Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
What does it mean to be an “Edwardian”? The reign of Edward VII was brief, but its influence is often extended to periods both before and long after in an aggregation of understanding “trends” that were noted, and often idealized. It is a period of little interest to most Americans, except perhaps when there is some vague reference during a period of a royal scandal or a royal wedding […]
They are unseen, but exist; and like zombies that wander through the nighttime skies as mere shadows in a one-dimensional universe, the concealment of hardened hearts can only be kept secret for a short while. Where does the apex begin, and the downward spiral begin? At what point does one possess a hardened heart, […]
It has been widely commented upon, by naysayers, essayists and various commentators upon life’s winding course of pessimism, cynicism and some rarefied sprinkling of optimism, wherever the “isms” will take us: we are crippled from an early stage of life by being fed Fairytales and Fanciful Fantasies, and then pushed out the door to deal with the reality of the real world, which are NOT like the storybook tale. […]
In periods of economic stagnation, where mass hoarding by depositors results in a slow-down of commercial activity, rising unemployment and deflationary returns on value-for purchase in all sectors, the idea that depositors must not only deposit, but further, pay regularly to keep their money with the bank, would at first glimpse appear counterintuitive. Perhaps that was initially the brain-child of some half-crazed Economist — that one with the frizzy hair appearing on Sunday Shows who had won the Nobel Prize for Economics many decades ago because no one quite understood what he was talking about, […]
Caricatures often depict an exaggerated degree of undesirable characteristics, whether for comic effect or sleaze of meanness. The totality of the person or entity described is rarely the reality of the grotesque aggregate of the negative characteristics, but one can still see the relative truth of validation in the aspects shown. Such caricatures, too, can be either internal or external; the latter being the depiction from the perspective of someone “other”; the former comprised of the totality of one’s self-image, […]
The entanglement of work with value and worth is an inescapable aggregate of custom, upbringing, time spent, and the egoism of leaving some indelible mark upon an otherwise implacable universe. Where work resulted in income, and income the cumulative wealth of a lifetime, the driving force behind it never mandated the fury of necessity. Of course work has always been tied to livelihood; that is a given. But when the doors for credit, mortgages exponentially exceeding an imbalance beyond capacity to repay, and the idea became accepted that luxury need not be left for tomorrow, […]