“Everyone-every single person
reading this and every person in the world-needs to belong to a
church no matter whether they believe or not. They need to do so
because the questions asked and debated in churches are the most
important questions; they have been asked since the beginning of
time for the simple reason that we are made to wonder about this
world and our places in it. Those questions and that wondering are
not served – reliably and seriously – anywhere except in a
church. And thus that deep, deep hunger is fed only through life
within a body devoted to answering these enormous questions of why
the world is the way it is and how we ought to live in it,” 168
Happiest Life.

“Everything I have learned in all
these years and years of broadcasting is that kindness is just,
cruelty is unjust, and that fairness is quite easily recognized,
understood and acted upon. I have that undesrtaning due to my
attending church for more than fifty years and listening to constant
repetitions of the same readings and the same messages. That is what
is wonderful about faithful church attendance. Something gets
through. Something sticks,” 155 Happiest Life.

“Everyone-every single person
reading this and every person in the world-needs to belong to a
church no matter whether they believe or not. They need to do so
because the questions asked and debated in churches are the most
important questions; they have been asked since the beginning of
time for the simple reason that we are made to wonder about this
world and our places in it. Those questions and that wondering are
not served – reliably and seriously – anywhere except in a
church. And thus that deep, deep hunger is fed only through life
within a body devoted to answering these enormous questions of why
the world is the way it is and how we ought to live in it,” 168
Happiest Life.

“Everything I have learned in all
these years and years of broadcasting is that kindness is just,
cruelty is unjust, and that fairness is quite easily recognized,
understood and acted upon. I have that undesrtaning due to my
attending church for more than fifty years and listening to constant
repetitions of the same readings and the same messages. That is what
is wonderful about faithful church attendance. Something gets
through. Something sticks,” 155 Happiest Life.

As pointed out earlier these charges were already happening to people who used the Federal Healthcare.gov site.  

No where have I read there was a specific cut to military retiree pay percentages.  Currently retirees earn their pension based on a very simple formula.

As Breitbart points out, the cuts are specifically aimed at a cost of living allowance increase that retirees receive to adjust for inflation over the years since they retired.  This increase is directly tied to the Consumer Price Index see the article on retirement from the official military pay website.

Now historically we have had highs and lows in the CPI, as this is entirely based on current inflation and the economy. Military Benefits has a great chart covering the historical Retirement Cola.   I have reproduced it in a spreadsheet form for you here.    http://militarybenefits.info/2013-cola-retired-military-veterans/

As you can see any retiree during 2009 and 2010 didn’t receive an increase based on how the economy was faring during that time frame.  With a 1% cut in Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) you would simply see a smaller increase in retirement pay.

Next are two charts covering the Military Pay for 2008 and the current 2013 pay.  The full chart can be found here

For 2013 this is the pay chart for a service member at 20 years service or more.

Next I will highlight the retirement pay for a Staff Sergeant (E-6) who retired at 20 years service.  As a retiree will earn final income based on the highest rank held for 3 years of service, at the pay rate for the total years of service multiplied by the percentage listed above for retirement pay.

In this case our SSG would have been earning $3,650.96 per month as his final pay at 20 years.  Divided by two that is $1825.48 per month as his pension.  Or better put the yearly income would be just under $22,000 in retirement.

By contrast a Major (O-4) serving 20 years would have a retirement income of $7,283.64/2=$3641.82 per month or about $44,000 per year.

A Soldier/Marine/Sailor/Airman who enlists in the military at the age of 18 is able to retire before they even turn 40.  At the age of 38 they would be receiving their 50% retirement income.  This means they could easily work a second career before they choose to retire for the rest of their life.  In some cases people can enlist at the age of 17 meaning they have even more time.

This cut while perhaps a bit unpopular among the military is not a drastic issue.  The fact is for the majority of military retirees they don’t just retire they go and take a second and in some cases a third career.

A small little anecdote for you.  While I was in the Navy I purchased a car from a Saturn Dealership in San Diego.  I believe my salesman was named George though I cannot remember his last name.  He had retired from the Navy as a Petty Officer First Class (E-6) after 20 years.  He then worked as an electrician until he could retire from that company with a pension, he then took another career where we worked for 10 years until he was injured and took an early retirement with pension from his third company.  When I met George he was in his early 70s, he was collecting three pensions and because he was bored he was out there selling cars for fun.

When people think of retirees they are thinking of people George’s age or perhaps a little younger lets say as young as 60.  We don’t typically think of people as young as 38 because this is an age where people can still work and are for the most part expected to work.  The pension we receive as military members is a well deserved bonus in starting our second and third careers but it isn’t something that we should at these young ages be fully dependent on.

