If you still don’t believe in the seemingly magic powers of compounding interest and consistent savings, consider this: As of the end of September, 155,334 Thrift Savings Plan participants had balances of greater than 1 million dollars. That’s some 50,000 more than a year ago.

It’s not all compounding and steadiness, though. The stock market has been booming. That adds accelerant to anyone’s savings balloon. Still, the millionaires have been contributing for an average of about 29 years.

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board reports that the single largest account balance hit $9.3 million. If you that’s you, or you know who it is, I’d love to find out how you did it.

It’s true the markets had a bump after the election. Those gyrations tend to be transitory. In the long run, stocks have ratcheted up, making time and patience the regular investor’s most important commodities.

Four million participants have less than $50,000 in their accounts. They’ve been contributing for six years on average.

Of course stocks have done well. Federal Drive regular Abe Grungold, who retired three years ago as a TSP multimillionaire, recently lamented having moved his funds into the G Fund when stocks swooned briefly last summer. He didn’t lose, but he missed out, by his calculation, on a $225,000 gain.

Progress at the MSPB, repeat offender at the IRS

The Merit Systems Protection Board has just a few dozen cases from its lack-of-quorum era backlog of appeals. The number, several thousand then, was now down to 128 a few days ago.

In one case, they upheld the removal of an IRS employee who failed to file his 2016 return until late in 2018. When confronted by IRS managers, he made up a cock-and-bull story (my word). The Board noted that “willful failure to timely file his 2016 Federal tax return [is a] violation of section 1203(b)(8) of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.”

Get this: He was a repeat offender! The review of his unsuccessful appeal noted “he had specific knowledge of section 1203(b)(8) … and the need to retain proof of filing his Federal tax returns based on his prior removal for the same reason in 2004″ (emphasis mine).

The MSPB-watcher who referred me to this case has his own case pending. He said that this week marked “the 2,500th day since we filed our PFR [petition for review], and 2,800 days since we set foot in the door at the MSPB!”

The wheels of justice do turn, but sometimes slowly.

Burning for a dream job in the desert?

Ever wanted to attend the Burning Man festival? You can get paid to go. The Bureau of Land Management is looking, via USAJobs.gov, for a project manager to oversee an “IDT”, which I think stands for an interdisciplinary team. The job comes with a 20% incentive fee, and it’s a GS-12 Level 1 position.

The Burning Man website describes next year’s theme as “an invitation to imagine the future in new ways, and to make it real through our collective actions.” It “will showcase Burning Man’s global culture of art and innovation.” This event has grown vastly in scope, and so it pulls in federal participation, given the thousand and thousands of people who gather each August in Nevada’s BLM-managed Black Rock desert. The Burning Man people say their confab is the BLM’s largest recreational event of the year.

The BLM’s point person, though, will deal with more mundane matters then expressive art. You’ll “independently plan and coordinate work, develop cost estimates, track costs, monitor progress, and provide status briefings to management at various agency echelons.” The chief physical demand: “prolonged hours of sitting at a desk and working on a computer in an office environment.” Hardly cavorting around the Playa among tech millionaires and drifters in the dusty sunlight. Still, BLM added, “Standing and hiking in adverse climate may be required for fieldwork.”

The job requires working out of BLM offices in Winnemucca, Nevada, population 8,261, and soon to be 8,262. A cool-looking desert spot, the city features an annual Ranch Hand Rodeo if that’s your thing. Come to think about it, maybe I’ll ride my Harley out to Run-A-Mucca next year, the city’s annual motorcycle and music festival. Unlike at Burning Man, they don’t burn an effigy there, though. They burn a bike.

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