Stosh

I was deprived as a child. I didn't start camping until I was four. My two younger brothers started at

When the smoke settles the question always remains, do we have NSP's that are trained separately, progressed in training together, develop bonds in Scouting and hang out with their peers, or do they get mixed in with other patrols, progress at various rates, miss out when the patrol goes on HA, etc.? Mixed patrols must cater to their lowest common denominator in order to remain together. If little Joey can't handle the trip, 1) he stays home or 2) someone in the patrol babysits him on the event. All responsibility for Joey remains with his buddy. Not a good formula. But then let's have an adult ready to step in if there's a problem. Even better? Not really a working solution in my book. I hear so many of the dynamics of adult-led being bantered around under the disguise of boy-led, it is almost comical. If the new scout is not prepared, are we not going against everything BSA is founded upon? An unprepared new scout, is he not opening up all kinds of litigation doors for everyone when it comes to safety? Of course the adults have to step in and take over, it's the only way it's going to work. Theoretically the have the experience and training to handle it. It is my contention in a boy-led program, the boys should have this experience and training. NSP - All newbies with a PL or TG that will train the boys in the scoutcraft ways. When the boys are ready they make a small foray into the woods, pushing their skills, but not endangering them. Next time we go deeper into the woods because now they have experience, but it's experience that is controlled by a PL or TG that is looking out for them. Older boy patrols - All trained, experienced and jumping at the bit wanting to take on HA challenges that they are entitled to have. If they are going to be retained in the program, this enthusiasm should be encouraged and cultivated. Mixed patrols - New scouts in over their heads and older boys bored out of their skulls. Yes, it's an over-generalization, but to a varying degree very valid. The boys should be deciding what they want. If a group of older boys wishes to take on a couple of Webelos boys, recruit them into their patrol? No problem, but it's their decision! Maybe a bit of attrition has knocked their numbers down anyway. They take charge of the training and development of the new boys. They forgo a lot of HA opportunities because their little buddies aren't ready as yet, but they aren't doing it necessarily for themselves. Maybe the newbies get pushed to their limits, but the majority of boys around them have made a commitment to take them under their wings and through training and experience get them up to speed. On the other hand if the older boys don't want that responsibility, but prefer to do nothing but plan and go on HA, why not? If the patrol of Eagles were to sit around waiting for the Troop to do HA, they might have to wait forever because there will always be newbies that can't go or will be told they have to stay behind in order for that to happen, or in the interest of troop camaraderie, no HA is ever on the schedule. The whole troop is catering to it's lowest common denominator, not just a patrol. For me, a lot of the attrition of the older boys is not because of girls, cars and sports, it's because they are bored to death and want out. They'll hang around long enough to get their Eagle and then they're history. Under this mixed system, I don't blame them one bit. Give me a group of 8 boys that want to do HA and they can plan and do anything they want as often as they want. Yes, I have been involved in two HA trips in one summer. It can be done! The NSP goes off to summer camp and the older boys go off to Philmont, BWCA, Isle Royale, Sea Base, etc. Not a problem for anyone. Otherwise in mixed patrols, half the patrol goes to summer camp and the other half goes to Philmont. Maybe two half patrols merge up to make a contingent. That does nothing to promote continuity in the patrols. Patrols of convenience do not build strong ties that retain scouts. A few studies in group dynamics might do well for some of these troops. Right now in my troop, I have more boys over 17 in my troop than I have under 12. It works. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

1) Why would the NSP be heading out on any activity they are not pre-trained to handle? 2) Why would the NSP be heading out on any advanced activity the are not experienced/trained to handle? Sounds a bit like cart-before-the-horse kind of attitude on the part of the adult leaders. Surely in the interest of safety, these things would not be allowed in the first place. I'm thinking allowing the NSP on wilderness survival weekend is a rather stupid idea in the first place. There should be a wee bit of SM approval for the boys to do patrol activities whether it be with or without adults. It's a judgment call the SM needs to be responsible for. Just because the Webelos boys crossed over on Sunday afternoon, does not mean they are going on the troop outing (car camping or not) the following weekend. Sending a boy out there without some T-FC training is rather irresponsible in terms of safety in my estimation. Your mileage (and risk level) may vary. Stosh By the way... Even if the troop is using mixed boy patrols, putting young boys out in the field without proper training is irresponsible. At least with NSP's, all the boys of the patrol would be left at home until they were trained, not just a few from each patrol, whereby cutting the effectiveness of all the patrols in the troop.(This message has been edited by jblake47)