Furthermore, the Military recognizing how small some of these payments can be has opened up retirement savings accounts.  These accounts are not unlike 401K/IRAs that are out on the market for civilians.  The accounts the Thrift Savings Plan, is a mutual fund that is made up of either conservative slow growth, competitive growth, government bonds, small business, large cap funds … and the outcome of money earned is based on how well those funds do.  Last summer the Military opened up a ROTH version of the TSP.  Meaning that if military members contribute to the ROTH version their income they draw from the TSP in retirement will not be taxed.

So now lets think about this in the worst case scenario.  Under the new deal a 38 year old military retiree E-6 will see a pension of just under $22,000 a year.  Assuming the economy remains as stagnant as it is that retiree will see little to no COLA increase for the next 24 years.  There is potential that the CPI could increase at a rate of 1% every year meaning the Staff Sergeant I mentioned earlier would be earning no COLA increase while under the current system his pension would have risen to about $27,000.  In other words that $22,000 is about 78% of what it would have been under the old plan.  When the full COLA increase kicks in it is only kicking in by the 1% reduction meaning that finally after 24 years of being retired that $22,000 begins to see an increase.  By the age of 75 the retiree is now earning a pension of $25,000 per year as opposed to the $32,000 under the old system.

Of course now the retiree will have had an option to put money into various retirement accounts made very easy by the military.  Meaning the pension would not be the only source of military earned retirement.  Not to mention whatever pittance of Social Security is left over.  And of course not to forget any future pensions or incomes from second or third careers.

Is this a tough pill to swallow for military members?  I personally don’t like seeing that potential cut from my retirement, but I’m young in service years.  I can adjust my savings and I can adjust my plan.  It isn’t the end of the world.  The people I feel worse for is those who just retired, if the plan were delayed or graduated say for people who are planning to retire 5 years from now a half a percent cut at a full percent for retirees who plan to retire in 10 years or more this would be easier to forecast and adjust their financial planning.

As it is I am a bit confused from the tidbits I have read about the bill.  The paragraph describing the issue in the Washington Times implies that this is for people who begin government work after January first.  Does this mean military members who are in now or currently retired won’t see this cut?  If that is the case my previous paragraph is completely moot anyway.

For Conservatives this isn’t the end of the world.  The deal takes the threat of shutdown and therefore distraction off the table.  This means that the important debates such as healthcare and foreign policy can take the front stage and maybe you can win back those seats and get a better deal next year.  This isn’t a bad deal it just isn’t a great deal.  It is a compromise and that, is one of the fist true compromises either party has seen since January of 2009.  Work out some of the little details to end confusion and take the deal.  Then move on and fight the battles that could truly cripple the nation like the total collapse of our health care industry and the loss of jobs and insurance for millions of Americans because of a partisan law that was not a compromise at all.  It isn’t the worst deal and bottom line it allows both parties to debate the issues without the threat of a stupid shut down or worse.

3.  People who do get insurance apparently aren’t getting the right coverage, think they got coverage, or in some cases get coverage for three plans thinking they got coverage for one plan.   http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obamacare-woes-widen-as-insurers-get-wrong-data-2013-10-18  Now think about this for a second.  According to Yahoo News, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/50-states-obamacare-113318311.html, the average cost of a Bronze Plan costs $249 a month in premium costs.  So lets say Joe Schmo accidentally signs up for 3 plans thinking he only signed up for 1 plan.  Legally he will be required to pay for all three plans until he cancels two of them a mark up of an additional $500 per month.  This of course assumes that he accidentally signs up for three Bronze plans, as bad as the system is he could be signed up for a Brozne Plan and two Gold plans (as I am struggling to find any information on the cost of a Platinum Plan).  A gold plan costs an average of $412 per month http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/10/see_how_much_obamacare_coverag.html.  This boosts Joes Burden up to over $1,000 per month on health insurance that he might not be able to afford.

Today the Washington Examiner continues to report on these issues in greater detail.  1 in 4 Obamacare enrollments affected by technical bug first month | WashingtonExaminer.com: Basically the report says previous to the web site fix 25% of those who did sign up essentially didn’t, they only thought they did.  Even now after the website “fix” at a minimum 10% of those who have signed really haven’t.  Mind you there are no official numbers still, so this could go way up.

Earlier this week it was reported that while the Health Care Site is “working” it still has basically no security measures which should be a major concern given that quality web companies that take security seriously like Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook have all had accounts hacked despite those companies very strong efforts to protect you the customer.

