Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
Yep - I'm going after the Boomers again; but as an early-cohort Gen-X type, I have been at them for over two decades.
Why on a maritime focused national security blog? Well, it's my blog for one, second - a nations economic and fiscal security is the primary determination of it's ability to build a national defense.
Ultimately, members of my father's generation--generally defined as those born between 1946 and 1964--are reaping more than they sowed. They graduated smack into one of the strongest economic expansions in American history. They needed less education to snag a decent-salaried job than their children do, and a college education cost them a small fraction of what it did for their children or will for their grandkids. One income was sufficient to get a family ahead economically. Marginal federal income-tax rates have fallen steadily, with rare exception, since boomers entered the labor force; government retirement benefits have proliferated. At nearly every point in their lives, these Americans chose to slough the costs of those tax cuts and spending hikes onto future generations.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose twelvefold from the time the first boomers began working until last year, when they began to cash out their retirement. (The growth trend over the 12 years since I entered the workforce suggests that the Dow will double exactly once before I retire.) They will leave the workforce far wealthier than their parents did, with even more government promises awaiting them.
Boomers will be the first generation of retirees to fully enjoy the Medicare prescription-drug benefit; because Social Security payouts rise faster than price inflation, they will draw more-generous retirement benefits than their parents did, in real terms--at their children's expense. The Urban Institute estimated last year that a couple retiring in 2011, having both earned average wages, will accrue about $200,000 more in Medicare and Social Security benefits over their lifetimes than they paid in taxes to support those programs.
Those retirees and near-retirees bequeath a shambles to their offspring. Young people are unemployed at historically high levels. Global competition is stronger than ever, but American institutions have not adapted to prepare new workers for its challenges.
Boomers have run up incomes for the very wealthiest Americans, shrunk the middle class, and, via careless borrowing and reckless financial engineering, driven the economy into the worst recession in 80 years. The Pew Research Center reports that middle-class families today are 5 percent less wealthy than their parents were at the same point in their lives, after adjusting for inflation, even though families today are far more likely to include two wage earners. Another Pew report shows that those ages 55 to 64 are 10 percent wealthier today, even after the Great Recession, than Americans of that age bracket were in 1984. Those younger than 35 are 68 percent less wealthy than the same bracket was in 1984.
The Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is not only staggeringly overpriced and chronically unreliable but — even if it were to work perfectly — cannot match the combat power of similar sized foreign warships costing only a fraction as much.
Tom Sayen over at Time's BattleLandBlog takes a swing at hitting the bold-faced items about LCS we've been discussing over the last 6-8 years or so. Follow the link and nod that, yes, more and more people are seeing it. UPDATE:RDML Kirby has responded ... should I fisk it? Most of his "facts" are actually assumptions. Big difference, and in any event - we've seen this PPT before.
Why do we keep thinking that just because someone puts their hopes on a PPT slide that all of a sudden makes it a fact?
Link added to RDML Kirby's response. Sorry about that.
A court in Ghana, the West African nation sandwiched between Togo and Ivory Coast, blocked an Argentine navy training vessel from leaving one of its ports after granting a request from billionaire Paul Singer. The hedge fund manager, who owns debt from Argentina’s record $95 billion default in 2001, is trying to force the South American country to repay in full.
While the value of the triple-mast frigate represents a fraction of the $1.6 billion that the Argentine government owes Singer’s Elliot Management Corp.,
Take 40-minutes and join some of your usual suspects (Galrahn, Steeljawscribe, and widdle-me) in a discussion the role of history in general, and specifically the Naval History and Heritage Command with its new director; Captain Henry J. Hendrix, Jr., USN.
88-Year Old Sterling Mace, Author of "Battleground Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Combat Odyssey in K/3/5", sits with two Marine Corps Redditors to discuss coming home from combat and PTSD. Copyright Sterling Mace, 2012.
"Flight Lieutenant Wyatt, captain of a high readiness Chinook, was scrambled to recover a military casualty with a life-threatening gunshot wound to the neck, when it soon became clear that the landing site was compromised.
"Putting the needs of the casualty above his own safety, Wyatt elected to keep the aircraft on the ground long enough to recover the injured soldier, despite continuous incoming small arms fire.
"The Force Protection (FP) Team was immediately deployed to support friendly troops and the casualty was recovered by the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) and crewman. As the FP Team recovered to the aircraft it emerged that one member had been shot in the shoulder and required urgent treatment.
"Wyatt kept his nerve under a hail of ground fire, lifting only when both casualties were safely on board.
"Unfortunately the aircraft had sustained significant damage, losing critical radio and electrical services, and a significant oil leak had begun from the rear transmission. The aircraft began to vibrate, making handling difficult.
"With no further options, Wyatt transmitted a mayday distress call and landed in the desert whilst he still had control of the aircraft before directing his crew to cross load casualties and the remainder of the MERT to a supporting helicopter. He then elected to remain with the aircraft to erase critical mission information and remove sensitive equipment before being recovered by a third aircraft ten minutes later.
"Wyatt's selfless actions undoubtedly led to the saving of the casualties' lives. His professional performance under persistent enemy fire and his outstanding bravery and airmanship are an example to all."
Michael Knox Beran over at NRO has a very good observation about what we saw last night. In whole:
In 1805, Napoleon, his forces outnumbered by those of the Russians and the Austrians, set a classic trap, feigning weakness and timidity, and lulling his opponents into complacency and overconfidence. They took the bait, and he fell upon them at the moment he could do the utmost damage. Something similar happened last night. Obama, lulled into complacency by an apparently weak and outnumbered rival, showed up for the fight wholly unprepared for the strength of his adversary, who like Napoleon had camouflaged his assets. Romney fell upon the president at precisely the moment he could inflict the greatest damage, on live television with the whole nation watching. It was a masterly performance by a candidate who, far from being the ineffectual bumbler many have supposed him to be, showed himself not only a brilliant debater but also an excellent strategist. Last night was Romney’s Austerlitz. Will November 6 be Obama’s Waterloo?
