Paid Sick Leave For Workers SAVES YOUR LIFE.

Need I say more?

Fight flu, give restaurant workers paid sick leave

Plus, given that the federal minimum wage for tipped workers has been stuck at just $2.13 an hour since 1991,two-thirds of our nation's cooks and servers and bussers report they cannot afford to stay home when they're sick, because they won't get paid and might even lose their jobs.

A 2011 study by the CDC found that 12% of almost 500 food service workers surveyed had experienced vomiting and diarrhea on two or more shifts in the previous year. What's more disgusting than that? That restaurant owners essentially force employees to come to work sick because they don't have paid sick days.

This month, 1.2 million people in England suffered from norovirus,also known as the "winter vomiting bug." Norovirus is commonly contracted through contaminated food.

In 2009, a bartender with swine flu worked for several days at a Washington hot spot because, he told me, he couldn't afford to not go to work...

Why We Need Equalism

From Who Needs Feminism:

I need feminism because people are still being fooled by the “the doctor is a woman” riddle.

(Q: A man and his son are in a car accident. The man dies at the scene. The boy is taken directly to the hospital and into surgery. The surgeon looks down at him and says, “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son.” How is this possible? A: The surgeon is a woman.)

Ask somebody. 3 out of 5 people will be stumped.

Here's my take on this question.

I remember that on a MENSA test. I couldn’t believe it was an intelligence test question. I couldn’t believe the question “How is this possible?” My response to that was, “What’s stopping his mom from operating on him? Wouldn’t she want to have direct input into his survival rather than trust someone else?”

I had ZERO idea at the time that the actual question was “could you recognize that the surgeon was a woman?” I hadn’t been indoctrinated yet (and still haven’t been), so I saw (and still see) female doctors as logical, unremarkable, downright ordinary. I didn’t need feminism because I already had it, or so I believe. I never thought of women as anything but equals.

But nowadays things have changed even more. What if the son’s father was in a gay marriage? You cannot assume anymore that the answer is “the doctor is his mother”. The doctor is the deceased man’s spouse: which could be a husband or wife. And this is why we not only need feminism, but also, equalism.

Think outside the box.

Taxation: Why the Rich Need to STFU

While We're Talking About Gun Control, Can We Also Talk About Police Control?

Meet the Contractors Turning America's Police Into a Paramilitary Force

The national security state has an annual budget of around $1 trillion. Of that huge pile of money, large amounts go to private companies the federal government awards contracts to. Some, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, are household names, but many of the contractors fly just under the public's radar. What follows are three companies you should know about (because some of them can learn a lot about you with their spy technologies).

L3 Communications

L3 is everywhere. Those night-vision goggles the JSOC team in Zero Dark Thirtyuses?  That's L3. The new machines that are replacing the naked scanners at the airport?  That's L3. Torture at Abu Ghraib? A former subsidiary of L3 was recently ordered to pay $ 5.28 million to 71 Iraqis who had been held in the awful prison...

Republicans are fighting a class war while saying there isn't a class war.

When you (say, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana) propose to lower income taxes and pay for it by raising sales taxes, that's called a class war. Putting heavier burdens on the poor while easing burdens on the rich is not a class war much like blowing up a bank vault door and snatching all the money within is not bank robbery.

Conservatives like to often spout the nonsense "if you want to reduce something, then tax it". Going by their logic, increasing taxes on purchases should reduce the amount of purchases... thus reducing economic activity.

But then we all know Conservatives don't actually believe the horseshit they try to sell their ignorant and gullible voters...

Jindal’s Bold Tax Reform

If Bobby Jindal has his way, Louisiana’s personal and corporate income taxes are headed for extinction.

Jindal wants the tax reform to be “revenue neutral,” and he’s exploring by how much he would have to increase the sales tax (currently 4 percent) in order to achieve that. He’s also meeting with state legislators. Louisiana’s session doesn’t start until April 8, and Jindal’s office intends by then to release a detailed plan, filling in the broad outlines that have been put forward so far.

“Eliminating personal income taxes will put more money back into the pockets of Louisiana families,” Jindal said in a statement earlier this month, “and will change a complex tax code into a more simple system that will make Louisiana more attractive to companies who want to invest here and create jobs.”

America Has Hit "Peak Jobs" - A World Where the Working Class Is On a Permanent Global Decline

Is technology destroying jobs faster than it creates? It is quite likely, to say the least. The World Bank says that there are 200 million people who are unemployed worldwide, more than in 2008 - and there are already, right now, an additional 621 million people who have given up looking for work. And these numbers are growing. And in 10 years the world will need another 600 million jobs just to keep up with the growth of the working class population. No entity in the world is saying that there is any solution coming for this.

This Tech Crunch article by Jon Evans explains what this is leading to: a disastrous point in our economic evolution that he has coined Peak Jobs: a point where the working class begins a slow and inexorable decline to irrelevance.

Since I can't quote an entire article, I'll refer to the most salient points that he made:

But it won’t be 19th century capitalism redux, there’ll be no place for neo-Marxism. That underclass won’t control the means of production. They’ll simply be irrelevant.

The reason why? Technology is destroying more jobs than it creates. If it isn't a clear and obvious contributor to global unemployment then it is most certainly a prime suspect.

That’s true, and the usual retort to this kind of Luddism. But what if, as I’ve been saying for more than a year, technology is now destroying jobs faster than it’s creating them? What if America has hit peak jobs?

And in fact, it has. And the consequences are going to be much like I've been saying for a long time... a world without jobs is a world with mass starvation or revolution, not post-scarcity for the masses.

If it’s not solved, then in the coming decades you can expect a self-perpetuating privileged elite to accrue more and more of the wealth generated by software and robots, telling themselves that they’re carrying the entire world on their backs, Ayn Rand heroes come to life, while all the lazy jobless “takers” live off the fruits of their labor. Meanwhile, as the unemployed masses grow ever more frustrated and resentful, the Occupy protests will be a mere candle flame next to the conflagrations to come. It’s hard to see how that turns into a post-scarcity society. Something big will need to change.

The "privileged elite" telling themselves that they’re carrying the entire world on their backs... sound familiar? That's happening right now.

