A great loss to the outdoors industry, and anyone who cares about being able to escape civilization and enjoy communing with the nature we have left. America will never have "right to roam" that European countries have, but National Forests and other BLM lands that let you pitch anywhere are a workable substitute.
There is actually no trespass law in Massachusetts for unimproved land, even if posted with signs. So we theoretically have "freedom to roam" in wilderness areas, even if privately owned. However, nobody I've ever talked to seems to know this, including various police officers, and so there seems to be a 'folk law' understanding that you cannot freely roam in such places.
Side note: Call me a treehugger but the use of the word "unimproved" to refer to the last remaining shreds of wildlife not yet paved over and replaced with Starbucks strikes me as the most dystopian fucking shit.
The large swaths of seldom-used private land in the US really grind my gears. It’s the perfect example of the “I’ve got mine” mentality that a lot of Americans have.
Visiting Europe, where most private land has access ways (and I believe laws regarding shared use, in some cases) gives feelings of respect towards both neighbors and the earth, which should (in my and woodie guthrie’s opinion, at least) be a shared experience.
I’m not sure if it’s at all related to the first point, but in America, it would probably be more common for visitors (or ‘trespassers’) to leave someone else’s land worse than they found it (when compared to the shared respect generally found in Europe). Speaking in broad strokes, of course.
Looks like MGL c. 266, § 120 is the source here. It does say that as long as the land is "improved or enclosed" and has signs posted, you still can't trespass. It's unclear to me if "improved or enclosed" is meant to be exhaustive or is illustrative -- I think that in effect, this would come down to the court's interpretation.
I think a lot of people here are conflating the Forest Service with the Park Service. The Park Service is one of the most successful, most universally beloved government agencies we've ever had, they run the national parks and are a boon to lovers of the outdoors.
The Forest Service has one of the most checkered pasts you can imagine, they're in many ways the opposite of what people imagine when they hear the name.
To quote Bill Bryson:
> “In fact, mostly what the Forest Service does is build roads. I am not kidding. There are 378,000 miles of roads in America’s national forests. That may seem a meaningless figure, but look at it this way—it is eight times the total mileage of America’s interstate highway system. It is the largest road system in the world in the control of a single body. The Forest Service has the second highest number of road engineers of any government institution on the planet. To say that these guys like to build roads barely hints at their level of dedication. Show them a stand of trees anywhere and they will regard it thoughtfully for a long while, and say at last, “You know, we could put a road here.” It is the avowed aim of the U.S. Forest Service to construct 580,000 miles of additional forest road by the middle of the next century. The reason the Forest Service builds these roads, quite apart from the deep pleasure of doing noisy things in the woods with big yellow machines, is to allow private timber companies to get to previously inaccessible stands of trees. Of the Forest Service’s 150 million acres of loggable land, about two-thirds is held in store for the future. The remaining one-third—49 million acres, or an area roughly twice the size of Ohio—is available for logging. It allows huge swathes of land to be clear-cut, including (to take one recent but heartbreaking example) 209 acres of thousand-year-old redwoods in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest.”
That is the USFS. The guys who help loggers. The fools who so often mismanaged forest management based on Victorian ideas about "the woods". These are the geniuses who kill off fish in large waterways with rotenone.
A lot of what Trump is doing is highly questionable or outright terrible, but I don't shed a tear for this agency, and you shouldn't either. The wilds would be better without them.
How are people supposed to access the national forests if there aren’t roads? I’d rather loggers do their thing deep in the forest so the areas that are popular can continue to be wild. We all know logging isn’t going to stop anytime soon
There's really nothing to say when someone's response boils down to, "No" and it's hard to argue that you're adding anything to the discussion here. What did I "mischaracterize" exactly? What was incorrect or what did I miss that makes you say that?
Is the USFS not failing to protect old growth? Have their policies around controlled burns not been criticized for decades as antiquated? Do they not poison rivers to "control undesirable fish species"?
Or by contrast, what are they doing that you think excuses their shortcomings?
Yes, the criticisms of some of their policies and shortcomings are warranted. But you weren't discussing those. Instead, you characterized the USFS as primarily engaged in building roads and logging/deforestation. That is what I objected to. Yes, logging is part of what they manage -- to ensure that it's done in a sustainable and proper manner (without which, corporations would just take it all, especially if the federal lands were privatized). Now whether they are too cozy with the logging industry in some states, that may be the case -- but that's a regulatory/policy question, not at all solved by cutting the USFS.
