nsplayr

That’s what I mean, tax-free growth. You are correct with Roth that you pay taxes on contributions now I’d much rather pay taxes on the principal right now when I make the contribution and then on the back end withdraw the principal as well as the gains tax-free. This is my favorite article discussing the relative advantages/disadvantages of Roth vs Traditional: https://blog.wealthfront.com/roth-401k-vs-traditional-401k/ YMMV and if you are in a very high tax bracket now traditional has more advantages, but as the article states, the name of the game if you do traditional is, “Do I have the discipline and desire to save an additional sum to cover my future tax bill?” One opinion among many, but one I find convincing and that led me to choose Roth whenever possible in my current financial situation. Back on track: FU big blue for artificially keeping flight pay and bonuses lower than Congress allows. They will reap what they sow here and the retention crisis will get worse.

Wow, what a crock of shit. This one is on Big Blue 100%. Congress authorized more and they choose not to pay it. And what’s worse is the authorized changes would benefit the exact demographic the AF desperately needs to retain (aviators at ~10 years of aviation service), i.e. the guys contemplating seriously whether or not to punch at the end of their commitment. I’m in it to win it at this point (in the Guard), but man a $300 per month raise (from 700 up to 1K for moving up a tier) starting in Feb would have been sweet. The max tier being at 12 (formerly 14) years rather than 10 never made any damn sense to me.

@Kiloalpha I guess my point with posting part of The New Colossus poem (inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty) is that IMHO, it is the American tradition to accept immigrants in some ways without regard to their skills or background. America was built by a lot of cast-offs and unwanted people from around the world and I think it would be a mistake for us to think that we've somehow "made it" now and we should only accept the best and brightest with the most perfect resumes. For those who decry elitism in other aspects of public policy and society, an elitist immigration policy to me is one that takes a cold, calculating look at paper resumes and only lets in those who are already top achievers. I do support targeted programs that allow for additional highly-skilled immigrants and that work to actively attract them, but I also support an overarching immigration policy that views America as a safe-haven, a new beginning, and a shining city on a hill that's open to anyone in the world who wants to get a fair shot at a better deal. "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still." - President Reagan, from his Jan 1989 farewell speech. My immigrant ancestors from Italy and elsewhere didn't have college degrees or a lot of money. Some were fairly shady folks back in the Old Country and I'm sure there were criminals among them. Some had fairly swarthy complexions and big noses, and none spoke much english. They would not pass some tough standard for immigration based on skills. But they came and they were accepted in time by American society and I'm glad they did. Where I do agree with you is assimilation - to me we don't have immigrants and natural-born citizens, we have Americans. I want future immigrants to understand that when they come here, they become Americans, either as residents and some eventually as citizens, and that means something special. Yes, it means learning our language, our culture, our customs, and working hard to contribute to the country as a whole, but being an American transcends all that. It means you're a valued member of a country where anyone can make it, where no one is above the law, and where you're not bound by your race or your class or your religion or where you or your parents were born. The Land of Opportunity. I say we welcome the downtrodden and the well-off and everyone in between and show them all what it truly means to be an American if they're up to the task.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/12/senator-who-immigration-meeting-trump-he-said-hate-filled-vile-and-racist-things/1027816001/ 1. Senator Dick Durbin, who was in the room, says on the record that the President said what was quoted in the Post story. So I mean, I wasn't there, but one of these two people is lying. I'll take my changes on that one given the track record. 2. Saying that immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador and Africa are not desirable, categorically, and ones from Norway are desirable, categorically, is pretty clear. Hummm...what do probably 99% of immigrants from the former "shithole" category have in common? What do 99% of immigrants from Norway have in common, other than being from Norway, that differs from the first group? Granted, the President didn't say explicitly, "I hate black people!" but come on man, put on your thinking cap and take a look at what he meant. IMHO he has a 1980s NYC attitude toward race that is inappropriate for 2018 in general and the office he holds specifically. 3. America has a great history of letting people in, period. Immigration has been a huge strength for our country in contrast to places like Japan or some European countries who were more insular and are now graying and in need of more young workers. And I'm not opposed to programs that take into account the skills and educational attainment of immigrants, we have programs like that. I am very much opposed to categorically labeling an entire country's population (or an entire continent's population) as being unworthy of immigrating to American because their birthplace is, in fact, a shithole.

