IN COLD BLOOD

Why is that hard to conceive?
The Fed and US Treasury are practically one and the same. Corporate HR departments and boards infested with EO and Affirmative Action hires doing jobs for the government are typically little more than “yes men” for government contract officers who control their budgets. I’ve seen whole contracts and payrolls cancelled dumping scores of employees because budgeting officers failed to renew yearly budgets for defense contracts simply out of personal vindictiveness. A whole new set of people will roll in to do the government’s fickle bidding.
Civilians with more loyalty to the company than each other will rat each other out to management so it’s hard to find friends among backstabbers who’d merit any personal confidentiality. Some of the worst of them typically are the HR people who hire, fire, and take real complaints. Keeping a personal secret is hard with some people when their life becomes their job. It’s a blurry moral line for many when you choose a friend over a mortgage payment.
I’ve worked for several defense companies on the same contract (Raytheon, Lockheed, CACI) over the years and know for a fact many commercial manufacturing and communications companies have government contract sections that pull in significant dollars in conjunction with their civilian sides. Losing government revenue can be devastating especially if you’re a government hire living contract to contract. I’ve seen co-workers roll from contracts to government and then work with the same people a few months later … so I know certain people and loyalty can be bought with a few dollars and the promise of a pension.

Survival is hard if you get separated from the herd. Law of the jungle works as well in the Big City among the pavement apes as it does in the savanna. If you have a hard time “staying gray” in cities always go in a group and avoid crowds.
A few years back I’d go into NYC’s Chinatown for a day to eat or get a haircut for fun with the wife and kids. We’d park down near Canal Street area then walk around the markets with tourists until the Occupy Idiots showed up and started camping. I utterly refuse to go anywhere near NYC now.
Back 30 years ago I’d drive from out near Ayer, Mass and take the Red Line train in from Alewife Station for a day in Boston. The human freak show in and around the MIT and Boston College area was obvious, even then.