Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Perspectives, now and then

We all have them; and, like opinions and other discarded detritus unworthy of further consideration, we can replace them with others.  It is what Plato warned against in his allegorical narrative about the shadows against the Cave walls, and how the true form of reality was presented only after we were unshackled from our lying eyesPerspective, now and then, or “now” as opposed to “then”, can change. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: The Negative Interest Rate

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, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1956 version of the film (the only one worth watching) was in black & white, and created a sensation among French Existentialists for the greatest horror committed upon a human being: to strip one of all human emotion, and transform the person into a robotic automaton of sorts. Camus’ novel, The Stranger, reveals a similar theme through the titular character, Meursault, where the absurdity of life, the indifference of humanity, all serve to compel him to commit a murder without reason or rationale, in a universe without emotion — until the very end when, faced with the certainty of the guillotine, […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: House of Cards

We have all built them as children; those shantytown assemblages like the poverty-stricken and make-shift huts constructed by corrugated debris gathered from refuse and discarded materials, flimsy and ready to collapse, if not by architectural fault lines, then certainly from the sudden and malicious puff of air emitted by one’s younger brother or sister tiptoeing  up from behind in a sneak attack.  The House of Cards — they test the dexterity and patience of one’s character, and simultaneously represent anything built on a precarious foundation, including business ventures, family relationships, and of life itself. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government: The Run

Stockings and watercolors do it; time, with quietude and solace of a steady march, moving with predictable sequence like the consistency of a drumbeat; and, of course, the rhythm reminiscent of cardiac health, as do joggers and concerned citizens chasing down a purse snatcher to retrieve a possession of identity. And life, too. Sometimes, there is a good “run” of something — a lengthy period of calm and productivity, where all of the pistons of a complex and interactive mechanism akin to a turbo engine […] Read More …