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One important rule to remember in life, but especially in the investment world, is that free research is almost always worth what you paid for it. With a few incredibly rare exceptions (like Mike Burry posting on Yahoo message boards) anybody who is smart enough and provides useful insight in their research will demand to be paid for that research. I would be wary of any free newsletter pitching stock "research" and I use that term loosely. Also, before you listen to anybody who claims they saw the financial crisis coming before it happened you should stop and ask yourself, why is this person not worth hundreds of millions of dollars and why are they still writing for an online newsletter? I'm a big believer that smart individuals with discipline and research can outperform the market over time. However the more time I spend working in finance the more I believe that most individuals are better off with low cost, broad coverage index funds or ETFs. If you have a full-time job it is highly unlikely you will have the time to really do the due diligence necessary to outperform the averages. Jim Cramer's 1 hour per week is a bullshit number, you're competing against people who spend 60-80 hours/week doing research and for every share you buy because you think it is cheap somebody is selling it to you who thinks it is expensive. If you are going to run the risk of a concentrated portfolio of just a few names you need to know them inside and out. Not just read the news but understand the accounting, how will those things you read about flow through the three statements, how will it effect the multiple being applied, which multiple is the right multiple for this business, where are we in the cycle. If you don't have the time to really understand a few businesses completely then you need to diversify to lower your risk and if you're doing that you might as well just own an index fund.

I wonder if the ACP guy reads this forum...updated stats are posted. BLUF, it appears the ACP guy hadn't posted anything new, since there was little change to report. I think the lack of change is worth reporting, however. FY16 stats below: - Bombers: No more takers; still 25% - C2ISR: 1 more taker--now 43.9% - Fighters: 5 more takers--now 27.2% - Mobility: 7 more takers--now 35.1% - Rescue: 1 more taker--now 69% - SOF: 1 more taker--now 35.9% - Unmanned: No more takers--still 51.7% -- Overall FY16 pilot take rate--increased a whopping 2% in a month--now 35.5% overall I won't bother with the FY17 early taker breakdown, but the number of FY17 early takers increased by 33--Overall FY17 early take rate is now 13.9% Armchair analysis: The above stats don't bode well for the Air Force, but a few things are worth noting: - Fighter and Bomber bubbas seem especially unmotivated right now. Their communities' take rates are the lowest for both FY16 and FY17 eligibles - Rescue, C2ISR and--surprisingly--Unmanned seem content. They're signing up at comparatively high rates - Based on sheer mass, though, it seems Mobility pilots will end up running the Air Force. There are as many FY16 takers so far in the Mobility community as there are in the Fighter, Rescue and SOF communities combined TT

This post made me think of this from Good Morning Vietnam

Declining a promotion is considered to be failed of selection, same effect as not making the promotion list. There is no continuation after the fact. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As a pilot, you will get continued and will have to wait out your adsc with a smaller paycheck.

For those of you living in Texas, if you have a MOH, Purple Heart, DFC, AF Cross, Air Medal, plus a couple others, you can get a medal tag license plate through TxDOT which allows free parking at state locations....such as an airport like DFW which beats the bejesus out of employee parking.

Shameless Plug for Planeform and Flanders, they did a bulk order of SICK T-38's and U-2's for the guys at Beale in flat black that came out frickin' sweet.

My bet is the one dude that processes the applications is on leave.

I have the perfect solution to your problem: why don't you get on your SRs schedule and actually ask him? You're #3 of 36, he obviously knows you. Should be relatively easy to solve this brain teaser... GOs are not robots, and the good ones actually enjoy talking to their airman - and mentoring them.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

Here's another piece of wall art we have recently been working on:

At least I get to peruse this while doing my CBT on what the AF thinks a brothel looks like.....they must be into some low class whores.