Mike Causey

Welcome Back, (Almost) All Is Forgiven

If your body and brain have been away, or on hold, for the last couple of weeks, welcome back. Senior Correspondent Mike Causey brings you up to speed today sta...

Federal News Network Staff

September 8, 2008 4:00 am

3 min read

If you’ve been out of the office, out of town or just out of your mind over the past couple of weeks, welcome back to reality. This is it.

Here’s a quickie update on what’s happened, what hasn’t happened and where things may be headed on the job-front. You can click and choose. First some badly-needed good news about your TSP investments:

After a string of negative return months, most of the funds in the federal Thrift Savings Plan posted some positive numbers last month.

The treasury-securities G-fund was up .33 percent; the bond-indexed F-fund was up .92 percent, the large cap C-fund posted a 1.46 percent gain and the small-cap index S-fund was the big winner, going up 2.17 percent.

The only loser in August was the international stock index I fund which was off 1.6 percent. Oil prices and the Soviet invasion of Georgia were not the primary reasons for the dip. Instead, TSP insiders attribute it to the strengthening position of the dollar against both the pound and the Euro. It’s always something.

G Fund

F Fund

C Fund

S Fund

I Fund

August 2008

0.33%

0.92%

1.46%

2.17%

(4.16%)

Year-to-date

2.54%

2.18%

(11.33%)

(6.42%)

(17.68%)

12 Month

4.16%

6.09%

(11.06%)

(6.89%)

(14.71%)

L Income

L 2010

L 2020

L 2030

L 2040

August 2008

0.35%

0.29%

0.16%

0.17%

0.11%

Year-to-date

(0.32%)

(2.53%)

(6.45%)

(8.01%)

(9.49%)

12 Month

1.26%

(0.86%)

(4.97%)

(6.62%)

(8.13%)

Shutdown Forecast

It’s possible, but not very likely, there could be a short-lived government shutdown on October 1. Don’t lose any sleep over it, these are mostly threats, but for an update, click here.

Bonus Christmas Holiday???

If past practice means anything, many non-emergency feds have a good shot at getting a bonus day off on the Friday after Christmas. If that happens folks who plan ahead could get lots of time off by using up only a small amount of annual leave. So what are the odds? Click here.

Raise For Retirees

Most retired federal and military personnel are looking at a January, 2009 cost of living adjustment raise of 6.2 percent. The final figure won’t be determined, based on a rise or fall in the Consumer Price Index, until mid-October. Meantime, for the latest on the COLA countdown, click here.

Kenneth H. Glass

Ken Glass, retired benefits director for the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees died last week in Florida. He was 65.

Ken retired from NARFE last summer, 7 years after retiring as a top official of OPM’s benefits operation. He was a terrific guy who, like many in the HR business, genuinely liked to help people. He was a big help to those of us who cover the federal community. Thanks Ken!!!

Nearly Useless Factoid

One of England’s tabloid newspapers, The Daily Mail suggests we all wear clean undies on Wednesday. That’s the day the new gee-wow Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to fire up for the first time. The Mail reports a lawsuit aiming to stop the debut claims there is “a small – but not zero – chance that when the LHC is activated it will create either a mini-black hole which would fall into the ground and swallow the Earth from within.” Either that, or maybe the action could “trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the very fabric of space and time itself, which would rip apart the entire universe like the skin of a bursting balloon.” Personally, I have enough reasons to wear clean undies without knowing this.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com