ENROLL IN PERSON - August 1 - 29, 2011 - Hurlburt Warrior

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Page 6 | Hurlburt Warrior | Friday, July 29, 2011 Air Force Marathon announces guest speakers 2079334 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs Report WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio— The Air Force Marathon announced July 22 that Josh Cox will be the featured guest at the 2011 Sports & Fitness Expo to be held Sept. 15 and 16 at Wright State University’s Nutter Center. Cox, the American 50K record holder, also owns the course record at the Air Force Marathon, having run a 2:20:57 in 2007. The 35-year-old from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., is also a four-time U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier and a threetime U.S. National Team member. “We’re just thrilled to be able to bring a runner of Rep calls out to small businesses for contract opportunities Public Affairs Report Hurlburt Field — Air Force Special Operations Command has a new face for small businesses to meet and discuss prime and subcon-tracting opportunities. Having been on the job for two months, Cherri Duval, AFSOC Small Business Program director, is an additional support network to small businesses in the local community around Hurlburt Field, Fla. “Small businesses build our economy,” Duval said. “I’m here to help build their business and give them more opportunities in AFSOC.” Duval is accomplishing her mission through meeting local Chamber of Commerce members and providing seminars or outreach meet-ings to interested businesses in the surrounding areas of Hurlburt Field and Cannon Air Force Base, N.M. Duval said AFSOC is looking for small businesses that are innovative, efficient, and agile who will help AFSOC provide Josh’s caliber to Dayton,” said Molly Louden, director of the Air Force Marathon. “He’s a great addition to our expo, and we are lucky to have him participate this year. We work really hard to present a top-notch roster of speakers, and I think this year’s line-up really represents something for everyone.” Also appearing at the expo will be Danny Dreyer, founder and creator of Chi Running. Chi Running blends the powerful movement principles of T’ai Chi with running to create a revolutionary approach to effortless and injuryfree running. This will be Dreyer’s second year at the Expo. In addition to Cox and Dreyer, ultra-marathoner Marshall Ulrich will be on hand. Ulrich, who has run more than 100 races over 125 miles each, has also ascended the Seven Summits, including Mt. Everest, all on his first attempt. Rounding out the speaking line-up will be Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, Air Force Marathon medical consultant; representatives from the Pace Team; and Jessica Hardisky, a Dayton area yoga instructor who will offer some stretching techniques. The Sports and Fitness Expo will take place Sept. 15 and 16, with new expanded hours both days. Thursday’s hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday’s hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. All events are free and open to the public. To learn more visit www.usafmarathon.com. forces in support of conventional and special operations. Some of AFSOC mission areas are: Agile Combat Support (ACS); Battlefield Air Operations (BAO); Command and Control (C2); Information Operations (IO); Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance (ISR); Precision Engagement (PE); Shaping & Stability Operations (SSO); and Special Operations Forces Mobility (SM). AFSOC contract opportunities are mainly for advisory and assistance support service requirements. There are also two base operations offices that support AFSOC, which have contract opportunities for operational requirements (i.e. construction, services, and commodities). For more information, contact Mr. Chris Wentworth, 1st Special Operations Contracting Squadron Small Business specialist at (850) 884-1250 or via email at chris.wentworth@ hurlburt.af.mil, or contact Ms. Duval at (850) 884-2376 or via email at cherri.duval@ hurlburt.af.mil.
