The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that as part of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's effort to turn around the fight in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is planning to replace between 6,000 and 14,000 non-combat troops with contractors. This would allow the Army and Marines Corps to bring in more "trigger-pullers" without increasing the overall number of troops in theater, currently a contentious issue with the American public. With the military having experienced so many issues of waste, fraud, and abuse with contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan, however, some analysts – including this one – are questioning whether increasing their numbers will not produce more problems than solutions, including the prospect of increasingly jeopardizing soldiers' safety.

Since the phrase "too big too fail" entered the fiscal lexicon last year, I've been really curious as to why the anti-trust divisions at the Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice have not taken a keen interest in the nation's banking system. And much to my chagrin, Congress has yet to hold a hearing entitled "Busting the Banking Trust," or something along those lines.

Over the next few months, as the October 10 recipient reporting deadline approaches, expect to see many more articles such as this one out of New York City. Apparently, the city is having some problems with estimating how many jobs are being created through teh Recovery Act. With the Office of Management and Budget leaving it up to recipients to estimate/guess how many jobs are being created, such articles are going to be inevitable. The question is whether or not OMB decides to do anything about it, and rework the guidlines for Recovery Act job estimation. A good place to start? Introducing a more effective full-time equivalent standard, or the number of hours that constitute a full-time job. Right now, states can decide on their own what constitutes a full-time job, which makes it difficult to compare projects across state lines. Standardizing the full-time equivalent across the country would be a great first step towards taking the guesswork out of job estimation.

Image by Flickr user sensesmaybenumbed used under a Creative Commons license.

It looks like government-sponsored Citigroup has ambled back to the racetrack, cash in hand, ready to put big bucks down on Long Nose in the third.