IMHO every officer O3+ should be maxing his/her Roth TSP ($18,500 per year) as well as their own Roth IRA ($5,500) and their spouse's Roth IRA ($5,500) if married as a baseline for savings. $29,500 total that can grow tax free. In some situations traditional makes more sense than ROTH so YMMV slightly. And if you can swing that sooner more power to ya.

Y’all rationalizing POTUS saying certain (overwhelmingly black) countries are “shithole countries” and certain (overwhelmingly white) countries have more desirable potential immigrants is pretty sad. No one is arguing that Haiti is nicer than Norway, it’s pretty clear that it’s not; that’s not the point. But have some damn decency Mr. President. You’re the POTUS and you speak for us and your words matter. You simply cannot talk like this. The story of America is not that we built some modern-day Elysium by only letting in the “right” people with the “best” backgrounds. Far from it, and almost exactly the opposite in fact. Raise your hand if your ancestors immigrated here from a country that used to be considered not so great...my hand is raised. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/illegal-immigration-italian-americans.html "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I’ll bite on this and say absolutely, 100% the sensors on the AC-130U are outdated technology that should not and do not have a place on modern aircraft. There is a good reason why the W and J gunships that replaced the Hs and will eventually also replace the U-boats have different sensors. There’s absolutely no comparison between U-boat sensors and something like a VNIR MTS-B or SWIR-fusion on an MX-20 or MX-25. Those are the kinds of sensors that BSSG is rightfully buying for the aircraft they support. I do agree with you that better sensors and knowledge of how to use them could have helped prevent the B-1 frat incident being discussed.

See above for valid critiques. It’s also well known that BRS isn’t as great of a deal for those who make it to 20 when compared to legacy. It is however a fantastic deal for everyone who doesn’t make it to 20. Your hypothetical captain walks away with $23,000 more than he/she would have under legacy. Plus I don’t think you’re taking into account compound interest on those investments over time - you need to plug in an assumed long term interest rate and run your numbers with that as well. That being said, I would like to see the Feds offer a better match across the board, both for GS and now BRS mil savers. Unfortunately though 5% is honestly IVO market standard for large orgs.

Good luck, Godspeed and please share what you learn...I expect our (Guard) finance to report back with a definitive answer approximately never based on their reaction when I went over and asked the question.

Damn dude, sorry to hear you're off in purgatory. I honestly do not remember where I bought mine...I wanna say some guy over in the HQ building but I'm not 100% sure. Will do some more research and pass words.

Yes, but not toward the more commonly-approached $18K beneficiary contribution limit. https://nb.fidelity.com/public/nb/default/resourceslibrary/articles/irslimits Of note, the new limit is $18.5K for 2018, and the $55K limit is the total of employee after-tax and employer contributions. YMMV, I'm not an accountant, and hat-tip if you're hitting that $55K limit on top of maxing 1 or 2 IRAs as well...either you're rich already, saving like a MFer, or your employer is hooking you up big time.

One squadron at HRT that all bought bush hats and tried to wear them in uniform on Fridays was told to knock it off pretty fast. So even though they’re allowed by AFI, base leadership just kinda did whatever they wanted and said no.

That checks, just remember that employer matching funds don’t count toward the limit, either civilian 401(k) matches or government TSP matching under BRS or for GS employees.

Good news for CV-22 guys.

Like I said before, a lot of this reversal in popularity can be explained by loss aversion. You may want to read up on how professional organizations do polling; your characterization of how it works is not remotely close to accurate. This is not a bad summary. The biggest threat to modern political polling accuracy is reaching people who only have cell phones and actually getting them to respond to the poll questions. Today there’s a lot of art that goes into how you blend responses from land lines, cell phones and online surveys to still get an representative slice of the population...things were much simpler when the vast majority of voters had landline numbers listed in the phone book and you could call them during dinner and have them pick up. There’s big money for the companies and organizations that can consistently demonstrate accurate results, so legitimate polling outfits have every incentive to be accurate and stay ahead of the curve in how to solve the challenges that exist.

