Thread: What YOU can do to fight back - IFT limit

Ooo. Your good.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by James48843

Call for information and help:

Can anyone help identify who are the staffers he talks about? Which Seante and House staffers deal with this issue? Which EXACT committe is Trabucco meeeting with? If we know the right committee, we may be able to track down the names of the right staffers.

Thanks for anyone who can help answer that question.

Senator Carl Levin is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Govt. Affairs - here is their website

http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fu...1&Initials=PSI

I've written to Levin once already about this, and he never replied (and he is my senator, I live in Michigan).

I had written to FRTIB Exec. Director Greg Long about 3 weeks ago, and just received a reply from him yesterday. Basically, it's nothing we haven't heard already. He says that trading costs are seperate from administrative expenses, and that trading costs are rising because of frequent trading by a small number of TSP members, and that they have to do something about it. He seemed unwilling to acknowledge any of the points I raised in my letter. About the only thing he did acknowledge was that the Code of Fed. Regulations does currently allow unlimited IFT's, that that they would have to go through the formal process to change that (post a notice to the fed. register, accept comments, respond to the comments, etc.). So, we need to watch closely for when they do this, AND FLOOD THEM WITH COMMENTS OPPOSING THIS CHANGE.

I also received a brief e-mail reply yesterday from Jim Sauber of the ETAC, saying that he would raise my concerns in the meeting with FRTIB tomorrow.

What I find interesting is that I have not heard from either of my elected representatives.

Originally Posted by James48843

Call for information and help:

Can anyone help identify who are the staffers he talks about? Which Seante and House staffers deal with this issue? Which EXACT committe is Trabucco meeeting with? If we know the right committee, we may be able to track down the names of the right staffers.

Thanks for anyone who can help answer that question.

Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security (FMBIS). List of Members:
http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fu...Initials=FMBIS

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. List of Members:
http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fu...out.Membership

Last Hearings were in ’03 and ’04 re FRTIB/TSP
http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fu...FRTIB&x=19&y=7

This is very interesting – the 7/04 Investigative Letter from Senator Collins into Review of the Contract Between AMS and FRTIB http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/040707frtib.pdf


The only thing I’m not clear on is that in ‘03 and ‘04 The Committee on Government Affairs, Chaired by Senator Collins handled the investigations into the FRTIB. It seems however that the issues of FRTIB fall under the Subcommittee’s purview. I say go to the top first, the Committee on Government Affairs, Lieberman and Collins since Senator Collins handled the investigations in '04.

PS I'll look for the contact info, teles, fax, addresses if you decide who and/or these are the congressmen you want to contact.

anidoc,

I have bookmarked your excellent find for future reference and YES this is a big deal. I plan to contact ETAC about this but want to wait and fight one battle at a time. I feel we control the battle field at this point and I do not want to spread our limited resourses, James, to thin.

Right now we need to STOP the FRTIB from plowing through these Interfund Transfer (IT) restrictions.

We need to get the word out about www.tspshareholder.org to all of our TSP friends. I hate to be a "pump monkey", but this is the first and only TSP advocate we have right now. ETAC has been in the shadows since before 1987 and we are making advances in getting them public.

Originally Posted by anidoc

This is from the GAO report on the FRTIB audit. I know I've already posted it, but I really think this is an important point that we have not stressed enough. It might not hurt our cause to include it in our letters. We're simply doing on our own what the L funds were developed to do, and we're doing it better.

“In 2005, FRTIB introduced Lifecycle funds without an amendment to FERSA because it determined that the Lifecycle funds are combinations of the five existing funds tailored to different time horizons for withdrawal. FRTIB developed these funds partly based on its analysis of inefficient participant behavior whereby participants were not periodically shifting, or rebalancing, their investment portfolio or diversifying their balances among the five funds, which the Lifecycle funds would do automatically for the participant."

And, I have given both anidoc and Miss Piggy much deserved reputation. Thank you for your time and work. That is what we need a network of TSP participants learning about how our retirement work.

Summary:

1. FRTIB can pretty much do what every they want as long as no one speaks up. And, even if you speak up they can do what they want.
2. There are 3.8 million TSP participants and Greg Long has gotten 10 comments about the IT limits. Boy that is weak.
3. Basically no oversight by the DOL or the Subcommittees that are suppose to keep tabs on TSP. The GAO has made some mighty fine remarks in their report about what a loose ship TSP is and they are not even close to industy standards in reporting and they want to use 401k industry standard on IT.
4. FRTIB are a bunch of good ol boyz that are Presidential appointees that are protected by law from being held responsible for bad decisions. Golden parachute.

Thanks Miss Piggy for your work. It is very valuable, and will be in the future.

Right now, we have to do what we can when opportunities arise to hold the high ground in cyberspace.

I would recommend to everyone to visit this website:
http://govexec.com/dailyfed/1207/121707b1.htm

And then do two things:

1. Make a comment in favor of NO LIMITS in the comments section.

2. Email the article to a friend. When enough of you do that, it shows up as a "most emailed article" , and sits with higher visibility for more days. And allows more people to comment on it.

Just a recommendation.

Keep your eye out for news places around the net where they are talking about the limits. IF you see one, post it in this tread. TSPGO is compiling a listing of news articles. We need to get our side of the story in print. If we see an article, I'll work to contact the author and ask for him/her to give equal time.

We have a long way to go, but we CAN win this.

I sent out emails to all members this morning. Already heard from Jim Sauber, "Thanks for your message, I will convey your views to the Board."

You'd think they'd be a little apologetic or admit that they made a mistake at least, for instituting the unlimted trade policy in the first place. And spending all those millions of OUR money to integrate the system. You ALSO think they'd be DECENT enough to let us use the system we paid for, at least UNTIL it's paid for!! <shaking my head ruefully>