Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

[shiny!]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

I'm down with that. And any female of child-bearing age gets mandatory Norplant or no public assistance money of any kind. Agreed?

Absolutely!

[shiny!]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

I guess in short I sympathize with our poor......but I truly respect theirs.

Interesting observations and a wonderful story.

[Techdread]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

This is going to sound incredibly callous, but I'd like to see 10 kids from there given a mediocre opportunity here...and 10 kids here dropped in the deep end there.......I think it would be an incredibly enlightening opportunity for both groups. I could see those Cambodian kids absolutely cleaning up in school and work if they were able to be integrated...and I could see some western kids learning a new reference point/definition for a personal existential threat.

I think it would be better if everyone in the western world did a year or two in a shanty town.....

[Master Shake]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

High five!

We're definitely heading towards Idiocracy, and no amount of nuture is going to trump nature.

[Dave Stratman]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

I wonder also how much of its an analytical decision to krank out more kids because its profitable. I'm not saying it's not, I have no idea, rather I don't know if a lot of the people we are talking about think and plan that well. I suspect its just as much a matter of carelessness. How else do you explain people having 'too many' kids who are poor, but not on welfare?
If carelessness and poor decision making is the root cause, then the policies you suggestion would not be a disincentive, and would then impede the goal of 'helping the children'. As far as paying back society, I wonder if these are the best candidates for being competent day-care providers.

I certainly understand your sentiments, and I don't have better ideas, but I suspect the problem is not as easily solved as you suggest, even if there were the political will.

And looking ahead, if one believes that there are major structural problems with the economy (thinking of other itulip threads regarding automation, etc) the problem will only likely get bigger.

I think your suspicions--that there are major structural problems in the economy, and that the problems of poverty are not merely matters of carelessness, etc., are correct.

Here are some data (the most recent I could find) that could ground this discussion in facts. (TANF is the successor program to Aid to Famiies with Dependent Children, "welfare"):

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES
(TANF)-Eighth Annual Report to Congress
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/.../chap10.htm

Child-Only Families

In FY 2006 the number of child-only families (those where no adult is receiving assistance) accounted for 47.2 percent of the total caseload.

TANF Families

The average number of persons in TANF families was 2.3, including an average of 1.8 recipient children.
One in two recipient families had only one child.
One in 10 families had more than three children.
The average number of children in closed-case families was 1.8.
About 47 percent of TANF families had no adult recipients.
About 50 percent of TANF families had only one adult recipient.
Only six percent had two or more adult recipients.
Financial Circumstances

Of TANF families, 99.5 percent received cash and cash equivalent assistance, with an average monthly amount of $372.
Monthly cash payments to TANF families averaged $314 for one child, $390 for two children, $465 for three children, and $558 for four or more children.
Some TANF families who were not employed received other forms of assistance such as child care, transportation and other supportive services.

TANF Adults

Most TANF adult recipients were women, as men only represented 10 percent of adult recipients.
Nearly 95 percent of adult recipients were the head of the household.
There were about 74,000 teen parents whose child was also a member of the TANF family, representing about 9 percent of recipients aged 13-19.
Only 11 percent of adult recipients were married and living together. However, the number of married adult recipients decreased because many States recently moved two-parent families to SSP-MOE programs.
Thirty-eight percent of adult recipients were white,
37 percent were African-American,
20 percent were Hispanic,
1.7 percent were Asian, and 1.5 percent were Native American.
Most TANF adult recipients were U.S.citizens. There were about 60,000 non-citizens (i.e., 5.9 percent of TANF adults) residing legally in this country.
Work participation was mandatory for three of every five adult recipients, and 11 percent of TANF adult recipients were deemed to be engaged in work activities.

TANF Children

TANF recipient children were on average 7.8 years old.
Fifteen percent of recipient children were under two years of age,
while 40 percent were of preschool age under six.
Only nine percent of the children were 16 years of age or older.

Below from another source is a graph that puts these figures in some perspective. The U.S., the richest country in the world, also has the highest rate of childhood poverty, surpassed only by Mexico. This fact seems to me to
be the product of social policy in the most unequal modern society in the world.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

I'm down with that. And any female of child-bearing age gets mandatory Norplant or no public assistance money of any kind. Agreed?

Don't forget you'll be using a nickle of tax money to buy the Norplant and vasectomies. And there are millions of Catholics who's tax pennies are in those nickles, and birth control is against their religion. Sure, your plan looks like a simple and practical solution to a real problem. But the cardinals and bishops will claim you are declaring WAR on their religion and get congress to shut it down before it destroys the LAST SHRED of our liberty and freedom. ( sorry, I just could not help myself...)

[wayiwalk]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

simple, 4 word solution:

TERM LIMITS FOR CONGRESS - NOW!

......;)

+ 1

But I'll suggest that this is a five word simple solution!

I can't say for sure whether gov't or non-profits are better at helping the poor;non-profits may be since they are more flexible, while the gov't run have the advantage of a near bottomless pool of funding but there's no doubt that the poor are a canary in the coal mine for how tough things are at the edges of "rich nations" as their economies head down the toilet.

Lektrode - I'd add another dozen or so words related to rolling back the regulations that control finance (including reinstituting Glass Steagall).

[c1ue]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

I am categorically against the requirement to undergo sterilization to get anything.

This is a thinly disguised eugenic attack, and a product of faulty understanding of genetics.

I equally deride the attempt to factionalize the welfare debate - a tactic which the Republican party has been using for decades.

The Food Stamp budget was $82.7 billion in 2010 and fed millions of Americans.

In contrast literally 100 times that was spent saving a few TBTF banks, and 10 times that on Iraq or Afghanistan (pick one).

