Prepare for Change

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2011/09/21/7862311-a-picture-of-poverty-state-by-state This animated graphic shows how poverty in each state changed between 1980 and 2010. You can also gauge the overall poverty level changes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uf-ZXLABE&feature=player_embedded Robert Reich eloquently exposes 6 lies about the economy that are damaging our national debate.

https://rt.com/usa/news/infrastructure-power-world-us-589/ "In the past years Americans have seen their levees fail leading to massive flooding and cracked bridges buckling, not to mention constant water main breaks and costly traffic congestion. In its report card of America’s infrastructure, The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s infrastructure a D grade and estimated $2.2 trillion over five years was needed to bring that up to a B." An elegant fix to this problem is to work on our infrastructure when the economy is down, like right now. The costs are less, and you are then employing otherwise unemployed people.  I don't know why thisn't is accepted as common sense by many politicians.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/census-data-expected-to-show-working-age-people-losing-ground-in-terms-of-poverty-insurance/2011/09/13/gIQASstmOK_story.html?wpisrc=al_national "The Census Bureau reports the number of Americans in poverty jumped to 15.1 percent in 2010, a 27-year high." We're falling in education, employment, health, and many other statistics.  

http://www.soa-world.de/echelon/2011/09/the-decentralized-web-movement.html "And the concept of a decentralized web is gaining traction: more and more people realize something has to change. The cause for this trend is obvious: the number of data security and privacy disasters that were made public has spiked in recent times . In April ’11 for example an update to the security terms of service of the widely used Dropbox tool revealed that contrary to previous claims, Dropbox Inc. has full access to user data. An analysis of the changes to the Facebook privacy policy over time paints a gloomy picture of how the world’s largest social network changed 'rom a private communication space to a platform that shares user information with advertising and business partners while limiting the users’ options to control their own information'. With more and more of our personal data moving to centralized servers or 'cloud services' – a term that should be used ...

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html "New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures -- from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs." I don't think Rushkoff has the answer to his question. But I love the question.  I really think the latest world economic meltdown has laid bare the fact that our current economic system is no longer viable. The problem is, what do you replace it with? That I have no idea.  But to me, that should be the burning question on everybody's mind until the answer does come.  Didn't the Star Trek series have this figured out, where everybody worked to some degree but nobody actually got "paid" as we think of it...