That includeds executive pay packages too, right? I dont think whoever is runnung these is going to make $21 million/yr like the kroger CEO.
That and the other blown out of sanity exec pay should help lower in store prices, even if the workers are making his proposed $30/hr wage.
You might want to check out ecoflow. They have turnkey battery/auto islanding panel systems in the 10k range that are designed for solar input. The above can handle 4kw solar input, which can be expanded with more inverters.
Full text, because fuck conde nast:
As the U.S. government shutdown stretches into its second month, agency leaders at the Social Security Administration (SSA) are becoming increasingly worried about how the key government department, which provides benefits to roughly 70 million Americans, will continue to operate.
WIRED obtained meeting notes from a Thursday SSA call for the administration’s field offices, where over a thousand managers from around the country spoke with field operations chief Andy Sriubas about the acute and damaging effects of the government shutdown. During the call, managers spoke candidly about staffers who can no longer afford to drive to work and a crisis of confidence in the agency.
“People are coming to me saying they cannot put gas in their car and they cannot afford to come to work anymore, and they’ll need to get other jobs,” said one employee on the call. “Pretty soon they won’t be able to afford to work at the agency.”
“My heart’s breaking because I hear all this stuff across the country,” Sriubas responded. “We had to close an office in California today because we didn’t have enough people to open the doors … Nobody wants to close an office … But I also understand that people have to live their lives and they have limited means to do that when you’re now missing your second full paycheck.”
Another employee tells WIRED that some field offices have set up food pantries to help colleagues who are on the brink. “People are angry and … betrayed,” they added.
“I think I can speak for most of our employees when we say now more than ever, employees are feeling somewhat betrayed by the federal government as federal employees because of what we’re navigating and the length in which we’re navigating it,” said another employee on the call.
Most SSA employees are considered “excepted” from the shutdown, meaning they must continue to work without getting paid—or quit the agency altogether.
People can also be furloughed, but employees say they are nervous to ask for this option, for fear they won’t receive back pay when the government reopens. “I have employees that are skeptical and kind of scared, to be truthful, to use furlough because they’re not comfortable or confident that once the shutdown is over that they’re going to be compensated,” an employee said on the call.
Differing standards at the agency, which has roughly 51,000 employees, are also leading to contention. While SSA is allowing some employees to work remotely during this period, the number of days they’re allowed to do this is limited. “Telework will be infrequent, based on unique workload needs of the agency or due to the personal circumstances of the requesting employee, and limited in duration,” according to an employee contract viewed by WIRED. (“It’s become a big problem—and employees talk to each other. We need a hard and fast rule,” one manager tells WIRED.)
“We’re a metro office where we have to pay for parking, and our parking is like $10 to $15 a day, and it’s really starting to add up for employees. And we do have employees that have been embarrassed to come to me and say that they can’t afford to come to work and they want to telework instead of [being] furloughed,” another employee said on the call. “I understand that’s not an option now, I just want you to know that there really are people that are struggling with the decision between finding a way to get to work and wanting to work, and our only option being furlough.”
Employees are also struggling with a daunting workload and a backlog of cases. On the call, Sriubas said that he had spoken with SSA’s general counsel, who said that just because SSA’s workload was “excepted” didn’t mean the agency had to do it. “So we can decide not to do it,” said Sriubas. “So if [the shutdown] does go into next week, I ask folks to start thinking about what are the workloads … to say, look, we’re just not doing that going forward until the shutdown ends.”
“You can’t do 12 months of work in 10 months and expect it all to be done on the right timelines,” he added.
On the call, SSA managers spoke about how difficult it was to keep employees motivated, especially when they know that their work will have to ramp up after the shutdown concludes. “It’s hard to keep morale going with the way the staff is going, and they also know that as soon as this shutdown is over, we’re going to hit 'em hard with [more work],” said one employee. “It’s very frustrating when we have to keep those staff motivated and we need 'em for the long haul, not just for this fiscal year.”
Employees also described the specific toll the shutdown was taking on Social Security beneficiaries. In one instance, recounted on the call, an office lost half their team. “Now my public is waiting two hours in [the] reception area, hour and hour and a half on phones,” said the same employee, who noted that wait times used to be around half an hour.
“The Social Security Administration continues to serve our nation’s seniors and most vulnerable populations during the Democrat shutdown,” an SSA spokesperson tells WIRED. “Local offices across the country are open and operating during the lapse in funding per the agency’s contingency plan. We recognize this is a stressful and challenging time for SSA employees who are currently working without pay because the Democrats won’t reopen the government.” (WIRED previously reported that federal workers were being told to blame Democrats for the government shutdown.)
The White House did not respond to request for comment.
The SSA has been embroiled in chaos throughout President Donald Trump’s second term. WIRED reported in March that almost a dozen operatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had been deployed to SSA, including big-name early operatives like Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, and Akash Bobba.