I'll hold my blue ribbon for a moment on the post. "Onehour, you just described the main problems of Aged Based Patrols. As you found out, if your new scouts are to get anything out of the program, the adults have to jump in and help to make it work. That goes against the advantages of a boy run program. I have never seen an aged based troop that didnt end up the way you described.." We tend to have age based patrols and if the new scouts "aren't getting anything out of the program" the adults DON'T have to jump in unless their are an adult-led program anyway. If it was a boy-led program, the TG should be stepping in to help make it work. An effective TG would be able to do the same as an adult and yet retain the boy-led method in the troop. Maybe the comment should read: "I have never seen an aged based adult-led troop that didn't end up the way you describe.." A properly run boy-led program would not end up the same way OneHour is experiencing. There is nothing wrong with a TG jumping in, doing his job, and still retaining an effective aged based patrol program. I guess I'm hearing too much necessity on the part of the adults to interfere, but tend to be more in IM_Kathy's camp. "Beav, you are correct. Big troop=adults have to help. One boy (SPL) and his underlings cannot handle 86 boys (about to be 100+). I expressed the concerns (and did ask for advices here as well) on how to keep the influx to a decent roar. Right now, we are 60% boy lead and 40% adult help (not leading ... we never stand in front of the boys nor do or tell them what to do ... we simply nudge them with poignant questions. I constantly help my SPL with the planning with again questions and querying." If the boys are being trained by each other, why would big troops need to have adult "help", aka interfere? One boy, of course, cannot handle 100+ boys. Heck, most adults can't either. That's why big troops need the patrol method rather than the troop method. SENIOR PATROL LEADLER means just that, he is the #1 support for the PL's of the troop. The PL's run their patrols and the SPL and his ASPLs support the PL's in that process. SPL, with all his experience and training, should be passing that on to his PL's. Don't need an adult to do that. PL's should be designing their own program for the patrols. PLC need only concern themselves with organizing inter-patrol considerations. The CEO of an organization does not need to know what Joe Shmoe is doing in the plant. He has a plant manager to concern himself about his plant supervisors, who in turn worry about the shop foremen, who in turn are responsible for keeping Joe busy. Adult led troop method means that when Joe screws up, the CEO jumps in and makes it better. Just because the NSP is having trouble doesn't mean some ASM needs to step in and start asking questions. It's the TG assigned to that patrol to roll up his sleeves and get to work! The TG's main goal is to teach the NSP's PL how to do leadership for his boys. Again, no adult intervention is needed. If everyone basically did their jobs as they were trained by their predecessors, there would be no need for adult intervention at all, ever! No troop gets to the 100+ size without longevity and if the troop grew up boy-led, patrol-method, the youth leadership would have been trained the first year and passed along as the troop grew over the years. Of course if they weren't taught and the adults maintained the true leadership of the troop, these dynamics would never have developed and constant adult asking questions, prodding, poking and interfering would be necessary to keep the boys on task, i.e. do the leadership for them. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

Our new scouts can decide to do it one of two ways. 1) Select a PL from their ranks and request an older boy of their choosing as their TG to help them in the start up process. Boys are warned that this will reduce their opportunity for leadership development within the patrol members. The TG will help guide the PL in running the patrol. He may not have sufficient natural leadership to be able to progress rank and develop leadership in the APL position at the same time. 2) Select a PL from the older boys of their choosing. The PL then rotates the boys through the APL position whereby they learn leadership from the older PL who leads the patrol and develops the leadership at the same time. No TG is needed. One of the two methods is selected by the patrol and the patrol can recommend their choice of leadership to the SM who will decide what's best for the boys considering their choice in method. An older boy PL will need to leave his current patrol and align himself with the new scouts. An older TG will not need to leave the Officer patrol do assist the NSP, but he may have to leave his regular patrol to align himself with the Officer patrol. The SM needs to evaluate all these factors for assigning leadership to the patrol. If a boy is promoted to PL of the NSP, he will need to leave behind his other responsibilities if he has any to take on the task. Not everyone is open for that. A TG would conceivably move from a patrol to the Officer patrol and operate from that support position. Both may entail leaving behind their buddies in their patrol in order to take on a focused approach to the NSP. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