Friday, July 29, 2011 | Hurlburt Warrior | Page 7 Debt deals endorse ‘chain CPI’ to tamp down COLAs Military retirees, social security recipients and others drawing federal payments were tempted to grumble at Congress or the White House when the past two Januarys brought no cost-of-living adjustment. The real culprits were a deeply distressed economy that drove prices down and a logical process, set up 40 years ago, to track inflation and adjust federal payments to protect their purchasing power. Those who did complain about absent COLAs might soon have a more legitimate reason to grouse: a new yardstick for setting COLAs called the Chain Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (or C-CPI-U) First, let’s review why COLAs stopped for two years. Starting in the last quarter of 2008, the cost of goods and services fell sharply while housing and financial markets collapsed. Yet the last COLA, of January 2009, had been shaped by price data collected months earlier after gasoline prices had hit new highs. So federal entitlements jumped 5.8 percent, the largest bump in 25 years, as prices slid across the marketplace. The tool long used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to track inflation and set COLAs is the Consumer Price Index of All Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI- W). After the 2009 increase, no COLA could be paid until prices for a market basket of good and services surpassed levels reported in the third quarter of 2008, and used to set the 5.8 percent COLA. The CPI-W only cleared that milestone in January 2011. Through June of this year, CPI-W shows retirees in line for at least a 3.2 percent COLA next January, with inflation from July through September still to be measured. For traditional indices like the CPI-W, BLS creates a market basket, using spending patterns for the covered population, and tracks inflation over time based on the overall change in the price of the basket. The knock on such indices is that they overstate inflation through “substitution bias,” ignoring how consumers respond to price changes. For example, if a family spent $100 last month on beef and the price doubles, their cost-ofliving won’t actually rise by $100, economists contend. Instead the family will buy less beef and more of something else like chicken. CPI-W assumes consumers buy the same Tom Philpott basket of goods regardless of price. Critics say it fails to capture behavioral changes that soften the blow of higher prices through purchase of rela-tively cheaper goods. This issue surfaced 15 years ago in a study of the CPI known as the Boskin Commission report. Since then BLS changed how it calculates CPI-W and another index, CPI-U, which is used to adjust tax brackets and poverty thresholds. But the BLS changes could only address substitution bias within product categories, to capture how consumers might buy more of a re-gional brand of hot dog versus a more popular national brand. The C-CPI-U, which BLS established in 2002, addresses this, tracking not only prices but changes to a representative market basket month to month. It then “chains” months together to calculate overall cost of living. Adopting the Chain CPI to adjust entitlements has been recommended by every group looking for ways to address the federal debt crisis. That includes two bipartisan commission reports from last winter: Vice President Joe Biden’s debt-relief working group of Republicans and Democrats, and the “Gang of Six” senators whose blueprint for combining spending cuts and tax increases won an enthusiastic nod this week from President Obama. Besides providing a more accurate measure of inflation, the C-CPI-U would save roughly $300 billion on entitlement spending over just the first decade after it took effect. It has its critics, however. They argue the Chain COLA ignores the fact that quality of life is impacted if consumers replace products they prefer with products they can better afford. For individual federal retirees and Social Security recipients, the Chain CPI would dampen current COLAs an average of 0.25 to 0.3 of a percentage point per year. If we assume over time CPI-W will show a 3 percent inflation rate, the C-CPI-U would be 2.7 percent to 2.75 percent. That difference is expected to grow more pronounced over time. Let’s look at how a 0.3 percent difference would impact a retiree receiving retired pay of $2,000 a month. With a 3 percent COLA, retired pay would climb the first year to $2060 a month versus $2054 with a 2.7 percent adjustment. After 10 years, the retiree would be drawing $2,687.83 a month using CPI-W but only $2,610.56 using C-CPI- U. The $6 monthly difference after a year becomes a difference of $77.27 a month over decade. BLS itself doesn’t endorse using one index over another for adjusting federal entitlements. But Steve Reed, a BLS economist, helped put perceived strengths and weaknesses in perspective. “Economic theory certainly suggests that demand for a particular good is related to price. As price goes up compared to other goods, we tend to demand less of it,” Reed said. The Chain CPI strives to capture the impact of substitution across prod-uct categories, Reed ex-plained. It does so by measuring actual expenditures more often and readjusting the weighting of products and services in the consumer’s market basket. “The weight arguably could be said to be more accurate because it is mostly free of substitution bias,” Reed said. Expenditure data to support the Chain CPI isn’t available immediately, however. BLS month-tomonth can only make estimates and the index must be revised twice before it becomes final two years after initial publica-tion. Critics contend that makes the Chain CPI unsuitable for setting COLAs. Tom Philpott is a syndicated columnist. You may write to him at Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111; or at milupdate@ aol.com. 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ENROLL IN PERSON - August 1 - 29, 2011 - Hurlburt Warrior

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