5 ms·

Well. There’s your problem.

by shipscode 3y ago

klyrs 3y ago
It's hard for governments to pay a good wage without collecting taxes or booting up the money printer.
- hardware2win 3y ago
  How about reasonable wage?
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Let's say "competitive total compensation." Because if you don't overcome that threshold, you get hiring and retention issues.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    Define reasonable in numbers
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    Why don't we just make minimum wage $100 an hour?
    - klyrs 3y ago
      Because as you've described it, that wage won't scale with inflation. It sounds irresponsibly high now, but wait around and $100 in the future will sound like the $2.13/h + $30+/wk we have today.
- yellowpencil 3y ago
  The US federal budget deficit for the month of June was $228 billion. Money is being spent and the money printer is running no problem. The administration clearly does not view this as an important issue.
  - droopyEyelids 3y ago
    It's tempting to consider "the administration" or "the government" as a single entity that you can reason about like it was an individual. More likely, there is a bit of focused lobbying being done to suborn the few decisionmakers involved with this, so that a company that contracts firefighting services to the government can grow their contract. I don't know exactly how it works in California. I know there is a "California Conservation Camp" program that pays inmates $2.90 to $5.12 per day while in the camps, and $1.4 per hour fighting fires, but I don't know if they work with only state prisons or if private prisons get in on that too. Maybe the cost savings there are enough to drive this dynamic.
    - incahoots 3y ago
      People just want simple answers to complex problems, or in this case, purposely obtuse government workings. Not saying we don't have members in congress with good intentions, but they aren't in the positions of weighted power, often times they find themselves snuffed out or forced to fall in line. The recent railroad strike fiasco was a perfect example of how things are really ran.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  The top earners in the US government make a lot: https://www.federalpay.org/employees/top-100 https://www.federalpay.org/employees/top-100 Doesn't seem son hard...
  - johnrgrace 3y ago
    Every one of those top 100 is a medical officer and most I'd guess are doctors, they could all work in private sector healthcare and make a lot more money. I notice that not a SINGLE CTO or technology lead in government made the top 100 list.
    - iancmceachern 3y ago
      The choice of the number 100 is arbitrary. I'm sure we can find some CTO or whatever you want at spot number 587 that makes 387k a year or whatever. Yes, the top 100 are medical officers, but the government has 17,000 employees that made more than 200k last year. They can't all be medical officers... https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2015/02/17000-federal-employees-earned-more-200k-last-year/105903/ https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2015/02/17000-federal-e...
- constantcrying 3y ago
  No, it is not. The governments in all western countries throw almost unlimited money out of the window for the dumbest stuff imaginable. Paying the guys keeping the burning parts of your country in check enough, so that they keep doing it seems like it would be up there with "maintaining roads".
- incahoots 3y ago
  it would help if we would reallocate funds from the "kill the middle east brown people" fund to the "pay needed services" fund, like firefighting, replacement of water supply lines to homes, etc.
Spooky23 3y ago
It’s not a problem, it’s by design. We “starve the beast”, and now we can pay Lockheed Fire Solutions $300/hr for Flame Engagement Specialists.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  The beast just did the CARES act, essentially the largest upward transfer of wealth like that in human history. The beast is sending so much money and material to Ukraine that it accidently sent billions of dollars extra. The beast isn't starving it just doesn't give a shit about you.
  - nyokodo 3y ago
    > it accidently sent billions of dollars extra No it didn’t. It technically sent $billions less to Ukraine due to the incorrect valuation being used for the mostly obsolete military equipment we’re lend leasing Ukraine.[1] It just means there’s $6.2B more worth of obsolete equipment that can be sent under existing authorization. Technically we’re ridding ourselves of the massive cost of decommissioning the equipment, getting valuable real-world intel on system performance and enemy capabilities, while knee capping one of our major geopolitical adversaries and our only significant marginal cost is shipping! This is the financial deal of the century! 1. https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-weapons-surplus-funding-72eeb6119439146f1939d5b1973a44ef https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-weapons-surplu...
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      We have 6.2 billion worth of extra war crime equipment available but couldn't afford a few extra bucks for firefighters. Is that better?
      - delfinom 3y ago
        Eh, Ukraine is defending it's land from invaders that are actively genociding their population and aiming to exterminate their culture. I'm sorry but we must have war crimes confused.