scouting again: having assets is not the same as having wealth. Let's take a bridge for example. Land is a bit trickier. The government bids out to private industry to have a bridge erected. They purchase it though values they did not generate, they only took it from the citizenry in the form of taxes. Not a real problem here, it benefits the citizens to have a bridge. They only pool other people's wealth, coordinate the building of the bridge and then give that wealth to the actual builders as payment. Okay, now the government has an asset which it acquired through the taxes of others. Those funds are now gone and all we have left to show is a bridge that will immediately on day one begin to deteriorate. Now the government must hire contractors to maintain the "asset" bridge. More money from others in the form of taxes to pay for this process as well. Maybe the government has employees who do this, but it is still an out-pay of payroll that reduces the value to the government. The government is not selling services to it's citizens, it is only taxing them for the purpose of providing civil infrastructure. To a certain degree most tax payers will go along with this. What wealth does the government hold? An asset that if left alone will deteriorate and become worthless. So they must continually expend further resources to maintain it. That means it must continually pay to have it exist because it's value is generally declining without such expenditures. The value of Land on the other hand is pretty much stagnant. Government buys it, and "preserves it" It is not a valuable asset because no one can buy it from the government. It was land merely taken off the market. Of what value is that? Unless they decide to take raw material off the land. Then they of course get private contractors to do that and pay them payroll to do so. Or they have private contractors come in and pay a minimal fee for the resources in return for their acquisition. With the government contracts out there for this process, it is obviously pretty much in favor of the contractors to come in and do this. No one is going to come in and lose money so the government can make money. If more money is going out on this process to contractors than is coming in, the government is loosing value in it's land values in the process. In order to gain real wealth a business, organization, etc. must have earned income by providing either product or services. The government provides services but generates no real income, only tax revenue which is set by policy, not value of services rendered. The value gained by the government doesn't correlate to the income required, thus the government can spend $30 on a hammer because it simply says so. All value derived by the government is what it simply states, not what in fact is any sort of reality. In other words there is no market regulation, definition or discernment associated with it's processes or policies. In the private sector of income/expense/profit, these would need to be narrowly defined and adhered to in order to be defined as successful. Stosh

If I have a SMC with a boy, it is not pass/fail. If he hasn't done the work and still wants a BOR, the SMC is complete and the requirement fulfilled. If the board is lenient and passes him along, so be it. If they postpone their decision until later that's okay too. Either way the SM has nothing to do with the process. He/She only has one requirement, hold a conference with the boy. End of discussion. Stosh

This is the area where Scouting and I tend to disagree quite a bit. Voting is of course the American way of doing things, of selecting people to function in behalf of others. However, it is not a fool-proof system. And in the final analysis of the situation, do we want our troops run as effectively and efficiently as the US government seems to run things? If so, accept it as is and let it go. It's not going to be an effective, well run organization under these circumstances. I have been involved in other screening processes that are far more effective. In the business model, multiple candidates are evaluated and vetted by committees for the position before one of them is offered the position. This at least weeds out those who are not qualified and the decision is made by knowledgeable people. In the religious call process, a single candidate is evaluated and vetted by a committee and if they are qualified, they are offered the position, otherwise the group goes on to the next candidate, evaluates them, but they never back the process up. If the first person was the best and the last person was the worst, they end up with the worst. Of course there is the dictator model as well where a single individual selects who he/she thinks is the best qualified person. Similar to the committee selection process without the discussion/consensus option. As SM I select all leaders in my troop by the dictator model. I watch the boys to see which one can and will do the best job for the troop and offer him the position. The success of the troop is solely in the hands of the SM who makes those decisions. If I think Joe will do the best job, he gets the offer. If not, I reserve the right to pull the rug out from under him and replace him with another leader. Kinda like getting fired for not doing the work. I do not have elections ever 6 months and live with the problems for 5-6 months until the next election. The troop can't afford to have someone slack off for 6 months and have everyone in the program set back that amount of time. Being the "dictator" means I may not choose the best candidate, but select a promising new up-start that would like to give it a shot. I can then put the best candidate in an assistant role and help support my decision, kinda like the gentleman who won the OA position but relied heavily on the vice-Chief to get him up and running. Nothing wrong with this dynamic. I just can't see wasting everyone's time for 6 months while Mr. Goof-off tries to run the troop as SPL when he was elected because his buddies thought it would be a great joke. Nope, never going to happen on my watch. Right or wrong, that's the way it is done in my troop by me. I have the backing of the CC and if they don't like it, i.e. I'm not doing my job of running a successful program for the boys, they can, with my blessing, pull the rug out from under me and put someone in there that will do what they want. Every organization has a way of selecting it's personnel and it would seem that the voting by charisma which tends to happen most often, seems to produce the least effective organization. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