> and anyone who cares about being able to escape civilization and enjoy communing with the nature we have left.
Shouldn't that elevate property values in rural areas? Being able to buy a get-away property with a large tract of land and its own forest/lake/mountain/whatever.
It's a great place to visit but you wouldn't necessarily want to live there.
Thinking about comparable situations in Scotland, you can get a rural property cheaply, or even a spare castle, but .. that's not where the jobs are, that's not where people's friends or social scenes are, there's no shops, and often the weather isn't on your side. What people want is parks as an amenity they can visit. I suppose they'll be privatized and people will be charged to visit them.
They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
-- Joni Mitchell
My pet theory is that US 'unknown' federal land (i.e not Yosemite park) will be sold to special interest groups to pay for new tax cut on land ownership.
[Edit] polymarket bet on if federal land will be sold/auctionned within 2 years? Anyone?
I don't think it will prevent this from happening, but one interesting thing is that two quite different (political) sides appreciate and make use of BLM land. The US does a pretty decent job of accommodating quite disparate groups: dedicated off-road vehicle areas, stocking lakes, campgrounds, boondocking, hunting, hiking trails, preserving habitat, etc.
I recall Trump suggested in his last term that he could sell federal land to pay off the debt. There's a whole lot of federally owned land out there. 600 million acres or around 27% of all US land.
He's not going to stop there. Putin made his trillions by selling off all the nationally owned soviet enterprises for pennies on the dollar. Trump idolizes Putin, so I think we can see him selling ('privatizing') any and every public asset he can.
It's very much not a "false" accusation, it is an real accusation and i'm not hiding it?
Unless i misunderstood english (which is very much possible), saying "my pet theory" is equivalent to saying "i'm inclined to believe", i.e not a belief i hold strongly, but a belief nonetheless?
I don't see what is hidden, is it how i turned my sentence that bothered you? Was it bad english (which is totally possible, i'm not a native speaker)? Or you disagreed with it, and you chose to do moral criticism rather than criticize the logic?
One thing people don't realize is how little these USFS, NP, BLM etc. workers are paid. These are not "fat cats" in DC. Wages are very low. But they're willing to accept the low pay because they care about that what they're doing makes it possible for our country to enjoy our beautiful nature. (Not saying every single person, but this is the prevailing sentiment.)
The little money that we as a country are saving (and we're not actually saving any money, it's being redirected to a large border security budget) is by no means conmensurate with the large amount of damage we are doing long term.
But if all you care about is extracting natural resources from our environment, then the USFS, BLM etc. are just a thorn in your side.
There are a couple of comments here dismissing firing 10% of the workforce as not all that impactful, but they're missing some important context.
Despite the common "wisdom" that the federal government is universally bloated, there's little evidence to suggest the forest service has an excessive number of employees given the size of their job. For context they're less than half the size of Facebook, and my non-expert hot take is that managing all that federal land sounds like the more complicated and labor intensive job. If they were running pretty lean already, firing 10% of the workforce could potentially result in job functions with no one to do them, and that goes downhill pretty fast.
The firings were also exclusively focused on firing new employees, regardless of role or performance, simply because they were easy to fire. That makes the forest service (and every other federal agency) as unattractive employer, which will make it much harder to recruit new employees as people naturally retire or leave. That 10% reduction is going to snowball into a larger number over time, even if more people don't get fired, which I suspect they will.
Less important but worth noting is that while the stated goal is to "drain the DC deep state swamp" or whatever, what that apparently really translates into is firing forest service employees, who are spread out all over the country and not what most people think of when it comes to "the deep state". In the name of fighting the bureaucratic boogeyman, they're hurting people like this.
They fired anyone in a 'probationary period'. That includes everyone who got a promotion within the last 2 years, because the probationary period applies to them as well. They literally targeted some of the best or most involved people (those that were promoted). Any talent actively recruited and brought in to address specific topics? Probationary period.
They are trying to completely destroy the federal government. These departments will start spiraling down the drain, and essential services will begin to fall apart. These people are literally looking to destroy our government from within. Good luck, America, this is what you voted for, you gorgeous morons.
I think part of the argument on the other side is that if the forest service better managed its finances and revenues they wouldn’t have to lay people off. I am positive there is a way they could have kept those employees but they (possibly correctly) prioritized spending elsewhere
AFAIK, this affected probationary employees of all or most agencies. So I’m not sure how this argument makes sense as something the Forest Service did wrong or could have prevented.