Why You Should NOT Use Facebook Under ANY Circumstance

This won't remain an issue restricted to Instagram users. Remember, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, once said that privacy is dead. It is not unwise to suspect that in the future, all Facebook users will require a government-issued ID. Facebook is a dog that has tasted blood.

Instagram Asking For Your Government Issued Photo IDs Now, Too

Over the past week, a number of users of the popular photo sharing app Instagram and parent company Facebook have been locked out of their accounts and prompted by both services to upload images of their government issued photo IDs to regain access, as CNET first reported on Tuesday.

Concerned users seeking to regain account access have turned to several outlets online, including Yahoo Answers, to try and determine whether or not the prompts asking for images of their IDs are real or are hacking attempts.

TPM itself has received a number of emails and communications from users reporting that they have been abruptly locked out of their accounts and asked to provide photos of their IDs. Here’s a screenshot of one such prompt from Facebook:

The Ultimate Truth About Social Security

Republicans Vow to Repackage, Perfume Their Bull***t

Problem is, I fear this might work. Look how many people voted for that looney tunes pair, Romney & Ryan.

GOP prepares comeback: ‘We can’t come off as a bunch of angry white men’

Enter the RNC's five-person "Growth and Opportunity" committee, an ethnically diverse cadre of political veterans and RNC members analyzing what the party must to do avoid another 2012-like drubbing. (Think of them as The Bobs from "Office Space," but with American flag lapel pins.)

The group includes Henry Barbour, a Mississippi committeeman and Haley Barbour's nephew; former George W. Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer; Florida strategist Sally Bradshaw; South Carolina committeeman Glenn McCall and Puerto Rico committeewoman Zori Fonalledas. They will submit a detailed report in March that looks back on the 2012 election and forward to 2014 and 2016.

"You're going to see a very renewed aggressive effort by this party to put on a different face," Bradshaw said on Thursday. "We've got to find a way to take our message to more people and get more votes. It's not a particularly complicated formula. We got beat; we have to change what we're doing."

The report is a work in progress, and only part of it will be made public, but The Bobs delivered an update on their findings on Thursday to the RNC members.

Few Things Are More Hypocritical Than (SOME!!!) LIBERALS Who Blame Women For Being Victims

Outrage After Exes Post Revenge Pics

Dozens of women are fighting back after intimate photos they sent to former romantic interests have been sent by their exes to a so-called "revenge porn" website and posted online.
Holley Toups says that she was at work one day and a friend called to tell her what she'd seen online. It's the moment that Toups, a teacher's aide in Texas, says her life became a living hell.
"She said, 'I overheard some people talking about a website. Its pictures, you know, explicit photos that people have posted,' and she said, 'you're on there,'" Toups said.
Toups found semi-nude photos she said she once sent to a former boyfriend - now posted on the porn site...

And what do some liberals have to say about this?

The solution is: don't take those pictures, don't let your boyfriend take them.

Legally? If you let someone take a photo of you? It's theirs to do with as they wish. Sending a picture to someone that they then use in a manner you wouldn't wish is a different matter, but the only legal recourse there is through copyright laws (as creator of the work you have legal rights regarding distribution and reproduction; it would remain to be seen whether a court might decide that you'd waived those rights by sharing the image in the first place and whether a contingent expectation that the image not be shared was reasonable).

Oh, but that's not all.

Our most respected actresses get naked and win Academy Awards

I think these ladies doth protest too much.

 Seriously? Some LIBERALS said this?

Okay, now let me explain where this bull crap comes from. Remember how people (particularly urban folk) look at you when you leave your keys in a running car or you sleep with your front door open, and a thief comes and takes advantage of you? The same (il)logic is routinely applied by most on the Right (and, apparently, some on the Left) to women who take nude pictures of themselves and give them to their boyfriends / husbands. Eventually if you let this (il)logic fester in your brain, it will poison you to the point of blaming women's provocative dress as a cause of them getting raped. It's the same logic, taken to its inevitable conclusion. Those who subscribe to the first example of (il)logic, of course, will be pissed as HELL when they read this blog and find me pointing out the axel grease on the slope.

Let me explain the poor logic of chastising a person for having their keys in a running car when they're off elsewhere. Suppose they took their keys and locked the car? Do you realize how many seconds it takes to steal and hotwire a car? 30 seconds to 2 minutes for a skilled thief. So now that you know this, why don't you secure your car using better methods? If you don't, then you're only SLIGHTLY less foolish than the person who left the keys in the car. If, of course, you buy the "the person with the keys in the car is a fool" logic.

Now, for rape. The going blame-the-victim logic dictates that women who walk to ATMs at night or who walk around in skimpy clothes are attracting rapists. So what happens when women avoid ATMs at night and are bundled up for Antarctica and they get raped anyway? "Ah, yes, they dared to walk outside. Serves 'em right" - you'd expect to hear that from a madman, but it is the logical conclusion of the blame-the-victim logic.

Finally, we get to women whose pictures get posted online without their permission. So now the woman is responsible for protecting herself by not sending a man her naked pictures. Gotcha. The same logic says she should sleep in full Antarctica gear in an unobtanium armored bunker lest some idiot drill a hole in the wall and take pictures of her sleeping in whatever stage of undress. After all, she knows the risks, she should take appropriate precautions, right? And God forbid she ever sleep next to a boyfriend, since he might take post-sex pictures of her and post it. (Google that last one, you'll find examples, trust me.)


Nobody is saying you should leave your front door open, leave your keys in your car, or go to an ATM at night. But, like wearing skimpy clothes or sending your lover a nude picture, these are rights that you have. We should not be intimidated into giving up those rights. When you give them up in the face of intimidation the predators will simply press forward in an attempt to get to you at all costs. You avoid going to the ATM at night - so the rapists and muggers simply get more brazen and attack you in broad daylight. What have you gained? You've given up your freedom to walk at night and now you're being victimized at high noon. Happens all the time in reality.

The lesson here? You don't win by fleeing from the predator. You win by standing your ground and kicking their ever loving ass! In this case, you levy HEFTY FINES upon every one of those bastards at that revenge website - the men who sold those pictures, and the website owner. And probably the customers, too, as they knew up front that they were whacking off to women being victimized. And then you leave them liable to civil action, too. I'd say throw them in prison, but our prisons are already overcrowded. Ruinous fines and civil judgments will cull the herd of predators well enough and send a message to the wanna-be's.