Sorry to pop your bubble on this one Beavah. Wealth is a result of real, not created value. Let's look at it this way. Your have a $1M in General Mills stock and a second $1M in cash. I'm a farmer sitting on $1M worth of produce. The market collapses because someone said so! The only reason it was "valued" at $1M was because someone said so, the speculated, bartered, bought and sold and convinced everyone that the business had some sort of virtual value, i.e. assumed paper wealth. Okay with the collapse of the economy the cash (which has no backing except the say-so of the government) becomes worth pennies on the dollar so it's worthless too. Just have the government start printing up more dollars and see how much "paper wealth" is really associated with it. And then we have the farmer who's sitting there with $1M worth of food and a shotgun. Who's house is everyone going to visit. The wealthy man's house of course! The people stop by and say they want to buy some food. They have worthless stocks and worthless cash and even some relatively worthless gold and the farmer says, no sale. He knows where true wealth lies. When and if the jewelry business ever starts up again, there might be a market for the gold, but the rest is worthless, it had no real wealth to begin with. At least with gold, the world has for thousands of years said and agreed that it has value, i.e. wealth so aside from it's metal properties, it is a fairly good trade commodity. But most of the metals are necessary for civilization if nothing more than to make weapons to protect one's wealth, i.e. food, clothing and shelter, all those items related to manufacturing, mining and agriculture, those items necessary for subsistence survival of civilization. Economy collapses... and if you are one of the few that know how to manufacture things out of raw materials, grow food, and produce clothing, i.e. weave wool off of sheep you've raised and shorn, you will recover the fastest because that's where the real wealth lies. If I need food I talk to a farmer, not a stock broker. The only reason the stock market falls is because people say the stock they want are no longer worth the price they are willing to pay and thus it falls. Do you want to welfare of the civilization based on the whims of the public? Nope, that's why we have such economic indicators like the Dow Jones INDUSTRIAL index. We talk in terms of GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCTS, i.e. how much we produce, etc. They measure real wealth with those indexes and people speculate beyond them. Ever wonder why the foreclosure market is in such disarray? Too many people owning their own homes? Nope. Not enough people owning their own homes. If you have a mortgage you do NOT own your own home. The bank does and you're slowly buying it from them over time. If you don't pay them, you are in breach of contract and the bank simply states you don't need to pay any more but you need to move out of the house so we can sell it to someone else. It's got the fancy legal word FORECLOSURE associated with this process, but one you strip away all the fluff, that's exactly what's happening. Everything you have yet to pay for on credit really belongs to someone else and you cannot take credit for having it as wealth. It truly is paper wealth at it's finest. This is why an over credit extended economy is so fragile. It fell apart in 1929, and again last year. Those that don't learn from history are destined to relive it. Stosh

As long as one isn't sleeping overnight at a traditional Klondike, I'm thinking the Winter Awareness Training should be fine. I've never taken either of the two classes, but have been camping in the snow for years. Just from the titles, a basic class in keeping warm and watching for the signs of hypothermia should do you just fine. Talk to someone who teaches these classes and they would be the best to answer your question. Kinda surprised no one has jumped in on this question. Stosh

