The Dance of Greed

Quite a cute competition, competitive race/dance, between Greed and Science (previous post) coming to head, approaching the finals…… (cute – but for the untimely dead this last half century – collateral damage). Strangely, the science of ‘spirit’ (the bridge, the balance) did not make the race.

I wrongly assumed we left the dark ages long ago!

How corporate megamergers are crushing US workers and consumers

Greece – This Is What You Are NOT Being Told By The Media

Every single mainstream media has the following narrative for the economic crisis in Greece: the government spent too much money and went broke; the generous banks gave them money, but Greece still can’t pay the bills because it mismanaged the money that was given. It sounds quite reasonable, right?

Except that it is a big fat lie … It was the banks that wrecked the country so oligarchs and international corporations could benefit…… not only about Greece, but about other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland who are all experiencing various degrees of austerity. It was also the same big, fat lie that was used by banks and corporations to exploit many Latin American, Asian and African countries for many decades.

A toast to your health!!!

Unbelievably fantastic wonders of modern medicine and health ‘promise’ to our children and future generations. Four to six million dollars per treatment. Imagine 70 million (one percenters) (worldwide) people will be able to enjoy (afford) good health, while the other 6.9 BILLION, 6930000000, can go to hell. (???)  Something smells like “Al Capone without the machine guns freedumb” here. Obedience, Obey sheeples, as Stanley Milgram demonstrated in his dramatic psychological experiment.

 “Gene therapies offer dramatic promise but shocking costs” 

Gene Editing Used to Eliminate a Patient’s Cancer

Removing leukemia from an infant girl in London is the first example of gene-editing techniques successfully used in human cancer treatment.

……………………………… CHOICES ……………………………….

Evolving a More Nurturing Capitalism: A New Powell Memo

Is it possible that evolutionary theory can explain how the U.S. came to have the highest levels of child poverty and economic inequality of any developed nation? I think it can. It also can help us evolve a more nurturing form of capitalism, one in which people are more caring and productive, and they place greater value on the wellbeing of every member of society.

We certainly have room for improvement. The U.S. has one the highest rates of child poverty among economically developed countries and it is harming our children. Families living in poverty have more conflict, which leads to childhood aggression and all of the social and academic failures that result from being aggressive.¹ When you are raised in poverty, it produces life-long changes in your physiology, which increases your chances of diabetes and death from heart attacks and strokes. Even if you escaped from poverty as an adult, you would have a 20 to 40% higher risk of developing heart disease.²

The New Economy

Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. Welcome to the New Economy. It is possible. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance. … more

Cultivating Wisdom – Leadership and Emotional Maturity, rites of passage, to NOT push the effortless high energy high tech button.

“…..where have all the profits gone, nothing left but space debris….”

Energy’s Critical and Evolving Relationship to ‘Economy’

Some excellent questions put forth, including…. “society has a long history of not being particularly good at proactive change. We rarely, if ever, institute policy before a trainwreck”….. Now more than ever, energy’s critical and evolving relationship to ‘economy’ needs attention, as the scientific parameters derived from advanced energy systems will make for a smooth transition.http://exploringenergyevolution.blogspot.com/

Interview: Neil Jacobstein Discusses Future of Jobs, Universal Basic Income and the Ethical…

As part of Singularity University’s Future of Work series, I had a chance to sit down with Neil Jacobstein, the…

SINGULARITYHUB.COM

So, what does economics mean?

Sepp Hasslberger  “We should take time to look also at the larger questions in human existence. We badly need to re-think our economic system…”

Humans Need Not Apply

When the machines take over Humans need not apply – YouTube vid 15min

scoop.it The video is about machines taking over more and more of our jobs. We must find other ways to have an income

Discuss this video:

http://www.reddit.com/r/CGPGrey/comments/2dfh5v/humans_need_not_apply/ Robots, Etc…

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Humans need not apply sooner than you think. Even the ‘designers’ are being replaced with ‘creative’ robot/computers.

1. One Machine to Rule Them All: 3D Printing With German Precision

   Why does 3D printing get all the love? Probably because it evokes visions of Star Trek’s famous replicator. Back here in the humble 21st century, however, it’s just one of the computerized manufact…

   SINGULARITYHUB.COM

Personhood: Corporate Training in a Nutshell

Continued overview of Corporate Personhood 

A proposed solution to the FUNDING question: the money for training, monitoring, and POLICING of corporate personhood by an independent body (not unlike Elliot Ness), will be a percentage of corporate profits – a clause to be included in the standard incorporation process – the actual percentage variable, so defense and prosecution expenses remain at all times equal (a true test of justice without monetary influence). 