Sue the bastards. Sue them into oblivion. Send a loud and clear message to other predators: 

YOU

WILL

BE

NEXT.

Republican Cognitive Dissonance Explained in Pictures

In Non-Union States, Wages Are Lower. Why Do You Want To Work For Less?

A Bioethicist suggests "Fat Shaming" to Reduce Obesity.

Some bioethicist suggests that "shaming" can be used to "curb" obesity. You know, of course, that "shaming" is another word for bullying, harassment, and so on. So now America is being asked to combat evil obese people with roaming gangs of self-righteous modern day Pharisee-equivalents, all deploying a wide range of anti-social tactics to enforce compliance with their beliefs?

What could POSSIBLY go wrong with that idea?

Fat-shaming may curb obesity, bioethicist says

Unhappy with the slow pace of public health efforts to curb America’s stubborn obesity epidemic, a prominent bioethicist is proposing a new push for what he says is an “edgier strategy” to promote weight loss: ginning up social stigma...

So You Say Right Wingers Don't Create Phony Rallies?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/24/1493101/astroturf-wind-protest/

Buy Made in the USA - Made In America Store

Occasionally, I'll run across sites that sell 100% Made in the USA goods. When I see them I'll endorse 'em here.

This is one such website.

MADE IN AMERICA STORE

It’s a story we have heard all too often in the past few years.  A local company loses business to overseas competition and is forced to close its doors.  But Mark Andol, the owner and founder of the Made in America Store simply wouldn’t go down without a fight.

At the age of 19, Mark opened his first business in his father’s garage, “Mark’s Small Engine and Repair Service”.  He innovated “mobile service” on small engines from 3 to 25 HP on-site at the customer’s residence, and did everything from tune-ups to overhauls.

In 1989 at the age of 23, Mark was ready to focus more on welding and fabricating.  He started General Welding & Fabricating, Inc., renting a 5,000 sq ft shop in East Aurora, NY.  He was now up to 10 employees to respond to demand for his honest, quality workmanship.

His business outgrew the modest facility, so Mark broke ground on a 14,000 sq.ft. building in the Town of Elma, and over the years expanded his business to 60 employees, and three additional locations.  In 2007, Mark cut the ribbon on a 48,000 sq.ft. addition to his Elma facility.  The addition was designed for flexibility, efficiency and growth to meet the demand of customers from across the U.S.  Little did he know that almost over-night the very accounts he grew for would wipe the business from underneath his feet.

Mark was caught in the crosshairs between The Great Recession and the Global demand for cheaper goods.  Two multi-million dollar accounts dropped off in only a weekend, and Mark was forced to lay off half of his workforce.  After some research on where business went and how the products were being produced so inexpensively ($3 cheaper than General Welding and Fabricating could produce them at cost), Mark was able to find out that the new supplier was a manufacturer in China, that didn’t have to follow the strict regulations he had to.  The product was being shipped from China, to a port in Florida and then distributed to all of the Regional Support Centers that General Welding and Fabricating used to supply.

This was one of Mark’s most painful experiences in life, as he believes in the dignity of those who work with their hands and believes in livelihoods that enable families to buy a home, have a car and send their kids to college.  Unemployment puts the American dream on hiatus.  For some people, it puts their dreams on hold for good.

Determined to make lemonade out of lemons, Mark began visioning a store that would only carry products that are 100% American Made.  In a moment of inspiration – though some at the time called it insanity – he decided to run with the idea.

Mark Andol’s vision became a reality with the opening of the Made in America Store on April 3, 2010.  It is the only brick and mortar general merchandise store in the country that exclusively sells 100% American Made Products – down to the packaging.

The Made in America Store opened on April 3, 2010.  Located just 20 minutes from Buffalo and less than an hour from Niagara Falls, NY, it is the only general merchandise store in the country that sells 100% American Made Products, down to the packaging.  Our mission is to restore U.S. manufacturing jobs by providing American consumers a brick & mortar store and e-commerce site that guarantees that each product sold is entirely American in materials and labor.

Since Opening Day, the Made in America Store has been featured on ABC’s World News Tonight, FOX & Friends, and nationally syndicated and satellite radio.  AP articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and newspapers across the country. Reporters from Japan and Russia have come to the store, making it an international story.  To date, more than 100 tour buses have added the Made in America Store as a destination.  And, buses are added every week, some from as far as San Diego, California!

In addition to requiring that all products sold are 100% American Made, down to the packaging, the Made in America Store insists on top quality at comparable pricing.  Our customers know they are helping to feed an American family when they shop at our store. And, each manufacturing job has a positive economic impact of providing four additional jobs for the benefit of the U.S. economy.
At the Made in America Store, we also honor our active duty members of the U.S. military and our veterans by offering a 10% discount on every purchase, every day.
The recession, the trade imbalance and unfair trade practices have met their match in Mark Andol, owner of the Made in America Store.  He does what he does “For Country, Soldier, American worker, and our Children of Tomorrow.”  We value every individual who has worked with their hands, head and heart to make our nation great.
Please support our mission to save and create American Jobs, “Because China is a Long Drive to Work”!

You can also reach the Made in America Store and receive up to date news articles, events, photos and contests by visiting us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr.


Thank You.

"You Can Compete with Free-and Win" - Something Worth Reading

... if for no other reason than to analyze the errors in its conclusion. These errors are critical enough to warrant commentary. Those who study economics would be wise to read.

The article basically argues that when you have a business and you run into a competitor who offers the same product or service for free, that it's not the end of your world. You can still innovate and convince customers to purchase your product. Basically it's called adding value to your product.

Real world examples abound, and I mean legitimate ones. Take blogging services, for instance. For-pay blogging services compete against for-free blogs like Google Blogger, for instance, by offering free blogs while offering a wide variety of paid upgrades. (Google does this, too.)

However, ultimately, free can and often does win. First, let's visit Frank Addante's blog. Read it in its entirety and then come back here:

http://www.founderblog.com/2012/05/23/you-can-compete-with-free-and-win/You Can Compete with Free-and WinMay 23rd, 2012 by Frank Addante

Now let's get to one of his examples.