I practiced LNT and "green" stuff long before it became the politically correct thing to say. Doing is a whole different animal. 1) Hauling out large bags of garbage isn't my idea of a good thing. I don't want that mess in my vehicle to stink it up for the 4 hour ride home as it leaks whatever into the carpet of my van. 2) I don't like the idea that the campfire seconds as a burn dump. 3) A mess kit is the epitome of recyclable cook/dinner-ware. 30 years ago everyone brought their own plates, cups and silverware to a potluck. Now no one does. The move to a "greener" attitude just doesn't bode well in a hypocritical environment. What we have experienced in this area is a lot of lip-service, but a reversal of actual practice. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

If the uniform is not required, some units allow for partial uniforms and some don't, when in doubt, wear a suit and tie. I would much rather see a scout in suit and tie over a half-done uniform. A boy showing up in a coat and tie wearing blue jeans looks sloppy and has no place in a scout activity especially a ECOH. Half a uniform doesn't cut it either. If I have to wear a suit and tie for work and don't have one, I buy one! It's the cost of doing business. And as a personal note, if I was applying for a janitorial job at a local business, I would still show up in a suit and tie for the interview. I may be a bit old-school, but Scout Spirit is involved here. Your mileage may vary. Stosh

Oh Beavah, one must always be able to know the difference between paper wealth vs. real wealth. Let's say a farmer has land assets of $1M from which he borrows against to buy seed and fertilizer. He's doing well and making a living growing, let say corn. Okay, the market drops out of the equation and overnight the market says his land value is now $500K. Where did the wealth go? It never existed except in the minds of people. The farmer, unlike the miner, can't just go back in the mine and dig out twice as much iron ore to make up the drop in value. You see the wealth of the farmer is not in his land, it's in his crop! Genius John R&D department of XYZ company comes up with a new bright idea and patents it. It's worth something until the patent runs out and now it's worth nothing because everyone else gets to use it for free. The miner still is sitting on his huge pile of iron ore and is planning on going in the mine to get more. He's acquiring real wealth in raw materials the same way the farmer acquires real wealth in growing corn. I buy some XYZ stock and think it's real wealth until the stock market falls and Bingo! I'm broke. I only had paper wealth, not real wealth. I'm needing to buy iron ore, I have paper wealth, the market collapses, I got nothing and the miner still has a pile of iron ore. Because the government does not produce any real wealth, when the market goes, so does the government. Because the government has only paper wealth, it's only source of "income" is the wealth of others, it taxes them or prints money. If it takes from the private sector, that is wealth it does not have to spend and thus the market drops. The farmer needs to plant more corn and the miner needs to dig more ore to make up for it. But because the government took money out of the hands of the consumers, they don't have the money to spend on corn and ore. The market slows even further and the downward cycle begins. Printing money on the other hand is counter productive for both the government and private sector people. That's why every one is trying so hard to keep inflation in place. To think that consumable assets and paper wealth is real wealth is only a trick played on the people to think they're wealthy. Ask the people who's retirement savings went down the toilet with this last recession. There's no real wealth in the speculative market of stocks and bonds. This is why such market indicators such as Dow Jones INDUSTRIAL is important to know. It constantly evaluates the location of real wealth. Big banks faultered with the fluctuation of interest rates. Where did their wealth go? And so the farmer wants to know where his wealth went? Nowhere, its still sitting out in the silos. The miner is still sitting on his pile of ore and when the market settles down, they will again make money. The investors who lost it all have nothing from which to make money again. They didn't have any real wealth in the first place.

