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Well....we've responded to you for many years. 🥃

@Biff_T: See that yellow circled part? Excess Russian women between 55 and 75. You were born for this.

The irony is Im reading all of this while taking a pretty mean Growler.

Perhaps you're right, the war will be fought economically. If one wanted to slowly weaken, bleed, and defeat Russia, here's how we should go about it: Economically: First, we get Russia to spend themselves into oblivion. Interfere in their elections by funding Communists and leftists. That's assuming they have free and fair elections. Once their domestic spending outpaces their GDP by a substantial amount, we compel them to send hundreds of billions of dollars more to foreign governments. They'll be forced to further into debt, using creative tools to sustain their economy. Soon, they won't be able to maintain an infrastructure, the Russian standard of living declines, and social unrest ensues. I also see other strategic opportunities to weaken Russia: Socially: Using technology and social media, we inundate it's population with propaganda. We flood them with polarizing ideas and political ideologies. We create organizations that fund the migration of millions of poverty level people, particularly military age young men, from a vast array of cultural, religious backgrounds, creating a further strain on resources and social cohesion. Sponsor protests. Encourage violence. Militarily: Focus on making Russian military service an undesirable career choice. Create a recruiting crisis that shrinks the size of their military. Make them reliant on complex technologies with multiple single points of failure and insanely expensive acquisitions processes instead of mass and production. Create cognitive dissonance by telling Russians they're fighting for the nobel principles Russia was founded on while simultaneously incentivizing Russian politicians to destroy those principles. Energy: Make them deplete their energy reserves and hamstring domestic production by making them adhere to global climate change policies. Make them reliant on foreign cheap oil. I could go on, but I see plenty of opportunities to weaken Russia over the long term. The key is, it takes time. We can't allow ourselves to be provoked into an overreaction, massive escalation, or direct military conflict. If we're patient, Russia will eventually collapse from within.

Good reply, thank you for writing it out. I'll reply in kind when able if you're still interested, but it won't be for a bit. More than once here I've gotten a thoughtful reply, but lamentably have been too busy to respond in a worthy fashion. 🥃

You new here? Aren’t there runways spread around the globe? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

i never deployed

Gen Austin Miller made the call, although Biden & Blinken put him in a box: they imposed a troop cap which made staffing BAF along with the embassy/HKIA impossible. Then Blinken said we cannot withdraw from the embassy due to optics, ergo BAF must close. And because they were unimaginative and underestimated the enemy, they assumed GIRoA could hold out until 2022. Miller pushed back but ultimately saluted and executed. He should have resigned instead. McKenzie, the COCOM/CC, took command from Miller (meaning the COCOM absorbed what had been its own 4 star command, you can imagine how butter smooth that COMREL change was) in July of 21 I believe, after BAF was handed over and when the assault on the outskirts of Kabul began in earnest. He failed to take any bold action although several of us were sending very clear recommendations and security warnings. By early August it was an insane situation: the Taliban was moving openly in large formations massing artillery and supplies as close as Maiden Shar and all ANA checkpoints on Highway 1 had fallen. Camp Commando had fallen. We were going Winchester and not slowing them down; our own FIRES process was complicated by surrendering ANA personnel and enemy use of their (our) equipment /uniforms. The AAF ran out of munitions and ceased flight operations. I landed in HKIA after one sortie and stated clearly: we must initiate the NEO now. The front office for the 2 star in Kabul (senior US Officer in country) told me “not possible, the Turks won’t allow it.” The Turks were running HKIA at the time. 3 days later the Turks were burning all their papers and excess equipment as they ran to their own aircraft to escape the fall. A lot to digest from the experience. My biggest surprise has been that absolutely no one higher wants to hear about it. There was no AAR, no hot wash, no internal mil attempt to investigate and figure out where it broke down. Just sweep it all under the rug, too embarrassing. The AF history guys did a quick report, although it was mainly focused on the 2.5 week mobility surge and they didn’t even know my unit existed. My AAR is now in their secret addendum, but the document is shortsighted by exclusively focusing on the evacuation rather than how the hell we allowed July-Aug to ever occur. Without any accountability and with the same idiots in charge, we should unfortunately expect another epic strategic humiliation.

