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- Manlobbi
Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing
No. of Recommendations: 8
Various outlets are reporting that the Trump Administration is going to offer
every single federal employee an opportunity to get "bought out" - to take an eight-month deferred resignation, so they basically get eight months of compensation and benefits if they quit now:
President Donald Trump's administration is set to offer every single federal worker the chance to take a "deferred resignation" with a severance package of roughly eight months of pay and benefits.
A senior administration official told NBC News that they expect 5%-10% of the federal workforce to quit, which, they estimate, could lead to around $100 billion in savings.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump...Man, is
that a massive gamble on the Administration's part. I'm sure that they're imagining that it will be nice to get rid of 5-10% of the federal government and trim out all of the fat. But the reality is that about 70% of federal civilian employees work in the defense and national security agencies, with the largest number working in Veteran's Affairs:
https://ourpublicservice.org/fed-figures/a-profile...That's the funny thing - when people imagine a "federal worker," they may picture a useless bureaucrat writing useless regulations in the Depart of Commerce or something - but the "typical" federal worker is more likely to be an orderly in a VA hospital or a civilian employee in the Army or a border patrol agent. There is
zero appetite for reducing the scale or service of those defense and national security agencies....so unless the response rate is
really non-representative, the Administration is going to have to end up immediately hiring people to replace the majority of those who take this deal.
Hence, the high stakes gamble. They're obviously hoping that the people who take the resignation offer are disproportionately in positions they won't have to go out and re-fill. Odds are against them, but we'll see how it goes....
No. of Recommendations: 4
Wow. So we have to pay people for 8 months of not working, and then likely hire more people before 8 months is over to do the jobs they were doing. And that doesn't include any training necessary to do those jobs.
Well...I just remind myself...people get the government they deserve. I thought we deserved better than this, but evidently not. Hopefully MAGA will feel the pain disproportionately. (That may be petty of me, but I really want them to feel the consequences of their decision.)
No. of Recommendations: 9
Time to recall this famous and, sadly, accurate quip:
The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
P. J. O'Rourke
No. of Recommendations: 2
It's a question of "who" they lose - vis a vis expertise.
Quantity? Many of those putzes are so fat and happy with the bullshit country club they have as a job----unless they are close to retiring or in real need of short term cash, it's not like they'll jump at this chance.
No. of Recommendations: 7
With Trump every accusation is a confession. He has claimed that the government is a deep state conspiracy and now he is trying to build a deep state conspiracy before our eyes.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Wow. So we have to pay people for 8 months of not working, and then likely hire more people before 8 months is over to do the jobs they were doing. And that doesn't include any training necessary to do those jobs.
No. You eliminate the old job and move the tasking over to people you already have.
This is how corporate downsizing works.
Hopefully MAGA will feel the pain disproportionately
Good for you.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Quantity? Many of those putzes are so fat and happy with the bullshit country club they have as a job----unless they are close to retiring or in real need of short term cash, it's not like they'll jump at this chance.
The ones who are close to retiring anyway will take it.
Usually you offer stuff like this as an incentive for people to walk away voluntarily...the next step is you tell them to walk away.
For those who want to jump in and claim remote work is Teh Awesome you should ask yourselves why Amazon just told every single employee that there is no more remote work.
No. of Recommendations: 8
This is exactly how Trump ran his businesses. Reckless, without any thoughts beyond
the end of his nose. I forget, how many times did Trump go bankrupt ?
When he runs the USA over the cliff, it'll be his biggest failure ever. No Daddy Trump
gonna come bail him out.
No. of Recommendations: 16
No. You eliminate the old job and move the tasking over to people you already have.
This is how corporate downsizing works.
Only if you have jobs that aren't necessary - or if you're stopping the work by cancelling or delaying projects.
But as I noted upthread, the federal government isn't like that. The overwhelming majority of federal employees (about 72%) work in national defense or security jobs, and we're not going to reduce the scale or scope of those departments. You can't just eliminate 10% of your Border Patrol agents and move their tasks over to the remaining ones. Or your VA nurses. Or your federal prison guards. You can't decide that you're going to just have fewer vets that need health care, or fewer federal prisoners, or fewer Border Patrol arrests.
