The Wise Management of Resources and Currency
The worldwide military expenditures for 2011 sum up as much as $2,157,172,000,000 (yes, that’s over $2,15 trillion). The human mind cannot really grasp such a large amount of money, that’s why I will try to put it into perspective later on. USA alone spent the record sum of $741,2 billion in 2011 for waging wars and producing new weapons, while in 2010, the US military expenditures reached $683.7 billion.
The US defense budget for 2012 will exceed $1 trillion and is expected to reach as high as $1,415 trillion!
In January 2012, President Obama promised that USA’s defense budget will grow slowly but steadily in the following 10 years. Now, the question we need to ask ourselves is: “what kind of future awaits mankind?” If our worldwide governments constantly raise the war budgets, design new weapons and pick new fights, then the future can only bring: more wars, destruction, sufferance and famine.
Copyright to Michael Yon 2005 |
Why not allocating budgets for natural healthcare and natural foods and drinks?
Sadly, we do have our part of guilt as well, because we allow the global governments to use our money for such primitive purposes: murder and destruction. There is still time to put an end to this madness and start creating a positive future for the human species. Sooner rather than later, we must get rid of these “royal” blood-sucking parasites and start governing ourselves.
What we could build with the money we currently spend on wars, death and destruction
Transportation should be clean, green, fast, comfortable and affordable for all; It must also be financially sustainable on a global level. ET3 is literally “Space Travel on Earth”. ET3 is silent, low cost, safe, faster than jets, and is electric:
ET3 can provide 50 times more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains.
Update: Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors (see below), PayPal, Solar City and Space X, recently released an improved version of the same concept, which he called the Hyperloop:
2. High-tech and high performance electric cars – e.g. Tesla Motors
If your company would go bankrupt because it cannot survive in the current economic scheme, do you think the government would bail you out? Of course not. But the US government bailed out 3 gas-car manufacturers: GM, Ford and Chrysler. They’ve officially received $25 billion ($700 billion unofficially, as documents show) from OUR money because we don’t want to buy their cars anymore! How absurd (and corrupt) is that?
If there is no global financial conspiracy, then why are they bailing out environmentally-polluting & obsolete companies, instead of investing the money in Eco-friendly companies, like Tesla Motors?
Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors. He is a 40 years old South African engineer and entrepreneur, and his financial worth is a little more than half a billion dollars. The company’s worth is of only about $250 million, which is a tiny amount of money, compared to $700 billion (or even $25 billion)! Yet, he was able to achieve so much, with so little.
Tesla Motors is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (mankind’s greatest inventor), and its vehicles use an AC motor descended directly from Tesla’s original 1882 design.
Tesla Model S (starting price $63,570 — 208 miles range, 8 years warranty and 125,000 miles for battery);
Features: 0-60 mph in 5.6 to 6.5 seconds, depending on the model. It comes with three battery types, 40, 60 and 80 kWh, and an estimated range of 160, 230 and 300 miles/charge.
If you want to see how much a full “tank” costs, choose a battery type and multiply it with the kWh’s price of your area.
Fully electric, 7 seats, 2 trunks, 17″ central touch screen display, 0 tailpipe emissions, no engine noise, full instant torque. The car accelerates from 0-60 mph in 6.5 sec, 5.9 sec, 5.6 sec, or 4.4 sec. for the top model. That’s faster than many of the sport cars today.
Tesla Model X (starting price of about $60,000 — deliveries will begin early 2014) – the company’s first SUV;
Features: 0-60 mph in less than 5 seconds (faster than a Porsche 911). The most sophisticated 4×4 traction control system in the world, two electric motors, + 50% torque improvements.
You will be able to choose from two battery types, 60 and 85 kWh. Fully electric, 7 seats, 2 trunks, 17″ central touch screen display, 0 tailpipe emissions, no engine noise, full instant torque.
My question is, why not giving the $25/$700 billion to Tesla Motors (or split it between all EV companies) for researching even more advanced clean technology, instead of bailing out environmentally-damaging and financially unsustainable companies? It’s because the global elite has big money invested in oil and oil-consuming car companies.