No rush. I've done the same. Perils of the Internet🤷🏻‍♂️

Thank you for the time you took to craft this response, and sincere massive gratitude for what you endured there at the end.

Perhaps the real win in all this was watching AMC tell USTC to KIO when it came to Bravo alerts… Chuck

So, you've partied with some airline captains too, eh?

im not referencing him specifically. i'm saying generally. clearly there is big tech censorship. thats proven and not conspiracy. i'm saying if big tech will censor a person, why is it hard to believe massive investment banks wouldn't influence elections?

I guess we can agree to disagree on this but one of the worse things is to suddenly find out a military prediction is wrong because by then it's usually too late. As an example, I admit Hamas hitting Israel like they did was something I would have never seen coming in a million years. I'm still dumfounded Israel could get caught that flat footed.

Right, you know, except for the whole invasion of Ukraine thing. I wonder if there are any other "historically Russian" parts of Europe... Definitely doesn't compare to Hitler targeting historically German parts of Europe for "reunification."

Many would disagree. Judging by the damage inflicted with limited resources AND the semi-paper Tiger Russia appears to be, yes absolutely. In some ways they have defeated Russia, Ukraine remains as a country two years after being attacked by a Super-Power. But, as always in conflict, you have to define what defeat (victory), means. Our feckless politicians have let a very tired Ukrainian Army suffer in the field much like the Continental Army did at Valley Forge. If they had more resources earlier this would be a very different conflict. Russia has been rebuilding and without our help and equipment, the Spring offensive could be very bad for Ukraine.

There’s a massive difference between Chamberlain telling Hitler that the UK is fine Germany taking additional territory in 1930s and the west condemning Russia for invading Ukraine but not wanting to give them an endless supply of resources. Appeasement is not the same as spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have to support a country halfway around the world.

im tired of the 1930 germany comparisons. putin has shown zero interest in conquering europe. all talk of russia marching to paris if we dont stop them at ukraine is total fear mongering.

they have not been starved of the weaponry. you could give ukraine 600b and it wouldn't matter. it's a numbers game. russia has far more men to fight ukraine. and the russian industrial base is ramping up to full speed. russian army is 15% larger now than when the war began. some of you guys need to brush up on your history about how the russian bear conducts war. let me repeat: there is ZERO chance ukraine will win this war. it's a losing proposition. what we SHOULD be doing is working towards a negotiated settlement.

Hopefully a 63 or 64 year old willing to fall on his sword on his way out the door a little early. ...legends live forever!

don't

I will buy Ken a drink wherever I meet him for the rest of my life 😂🤣

Spoiler alert - Biden: “It’s Trump’s fault”

Another inevitability. The move to "re-shore" some critical manufacturing capabilities is the only good news these days. The sooner the better. Trading with China was the biggest mistake of the post-WWII era. We could have pulled the entirety of Latin America into the modern world, instead we funded the buildup of our biggest geopolitical adversary, and got an immigration crisis as a bonus.

He is there because WEF, Blackrock and Vanguard want him in that chair.

Ballsy move Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

What? There are ten parked on our ramp right now. ESSS has been around since the 80s and was a pretty standard phenomenon. You didn’t see it in COIN Iraq/Stan because of either the weight penalty, the lack of requirement due to availability of FARPs, or some combination there of. In the 90s it was pretty much normal, same as Apaches flying with a single tank inboard. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Any FedEX guys know when the iPad (10) lanyards are getting ordered? I’d like one.

I flew part of the a Patriot battalion back from the middle east on a CRAF mission. They were the ones that shot down a Tornado and a Hornet. Had a long conversation with battalion exec about that stupidity. Target ID needed improvement.

