What I learned from the Gov Shutdown

This is just from observing the news and 24/7 hardship news stories. But after missing one paycheck 800,000 federal employees were lining up at food banks and soup kitchens. They were not going to be able to make their house payments and were going to be foreclosed on. They were going to miss their car payments and the cars were going to get taken by the repo man. Pawn shops were doing a brisk business taking in federal employees family heirlooms. And the entire Nation was simply falling apart at the seems. And the Federal Employee Union making the claim that the average Fed employee on had a take home pay of $500 per week (Which is just not true unless they are only counting the lowest paid entry level positions). Then of course the multiple news stories and segments telling how the shut down is have a terrible impact on my life.

Lets just say this is all true and accurate. Would that not mean our federal employees are some of the most unprepared and financially incompetent people in the USA? If missing one or two paychecks sends you into bankruptcy, foreclosure and repo and then forces you into pawn shops and breadlines aren't they doing something drastically wrong in their personal finances? 800,000 btw is less than 10% on the Federal payroll which is from what I can put together around 9.8 million total if you count Active duty mil, direct paid contractors and postal workers. But the real point of interest to me was just how financially incompetent, dependent and unprepared the 800,000 were if you take the flood of media reports about them at face value.

Personally I am in awe of the sheer amount of GDP that it takes to support 9.8 Million people on the Federal Payroll. And that is not including the people on Welfare. The Military and the Government to do what the Constitution Mandates the Federal Government to do would make up around 36% of that 9.8 million. But that is a entirely different point of confusion fer my backwoods brain

 

Maybe the .gov needs to do a 6 - 12 month shutdown. It would be like a master reset button for the country.
It may thin the herd a good bit , and put things back in to perspective , and make a nicer more polite society. Maybe ? Maybe not.

 

Nailed it! Most .gov jobs start @around 18 an hour plus bennies, and salaried net around posisions 60K a year starting, with the average of 80k as the standard! I know guys working port jobs making over 80k, and up! The ones really effected were the low end of the .gov pay spectrum, like parks and rangers, TSA and mil! The normals like USGS, BLM, DOI, DOJ, and other swollen rank agencies were NOT affected one bit, and even if they missed a few paychecks, likely had several months worth of savings to tide them over!

 

Many agencies were already fully funded for the current FY and have not been impacted. All employees that have not been paid, even those that didn't work, will be paid in full when it's over just like every previous shutdown.

Some people will be in a tough spot over things outside their control. Yes, most Americans live day to day, but even those that set aside savings can and do get wiped out by medical expenses - in these days of $1-$2 k per month fees and $5k deductibles you can zip through savings pretty quickly.

I hate to say this, but if the furloughed employees are non-esssential, then why did we hire them to begin with? I do tip my hat to essential employees that are still working without pay.

 

What I noticed about the shut down...

I had renewed my ham license back in November. Still waiting for my renewed license to appear in my mail box. I did go online and check the status, it says it has been granted, so far as I know, I'm good, butt, due to the shut down, I may not get it for a while. Since it seems the FCC must have been included in the shut down. Would have to take the test all over again. Brain don't work like it used to.

 

Well , in reality , there may be a few that may have a sob story that'll kind of tug at one of my heartstrings for a second. But the fact of the matter is , they have this little problem for a short period of time , and will at some point get full reimbursement of missed wages.
But for me , I'm a self employed residential contractor , when the economy goes belly up because of some dipshit .gov beauracracy crap , or some house lending scam that shuts down the housing industry , or some illegal alien walks across the border and under bids my job by a grand or so , who's going to pay my lost wages , or start a go fund me account for me and my family . You think I'll recoup any of my losses ? Nope . It just means I start out all over again somewhere , somehow. Which means it's up to me to plan ahead for the circumstances that are not in my control. None of my paychecks are on a regular basis , so , someone that has that steady paycheck should be able to budget their money and put some back for these instances.
But , then again , I put myself in this position , as I chose this profession myself. I chose to be self employed , instead of depending on someone else to herd me around from job to job.
So , now they're getting their pay and back pay , and another check or 2 before the 15th of Feb. if they don't come to an agreement by then , another shutdown will happen. How long before they'll all be spouting off about the poor .gov workers not getting their paychecks ?

 

Shut it down.

 

THIS.

 

Yep.....was the same for many years. EVERY DAY you wake up unemployed unless you get off your ass and do something about it.
Used to hear people moan about "being on a fixed income", and I'll tell them the above and ask how the heck I could get on that deal.

What it teaches you is put away money in the good times for the lean times......something federal workers with a near guaranteed "fixed income" apparently have never had to learn.

 

There is a single group affected by this that I have sympathy for: the Coasties. They operate under .mil pay scales, so essentially mouse-nuts pay checks for the enlisted rating by and large, and the O's aren't all that well compensated either. But in addition a lot of these folks have to survive on the local economy - housing and food. The gov doesn't put up barracks or married housing at the small boat SAR stations. The guys rent from the local economy. (try that in Wild Wood/Cape May during the beach season). So they get Barracks and Quarters allowance and a per diem to cover. The single rated folks have to band together and share an apartment, while married and O's can usually manage an apartment or small house. These are the ones suffering.

 

I bet none of them thought about taking out a TSP loan if they even contribute to it.

 

I didn't receive a paper copy when I passed the extra. I'm not sure they mail them out anymore. I printed mine from the .gov website

 

You need to request paper copy from the FCC. They don't automatically send them out like they used to, and the ones they do sent are just on plain paper.

 

Odds are if they are paycheck to paycheck they already have a personal loan against their TSP and can't apply for a second
one.

 

You can only have a loan out against tsp for 10 months. Otherwise the remainder of the balance goes on a 1099 and you count it as income.

 

Okay, I've never ever had to prove my HAM license to anyone, be it another HAM nor has the FCC came around to check on me. I have a call sign, it is legally registered with the FCC, so I'm guessing, if they no longer issue paper copies, then I'm good for another ten years - if I live that long and continue in the hobby.