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UNTIL COMMON SENSE IS RETRIEVED THROUGH SELF DISCOVERY

PERSONHOOD AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE BY LAW, NOT BY THE SIZE OF PROFITS, OR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE WITH THE CREATION OF AN INSURMOUNTABLE ECONOMIC DIVIDE IN WHICH THE OPPOSING SIDE (JUSTICE AND 98% OF POPULATION) HAVE NO MEANS, IN COMPARISON, TO PROSECUTE.

 Following is Ralph Nader’s perspective on ” a jolting update and call-to-action for urgent redirections away from the secretive, proprietary corporate science/technology that serves the narrow intersects of short-term commercialism at the expense of humans and broader global values”.

Piercing the Technology Bubble

Published on Saturday, October 25, 2014 by Common Dreams article by Ralph Nader

This weekend, October 25 and 26, I will be joining leading critics, from the United States and abroad, of corporate-controlled technologies, who are also proponents of appropriate technologies for the people (Vandana Shiva, Anuradha Mittal, Helen Caldicott, Wes Jackson, Bill McKibben), convening at the historic Cooper Union Great Hall on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth”.

The speakers are highly knowledgeable. Some of their prior warnings were ignored by policy makers. Unfortunately, many of these warnings were, in retrospect, understatements. The chief organizer of this gathering is Jerry Mander who heads the International Forum on Globalization (see IFG.org for the entire list of programs).

In 1996, Mander and Edward Goldsmith brought together several prominent writers to contribute essays to the book titled The Case Against the Global Economy. These analysts made predictions about the damaging effects of relentlessly single-minded corporate power and their corporate-managed trade agreements like the WTO (World Trade Organization) under President Bill Clinton and the newly ratified NAFTA. Eighteen years ago, these chapters seemed provocative and extreme to knee-jerk “free traders.” Reading these essays now, with knowledge of the subsequent effects of these agreements on workers, education, culture, energy, environment, media, food supply, pharmaceuticals, land use, the patenting of life forms, developmental colonialism and democratic processes, makes the book prophetic. Eighteen years ago, many wrote off this book as an exaggeration, when in fact it underestimated the damage to people of various economic statuses from both developing and developed countries caused by unbridled corporatism.

William Greider’s chapter, titled “Citizen GE,” remains one of the most brilliant succinct overviews of a global company’s avaricious reach ever written.

The book moves into proposals for “relocalization” of economic systems, currencies, communities and agriculture. Mr. Mander views this weekend’s conference as a jolting update and call-to-action for urgent redirections away from the secretive, proprietary corporate science/technology that serves the narrow intersects of short-term commercialism at the expense of humans and broader global values.

The corporate giants intent on domination through governmental proxies, shared monopoly power and propaganda, are not what the philosopher/mathematician Alfred North Whitehead had in mind when he said that a great society is one in which “its men of business think greatly of their functions.” For the corporate bosses, no matter how evident the stunning unintended consequences of their dominion, still march to the imperatives of quarterly earnings, stock prices and executive bonuses.

With such narrowly based yardsticks to measure their success, it is no wonder that the global corporations today, such as energy, drugs, “defense,” banking, mining etc. – are power-concentrating machines driven to defeat, diminish or co-opt any forces advancing contrary civic, political or economic values.

One of the least noticed, uneven struggles is that between corporate science and academic science. Unlike academic science, corporate science is not peer-reviewed, except by the ruse of some well-compensated and corrupted academic scientists – a practice known to both the tobacco and drug industries. Corporate science is secretive (aka proprietary), politically-empowered and intensely media-promoted. It is intrinsically linked to protecting and promoting commercially profitable pursuits that are often hazardous or harmful to people and the environment.

An example is Monsanto Corporation, which encompasses a global drive to use patent monopolies and political influence to change the nature of nature. Monsanto’s unlabeled, genetically engineered crops are widely unregulated, as noted by Scientific American, which said: “Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers” (July 20, 2009).

Thus, corporate science is largely immunized from proper public accountability. This leads to rapid engineering applications without the rigorous testing and peer-reviewing process required by its more moral counterpart, academic science. It is these rapid engineering deployments, as well as their misapplication and public propaganda that the Cooper Union convocation seeks to address. There is a precedent for this work. The polluting internal combustion engine was rarely challenged until the nineteen-sixties when a Caltech scientist connected its emissions to smog.