I'm guessing the test answers on that test were: "Not Army, shoot" and "I'm not sure, shoot if it points at us"

Bottom line, those MudHen drivers went to bed with a smile on their face, knowing they did a great job. Plus they garnered the admiration and Thanks of another nation. They will be honored in the future. Nice Job!

Back on the personal finance front... Fidelity will allow SPAXX as your sweep account in Cash Management Accounts (CMA) starting around June 15. IMO this makes CMAs a no brainer. No need to mess with separate online savings accounts to get higher rates on your cash. I know this took me a while to wrap my head around and I wish somebody had broken it down for me earlier, so for those that don't habla CMA, here's the skinny... CMAs are brokerage accounts that operate "like" checking accounts. Debit cards, ATMs, fee reimbursement, checks, online bill pay, direct deposit, etc. Your cash balances by default are kept at various banks around the country. You can see which banks, but there's no reason to care. You get FDIC protection, ~2.7%* interest, and manage your cash centrally via Fidelity. If you elect to keep your cash in SPAXX, you give up FDIC coverage, but you can get ~5%* on your cash balances. Vanguard just started "Cash Plus" accounts to compete. I'm sure they'll be great accounts, but I moved from Vanguard because (IMO) their service starting slipping around 2020 and became untenable. Bottom line, especially for the young dudes: Look beyond USAA for your banking needs. With some work, you'll be very wealthy one day - learn to manage it well now. *all rates are as of 4/15/24

We're both right; I'm not trolling you. Textbook answer, yes, inflation hurts savers. However IRL who is doing better in today's economic environment? A worker who spends every last dollar and prays his raises keep up with inflation, or Someone who saves (and invests, I should have added that before) in a broadly diversified portfolio heavily weighted toward equities, and also puts their savings in a high-yield savings account that more or less preserves the purchasing power of their saved dollars by offering rates at or slightly above inflation? The second guy is way better, and everyone on this board has the capability to be the second guy. Furthermore inflation helps borrowers who have locked in loans for big-ticket items at lower rates, which also likely applies to lots of people on BO.net, myself included. South American-style hyperinflation, yea you're hosed if you have saved, but that's not what we're seeing here today.

Not yet, but I plan on it one day! That’s the idea of “real return.” Real = adjusted for inflation. If stocks are up 7% for the year and inflation was 3% that year, your real return is 4%. My purchasing power for the same basket of goods is 4% higher. With round numbers historical S&P 500 yearly return (last 50 years) is about 11%, and historical yearly inflation (last 50 years) is about 4%, so your average real return investing in the S&P 500 on that time frame is about 7%. This is why investing in large US corporations has been very good in the long-run, you make sizable real returns. This kind of modeling is where you get rules of thumb like the 4% rule, meaning you can safely withdraw 4% of your portfolio yearly in retirement and never run out of money. Under that rule of thumb you’re counting on at least 4% real returns each year, which is conservative given the above numbers that arrived at 7%, but then again you likely don’t have a 100% equities allocation while retired, so less volatile assets usually = lower real returns = a lower safe withdrawal rate. Bottom like: save 25x your desired annual spend, DCA into (mostly) equities indexes while working, slowly adjust to more fixed assets as you age & retire, profit. Save all the extra brain bites way too many folks burn on day trading and complex real estate deals and crypto for learning how to paint or build a canoe or fix old cars or play with your kids & grandkids. Example: I want to spend $100K annually in retirement, I should save & invest to have a $2.5m portfolio at retirement. Take your current age, your desired retirement age, and an annual compounding of approx. 7% per above to figure out how much you need to save & invest annually to reach the target on time. Play with the assumptions as you see fit and model something you are comfortable pursuing. Build in multiple layers of conservative estimates…I’m always a fan of under-promise / over-deliver and you can do that for your future self as well. This is all separate from any social security, VA disability payments or pensions, all of which can significantly lower the size of the retirement investment portfolio you would need to support the lifestyle you want. As always YMMV, but if more people did the above and resisted the siren song to do anything more complex, they’d be better off.