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I'll lead off with I agree with your last paragraph, the status quo isn't good enough, and we need to do better in discouraging abusing the system while making it available to people who need it. So I think we both want to see us get to the same end state. I will however, challenge some of your assumptions, mainly because years ago I held very similar beliefs and viewpoints you did (and that's not to say I'm right now and you're wrong, but I've questioned some of my assumptions when presented with different viewpoints I hadn't considered and it changed my opinion). You assume that the construction worker could get a job with better benefits: those are likely to be more competitive, and limited. But let's assume they have good work ethic, and don't want to be in unemployment waiting for a "good" job while taking a government handout, so they take whatever job they can to pay their bills. If they then have a workplace accident that results in their leg being crushed and subsequently amputated, then what? "Sorry bro, life sucks and you had bad luck? Thanks for your contribution to the economy in building stores/homes, good luck finding a job with one leg, hope someone donates a prosthetic leg?" Sure, there may be some workers comp available, and that may cover the initial hospital bills, but what happens long term? Being in crutches permanently isn't conducive to many low skill jobs, and while discrimination against disabled is generally illegal, an employer can usually find another reason (plausible deniability) to hire someone else without a disability, especially for low skill or entry level work. And retraining into a new field of work costs money, both for training, and to cover expenses while in training (though admittedly unemployment benefits can help bridge the gap). I agree that the welfare system should have changes to prevent abuse. But we have to address social and economic barriers to do so. Some of it is practical (those financial cliffs mentioned earlier in the thread). Some of it is learned behavior from multiple sources. I don't dispute your experience with workers in welfare. All I will say is be careful generalizing based on a small population. Maybe your assessment is correct for the overall population of people on welfare in America, but then again maybe not. The way to draw generalizations needed for policy is to study a relevant portion of that population, while controlling for other factors. If you have a minimum wage or low paying job with decent (i.e. non high deductible plans) health insurance, great. If you get sick and have to go to urgent care, that $20 copay may mean skipping meals to make ends meet, not to mention the cost of any medicines required. Referred out to specialty care? That's an extra $50 copay, and likely half a day missed from work (increasing the financial pain). Need an operation done? Hope you have the $1-3k available for your deductible and you don't have coinsurance requirements. So while they may have health insurance, you may not be able to practically use it except in an emergency, at which point it may drain any savings you have anyways. And if you don't have paid sick leave, you may just deal with the issue and show up to work anyways because you need the money to make rent. But if you keep hours to the point you remain on welfare, you end up not having to pay those medical costs, and may not have to skip means and go hungry to get medical care. You don't have to work about an emergency wiping out your work because there's nothing really to lose. So there's this painful transition point. If you can get through it and start earning more money (maybe you get a raise after 1 year of work), you can be better off than on welfare. But you've got to get through to that point, and the way welfare is set up doesn't allow for a graceful transition. Maybe an individual has tried to make that jump and failed, and it's now disincentived to try again because of their previous failure. And even middle class workers can be wiped out by a medical event despite having okay health insurance due to deductible and coinsurance requirements. Maybe this speaks more to problems in healthcare, but it's still intertwined with the welfare issue. On the behavioral point, how do we get people to shift their mindset and actions? Also consider that many factors influence how a person chooses to live: family, race, gender, friends, religion, location, culture, etc. All of which influence your values and your decisions. You could teach finances in school, though the education system has incentive to focus on standardized testing (which right now doesn't measure financial planning knowledge) for school funding. That testing focused on skills to make the individual more valuable in the workforce, not skills needed to navigate life, with the assumption that the latter will come from the parents (who may not be good examples). How do you change a social group's norms? Part of it may be showing examples of people that made changes in their life and we're able to "succeed." I used to think it was dumb for all these "firsts" for race/gender/pick you group. To some extent, it still is when it's done for purely political reasons or for virtue signaling (potentially a wrong action for a "right" reason). But if a disadvantaged group can see people from their group be successful, it can provide hope that they too can be successful and escape their current circumstances. So those "firsts" may not mean anything to me as someone outside that group, or just seem like a waste if time, but that doesn't mean it has no meaning to some people within the group. And it doesn't really cost much if anything to recognize people's accomplishments. So it's less about dividing the country based on certain group affiliations, but rather showing a group they are accepted and can succeed within the greater society. On the flip side, there's the whole crabs in a pot problem, where if someone starts to make progress escaping their circumstances, others around them pull them back down, making it harder to escape. A person trying to escape welfare may be ridiculed or cut off from their friends/family (maybe seen as being "too good" for them anymore), making that transition harder because now it is being done without a social network to support or encourage them. Do people on welfare spend money on drugs and alcohol because they are pursuing pleasure ahead of essentials (they can't budget right!), or are they using them as tools to escape their life/circumstances for a bit and take the edge off their pain for a while? Put another way, are they poor because they abuse drugs/alcohol, or do they abuse drugs/alcohol because they are poor? The answer may not be the same for everyone, but usually conservatives will assume the former (poor because of drug abuse), I know I did for a long time. It goes back to the belief that if you work hard, there's no way for you to be poor, so if you are poor, you must have a moral failing and poor work ethic. The use of drugs further reinforces the belief that the poor are immoral (regardless of if the person making that judgement also uses drugs, usually with a hand waive of something along the lines of "I've earned it" and the poors are just being financially irresponsible). Compare the response to prescription opioid abuse vs heroin abuse: one is predominantly abused by wealthier people and viewed as them needing therapy to address their underlying issues (get them medical care, not jail time), and the other is abused by poorer people who are breaking the law to get high and should be punished for breaking the law since they should know better (give them jail time, not medical care). Plus, poor people on welfare likely won't have access to treatments for depression, so they self medicate with whatever is available and cheap. I will say that there are lots of good charities out there that fill some of the gaps our government doesn't cover. And a lot of these issues with being poor are community issues. But I think government money, spent wisely, can help enable charities and communities be more effective in addressing problems.