New folks that just joined the service in 2018 are automatically in BRS, anyone currently serving before today has a choice. IMHO those on their first enlistment or otherwise with less than 4 years of total service should consider it whether or not they plan to stay until 20. Those who think they will make 20 with more than 4 years of service should probably stick with legacy. Those who are certain they won’t make 20 even in the ARC should choose BRS ASAP. YMMV, I’m not a doctor, I just play one on TV.

As an additional thought, I also happen to agree that the individual mandate in the ACA was not desirable. I would have preferred that the government offer plans and subsidize employer-based plans that achieved 100% coverage without forcing people to buy a product from a private company. President Obama argued as much when he was a candidate for President in 2007 and 2008, but the realities of legislating and trying to reform the system within the construct of private insurance made the mandate necessary. The idea behind that aspect of the ACA was that the government could not mandate that insurance companies cover all pre-existing conditions (very popular) without also mandating that everyone buy insurance (not so popular). The first without the second in theory leads to a cost death-spiral where actuaries at the insurance companies have to keep raising rates at extremely high rates since they are covering a sicker and sicker pool of insured people while healthy people go without coverage until they moment get hurt or sick. That dynamic is also why you have specific enrollment windows in employer-based insurance rather than being able to sign up anytime. Anyways, IMHO, it's part of the devil's bargain of trying to use market-based reforms for something (health care coverage) that ultimately isn't driven solely by market-based forces. For a lot of health care, you can't as a consumer just choose to do without or shop around a ton, and because of that market forces that normally stabilize prices don't work as well. IMHO other countries have solved this problem better than we have in a variety of different ways and it would be great if we could learn from those examples and adopt system-wide reform that both lowers costs and gets to 100% coverage, which again, many other countries have achieved using different mechanisms. T.R. Reid's The Healing of America is a great read on this topic that I highly recommend. I'm interested to see what happens now that the individual mandate was repealed but the requirements for covering pre-existing conditions remain in effect. The cynic in me thinks that the point was to cause an ACA cost death-spiral and force Democrats to the table for new health care legislation, and the President has basically implied as much. TBD, hoping for the best, especially for those who rely on the ACA for their health coverage.

A majority of the people who gained coverage under the ACA did so via the expansion of Medicaid and an uptick in enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP from those previously eligible. And that number would have been even higher had all states expanded Medicaid as was intended when ACA passed. Medicaid is very popular, with an overall 74% approval rating and majorities of all political stripes support the program. Thinking about the ACA as primarily the individual marketplace exchanges is pretty common, but that's not nearly the most impactful part of the legislation. I agree, and most Democrats in Congress would agree, that the ACA individual marketplaces aren't working great and could stand to be improved. The plans available on the exchange are often too expensive, especially for people who want to enroll but make enough to not receive subsidies. Then again employer-based health insurance plans are also very expensive and in general the U.S. spend much, much more per capita on health care than any other OECD country with worse-than-OECD-average outcomes across many categories so it's a big, hairy systematic issue that still needs more attention. The increase in ACA popularity can also be explained by loss aversion. Once the GOP actually had the ability to repeal the ACA (i.e. 20 Jan 17), people started to fear what they might lose or what might change under various repeal-and-replace scenarios. Even if what you have isn't great, the thought of losing it or having it change in some potentially negative way makes you value that thing more.

My bar napkin math recommendations for guys is not to take BRS if you intend to make 20 good years (either AD or ARC) unless you're just starting out. If you're just starting out (~less than 4 years service) you have many more years of TSP matching contributions (16+) and there's just inherently more uncertainty on you actually making it to 20. BRS is an outstanding deal for every single service member who doesn't make it to 20 years of service...they get something rather than nothing under the legacy system. BRS is not a good deal for service members who make it to 20 years of service in general, other than those in the future who will have received the most years of matching contributions, always saved enough to receive the maximum match, and had good luck in terms of favorable market conditions. BL: in your situation where it seems likely that you will make it to 20 either on AD or the ARC, I would not take BRS. I myself am making the same decision, ~7 years active, ~3 years Guard, and extremely likely to serve at least 20 years. The market returns on those TSP matching contributions would have to be unrealistically high and consistent to make up for the lowered pension percentage.

