Promised Update

The new year - a snake year brings us many wonderful new opportunities and challenges. North Korea is more nuclear than it was, some seem to be quite worried about it. File that one under "challenges". There is a job opening coming soon at the Vatican, polish those resumes up if you're from the 3rd world. Internet rumors have it that the church, not to be outdone by the US is leaning towards a black or third world Pope for a change. If you're from the third world I think you've got more pressing concerns that race quotas in hiring but I want to wish all the candidates in the economic south well in seeking the post - good luck fellas, I'm quite sure you can't see this from there. Internet rumor quality what it is, the smart money is on a Polish or Japanese Pope instead. File under "opportunity".

I have another opportunity for consideration, a savings opportunity for the country. There is a lot of hand wringing and posturing about budget issues; Admirals cutting ship maintenance and telling the administration publicly it can't meet commitments and JOs over at the USNI blog suggesting senior leaders resign in protest, coincidentally opening up promotion opportunities for themselves. No need for the high drama, there are many simple cost-savings measures and if you recall, this blog believes sequestration is only a good start.

One reason I believe the sequester is a good start is the US Navy Reserves. As you know I've been in a simmering feud with them for some years regarding my final retirement status. Recently the 3 star in charge there has decided to appoint an ethnic employment champion for Hispanics whatever that means. Apparently, if you are from the Iberian peninsula, and blond you are not Hispanic. So they can do away with that six-figure salary person first, and this admiral who clearly has misplaced priorities. I think he's angling for a position on the Hon. Sen.  Rubio's presidential campaign staff for a 2016 or 2020 presidential run. Another reason is the DoD has long resisted common sense money saving ideas that other agencies had instituted long ago. Here at the DoC, for instance, we've altered printing habits and reduced printers inventory.

Originally I criticized the idea as too small to make much difference, and possibly counter-productive as printing volume will not decrease proportionally with the printing capability resulting in higher wear and tear on equipment, lost production time and reprints as documents are lost in shared printer schemes where office partners don't get along well. I thought it was a piece of low hanging fruit; shaving the hair off the elephant to reduce its weight when there was still a charging elephant to deal with. It might weigh a wee bit less without its hair but it might also be more aerodynamic and it's going to hit you with approximately the same force it would with the added weight of its hair. Still, the idea is a potential money saver (the jury remains out) despite the cost in man-hours to plan the excess, ship and strip equipment, re-network offices, increased wear and tear and the loss of sunk costs related to discarding equipment not yet halfway through its service life. In some cases, older printers were retained for special abilities newer (cheaper to operate) printers did not have.

Despite the idea having little proven merit, the printer reduction idea is one good example of an attempt however half-witted it might be, that the DoD resisted until just a few weeks ago when it issued a directive to reduce printing. The DoD directive was less extensive than the DoC one, in that it did not require draft quality printing of images and prohibit color but it is so late to the party as to be useless in realizing any immediate savings. Toner, paper, and maintenance contracts for existing soon to be discarded printers in inventory are sunk costs already misspent.

Okay so this sounds like a lot of complaining for nothing. Where is my big idea? In 2009 I put together a small paper and submitted it to the White House as a savings idea when they solicited ideas from government employees. My little idea might have helped then and still might help. In the beginning it would have saved over $75 million dollars, now I don't know what it might realize but I'm putting it back out there again here for reference.

Eagle and the Owl.