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You’re Fired
The good news is, US job cut announcements plunged in April.
The bad news is, "plunged" is relative
I thought he served at Mr. Trump’s pleasure — and duly met the wood chipper when outlived his usefulness to employ the metaphor of that one memorable Marina Hyde column — and with congressional oversight (which apparently is a thing on paper only in your these days). Just to give credit where it is due.
Johan, I seriously doubt anyone other than Elon Musk could have indiscrimatley fired people like that. I think the credit is his.
And he hasn’t met the wood chipper, far from it. Tesla sales dropped so precipitously he had to step back so people would quit actively attacking the cars. The word is he could stretch the 30 days he has left into a day a week at DOGE and stick around the rest of the year. I read Musk said the President texts him in the middle of the night to make sure he gets some ice-cream when they are having one of their spend-the-nights at the White House or hanging around on AirForce One.
It’s hilarious how I can’t tell if you’re being facetious of not. Anyway, sure, but it was the elected officials’ choice to put an autistic person with a penchant for firings in charge. By the time Congress has a DOGE caucus and literally everyone knows what is going on but chooses not to interfere it seems to an outsider fair to say he has their approval too. So it’s not like he single-handedly orchestrated a hostile takeover of US gov’t.
I remember the Grace commission that Reagan formed and they had some good ideas on shrinking the government. I don’t get as upset as you about these firings, most government agencies are bloated, but I do wonder where these people could ever find a job working for some for profit company.
But it seems that most people, when reviewing ‘government bloat,’ never mention the similar inefficiencies of private corporations. Sure, companies periodically ‘purge the rolls’ to keep costs down, pivot into new territory or eliminate redundancies, but let’s not pretend that it’s the model of modern efficiency.
The marketplace can be far off the mark sometimes, and this is where the expectation of government involvement matters. Let’s take, for a prime example, the absolute failure of pure demand to keep us awash in enough ventilators that might be needed in, I don’t know, maybe a global respiratory virus pandemic. Some level of inefficiency might just be the price to pay for keeping the wheels turning, no matter what happens.
I was thinking the same thing Jeff, a lot of bloat in the private sector, probably much more
This comment is so painful to read.
Lordy, where do these so-called thoughts come from? One of my good friends was tossed by Musk. He was recruited from the corporate world mid-career specifically to help track groundwater pollution from a military installation that was headed toward civilian groundwater supply wells. He’d been there only 11 months, so still on “probation”, and was among the first wave to be let go. No worries for him finding employment. Good news for the Trump team though, because they’ll no longer have to bother reporting about that pesky groundwater pollution to anyone who might care. Another success of the first 100 days.
“because they’ll no longer have to bother reporting about that pesky groundwater pollution to anyone who might care. Another success of the first 100 days.”
Finally a real-life example of a beneficial effect from deregulation! Thanks!
OH, my nuclear science degreed niece and computer degreed brother-in-law will find jobs, they have been turning offers down for years, likely replacing lazy work at home corporate types!
Lee, sure there is bloat; there bloat in any large organization. There is no reason to believe these people were part of the bloat.
If the majority of them were “probationary” (less than 2 years) then the newest talent was being purged and that means there is not a refresh happening and a lack of new ideas and fresh blood. People who might be inclined to want to go into civil service and do good for others will not be so inclined anymore. The ramifications are going to be with us for decades.