Also, the government should be efficient but shouldn’t be required to break even or profit… it’s a public good.
That argument only makes sense if you don't know how government spending works or what the top-down direction was.
Agencies generally aren't just given a big sack of money to do whatever with. It's allocated for specific types of things in specific amounts, and in particular, employee pay is separate from other things and governed mostly by a given number of employee slots rather than a specific dollar amount. The forest service couldn't save those jobs by just shifting funding from, say, vehicle purchases without much higher level approval.
It doesn't really matter though because the direction to the forest service and everyone else wasn't "reduce your budget by $Y". It was "fire all your new employees immediately". There was no opportunity for the forest service to "better manage its finances". I think giving the forest service and other agencies time and flexibility to figure out how to be more efficient based on specific domain knowledge is a fantastic idea. Even if that ultimately did lead to layoffs, at least it would be an informed decision. That's not at all what's happening, and whatever excuses proponents of this approach come up with, firing people like the woman in the article is exactly what was expected.
There's very little evidence that actual financial mismanagement determined what departments were targeted for layoffs so far. They might say that's why they're doing it, but are tight lipped with any evidence to support it. From the outside, it seems like they just want to cut as many federal jobs as they can get away with without consideration for the impacts because they want to destroy the administrative state and maybe privatize its functions.
They don’t get to decide that. They are paid by the federal government, any revenue they get goes back to the federal government. Trump/Musk are laying off federal workers regardless of how much revenue they bring in, or if their jobs are self sustaining or even profitable based on the fees they bring in. For example, he laid medical equipment inspector whose jobs are completely paid for by fees.
government agencies sometimes operate at a loss. that's fine - as citizens of a functioning society, we pay taxes to maintain services which improve shared, public life.
The US is lacky to keep large forests on public lands (unlike the UK and many EU coutnries). When most of the land is privately owned it's etremely difficuls to reverse deforestation.
... which in turn could be invested in his and his cronies' ventures, then carried away to private enclaves in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The country is being outright looted.
Also in what universe does it make sense for a country with both a trade deficit and a large domestic spending deficit to have a sovereign wealth fund? A sovereign wealth fund makes sense for countries with large fiscal surpluses.
According to recent executive orders, it looks like there are plans to sell to overseas interests, but only those who would be able to pay much more than states or domestic entities.
Seems like Trump is setting himself up to sell to the highest bidder on a case-by-case basis, according to which foreign parties he likes at the time, with no opportunity at all for any that make him whine.
I doubt the billionaire tech bros now controlling the US mind forest fires, and loss of natural habitats. They want the country to collapse, so they can build their own network states.
House costs are close to nothing for a billionaire. And for the billionaires who are breaking the country's bones so they can shape everything to fit their interests the payoff is so great that a house (or 1000) is nothing.
This x 1000. This is one of the cognitive problems we're facing. All too many people think that these billionaires are like the rest of us, just with a bit more money. These people do not experience the world as we do. At all. And they do not care how we do. We are mere counter ants to them. In their quest for more "efficiency" (i.e. becoming even more wealthy, faster) they don't gaf how many lives and careers they destroy.
They also live in a world that is almost completely alien and disconnected from the one the rest of us live in. That's why they're not like the rest of us. They're socially aliens who have zero understanding of what life is like outside of their social fortresses.
> It's disingenious to put all billionaires in the same bucket.
No, its pretty clear that having that much money changes people. To even reach that level of wealth there has to be something "wrong" with you compared to regular people. A willingness to take risks regardless of the cost, exploit your fellow humans, and being so disconnected from that you think you achieved it solely through your own hard work and talent.
On top of that, if you have a billion dollars, and there is poverty and starving children in the world, and you're not giving as much as you can to fix it, then you're simply unethical. I give what I can, but I'm just a regular worker bee. If I had more money than I could spend in a hundred lifetimes, I don't know how I could sleep at night knowing there's kids going to bed hungry, and I could have a significant impact on fixing it.
When today's children are old, "house" may well imply "billionaire" in many places. At 11% appreciation, it only takes 67 years to gain a factor of a thousand.