Having built multiple businesses that compete with “free,” I was absolutely fascinated by the conversation with the boy. I asked the young entrepreneur how he’s managing to compete with this free alternative. Andrew was quick to say that his competitor is “only offering this service to become popular” and that his competitor’s sales pitch is that “his parents are rich so he could afford to do it for free.”

So, to combat that position, Andrew said he and his partner were highlighting that they offer higher-quality work and, aside from doing strong work for customers, don’t have any ulterior, hidden motivations. Andrew also told me that his competitor bought a $95 yo-yo and therefore, doesn’t understand the needs of an average customer who buys a lower-priced yo-yo. While Andrew had had to modify his offering and pitch, it seemed that business was doing just fine.

First of all, this is a 10 year old kid he's talking about, who is selling improved yo-yo toys. Smart kid, hat's off to you. The problem is that he's up against a competitor who is selling free yo-yo's. The lesson being imparted here is that he can compete against this other kid by careful marketing strategies. In his case, it seems to be working.

The problem is that the adult world applies a variety of ugly reality checks which throw cold water on this story. Let's take a look at a real world example of price competition that closely mirrors this situation: China versus the United States and Germany in the solar industry.

While China's solar panels aren't free, there are some startling parallels. In Andrew's case, his competition is a boy whose parents are subsidizing his free yo-yo's. America and Germany have been making high quality solar panels for years. Then came China's solar industries - analogous to Andrew's competitor. Remember the father in that blog entry who is subsidizing the competitor's yo-yo's? The Chinese government is that father in this situation: it is directly subsidizing the Chinese solar industry. As a direct result not only has China outpriced American solar companies, but also German companies. Moreover, China is driving many of these foreign companies out of business.

Another parallel to consider: America and Germany have used roughly the same arguments that Andrew used to defend his market position, but the reality check is that it didn't work. The solar panel industries in America and Germany are both being severely undermined by Chinese subsidies. China does this for many of its industries to give them a global price advantage.

China does this because they're taking the long bet on one basic rule: in the long term, you cannot always compete with free. Unless, of course, you lie and cheat and distort reality.

Now let's go back to what Addante listed as examples to support his point. Almost all of these examples represent corporate activity which borders on downright nefarious.

The biggest lesson I learned here was about competing with “free.” Many markets have free alternatives. If companies were not able to compete with free, Microsoft would have been crushed by Linux, Oracle by MySQL, and the dot-com boom would have wiped out half of the world’s brick and mortar economy. Cable TV or satellite radio wouldn’t exist. And, yes, while services like Napster offered consumers the ability to download free music, Apple came along years later with iTunes and charged a fee per download. Today, Apple is the most valuable technology company in the world.

1) Microsoft has survived by the excessive use of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Making up lies about Linux, such as accusing Open Source software of patent infringement lawsuits, outright collusion with computer systems suppliers, are part of how Microsoft has avoided being destroyed by Linux. It has also been convicted of, and punished for, monopolistic activity in both the United States and the European Union. In the EU Microsoft was forced to pay the largest fine in the EU's history at the time for its monopolistic behavior - $794 million in 2004. The fine eventually skyrocketed to nearly $2 billion, all for anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft has beaten free and open source Linux by deceptive marketing and monopolistic activity which persists to this day.

Oh, and let us not forget that Free and Open Source has devastated Microsoft outside the PC/laptop environment: see Android in the mobile market. Microsoft Office is losing ground to Open Office, and Internet Explorer? Hello, open source Google Chrome and Firefox. Their combined usage dwarfs Internet Explorer and Google Chrome is far more popular than Internet Explorer. Certain governments are forbidding the use of Microsoft in government operations.

In short: Worst. Example. Ever. Or was it? Read on.

2) Yes, Oracle has held off MySQL, handily no less. They apparently have done so by maintaining a big quality advantage over MySQL - precisely the kind of tactic that beats a free competitor, fair and square, in the marketplace. I for one would have ditched all these other examples and upheld this one by itself.

3) The Dotcom boom didn't wipe out half the brick and mortar business, but it is getting there. Look what Amazon did to Borders Books and what it is doing to Best Buy now. Amazon is building fulfillment centers with the intent of achieving same-day delivery in major population centers within the country. You know what that means to brick and mortar businesses. In short: the Dotcom boom is slowly eating brick and mortar's lunch; it is advancing, not retreating.

4) Cable TV and satellite radio wouldn't exist? What, they still do? Okay, well Cable TV isn't extinct-in-the-wild yet, but they're seriously, seriously losing ground to online solutions. Furthermore, Cable TV providers who have internet services are also trying to kill these alternative markets by establishing low bandwidth caps and metering. They can do this because they've established natural regional monopolies. (Oh dear, did I just say 'natural monopoly'? Why, yes I did. Because two separate companies cannot feasibly run cable to the same house, Cable TV abides by the "there can be only one" rule.)

Cable TV is on borrowed time - there are a rising number of digital receivers/media player boxes out there that will deliver the same content, plus more, to the television. The Roku is one prominent example, and Western Digital's TV Live is another. In the future it will be possible to catch all the minor and major networks, not just the ones that your Cable provider picks, and the independent shows (think: webisodes) to boot.

Addante's argument implies, like the other examples, that Cable TV has something that free services don't. Over the long term, this is going to prove untrue.

5) And now... Apple's iTunes outdid NAPSTER. Really, now? Napster was wiped out by the RIAA. Filesharing of copyrighted content has been under relentless assault by the RIAA and MPAA, and the Government: the DMCA and its many offspring. Had it not been for all of this Government interference, the only thing that would have stopped Napster was a new type of Napster. Apple's iTunes survives because their customer base consists of people who fear the Government and are aware of the fact that you can get as much time in prison for stealing a movie or an MP3 as you can get for grand theft auto or forcible RAPE.

So no, Apple iTunes didn't outdo Napster. Heavy-handed Government involvement outdid Napster.


In conclusion: I'm not saying that there's no way to beat a product or service being offered for free. What I am saying is that sometimes doing so is simply not possible without Government intervention, persistently deceptive marketing, monopolistic tactics, or other undeniably anti-capitalistic distortions of the marketplace.