A major part of the Cooper Union conference on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth” will relate to what Mr. Mander calls “Which Way Out? Ingredients of Change.” Interestingly, there is no panel or topic focusing on the fundamental reality that there is no ethical or legal framework within which these technologies must operate. Consider GMO seeds, nanotechnology, weaponized drones, synthetic biology, medical robotics, weapons systems, surveillance devices and more! Where is the regulatory law? Where is the civic discussion of what these “machines” and technology portend for our societal and moral values?

There will be numerous presentations that urge local self-reliance, community businesses, “Indigenous Values and the Rights of Nature,” “True Cost Accounting,” and “Steady State Economics.” But there are limits to the efforts of individuals who promote local self-reliance in the civic sector. Mundane obstacles, such as Congress, cannot be ignored. The governmental arm of giant corporatism and its influence on our indentured politicians stifles initiatives to displace commercialism and corporate power.

There is no substitute for the much-needed political mobilization of the people in every congressional district to expand proven local efforts and spark a national discussion and transformation of our presently inverted priorities and plutocratic dominations (see IFG.org).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and “Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us”(a novel).

Capitalism’s EVEN Deeper Problems:

Capitalism’s EVEN Deeper Problems: the main culprit causing the great economic divide retains priority – the extremely shallow dormant E=MC2 energy perception. Life in a stagnant evolutionary energy environment can be likened to fish in a stagnant pond, they all die, including their masters suppressing FREEDOM of information. Yet today, few dare to question their most cherished BELIEFS may have gone wrong as history continues to demonstrate.

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…. Anyone yet wish to wake up to the stagnant energy concept (1940s) whose blindness permits unsustainable economic parameters?

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Repetition, repetition – sometimes understanding dawns with continued factual repition on this topic  – better than the alternative “puppets led to war with staged incidents”, “gee, we didn’t know we were going to be nuked next week”. Tools in use: nuclear weapons, thermometric nuclear weapons, thermobaric weapons, and other more advanced classified weapons.

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Note however, we are FREE, we voted from the range of those ‘selected’ for us, secure in the knowledge and wisdom of their choices, of which we have no need to know.

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Capitalism’s Deeper Problem | Perspectives | BillMoyers.com

Globalizing capitalism and its new extremes — rising prices and wealth inequalities has a remarkable historical parallel in the events of the 16th century. Should modern-day capitalists be guarding the Bastille?.

BILLMOYERS.COM

Price Gouging: The Incredible Helplessness of the Consumer

The Helplessness is a Two Edged Sword

• Divided we fall
• Our bread and butter stems solely from supporting the ‘economic/corporate system’ we work for – we willingly cut our own economic throats for paychecks.

The iconic dragon eating its own tail is more than a metaphor; it reflects historic economic errors.

Initially mass production drastically reduced costs of products previously hand made/custom built. Today, mass production accounts only for costs/budget cuts toward increasing profit; it no longer affects the price, whose dependency now rests only upon manipulated market demand.

 Additional considerations: From the elimination of durable goods – products that lasted a lifetime – to quadruple priced, exquisitely shiny, six month lifespan substitutes………………to ‘lifelike’, size enhanced  packaging, only a quarter to half full of product, triple the price of previous, dull, but full packages. (imagine the promotions and salary increases for these ideas).

 The 10 Food Items Seeing The Largest Price Hikes

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/15/food-price-hikes_n_5329627.html

Editor’s note: From cattle trail drives of old, to massive, colossal, enormous, gigantic concentrated mass production with unprecedented cost savings is the reason for price hikes ….go consumer go, go, go!

65 miles wide and 163 miles long

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About 93 per cent of the grocery items that comprise StatsCan’s basket used to compile the rate of inflation each month have risen, with most jumping by double digits, according to StatsCan data from March 2010 to March 2014. Consumers are paying at least 20 per cent more than they were in 2010 for each of the items on the list of top 10 foods with the biggest price jumps.

Editor’s Note ………………. the largest cattle ranch in the United States, measuring 65 miles wide and 163 miles long. …. You can smell greeley, Colorado, long before you can see it.