I realize it's for Cub Scouts, but there are far better way than having 100+ ziplock bag all over the place and egg all over the boys. I used to do Webelos outdoors training and never had a problem for cooking for large numbers of people. In this case they were a bit fussier than a bunch of young boys that will eat basically anything. For them, it was scoop and go kinds of meals. Large pots of Minute Rice or noodles with something to dump over. They could use paper plates, plastic plates, mess kits, Frizbees, or whatever. A scoop of rice, a scoop of sauce, NEXT! Our training had only two leaders for the whole group and between the other fella and I we prepared the meal while the other was teaching. By the time lunch rolled around, it was ready, we ate and were back in class in a half hour. Clean up was a couple of pots, a couple of spoons and a garbage bag. Depending on your audience, adults, Cubs or Scouts, there are far easier ways to prepare good meals fast that don't involve a ton of preparation and hassle. Day hike for the boys (Cubs) was usually a hot foil dinner. Each boy got a Ziplock of preprepared food and another of charcoal to put in his pack. Got to the site, collected up the charcoal, started a fire, put the foil dinners together, ate, put everything back into their ziplocks and took it home. No big deal. Long before I got into Boy Scouts, I already knew how to mess kit cook. I had done many shore lunches over the years with my dad and all we used were mess kits, but it was always a hot meal. Trail mix and granola bars don't make a lunch in my book, when there's a ton of great food out there that doesn't take much to prepare. Pan fried Sunnies and buttered bread, washed down with a little Koolade, and we were in heaven. If we didn't want to mess with the mess kits, put the fish on a stick and knock yourself out! I built a fire while he filleted the fish. If we used the stick and drank out of the canteens, there were no plates, utensils or cups to clean up. Food was good and so was the time spent "fishing" with Dad. Stosh

Actually I don't relish the plastic taste that one picks up off of items made of it. However, seasoning generally covers the off flavor for me. I don't use an aluminum mess kit except where weight is a concern. The mess kits don't heat as evenly as steel/cast iron. Normally I use a steel mess kit (military) and works pretty much like cast iron. I do have a small stamped steel fry pan I use because the handle is longer than those on the mess kits. It's the next best thing to cast iron, it's a bit lighter in weight, but works pretty much the same. The cup is not aluminum or stainless steel either, it is tin. The only concern is the heat on the lips when you want to drink coffee out of it. Generally I use it more as a boiler (which I also have, i.e. tin mug with cover) and transfer hot liquids over to a regular coffee cup to drink. It also gives a chance to avoid more coffee grounds that way. Generally we emphasize the patrol-method and do NOT have adults eat with the boys unless specifically invited by them. Therefore the adults pretty much cook for themselves. The one advancement requirement of cooking over a wood fire an individual meal is what I do all the time. Most troops that use the troop-method and/or patrol-method generally cook for larger crowds. This tends to induce people to use short-cutting processes in food prep that involves more simplicity. However, if the boys equate camping with simplistic foods, it's a shame. I equate camping with "gourmet" foods. If simple foods take better in the outdoors, "gourmet" foods are fantastic! I do large group cooking and nothing's better than sweet-and-sour pork/chicken over fried rice when you're out cooking. Or maybe a nice pot roast in the dutch, or double boiler scrambled eggs, dang I'm getting hungry. Stosh

Boy-led means nothing is banned, but they have to live with the consequences of their actions. We have lost boys due to cell-phones and that has reduced their use in the troop. Poor meals have produced boys not wanting to eat with their patrols and so that has improved as well. I find that the boys are beginning to see why some adults get concerned about certain aspects of things needing to be "banned" and once they make the mistake of experiencing a poor choice, they tend to avoid it next time. Stosh

