brabus
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Everything posted by brabus
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@Sua Sponte Yep, all makes sense. The hard thing, as you’ve probably seen, is firing those shitty workers. It is a mountain to climb to build the requisite documentation for poor performance history, make the improvement plan, document them not meeting the plan, etc. A shitload of work to fire horrible workers - very frustrating.
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Yes, unfortunately that will happen. But the fed civ corps is so insanely out of control that scalpel surgery isn’t feasible - I’ve seen that tried and failed for 19 years. Unfortunately full blown chemo is necessary and that’ll have some undesired side effects, but it will ultimately save the body in the end. And to all those crying about the poor gubmint workers and how will they feed their children! Welcome to everyone else’s life who doesn’t have a gov job. Time to stop sucking on the gov tit and do something useful in the civ sector. The good ones that we unfortunately lose will do just fine on the civ side. It’s the useless sacks of shit that’ll wine incessantly because they know the gov is the only place they can suck so bad and stay employed (up until now at least).
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Cut 50% of DoD civilians and you’ll save $40B/yr (have to simul destroy the bureaucratic processes that “require” them). Burn the acquisition process to ashes and start over - will save a metric shit ton of billions over time. Those are two good places to start.
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How is firing/laying off probationary people illegal? Serious question.
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A couple snippets re: the EO that I just looked at (I have not read the actual EO): Therefore, because all executive power is vested in the President, all agencies must: (1) submit draft regulations for White House review—with no carve-out for so-called independent agencies, except for the monetary policy functions of the Federal Reserve; and (2) consult with the White House on their priorities and strategic plans, and the White House will set their performance standards. The Office of Management and Budget will adjust so-called independent agencies’ apportionments to ensure tax dollars are spent wisely. The President and the Attorney General (subject to the President’s supervision and control) will interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations. I read this to mean intent is to rein in unelected bureaucrats, who have enjoyed zero accountability, from making regulations that are based on their personal interpretation. These bureaucrats are not elected and do not represent the people. The president is elected by the people to represent their interests via his running of the executive branch. Therefore, he should have final say on how the executive branch defines/implements regulations, which ultimately are what directly impact all of our daily lives. There could be more to this as I haven’t read the actual text, but what I posted above is absolutely a great thing. I’m sick of people who weren’t elected doing whatever the fuck they want to impact my family’s life. I demand accountability through elections.
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He has to realize he has lost big time from a long term perspective (population make up, extremely diminished capacity for future power projection, etc.) He may be an evil POS, but he can’t be that stupid. He may have won some short term land gains and stopped NATO expansion on the border, but overall I don’t think it’ll have been worth the blood and treasure spent. If he recognizes this, he will negotiate, but we will have to give him something he can save face on (such as stating UKR will never be admitted to NATO, we’re not going back to pre-2014 borders, etc.) If we don’t the “forever war” continues, which only means more waste of resources and humanitarian crisis.
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Zero mention of FWA or implication of it (though you obviously inferred it because you’re driven by political bias). Directly says they increased insight into where money is going. If one doesn’t support transparency and basic tracking of money, they’re simply an idiot. Stop grasping at straws, it’s a bad look.
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Nah, I’m happy to share far and wide the gross negligence, incompetence, and in many cases, FWA, the gov has been conducting using our money. The mask is pulled off, and it’s very ugly. People need to know. We’ve been played hard in many ways, better to acknowledge that and start working on solutions. Or gaslight yourself and don’t believe what’s 6 inches in front of your face, but I don’t recommend anyone take that approach. Ok…but how were we able to build a super power without income taxes prior to 1913? This argument is kind of like, “well everyone else is doing X, so we’d be dumb not to!” If you’re going to argue income tax is the best option, then at least put some substance behind it. So to that point, why would a sales tax or flat tax (or a combo) not be able to properly fund our gov, but our income tax system can? I think a reasonable flat tax or sales tax only would likely reduce our fed revenue compared to the current system, but I see that as a good thing. The evidence for why is on display right now…billions spent on shit that does not advance American values and interests (but may advance some very politicized interests of certain demographics…which is not good on either end of the spectrum).
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Maybe. It would delete all of the bullshit loopholes, but also there probably needs to be some incentive to industry to develop X because the gov needs it. So I don’t think it’s effective to truly kill every deduction, but we could kill a lot of them, assuming the flat tax rate is much lower than our current structure. I do interact pretty regularly with them and I have seen the opposite of you. They more often than not are unmotivated to work hard and will do the bare min to buy the booze and smokes they want for the week. Yeah they’re working a job, but they are choosing to min run it and DGAF because they’d rather just blame the invisible “rich guy” than admit they’re simply not self-motivated and not success-minded. I will help where I can, but I also shouldn’t be forced to give my hard earned money to them (I do donate money and time because I believe in helping people who need it, but I do it FREELY, not forced by my gov - and that’s a huge difference in my book). I’m not saying there aren’t people truly experiencing hard times outside of their control, but they are not the majority in my experience. Obviously the flat tax idea is not perfect, nor would any system be perfect. How do we support the people who are truly hosed not by their own doing while minimizing the leeches? And how do we do that without complete wealth redistribution to some politician’s favorite blood suckers? I think a flat tax with well thought out deductions is a good discussion and something that, even with the inevitable cons, is way better than the bullshit we have now.