I sometimes wonder if Americans realize what is going on they are borrowing $1 to grow the economy $0.80 and from that $0.75 goes to the top 1%. So 99% of the remaining citizen are borrowing $0.99 to get $0.05. Now a lot of the money that has been borrowed was from the 1% and they realize that rest of the 99% cant pay them back so now they will take over your countries assets at cents to the dollar all the while spouting how capitalism is a good thing.
Much of the borrowing grows the economy by more than one dollar - it has positive ROI for the society as a whole. Which is why cutting it is so destructive.
They're going to Liz Truss the US Federal budget, and it's going to be extremely bad for a wide swathe of the middle classes via the financial markets.
This has me thinking of graduating from an Art Masters program at the start of the Bush administration to find only 300 professorships available to some 30k applicants. I am a software developer now paying for my Arts education still, 23 years later.
It's funny how the politicians say they're going to create jobs but usually due to their policies, jobs evaporate. When will we call bullshit on these claims? FDR understood that the only way for a government to create jobs was to hire people. Neo-liberal conservatives love magic thinking like creating jobs through giving money to the rich when just hiring poor people with that money is more efficient (and obvious).
The neo-libs were wrong, but the neocons aren't doing this. This new breed of grifters only pay lip service to the neocon agenda. This time, it's about controlling from the top and cutting the tree of Liberty.
Because while capitalism and "free markets" are excellent for solving some problems such as dynamic resource allocation, they are not only terrible at solving other problems, they actively make them worse.
Start with any issue related to a commons — a "free market" will ALWAYS turn it into a Tragedy Of The Commons, literally destroying the thing that was most valued.
Plus, the entire concept of a "Free Market" is nonsense. No markets are ever completely free — there are ALWAYS regulations, whether codified or informal, enforced by official agents or vigilantes, and penalties for violating those regulations. The arguments are only about what are the regulations (and really, who the regulations are designed to benefit).
Capitalism & "Free Markets" are also extremely bad at providing for all members of society when they encounter accident, hardship, illness, or infirmity.
Ultimately, overly free markets result in extremely unequal and unproductive societies, where a few people hoard approximately all the wealth and the rest of the population is barely functional.
Fundamentally, all these types of theories are wrong because they assume a baseline of the benefits of a well-regulated society, with a social safety net. They assume their "free market interventions" will result in only improvements, when the actual result will be a highly stratified, mostly poor, and dysfunctional society. The remarkable thing about history is not only that we had great minds like Newton and Einstein, but how many similar-caliber minds lived their lives in subsistence mode — those "neo-xyz theories" ultimately ensure that 99.9% of all Newtons and Einsteins will never have a chance to achieve anything.
A bit of a quibble, since you seem to be equating Capitalism with "free markets" (but you put free markets in quotes, so perhaps you're intending sarcasm). In any case, for others reading:
A "market" is any place people come to exchange goods and services, and seems to be a sociological Truth. They appear in nearly every society, going back thousands of years, even before written history.
A "free market" is an academic ideal, where every actor in the market is perfectly rational, has complete information, and is not under any sort of coercion. This is, of course, impossible to achieve in practice, similar to solving a high school physics problem and ignoring friction.
Capitalism, then, is a tool for exploiting those imperfections for your own gain. Using your wealth or power to coerce others, acting on hidden information, preying on peoples' insecurities through advertising, and so on. Capitalism is explicitly opposed to a free market, and continuously tries to undermine it, for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.
The role of democratically-elected governments should be to represent the peoples' interests in the market, in opposition to the elites. Like you said, through regulations to protect the commons, prevent monopolies and other exploitation, and so on.
The dilemma is that a weak government allows corporations and the wealthy to do whatever they want, and is powerless to stop it. A strong government can stop or slow their influence temporarily, but is also a jucier target for corruption.
I don't know how we get to that, though. We've now had two generations awash in propaganda, that the free market is good and capitalism is synonymous with the free market, and that any problems you're facing aren't the fault of the wealthy and powerful, but are because of the minorities that can't defend themselves.
The theory expresses by an slim state that does only a few things, but does not interfere with businesses. "Trickle-down" is one "theory" of theirs: if you give money to the rich, directly or reducing taxes, the money lands in the end at the poor, but this "theory" has been disproven so often that you can't call it a theory anymore.
"Neoliberalism" is Reaganomics, a series of beliefs about the world:
* The government is generally the problem [with our economy], not the solution to our [economic] problems.
* Low taxes, low regulation, and low barriers to trade favor positive-sum economic development.
* The market will perform most regulatory tasks for us out of enlightened self interest.
