Doesn’t that fact have something (not everything, but something) to do with how we got to have $34T in debt?
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Naval Aviations "One" Problem...
- Thread starter Empire16
- Start date
I did. The same concept factors into civilian employment just like it does in the Navy. If you want to be a fine art curator, you have to be willing to work in major cities, usually in an art gallery and not make much money until you have at least an MFA and decades of experience as a "taste maker." That's a very different lifestyle than someone who wants to be a Rust coder and can work remotely from just about anywhere. That affects spouses no differently than it does Sailors, though the civilians likely have more choice and flexibility in their career paths.
When it comes to spousal employment, the ones who have decided to pursue a career with more geographical flexibility are going to have an easier time finding a job than someone who doesn't. I know a guy whose wife is a high-powered environmental attorney. He's been a geobachelor nearly his entire career because she can't leave her firm in San Diego or else she won't be able to find work. These are conversations that need to be had and prioritizations that need to be made that are all personal choices about what is important to you and your spouse.
Of course. And D.C. has always had a spending problem. But we started talking about the defense industrial base, and how we got that way. I wonder what it will take for the power brokers to realize, “Holy Shit, things are really broken.” A war, depression, collapse of the dollar, insert your favorite calamity. But dismissing the national debt as something we can worry about in the future, will continue to limit our fiscal options going forward.
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I'm not comparing anything. I'm reminding you that this obsession with the national debt and it's role in our impending doom seems to wax and wane depending on who is in the Whitehouse. The GOP doesn't fundamentally care about this. It's merely a convenient rhetorical device.
You’re right, but the difference is, we need enough people to sign up to a career with a vast amount of unknowns and far less lifestyle flexibility to cope once they become knowns, and if too many people exercise their right to leave mid-career we all suffer. If you want professionals, that means adults and everything that goes with that. That makes this the Navy’s problem to solve to a large extent.
The fine art world doesn’t need to care if what they offer doesn’t work for your family, but the DoD needs to care if a growing number of mid-career professionals isn’t seeing the right future for their family by staying in.
Telling people to Geobach for years on end is not the answer, it’s completely untenable for most people. You also can’t expect people to only get married if their careers line up perfectly, most people have a hard enough time finding a good partner as it is. If you want people to stay you have to make it attractive and not just shrug it off because they clearly didn’t do the meticulous life planning they should have.
You're looking at this from the wrong angle.
A company wouldn't hire my wife as an account manager in North Carolina because "you're great and we think you'd fit in well, but it's obvious from your resume that you're a military spouse so you'll quit in 2 years. We chose someone else."
The bottom line is that spouses want to work and want the opportunity for legitimate careers. They shouldn't have to sacrifice that because their spouse is required to move by the Navy every couple years because, "that's just the way it's always been, man."
We have a lot of changes to adapt to or the divide between those who serve and those who don't is going to get much worse.
The wrong angle? I understand that certain jobs will be difficult to get. I said that. If your spouse's job is tied to a certain location, then she's not going to have the flexibility to move when the military tells you to go. That's why I said, with the corporate world embracing remote work and there being more remote jobs available, that should make things easier. This becomes a set of difficult decisions between you and your spouse about what you prioritize in your marriage and your family. No different than most things in a marriage. My buddy and his wife who is an ecowarrior attorney decided that what made the most sense for them was for him to be a geobachelor. I know other couples where the spouse took on remote jobs that they may have been overqualified for or weren't entirely what they had originally wanted to do (school teacher who now works for an online GED program). I know other couples who decided that the civilian spouse would exit the job market until after military retirement. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here.
I tried to get my ex a job with NAVFAC when we were stationed overseas. She was qualified for it and would have liked it. She decided against it. Are women who decide not to work bad? She decided that's what was best for her at the time and I backed her up on it. I do not expect the DoD to bend over backwards to ensure my spouse has the perfect job. Could we make it easier to homestead in a fleet concentration area? Sure. Will there always be those bad deal orders that somebody has to jump on the grenade for? Absolutely. There is no scenario here where we all get to have our cake and eat it too. Somebody has to take the bad deal orders. At some point, two married professionals will need to decide whose career comes first. Sometimes, both scenarios will align with the same married couple. When that happens, you have to make hard decisions. Some decide to get out of the military. That's just life. It happens in the civilian world as well. This isn't unique to the military.
If you can explain to me individually how any of those are relevant today with associated demographic, geopolitical, and macroeconomic factors, I’d be impressed. People who ramble on about the debt and fairly uneducated on economics or monetary policy writ large. So it’s kind of an eye rolling conversation when it comes to partisan politics.
I spent an hour last week doing mandatory training on the Brandon Act - it was basically a case study in failed leadership. I was surprised to find that the subject of the training was a sailor in HSC-28 in Norfolk - and his grizzly and untimely death. This is now required all-DOD training.
Maybe my coffee just hasn’t kicked in yet, but are you saying the debt isn’t relevant in today’s economy, or the environment from 1981 that @robav8r mentions in his post?
Just trying to understand your point. If it is that “party A vs. B is better for the debt” is a silly argument, then I agree with you.
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Your latter comment is more what I’m getting at… Not to mention both parties have done a fantastic job of jacking up the deficit in the last 20-30 years.