Again, that's why this is a high-stakes gamble. I suspect the people who formulated this idea imagine a federal worker as a superfluous bureaucrat whose tasks could easily be moved to other people - or done without. But if 10% of the guards in a given federal penitentiary take the retirement offer, you can't ask people in the finance department or vehicle maintenance to take an extra shift in the prison yard.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Also, the Government people love the "that's not in my job description" thing and in some cases have union backing for that.
If it works - great
If this blow up - great
The Popcorn Caucus continues here
No. of Recommendations: 2
Only if you have jobs that aren't necessary - or if you're stopping the work by cancelling or delaying projects.
Or if you feel your workforce isn't productive enough.
the federal government isn't like that.
*All* of the government isn't like that. Is somebody who works a desk at the IRS or the Department of the Interior seeing patients at the VA? No.
The other thing the feds are looking at - and one of the reasons that Amazon told their employees to get their rear ends back in the office - is that it's 100% likely that the DOGE people are looking at the federal government's capital leases and seeing how much office space they really need. If you have sites that aren't being utilized you have some options on what to do with them...sell them off, sublease them, whatever.
No. of Recommendations: 2
...it's 100% likely that the DOGE people are looking at the federal government's capital leases and seeing how much office space they really need. If you have sites that aren't being utilized you have some options on what to do with them...sell them off, sublease them, whatever.
Yes, but. The more employees permitted to work remotely or to telework, the more sites available to sell off or sublease.
No. of Recommendations: 2
So owners of office space or owners of REITs that own office space near federal office buildings that may be surplussed should be afraid. Be very afraid.
No. of Recommendations: 2
The property folk already have troubles with the mooch maggots not showing up for work.
Now if the maggot gets a real job in the private sector where he won't have "that's not my job" and his ass has to go in on a Saturday or answer emails at night or be cross-trained whether he likes it or not - well - naaaaah no worries just popcorn time
No. of Recommendations: 2
BTW never been a big "stock market" guy like the pretend investor 401K'ers but I have ...well....dabbled in real estate in DC and Metro DC.
This problem has been anticipated for awhile. To put int Club 401K parlance - I think there's a stock for "Easterly" - REIT for government propertie. You know, government properties that will always pay rent and re-lease right?
Well, check their performance ....see if someone wasn't reading the tea leaves ;)
(Now, if you want inexpensive dwellings in the suburbs just 15 miles down the road where multi families pay reliable rent and force the BLUE school districts to spend money on bilingual education and in return get almost no property taxes......I might know a guy for you. This guy said in the mid 2000s that he's gonna embark on that as an investment. Putz bought the shit up between 2008-2011.....who knows how that went. Oh and in that time the crime in that Blue area went up, test scores went down.....good for them 401K'ers right down the road in $1mm homes huh.....I bet said putz investor depreciated the shit by law, maybe charged a few 'expenses' to it and hasn't paid a dime into to mooch treasury ever)
No. of Recommendations: 2
This problem has been anticipated for awhile. To put int Club 401K parlance - I think there's a stock for "Easterly" - REIT for government propertie. You know, government properties that will always pay rent and re-lease right?
Woof. The stock symbol is DEA...and it's not in good shape.
I read someplace that some government buildings are like 10% occupied. That's what they're looking at.
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 3
You can't just eliminate 10% of your Border Patrol agents and move their tasks over to the remaining ones. Or your VA nurses. Or your federal prison guards.Absolutely. In fact, we need to hire
more people. We hear complaints all the time that the VA is slow, because the waiting lists are long, because they don't have enough staff.
And the IRS...we need a LOT more auditors. An army of auditors. Lots of wealthy folks don't get audited because we don't have the personnel to do it. Though Biden did address some of the need:
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/ta...And this reports on a study of the efficacy of such actions (yes, it's a positive ROI):
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/07/tur...
No. of Recommendations: 3
One quote from the article:
“I’ve never been more motivated to stay. Before the ‘buyout’ memo, I was ready to go job hunting, but then a revelation hit. I took an oath under this position to the American people and leaving my job under the current state would be failing to maintain my oath as civil servant,” another worker wrote.
Sounds like they take their oath of office more seriously than many of the politicians who get elected.
I'm very happy to know that people like this are staying in their jobs as career civil servants.
--Peter
No. of Recommendations: 4
FFOTUS: "The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Yeah, it wasn't US military. It was plain old fed employees doing their maintenance job as they always do.
Ironically, the fed employees in charge of the pump maintenance programs are among the employees being asked to quit.