 

Coming down the pipe in the gas arena

Highest Gas Prices: Countries

Norway reclaims the top spot from Turkey this quarter for the world’s most expensive gasoline

Rank	Country	Price of one gallon of regular gasoline	Per capita daily income	Pain at the pumpi	Daily per capita consumption of gasoline	Percentage of income spent on gasoline
1	Norwayt	$10.08	$288.98	3.49%	0.24gal	0.84%
2	Turkeyt	9.55	30.78	31.02	0.03	0.86
3	Netherlandst	8.89	131.76	6.74	0.24	1.65
4	Italyt	8.61	93.24	9.24	0.17	1.56
5	Greecet	8.30	59.30	14.00	0.32	4.48
6	Portugalt	8.27	56.68	14.58	0.13	1.87
7	Francet	8.13	117.81	6.90	0.12	0.83
8	Hong Kongt	8.11	106.29	7.63	0.05	0.40
9	Swedent	8.10	164.44	4.93	0.40	1.97
10	Belgiumt	8.05	125.17	6.43	0.15	0.98
10	Finlandt	8.05	133.44	6.04	0.30	1.84
12	Germanyt	8.01	120.58	6.64	0.24	1.57
13	Denmarkt	7.92	160.73	4.92	0.28	1.36
14	Israelt	7.86	88.35	8.89	0.32	2.89
15	Irelandt	7.79	132.14	5.89	0.32	1.86
16	United Kingdomt	7.75	104.11	7.44	0.24	1.77
17	Sloveniat	7.39	62.07	11.91	0.27	3.23
18	Slovakiat	7.31	49.56	14.76	0.11	1.65
19	Maltat	7.27	60.80	11.95	0.15	1.83
20	Switzerlandt	7.25	220.47	3.29	0.39	1.30
21	Spaint	7.00	82.49	8.48	0.12	1.02
22	Hungaryt	6.91	36.56	18.89	0.13	2.53
23	Czech Republict	6.84	52.72	12.97	0.17	2.15
24	Austriat	6.80	136.56	4.98	0.21	1.05
25	Cyprust	6.78	72.10	9.41	0.35	3.29
26	Croatiat	6.70	37.41	17.91	0.14	2.59
27	Luxembourgt	6.51	307.22	2.12	0.68	1.43
28	New Zealandt	6.50	112.01	5.80	0.51	2.96
29	Latviat	6.49	41.88	15.50	0.12	1.83
30	Lithuaniat	6.44	42.08	15.31	0.06	0.89
30	South Koreat	6.44	68.63	9.38	0.16	1.51
32	Bulgariat	6.40	20.77	30.83	0.08	2.39
33	Romaniat	6.35	24.04	26.41	0.07	1.73
34	Singaporet	6.33	142.96	4.43	0.17	0.76
35	Polandt	6.28	35.82	17.53	0.11	1.89
36	Chilet	6.22	44.58	13.95	0.14	2.00
37	Estoniat	6.10	49.39	12.35	0.20	2.49
38	Japant	5.90	110.80	5.32	0.33	1.76
39	Brazilt	5.58	33.67	16.57	0.08	1.40
40	Argentinat	5.38	32.93	16.35	0.10	1.62
41	Australiat	5.30	188.87	2.80	0.61	1.72
42	South Africat	4.94	19.88	24.85	0.17	4.25
43	Indiat	4.74	4.36	108.65	0.01	1.26
44	Philippinest	4.71	7.99	58.96	0.03	1.73
45	Canadat	4.67	143.10	3.27	0.93	3.03
45	Chinat	4.67	18.16	25.71	0.05	1.30
47	Thailandt	4.65	18.01	25.84	0.08	1.94
48	Colombiat	4.52	22.57	20.03	0.06	1.14
49	Pakistant	3.87	3.59	108.01	0.01	1.37
50	United Statest	3.66	140.41	2.60	1.22	3.18
51	Indonesiat	3.62	10.46	34.60	0.08	2.67
52	Mexicot	3.43	30.11	11.38	0.28	3.18
53	Russiat	3.39	42.88	7.90	0.23	1.82
54	Malaysiat	2.31	29.99	7.69	0.31	2.37
55	Nigeriat	2.27	4.59	49.51	0.04	1.76
56	Irant	2.16	15.25	14.15	0.22	3.18
57	United Arab E…t	1.77	177.48	1.00	0.46	0.46
58	Egyptt	1.00	8.62	11.63	0.06	0.75
59	Kuwaitt	0.80	122.15	0.65	0.83	0.54
60	Saudi Arabiat	0.45	68.94	0.66	0.64	0.42
61	Venezuelat	0.04	31.58	0.13	0.40	0.05