About me

This is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all."--Pericles, on Athenian values, 431 B.C.

John C. O'Connor

Like many who register by Party, I do so mainly to vote in primaries and not just elections. I register as a Democrat because the Party platform tends to come closer to my personal views than any other. However, I have only voted a Party ticket in the last few years. I still read the National Review and other conservative outlets because I grew up often persuaded by the likes of Bill Buckley. However, I think the Republican Party has lost its mind and soul--and I don't think a 'third way' is viable.

So I am now what those in power may see as a Democratic activist. However, I am only active at the local level; my way of making amends for a career spent promoting central authority.

I spent over three decades at the IMF and World Bank, designing and managing systems to support decisions by central governments about how and where to allocate resources. I took early retirement in 1995, having successfully pioneered a new way of making such decisions (see Washington Post article, here). The World Bank routinely updates and modifies such metrics; most recently here.

I left because I think our democracy requires more 'bottom-up' decisions. I now work on systems to support decentralized, market-oriented allocation of resources. A practical example is my work with a start-up in Montana, sciGaia.