And in the era of 3D printers which are about to give birth to ultra cheap manufacturing, I've got some advice:

How About Gun Control For Cops? Cop Kills Wife, 5 YEAR OLD SON, Self

All this talk about gun control completely ignores the issue of our nation’s excessively armed police and the problem of cops going around shooting people.

When are we going to have a talk about disarming the cops, too? When are we going to have that long-needed talk about checking our cops’ mental health? When? How many innocent people must be killed by psycho cops before we do something about this?

Las Vegas Cop Shot Wife, 5-Year-Old Son in Head, Before Killing Himself

A veteran Las Vegas cop apparently shot his ex-policewoman wife and their 5-year-old son in the head before he turned the gun on himself.

The Clark County Coroner's Office said Kathryn Michelle Walters, 46; and Maximilian Walters, 5; each died of a gunshot wound to the head in their Boulder City, Nev., home on Monday.

As police surrounded the home, Hans Walters, 52, an off-duty lieutenant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, set fire to the house and then fatally shot himself, according to accounts from the coroner and the Henderson Police Department, which is leading the investigation.

Investigators are combing through Walters' background looking for clues as to what made the 20-year veteran of the police force snap.

A Message to All Bashers of Atheists AND People of Faith

America's Police State Strikes Again

Had enough yet?

WTF: Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School

In Mississippi, if kindergarteners violates the dress code or act out in class, they may end up in the back of a police car.

A story about one five-year-old particularly stands out. The little boy was required to wear black shoes to school. Because he didn’t have black shoes, his mom used a marker to cover up his white and red sneakers. A bit of red and white were still noticeable, so the child was taken home by the cops.

The child was escorted out of school so he and his mother would be taught a lesson.

Ridiculous? Perhaps. But incidents such as this are happening across Mississippi. A new report, “Handcuffs on Success: The Extreme School Discipline Crisis in Mississippi Public Schools,” exposes just how bad it’s become.

#Republican Forum On a #Racist Rampage Over #PostOffice Job Cuts

Want to know why Conservatives are worthy of being hated?

Take a look.

Microgrids: One Thing I Wish the Military Would Bring to the Civilian World

U.S. military gets serious about microgrids … which is more exciting than it sounds

The Department of Defense has bases in the U.S. and forward operating bases in theaters of war like Afghanistan. In both cases, providing reliable electricity, a strategic and tactical necessity for an increasingly wired military, is a challenge. One way the military is meeting that challenge is developing microgrids, which are way cooler than they sound.

The two types of DOD bases face the same challenge, but for different reasons. In Afghanistan, the diesel generators that provide electricity at bases are the top consumer of fuel on the battlefield. And it’s not just any fuel, it’s high-grade jet fuel, trucked into the country in caravans that cross treacherous, hostile territory and are frequently attacked. The “fully burdened cost” of that fuel — the cost of the fuel plus the costs of transporting and protecting it — can reach into the hundreds of dollars per gallon, especially at the smaller forward bases.

One way to reduce that fuel use is to generate more power on site, through distributed generation technologies like solar or waste-to-power plants. Another is to use that power more efficiently. And another is to network the base’s power sources and loads together into a microgrid that can be managed intelligently. For the bigger bases, it means they can be self-sustaining and not rely on primitive grids. For the smaller units up on the front lines, there are “mobile tactical microgrids,” which are small, modular systems that are easy to set up and disassemble, allowing a balance of connectivity and mobility....

When Bashing Conservatives and Rich People, Remember 3 Rules That This Author Broke

If you're going to engage in schadenfreude, in which you make jokes of or make merry of someone else's misfortunes, you must remember three basic rules that separate your behavior from that of a sociopath.

One: Do your research. The kids that the author in the story below, weren't all one-percenters.
Two: Never make fun of people being endangered in natural disasters. Nature is a-political.
Three, and most importantly: Never, ever make fun of kids in danger.

This journalist failed to observe these rules.

Antarctica takes out its frustration on the children of the 1%

Perhaps you have been feeling a little under the weather lately — hot, drippy, tired, not your usual self. As a rule, when you’re in this sort of condition, you don’t want visitors. Especially not spoiled visitors coming to gawk at your diminished state....

Now is it Time for the Left to Call Obama Out on Outsourcing?

President Obama sank Mitt Romney on the issue of foreign outsourcing. But Obama's record is hardly clean. Worse yet, he's been pushing the ultra secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is a treaty that outlaws all "Made in the USA" programs.

One glimmer of hope persists with the TPP: anti-outsourcing resistance has stalled this treaty. Keep up the (increasingly bi-partisan) pressure, folks!

Obama’s record on outsourcing draws criticism from the left

Barack Obama promised voters four years ago that he would work to slow the outflow of American jobs to other countries, proposing to revamp a federal tax code that encourages companies to maintain overseas operations.

Obama as president has continued to call for rewriting the rules that allow U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes for a time on income generated overseas.

But the broad tax changes have not happened.

While White House officials say they have been waiting on Congress to act, Obama’s critics, primarily on the political left, say he has repeatedly failed in other ways to protect American jobs from being moved overseas. They point to a range of actions they say he should have taken: confronting China, reining in unfettered trade and reworking a U.S. visa program that critics say ends up sending high-tech jobs abroad.

Obama Trade Document Leaked, Revealing New Corporate Powers And Broken Campaign Promises

WASHINGTON -- A critical document from President Barack Obama's free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises.

The leaked document has been posted on the website of Citizens Trade Campaign, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.

"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talkson his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure.

Rebels vs Hypocrites: The Fight Against #Offshoring Inches Closer to a #REVOLUTION.

As predicted, the wave of anti-offshoring sentiments continues to grow toward the level of an electoral tsunami. Like many tsunamis, this wave began as an undersea political earthquake in 2004 when popular opinions first started turning against foreign outsourcing, and has steadily worked its way to shore ever since. A July 2012 Gallup poll puts "stop outsourcing American jobs" as the third most popular way to improve the economy. 

