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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KwMK78idpA

Or because he's not qualified to fly the jet.. I've heard it both ways.

He starred in Voyage of the Mimi as well and that shit made 3rd grade awesome.

It means you're purposely picking a fight with inflammatory (& blatantly incorrect) statements. Normally trolls should not be fed by reacting to them, but you strike me more as a grumpy old head who yearns for the good old days "back when it was tough", and whines about it on this new-fangled interwebz.

Your complaint is ridiculous. Do you really think the AFCENT Awards and Decs division has been slacking in processing medals because they were the ones coming up with a new uniform policy?

I give this one week. As soon as SrA Yummybritches walks out to the BRA in her ass hugging short shorts with her lower back tattoo hanging out we are right back into reflective polyester.

Not sure if you mis-typed but that statement is not completely true. IAALX is a mutual fund. Period dot. It happens to be where your IRA is, but the fund in and of itself is not an IRA. An IRA is simply a type of account a person can have that has tax advantages (as is a Roth IRA, 401K, etc.). You can have an IRA in mutual funds or a variety of other investments. The IAALX fund is not limited to IRA accounts--you could have a regular, non-tax advantaged account in that fund as well. While it's true that it does invest in other mutual funds (and mutual funds can be invested in many different types if investments, not just stocks), IAALX is a mutual fund that invests mostly in stock mutual funds. So IAALX is predominantly a stock fund--approx 90% of your money is ultimately invested in stocks. If you're "fairly happy", then fine. But I'm trying to help you out here. You appear based on your posts to really have no real clue about investing, fees, loads, diversification, etc. As I've posted before, I used to be clueless. I was advised by someone I "trusted" to put my money into a consistently underperforming, extremely expensive fund. My misplaced trust and naivete combined to cost me a lot of money over the long run. You've said this now a couple of times and I'm wondering if you are confusing the TSP match with some sort of returns. Of course it's a good deal when someone matches your investment. It's free money. But that concept is absolutely independent of any returns you would get on the investment. In this case, since the match is completely unrelated to your IRA (it's in TSP) you need to mentally divorce the two things when you are analyzing the performance of your retirement accounts. I'm trying to help you brother. Whether you follow Dave Ramsey or not, whether you trust his recommended investment advisors or not, YOU need to get smart on this stuff. You owe it to yourself--as do all of the folks on here that don't understand the basics about their money and investing--so you don't get taken. I've said this several times on the forum, but go buy or check out from the library a basic book on investing. I recommend "Investing for Dummies," "Mutual Funds for Dummies," "Personal Finance for Dummies" or something of that sort. They won't make you Warren Buffet but they do a good job of explaining the basics of this stuff at the caveman level. If you read that stuff, I suspect that you will see the light about where your money is truly going and what it could be doing for you if you weren't overwhelmed with loyalty to a guy you've never met (DR). The fund you've chosen (IAALX) is not the worst out there--there are far worse. But it is consistently underperforming both the S&P and against it's category (similar type funds) every single year since it's inception according to what I can find on it. The thing that alarms me about it is that it is extremely expensive--2.2% in expenses per year plus a 1% load. That's really ridiculous. Someone is making a shit ton of money off of you, whether your IRA makes money or not. The question you would have to ask yourself is why would an investment advisor recommend a fund to you that has never even beaten the S&P 500 index? What is it about this fund that makes it the place to put your money? It's certainly not based on a history of strong performance. Possibly your investment advisor has a crystal ball and believes this fund is well positioned for the future, but that hasn't worked out well for you so far. I suspect it's because it's the best way to make him money, not because it's the best way to make you money. I've been there. Some quick hypothetical caveman math may put this in perspective a bit more for you... If you had $50K in IAALX on Jan 1st 2012 and never contributed another dollar, your IRA would be worth $55,930 today (11.86% gain as I type this). Let's assume for the purposes of the discussion that it would be the same on Dec 31. 2.2% in expenses equals roughly $1,200 that you paid over the year for that performance. You would also pay a 1% back end load on all of that money when you withdraw. If you had that same money in the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund, it would have made 15.44% so your $50K would be $57,720. The expenses are a lean 0.17% which is less than $100 for the year with no load--over $1,100 less than you paid (whether you realize that you paid it or not) for lesser performance. The difference is almost $2,000 this year alone not counting the load, so about 4% of your initial $50K more than you have now. Not chump change. If you had put your money in a commonly recommended managed fund--T Rowe Price Growth Stock--it would have gone up over 20% this year. That's about 4 grand more than you made or 8% of your initial hypothetical money. That's really not chump change. I'm sure there are errors in my back-of-an-envelope math, but you at least get the idea. Disclaimer: I'm also only using numbers from this year, so that's not necessarily fair nor is it the complete picture. Obviously they vary from year to year, the long term is what counts, and past performance is not necessarily indiciative of future performance, but like I've said, from what I can see your fund consistently underperforms year after year. And you are paying extra for it to do that. That's the point I'm really trying to get across with regards to IAALX. All I'm saying is that you would do yourself a great service, sts, to learn up on this stuff on your own. If you end up sticking with your plan, so be it. But do so armed with some basic knowledge and make the best decision you can based on logic and facts, not loyalty.