Social security already penalizes you if you don't work, assuming you qualify. Your entitlement is based off an average of your 35 highest earning years. If you have years where you don't work, that $0 for those years significantly pulls down that average, reducing your benefit. So in your example, 8 years of $0 is really going to hurt that social security payment, and delaying their already reduced payment penalizes them a second time for the same gap in work. Putting numbers to your example, someone earning $70k per year (a decent job in many areas in the country) for 35 years would have a benefit based on their average income of $70k/year. But if they are out of work for 8 years, but earn $70k the rest of the years, their benefit is based on an average income of $54k. And don't forget that a spouse that stays home to raise their kids, or someone who takes care of a family member full time, or someone that takes a sabbatical to do volunteer work full time while living off their savings are all unemployed for the purposes of social security, and may have their benefit reduced the same amount as someone who was lazy and just didn't want to work.

Might get easier when the military budget starts getting cut.

One thing that would help is to eliminate the cliffs in our current system. There are several areas in the current way government assistance works where getting a job/getting a raise results in less total money coming in. If we can smooth those transitions so that someone can work their way out of poverty without ending up worse off at any point, we can create an incentive to work and get raises and eventually get off government assistance. We saw this in Seattle when they went to $15/hr minimum wage. A bunch of people no longer qualified for government benefits as full-time workers and asked to have hours slashed because they were losing money by having their wages increased. If we can introduce intermediate steps that reduce, but not eliminate, government assistance in those cases, there's less disincentive to get a better job or work longer hours.

Hey guys, after a little break from Baseops, was checking back in with you all to see what stuff I need to be aware of. Are there issues out there you think I need to know about or concerns, etc? Im not going to engage in debates or complaints about votes I have taken, but was curious if there is anything I need to be aware of. I'm still flying in the guard so I know about many of them, but wanted to see what was up Feel free to PM if youd rather, cant guarantee Ill be on often but Ill take a look occasionally. Hope everyone is doing well.

That's not a press conference in which the President himself needs to directly respond to questions. It is a scripted speech. As we've seen, it is nearly impossible for Trump to answer questions logically. He instead tends to hurl pejoratives and non-sequiturs. That's the point being made by some folks on this thread. The above was shown on CNN, MSNBC, as well as Fox and Newsmax.

Thanks for the link, I’ve got it bookmarked. I’ll do some more exploring on that website.

You implied that suppression would lead to involvement from the ACLU. Seemed to me that implies legality. Glad to see we're on the same page. And I do support the baker in that it’s 100% his legal right. It’s also 100% my legal right to personally hold that against him.