* Ricardian specialization in international trade is to the benefit of all.
* Money made by the wealthy will trickle down to everyone else's quality of life.
* The Laffer Curve is self evident and we are self-evidently always on the right side of it; Cutting taxes will increase receipts.
Conservatism is highly compatible with this worldview, but it was embraced by liberals as well after the country re-elected Reagan in a landslide. Clinton's "Third Way" portrayed itself as an alternative to traditional Republican and Democratic concerns that was socially progressive but promoted a slightly softened version of this economic theory.
Some version of or equivalent to the Third Way has basically been in control of the Democratic party ever since due to its superior ability to fundraise for campaigns, due to the slow death of the labor movement, and due to the death of the dream of international communism among fringe intellectuals.
In an attempt to differentiate itself, conservatives tilted hard, hard right on social politics (if not always policy), and brought the economic policies to an extreme that would have been nonsensical a generation earlier.
Most people who didn't spend the last two or three decades living off of returns on their investments, have been frustrated with the failed promises of neoliberalism, and it is losing traction with liberals; Or rather, [neo]liberals are losing traction with the electorate.
I don't think the claim that there is atleast one highest total tax collected point in between 0 and 100% tax is that wild? It aint that much more to it? (I agree with the rest of the point about missusing it)
You could argue that the model is too simple ofcourse. Or that 100% tax on certain things don't give 0 revenue and that 100% tax is not the roof. E.g. some people are paying to work at farms.
The response of tax revenue to tax rate changes might be discontinuous and highly dependent on the current tax rate and other temporal factors. Like, the optimal strategy for the next 5 years might be to increase tax for one year and then decrease it, whilst the optimal strategy for 10 years time is to do nothing at all. Imo this renders the idea of the Laffer curve to be pretty useless.
Thanks for this. The mention of compatibility between conservatism and neoliberalism is interesting. The UK Conservative party historically aligned with a more "mercantilist" economics. This sometimes stood in opposition to free market ideology; for example the Corn Laws divided the party, and there was strong support for tarrifs well into the 1900s. But Thatcher instituted a shift very similar to Reagan's, and by the 1990s everyone was a neoliberal.
Neoliberalism is an economic theory embraced by both parties (and globally really), and have been since the oil crisis during Carter. It can be confused with liberalism the political theory, but it's different. Each US political party has a slightly different flavor, but economically it's the same. It's good from a macroeconomic perspective and a strategic perspective, but eliminating trade barriers allows US companies to outsource labor to poorer countries at the expense of US workers for lower prices (in a nutshell). Think Apple in China, Tata, US manufacturing in Mexico, etc.
I assume neoliberal conservatives are the conservatives who embrace neoliberalism, but both parties have embraced it for generations. We seem to be rolling it back somewhat since the main strategic benefit (containing the Soviet Union) is no longer as relevant (until recently I suppose).
Even when Carter is identified during the correct time frame, it's always best to remember that the oil crisis and runway inflation that followed were the complete doing of Nixon and OPEC beforehand.
Actually in current hindsight it could most realistically be said, pointing to the most prominent national leadership involved, that such distorted economic policy arose "during" Al Saudi.
According to the article, “the administration maintains they have not fired positions essential to public safety”. I guess it depends on whose viewpoint is used to determine public safety.
Native American tribes are legal entities with their own property rights that look somewhat like sovereign inholdings within the borders of the U.S. Some of their land borders U.S. Forest land, so there is a need to coordinate. They also rely on some centralized services of the Forest Service, like fire fighting, that they struggle to capably provide by themselves.
The Office of Tribal Relations (OTR) serves as a single point of contact for Tribal issues and works to ensure that relevant programs and policies are efficient, easy to understand, accessible, and developed in consultation with the American Indians and Alaska Native constituents they impact.
From Forest Service-----
Tribal Relations Specialists play a critical role in the government-to-government trust responsibility that is crucial to the health and sustainability of many of our nation’s most treasured landscapes. They serve as the point of contact for American Indian Tribes; work with Tribal Councils, Tribal Leaders, and officials of other agencies; and serve as partnership coordinators for programs involving collaboration and consultation with American Indian Tribes.
Many tribes are treated as mini nations within the US with their own treaties negotiated between them and the US. They often border Federal land. They often have waterways and water rights that impact/restrict/are tied by treaty to federal land waterways. They may also have shared animal management plans. You kind of need someone who understand the treaties and policies of the nations you work with on a daily basis.