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Most mid-level officers are in the top 10% of tax payers. The top 1% is somewhere around a half mil or sightly more. I’m not saying $690K isn’t a lot of money for us normals, but seems like top 1% gets thrown out as if it only encompasses Gates, Bezos, etc. Tax the rich is a stupid and losing strategy, especially when you have half of tax payers barely providing anything, and not to mention all the people who don’t pay a dime in taxes, but suck societal resources without issue. I think both sides can agree the tax code needs improvement, but simply continuing to increase punishing successful people is a ridiculous proposition. How about we just go flat tax, no breaks/deductions (or very little at least). Something like everyone pays 10% fed, whatever that totals to is what the fed budget is. Oh that’s not enough to fund all your bullshit pet projects? Too bad, draw the cut line like the rest of us who understand basic finances do.
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Are you able to actively read, or do you just see a few trigger words and hit reply? I clearly said it was not an indicator of a bunch of FWA, but it is accounting ineptitude at the most basic level, which is very concerning.
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Maybe LLWS, the approach doesn’t look unstable (but who knows at this point). Incredible everyone got out.
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$4.7T in federal untracked payouts. Doesn’t mean that’s all FWA, but it does at least demo the complete incompetence of the federal gov. The gov is managing our money like children, some of them with sinister intent.
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The top 1% pay nearly 50% of federal taxes, top 10% pay over 75%, and the bottom 50% (I say again, HALF of tax payers) pay less than 3% of total federal taxes. The top 50% pay over 97% of the taxes. It is pure insanity and completely illogical to argue “the rich don’t pay their fare share.” But it’s a nice progressive talking point to be absorbed and repeated by ignorant, intellectually dishonest, and/or unintelligent people. Other related points… - We need to rein in spending on a historic scale. Should Medicare/SS be shuttered? Well I do believe we need a social safety net (we agree on that), but these are horribly ran programs, and as of now all of my SS witholdings across adult life are literal theft because the program will be completely insolvent and defunct by the time I’m of age…unless they fix it. We need a new system along with a SS sunset - I’m OK with taxes staying flat for a short time while we solve spending problems and reduce the deficit. But reality is we the people are currently being taxed 100s of billions that are paying for utter bullshit. Thats 100s of billions that need to be back in taxpayer pockets via cuts as soon as feasible. We can’t right the wrong of the past (because we need to reduce deficit), but we should at least start righting it ASAP (e.g. start with a clean slate) - General point: conservatives aren’t anti-tax, but we are anti-tax to fund bullshit the federal gov has no business funding, let alone managing/controlling. For example, Dept of Ed had a $238B budget in 2024…that dept shouldn’t exist at all and $238B is either not required by the gov (and therefore tax reduced) or I could see still collecting it to pay down deficit (again, for a short timeframe, not forever). That’s one example from a large sea of examples.
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I’m in that camp. There will always be threats and there is never a good time. I think we can do it without crippling ourselves, but maybe that means we don’t go shoot X% of WRM at OWA drones from Iran, we don’t spread ourselves around the world at the rate we have for so long (e.g. where did 20+ years of spending like a drunken sailor in OEF, OIF, OIR, OFS, etc. get us), we stop sending hundreds of billions around the world and getting little to nothing in return, etc. There will be tough decisions to make, we can’t “save them all,” and bad things will happen to good people. We won’t turn off the lights by any means, but we will tighten the belt. We’ll come out much better on the other side in the mid 2030s.
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I was more addressing the way forward, using the failures of the F-35 program as an example of what not to repeat. How are relatively recently written contracts written, and have we learned anything from previous fiscally retarded contracts (the answer is no)? Many weapons programs are also great examples of what not to repeat. We absolutely can start today not signing contracts that don’t include favorable condtions for the gov. We kick cans down the road so egregiously already, so fuck it, I’m fine with kicking some stuff down the road a few years until primes start bending the knee a bit. I’m with you on that. There does need to be some trust busting done with the big primes. It has become well out of control. I read a book about industry leading up to WW2, the differences in mindset is staggering - they were whole heartedly pro-America; current day LM, Boeing, etc. execs do not GAF about America.