We really need standard emojis on BO.net...I'd be using the eyeroll one right about now... Mark, good luck with your jihad against different BAH rates and thank you for your service. //break break// Whoever sold Congress the, "We need more money in readiness funds, let's take it from service member's BAH!" line can suck it. It's not our fault the Pentagon and political leadership has pissed away incalculable blood and treasure with several unending wars, a failure to invest in readiness previously, or that every new weapons system is insanely expensive because of our broken acquisitions process. I agree with whoever said BAH is a retention issue and I don't care what color the money is (basic pay, bonuses, BAH, etc.). If the amount is lower or not rising at a competitive rate while my cost of living is inevitably higher, that's not a check in the "plus column" when it comes to retention.

Mark1, So what's the point of all this? To me it comes off as just some John Galt fever dream about "fairness" and rationalism but I've been wrong before. Like, is the goal to save money by dropping everyone to the single rate, or is it to treat people the same with the happy byproduct of saving money, or do you want to treat people the same by just bumping everyone up to the with-dependent BAH? I guess I'm asking is this an ideological argument or a financial one or a mix? Why does this in particular grind your gears? Coming from someone who's engaged in a ton of pointless online debates, I'm curious. You've called out having to unfairly cover for married dudes on deployments even though your memory is sketchy on just how many you went on, which is pretty incendiary. Not sure what community you grew up in but where I come from it's one team, one fight man. I've covered for both married and single people when they had family duties to attend to and they've covered for me when I had the same, that's what being on a team is all about.

My faith in the pencil-pushers' gonkulations is at an all-time low. -$33 for Nashville O-4 with dependents, when housing prices here are rising at incredible rates. https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2017/07/11/study-nashville-has-greatest-cost-of-living.html

"3.1.3.1. UPT applicants must meet Flying Class I standards to be eligible for entry into the Medical Flight Screening (MFS) program. URT pilot applicants must meet IFC II standards to be eligible for Medical Flight Screening-Neuropsychiatric (MFS-N) screening. Currently rated RPA applicants who previously completed MFS in conjunction with IFC I/IA and are in active flying assignments must meet IFC II standards but do not require repeat MFS-N screening." So I'm not a flight doc, but to me this means if you're a current rated CSO applying for RPA, you should not need to go to MFS-N so long as they meet IFC II standards. This was not my experience, but I'm not a medical reg kung fu master so YMMV. I mean, it was a week of orders so that's great and all, but man, they checked every hole at least twice. Had more medical tests done in one week than in my entire life previous to that, including my FC 1A many moons ago. I swear to the FSM they are doing some kind of force-wide data collect and that's why they mandate dudes who should be exempt to re-hack an extremely extensive medical exam. ::tin foil hat::

I can see you spooling up for career #2 as a sewing and embroidery mogul right now...

Negligent discharge is the more accurate term and yes, those do happen regularly. YMMV on that source, but it's the first thing I could find on the googles. I find it pretty likely that Zarate pulled the trigger and that the firearm worked as God intended it, but none of us know that for sure. Still a negligent discharge, not a premeditated homicide. Re: your last paragraph...I 100% agree he should have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for his negligent discharge of a firearm. It seems from the reporting I've read about the case that the prosecution pushed heavily for a first degree murder charge, and I think stretches credulity to say this guy, in a pre-meditated way, killed Ms. Steinle with malicious intent. The idea that the prosecution and/or judge did not make the case for and the sentencing instructions to the jury airtight in such that we got a more just outcome, I'm not lawyer enough to speak to intelligently. We agree he shouldn't have been in the country (especially after multiple prior deportations and crimes), we agree that he should not have ever been let out of local or federal custody prior to the shooting, and we agree that he should have been found guilty of a crime beyond possession of a firearm. I'm not pleased that this guy wasn't convicted of additional crimes although I am happy he did at least get felony possession of a firearm and will be deported (again, hopefully permanently) after serving time for that. So I can only speak for myself, but IDK if your big line in the sand against "liberals" is really justified based on this. Let me tell you that if anyone on team blue is cheering for this guy and wants to see him walking free in the USA, fuck them.