Anyone want to check what the average fed fund interest rate in 1981 was? Almost 4 times what is today. Inflation rate? 3 times what it was compared to today.
Demographics have changed as well - Boomers are retiring and taking the most powerful economic driver of growth in world history (Not just the US, Most developed nations are facing the same issue). Younger generations have different views on work life balance (This thread is a micro-example). That is going to drive up labor costs, and in turn, increase inflation due to supply/demand with human capital. Gen X and Millennials don’t have the bodies for 1 to 1 replacement. I mean just look at the airline industry. Imagine that happening across and entire economy. Nurses? Shortage. Law Enforcement? Shortage. Health professionals? Shortage. Transportation? Shortage.
One can only logically assume we’ll be seeing elevated interest rates for the next 5-10 years as Millennials enter their career peak earnings. It’s not as simple as people think... Not to mention re-shoring of several industries as once profitable cheap labor overseas starts to balance out with the US (largely due to the same macroeconomic issues)… but other countries are far worse off than the US.
Saved round and completely pointless point made by @robav8r …We don’t need a 600 ship Navy because 1 DDG can pack as much firepower as 3 or 4 ships (or more) from that era.
Threadjack complete.
Sometimes for the AD military but it's most times for the civilian world now. Now that I've been out of the AD military and live in a non military town I see how many married couples both have careers, and kids, and aren't having to choose which is more important than the other. They may have to face 1 major move in their lives (something other than across town) unless they are the ones choosing it.
There are a few jobs that continue to remote work, but I don't think it's as prevalent as you're leading it to be. Perhaps the Navy should allow a lot more remote work.
Ultimately we're talking about recruiting and retaining talent in society today. When you have to say, "When you join, or decide to stay in, the Navy, you and your spouse *will* have to decide who's career is more important because we're going to move you around every two to three years." To someone who also has the option to work for Zoetis or Pfiser or Striker, companies like that, and pretty much stay in Western Michigan and make the same amount of money it's a no brainer.
I agree, but I don’t think the military is or should consider itself to be in a 1:1 salary competition to a large civilian company. They offer other intangibles and, as others have stated, pay is not the needle mover that one might think.
I like the remote work idea though. Seems like a lot of staff work could be done that way, at least at lower classification levels.
Choose your rate choose your fate works both ways. If the Navy wants to offer up gems of duty stations like Iwakuni or Lemoore then they can expect to continue to have manning issues.
Guess what, this isn't the 1950s. Women have advanced degrees these days and don't want to waste all of that schooling on being someone's online photoshop assistant. To ask they do so shows just how out of touch you are.
Just to go back to the topic of annoying Admin issues, I just PCS'd to an overseas command with a small American contingent - effectively no Admin (my official admin department for USN issues is listed as a PSD that's not even in the same country as I). I submitted my PCS travel voucher. I got paid, but the voucher receipt said to submit a second voucher because I could claim more TLE days. Great!
Here is what's happened so far:
1. Try to submit a second voucher on N2P.
2. Voucher cannot be submitted as you cannot submit a duplicate voucher on the same set of PCS orders.
3. Contact AskMyNavyCC... they will certainly help.
4. 24 hours later, get a "case closed email from AskMyNavyCC" with a statement saying "contact your CPPA. If you still want to contact us, call this number but YOU MUST have your command's CPPA alongside you."
5. Call the AskMyNavyCC number and explain the situation.
6. Get asked about 10 times "are you sure there is no one that can help you at your command? Really? No one? Damn that be crazy." (Actual words.)
7. Get put on a "brief hold," only to be told my command does have CPPAs and I should ask them and AskMyNavyCC can't help me. No info on who they are, but instead a generic form on how to find them on NSIPS... and I'm confident that they are either looking at my previous command and NSIPS hasn't updated yet, or they are seeing the CPPAs from the out-of-country PSD, who you are not allowed to call/contact.
Has anyone ever been helped by AskMyNavyCC? The last thing I emailed them about they just told me that "PERS needs more time to update personnel files," (I was asking to have my CO's RSCA put on my OSR on a FITREP from 4-5 months prior) and to not contact them about the issue again.
Here is what's happened so far:
1. Try to submit a second voucher on N2P.
2. Voucher cannot be submitted as you cannot submit a duplicate voucher on the same set of PCS orders.
3. Contact AskMyNavyCC... they will certainly help.
4. 24 hours later, get a "case closed email from AskMyNavyCC" with a statement saying "contact your CPPA. If you still want to contact us, call this number but YOU MUST have your command's CPPA alongside you."
5. Call the AskMyNavyCC number and explain the situation.
6. Get asked about 10 times "are you sure there is no one that can help you at your command? Really? No one? Damn that be crazy." (Actual words.)
7. Get put on a "brief hold," only to be told my command does have CPPAs and I should ask them and AskMyNavyCC can't help me. No info on who they are, but instead a generic form on how to find them on NSIPS... and I'm confident that they are either looking at my previous command and NSIPS hasn't updated yet, or they are seeing the CPPAs from the out-of-country PSD, who you are not allowed to call/contact.
Has anyone ever been helped by AskMyNavyCC? The last thing I emailed them about they just told me that "PERS needs more time to update personnel files," (I was asking to have my CO's RSCA put on my OSR on a FITREP from 4-5 months prior) and to not contact them about the issue again.