Sorry Beavah, R&D is a speculative venture which is a consumer department of any true company. Until their "research" is put into production and starts to generate wealth for the company it only consumes resources of the business. Actually the people referenced to by Woapalanne are correct, mining, manufacturing and agriculture are the only real wealth producing entities. All the rest either capitalize on it (middle-men) or consume it (general public and government), but they don't produce wealth itself. And as far as the roads the government builds? No, they are contracted out to private industry to build. Tang may have been developed by the government, but private industry turned it into a money making operation. B2 bombers aren't build by the government, the are built buy private industry under contract and the government is merely a consumer of these items! The military is only a consumer of wealth under contract to private industry to provide what the government specs out by bid. And the government cannot be compared to "big business" in any way shape or form. In order for "big business" to succeed it needs a means to produce actual wealth rather than just consuming it. It needs a balance of income to expense with more income than expense to survive (profit! Duh). The government's "income" is not a result of it's producing wealth in any way shape or form, it merely takes (taxes) it from the people. Then it consumes (expenses) itself as it sees fit. Governments cannot exist as business model. No government, by virtue of its definition, can produce wealth. It only takes wealth (taxes) from its citizens to provide for the safety and welfare of it's citizenry. To a degree this is a very good thing. Out of control, it's proven to be a disaster. It's always been a semantic thingy when people tout the idea that the government produces things like bombers, satellites, roads, buildings, etc. when in reality all these things are contracted out by government bid to be built by private industry. Boeing may be a government contracted company that provides bombers to the government, but they are a true company that also produces airliners for the commercial market. Ever notice that the old C-47 military cargo plane of the mid-20th Century looks remarkably like the DC-10 flying civilians from city to city. Air Force One, except for the paint job, looks a lot like the planes the airlines have at commercial airports... Just like American Airlines writes off 747's as an asset expense, the government does as well through bid contracting paid for by the taxpayers. However, American Airlines produces wealth by providing service to the general population to pay for it's planes whereas the government merely taxes it from the people with nothing but "security and protection" in return. Like I said, the only real "business model" in the US government might be defined as the US Postal Service, but the rest of the government is merely consumer. As far as I know, the USPO does not contract out to anyone except for maybe raw materials so it can make stamps, etc. And as everyone knows, the government run "business" isn't doing all that well, which speaks volumes as to how much the government knows about the true business models of capitalism. Stosh

I'm seeing zip-locks as a quick fix solution to expediency on Sunday mornings. So be it. However, nothing beats a tin cup and spoon for any and all cooking needs. Heck, the mess kit is a luxury in my book. A large metal cup can do any and all cooking with the use of a spoon and pocket knife. Soups, stews, eggs, oatmeal, coffee, tea, etc. all work in the cup, it can be cleaned up quickly and sanitized over the fire. The mess kit does the steak and eggs, and other "fine dining". Cutting corners is okay as a means to play with one's food and/or teach alternative methods of preparation. However, Philmont oatmeal recipe might do on the trail, but for every day cuisine, I wouldn't recommend it. A baked potato and steak can be prepared in a microwave oven. For me, it just isn't worth it for expedience sake. Stosh

It's rather ironic that the adults don't want to be evaluated on job performance (another thread) yet will turn right around and dump on the kids the very thing they despise. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Stosh

The boys decide in our troop and they tend to hang together in age-based buddy groups. This means if the NSP wants to hang together for 7 years, so be it. Works for us, your mileage may vary. Stosh

With clean-up it always astonishes the boys that I clean out my mess kit with sand and water from the river. Best scouring pad there is. Handfuls of grass work pretty well, but take a bit longer. AAAAHH! What about sanitation? Hold the mess kit over the fire until it's way too hot (well above 212-F) That sanitizes it with no problem. I never use soap on my dutch oven or cast iron fry pans, so why would soap and bleach be necessary on my mess kit? If food particles are all cleaned out and the items are heat sanitized, you're done. Soap and bleach are necessary for plastic silverware and plates. And I don't have any zip-lock bags to pack out either. Stosh

A uniform is not required. Jambo requires one, but if push came to shove, I'm thinking that could be waved too. Stosh(This message has been edited by jblake47)

I don't use POR contracts and probably will never do it. My alternative to the problem is SMC and BOR's. During my SMC's I always ask my boys what they have to brag about having held a POR since last advancement. If they have nothing to brag about, I have them advance on to the BOR without any ammunition in their hip pocket. I know my BOR people will ask such questions as: "How did you enjoy being PL (or whatever POR)?" If the boy has nothing to say, they recess the BOR until he does. Works every time. It allows the boy to fail, but it also allows the boy to correct the problem on his own. Don't need a contract for that. And so the boy doesn't have a clear understanding prior to taking on POR? TRAIN HIM IN HIS DUTIES! Now he knows what is necessary and if he does them, he could kill off 90% of his BOR bragging about his POR. If he doesn't do any of them, he's going to have the deer-in-the-headlight look when he gets to the BOR. Is this borderline re-testing? No, it's an honest evaluation and an opportunity for the boy to take some well-earned pride in his accomplishments. It's all in the hands of the boy. It's more of a covenant he has with himself rather than a contract with the troop. Total ownership in the success and/or failure of the process. Stosh