While we're on the topic of "poor perimeter security", what's the latest change to occur in British military security since the Camp Bastion debacle?

I saw a fist fight break out during ASBC between one flights' uber moto LT trying to organize flight PT at 0500 (!) 4 days a week and an Academy dude who was waging a jihad on his liver. Good times at Air University.

Why, are you interested in applying? I know you regret never having flown Vipers, but don't you think it's a little late in life for that?

I was thinking transonic shock

Spaceman, your like has stopped working. NSFW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqUlXQCAz8

Yeah! What's the big deal? Hasn't Tim Martins already done this?

I get that you follow Dave Ramsey and like it. If it works for you, fine. It's your money. But you might do well do think for yourself a bit once in a while. Dave Ramsey's "ELPs" are all commission based. They make money when the sell you funds with a load and high expenses. Guess where some of those fees go? Back to the Lampo Group--Dave Ramsey's company--as a referral fee. I'm sure you know this because you've looked it up yourself. It's even on his website. Most credible non-commission based financial advisors would caution you about blindly putting money into a loaded fund, let alone an underperforming, high expense ratio C fund. There's a reason for that. I don't quite understand your need to defend this particular investment because it has "made you money". Most stock funds made better money than that last year. Your fund is consistently underperforming and you are paying extra for that privilege. It's rated only 2 out of 5 stars by Morningstar. You have a 2.2% expense ratio in that fund. That's outrageous! That's all cutting 2.2% into your account, every year. For reference, the typical actively managed stock fund has an expense ratio of about 1.5%. The average index fund expense ratio is about 0.25%. Vanguard S&P500 index fund is 0.18% So you would have to do about 2% better than the index to break even, not even counting the load. Right now, the returns in that fund are averaging about 2% less than the S&P index, so you're in reality averaging 4% down or so. That's pretty big money, especially in the long run. I'm not trying to throw a spear at you, I'm just pointing out that the facts and math are not on your side. When I was a young 2Lt, I got roped into the USPA gig. Nice retired Lt Col pilot was the local USPA guy and sponsored my UPT class. Gave a great sales pitch about how loads don't matter in the long run and "you get what you pay for" with loaded funds...which is absolute bullshit. They put me into a fund that severely underperformed the market for years and years until I finally wised up. That was an expensive lesson for me in the long run and I'm pissed about it to this day. Good for you. But your IRA is neither FDIC insured nor liquid, so you are comparing apples and oranges. I don't think he was suggesting that he uses a checking account as an IRA or as his sole investment vehicle (maybe I'm wrong). I assume you have some liquid savings somewhere? An emergency fund perhaps? 4%, if true, is an unbelievable rate...better than any savings account or even CDs I've seen for years. Then why did you put your money into IAALX? It's a stock fund. Like I said, 12% is a not a great return this year on the scale of things...throw in your 2.2% in expenses and you're not doing very well relatively. A cheap, no-load S&P 500 index fund would be up over 16% this year. You don't need to have a PhD in financial planning to run the numbers. If you like Dave Ramsey and trust his network, good for you. That's an expensive path, but it's yours to take. I'm not advocating any particular path--to include index funds (I don't have them), but I am advocating that young pups educate themselves a bit on investing basics. Learn about expenses, performance, diversification, etc. It all matters. If you don't know where to start, go to the library or bookstore and get an "Investing for Dummies" type book. It will explain all of this stuff at the caveman level. My naivete cost me a lot of money when I was young--which translates to when I'm old as well. Time value of money and all.

Was it not loud enough, and you fell asleep?