Author: Joel Schofer, MD, MBA, CPE
May’s Continuous Medical Corps Symposium Lecture – Dr. Dale Smith Presenting The History of the Medical Corps
After having our Medical Corps Symposium cancelled numerous times due to COVID, we decided to just transition to a continuous, online symposium where we present one talk each month that you can view live or watch recorded. Here is a message about May’s talk:
Leaders,
Our 2021 Continuous Medical Corps Symposium has kicked off! Please disseminate the flyer and encourage maximum viewing of Dr. Dale Smith’s lecture on the History of the Navy Medical Corps:
We will be hosting a live Q&A session with Dr. Smith on Microsoft Teams at 1200 EST on 05 May. The video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/j4wHwJezFKA. Please encourage maximum participation in the live event as it will be one of the last events for Dr. Smith before he retires. For any questions, please contact LCDR Jennifer Eng-Kulawy (contact in the global).
Very Respectfully,
Jennifer Eng-Kulawy, MD
LCDR, MC, USN
Medical Corps Liaison Officer
Office of the Corps Chiefs (M00C1)
Diplomate, American Board of Pediatrics, General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
M00C1 1NW148B
7700 Arlington Blvd
Falls Church, VA 22042-5135
Bookmark the Medical Corps Chief’s Office Webpage and stay current!
https://esportal.med.navy.mil/bumed/m00/m00c/M00C1/SitePages/Home.aspx
Follow our new public website at https://www.med.navy.mil/Pages/MedicalCorps.aspx!
Follow us on Twitter, Medical Corps Chiefs Office @navy_physician for up to date information, career information and highlights within our Corps!
Follow us on Facebook, Office of the Medical Corps Chief and on Instagram, @medical_corps_chiefs_office to contact us and learn more about our Corps!
One Way to Get Operationally Relevant and Advance Your Career – Go Undersea Medicine
Every year promotion boards are placing more emphasis on operational contributions. Here is one way to get operationally relevant if you are residency-trained:
Colleagues,
Residency trained physicians are encouraged to become Undersea Medical Officers. Positions are available with operational units, research facilities, training commands, MTFs, and overseas. If you would like more information about billets contact the Undersea Medicine Specialty Leader, CAPT James Mucciarone (contact info is below). If you would like information about training, visit the Naval Undersea Medical Institute website and go to the tab for Prospective Undersea Medical Officer (https://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmotc/numi/UMOApply/Pages/default.aspx).
V/R
James J. Mucciarone, MD, CPE
CAPT, MC, USN
Force Medical Officer
Commander Submarine Force
U.S. Pacific Fleet
Undersea Medicine Specialty Leader
Office: (808) 473-5789
Cell: (757) 817-7380
NIPR: james dot mucciarone at navy dot mil
FY22 Milestone Note and Application Procedures
Here are BUMEDNOTE 1410 and NAVMED 1410/1, both of which tell you how to apply for milestone positions. For the MC, that is Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Officer-in-Charge (OIC). Other Corps include Director for Administration (DFA), Chief Nursing Officer, and Director for Dental Services:
The list of available positions is still being finalized, so I don’t have that yet.
Bottom line…do you want to promote to O6? Do you want a job that translates very easily to a leadership position in the civilian world when you get out? Do you want a job that will translate to an XO job? Milestones fit the bill for all of this.
In addition, we are encouraging CAPT and CAPT(s) to step up and apply for these positions as well, if interested. We need senior leaders for these roles.
If there are any questions, please reach out to me.
Finally, please see this note from our admin staff about hyperlinks not working in the PDF:
Just a heads up, a couple people now have asked about a “hyperlink issue” with the 1410. The URLs in the notice are correct; however, because Secretariat included hyperlinks and all the links are split on multiple lines, due to a PDF kink all links in the 1410 are adding “%20” at the beginning of each new line when you click or copy and paste.
To make it clear, here is how one split link appears when you click the hyperlink or copy/paste:
https://esportal.med.navy.mil/bumed/m00/%20m00c/pages/executive-medicine.aspx (you will get a 404 not found error if you go to this link)
And here is the actual URL as written in the notice (the correct URL):
https://esportal.med.navy.mil/bumed/m00/m00c/pages/executive-medicine.aspx
We cannot change this. The URLs are correct as written and it’s a PDF glitch. To work around, personnel are advised to go to their browser window and type in the URL exactly as it appears in the notice (NOT click and NOT copy/paste). Alternately, they can delete any %20 that appears in the link if they still insist on click or copy/paste.