Beavah, I'll agree that the government has done a lot in the area of R&D, but it has been the private sector that has produced the overall wealth. TV, and communications satellites outnumber the military necessary satellites by quite a bit. I don't disagree that the government should not be a consumer of wealth in order to protect the populace, but keep it in mind that wealth generates from non-consumer sources, i.e. "big business". Tang, Velcro, etc. are a number of the more successful wealth producing private industries that have picked up on the government's R&D in the space program. There are a lot of others besides just these two. But the only benefit the government receives on these items is the tax revenue they demand, sales tax, income tax and whatever other kind of tax they can think of. None of which produces wealth. Government contracts can't be considered wealth producing because the government only consumes these items, it does not produce them. Private industry under contract does. The workers in these industries get paid with government money just as much as they do from other sources, i.e. Goodyear Rubber company may have a contract to produce Jeep tires, but Goodyear also pays with money derived from the private sector general consumer for their cars and trucks. It's a little like the difference between a sales department in a large corporation and the IT department. Sales directly influences the acquisition of customers to buy the products thus generating wealth for the company. The IT department does not and only consumes the resources of the company. I'm also thinking that in the long run the GPS system implemented by the US government, contracted out the manufacturing of the satellites, and then provided the means to put it in orbit on a rocket manufactured by private industry and now makes no money off the process because I don't know as there are any people paying the government for use of the satellites. Here again, I see the government as a consumer of private industry's wealth producing capabilities and doesn't really generate wealth on it's own. The US Postal System is the closest thing I can think of that produces it's own wealth by offering postal service to the nation. Unfortunately in recent years they have been faltering along the wayside. 83Eagle: I don't see the government as taxing productivity in as much as they are appropriating wealth. If a farmer plants a 10-cent seed in the ground and it produces $1 worth of produce he has generated 90-cents worth of wealth that didn't exist anywhere before. Same for the manufacturer that takes basic raw materials and produces a product to be consumed by others. There are those who through other efforts produce wealth, i.e. the burger flipper at Micky D's who through his own efforts produces services for others to consume. Same may apply to the factory line-worker who puts parts together to produce a product. All of these people are "paid" for their efforts of self-generating wealth. So then, what does the government do to produce wealth? It doesn't because it is a consumer of wealth. It takes the wealth of others from them and pays for it's "free" services it provides to the general public. To a certain degree this is a necessary thing, i.e. military, transportation, public education, etc. However, there has to be a balance so that the government does not take so much from the wealth producers that it can't sustain itself. There will come a time when the wealth producers can't make enough to sustain the demands of the government and then the government will collapse. This is why the socialist countries find it so hard to grow at the same rate as the free market systems. Take China for example. They saw how this worked, cut out the government interference in the market system and it exploded onto the world's scene overnight. We in the US are doing just the opposite and our economy is declining. Stosh

In any economy there are only two kinds of income checks, those that come from private industry and those that come from the government. All real wealth comes from the private industry side of the equation. Private industry generates wealth out of producing product and services. It is a self perpetuating system. Even if the system totally collapses, which by nature can't, private bartering will continue and those that can create wealth will prosper over those that don't. Even in a subsistence economy, it self-perpetuates itself. History has proven this over and over again. On the other hand governments rely on the creation of wealth from the private sector to survive. It takes from that resource (taxes) and produces support, protection, and governance. To a certain degree this is a good thing. However, if the government takes too much wealth from the private system, the system can no longer sustain itself and will collapse. The perpetual increase of governance getting something for nothing will cause this collapse. My welfare check means that someone's wealth other than the government entitles me to receive wealth without any investment on my part. A sweet deal for a lot of people. But if the balance tips too far and the system that generates wealth cannot sustain such a burden it collapses, the government has gone to the well once too often and it too will collapse. Governments are not prepared to produce wealth. Socialist forms of governments have tried, but just can't seem to produce sufficient amounts of wealth to sustain themselves. Those that refuse to learn the lessons of those who have tried before us are destined to repeat their mistakes. Stosh