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I think the current Federal environmental policy is "short term pain is worth the long term gain".
The current Federal environmental policy is "perpetual pain of other people is worth short term power". The same people lecturing you about "emitting too much carbon" or some such nonsense are flying around the world every other week on a private 747 and get flown to the airport in 3 helicopters (2 of which are empty).
No one in their right mind believes that going back to the stone age will "save the planet". They don't care about the planet or saving it. They just want power and money.
Last edited by albert648; 08-05-2023 at 07:14 PM..
I think the current Federal environmental policy is "short term pain is worth the long term gain".
I've heard it said numerous times that we need to tighten our belts, accept lower economic growth, do without possessions, reduce our standard of living, etc., because in the long run it will "save the planet" (whatever that means).
I've long been a climate skeptic, but (assuming the COâ‚‚ numbers from Wikipedia are accurate) if humans truly are adding enormous amounts to the atmosphere and gradually distorting natural processes, then we should tone it down before we mess things up too much.
The Earth is quite resilient and adaptable, but overall we are better off with a higher concentration of Oâ‚‚ in our air, but only if we can achieve it without actually impoverishing ourselves and thus crippling our ability to fix problems in the future, i.e. lack of funds for research, lack of capital for developing "green" energy etc. There needs to be a balance.
Trees are a great carbon sink. We can and should replant forests to our maximum ability. North America actually has undergone extensive reforestation since the 1970s, but Brazil in particular has been destroying the Amazon forest at stunning rates (millions of acres of trees chopped down every year) and that forest is the world's second largest source of oxygen.
The #1 source of oxygen is algae (plankton) in the oceans, at around 60%, and the oceanic ecosystem has been damaged by plastic dumping, largely by 3rd World countries at this point. This nonsense needs to stop, and I mean stop pouring toxins into rivers that flow to the sea, stop dumping plastic bottles, etc. Microplastics are showing up in plankton and other sea creatures, with unknown but likely bad consequences for the entire food chain.
With these two targets, we can actually "sink" lots of CO2 without sinking our economies. Though, we might have to pay the Brazilians to crack down on clear-cutting the world's most bio-diverse rain forests and jungles.
In 1900, what to do with all the horse manure was a serious environmental problem that inspired international conferences. In 30 years we had fully transitioned to automobiles. So much to the extent using a horse for transport by the 1930s outside a very rural area would have been silly.
There's a technological way out of this if we just have the will. We have the technology now.
In 1900, what to do with all the horse manure was a serious environmental problem that inspired international conferences. In 30 years we had fully transitioned to automobiles. So much to the extent using a horse for transport by the 1930s outside a very rural area would have been silly.
There's a technological way out of this if we just have the will. We have the technology now.
Yes, really 3 ways:
1. reforestation in the southern hemisphere
2. stop polluting the oceans
3. energy efficiency*
*where that could mean small reactor nuclear energy, natural gas replacing coal, plug-in hybrid cars, common-sense public transportation and bike lanes, incentives for solar roofs on most new construction, etc.
I would say, banning incandescent bulbs and gas stoves falls in the category of "if it ain't broke don't fix it". My cheap, made-in-China LED's don't last as long as incandescents; certainly they don't last 10 years or whatever the label claims. There's going to be a lot of LED related electronics in the landfills soon.
But I fear we've wandered away from the hiring trends topic. To bring it full circle: a tax incentive to encourage work-from-home might motivate corps. to hire more people while not clogging the roads during commuting hours. Having done work-from-home for the past 10 or so years (though, currently unemployed-at-home for the past 10 months or so) I am not totally sold on it; I'm hoping my next job will be either hybrid or on-site, for better team building and visibility. But the trend is obviously to virtualize the offices where possible and practical, and if it means X+1 people are employed rather than X people employed, more the better.
I worked with a GS-17 that made way more than my big boss (a 4-star general). He had a PhD in chemical engineering and worked with us evaluating chemical weapons. As a university professor he would have made 2/3rds of his $70,000+ salary.
I don't doubt that federal employees in NYC make less than their civilian counterparts but in the majority of areas in the US federal employees make more.
Part of the issue with this is that private sector employers, especially in small towns and rural areas, can get away with paying peanuts because of downward wage pressure due to a lack of competition. This is especially true with white collar and professional type work, which is hard-to-find in these areas.
I work remotely in IT for a very blue county government that is in a red-to-purple state. I worked for the hospital system in my "reddest of the red" local area for years.
I was at the top-level for individual contributors, so I had no real hope of salary growth without moving into management. That was a "level 4" position, where I was a project lead, providing technical leadership, etc.