3. Vertical farming – the solution for a crowded tomorrow
The global over-population is a lie. The current population of our planet can live and thrive on a continent no larger than Australia, with Eco-farms included. Still, for those who argue the lack of space in the future, the solution is already here: the vertical farm.
Because the vegetables grow in a controlled environment, there is no need to use chemicals or to genetically modify them.
4. Replacing the GMO and chem-sprayed food with organic
How to produce 1 Million pounds of organic food on 3 acres, in the heart of a crowded city.
Growing Power is a sustainable urban agriculture center located in the city of Milwaukee.
It was founded by Will Allen to introduce healthier food options to the urban community, while simultaneously demonstrating a sustainable model for local food production.
Using the vertical space intelligently, an old warehouse can be turned into a very profitable 3 acres green house — right in the heart of the city.
“To grow sustainably means that we do not use any synthetic chemicals – fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides – on any of our crops.”
5. The Farmery is a futuristic concept of sustainable organic agriculture, for your local grocery store. Ben Greene, its inventor, perfected the process of food growth and distribution, with a simple and clever idea: grow and sell in the same place.
The food “has to be harvested, packed, transported and cooled. And at every step, there is massive inventory loss.” And this is what made Greene think outside the box: “What if this entire system could be consolidated into one site?”
6. Free and Unlimited Clean Energy
Allow me to say it loud and clear: WE HAVE IT! Free energy exists for more than a hundred years, but it has been suppressed for financial reasons. Free energy cannot be controlled or taxed. Nikola Tesla was able to transmit unlimited quantities of electricity wireless.
All the important figures of his time visited Nikola’s laboratory and witnessed his futuristic experiments (“The glitterati of New York’s finest would flock to his laboratory to witness the spectacular high voltage demonstrations. Notables such as Mark Twain, John Muir, Sarah Bernhardt, Sanford White, and Teddy Roosevelt, and many others attended.” – excerpt from the above documentary).
His dream was for the entire planet to have access to free and unlimited energy, and all our devices and machines to capture it wireless. He even designed cars and planes able to tap into this energy source and we would have never payed a cent for it.
Our governments are trying to make us believe that free energy is a myth. But there are so many people who proved otherwise.
If “they” are interested in our well-being, then why doesn’t the government invest in “free energy” research programs? Actually, why aren’t they investing in the already available CLEAN energy sources (solar, wind, electric vehicles and recharge stations all over the world, etc.)?
Update: According to Amnesty International USA, there are more than five times as many vacant homes in the U.S. than there are homeless people.
“In the last few days, the U.S. government census figures have revealed that 1 in 2 Americans have fallen into poverty or are struggling to live on low incomes. And we know that the financial hardships faced by our neighbors, colleagues, and others in our communities will be all the more acutely felt over the holiday season. Along with poverty and low incomes, the foreclosure rate has created its own crisis situation as the number of families removed from their homes has skyrocketed.
Since 2007, banks have foreclosed around eight million homes. It is estimated that another eight to ten million homes will be foreclosed before the financial crisis is over. This approach to resolving one part of the financial crisis means many, many families are living without adequate and secure housing. In addition, approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans. It is worth noting that, at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.”
Update 2: I’ve recently stumbled across another great idea. Here is how we could end homelessness in one year with something we all throw away every day.
A group of activists have come up with a plan to build a house using plastic bottles, providing what they say is an environmentally smart way to tackle the housing shortage problem in Nigeria.
By filling them with sand, and molding them together with mud or cement, the walls created are actually bullet proof, fire proof, and will maintain an comfortable indoor temperature of 64 degrees in the summer time.
And it’s not like there is any shortage on used plastic bottles in the world. In the USA alone, we throw away 47.3 Billion plastic bottles per year. To build a two bedroom, 1200 square foot home, it only takes about 14,000 bottles.
Here is how a finished plastic-bottles house looks like:
The following YouTube project shows the makeover of Jim Wolf, a homeless army veteran.
Not only that Jim regained his self esteem, but he also took control over his life, he’s scheduled to have his own house and attended the AA meetings for the first time ever.
8. Eradicating the World Hunger
Though it sounds like an impossible mission, according to the World Food Summit held every several years by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), we only need $30 billion/year to eradicate hunger on planet Earth!
