Citizens' initiative in Switzerland to take money creation away from commercial banks. Next step is debate and then a referendum of all Swiss citizens.
With the full power of new money creation exclusively in the hands of the Swiss National Bank, the commercial banks would no longer have the power to create money through lending. The Swiss National Bank’s primary role becomes the management of the money supply relative to the productive economy, while the decision concerning how new money is introduced debt free into the economy would reside with the government”, reads the official website of the initiative.
While all eyes are on human numbers, it’s the rise in farm animals that is laying the planet waste
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Human numbers are rising at roughly 1.2% a year, while livestock numbers are rising at around 2.4% a year. By 2050 the world’s living systems will have to support about 120m tonnes of extra humans, and 400m tonnes of extra farm animals.
A dystopian future where technology has made humanity obsolete is a theme older than the Industrial Revolution. History has proven that while some jobs are phased out thanks to technology more jobs are created by it, after all someone needs to monitor and make the machines. As technology grows and makes computing systems capable of reason, startups are making temporary gigs permanent jobs, and 3D printing makes it possible to make any object, the obsolete humanity idea does not seem so far-fetched. Kurzweilai shares a possible future with “The SAP Future Series: Digital Technology’s Exponential Growth Curve Foretells Avalanche Of Business Disruption.”
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Angus Deaton and Anne Case have come out with shocking conclusions that white middle-aged Americans are the only first-world group of people dying faster than their counterparts in any other developed country. According to them, this is due to an out-of-control alcohol and drug habit, as well as suicide and depression. Researchers have described this as an “epidemic” that threatens the fabric of future America.
Despite the fact that only one-third of Americans have them, college degrees have become the new high school diplomas, the baseline everyone in the workforce is assumed to meet.
But it's important to remember why employers can get away with this: They have power, and workers don't. And as their power grows, they can engage in ever-more frivolous and gratuitous demands for job applicants.
Part I in the Reinventing the US Army monograph series.
Updated November 15, 2016 Robert Steele
This is the author's preliminary draft of the first of three monographs focused on the future of the US Army as an expeditionary force in a complex world that is rapidly decentralizing while also facing major development challenges. A revised draft is provide at DOC below but the online full-text version has not been updated.
A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation
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By 1989 the company had helped create the Global Climate Coalition (disbanded in 2002) to question the scientific basis for concern about climate change. It also helped to prevent the U.S. from signing the international treaty on climate known as the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 to control greenhouse gases. Exxon’s tactic not only worked on the U.S. but also stopped other countries, such as China and India, from signing the treaty. At that point, “a lot of things unraveled,” Oreskes says.
