nsplayr

Nice, that works well enough, good find.

Why do you like a Coverdell better than 529 other than, as you sort of alluded to, potentially more diverse investment options and the ability to use for K-12 rather than just college? I haven't really found any additional plusses when compared to 529s; I guess it depends on if your goals are primarily saving for college or saving for K-12 and if you really want to gnat's ass specific investments. From what I understand, 529s have a higher contribution limit, are easier for multiple parties to contribute to (i.e. grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.), and the money is treated the same as in a Coverdell i.e. after-tax contributions that grow and be withdrawn tax free and can be used for education expenses. On top of that, I think the 529 is much more flexible and has less limitations both in how you use it and how much you as a parent can make while contributing. Many dual-mil O-3s or O-4s would potentially make too much to qualify to contribute to a Coverdell. If you're saving for college I don't see how a Coverdell offers any advantage over a 529. Good discussion/comparisons of Coverdell vs 529 here and here, and an article about giving Coverdells a second look here.

Seen it, both from Gunship and Pave guys. Here's what we're all forgetting...we're part of the military and it's essentially a dictatorship. If you Commander, with a capital C and the accompanying broad powers, says something is inappropriate then he gets to be right unless his Commander or ultimately Congress tell him otherwise. Logic, common sense, reason, etc. play absolutely no part unless that particular Commander want to consider those things. We all have a duty to tell the Boss when he's wrong and to give suggestions on how to improve, but in this instance I just don't see a course correction happening. The biggest problem with all this stuff is we don't have the right kind of leaders within the military and also that in today's super-charged politically environment we don't have the right Congress that can tell those leaders to use common sense and their best judgement. Everyone, EVERYONE is CYAing to the max extent possible to defend against lawsuits and butthurt. Whenever you see a Commander putting out a policy letter that includes something like "zero tolerance for sexual assault," just mentally picture him or her in the break popping chaff...it's basically the same maneuver.

Agreed, Utah is perennially one of the best. Running my numbers the income tax break should be about $230 off my state tax bill every year based on expected income and max contribution; there's no way to beat that with relatively small differences in fees. The projected difference in management costs over 10 years is between $67 and $325 (depending on exactly what you invest in and how much is in your account) between the Utah and VA plans. Good advice for folks to check out Utah's plan though and in general I'm a huge fan of the direct-sold state 529 plans if that's not obvious already. If you state has no income tax and offers no benefit for buying into their own plan then by all means go with a highly-rated plan from another state that offers the lowest fees.

I know 3 couples who are both U-28 pilots and they've made it work so far despite numerous deployments/TDYs/etc. One pair in particular was together during the later years of college, stayed together during UPT, both were able to drop U-28s (about 9 months staggered from different UPT bases I believe) and ended up in the same squadron. That's a lot of dice rolls but I guess they won. I'm sure it can be done (2 pilots, just regular mil-to-mil), but I'm damn glad my wife is able to tag along with me at a moment's notice wherever the Wizard decides to send me next. Good luck to ya...if you guys are determined to make it work you can just have a clear head about the obstacles ahead before proceeding full-throttle.

Nope, we got briefed on it by our Wing and squadron safety guy (happened to be the same dude while we were downrange i.e. he was our deployed SQ/SE but works at WG/SE at home). Not sure the access he had or what materials/videos/animations he had seen or not seen. Would love to see the full monty though since our community has a particular vested interest in how to safely and effectively fly the MC-12 airframe...

Already being discussed in thread.

DFRESH, Any insight on what happened to the functionality to quote a single post multiple times with ease? i.e. you used to be able to hit "quote" on a dude's lengthy post, then intersperse your own comments by just using "[ quote ]" and "[ /quote ]" tags (minus the spaces). It enabled you to speak to many points made within one post in a coherent way. Am I just too dumb to figure out how to to do that in the new-look forums? Thanks again for all the work on the site, you are a great American!

I invest in in Virginia's 529. It's has fairly low fees and a solid history of performance (though not the best in either category), however I plan to live in VA long-term so the state income tax deduction benefits are well worth it's minor shortcomings in other areas. Highly suggest you look into direct-sold plans run by states, and in particular if you are currently or know in the future you're going to live in one state long-term. Especially if that state has state income taxes or offers other offsets for 529 contributions.

From the official ACC press release, very similar language to the article above.

Use the Googles young padawan... Edit to add: I'd hit it.

Swing and a miss.

::opens can of worms:: I haven't watched the Ramsey video on the ACA, however anyone who thinks Ramsey is a wizard when it comes to simple math is seriously fooling themselves. His advice on the kind of returns you can expect on retirement savings and his logic behind why you shouldn't use credit cards is enough to convince me his grasp of basic economics math is not the greatest. Totally off-topic and ready for incoming spears from Ramsey-lovers but it had to be said.

