scoutingagain

"the might democrats will slay the wolf and lower the principle or forgive what is overdue." Funny because this is exactly what John McCain said he would do if he was President in last night's debate. I have no doubt that an Obama administration would do something similar as ultimately the loans will have to be renegotiated by someone to allow people to pay what they can pay, not necessarily what they agreed to pay which they can't pay anyway. Lenders will get something at least, but not what they expected. Kind of like what we'll get out of Social Security. Some banks are beginn

"Did the elimination of being able to deduct interest other than mortgage interest reduce people's debt? Nope! " It didn't eliminate debt, but it encourged folks to transfer that debt to their homes. The government should encourage people to buy and own a home, not leverage it. Lisa, Those folks have already taken their hit. They are not being effected as much by this "crisis". They're in the group that probably didn't have a 401K and probably didn't own their own home. In that sense they havn't lost much. I suspect many of the folks our congressman are hearing from ab

"My husband has a pension and we will have social security" Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your husband's pension was probably invested in the stock market. And hopefully the pension fund manager was not too heavily invested in financial stocks or any of the exotic mortgage instruments largely responsible for this mess. And as far as social security goes...if anyone believes those statements they get...well there's a bridge in brooklyn for sale. At the same time there will be something in social security, it won't be nothing. Worst case scenario is it returns to a pay a

I'll go with the consensus here. Palin exceeded the minimal expectations and probably saved her polital future. I doubt she did much for the current campaign though. Biden did a little better I thought. But I continue to find it annoying when candidates don't answer the question and then ramble on about a different topic. All of them do it and I find I want to hear the answer to the question not, "That's an interesting question but let's talk about energy, taxes, the war, or any other topic other than the question because I don't have an answer the public wants to hear." I will give

Like it or not the solution is to live within our means, as individuals and as a country. Those that continue to live beyond their means will suffer more and make it tougher on the rest of us as they line up for more and more government bailouts and entitlements. Unfortunately there is no other answer. The pain can be delayed through more borrowing, but somewhere, someplace at sometime we will need to pay up. And real people will suffer lost jobs and a lower standard of living. Yes things are different but, the fundamentals of the free market have not changed. BUT here are the d

Thanks for the explanations folks. As I suspected they are more insightful than what I've been able to find in the media, expecially the electronic media. I'm still skeptical though. Listened to NPR yesterday and several economists interviewed said the worst case scenario is bad, but not end of the world as we know it bad, but a recession, bad enough where we would feel it. Others interviewed seemed to think worst case would be a long deep recession. Worse than anything we've seen since the depression. It seems as if congress will pass this bailout/rescue though. Why I don't know

Yea, a credit "freeze". The thing is I don't see a freeze. At least not yet. An aquaintence I know bought a car yesterday. Got approval for a loan to buy a car. A relative bought a house last week. Got approved for a mortgage. Not some way out interest only no downpayment mortgage though, a 20% down, straight fixed rate mortgage on a house they never could have afforded a year ago. As the saying goes if you don't need a loan someone will still loan you money. From what I've read many of the small local banks are doing fine, because they didn't get sucked into the wirlwind of the e

As I said earlier the longer this goes the more I'm convinced the government should stay out of it. Other than telling us "This sucker could go down." and we need to avert a financial "crisis." No one in our so called leadership has explained to the American people why this money is needed other than to prevent a "financial meltdown." Whatever that is. If they can't explain it in terms people can understand, they don't deserve it. As far as I can tell we're into this mess because too many people borrowed money they can't pay back from people who apparrently didn't have enough m

"Citigroup just bought Wachovia banking operations for $1 per share." ... And will get to shed the bogus loans that got them into trouble to us the taxpayers or have us insure insure the bad loans. Either way we have volunteered through our elected officials to offer massive risk mitigation to the private financial sector. As has been said. "What a country!" SA

The more I read, hear, see about this fiasco the more I become convinced we're better off with the government staying out of it and letting the chips fall where they may. I'm convinced anything the government would do as run by the current bunch of yahoos from either party would mess things up even more than what the natural market reactions will be. The Dow was up over 1% today. No one can tell me the markets up because they have confidence in any government plan. It's up because collectively investors are seeing the entire sky won't fall, the sun will come up tomorrow, while many hav

BW has it correct I think. As usual. The point of having a single, nationally recognized name is so the course is just that, recognized for what it is throughout the country both inside and outside scouting. Do you think the Eagle Scout Rank would have the cache' that it does if some councils awarded Eagle, others Falcon, others Lion or whatever? My son listed National Youth Leadership Training on his college applications. The school he chose to go to specifically complimented him on that training and his Eagle scout in his acceptance letter. If he had listed Beaver training or other