I took a position with the county government at a "level 2" position. I only make ~5% less than I did as a "level 4" with the hospital system. The better insurance with the county will make up a good bit of the after tax difference. The benefits are superior all around. The combined leave difference is eighteen work days annually. There's no on-call rotation, and minimal after-hours work.
Yes, the government pays much better for most similar positions, at least at and below first level managers, than the vast majority of the private sector workers in my local area. The private sector places, even in professional positions, don't have to pay well because there are very few other local opportunities available.
Yes, I probably could make more money in an in-office position at major corporate employer in Charlotte or Raleigh. You could walk across the street and find another job.
It wouldn't make a lick of difference how many people are manning the phones if none of them do any work. You could hire 300 million people for those agencies and you still won't be able to get through to anyone.
Last year I received a nastygram from the IRS, stating that I made errors on my tax form, and owed them money. So I called their hotline. It took several hours to get through (they called me back), and 2-3 tries to access the correct person.
However, when I did reach the correct person, we spent probably 60-90 minutes going over my return, line by line, schedule by schedule. She looked up various publications and instructions. A particular thorny detail was calculating the tax deduction for self-employment income. We recalculated the numbers together. It turns out that I'd made several mistakes, but the IRS also made mistakes. I still ended up owing them money, but substantially less than originally stated. And, the agent was able to wave late fees and penalties.
In the private sector, it would have cost me how many hundreds of dollars, to receive that advice? And chances are, the advice wouldn't even be fully correct. I don't know how much this lady earns; she's probably a GS-12, at most. She could probably be pulling, $150K in the private sector. Normally I'm pretty cynical about government spending and bloat, but in this case, this employee provided a genuine public service. She should be commended, instead of being so blithely insulted, as is too often the case.
Last year I received a nastygram from the IRS, stating that I made errors on my tax form, and owed them money. So I called their hotline. It took several hours to get through (they called me back), and 2-3 tries to access the correct person.
However, when I did reach the correct person, we spent probably 60-90 minutes going over my return, line by line, schedule by schedule. She looked up various publications and instructions. A particular thorny detail was calculating the tax deduction for self-employment income. We recalculated the numbers together. It turns out that I'd made several mistakes, but the IRS also made mistakes. I still ended up owing them money, but substantially less than originally stated. And, the agent was able to wave late fees and penalties.
In the private sector, it would have cost me how many hundreds of dollars, to receive that advice? And chances are, the advice wouldn't even be fully correct. I don't know how much this lady earns; she's probably a GS-12, at most. She could probably be pulling, $150K in the private sector. Normally I'm pretty cynical about government spending and bloat, but in this case, this employee provided a genuine public service. She should be commended, instead of being so blithely insulted, as is too often the case.
If the IRS can't even figure out it's own tax code, it better waive any late fees and penalties. That in and of itself shows how bloated the tax code is and how wasteful our tax system is. You wouldn't need her help to begin with if the federal tax code was more transparent, simpler and easier to navigate, although I have no doubt the government would find some way to screw that up too.
As for that agent you spent an hour and a half on the phone with, the burden of proof is on them to prove that you owe them money, not on you to prove that you don't. She didn't provide a genuine "public service", she did her job.
If American Express messed up your credit card bill, you wouldn't be commending their customer service agent for fixing it. It's their job.
I don't agree. Social Security administration workers are hard workers. Their phones long wait times because of the increased number of boomer retirees calling.
The problem is when government decreases headcount, it increases the number of contractors/consultants used. Federal contractors/consultants hire ex-government employees at two or three times the federal pay rate to compensate for the lost of their retirement benefits.
Often when a member of congress will boast on the decrease in federal employees, sadly this only increases the federal budget. Penny wise, pound foolish.
Besides which many federal workers have not seen a cost of living since the 2000's and the cost of living in DC is too high!
The 8.7% was for retirees and that was for csrs, not fers.Active employees got a 4.6% increase. 9% inflation through bidenomics meant you had less spending money.
I always hear, "if wages are too high we'll automate the jobs." So jobs get automated. It's well known that government work is one of the fallbacks for people who can't get work in the private sector. There are huge swathes of the country, rural areas, where the only jobs are in government and quasi-governmental sectors like education and healthcare. That's because private industry either consolidated, automated, or pulled up stakes. The birthrate is falling because people sense there is less opportunity, which is appropriate. But that still leaves a lot of people around in their 40s, 50s, etc. who have lost their shot at retraining. Government work provides them with some productive outlet when no one else will hire.
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