Employee Thrift Advisory Council

[Show-me]

Fifteen members of the Council that we can speak to about TSP related issues, if you can find out who they are.

I asked 40 people at work all with more time in service that me. Do you know who the Employee Thrift Advisory Council is or what they do?

No one heard of them!

We need to let the Employee Thrift Advisory Council (ETAC) know that they are not accessible to us, the participants or TSP. They have no Web site and there is no link or information on the www.tsp.gov Web site.

I feel this is a important point to make with them and the Board.

I would like for us all to send a email to the members of the Council and tell them:

As Thrift Savings Plan participants, I would like to have better access via the Web with a link on www.tsp.gov to all members of the Employee Thrift Advisory Council. As of now there are no known Web access other than a obscure source called the Federal Advisory Committees Database.

 

[RAE]

Fifteen members of the Council that we can speak to about TSP related issues, if you can find out who they are.

I asked 40 people at work all with more time in service that me. Do you know who the Employee Thrift Advisory Council is or what they do?

No one heard of them!

We need to let the Employee Thrift Advisory Council (ETAC) know that they are not accessible to us, the participants or TSP. They have no Web site and there is no link or information on the www.tsp.gov Web site.

I feel this is a important point to make with them and the Board.

I would like for us all to send a email to the members of the Council and tell them:

As Thrift Savings Plan participants, I would like to have better access via the Web with a link on www.tsp.gov to all members of the Employee Thrift Advisory Council. As of now there are no known Web access other than a obscure source called the Federal Advisory Committees Database.

I agree, Show-Me. We had a heck of a time even figuring out who all the members of ETAC even were, and how to contact them. That's not right. I will e-mail several of them tomorrow with the message that they need to be more accessible. so that TSP members can easily contact them when we have concerns or input about TSP matters.

 

[Show-me]

The people I spoke to at my work looked at me like I was stupid or something. Most have 15 plus years and said that they never heard of ETAC or even that they had a advocate working for them.

If we accomplish nothing more let's get the Council more accessible to us the participants. Please.

 

[Show-me]

National Association of Postal Supervisors
Louis Atkins, Executive Vice President
1727 King Street, Suite 400
Alexandria, VA 22314-2753
Phone (703) 836-9660
Fax (703) 836-9665

National Treasury Employee Union
Collen Kelley, National President
1750 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
(202) 572-5500

Uniformed Services use:
The Department of Defense
Attn: Colonel Adrienne Fraser-Darling, USMC
1400 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20310-1400
Note: No solid address yet, but this is close. I will work on it some more.


National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO
James Sauber, Research Director and
Employee Thrift Advisory Council Chairman
100 Indiana Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001-2144

mailto:JSauber@NALC.org

(202) 393-4695 or (800) 424-5186 for NALC Retirement Dept.


American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO
Myke Reid, Director Legislative Dept.
1300 L Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

(202) 842-4210

NARFE National Headquarters
Richard Ostergren
606 N. Washington ST.
Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: (703) 838-7760 Fax (703) 838-7785

National Association of Government Employees
John Albanese
159 Burgin Parkway
Quincy, MA 02169

617-376-0220
toll free: 866-412-7762
Fax
Executive Office: 617-472-7566
Legal Department: 617-376-0285
Membership Department: 617-376-0469
Communications Department: 617-984-5695

American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO
Susan Thomas
80 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

(202) 737-8700
comments@afge.org

National League of Postmasters
Charles W. Mapa, President
5904 Richmond Hwy, Suite 500
Alexandria, VA 22303-1864

O: (703) 329-4550
F: (703) 329-0466
E-Mail: cmapa@postmasters.org

Federal Managers Association
Darryl Perkinson, President
1641 Prince St.
Alexandria, VA
22314-2818

Phone: (703) 683-8700
Fax: (703) 683-8707
E-Mail: DarrylFMA@cox.net

National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association
Clifford Dailing, Secretary-Treasurer
1630 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314-3467
703-684-5545

National Association of Postmasters of the United States
Dale Goff, President
8 Herbert Street
Alexandria, VA 22305-2600
Voice: 703-683-9027
Fax: 703-683-6820
General e-mail: napusinfo@napus.org
Note: It has the contact name listed as Oscar Goff, but Dale Goff is the President.

Senior Executives Association
Richard Strombotne
820 First Street N.E.
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20002

(202) 927-7000

National Federation of Federal Employees
Richard Brown, President and
Employee Thrift Advisory Council Vice Chairman
805 15th Street, NW Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005

202-216-4420 (main) · 202-898-1861 (fax)

mailto:RBrown@NFFE.org

Federally Employed Women
Sharon Roydes, Treasurer
1666 K Street, N.W. Suite 440
Washington, DC 20006

Phone: (202) 898-0994
Email: roydes@sbcglobal.net

 

[Show-me]

I spoke to, left messages, and received messages from a number of the Council members, Jim Sauber the Chair included. They all agreed that a better way to contact the ETAC members was defiantly needed and they would act on it at the December 19 meeting.

