Economic Crisis: Mentorship During Tough Financial Times

[anthony]

Hello, TSPTalk gang. I'm doing a little self-promoting today ...

While I was at the Armor School in Fort Knox, I was required to write a "personal experience memo," and while I could have written about combat, I went with economics instead, particularly the role of leadership in TSP participation.

That memo was picked up by Marine Corps Gazette and published this month. Some of it is a little dated because they published it a year after it was written, but I think it still has some relevance. There is even a TSPTalk reachback, as the article includes some comments from my personal interview with John Grobe, one of the writers who appears on the site now and then.

The February 2010 issue of Marine Corps Gazette is available at: http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette (http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette), or can be purchased on most military bases, or can often be found in libraries. If you are not an MCA member and are having trouble with the MCA site, you may be able to get the article here under the title "Economic Crisis":
http://staging4.texterity.com/marinecorpsgazette-share/201002?pg=3#pg1 (http://staging4.texterity.com/marinecorpsgazette-share/201002?pg=3#pg1)

I'm interested to hear feedback on my article. Good or bad, all criticism is welcome.

Thanks and Semper Fi!

Anthony

[James48843]

Not bad.

It was a little slow moving into the meat of the article (lead was long), but contained some good basic information.

I would have written differently of the retirement at age 65. This is one of my pet peeves. The current full retirement for Social Security is age 67, not age 65. They changed that back in 1982, and STILL, to this day, when people are talking about retirement, they refer to age 65. Age 65 is no longer the correct reference point- but....oh well.

I was surprised to hear that there is only a 30% retention rate too. In my day it was a 50% retention rate.

The other point I would stress with the Military folks is this-
You can contribute now to the TSP, but if you DON'T contribute now, once you leave you cannot open a TSP account. If you contribute now, you can always, later, in your civilian job, move derelict 401(k) account money INTO your TSP account. The TSP's low costs are a good incentive to at least open an account, even if you only put a few percentage points into it during military service, so that it is there for you later, should you decide to use it more.

Thanks for the article- I hope all young military people get to read articles like that, and start thinking about the future.

[Show-me]

Excellent job Anthony!

[anthony]

Not bad.

It was a little slow moving into the meat of the article (lead was long), but contained some good basic information.

I would have written differently of the retirement at age 65. This is one of my pet peeves. The current full retirement for Social Security is age 67, not age 65. They changed that back in 1982, and STILL, to this day, when people are talking about retirement, they refer to age 65. Age 65 is no longer the correct reference point- but....oh well.

I was surprised to hear that there is only a 30% retention rate too. In my day it was a 50% retention rate.

The other point I would stress with the Military folks is this-
You can contribute now to the TSP, but if you DON'T contribute now, once you leave you cannot open a TSP account. If you contribute now, you can always, later, in your civilian job, move derelict 401(k) account money INTO your TSP account. The TSP's low costs are a good incentive to at least open an account, even if you only put a few percentage points into it during military service, so that it is there for you later, should you decide to use it more.

Thanks for the article- I hope all young military people get to read articles like that, and start thinking about the future.

Thanks for reading it James. Those are some great points you make about the retirement age and rollovers into TSP, and your points add a lot of value to the read. I had the same concern about the lead-in. I think that was a bi-product of the assignment requirement that it be a "personal experience" where you had to detail your involvment. I probably should have tailored that down for publication.

I wouldn't be surprised if the 30% is up this year. One, the Corps is moving to 202K endstrength; two, there's the job market; three, there's wartime bonuses. I don't know your branch but 30% is about right for the Corps. Compared to the other services we are younger demographically.

[tsptalk]

Nice job anthony!

[merlin]

I would have written differently of the retirement at age 65. This is one of my pet peeves. The current full retirement for Social Security is age 67, not age 65. They changed that back in 1982, and STILL, to this day, when people are talking about retirement, they refer to age 65. Age 65 is no longer the correct reference point- but....oh well.

Actually James, your both right. Back in 1982 they broke down into years of birth.http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/agereduction.htm