If I were to refer to that as a penalty, I would use the adjective just. In actuality (IMO), it's simply a reasonable feature of the system. If you want the lesser time share, fine! Pay the lesser amount! Don't work. No skin off my back. I wouldn't call it a penalty to not have income if I didn't work, I'd call it a consequence. Social security does actually penalize you, though, for a lot more than that, including: Beginning work early in your life - since you pay that tax early and get no interest credit for the time your payment has funded the system. Not to mention the fact that if you begin work earlier, it's notionally at a lower wage, granting you less credit than someone who paid into the system later, but at a higher wage rate. Having a lower life expectancy - since different groups (men) live shorter lives, they wind up getting less benefit - especially since this group (as a whole) pays a lot more into the system. The affects minority groups, as well. In terms of the "spouse that stays home to raise the kids" being penalized, it's exactly the opposite. Lesser-earning working spouses wind up paying a 100% marginal tax rate in some cases due to the earning differences between spouses. Here's the math: Al and Alice make $70K and $20K a year, respectively. Because of dependent and survivor provisions, Alice is entitled to social security at the income level that Al paid out. Karl and Karen make $70K and $0K a year, respectively. Karen stays home raising the kids. Karen is entitled to Karl's level of social security based on the same provisions. Alice and Karen are entitled to the same amount of social security benefits. Who's making out and who's losing in the above scenario? Karen is winning like a big dog, while poor Alice, slaving away during the night shift emptying bed pans is reducing her earned benefit by one dollar for every dollar she would receive based on Al's contributions to social security. Not to mention the added detriment that she's going to need to hire a baby sitter. Here, not working truly does pay off. There are a lot of dynamics to taxation that aren't apparent on the surface, but which are absolutely real. Want to maximize your social security income? The best way to do it is to not work and be married to a high-earner. If you can't do that, the best way is to delay your payment into the system as long as humanly possible. Want to maximize your social security "penalty"? Get married to a high-earning spouse and work your ass off at a low paying job.

Agreed. You won't find many people bemoaning all the stable hands and carriage drivers put out of work by the automobile, or all the phone switchboard operators put out of work by VOIP, or all the typists in what used to be called the steno pool becoming obsolete. Sure, people are likely to get hurt in the short-term. But the vast majority will be made better off by the technology. This isn't a new argument...just read up on the original Luddites to see how long people have feared these new technologies.

What we probably need to do is implement some sort of "capital control" on people who make less than a certain amount of money. No shit. I get people need checking accounts, but if you're literally that thin, and can't ever get a leg up, you may need some "forced supervision" where X% of your paycheck is held in some form of escrow until you demonstrate proficiency at bill paying and checkbook balancing. Sorry, I intended to draw a parallel (not a distinction) between decentralization and the elimination of middlemen - those things are synonymous in my vernacular. What happens when we get rid of middlemen? Good things in the long term. Entire new industries crop up. New shit gets invented. Economic "rent" disappears. Things people never even imagined get built and created and delivered to you. Short term? Pain. It's difficult to re-invent yourself in the midst of radical upheaval or later in life. I get the gravity of the challenge, but we're not going to side-step it. One truth about all this technology: the level of control we (in the US) think we can place on the course of technology doesn't matter one bit. Not one little bit. If we "hold back" and think we're going to "slow roll" the transition to "whatever" in the name of preserving some other industry or group of workers because "justice," we are going to be kicked square between the legs when some other group of people (China) goes and does it anyway because they DGAF about our internal problems and have no problem leaving us in the dirt while they colonize the solar system.

I for one fully support him, and even feel like he was baited by the "woke" crowd just to point out there was someone who didn't agree with them. If you look into what they did, it was clear they were goading the bakery.

While I think I see your theme, and it wasn't my intent to paint all recipients of relief as people who don't deserve or need it, there are plenty of people who fall into the category I identified. And that category is growing. In any case, my original point was why does a pandemic justify paying someone who didn't have income in the first place? Operable phrase: "Why does the pandemic..." Not: "I wonder if this person who didn't have a job needs or would like government cheese." So, why does the pandemic justify paying someone unemployment who didn't have income in the first place. If they qualified for unemployment, they should already be getting it. IMO, it's nothing more than a bribe. The idea underlying this thought I could get behind. One idea would be to punt their social security collection X months/years into the future. "Oh, I see right here, Mr. Jones, that you needed 8 years of unemployment assistance to get by?" "Yes..." "Cool, well your social security check will start when you're 73...thanks." Or, you want your social security to start on time? Sweet, then we'll enroll you in a "catch-up" plan to "re-fund" your "early withdrawal" and get you back in good standing. We cannot continue to act as if there is infinite money. The rest of the world is only gonna let us get away with that for so long.