 

[Show-me]

Keep calling!

 

[Show-me]

Meeting today!

 

[James48843]

Here are the minutes of the last ETAC meeting, held last summer. It was a bear to find them, but I finally did.

On https://www.fido.gov

You can find all kinds of things on fido.gov

Here is the ETAC minutes,
https://www.fido.gov/facadatabase/docs_meetings/2007-1489-152149_Minutes_(2007-08-10-15-30-24).pdf



And here is a transcript of a Thirft Board meeting itself:


https://www.fido.gov/facadatabase/docs_meetings/2007-1489-149711_Minutes_(2007-04-05-16-28-11).pdf

 

[James48843]

The meeting of the ETAC took place at 10:00 am this morning. It was attended by multiple members of the press, in addition to the members themselves. I heard it lasted for over two hours, but I have not been able to hear exactly what took place.

Start watching the federal news sources, and let's see if we can pick up any data.

 

[oreo]

The meeting of the ETAC took place at 10:00 am this morning. It was attended by multiple members of the press, in addition to the members themselves. I heard it lasted for over two hours, but I have not been able to hear exactly what took place.

Start watching the federal news sources, and let's see if we can pick up any data.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6/DI2007121601820.html?nav=rss_nation/special

Kingstowne, Va.: So, do tell about the TSP meeting. I thought I recalled a discussion about this a month or so ago in this forum. There were some good ideas about not limiting the number of trades but instead allowing a few per period free, but charging the individuals exceeding that number.
Stephen Barr: The TSP executive director and key aides met with the TSP's Employee Thrift Advisory Committee, whose members are drawn from federal and postal unions and management asssociations.


The TSP staff outlined its views on the damage being done to the plan by frequent traders, who are engaging in large dollar trades several times a month, a practice that drives up trading costs in each fund. The staff has proposed limiting TSP members to two trades a month, with a waiver to flee to the G Fund if the member feels he or she has made an investment mistake with the second trade.


The union representatives were basically split on what to do, and did not make a formal recommendation to the TSP staff. Lots of questions about possible alternatives, etc.


I plan to write on this topic for the Thursday column, so look for details there.

 

[kaitlinsnana]

Sounds like the ideas we'd bounced around here were voiced. One thing bothered me:

Brown noted that frequent traders already have banded together online to oppose limits on trading. He pointed to a Web site that council members were directed to that includes a petition signed by more than 2,000 TSP participants opposing the new restrictions.
"That shows that they act collectively, at least by their own hand," Brown said. "It's a concerted effort from those upset who are sending us this Web site."


Such a "them against us" feeling.



...and this:

But Tracey Ray, chief investment officer of the TSP, said that under such a plan, a small fee of $8 or $9 wouldn't begin to offset trading costs. Instead, some participants might have to be charged thousands of dollars in fees, depending on the amount and size of their trades.

What in the world is he talking about? Is he talking about charging a fee directly related to the amount of money we move????

I don't know, doesn't sound good, but the unions did put some good ideas out there.

We'll see.

Gail

 

[ATCJeff]

Just found this...

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1207/121907b2.htm

 

[RAE]

Sounds like the ideas we'd bounced around here were voiced. One thing bothered me:

Brown noted that frequent traders already have banded together online to oppose limits on trading. He pointed to a Web site that council members were directed to that includes a petition signed by more than 2,000 TSP participants opposing the new restrictions.
"That shows that they act collectively, at least by their own hand," Brown said. "It's a concerted effort from those upset who are sending us this Web site."


Such a "them against us" feeling.



...and this:

But Tracey Ray, chief investment officer of the TSP, said that under such a plan, a small fee of $8 or $9 wouldn't begin to offset trading costs. Instead, some participants might have to be charged thousands of dollars in fees, depending on the amount and size of their trades.

What in the world is he talking about? Is he talking about charging a fee directly related to the amount of money we move????

I don't know, doesn't sound good, but the unions did put some good ideas out there.

We'll see.

Gail

This idea that some TSP participants would need to be charged thousands of dollars in trading fees is absurd, and Tracey Ray knows it. These are scare tactics that Ray and FRTIB are using to frighten ETAC and others who don't understand what the expenses of TSP really are, into agreeing to make this drastic change to our IFT rules. When you consider the sheer size of the asset base in TSP, $26 million in trading expenses is next to nothing, but they never put things in perspective so the average person can understand what we are talking about here. As James has stated previously, we are talking about an increase in trading expenses for each TSP participant from about $3/year currently, to about $4/year if the current rule allowing unlimited IFT's is continued. Is it worth it to you to lose the ability to manage your retirement funds, to save a buck a year??? We need to continue to stress this point with the ETAC folks. It sounds like they did raise some good questions at the meeting today, but it must be intimidating to face this FRTIB, who probably tried their best to overwhelm them with their biased and incomplete statistics on expenses. Don't be discouraged, we at least have prodded the ETAC reps to begin questioning these numbers from FRTIB.....we need to continue writing to them, as it sounds to me like this is far from a dead issue. Has anyone heard if they scheduled another meeting to continue discussions on this topic?

