I don't think it would be very difficult to get 2% more efficient in other areas, particularly when you look at cost overruns for programs like the LCS....
And excuse me for thinking senior leadership has buy-in on this when the CNP basically told us just that.
I was asking a rational question: Do you really think that Congress will let the military funding get to the point where it can't execute its mission?
There will always be "career guys." Always.
The new retirement is just like the proposed BAH regs - DOD needs to find money, looks around, sees a lot of it spent on personnel, and looks to reduce that amount.
I've grown tired of the assumption that "quality" people go only where the best money is. I see it in many of the arguments on AW regarding retirement, bonuses, etc. I would argue the exact opposite: people who go only where the best money is are people who only do the right thing when someone's looking and don't give a shit if it won't make the FITREP or in the best case, they are competent people but should be in another line of work because they're not fulfilled.Yes there will always be career guys. The question lies with what kind of quality you'll be retaining when the juice isn't worth the squeeze to stay in for deployments and all of the other crap that goes along with being in the Navy. If you can roll out at 10 years and get some GS job or a job on the outside making more money with essentially the same 401k then why bother? If anything you'll be better off to get out, make more money, and put more of it away for later. Then the only people who stay will be the ones with nothing better to do (I.e. Lower quality senior enlisted and officer leadership).
Yes there will always be career guys. The question lies with what kind of quality you'll be retaining when the juice isn't worth the squeeze to stay in for deployments and all of the other crap that goes along with being in the Navy. If you can roll out at 10 years and get some GS job or a job on the outside making more money with essentially the same 401k then why bother? If anything you'll be better off to get out, make more money, and put more of it away for later. Then the only people who stay will be the ones with nothing better to do (I.e. Lower quality senior enlisted and officer leadership).
There is something to be said for those that stick it out, become experts at their job, instead of just trying to find the highest salary or benefit package.
My only counter is that, in aviation especially, toyr mid level enlisted can do the "same" job, get better bennies and still work on grey things for the Navy, sans deployments and work up schedules. I know many guys who loved the work, but the Marine Corps work ups and such weren't worth the squeeze, so they went to depot level maintenance.
Maybe a grunt doesn't have too many options, or a tank crewman, should they choose to leave. So if they "love what they do" they have to stay. But an airframer or a powerplants guy has a lot of options to do virtually the exact same thing, save interacting with aircrew, already. Diminishing the incentive to stick it out will back fire long term for the aviation community.
I've grown tired of the assumption that "quality" people go only where the best money is. I see it in many of the arguments on AW regarding retirement, bonuses, etc. I would argue the exact opposite: people who go only where the best money is are people who only do the right thing when someone's looking and don't give a shit if it won't make the FITREP or in the best case, they are competent people but should be in another line of work because they're not fulfilled.
I do what I do primarily because it needs to be done well, I'm good at it, and it's fulfilling. I've never bothered calculating how much my pay would have to be cut for me to quit, but I can say O-3 pay is quite comfortable.
Using retirement as the benchmark, I could argue that those who stick it out after these changes are those that truly love the work and will therefore do a better job at it, thereby increasing the quality of work done.
You're living in a dream world of you think that quality people are going to stick around purely for the hell of it. That whole "yut yut" / "I'm gonna be popeye the sailor man" bullshit thing wears off about 5 minutes into boot camp for about 90% of recruits and within the first 12 months in the Navy for the other 10%.
There's a reason that the expensive lawyer, doctor, mechanic, etc... Is the best. It's because, as AC/DC put it: MONEY TALKS!
There are folks in every walk of life that do the job they love even at the expense of a higher paycheck.
Bottom line, this change makes it the member's responsibility to prepare themselves for retirement.
If there a civilian analogue to what their military job is, the talented guys (and even not so talented guys) will leave for better pay. I see it with enlisted nuke retention, they can't throw enough bonuses at them to compete with utilities (nuke or otherwise) and industrial maintenance jobs with union hours, overtime pay, and yes, sometimes even pensions. There are also civil service jobs on the outside that will pay pensions after 20-25 years, why wait to get started if the mil cuts theirs?I've grown tired of the assumption that "quality" people go only where the best money is. I see it in many of the arguments on AW regarding retirement, bonuses, etc. I would argue the exact opposite: people who go only where the best money is are people who only do the right thing when someone's looking and don't give a shit if it won't make the FITREP or in the best case, they are competent people but should be in another line of work because they're not fulfilled.
I do what I do primarily because it needs to be done well, I'm good at it, and it's fulfilling. I've never bothered calculating how much my pay would have to be cut for me to quit, but I can say O-3 pay is quite comfortable.
You have to compare apples to apples. If an MA who enjoys his line of work can get better pay and retirement by transitioning to a LEO then he will leave for more money. If your engineer buddy liked engineering and company X paid more than company Y he would leave company Y. You see this in pro sports with free agency - players will almost always go to the highest bidder.You're living in a dream world if you think everyone does everything purely for money. There are folks in every walk of life that do the job they love even at the expense of a higher paycheck. An anecdotal example, a friend of mine gave up a $100k a year engineering job and moved back home to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, so he could trap and hunt all he wanted, and would work construction to earn money. He was (and still is) one of the happiest guys I know. Folks in the military are no different.
Roughly half the Chiefs I've encountered are pretty bad with money/divorces/child support, etc. Then you want a JO who is fresh out of college trying to teach guys who might be married and have kids how to manage money? Yea, that'll go over about as well as the 24 year old nurse who tried to teach my wife to breast feed her third child. Not to mention that other JO's I've worked with have also run the full spectrum of financial responsibility.Early in this thread I advocated a lot of leadership and mentorship on the chief and div-o for the junior guys to teach them how to prepare their money.