In other words like it or not Americans are not the Alpha Testers of this very bad plan.  Worse yet as was pointed out again this week the youth just isn’t interested.  While some on the right might think this is a good thing because it will mean the ability to watch the Healthcare Act fall apart like the house of cards it is.  Think again.

Without the youth supporting the plans now currently mandated by the Government we will see something far worse and much more sinister.  The collapse of the American Health Insurance industry altogether.  The fact is insurance is built on the premise of healthy people putting money into a pool on the chance they get sick.  However since the house of cards was designed to cover specifically every ailment and all those who suffer from them from the get go now we are looking at much higher premiums on those who otherwise wouldn’t have as much to worry about.  What used to traditionally used to be a smart gamble has now become and expensive guarantee as the sick would be foolish to not get insured and the healthy are now wise to avoid it altogether.

The problem is now those insurance rates  are going to continue to go up and eventually the insurance companies will collapse under the weight of increased cost and not enough customers to stay afloat.  John Fund wrote about this problem over at National Review.

Bottom line, if you think the bank bail out was bad just wait because the insurance bailout is coming, and it is going to hurt bad.  And what choice will we have.  Both parties, both Houses, and two Presidents have already in very recent history backed the bail out of the banking industry.  Something that to be fair was a government created problem anyway just read this month’s Imprimis .  The collapse of the insurance industry will fall entirely on Government, as such we will be obligated to bail the industry out.  With that bail out however will come a very important lesson that we better take away.  Just as the argument from Peter Wallison concerning why we should repeal Dodd-Frank we must absolutely must repeal the Affordable Care Act.  Where as Dodd-Frank will more than likely eventually lead to a future banking crisis the Affordable Care Act is already proving to lay the groundwork for the insurance crisis.  There were solutions to the American Health Care system that were already working in many states.  Allow the States to regulate their own Health Care and get the Federal Government out.

This image from Highwayhags was taken in 2009, today the area (not necessarily the exact same area mind you) looks much much worse.  http://www.highwayhags.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dustbowl.jpg  I wish I had taken a photo as we drove home from Los Angeles to Reno, but I was sick as a dog and could barely keep my head up as we drove through.  A standing request will be to anybody driving through the area to email me at tacticalchess+dustbasin@gmail.com with more recent photos of the dustbowl.  This request will also extend to any farmers in the affected areas.   

The question is, why do these farmers believe that Congress created the Dust Bowl to begin with?  In reference to the great dustbowl of the 1930s it is kind of easy to see how Congress played a role, but the Dust Bowl of today is a different story going back to the last days of President Bush.  In August 2007 a Federal Court ordered the protection of the Delta Smelt halting the irrigation of lands from December through June of every year.  In 2010 the Delta Smelt would be added to the endangered species act further protecting the species and in turn hurting many many others.

The result of not irrigating farm lands has effectively destroyed the local communities, the economic climate, as well as endangering the welfare of non protected animals and put an undue cost on you and me when it comes to our food.  We are talking about 100s of square miles of farmland that is now incapable of growing food, and that is just visible from the I5.  As consequence there is less food grown and that results in higher prices on the consumer.  What was once a competitive food source for other animals has become a barren wasteland so while various forms of hare, or field mice may not qualify for endangered species status they are being starved and forced into other habitats because their previous food sources have been depleted.

According to Wikipedia, roughly 21,000 jobs alone have been lost directly to this fish.  You would think a story like this would get covered, but it doesn’t fit the current narrative that regulation is always a good thing.  Like it or not people need to eat these laws make that more difficult.  While it is good to save and protect other species it is more important to protect and care for ourselves.  Humans first animals second end of story.  We are at this point in time putting more people on food stamps than at any other time in recent history with over 23 million households as of June 2013.   Think of how many more people would be able to feed themselves if we opened up and irrigated the land.   This has been going on for 6 years now and it deserves some national attention.

I am going to have to look over this and start calling up some farmers in my spare time because the story deserves to be covered.

Some quick sources for both my own further reading and others:
http://www.fws.gov/sfbaydelta/documents/SWP-CVP_OPs_BO_12-15_final_signed.pdf
http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/frdocs/1993/93-5085.pdf
http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/frdocs/1994/94-31063.pdf
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6734504

Again a standing request.  If you are driving through the central valley area of California or if you are a farmer who has been adversely affected by the Government decision to protect a fish rather than your livelihood
please contact me with photos and stories at tacticalchess+dustbasin@gmail.com