Finance Friday Articles
- 5 Ways to Invest in Real Estate Without Being a Landlord
- 10 Tax-Free Investments to Consider
- Five Lessons from the Pandemic
- How to Feel Better About Your Financial Situation
- It’s All in the Mix of Assets
- Owning Assets Beats Having a Job
- Should You Have a Tech Stock Allocation in Your Portfolio?
- Spend $200K in Retirement and Pay $0 Income Tax
- What is a robo-advisor?
- Why bonds still matter in a low-yield world
- Why This is Not Another Housing Bubble
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – Will the Government Ever Get Rid of the “Free Lunch” of the TSP G Fund?
They say there’s no free lunch, but in the Thrift Savings Plan there is a free lunch, and it’s called the G Fund. Will the government get rid of this free lunch?
The G Fund Free Lunch
What is this free lunch? You can read about it on this page in the Fees & More Info section:
The G Fund Yield Advantage—The G Fund rate calculation results in a long-term rate being earned on short-term securities. Because long-term interest rates are generally higher than short-term rates, G Fund securities usually earn a higher rate of return than do short-term marketable Treasury securities.
The government is paying you a higher interest rate than it should. That is the G Fund free lunch.
Why is the Free Lunch at Risk?
The government periodically considers getting rid of it. For example, you can read about it in this article, which is discussing the President’s FY19 budget plan/request. Here’s the relevant portion:
The plan also proposes reducing the statutorily mandated rate of return for the government securities (G) fund to be based on either the three-month or four-week Treasury bill, at a projected savings of $8.9 billion over 10 years.
“G Fund investors benefit from receiving a medium-term Treasury Bond rate of return on what is essentially a short-term security,” the White House wrote. “The budget would instead base the G-fund yield on a short-term T-bill rate.”
TSP spokeswoman Kim Weaver said changing the G Fund’s yield, which is currently 2.75 percent annually, would have a disastrous effect on participants’ ability to save for retirement. If Congress changed the G Fund to track the three-month Treasury bill, the yield would decrease to 1.46 percent, and for the four-week bill it would drop to 1.43 percent.
“Such a change would make the G Fund inadequate and ineffective from an investment standpoint for TSP participants who are saving for retirement,” Weaver said in an email. “More than 3.6 million TSP participants (69 percent) have all or some of their account balance invested in the G Fund. Of those with money in the G Fund, 2 million (39 percent) hold the G Fund as their sole investment choice.”
For a TSP participant who has just retired and is invested entirely in the L Income Fund, which is designed for people who have begun taking annuity payments, they would run out of money at age 84 instead of the current projected age of 92, Weaver said.
Jessica Klement, staff vice president for advocacy at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said the change would make G Fund investments “useless” and likely force TSP administrators to divest from it entirely.
“[The new rate] would not even keep up with inflation,” she said. “So if you wanted to keep your money in a mostly secure fund, you would not be getting any return, and you’d actually be losing money. And if you took your money out, there would be no other safe, secure investment for those nearing or in retirement.”
What Does This Mean For You?
Right now, it means nothing. This is all just discussion about something that might happen in the future.
What you do need to understand, though, is that the G Fund serves a specific purpose in your portfolio. As the TSP site says:
Consider investing in the G Fund if you would like to have all or a portion of your TSP account completely protected from loss. If you choose to invest in the G Fund, you are placing a higher priority on the stability and preservation of your money than on the opportunity to potentially achieve greater long-term growth in your account through investment in the other TSP funds.
It is alarming that Ms. Weaver from the TSP said, “Of those with money in the G Fund, 2 million (39 percent) hold the G Fund as their sole investment choice.” Those 2 millions people are sacrificing long-term growth for the safest and most conservative investment available in the TSP.
There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re doing it because you are very conservative, near retirement, or the G Fund serves as the bond portion of a larger, more diversified portfolio that has more risky assets like stocks or real estate.
The sad reality is that most who are solely invested in the G Fund are that way because it used to be the default option for those starting a TSP account, and they never switched it to a more aggressive investment option. Under the new Blended Retirement System, the default investment switched from the G Fund to an age-appropriate Lifecycle fund.
What’s the Bottom Line?
The G Fund gives you a free lunch, paying you a higher long-term interest rate while you are investing in short-term securities. The government periodically talks about getting rid of that free lunch.
If you are invested in the G Fund, make sure you are doing it purposely and are aware of its conservative nature. Its emphasis is on preserving wealth rather than growing wealth.
Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog 