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Where does NSA get the money from to hire thousands (=multiple 1000s) of big tech workers? How comes big tech is laying them off but NSA can afford to hiring th
by purututu 4y ago
Where does NSA get the money from to hire thousands (=multiple 1000s) of big tech workers? How comes big tech is laying them off but NSA can afford to hiring them, in the thousands?
- slavboj 4y agoIt gets the money from you, and unlike MicroGoogBook, you are absolutely obliged to be their customer.
- kilgnad 4y agoTax dollars. These jobs are safe from layoffs. It looks really bad when the government starts laying off people.
- nostrademons 4y agoAlso borrowed dollars. The federal budget deficit is $1.38T in 2022, enough to fund 16 NSAs.
- tcoff91 4y agoIts insane that NSA is 1/16 of federal budget. Thats way too much money to spend on merely one part of the defense budget.
- MattGaiser 4y agoDeficit, not budget.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- archgoon 4y ago[dead]
- willis936 4y agoSnapshots are valueless. The deficit shot up to 3T in 2020, though I'm not really sure why (;. Then, in 2022 it was cut in half. It looks like we're on track to hit pre-Iraq War levels of deficit in another few years. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/natio...
- nostrademons 4y agoWe haven't run a surplus since 2001, and I'd be very surprised if we continue to see the deficit decline. You can think of 2020/2021 as outliers because of all the pandemic spending assistance, and then taking them out, we're back on the same trendline since 2015, i.e. up. Likely will be even steeper if we get a recession later this year or next.
- photonbeam 4y agoAre they safe from government shutdown brinkmanship
- shadowgovt 4y agoUsually, government shutdown excludes security-critical programs.
- xhkkffbf 4y agoIn the past, the government workers got unpaid time off. Then Congress quietly voted to reinstate all of lost pay so it turned into extra paid time off that didn't count toward the vacation allowance. It's not guaranteed, but I would guess that Congress would do the same thing again.
- dpflan 4y agoBlurb in the article: "The NSA declined to say how much taxpayer money is allotted for the hiring effort. Total spending on the intelligence community for fiscal 2022 was $89.8 billion."
- MattGaiser 4y agoGovernment budgets tend to be stable so I suspect they have always been hiring this many positions, but have had severe difficulties retaining talent with the lower salaries.
- lokar 4y agoThey pay a fraction of big tech
- dogma1138 4y agoThe gravy train isn’t running as well as it used too, and even during the glory days it’s not like every FAANG employee was on a half a mil+ total comp… and not ever tech worker worked for FAANG. You can get a very decent salary with amazing benefits and job security working for the government, living in a far lower cost area than SF or Seattle and retire early on a very generous retirement plan.
- mason55 4y ago> living in a far lower cost area than SF or Seattle If you're talking about DMV, it's not that different. This random calculator has SF[1] as 15% more expensive and Seattle[2] as slightly less expensive [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of-living-calculator/san-francisco-ca/?city=washington-arlington-alexandria-dc-va&income=70000 https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of... [2] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of-living-calculator/seattle-wa/?city=washington-arlington-alexandria-dc-va&income=70000 https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of...
- rhino369 4y agoI’m not sure the DC is really much (if at all) cheaper than Seattle. And GS salaries are bad. GS-15 tops out at like 160k at the most senior levels. Maybe NSA puts them on a special track, but even that isn’t very good.
- Klonoar 4y agoI’ve lived extensively in both Seattle and DC. DC works out to be cheaper at this point. The GS salary, as you noted, is the bigger issue.
- loeg 4y agoOk but like 80-90% of FB engineers are E5s making ~300k+. That’s a lot more than an upper limit of 160-185k (sibling comments). And cost of living in Seattle is not substantially higher than DC.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago[flagged]
- fogforthought93 4y agoAll kinds of source I'm sure—for example, the CIA has financed all sorts of black operations with drug trafficking since at least WWII. Now, that money would not be used to hire the rank and file, but it does relieve pressure on the budget. Ransomware attacks come to mind. It wouldn't be hard to subcontract that out and keep even the hackers themselves from knowing who they're working for.
- flir 4y agoMuch smaller scale, but I'm sure most of the VPN companies run at a profit.
- Pegasus930 4y ago[dead]
- nirav72 4y agoNSA is part of the DoD - the DoD's annual budget at this point is north of $700 billion. While NSA's exact slice of the overall DoD budget is classified - they're by far the largest intelligence agency in U.S government. Many times larger than even the CIA. It's safe to say they have the funds to hire 1000s of tech workers.
- JoeyBananas 4y ago1. congress 2. big tech has to actually make a profit