@Negatory There you go again responding without actually reading what I wrote. I never brought legality or the constitution into my statement even remotely, I simply said picking and choosing who is suppressed (e.g. double standard) is what most people are pissed about. The group who actually think Twitter did something illegal/unconstitutional is wrong (we agree there). I hope you vehemently support the Christian baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple.

Serious question- has anyone questioned the effectiveness of hand washing?

Do they fly form in T-1. For -130 follow on?

You’ve really been off the deep end on the political stuff for a little while here, and it’s getting worse. Really, you should take some time off of it.

Also, with respect to your “it’s no wonder our country is so divided,” if the only conclusion you have on why someone might see something differently than you is that they’re Trump supporting QAnon conspiracy theorists...maybe take a look in the mirror and reassess.

Agree that the market adapts, and people will find new ways to make money. The hard part is that automation and the job shifts it can cause increases the wealth gap in our country. It can also make it difficult for new businesses to complete against established competitors who can make full use of technology to drive down costs to a point a new entrant can't compete. This allows for an accumulation of wealth, which then brings power/influence to the those at the top of the business. It begins to give them increased access to and influence on political leaders, since the business executive's business decisions can have big effects in an elected official's district over you standard constituent. Automation and technology significantly boosts worker productivity, but workers generally don't see pay increases with that increased productivity, unless there is a union/collective bargaining happening. We've been moving to a services based economy like you mentioned. But we've also seen service companies start to move toward the extensive use of "independent contractors" to execute their businesses as a core businesses model. And since they are independent contractors, many worker protections aren't granted, and benefits like medical care, which have traditionally been obtained through employers in the US, or sick leaves, are now the responsibility of the individual. So great for business, not so great for the individual. There's been a lot of resistance from Republicans to increase corporate taxes, or tax increases for the wealthy (income or capital gains). And those that might support it are afraid that the Dems will squander that money on what they see as government overreach. So this gives those at the top of major corporations a twofold advantage: their business is taxed less, driving up profits and their bonuses, and those increased bonuses from the company profits aren't taxes at what they used to be. Meanwhile, they are protected by the police and the legal system (funded by taxes) from their workers banding together and striking, or threatening to "burn down the factory" in response to poor working condition or wages. They could pay their workers more, but why? They don't have options to move to a better opportunity, otherwise they would've done so already. I guess I'm saying that maybe we should think proactively regarding the effects technology has or can have on our country, both at the macro level and for individuals, rather than waiting for a crises to develop and scrambling for a solution (just like in the whole "is internet access common infrastructure, or a modern luxury" debate). But I'm not going to hold my breath that Congress will be proactive, and that large businesses won't be pitching their financial interests to Congress through lobbyists. But one can hope.

FIFY

I love how these rumors are born and bred. For one, Rick actually *won* his case where he objected to what he found to be an unconstitutional order to kill an American citizen, and was reprised against by his local chain of command for that objection. Second, he just retired....not any "retirement in lieu of" or any of those shenanigans, but a regular ol' retirement. IIRC it might have been a couple years less than 20, when they were offering early retirements 5-ish years ago. Dude had/has his issues, but wasn't kicked out.

I’ve seen social media/news splattered with “getting kicked off for violating a TOS isn’t suppressing free speech, get over it cry babies!” What these people haven’t grasped is the majority are pissed about the double standard. Kick Trump off, that’s fine, but you better be kicking everyone else off too who violates TOS, regardless of political leaning, party affiliation, group affiliation, etc. If you don’t and are choosing to punt people off your platform you disagree with politically while looking the other way for people you do agree with, well that’s suppression. The double standard is what people are pissed about - to the point the ACLU is concerned about it, and the Twitter CEO admitted they need to work on being more uniform across the board because not doing so is dangerous. I’m sure Jack only said that to save face after the recent backlash.

Those days went away when they stopped letting a pilot run the PT program. They don't call them the good ole days for nothing. The old saying "this isn't your daddies ANG," doesn't even apply anymore...it's not even close to the ANG I joined 20 years ago. That's back when "mandatory fun" was genuinely fun and everyone WANTED to participate! Back when a trip to Alpena meant some awesome shenanigans when the entire wing would end up at the River Club. If those walls could talk... 😳 He's at the best base there is....retired! But the things of which he speaks used to be at pretty much every base. Then cell phones/cameras happened...

