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Mr. Moderate

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I am an early baby-boomer, growing up in Orange County California during the 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1964 election, I strongly supported Barry Goldwater, even though I was too young to vote (just 17). I still consider myself to be a Goldwater Conservative.

After high school, I tried college, but for various reasons, I didn't do well. So, after I was granted a 1-A draft classification, I joined the Navy. Discretion is the better part of valor, and while I was glad to serve my country in the Navy, I didn't care to be a target for some other jerk serving HIS country. I made it to Vietnam a few months after the Tet offensive.

After President Ford finally brought our involvement in Vietnam to an end, the Navy decided it didn't really need as many people as it had, and I was encouraged to leave. So, I did, and like many former military veterans, I joined the "military industrial complex." I worked at that for a few years, and then leaped all the way out into private enterprise, starting a series of high-tech companies. But I never hit it big with any of them, and lost my shirt a couple of times along the way. That is the nature of a free market economy: few will succeed and many will fail.

I now work for a "Fortune 50" company, still in high-tech of course. But outsourcing means I will never have anything that even resembles job security. My best hope is to somehow manage to keep working until age 70, at which point I will qualify for the maximum amount of Social Security I can ever hope to earn. After that, it is all about where to live to stretch those dollars to the max, as my 401K can't be relied upon to provide anything resembling a retirement income.

http://www.mrmoderate.com/

OpEdNews Member for 177 week(s) and 0 day(s)

6 Articles, 2 Quick Links, 23 Comments, 0 Diaries, 0 Polls

6 Articles

Monday, September 21, 2009
Doctor Affordability: Pay Them Salaries!
(18 comments) The one major prescription we need to write to control healthcare costs is this: put doctors on salaries! The current system gives every incentive in the world for doctors to run up the costs of healthcare while minimizing the quality of patient care. Is that what we really want? NO! So pay doctors salaries based upon quality outcomes, as they do in other nations.

Saturday, September 12, 2009
“Non-Profit” Healthcare is a Non-Solution
(7 comments) This article argues against forming non-profit entities as part of health care reform, using the history of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield system as an example of where that eventually leads. There must be a real "public option," which must at a minimum be "Medicare for all." President Obama's plan grades at no better than a C- in my opinion, and I would personally rather see him propose a bold plan and await the 2010 election.

Friday, October 24, 2008
End Social Security Republicans
(6 comments) Republican rhetoric about "redistributing the wealth" and "socialism" exposes their long hidden desire to end the Social Security system as we know it. Clearly, Republicans want to cut or eliminate the Social Security taxes, and the best way they can eventually get to that point is by demonizing "redistributing the wealth."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Cindy McCain's Keating Profits
(2 comments) This article highlights the profits of Cindy McCain and her family from the McCain family involvement in the various scams run by Charles Keating. This is a point not usually made about the significant corruption inherent in John McCain's membership in the so-called "Keating Five" group of senators, an involvement that cost the US taxpayers billions of dollars.

Friday, September 26, 2008
No Bailout; No Way!
The scam Henry Paulson is pulling on the American People is now obvious. He can't want to buy mortgages or we would be giving money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Instead he wants us to buy derivatives, which are casino bets that can represent either huge profits or huge losses. And which of those do you think Wall Street will sell to us?

Thursday, September 25, 2008
What Neocons Ignore
(2 comments) This article contrasts the true conservativism of Barry Goldwater with the new conservativism of the modern Republican Party. True conservativism is rooted in the ideals of "liberty and justice for all." Those ideals are now best pursued by siding with the Democratic Party, as the Republican Party now tends towards fascism.