While I recognize these are federal lands, I wonder if the states will pick up the slack to keep the parks open. In the end, Trump wants the states to do more with less federal government involvement, thus, I am not surprised at the force reduction. And, the layoffs seem to be happening for a while now (way before Trump).
Yes, I understand. But, why can’t states help provide funding for the people who take care of the land? The states wouldn’t take over the land, just help maintain it. Volunteers, non-profits, etc could certainly help out here.
The feds aren't just going to let the land sit unbothered. They're going to sell it off and/or allow resource extraction. Nothing a non-profit can prevent.
> if the states will pick up the slack to keep the parks open
maybe so, but then states have to raise taxes to pay for it
the fed gov gets to say "look at all the money we saved you"!! (actually they're putting the savings to border security, but anyway), but in the end taxpayers don't actually pay any less
that's besides the fact that these are federal lands, not state lands; and that centralized management is generally more cost effective
where are you getting that? it says the agency is chronically underfunded and therefore understaffed and lacking necessary resources, not mismanaged. that would indicate that it should receive more resources/budget, not less.
Many seasonal campgrounds never open due to lack of staffing. Fire risk can’t be sufficiently managed and creates massive fuel buildups.
Illegal dumping at the edges of the national forests is also a big problem that they can’t keep up with, as well as preventing other illegal activities like poaching or unlawful harvesting of resourceg.
the US forest services has a budget of 9 BILLION dollars a year. in 2023 less than a billion of that was salaries. if they're understaffed it's entirely a management problem, not a funding problem. especially because in 2024 they got a $500 million increase to this, bringing it to $1.4 billion, nearly the entirety of which was justified under hiring firefighters.
the US forest services also maintains forests in over 80 countries. why are we spending money there? i don't understand why they don't focus on keeping their employees if its such a devastating loss of goodwill and loyalty and expertise.
their 10% reduction in workforce saved them 1.5% of their total budget. they really can't save 1.5% somewhere else?
No. No amount of slashing programs would have saved the USFS from a government-wide campaign of firing probationary staff, from the CFPB and NIST to the USFS.
(A citation on their programs abroad would be nice, too.)
To be fair, I currently don't think anything currently makes sense about the administration's "move fast and have other people fix the consequences later" approach towards slashing government programs by mass layoffs, other than private equity logic.
I don't think the current administration is currently politically incentivised to have a rationally-thought through solution, or plan, to making the USFS lean that keeps it doing the things we think are important.
underfunded by the metric of the service needing more resources for the following:
> The federal agency does more than ensure that Americans have a place to hunt, hike, fish, or paddle. In the South, forest workers played a key role in helping western North Carolina and other communities recover from impacts of Hurricane Helene. In the West, they’re taking on fire risk mitigation and fighting wildfires. They’re also involved in fisheries management in places like Alaska. Across the country, agency biologists and foresters are busy working to strengthen the over 150 national forests and 20 grasslands it monitors in the face of changing climate.
> “That means you’re going to see those campgrounds close, the trails go unmaintained, roads closed, you’re going to feel the effects of wildfire and hurricane recovery work that’s just going to remain undone,” said Reynolds. “Communities are going to struggle.”
the US Forest Service maintains our parks, ensuring the safety and longevity of the park system. this involves emergency response and critical research in the face of climate change, among many, many other responsibilities.
> It seems to be working as far as I can tell.
... because overworked and underpaid public servants have been quietly making it work. how is this different from "we don't need an infosec team, we haven't had an incident in years!"
the average forest service salary is over $100k. salaries are barely 15% of their total budget. if they're overworked and underpaid then it's a management issue, not a funding issue.
"n the military of ancient Rome, decimation (from Latin decimatio 'removal of a tenth'[1]) was a form of military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort." [0]
The word decimate comes from the Latin decimatio, which was a form of military discipline where one of every ten men would be killed. So although we usually think of 'decimate' as meaning removing some large proportion of something, it can also still mean removing 10 percent!
I think all these identical comments need to take into account reality - most people reading that will not think "oh, so a 10% reduction, then". It's technically correct, and probably chosen to motte and bailey both interpretations, but it's obviously misleading.
It depends. A 10% reduction in GDP, as an example, would result in great misery. A 10% staff reduction on an already understaffed organisation probably has a very great impact. The damage is probably being expressed very well