When Presidential candidate John Kerry made foreign outsourcing an issue in his campaign in 2004, it wasn't enough to put him over the top against George W Bush. However, by 2010, it became evident that there was a political tsunami about to hit Washington, DC. It was at this time that a report by the Public Citizen came out, showing that politicians were starting to attack foreign outsourcing in record numbers. Moreover, the report showed that Democrats who attacked foreign outsourcing survived the GOP landslide at a rate of 3 times the number of Democrats who didn't attack foreign outsourcing. Furthermore, Democrats and Republicans alike who previously supported foreign outsourcing, turned against it in order to win. This is very important, because while many were acting hypocritical in launching political attack ads against foreign outsourcing, they did so in order to win. Why did so many politicians do such an about-face? Because like the animals who fled the 2004 tsunami that killed 150,000 people, it was a successful survival tactic. The politicians who ran against anti-outsourcing candidates, tended to lose.

But, of course, defenders of foreign outsourcing would say this is a fluke, right? That, it turns out, appears to be wishful thinking.

In 2012, President Obama put foreign outsourcing in his gunsights, and then proceeded to crucify Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney over the issue. Of course, Obama has had his own rebel and hypocrite relationship with foreign outsourcing, with his support of the horrendously pro-offshoring Trans Pacific Partnership treaty, juxtaposed with his legion of anti-foreign outsourcing activity: his anti-outsourcing bills and his battles with China, including his solar panel tariffs and his victories against China in the WTO.

And President Obama was far from alone. Public Citizen, again, ran the numbers from the 2012 elections, and it turns out that the attacks on foreign outsourcing by politicians increased dramatically. 

Candidates who voted against Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) touted their fair-trade record. Many candidates, including incumbents who could not claim such a record, touted votes in favor of closing tax loopholes that incentivize offshoring, attacked their opponent on offshoring, or pledged to be "tough on China." The magnitude of trade-themed ads to which the American public was exposed in this election cycle was reinforced by an unprecedented prominence of trade themes in the presidential debates and stump speeches.

Now, for those who support foreign outsourcing, this particular piece of news is terrible. The rebels, those who oppose foreign outsourcing, practically cleaned house.

Among all paid ads used by the 294 campaigns, support for trade deals was limited to one ad in which the GOP candidate for Hawaii's open Senate seat, former Gov. Linda Lingle, attacked Senator-elect Maize Hirono for opposing all three FTAs in 2011 when she was a House member. Despite expectations for a close race, Hirono beat Lingle by 26 percentage points.

In 2012, there were some crushing defeats for foreign outsourcing as far as political elections go.

Of course, there were the hypocrites who hopped on the bandwagon, too - those who previously supported (and perhaps still do support) foreign outsourcing, but then turned against it during election time:

More than 40 percent of House and Senate incumbents in tight races who indicted the trade status quo in paid ads or campaign websites have voted for the current trade model more often than they voted against it. A half dozen Republican incumbents ran ads attacking current trade policy despite a 100 percent track record of support for every single NAFTA-style trade deal arising under their tenure. These include Allen West (R-Fla.), David Rivera (R-Fla.), Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.), Dan Benishek (R-Mich.), Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.), the incumbent who lost the headline-grabbing battle for Massachusetts' Senate seat. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) stands out among Democratic candidates who used the trade theme despite a voting record for unfair trade. Last year, Richmond voted for the NAFTA-style deals with Korea and Panama that both include special protection to facilitate U.S. corporations' job offshoring. As well, an increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Korea since that pact went into effect already had cost U.S. jobs. Incredibly, Richmond chose to attack his challenger in a paid ad for supporting offshoring-prone trade deals. Even more ironically, Richmond cited his own accountability: "I've taken responsibility for my actions because public officials must be accountable. And we should hold Congressman Cao accountable for his record: supporting trade deals with China that send our jobs overseas." While the United States actually has no trade deal with China, it does now have job-eroding deals with Korea and Panama, thanks to Richmond's support.

The common theme? They're all turning against foreign outsourcing of American jobs.

What about these hypocrites, who oppose foreign outsourcing during election time, but who support it when they're in office? That's to be expected at the outset of a political revolution. Indeed, hypocrites are commonplace even as an electoral revolution occurs. Eventually, though, what happens is the hypocrites get washed out to sea when a political tsunami hits land.

Proponents of foreign outsourcing have had 30 years to make their case. America has heard it and they comprehend it. Unfortunately, their case has failed the reality check, as the benefits of globalization have failed to materialize in the face of all the drawbacks.

The lesson to take from this is as follows. Whether a politician was a true rebel against foreign outsourcing or they were a hypocrite who previously supported it, the way to win political office is to oppose foreign outsourcing. Openly supporting it is a clear and undeniable ticket to defeat and retirement. The day is not long in coming in which the way to STAY in office is to stay a rebel and not become a hypocrite. That is the day when a true electoral revolution will occur, and globalization will be forced to face the radical reforms it desperately needs.

Ezra Klein Says "Raising Social Security Retirement Age Concentrates Pain on the Poor"... NEWS FLASH!!!

Read more at:

Ezra Klein: Raising Social Security Retirement Age Concentrates Pain on the Poor

But really, what's the point?

Ezra Klein, do you not realize, 

the whole point is to clamp down on the poor!

Why Isn't Anyone Talking About the Only True Path of Social Security Reform?

Eliminate the earnings cap on Social Security taxes. That's the only solution that will truly ensure the permanent solvency of Social Security.

That is all.

Police Gangs of Chicago Went On a Horrific Rampage, Now Paying For It

America, your police gangs are starting to not only become a deadly menace to civilization... they're also costing taxpayers money by the truckload.

Cases in point.

• Chicago cop torture payouts reach $40m
• Ex-Police Chief Convicted For Lying About Torture Of Suspects
• Wrongfully imprisoned Chicago man wins $25 million in damages
• Chicago will pay $33 million to a mentally ill woman released in a high-crime neighborhood and an innocent man who spent 26 years in prison, officials say.

Are you ready to de-fund and reform these de facto gang banger organizations yet? Or do you want to keep bringing more psychopaths into the law enforcement system until one day YOU become a victim?

Halt, You Non-Believer, You HERETIC! Who DARES Question The "Economic Growth" God!

