Pat gets a well-invested no-prize for bringing us a"for dummies" look at that rarest of birds, a successful federal program. In this case, it's the Thrift Savings Program. Why should you care? As noted above, it seems to actually work; it's also one of the programs the Bush administration is putting forward as a model for re-vamping social security. I know of a few financial bloggers out there, I'll try to shop this link around to them and see if I can get them to comment. If that happens, I'll link in updates on this story.