 

[350zCommTech]

Long said TSP's central concern is that in the I fund, at least, transaction costs are leading to lower returns for long-term holders. "This is not about us being paternalistic; this is about the cost and the impact to everyone else," he said.

Where is the evidence of this? I've been calculating the I fund for almost 2 years now and excluding FV days, 99% of the time, the I fund price matches the MSCI EAFE percentage changes.

On that rare occasion that the price didn't match the MSCI EAFE(once or twice a year), it was only off by a penny. Today for example, The I fund should have loss 14 cents, but instead it loss 13 cents. The I fund actually gained a penny today. It had nothing to do with rounding because even if yesterday's price had been 24.075, it still should have loss 14 cents. 24.075*-.57% = -13.722 cents.

Maybe they distribute the total trading cost among all the funds?

I would think that any cost associated with the I fund would be paid from the I fund.

 

[Show-me]

Just found this...

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1207/121907b2.htm

Wrote this in the comments section. Everyone write something.

"We felt the two trades a month allows flexibility for everyone and the ability for everyone to go into the G Fund if they get scared," Ray said. "A percentage fee is certainly an option, but we felt that would hurt the nonfrequent traders."

"Nonfrequent traders" would not trade that often or be charged a fee if we go to 2 free trades and a fee for anything beyond that.

Why is it costing TSP so much to execute trades while the brokerage houses do it so much cheaper? Who is making the extra money on the trades? Barclay?

Come on this is the second largest plan in the WORLD and we don't have some "power" to get cheaper trades. Time to renegotiate our contract with Barclay, update the TSP system, and remove the FRTIB to include Mr. Long, Ms. Ray, and possibly the so called advocates on the ETAC.

Were is the ETAC contact list? Were is web access to them? What is their phone number? Who do I call and can they make a difference?

Why are political appointees on the FRTIB and what did they do to get there? Were is the oversight by Congress and the DOL? Why do the FRTIB sight industry standards that are two trades or less a month but ignore the GAO-05-38 report advising better "Customer Service Practices Adopted by Private Sector Plan Managers"?

Something stinks to high heaven and it ain't the "3000 frequent traders".

 

[wv-girl]

Wrote this in the comments section. Everyone write something.

Here are the comments I posted.

"The proposal is a result of a recent analysis by TSP officials on the impact of trading activity on fund management and transaction expenses. Officials studied the fund with the highest costs, the International fund, and found that in September and October, the average daily trade was $224 million, far above the daily trades of $49 million in 2006 and $27 million in 2005. The TSP found that the majority of the higher trading volume was due to fewer than 3,000 participants who engaged in frequent trading."


I find it hard to believe that 3,000 participants could have such a hugh cost impact on the tsp considering there are millions of Federal Employees that make up the collective group. Are you suggesting these 3,000 frequent traders hold vast sums of monies compared to the buy and hold participants? Exactly how much does it cost for the re-balancing of the L-funds, which by your own reports, participation has grown rapidly over the past 3 years. It appears that your arguments only include pieces of the puzzle instead of looking at the whole picture. Please provide proof of your "recent analysis" of the added expenses(instead of one line per year comparisons) and explain exactly how fund management and transaction cost are incurred before blaming it on the 3,000 frequent traders. I find it reprehensible and irresponsible that after spending millions of our dollars to upgrade to the current computer system that the board would just throw it away.

 

[DrFaustus]

Just found this...

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1207/121907b2.htm

So it looks like the letters are going to go out.

 

[Wolverine]

This little bit here is where I would like to see a good lawsuit happen...................................

In the interim, however, council members gave TSP officials the go-ahead to send letters to 3,000 frequent traders, requiring them to stop their activity or face being restricted to requesting interfund transfers via mail until the automated curbs take effect.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To enforce/threaten these 3,000 people under the current way the TSP operates, before anything acutally is changed to a new system is totally a blatant, authoritarian power trip by the TSP.

Let the Lawsuits fly I say........

 

[James48843]

Richard Brown, President of a Union, National Federation of Federal Employees


"...Brown noted that frequent traders already have banded together online to oppose limits on trading. He pointed to a Web site that council members were directed to that includes a petition signed by more than 2,000 TSP participants opposing the new restrictions.

"That shows that they act collectively, at least by their own hand," Brown said. "It's a concerted effort from those upset who are sending us this Web site.".."

Does anyone else besides me find it rather ironic... that a Union President... is complaining about employees acting "collectively"?????

To petition for a redress of grievnaces???

A right under the U.S. Constitution???
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

And it's a UNION PRESIDENT who is questioning collective activity?

 

[Wolverine]

Looks like the Union President Richard Brown is rubbing Uglies with the TSP Board. ya think?