Halt, You Non-Believer, You HERETIC! Who DARES Question The "Economic Growth" God!

Economic growth has been the de facto god to which all economists and modern governments genuflect. Modern civilization has declared increasingly unswerving fealty to the idea of economic growth, sacrificing everything from workers' rights to the environment itself, to its altar.

A Reality Check About Growth's "Benefits"
Take this New York Times article by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, for instance. This sermon given in honor of the economic growth god praises economic growth as the sustainer of national defense, clean energy, and all manner of government programs. But the most hilarious part of her propaganda piece is this:

Henry Thoreau may be right that we can find God in nature. But it takes economic growth to keep nature pristine and all of us healthy enough to enjoy it.

Mind you, of course, that nature was well served when the clear cutting of trees and the hunting of whales for oil, gave way to coal and crude oil. Of course, with zero economic growth, it is said that nobody is going to develop solar energy and alternative fuels to replace coal, crude oil, and the clear-cutting of trees that persists to this day. But that's an ultra, ultra simplistic approach to the relationship between growth and progress.

The reality is that the relentless pursuit of growth is killing the same environment that benefits from it. Furchtgott-Roth says growth is needed to actually fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - but then you have to ask yourself, what is the EPA being funded for? You guessed it, the destruction of the environment, which is continuing apace as a direct result of the pursuit of... wait for it... economic growth. What do I mean? Well, that same growth that supposedly funds the EPA, comes largely in the form of consumer activity. Stop and ponder that word consumer - what are they consuming? Everything from plastic bottles to paper-based goods, consumer electronics, cars, and gasoline for cars. What do all of those things have in common? They produce pollution and global warming: plastic bottles form continents in the ocean, enormous swaths of trees are being cut down to make paper and wood-based construction goods, obsolete consumer electronics are becoming toxic hazards to the environment, and to the Chinese people who recycle them, and cars are spewing tons of pollutants into the sky. Industrial factories, a critically key part of economic growth, are responsible for horrific amounts of pollution, not to mention acid rain. Ever wonder why some fish you buy at the store is almost inedible because of its mercury content? You can blame another huge engine of economic growth for that... coal-fired power plants.

So, do you still think "it keeps economic growth to keep nature pristine"? Truth be told, the EPA is largely here to clean up the environmental mess created by economic growth.

But Growth Equals A Good Standard of Living...Right?
Economic growth is not an infallible source of an increased standard of living. In fact, standards of living for most can decline while economic growth is continuing rapidly. This has in fact been happening in the United States. Why is this true? Because almost all of the gains from economic growth have been going to the top 1%. And this has been going on since long before the 2008 crash. Meanwhile, Americans lost 18% of their total wealth, and it is probably never coming back even after we recover from the crash. Another sign that the Plutocracy is capturing almost all economic growth? CEO pay in relation to worker pay, which has skyrocketed from around 50 to 1 in the middle of the 20th century to nearly 400 to 1 now - again, a pattern that has persisted since before the 2008 crash. Another way to look at it? Income inequality. The problem with blindly worshiping the economic growth god is that yes, a rising tide lifts all boats... but it drowns or displaces those living on the coastline.

For Conservatives who are reading this, let's summarize all of this in the form of pretty pictures, shall we?

(Again, another problem that has persisted since before the 2008 economic crash.)

Furthermore, Conservatives and other out-of-touch people like to say that America's standard of living has increased as growth has increased. Yet they don't want to talk about the fact that job stability disappeared long ago, and homelessness is rising, and has been since the 1980s when Section 8 funding and public housing funding declined. Mind you, these are all structural increases which were creeping forward before the 2008 recession, which accelerated greatly during the recession, and which will persist long after the 2008 collapse has worn off. Then, of course, there is the pattern of repeated jobless recoveries that have plagued the working class even as economic growth skyrockets. Here's another way to study the change in standards of living: Canadians really do have it harder now than they did before. The same is most likely true for people in the United States.

After earning a three-year BA (majoring in political science) at York University in Toronto back in 1984, I landed a summer job as a copy editor at The Canadian Press, the national wire service. I earned enough to spend a year in Ottawa earning a bachelor of journalism degree at Carleton University. I had to work the Christmas holidays at CP to top up my savings, but I was financially self-sufficient and incurred zero debt.

Wasn't this pursuit of economic growth supposed to fix that? Make it better? Well, guess what happened in spite of our relentless pursuit of economic growth:

Today, financial self-sufficiency is impossible without taking breaks from school to work. The Bank of Canada’s handy inflation calculator tells us that my $1,000 tuition back in 1984 would cost $2,028 today if it increased just by the inflation rate annually. But according to Statistics Canada, the latest read on average tuition fees is $5,366.

So what was that again about the prosperity of the working class depending on economic growth? It seems that growth has left the working class behind. Far behind. In a world where the tide is rising, the working class is the ones standing at the shoreline. The 1% are the boats. The working class is the economic Maldives. What is the most startling example of where global growth has failed to serve the working class? The World Bank reports that by 2022, the world will need to create 600 million more NEW jobs to keep up with the population of working class people. That's 400 million jobs in addition to the already 200 million who are unemployed now. Worse yet? The World Bank sees no way that these jobs can or will be created. The experts call for reduced inequality and better education, but neither can be achieved when there's no jobs. It's circular; a catch-22. Moreover, the Plutocrats won't pay the taxes needed to support such reforms.



So What Is The Connection Between Economic Growth And Jobs?

In reality? There is little, if any connection. In fact, the tenuous nature of economic growth's relationship to jobs is becoming increasingly obvious to people who study economics.

But consider this: Between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of last year, the U.S. economy lost almost 8 million jobs, an enormous figure by historic standards. Yet during that same period, economic activity declined by only 1.3 percent, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research—a far less dramatic dropoff than the huge number of jobs lost would predict using conventional models. By the same token, the latter half of last year saw solid economic growth, including record corporate profits, but weak job creation, with unemployment stuck around 9 percent. That was the "jobless recovery" we heard so much about.

In other words, the established link between economic growth and job creation hasn't held up lately, during either up or down periods. And in both cases, it's the jobs side that has lagged.