Well. There’s your problem.

klyrs 3y ago

It's hard for governments to pay a good wage without collecting taxes or booting up the money printer.

hardware2win 3y ago
How about reasonable wage?
- klyrs 3y ago
  Let's say "competitive total compensation." Because if you don't overcome that threshold, you get hiring and retention issues.
- supertrope 3y ago
  Define reasonable in numbers
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  Why don't we just make minimum wage $100 an hour?
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Because as you've described it, that wage won't scale with inflation. It sounds irresponsibly high now, but wait around and $100 in the future will sound like the $2.13/h + $30+/wk we have today.
yellowpencil 3y ago
The US federal budget deficit for the month of June was $228 billion. Money is being spent and the money printer is running no problem. The administration clearly does not view this as an important issue.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  It's tempting to consider "the administration" or "the government" as a single entity that you can reason about like it was an individual. More likely, there is a bit of focused lobbying being done to suborn the few decisionmakers involved with this, so that a company that contracts firefighting services to the government can grow their contract. I don't know exactly how it works in California. I know there is a "California Conservation Camp" program that pays inmates $2.90 to $5.12 per day while in the camps, and $1.4 per hour fighting fires, but I don't know if they work with only state prisons or if private prisons get in on that too. Maybe the cost savings there are enough to drive this dynamic.
  - incahoots 3y ago
    People just want simple answers to complex problems, or in this case, purposely obtuse government workings. Not saying we don't have members in congress with good intentions, but they aren't in the positions of weighted power, often times they find themselves snuffed out or forced to fall in line. The recent railroad strike fiasco was a perfect example of how things are really ran.
iancmceachern 3y ago
The top earners in the US government make a lot: https://www.federalpay.org/employees/top-100 https://www.federalpay.org/employees/top-100 Doesn't seem son hard...
- johnrgrace 3y ago
  Every one of those top 100 is a medical officer and most I'd guess are doctors, they could all work in private sector healthcare and make a lot more money. I notice that not a SINGLE CTO or technology lead in government made the top 100 list.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    The choice of the number 100 is arbitrary. I'm sure we can find some CTO or whatever you want at spot number 587 that makes 387k a year or whatever. Yes, the top 100 are medical officers, but the government has 17,000 employees that made more than 200k last year. They can't all be medical officers... https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2015/02/17000-federal-employees-earned-more-200k-last-year/105903/ https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2015/02/17000-federal-e...
constantcrying 3y ago
No, it is not. The governments in all western countries throw almost unlimited money out of the window for the dumbest stuff imaginable. Paying the guys keeping the burning parts of your country in check enough, so that they keep doing it seems like it would be up there with "maintaining roads".
incahoots 3y ago
it would help if we would reallocate funds from the "kill the middle east brown people" fund to the "pay needed services" fund, like firefighting, replacement of water supply lines to homes, etc.

Spooky23 3y ago

It’s not a problem, it’s by design. We “starve the beast”, and now we can pay Lockheed Fire Solutions $300/hr for Flame Engagement Specialists.

willcipriano 3y ago
The beast just did the CARES act, essentially the largest upward transfer of wealth like that in human history. The beast is sending so much money and material to Ukraine that it accidently sent billions of dollars extra. The beast isn't starving it just doesn't give a shit about you.
- nyokodo 3y ago
  > it accidently sent billions of dollars extra No it didn’t. It technically sent $billions less to Ukraine due to the incorrect valuation being used for the mostly obsolete military equipment we’re lend leasing Ukraine.[1] It just means there’s $6.2B more worth of obsolete equipment that can be sent under existing authorization. Technically we’re ridding ourselves of the massive cost of decommissioning the equipment, getting valuable real-world intel on system performance and enemy capabilities, while knee capping one of our major geopolitical adversaries and our only significant marginal cost is shipping! This is the financial deal of the century! 1. https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-weapons-surplus-funding-72eeb6119439146f1939d5b1973a44ef https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-weapons-surplu...
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    We have 6.2 billion worth of extra war crime equipment available but couldn't afford a few extra bucks for firefighters. Is that better?
    - delfinom 3y ago
      Eh, Ukraine is defending it's land from invaders that are actively genociding their population and aiming to exterminate their culture. I'm sorry but we must have war crimes confused.