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@Banzai I’m not saying you’re wrong in general, and you have valid points. If I truly sat down, went through the data, and DOGE’d this thing, what could the savings be? I did not get that number from any research or math, just thrown out as a starting point, knowing full well the number could, and probably would be less. - cut 1/2 the civilians and save approx $40B (based on average salary). Obviously I wouldn’t just blindly cut that right now, but i bet if you went full DOGE you’d find near half are unnecessary/not remotely earning their paycheck. Go work on the staff - that number is about 90-95%. Directly related to this problem are the processes of course, so you’d have to streamline our BS processes which in turn would nullify the need for the guy who provides the 3rd rubber stamp prior to sending the request to Bob - Industry: I think you’re wrong on that, fuck yeah we could tell them GFY and actually sign contracts that are judicious use of tax dollars. The F-35 program has doubled in cost for 1/2 the initial buy (and likely will continue to shrink), and all we do is throw billions at LM while they laugh at us. What if we signed all contracts with cost+ limits and delays/setbacks were 100% eaten by the company? You say no company would sign that? OK cool LM, we’ll go to your competitor, or we’ll just chill for 5 years on all your potential contracts - how’s that bottom line doing now? Industry is incredibly greedy - I’m a huge fan of capitalism, but capitalism does not mean you have to completely take it up the ass with a smile on your face. Long story short: many TRILLIONS saved over a few years if we took this approach across the DOD. Walk out of the car dealership - the dealer will call you more often than not. Theres a lot more, just two big ones off the top of my nugget.
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On the Defense budget subject - spitballing, but could probably cut a couple hundred billion. Having seen deep inside the acquisitions side, all the way to sustainment (and what the warfighter gets for it), it is criminal the money the DOD wastes/misallocates/pays out as it willingly bends over and takes it from industry who enjoy near zero accountability. The DOD accepts shit like paying LM billions of dollars for “F-35 modernization” which really means “make it do the things you told us it would do in 2013.” The millions I spend referenced above should be 100s of thousands, but I don’t hate the player, I hate the game. And the DOD is OK with all of that…fuck us, we deserve to lose billions in funding when that’s how we spend tax payer dollars.
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Great memories…the stories I could tell (but not on the internet!) @Zero I remember 2008ish when we all were “fuck these gay scarves!” Fast forward to 2013 post-Shaw - “fuck you chief, check out my ascot!” The swings are humorous looking back.
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Yep, and not a surprise. Congress is horrible across the board - maybe it’ll shape up some day, but I’m not holding my breath until we have term limits and some investing restrictions while in office. What you fail to grasp is the majority of voters see this “destruction” (to use your description) as a very positive thing. We want the number of fed employees slashed, we want entire departments completely erased, we want gov spending/budgets massively curtailed, etc. That “destruction” is significant progress towards a more prosperous and stronger America - you don’t believe that, but the majority of America does. We all know by now Trump’s MO is to say wild things as part of his negotiating tactics. Every time in the last month he threatened tariffs people like you went wild and said he was buttfucking the country to death…except they worked immediately and perfectly, every time. Now if we actually “occupy” Gaza, I’m against that, but I am not worried about that happening for now - this is most likely Trump par for the course coming off the top rope initially to settle where he actually wanted to be later on. Same comment on slashing the defense budget 50%, though I do support some significant DOD slashing. The mind losing over Elon is laughable. DOGE has no inherent authority - they provide the info, Trump makes the decision (or has legally delegated authority in some cases). Is the General not in charge when I make large impacting decisions? When I decide how millions get spent, is the General just for show and playing second fiddle to me? Absolutely not, and you know it. He can shitcan me in a second, or immediately deny/turn back something I’ve done - at any point and for any reason per his judgement. He is unequivocally in charge at all times, even if I’m the guy making daily decisions, because in the end the General can’t do everything and micro manage, he has to have people like me to get it done. Bringing in Elon is no different. By the way, Trump has a long way to go to match Clinton in gov “destruction.” It’s just not your team doing it this time, so be mad about it is the only option.
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Good example of a squadron scarf. The LPAs out there don’t have a hair on their ass if they don’t get this done (unless getting away with morale shirts, then carry on).
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A fairly standard technique was wear it “normal” for the most part, but when you went somewhere outside of the squadron and felt like raising some blood pressure, do the tie thing, ascot, etc. Had a bro get his new ID picture with full ascot. They pushed back hard trying to say he couldn’t have that in his picture and he whipped out a printed card with the applicable regs - he won. The small victories were priceless.
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Then you push back with wild chest hair. And if you don’t have an adequate amount naturally, find or make a chest hair dickie! The LPAs out there are more valuable now than ever before!
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Why?
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Sweet, no change from what I remember. The only possible bump is if you have a wing cc who’s a total douche and doesn’t approve scarves. As far as good taste, you all know your O-6s - if they’re not that cool, then just do a squadron color (maybe with the aircraft silhouette of what you fly in a pattern) and call it good. It’ll be enough to stick it to the douches.