I want to remind you that our leaders spent $2,15 TRILLION on wars in 2011, and USA’s war budget could reach the unprecedented $1,415 trillion in 2012.
It is more than obvious that we do have the money!
According to a study conducted in 2007 by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes, the Iraqi war was “costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute.”
This means that 42 days after calling the troops back home, the USA alone would have the budget to solve the planet’s hunger problem for an entire year.
FAO’s Director-General, Dr Jacques Diouf, noted that “in 2006 the world spent $1,200 billion on new weapons, while the food wasted in a single country could cost $100 billion and, excess consumption by the world’s obese amounted to $20 billion.
‘Against that backdrop, how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find $30 billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the right to life?’ Dr Diouf asked.”
9. Replacing the hazardous nuclear power plants, with the “green” solar panels
Nuclear power is extremely expensive and extremely dangerous (Must-Read: The Dangers and Costs of Nuclear Energy). By contrast, solar power is cheap on the long run and poses no risk to the environment or to our health.
As a result of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011, Germany decided to decommission all of its nuclear power plants by 2020, and replace them with solar panels.
On June 2nd, 2012, Germany produce a world record of 22 gigawatts of clean energy, more than all other countries combined, and the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants working at full capacity. This proves that it can be done!
10. The 4-Hour Work-day
The Industrial Revolution brought with it the prospect of liberating mankind from financial slavery. It all started back in 1760 and by 1820s – 1840s, the transition from hand production to machines was complete.
It was a revolution indeed, but instead of benefiting the common people, it only made the “elite” even richer, while the working class suffered. Many workers lost their jobs after being replaced by machines, while those lucky enough to still have a job, worked just as many hours as before. And because there were so many unemployed, the salaries dropped as well.
Carlos “Carlin” Tovar, a Peruvian architect, graphic designer and a renowned cartoonist, is proposing a reduction of working hours from 8 to 4 hours a day. In his book “21st Century’s Manifesto” (available in Spanish only for now) he argues that machines and technology are supposed to liberate people from the amount of human labor they need to give in order to produce goods, but instead, the opposite is happening: people are now working more and more hours per day.
But technology is not the problem, Carlin explains. The problem is how the system is not taking advantage of the huge benefits that machines, software and automation can bring to humanity. And mainly it is because of our insane capitalist system and its negative attributes. We are now seeing an increase in the amount of labor time, surpassing even the legal requirement of 8 hours a day, with workers working 12 to 14 hours a day (sometimes weekends too) and even some forms of paid slavery are starting to arise in some areas of the world.
Carlin’s campaign promotes a progressive reduction of working hours to allow markets to adjust: A reduction of half an hour each month, so in 8 months we would accomplish the 4 hour work-day.
But it would not stay there. A re-evaluation every 10 years would be performed to analyze increases in productivity and if we find that productivity has indeed increased (which is what most likely will happen with the rapid advancement in technology) then another reduction will be applied.
That means that, if we find that 2% annual increase in productivity occurs, 30 years after we accomplish the 4 hour word-day we would be working about 2 hours only. – Reference;
But how is this exactly going to help us make the world a better place? While working less, we will finally have time for the really important things in life:
– spending more time with our family (love);
– learning new things, attending science classes (education);
– volunteering for social projects (the greater good);
– going to the theater more often, learning to play an instrument (art);
– travelling (cultural exchange), etc.
All these personal cultural achievements will be reflected in our planetary legacy. By taking small steps in the correct direction today, we will greatly influence the path of the future generations.
11. Basic Income: A New Human Right
According to the Initiative for a Basic Income in Europe,
“The Basic Income should be universal, individual, unconditional and high enough to ensure a dignified existence and participation in society.
This new fundamental right for humanity, not only would eradicate misery, it is also a way to develop non-market oriented work: such as artists, parents and volunteers. But it’s also an economic measure! A basic income for all would mean supporting local business. Therefore, it would enable us to fully exercise our citizenship.”
If you live in the European Union, you can support this initiative by signing here. You can contact the team behind this project here.
By Alexander Light, HumansAreFree.com; | All references have in-article backlinks;