Depending on the type of unit, the pilots will be involved in airlifting, logistics, etc. Probably not the boots on the ground though. Enlisted people and non-rated officers can be on the ground but more as a second string if the Army isn’t enough to handle it. Source: was part of the response to the civil unrest in June and was trained in riot control.

They might be busy this week...

Or just wait a week. Crazy, I know.

Hey y’all, just reporting back that I got my first dose of the vaccine and I’m happy to say I’ve got full bars of 5G already and I streamed the game last night directly into my eyeballs. It was fantastic! Roll Tide. J/K obviously, but everyone please go out and get the vaccine as soon as you can so we can end this terrible pandemic. Science FTW.

Like stirring a big pot of Kraft Mac and Cheese

Wish we had audio of it becoming unstuck. I feel like there would be a great BQZip’s mom joke in there somewhere.

For all the folks complaining that Trump has been muzzled, ya know, there’s a way for him to get his message out: When’s the last time this podium was used? Seemed to work fine for every president preceding Trump. Sorry, but I always thought Twitter was an inappropriate place for presidential messaging anyway. Let’s see the man show his face and explain himself.

Flea and I don't often agree. Who cares about the reason, I don't even care if he did it to literally say he fulfilled a promise that he doesn't care about. It is over a decade past the time we should have left that hole. Blatant politicking on his part, but still good for our country. We've wasted way too many lives and national treasure on a lost cause. Leave, and don't look back. Drop some pointee talkees on the way out saying we won't come back except with some JDAMs if they allow their territories to be used for training terrorists again. I've lost too many friends over there to care about the right vs wrong reason to leave a place we should have left forever ago.

I swear to god we had damn-near solved queep during the early weeks/months of COVID, and now we have purposely allowed it back into our organizations. After finding out what was truly mission essential and what as not, I'm just floored at the number of people that gleefully welcome back all the self-licking ice cream cones, asskissing briefings & awards, and plainly non-essential tasks back in to our everyday lives.

The 16th SOS owned a bar in FWB for many years, the Fireside. Many a debrief happened there.

I find this guy’s backpedaling laughable. He just found the flexcuffs on the floor and was looking for a cop to give them to? He assumed he was “welcome into the capitol building” as the mob was storming it? He is just now realizing that his actions will have consequences and is trying to hold onto his job and his retirement. I feel bad for his family. He is 53 with a wife and three kids. Wonder how they feel about dad’s “patriotic” actions? He knew there would be consequences for an action like this (or at least he should have). I hope it was worth it for him.

He has been one of the more vocal republicans the last few days. I thought about him on our board. Glad he is speaking up.

LMGTFY: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-told-supporters-stormed-capitol-hill/story?id=75110558 Feel free to read the entire transcript but you can also Ctrl+F "Capitol" to speed things up. Some quotes: Fun fact: he was very much *not* there with them. Safe & sound in the WH after "leading" his supporters into a lawless and dangerous insurrection. Very direct and explicit instructions for the assembled people to march down to the Capitol. Now there's not like some movie-plot quote where he says, "...and when you get there I want you to break in, kill a cop and injure several more, halt the workings of the legislative branch of government and also maybe attempt to murder most of the direct line of succession!" But ya know...some of these folks are not our best and brightest and that's exactly what they did. I mean technically the match is what lights the gasoline on fire, but you don't get a free pass if you're the person holding the match & opening your hand to let it fall. You don't get to blame gravity here.

Homestar, you're trackin what i'm throwin down. Trying to pay taxes now on that money i put in during my active duty days, but was too dumb to change it to roth while I was still pouring dolla bills in! Through my research, I didn't see a way to relatively easily transfer my traditional tsp to a roth vehicle as you put it.

How about concealed carry reciprocity for AD service members stationed in IL but residents of other states. The Governor or his staff doesn't answer his emails.

It's no wonder our country is so divided. Dude was elected back in Nov. Nothing Trump could have done to change it, so for you conspiracy nuts, why wouldn't they have changed immediately after the election was declared for Biden if this was done just to get him elected? You all sound like the upstanding Patriots that stormed the Capitol! It couldn't possibly be that while they recognize that the Rona is serious, they also seriously want to get the economy moving again, could it? Nah, that would be bonkers...