A recent study released by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggests the experience of the last few years hasn't been a fluke. Economists Deepankar Basu of Amherst and Duncan K. Foley of The New School for Social Research write that "the close relationship between [growth and jobs] that characterized the U.S. economy over the two decades after World War II has been weakening since the mid-1980s." The result has been "jobless recoveries," and "output-less crashes"—employment lagging behind growth during both good times and bad.

How can this be? The article explains further: globalization and foreign outsourcing... plus this:

The other has received less attention: the increasing share of the economy made up of the "FIRE" industries, finance, insurance and real estate. Between 1995 and 2009, those sectors accounted for more than one quarter of U.S. GDP growth. But compared to sectors like manufacturing, which has declined steadily over the same period, the FIRE industries don't generate many jobs in relation to their contribution to growth.

In short, the link between economic growth and jobs never existed in the first place, and this fact is merely becoming obvious now.

Most economists in their ivory towers are too dedicated to finding ways to create more economic growth. But what main street America needs, is more jobs. The two are not related, and they never have been. They just appeared to be.




But... Can Prosperity Survive Without Growth?
Now the next argument that pro-growth religious fanatics will come up with, should be predictable at this point: without growth, everyone will become poorer. As bad as it is with workers getting a rapidly diminishing share of the expanding pie, if the pie stopped growing, it would be the end of all happiness as we know it. The working class share of everything would practically implode if growth stopped. See: 2008.


The Better Question Is, Can Civilization Survive With Endless Economic Growth?
The reality is, there is at least one reason why the relentless pursuit of growth is going to come very close to driving humanity extinct. It may not actually get to that point, however it will drive humanity into a level of suffering and global poverty that has probably not been seen in 500 years, at least for America. In some cases the poverty and suffering will have no equal in the entire history of human beings. What am I talking about? The role of economic growth in the destruction of the environment, of course. But the problem goes way beyond that. The real problem is that economic growth will hit a wall, and must hit a wall: a wall known as PEAK EVERYTHING.

Peak everything. A point where oil production will be unable to keep up with demand, where drinkable water will lag behind demand, job growth will not keep up with population growth, and various natural resources around the world will not be able to keep up with demand. You cannot sustain economic growth when this point is reached; and in many parts of the world, that point has already been reached. Even the United States or German Military are worried about peak oil. The world is currently headed for the last race it will ever run: the race for the last deposits of natural resources of many different types... or, as author Michael T Klare titled his book, "The Race For What's Left".

What is at the core of Peak Everything? Simple. It's the fact that Earth's resources are finite, and humanity's rapid consumption of such is on track to create devastating shortages in just about everything. The relentless pursuit of economic growth is at the center of this. Without new resources, there can be no growth: the dog discovers the length of its chain the hard way. This is not a problem that can be cured even by recycling: recycling is imperfect and will be well into the foreseeable future due to our lack of interest in it. Thus, inevitably, humans are going to run out of many different types of resources, especially at the rate in which natural resources are being consumed.

Economic growth must end at some point, because it will inevitably be truncated, brutally, by Peak Everything.


Peak Everything? Impossible! Or Is It?
You should, at this point, demand proof that humans have ever run into a "peak everything" moment before. It hasn't. This is mostly uncharted territory. Mostly.

Perhaps you've heard of a place called Easter Island? It's a Southeastern Pacific island near South America that is also known as Rapa Nui. It is famous for its Moai, or giant person-shaped statues hewn out of rock, which rise as high as 10 meters and weigh as much as 80 tons. What you probably haven't heard of, however, is what happened to Easter Island. The people of Easter Island were all but wiped out because of a self-inflicted problem: they consumed their natural resources until there was practically nothing left. For them, Peak Everything came and it destroyed their civilization. They cut down all their trees and this led to soil erosion, which led to a food shortage. The lack of wood meant the people couldn't build boats to emigrate, either. Long before European sailors and slave traders ravaged the society of Rapa Nui, their own over-consumption had done the job first.

Peak everything happened to Rapa Nui. Now it is threatening to happen worldwide - and it is coming rapidly because of the relentless pursuit of economic growth.

Now what does Peak Everything have to do with economic growth? When that point is reached worldwide, shortages of just about every important resource are inevitable, and in that case, economic growth is impossible. Especially if genuine water or food shortages occur, in which money will become next to worthless. Look at what inflation did in Zimbabwe after Robert Mugabe's mismanaged land reforms took a turn for worse. Closer to home, look at stagflation in the United States during the 1970s oil crisis. What was economic growth like then? Now imagine the food shortages in Zimbabwe or the American oil crisis... except worldwide. What happens to economic growth then? The same thing that happens when a hungry coyote races off a cliff.


The Hard Lesson That Will Be Learned About Economic Growth: Prosperity Must Learn To Survive Without It
The hard and unavoidable reality is that the relentless pursuit of economic growth, as it is being practiced now, must be abandoned. Consumption must be reduced, if all of humanity is to avoid a global repeat of Rapa Nui's collapse. Throw-away goods must be replaced with goods that are easily recyclable. Humanity has moved past the convenient point of arguing whether it is feasible: our resource consumption levels has made it an imperative. Reduce, reuse, recycle, do it or die. Nature is coming to the point where it no longer cares about "but we can't!" Plenty of other species have gone extinct, sentenced to oblivion because "we can't!" was their answer to that last crisis their species ever faced.

Reducing consumption is naturally going to reduce economic growth, at least until research into recycling technology is taken seriously. This is because growth and the concept of sustainability are almost natural enemies of each other. We need to pursue a sustainable economy, one in which few if any additional natural resources are required to sustain the global populace. We need to cut pollution down to as little as possible. Humans will need to recycle water and replace fossil fuel usage with renewable, clean-burning fuels.

The problem is, sustainability is synonymous with stability and stability is not synonymous with growth; in fact it is almost the antithesis of growth. But sustainability is also synonymous with survival, and at some point we need to come to grips with the fact that the survival of the species comes first. It is remotely possible, maybe, to have economic growth while having sustainability, but that is going to require a civilization that is barely (if at all) recognizable by today's economists, to say the least.

The acolytes and high priests of the economic growth god will mark this as heresy, but they will not handwave it away: 

Economic growth as humans define it now will end

or humanity will end.