I don't think any reasonable person is arguing that. The problem is that there is a sizable chunk of folks who don't see inequality as a problem, don't see problems in the system that results in 1% of the population realizing an increasing percentage of the nation's wealth, etc. When the get a chance to see the real numbers al la the video, many realize that the results they think is fair and the results we have now aren't nearly as similar as they thought. We don't need some kind of radical socialist system where we're all working in the factory for an equal wage as the rest of our comrades, but what we do need is to take concrete steps to reduce inequality before it tears our country apart. Once people can at least agree that it's a problem, we can debate about the right solution (and there are lots of divergent ideas).

As one of the token liberals here, I have to almost completely agree. The big takeaway for me from the video and studies that show the same thing is that nearly everyone, no matter their political leanings, believes that the level of inequality in America today is unfair, and were surprised, when confronted with the real numbers. People were offered the chance to create what they considered a "fair" level of income distribution, and even the most capitalist, free-market Adam Smith conservatives among them created a system much more equal than equal than what we have in our country today. Inequality hurts everyone primarily because it is fuel for political and market unrest on top of the more obvious pain of an eroding middle class, lower upward mobility and abject poverty for the lower classes.

A) Like I said, if Stan/Eval Dude was the A code he should have told Hat Guy, "Take off the hat" if he didn't think it was within regs. Not some kind of dickless "Well, the OG wouldn't like it blah blah blah." Here I'm arguing not for a sane uniform policy, but for leadership where the buck stops with you. B) Now I'll argue for a sane uniform policy...if you're fully inside an aircraft where you are a crew member, you can wear whatever the F you want so long as it doesn't interfere with safety or good order and discipline. That's what I'm used to in my community at least. C) You're own damn airplane has nothing to do with "owning it." It has to do with my view that reasonable accommodations for ball caps, morale shirts, patches, etc. can be made when out of the public eye in an airplane on which you are a crew member. See above.

2 second google search turns up that, no, military healthcare plans (including Tricare For Life) are exempt from the 40% marginal excise tax on "cadillac" health insurance plans schedule to take effect in 2018. Is that exemption sustainable forever as baby boomers start to stress the retired military health systems just like the systems for the nation as a whole? Who knows, but here's your answer as far as it's knowable today. Fuller explanations of the purpose of the "cadillac" health insurance plan tax from NPR found here. My summary of the theory: the purpose is to tax plans that encourage "excessive" healthcare consumption, forcing employers to subject them to normal market forces (i.e. taxation, competition, etc.). Right now all employer-based health insurance benefits are tax-deductible, creating an incentive for an employer to offer less monetary compensation in exchange for a more generous insurance plan (unions do this frequently). The effects of that are that the government collects less revenue than it would if you were paid, in regular salary vice in-kind benefits, the true total value of your compensation. More importantly, you as a consumer are likely to demand expensive and excessive health care because it's "free to you" essentially, so why not do those extra tests? That's the theory. IMHO the tax as written in the ACA is not well-implemented because it creates a huge spike in marginal tax rate from 0% right up to 40% on the next dollar rather than being progressive, and I also was never a huge believer in the idea that excessive health care consumption (and incentives that lead to excessive consumption/use built into the tax code) are the biggest drivers in healthcare costs. The Japanese "consume" much more healthcare per capita (even adjusting for variances in the age of the population) than Americans yet pay lower costs because their system is unified and addresses costs more effectively than ours. If we had a better system, we wouldn't need to worry about working to "limit 'excessive' healthcare consumption;" you as a person could seek all the medicare care you felt was necessary or desirable without the ballooning costs we see in our current employer-based insurance system.

You wear wings on a desert bag though, right? My fleeting knowledge of the reg was that any uniform worn by someone who is rated is supposed to have wings on it. Then again the 2-piece I was issued did not have extra velcro and I didn't exactly go out of my way to have it added. And moral of the story was that we weren't 100% standardized, no one cared, and the mission got hacked. Call it a victory for common sense.

This was inside the airplane? Agreed that if he was the A code he should have told you to take it off because that was his policy or he should have said nothing because it's asinine to enforce uniform policy not related to safety when you're inside your own damn airplane. Agreed that the 1/2 way solution he went with comes off as a little spineless.

We do optional multicam pattern wings above the name tape like on ABUs back home. Some tops came with the velcro section there, others didn't so (gasp!) we weren't standardized.

Yes.

Very cool, thanks for posting.

I actually just shot the Sub2000 yesterday and I was not impressed at all. Seemed like it should be fun, but the non-adjustable stock was too short for me (I'm about average size), I couldn't get a good sight picture (really have to mash your face way low to see through the rear sight) and 3x malfunctions (2 FTE, 1 double-feed) in one magazine and back on the shelf it went. Anyone else have a better experience with it? I wanted to like it but found it hard to look past it's flaws.