing, surely? And pretty much what every other business does, or should be doing. Employees should be accountable, whether they're public or private sector. I don't entirely agree with banning WFH. I think that's often an indication that employers just don't have the right staff, processes or procedures to manage home workers effectively because in many cases, bums on seats is just overhead. Especially when the WFH bans often come from tech companies that flog remote working and collaboration systems. The only thing that should matter is whether work is being done and objectives met, and if businesses (including government) can't measure those, then they have much bigger problems.
(Which also includes fun stuff, like those systems that can identify employees that get the work done fast & reliably, and then maybe 'slack' for the rest of the time because those are probably the best/most efficient staff. Not the ones constantly running around offices, or holding meetings that look busy, but often aren't achieving anything other than disruption.)
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Thursday 30th January 2025 09:14 GMT SolidSquid
I mean, the problem here is they aren't singling out people based on performance, it's just across the board redundancies. And as one of the unions pointed out, the number of government workers should really be expected to grow as a proportion of population (since they'd have more data to manage), but the actual numbers haven't shown that. To some extent this could be explained by more efficient processes with computers replacing actual sheets of paper, but 55 years without growth is a long time
Also, if you're just wanting to cut dead weight, why would the dead weight take the redundancy package when they could stay in their cushy govt job until they retire? The ones who'll leave are the ones willing to work at a new position and think the benefits of a govt post don't outweigh the downsides anymore
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:14 GMT Jellied Eel
Also, if you're just wanting to cut dead weight, why would the dead weight take the redundancy package when they could stay in their cushy govt job until they retire?
Because they should hopefully find their weight being measured, and they're made redundant anyway on less generous terms.. But in business, it often doesn't work quite as intended.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 07:23 GMT Steve Davies 3
Sounds good
For whom exactly?
Perhaps you own stock in the VC's that will come in, buy stuff, asset strip and leave. All that remains will be a debt ridden shell that is doomed to to TITSUP.
Come on now Beat666 tell us who is going to benefit from this chaos?
If you can't then please go [see icon]
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Friday 31st January 2025 06:38 GMT parlei
Re: The deferred resignation offer does not apply to postal service?
Sweden went that path. Split off services as wholly state owned companies -- which had to show a profit, and did not have the pesky rules governing public services -- and then a few years later sell them off their pal the asset stripper VC.
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Wednesday 29th January 2025 22:45 GMT DS999
Re: X barely breaking even
Even if he ends up losing the entire $44 billion "investment", it bought him a president. His personal wealth increased by much more just from the Tesla stock price increases as the market expects it to get special treatment for his robotaxis - maybe the federal government dictating that all states have to allow them and burying any investigation / blocking lawsuits when they kill people.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 03:12 GMT Flocke Kroes
Joined up government
Among other stupid things the US government has been barred from buying zero-emissions vehicles.
/s: Luckily Musk has completely transitioned Tesla out of the EV business and is currently supplying their wildly successful AI driven household robots. There is no need for shareholders to sell in a panic.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 11:18 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: X barely breaking even
People have been saying its going to crash for years. Why hasn't it already done so?
Because markets and people are often irrational. I have no idea why it hasn't crashed already, but luckily never tried shorting it. I don't think the valuation comes close to the fundamentals, and less so now that competition is heating up, and governments are slowly starting to realise that banning ICEs might not be such a great idea.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 19:36 GMT DS999
Re: X barely breaking even
There are always enough suckers to keep the price afloat. For a while it was based on Tesla's sales continuing to grow as they displaced the big automakers. The sales have stalled which is why Musk is constantly talking about "AI" in relation to Tesla, so now it is being held afloat by AI. If that stops working Musk will move on to something else to hype instead like robots. There are enough stupid people who believe he is some sort of once in a generation genius who can do no wrong to keep that price afloat.
The large post election Tesla stock price gains which are based on Musk having Trump's ear however could evaporate in a nanosecond if there's a falling out between Trump and Musk. Something which seems inevitable when you have two people with egos so large they can't fit inside a football stadium.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 19:48 GMT DS999
Re: I wonder....
There are three classes of Trump voter:
1) the diehard MAGA enthusiast who has been with him since 2015. That's maybe 25% of those who voted last November
2) the diehard republican who wouldn't vote for a democrat if Jesus himself returned and ran under the democratic ticket. That's another 15-20% (there's overlap between them and #1 of course, the 15% refers to those who support him because the guy the republican party nominated not because of who he is)
3) swing voters who might vote for either side but voted for Trump this time because of inflation or immigration or Biden was too old/Harris too black or whatever. That's 5-10%.
He'll lose those swing voters quickly (in fact polls show he ALREADY is) so he'll quickly see his approval drop to the low 40s - where it was most of his first term. If he starts doing too many un-republican things he could see it drop down much further - it was in the low to mid 30s after Jan 6th - but that 25% or so that love him would support him even if he threw the US into another Great Depression. They'd blame it on whoever he said was to blame, never him. They would never admit they were wrong to support him, even if Trump came and personally burned down their house they'd accept it as somehow necessary to make America great again.
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Wednesday 29th January 2025 22:38 GMT Boris the Cockroach
Coming soon
You chance to sit for loyalty tests, you fail the test you are fired.
After that comes the change to the oath, instead of swearing to uphold the constitution of the United States, it will become "I pledge allegience to Donald Tramp, and I will faithfully follow all orders unto death".
Then again the camps are already being built to detain today's enemy, and for all you who dont care today , how long before you become tommorrow's enemy?.......
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Thursday 30th January 2025 01:34 GMT DJO
Re: Rule 1 of paying people to quit...
Where?
In a collapsing economy (which is inevitable if Trump continues the way he started) American companies will stop recruiting and anyway there are not that many positions former career civil servants are suitable for.
