impartialobserver

you could say that anyone /anything is guided by God.

Was in Mexico for 8 days recently. It was refreshing to not hear one syllable about politics, tariffs, or Trump. According to folks on here.. they are going into meltdown. Well.. not even close.

This was a surprise to me. Was pleased to see Crawford win but I thought that she would lose when battling Musk.

Going to be interesting to see how far the DJIA and the S+P can fall. My unscientific prediction is that the DJIA will probably finally level out at 34K. That will affect folks retirements. It could rebound but not likely for awhile.

isolationist policies do not work anymore. They worked pre-WWII because of low demand for certain goods made elsewhere. That being said.. wanting the US to make the goods instead of importing them is sensible in most cases. Some goods simply can't be produced without undue effort.

Not entirely sure what he really wants. However, going to be interesting to see how it plays out. The trade war is not going so well.

Perceive it how you want but google the phrase "DJIA today" and then click on 6M... The recent declines are sizeable. As to how this impacts average Joe.. not immediately. The value of his 401(k) will decline but not immediately and could rebound. Usually stock market ups and downs are not statistically correlated to GDP. If you do not believe it.. get the data and put it in excel and do a regression. You will see a very low number. All that being said, you will see a decrease in the GDP, a slightly (ever so) higher unemployment rate, and slow in the growth of the CES jobs number.

I did not know about it until reading about it on sunday. However, apparently there was a "Hands-off" protest in many cities in the USA. As for the one in Carson city, there was not a single arrest or inquiry. Watched plenty of videos and it was remarkably mild.

So you are proud of something that you have 0% control over but never mention those things that you do control... interesting insight.

Been reading the posts here. Probably not the most impartial source of info but oh well. The guy, Carney, seems to be a bit of a mess. Does not seem to be able to stick to one idea, platform, story.

Hate to tell you but when the budget is submitted... .folks will not blindly sign off. It will raise eyebrows. Consequently, months later know-it-alls like you will start complaining about them being overbudget and so on.

New computers, new software are expensive. that flies in the face of the current DOGE directives. Most likely the old software is not day to day processing but the more clerical stuff. We just recently (last year) replaced the software package used by one dept. It was created in 1973.

When you start a federal or state job, you are on "probation" for one year. If you pass all three evaluations given at months 3, 6, and 11 then you deemed to have passed probation. The main difference being how they can fire you. Probationary employees can't be fired on a whim. You still have to have a reason tied to job performance. Nonprobationary employees, you had better have a rock solid case.. videos, screen shots, time card data, audio, etc. whereas the opposite, you can just say that you did not get enough points on an evaluation and so that is all.

Maybe. My guess is that the SC will say the same thing as myself.... follow existing law. You can get trim the number of employees while following the law. It takes a day or two longer but not all that difficult. I do not mind the idea of having less federal government employees but they should play by the rules that they themselves put into place. Interesting how you think that they should not follow existing law.. very interesting. Your approval of this reality is not necessary but if you follow existing law.. the employee can't sue you or be reinstated later. This makes it permanent. If you do not.. they can sue you, take you to court and be in the right according to existing law.

Fantasy novel... has so much in common with actual federal government work. You always make topics into those of morality and such. This is a legal issue and if you play the legal game... you need more than being self righteous. I know.. I have played it twice. When our dept was sued, we had to do more than yell and scream about how perfect we were.

I have no agenda... Its much like explaining to someone that to get your car started, you have to do more than yell, scream, and be self righteous. Imagine that your alternator fails. Do you calmly and thoroughly diagnose the issue? Or do you get on your pulpit and exclaim about your leadership qualities? Having fixed many cars.. I can tell you which choice gets the job done.

What they should do, if they want these cuts to be permanent, is be thorough, detailed, and follow existing law. It can be done. Will it be sensational enough for you? No.

Well.. I am not going to waste my time anymore. Your link is pure opinion with no direct quotes or really any details/context. Feel free to continue but I am not taking the bait.

It makes sense to decouple from the US and therefore leave Canada less exposed to trade wars. My guess is that this will be a rocky journey with lots of ups and downs.

You are easily manipulated. You seriously think that Trump is doing the arrests of these illegals.. as an example.

From a legal standpoint. your approach would be even less successful. We are talking about a judge so therefore it is a legal issue. If you truly want them off the books.. you have to follow the law. If someone wanted to fire my entire dept.. they would be faced with a series of legal issues. Why? Because our jobs are codified into law. You can change the laws but that takes the legislature and therefore long, drawn out process.

I do not have the time to dig in but most likely it is an issue of existing law being violated. At the state government level, once you get to 5 years, it becomes a legal issue to fire someone without cause. You have to have ironclad proof of misconduct.. such as video, audio, etc. Unlike private sector jobs, in the public sector your pay, vacation, etc are codified into law.

A few ardent Trump supporters that I know have started to question his indecision on tariffs.

I have two people on ignore. It is mostly a matter of efficiency. No need to occupy my headspace with meaningless noise

DJIA +624.89 (1.53%)today as of 10:14 pst Down 1100 approximately over the past 5 days. This trade war is going to make for more down days than up days.