"CIT's only got room and board. " LOL . Our CIT's known as Lead Scouts, PAY THE CAMP $300 for privilege of being a staff member in training and essentially doing all the same things as paid staff do. BTW, there are usually more boys who sign up and are willing to PAY to be trained and spend the summer at camp working without pay than there are slots available. SA

I had to read MSchwartz's profile. I was certain he/she was with the unit I serve. We did the exact same excercise 20mi. to the south. Dummy from the fire station and all with the identical results. SA

I suppose it all depends on the criteria used. I find it a bit disconserting that the criteria seem to be closely aligned with what I suspect are incentive goals for DEs. Membership, advancement, popcorn sales, etc. I'd rather see criteria like, miles hiked/scout, miles backpacked/scout, camping nights/scout, backpacking camp nights/scout, Miles paddled/scout. High Adventure trips per patrol, etc. For Kudu, maybe a criteria for Patrol nights camped > 300ft from an adult . SA

BW, Do you really believe no SE or a Council Board has ever made a business decision that has not been influenced by his or their personal feelings regarding those involved in the decision? I would agree this is not the norm and don't mean to suggest it is, but I'm sure it happens with some degree of frequency. I believe SE's on the whole are a decent respectable bunch, but no more so than executives in other organizations. SA

BW, My point was that business decisions are made based on many different parameters, not just profit/loss or efficiency. Personal relationships often are included in the evaluation process. SA

BW is most likely correct. The number of councils, sizes, locations, staffing etc. are simple business decisions. "A business decision based on a combination of population density, geographic boundaries, and financial feasability." True, but business decisions are often based on many more parameters than just the above. Things like, a national exec's daughter might be married to the council executive, his nephews say are employed by the council summer camp, the council exec is a really good golf player, etc. all come into play as well. I'm sure GM has automobile factories they k

"I accept BobWhite's premise, but I can't convince anyone on the Disitrct Advancement Committee, where I have been since 2001, that an Eagle Project is not a scouting activity." I agree and could say the same thing about my District and the fact that it does cause so much consternation among many on the forum, who for the most part are probably more than casual volunteers indicates to me that what we have here is a failure to communicate, in spite of all the readily available, easily understood program documents and training. So to reiterate OGE's question, why is that? what needs to

Pack212, Yes the Government may limit access to certain services but the point is to modify your statement at bit, " The list goes on and on, but the jist is that the GOVERNMENT is ALWAYS making a decision on which part of the population a program is aimed at. " It's the government's money and they get to make the call, not the enterprise that administers the program. If the BSA wants to accept government funding, expect to be told, who should be allowed to participate in BSA programs. SA

"To my way of thinking, Mr Obama said a sound bite that needs close interpretation." I wouldn't worry too much about parsing the words of a candidate for national office. They are more than likely to be different either tomorrow or next month. SA

Gunny I appreciate the response. My point was that this issue, like many BSA policy and procedures issues is not fully documented in any one easily accessible source. Different documents use different phrases to describe the same intent. Bob White does a good job of explaining these many documents and what their intent is. I can rephrase my statement earlier regarding confusion and apply it to the average adult volunteer. Even those that take basic training. Even after a decent explanation, there still seems to be confusion as to when it is or isn't appropriate for a scout t

One person's "common sense" is another's special interest. As one with a generally Libertarian outlook I don't see why the Government should be funding the BSA, GSUSA, Country Clubs, the Knights of Columbus, or any other private organization. If your going to be private, be private. Don't expect to accept government funding without strings attached. Ask the Catholic Charities that accept Federal funding. Ask any contractor that works for the government. Ask anyone who recieves government grants. The public means all of the public. Not just the part of it an organization choose

Thank you for the clarification BW. Very clearly put. In this thread however, no fewer than 5 different references have been provided by at least three different involved and experienced scouters, all relating to this one description of what an Eagle Scout Project is or isn't. Is it any wonder a 15-17 year old youth might get confused about the process. SA

While I concurr with many of the sentiments expressed, I must admit to a selfish reason for signing on as an adult. The primary reason was to assist to the best of my ability to help the unit provide the best possible scouting experience for my son. As one of the few adults who were involved in the unit that had had previous scouting experience I saw where I could help a unit that was struggling a bit. Since signing up, my son has Eagled/Aged out and is off to college in the fall. I continue to be involved with the unit for many of the reasons expressed, not the least of which is the a

When you remember when engine size was measured in cubic inches. When you thought gas at $0.50/gal seemed outragous. When you remember when there were no Mets, the baseball team in Philly was the Athletics and in Milwaulkee the Braves, and Pittsburgh was a baseball town. SA