"It's your civic duty to employ them."
Rush has been pointing out that the democrats are making a big deal about how Obamacare is liberating people from work. That being liberated from work is a benefit.
What does happen in a decade when the Boomers retire? On one hand half of the nation will not be working. That leaves full employment for the young but at the cost of having to support the old.
The Millennials have to step up as in a decade the Boomers start retiring. As it sits now, 74% of the young, per PERSCOM, can never be enlisted into the military.
Whats your source of that 74% statistic?
The Millennials have to step up as in a decade the Boomers start retiring. As it sits now, 74% of the young, per PERSCOM, can never be enlisted into the military. That is the large percentage in the history of the nation that have been excluded from military service. Thus the questions as to whether they have the skills needed to work.
Whether they like it or not, they will have to step up.
Whats your source of that 74% statistic?
I do not know what PERSCOM is.
A Google search (yeah, I know) doesn't show anything about them reporting 74% of "youth" ineligible to enlist.
The link acetaeon posted has a link to a report by Mission: Readiness, a "onpartisan national security organization of senior retired military leaders calling for smart investments in America’s children. It operates under the umbrella of the nonprofit Council for a Strong America."
Here is a link to a PDF file they published:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/PDF/unable_to_serve.pdf
Here is some text from that PDF:
"The Pentagon reports that 75 percent of Americans aged 17 to 24 cannot join the United States military – 26 million young Americans"
There is no citation for this particular claim.
The Mission:Readiness statement attributes ineligibility to the following issues:
25% ("approx. one in four") ineligible due to no high school diploma
10% ineligible due to criminal activity
27% due to being overweight
32% for health problems other than weight (it discusses asthma - childhood asthma was not a disqualifier for enlistment at least the USAF 2004-2007)
That adds up to 69% not eligible - not including those that lack of high school diploma
All of those figures are attributed to:
Jack Dilbeck, Research Analyst, United States Army Accessions
Command, Fort Knox, KY. Personal Communication on May 14,2009
I cannot find any text of this "personal communication" from Mr. Dilbeck, and Accessions Command was disbanded in 2012.
Another footnote shows testimony from a Curtis Gilroy at a House Armed Service Subcommittee.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg50088/pdf/CHRG-111hhrg50088.pdf
Text from that:
"Influencers of youth, for example—Madam Chairwoman, you mentioned that just a moment ago—are much less likely to recommend
military service to young people today than they did two, three, four years ago—parents, teachers, coaches, guidance counselors.
And we know that propensity among youth themselves is much less than it is today—than it was two, three, four years ago.
We also know that we have a declining pool of eligible and qualified young people in America today who want to serve, owing mostly
to health and physical fitness issues and education problems. We have a crisis in this country, don’t we? We have an obesity
problem amongst our youth, and we have an education crisis as well. Seventy to 75 percent of young people today have a high
school diploma, a bona fide high school diploma. That is a sad state of affairs.
So when we add all of the qualifiers we find that only 25 percent of our young people today age 17 to 24 are qualified for military
service. Not a good situation"
So in conclusion:
I don't doubt any of those reasons listed as being legitimate causes for youth to be ineligible for military service, but I am dubious of the statistics listed - especially since there is ZERO METHODOLOGY noted for how those numbers came to be.
Me? I'm just some guy that was and is perfectly healthy but ruled ineligible for military service due to ocular hypertension...even though I don't have ocular hypertension, I have thick corneas and USAF Opthamology is still operating three decades behind modern science.
I am always rather cynically amused when I hear the parents and grandparents mock the generation they raised for being lazy entitled little brats and then blaming them for not fixing the problems that originated in previous decades. By all means Boomers, enjoy those Social Security checks! I hope eating into my meager paycheck is worth it to ya
PERSCOM is the Army Personnel Command. Ask recruiters how difficult it is to find youth who can meet standards without a waiver. About 5%. With waivers, up to 26%.
I am always rather cynically amused when I hear the parents and grandparents mock the generation they raised for being lazy entitled little brats and then blaming them for not fixing the problems that originated in previous decades. By all means Boomers, enjoy those Social Security checks! I hope eating into my meager paycheck is worth it to ya