They're huge and ruthless and define our lives. They're close to monopolies. Let's make them public utilities
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Broadband as a public utility? If not for corporate corruption of our political process, that would seem like an obvious solution. Instead, our nation’s wireless access is the slowest and costliest in the world.
There are going to be many unanticipated consequences arising from climate change, here is one that is just beginning to surface. Our failure to take what is happening to our planet seriously is going to come at great cost to human civilization. And this may be part of the reason the police have been militarized. Strategic Planners reach into the future as far as they can. And with 55 studies known, and an unknown number in the secret literature, the climate change violence linkage is becoming accepted wisdom. Militarizing the police is the obvious move, particularly in a country filled with guns, militias, and roaring boys.
The data expose a dangerous malfunction in capitalism's engine room. Banks, mutual funds and investment firms used to ensure that citizens' savings were transformed into technical advances, growth and new jobs. Today they organize the redistribution of social wealth from the bottom to the top.
Today, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, which covers 50 countries and 68.2% of world trade in services. The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. In a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre by the parties, the draft has been classified to keep it secret not just during the negotiations but for five years after the TISA enters into force.
Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures, proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.
Dmitry Orlov on Ebola and the Five Stages of Collapse
Orlov is one of the best futurists writing on society collapse, having witnessed and personally experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union. His book, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Collapse-Experience-American-Prospects/dp/0865716854, is one of the best ever written in the collapse genre and necessary reading for anyone who is interested in this theme.
“What would a world filled with truly sustainable businesses look like? Join this thought-provoking session to hear how, according to Professor Donnie Maclurcan, not-for-profit enterprise will be at the heart of a sustainable future by 2050. Outlining research from Donnie’s forthcoming book with Jennifer Hinton, How on Earth, this presentation will explore what it takes to design for human flourishing on a finite planet.”
So It Begins: the Rush is On to Vaccinate Everyone (Except the.01%) Against Ebola
Future historians may start the clock on when major repression of the people of the world using biologicals began when Dr. Anthony Fauci called for compulsory ebola vaccination, as mentioned here:
“Two days ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Canadian Press that it’s “quite conceivable, if not likely” that fast-tracked Ebola vaccines may have to given to entire countries to get the viral outbreak under control (via Modern Healthcare):
“It is conceivable that this epidemic will not turn around even if we pour resources into it. It may just keep going and going and it might require a vaccine.”
“As the epidemic gets more and more formidable and in some cases out of control it is quite conceivable, if not likely, that we may need to deploy the vaccine to the entire country to be able to shut the epidemic down. That is clearly a possibility.” [emphasis added]
