Grady

Petrodollar cycle... national debt doesn’t matter as long as you have the world reserve currency.

Do you mind giving us a recap of your experience? The good(lol), the bad, the ugly.

That's my point, if a squadron has on average 8-10 IPs/EPs outside of leadership, then how can you afford to lose 3-5 guys and maintain currency requirements? Furthermore, why would anyone go to instructor school in the near future knowing this is a possibility unless they wanted to go? If you have completed your pilot training commitment, I thought only the gaining unit has to sign the 1288 to transfer units?

ARC legacy 130 units are being required to send instructors for all crew positions to Afghanistan for a minimum of 6 months. Given the fact that most IPs in the ARC have fulfilled their pilot training commitment or can retire, what impact has this had on units that are dealing with this? After reviewing the merits of this deployment, one could easily call it a bad deal. Couple that with an optimistic airline employment outlook, you now have a potential readiness issue due to IPs retiring or leaving in larger than expected numbers. Any thoughts?

" economical driven" is simply another way of saying cheap skilled labor from the 3rd world. Companies like Bank of America are lobbying hard to open the flood gates of skilled labor visas. If you don't believe me there is an entire apartment complex in Charlotte full of computer analyst that are contracted by the Ta Ta corporation from India. They bring these people over for 6 months at a time, cram 6-8 in an apartment, and pay them 1/3 of what they used to pay a skilled American worker. Both political parties are an abysmal failure. Democrats what to turn these people into a future constituency, the republicans want to appease the cheap labor lobby who want to exploit them for cheap labor. Here's another fun fact, culturally Hispanic aliens vote for whoever is giving out the bacon in their own countries. They are not, as a voting block, value voters. Pat Buchanan has made the most articulate argument regarding this issue. He is absolutely correct when he says that America is no longer a country, but rather a "geographical expression" when you take into consideration the apathetic response to the current invasion.

If you really want to understand the why behind the American hegemony, I suggest reading about the following: Post WWII Breton woods agreement Nixon taking the US off the gold standard and floating the dollar post Vietnam. Kissinger's petrodollar cycle arrangement with the Saudis.

I guess it's all about expectations...corruption, bureaucracy, and narco violence are always a problem. Ironically you could say the same thing about Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. Chicago had over 500 murders last year, the politicians in Springfield are some of the most corrupt and bureaucratic in the country. Would you avoid the state of Illinois because of Chicago? At least in Mexico they are honest about their corruption. In the US most people assume that they leave these problems behind by moving to the suburbs or a rural area. I currently live in a rural area and work in a major city, one would think there aren't many issues. Just in the past few months there have been 26 B&Es, murders, assaults, etc all because of meth and anytime you go to a walmart it looks like a renassiance fair. It's very difficult to escape in the SE. On top of that, when the treason lobby in the Senate pushes through immigration reform, 25 years from now what will be the difference? The America that we would like to have is gone and not coming back. The only option I see is the growing Redoubt movement in the NW or understanding reality and look for a way out. The idea of working until I'm 60-65 is not appealing to me. If we went somewhere where I can retire at 43, annuitize my retirement savings using 72t and have better QOL, then I've gotta look at that option.

Has anyone looked at the expat colonies in Mexico? The wife and I are going to checkout Ajijic. There's a lot of appeal... Great climate year round 30-40% cheaper on average Family of 4 can live very well on $2000/mo It's Americanized enough so that language is not an issue Still close to the US and easy access to GDL

Yes and No... You are correct that Major airlines are cautious to grow and demanding greater productivity out of their employess by getting better utilization out of reserves, using PBS, and other contract provisions. That's why Delta has only hired 305 in the last 5 years and at times stated that they were overstaffed. 157 out of 305 were flow throughs from Compass and Mesaba. There are still around 400 Compass and Mesaba pilots just waiting on a class date. They all can't flow at once, but with Delta projecting 300 new hires by the end of 2014, 150ish will be flow throughs. In other words, it's going to be highly competitive for the next 3-4 years everywhere except the regionals. This mythical pilot shortage is really just a RJ FO shortage for the next 3-4 years. Having been at a regional for 6 years, I've talked to some of our pilot recruiters who are surprised at the number of former active duty pilots that are applying to regionals because they are not getting the competitive jobs. While there will be a few that are fortunate enough to make a seemless transition to the majors, in the short-term most will face the need for currency and may have to take a RJ FO job. As far as the 1500hr rule, that will only effect the regionals in the next 3-4 years...the good jobs will be competitive for some time to come. Many of the AD pilots I've talked to have a skewed perspective on their civilian job prospects. They don't seem to understand that they are competing against guys that are flying large RJs on major routes that are well adjusted to flying in the 121 environment. The distinct military advantage is not as great as it was in the late 90s when mil pilots were competing against jetstream and beech 1900 pilots. Management at the Legacy carriers are already talking of ways to reduce the cost of senior RJ CAs by offering a guaranteed future at the mainline carrier, which means fewer available seats to mil pilots. Scott Kirby at US Airways believes the way to mitigate a pilot shortage at the regionals is to offer a "low-paid intership" with a timely and guaranteed future seat at mainline. If the economy doesn't get any worse, 2017 will be the year for the beginning of brisk hiring...until then good luck.

The question you need to ask is: "Why has no one told me about the Air Guard?"