Maybe 5% to 10% will employment where they can use their skills, the rest will have problems finding much - there are only so many burger flipper positions available.
Some, those who are smart anyway, will sort out a new job before they accept the "offer", and as you suggest, they will be the very people you would want to retain.
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Wednesday 5th February 2025 04:05 GMT Dagg
Re: Rule 1 of paying people to quit...
...people who are good and can easily find another job will take it.
With the consulting companies. Her in Australia I used to work for one of the big 4 and every time we got a LNP (conservative) government in they started letting go the public service. The company I worked for would then hire the good ones of these people and when the gutted public service started engaging consultants to do the work of the people it no longer had we would just step in.
Money, Money, Money...
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Wednesday 5th February 2025 04:09 GMT Dagg
Re: Considering the Orange Oaf's track record with paying out...
I wonder how many will still be gullible enough to take the offer.
Take the money and run, you can always come back as a highly paid consultant and do the same job for more money. I've seen it here in Australia many times with a conservative government "cost cutting efforts"/"too many public servants" mandates.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 07:35 GMT keithpeter
Efficiency vs resilience
If everything is running at maximum capacity all the time, what happens when something unusual happens? You know a touch of the Rumsfelds?
Depends on your estimate of peak to mean ratio I suppose.
A sovereign government has to backstop anything. We are not talking a couple of standard deviations. Literally no limit. You can't really outsource that. How would you draft the SLA?
Best of luck.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 09:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
RTO
Do those commanded to return to the office have offices to return to?
Our masters have commanded RTO but those below them sold off the office space over the last 5yr to get savings.
Those at the top either don't know or don't understand that 100 people can't fit on 10 desks no matter how many fire safety rules you ignore.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 09:55 GMT Grunchy
Thunderf00t sez, Musk as head DOGE, had his role clarified as IT head of US government
https://youtu.be/6UldI1xIb0E?t=1569
"Agency heads shall ensure that DOGE Team Leads coordinate their work with USDS and advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President's DOGE Agenda. Sec. 4. Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity. (a) the USDS Administrator shall commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems. Among other things, the USDS Administrator shall work with Agency Heads to promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization."
Seems like Musk gets to be IT administrator for the whole US government and work on synergies and what-all.
I think all he has to do is text "resign" to the number provided and he can go away on Monday and still be paid out a full salary until Sept. 2025 without finding even a single synergy.
Good deal for Musk!
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:14 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: Thunderf00t sez, Musk as head DOGE, had his role clarified as IT head of US government
When Musk invited Twitter employees to resign in return for severance payments Musk did not actually pay up and to the best of my knowledge still hasn't. This time it is different: it is not that Trump will not pay, he cannot pay without an act of congress or a successful self-coup. As with any deal involving Musk or Trump: only accept payment in advance.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 10:00 GMT Rainer
Well, the government did grow under Biden
But I doubt it got more efficient.
Cue the handful of fast-chargers that got built after spending 4 billion USD.
And I actually believe Trump isn't to far off when he assumes that some of those who work remotely have other (online-) jobs they do in parallel.
Growth is the easiest way to facilitate promotions.
After all, you can't be a supervisor without people to supervise.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 19:06 GMT cmdrklarg
Re: Well, the government did grow under Biden
**** Cue the handful of fast-chargers that got built after spending 4 billion USD.
Do you suppose that said fast chargers just blink into existence after the money is allocated? Or do you suppose that projects like those require a bit of planning and care?
You know, time?
**** And I actually believe Trump
Ah, I see where you got that idea. Never mind, carry on!
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Thursday 30th January 2025 12:52 GMT TVU
White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off
That's all very well but those sacked employees are also voters who can also potentially deprive Trump of a majority in the lower House of Representatives and possibly in the Senate as well in the 2026 midterm elections.
I should add that Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are practically Democrats plus Mitch McConnell is in his final Senate term so he doesn't care any more and so he has already voted against Trump nominees.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 16:52 GMT Wang Cores
Re: White House asks millions of govt workers if they would be so kind as to fork right off
If Murkowski and Collins are "practically opposition/Democrats" because they studiously furrow their brows on strategically important matters to the party while playing the defector on foregones I'm starting to get why people hate democrats. I mean, talk about chickenshit opposition.
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Thursday 30th January 2025 14:45 GMT Jimmy2Cows
The National Treasury Employees Union has urged its members not to accept
Nah... every elligible worker should accept. The admin just to sort that out will bring the federal government to a grinding halt. The cost of the 8 months pay severance package will bankrupt the country, and it really will collapse when all federal employees quit en-masse in September.
Of course they'll probably just pick people at random, rather than "waste" a load of time deciding who really should be dumped and who they really need to stay. Would still be funny to have his bluff called.
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Saturday 1st February 2025 10:54 GMT JamesTGrant
So 2million people all hit the job market at about the same time. This is the sociopath billionaire’s playbook. - drive down wages by flooding the job market.
Will it make government services better or worse? Worse - obviously. For a long time. This is over 2/3rds of the entire civilian federal workforce. It’d be chaos.
I just don’t understand why the current US government Republican executive branch seem to actually hate their electorate and seem to want to (and are) doing things to make life worse for normal people. I mean - they could decide that it’s fun to make people’s lives better and work at doing that instead. They’d still be bajillionaires.
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Sunday 2nd February 2025 12:44 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Bad timing
The day before the midair collision over the Potomac, Air Traffic Controllers were given the offer to resign. Must be too many of them.
Or not enough. Seems like a possible contributing factor was there should have been 4 controllers on duty, but there were only 2. Regardless of wibbles about DEI, that seems both short sighted and short staffed for very busy and sensitive airspace.