According to a court filing from the SSA in federal court and accompanying sworn statements, a number of the DOGE operatives had access to a number of sensitive data sets, including Numident, which contains detailed information about anyone with a social security number. DOGE claimed they required this kind of access in order to detect “fraud.” However, many of DOGE’s claims about the agency were untrue and inaccurate, including the claim that 150-year-olds were collecting social security benefits.
In August, SSA’s chief data officer, Chuck Borges, submitted a whistleblower complaint that claimed DOGE had mishandled sensitive data and uploaded the confidential information of millions of Americans to an insecure server. When Borges sent an email to agency staff stating that he was involuntarily resigning, following his whistleblower complaint, the email mysteriously disappeared from inboxes, employees told WIRED at the time.
“I’m invested in this organization. I love what we do, but I feel like it’s not going in the right direction, and we’re not really serving the public like we should or even our employees,” said one employee during Thursday’s management call. “We’re not trying to beat people up, it’s just that we are so invested.”
Update: 11/7/2025 7 PM EDT: WIRED updated the piece with a post publication comment from SSA.
No one is “selling them” in the sense of a working device, but rather they are all prototypes that have not been shown to work or live up to the hype. The top vendor in that artitice I posted from June, NuScale, is on the edge of bankruptcy and just churning staff. Its only existant on meme stock hype from “no detail” trade deals about nuclear investments, not on actual sales of its technology.
And instead just makes the dictator and the marines look incompetent while shutting down one of the busiest roads in the world for half a day.
Way to look weak and stupid while pissing people off all at once.
LA spends half its entire city budget on these fuckwits. Fully half. Every other department has to share the remaining half.
This is excellent news, even as it hits “no duh” status.
Fields’ statement also mentioned that the timing aligns with a broader fiscal audit underway at the department, noting “the timing is fortunate, since the team and I are currently reviewing the budget.”
The statement ends with addressing the possible resources which could be left to be allocated, to which Supt. Fields mentions how “the timing is fortunate, since the team and I are currently reviewing the budget.”
Two paragraphs right after each other in the article. Somebody at the paper should review the budget so they can afford to proof copy before hitting publish.
Jesus, it does it again:
State law requires that when a public officer named in a lawsuit leaves office, the case transfers to their successor —
Then 3 paragraphs later
Thompson said the Supreme Court ordered an update by Oct. 28 since the previous respondents left office and the matter now legally transfers to their successor.
Seems like this is just AI generated, likely from jumbling up another papers reporting.
Ha, I added it because a buddy of mine did basically exactly that too, paying over market for it too boot.
Dodge charger, Subaru wrx and Dodge ram sales incoming.
No, it’s stupidier and more nakedly corrupt. Fossil fuel companies gave Trump over a billion dollars in political donations, and fossil fuel jobs look “manly” and have “big trucks.”
That’s about it. He can appeal to rural voters in rural states working dying jobs while the companies he gives trillions in subsides to give him billions in donations back. For that, he’ll kill the planet faster and trap millions in low wage, dangerous jobs instead of just letting solar and wind naturally ramp up.
The last shutdown in recent memory was also Trump, in 2019. The majority of voters accurately blamed him for that one.
Trump’s approval rating dropped during the shutdown.[21][22] A majority of Americans opposed exploitation of the shutdown as a negotiating strategy and held Trump responsible for the shutdown: A CBS News poll found that 71% of Americans considered the border wall “not worth the shutdown”[23] and a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 53% of Americans blamed Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, compared to 34% who blamed Democrats and 10% who blamed both parties.[24]
Its not even ambiguous. Your parents are likely just very I’ll iformed if they think anyone but the GOP is percieved as responsible for these farces.
Yes, objectively. People overwhelmingly blame the GOP, by 17 points. Both the majority of Dems and independents blame Trump, with even 10% of Republicans blaming him.
Apparently one of the deaths was from a cop shooting at the attacker and killing a bystander, which only reinforces your point.
600 known nuclear ICBMs. They can probably mass produce just the missiles to flood the system and let the actual nukes through.
They are being attacked in a gay mecca. Hiding the fact that they are here and who they are is exactly what these fucks want.
Arm up, get allies on board is more in the line with the seattle ethos. We don’t put up with that shit around here:
They beat him 3 seperate times on transfer to the prison. The hosptial room was the only recording of one of the beating, the one that killed him.
The special prosecutor stated that he had done nothing at all to provoke the murderers. That he was beaten all 3 times as a “welcome to Marcy prison” ritual. This was based on testimony from witnesses. They just beat him over and over again until he was dead because they wanted to.
Sounds like they are an “someday ill have enough money to have my boot on their throats instead” capitalist, i.e a helpful fool.
Brian would be perfectly happy killing the entire population of Seattle, as is.
Most of the sane states are ignoring their recommendations now, but yes, he has already done a lot of damage and will do more.
Unless there is video proving it, it didnt happen. Nothing ICE says is true.