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What's with all the hate on the lifecycle funds? They're made up of the other funds and are balanced by a professional. Odds are very good unless you're carefully tracking the internals of each of the other funds that the allocation the lifecycle comes up with is going to be smarter than you are. I'd suggest that if you put in regular time and energy to researching, studying, and then re-balancing your portfolio, that's of course best...but if you're not committed to and educated on how to do that, the lifecycles were custom-made for you. The TSP 2050 is something like 85% made up of the pure stock funds you all are advocating (https://www.tsp.gov/InvestmentFunds/FundOptions/fundPerformance_L2050.html) and it provides just a touch of ready-made diversification against market crashes. Diversification, within reason, is advocated in all of the books that are being touted above on this page in the thread. If you're against it because you have a more aggressive mindset (more aggressive than 85% pure stock...), that's okay, but it's not the end of the world to use the things. One other point...several of you have mentioned that there are mutual funds for use in Roth IRAs with 'similar' expense ratios to TSP...the C-fund (S&P 500 tracker fund) has an expense ratio of .042%. Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund expense ratio is .17%. For those of you following along at home, that means that while Vanguard is one of the least expensive commercial companies, they still charge you *4 times as much*. Their Admiral shares (which you can access after putting 10K or more into the fund, if I recall correctly) are a lot closer (.05%), but just keep in mind that the very best deal in the commercial sector struggles and still gets beaten out by TSP. The difference in real dollars isn't necessarily huge, but it's something to remember. Also remember that USAA and other non-Vanguard, non-TSP options are going to charge you even more.

Board doesnt see PT scores. If someone had a referral OPR for PT failures, the OPR was seen. It counted the same as any other referral for a documented failure to meet standards...but there weren't that many folks with referrals. It helped soften the score reduction when the OPR after the referral was an excellent one. It hurt a score when there were more than one referral or the subsequent OPRS sucked.

You can almost set your watch by the personnel PIO, it used to be every 5 years (ish) the AF would be at the top or bottom of the cycle, everyone get out or please everyone stay in, the only thing I have noticed different than when I came in back in the late 90's is that the frequency is now about every 3 years... the PIO that AFPC and A1 induce just gets worse as they keep moving the stick from full aft to full forward while simultaneously going idle to military, the stick being RIF boards and the throttles being the bonuses or lack thereof... they use personnel tools with opposite effects one right after each other making the frequency shorter and the amplitude higher If you could have an hour to explain the concept of control and performance to A1, that might help but as most of them (that I have met) have no operational experience, have been in personnel all of their carriers and think it is just a spreadsheet to be manipulated at will, you will continue to get arbitrary / clueless / no real strategy just reaction to the problem du jour force structure decisions or God forbid, A3 asserts itself and we structure the AF around ops Get that long term orders check book out and call the Guard / Reserves, if you offered 3+ years of orders or back on AD to get that last 5 years or whatever they need to get in the check of the month club, you would get takers... if this CSAF wants to fix one problem (of many) before the new guy (or gal) takes the controls then focus on this ant and burn it up Did some bar napkin math and I bet you could get 3500 bodies (even split of O's and E's) for 3 years with all costs included (including PCS, TDY and training) for 3 years for about $1.5 billion, less if you expand at RPA Guard / Reserve bases, that kicks the can down the road but shit take a step in the right direction, spend the money, get rid of a problem hemorrhaging our credibility to manage this mission The easy part is figuring whose ricebowl to steal from... not

Retention is bad now, bad enough for the CSAF to publicly admit his shit is in the street. We will have a better picture on the problem by late 2018 when the 18Xers start hitting the end of their ADSCs in large numbers. The data point to watch for will be dudes with approximately 7 years service. These are your dudes who joined up to specifically fly RPAs. If Big Blue can't retain them, the RPA enterprise is officially fucked. Surveys indicate we should expect retention somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%. On the plus side, there should be lucrative opportunities for contractors for the foreseeable future. On the Active Duty side of the house I expect this problem will get worse before it gets even worse.

Argo, are you going to provide any counter-argument, or just lurk in the shadows and down vote every post that doesn't fit the desired narrative? Standard SJW response is to yell and act offended while offering no logical reason for doing so. Our country has created a generation of retards. https://youtu.be/9IEFD_JVYd0