[lektrode]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

i dont equate 'birth control' with 'sterilization' - one is temporary, the other is permanent.
and my comment on that pertains only to those who have a history of being on welfare for long periods - i cant offer documentation in this regard, other than what i have personally seen to be true, that there are families spanning multiple generations who've been on welfare their entire lives, or nearly so, across multiple generations - one gen leads to the next and its the politics of the proponents of 'the welfare state' that leads-to/encourages more of them - what i refer to as the 'welfare-industrial complex' - which is no less a threat to US solvency than the .mil-industrial complex is - my ultimate objection.

the suggestion of mandatory birth control is simply that if one cant afford to raise one child then they should not be allowed to have more - if for no other reason than if one kid is holding them down (from supporting themselves), then 2 or more is dooming them to be welfare recipients (and burden the rest of us) for the next 20years - like i said prev: the first one is an 'accident' (regardless of how/why it happened, lets just say the first one is exempt) but after that there needs to be some mechanism to enforce personal responsibility if they wont take it upon themselves...

i also dont have any issue with the social safety net or its costs, providing that its prudently managed and not simply another runaway .gov gravy train - and i agree with you that its a pittance compared what gets squandered by the .mil complex (and never mind the bailout of the billionaire banker boyz)

so for me, it comes down to the bottom line: our out of control government (and its puppet masters on wall st), thru both the .mil and welfare-industrial complexes is bankrupting us - with financial insolvency the ultimate threat to our existence.

and heres the thing: if individuals or families arent held to some level of personal responsibility then how can we ever expect the .gov to be financially responsible?

and, as we've seen over the last 30-40 years we've traded personal responsibility and freedoms for an overbearing and out of control .gov monster that consumes a larger and larger chunk of our productive output, even as it continues to strip away one by one our individual freedoms (think TSA, patriot act) in the name of the 'safety net'

[Master Shake]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

Don't forget you'll be using a nickle of tax money to buy the Norplant and vasectomies. And there are millions of Catholics who's tax pennies are in those nickles, and birth control is against their religion. Sure, your plan looks like a simple and practical solution to a real problem. But the cardinals and bishops will claim you are declaring WAR on their religion and get congress to shut it down before it destroys the LAST SHRED of our liberty and freedom. ( sorry, I just could not help myself...)

F 'em. The Catholic Church sheltered pedophile priests from the law for years. They have no moral high ground on which to stand.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

Being the slow-learner here, I would think the problem is this: Men don't want to get married for one reason: Women are experts at playing the divorce game. Women have turned marriage into a joke.

The divorce game: 1.) "I love you." 2.) Marry-up. 3.) Divorce even better. 4.) Place $ in gold or in bonds, and... 5.) Go to Step #1 again.

The divorce game works even better with children for the man to support, and the judge will always have sympathy for the woman with kids, etc.

Would you like me to write this in Spanish?

Steve, I am sorry you have had such problems with marriage in your life. I am different. My first wife died after we had been together 46 1/2 years. It was a great marriage. I have now been married to a wonderful woman for more than 5 1/2 years. We have 6 children, all of whom have had long marriages (the shortest being 16 years. We all think marriage is how life is supposed to be.

[lektrode]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

mr stratman! howzit - glad to see you're paying attention on this one, your input is always much appreciated.

I think your suspicions--that there are major structural problems in the economy, and that the problems of poverty are not merely matters of carelessness, etc., are correct.

i would concur on the structural issues, also that its not merely carelessness, but still think its not simply accidental that some are having too many kids they cant afford.

i will say that i think .gov policies/programs encourage it.

and tho i dont know what the answers/solutions are... i'm not so heartless that i dont feel a sense of compassion for those not able to support themselves or at least their children - but i do think some adjustments in the 'incentives' for having children (in The US) need to be made - just what those would be is the difficult part (and 'way beyond my paygrade')

i do have a question about this tho - seems like its a bit misleading to show only '1st world' countries??
and many of which are more of a homogenous population(scandanavia, switz), with lower native birth rates etc.
would also offer that 'poverty' in The US is a much higher standard of living than most of the other countries that _arent_ shown here?

[QUOTE]
Below from another source is a graph that puts these figures in some perspective. The U.S., the richest country in the world, also has the highest rate of childhood poverty, surpassed only by Mexico. This fact seems to me to
be the product of social policy in the most unequal modern society in the world.



[/QUOTE]

[lektrode]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

snort!
;)
jeeeeze.... you guys are unbelievable! - why do i ever let myself get sucked into these bottomless pits
(other than the fact that watchin y'all argue back n forth is some of the best entertainment that eye've ever ;)

[c1ue]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

i dont equate 'birth control' with 'sterilization' - one is temporary, the other is permanent.
and my comment on that pertains only to those who have a history of being on welfare for long periods - i cant offer documentation in this regard, other than what i have personally seen to be true, that there are families spanning multiple generations who've been on welfare their entire lives, or nearly so, across multiple generations - one gen leads to the next and its the politics of the proponents of 'the welfare state' that leads-to/encourages more of them - what i refer to as the 'welfare-industrial complex' - which is no less a threat to US solvency than the .mil-industrial complex is - my ultimate objection.

While you might not equate birth control with sterilization, forced birth control is little different than sterilization. Other comments in this thread make it clear the objective is to prevent poor people from reproducing:

I want a law that says that men who have children they are not supporting, even one child on welfare, those men get mandatory vasectomies courtesy of the taxpayer.

...

I'd be down with that as well.....I'd even stretch it a bit and offer say $1000 for irreversible vasectomies and $10,000 for irreversible tying of tubes.........but I reckon that would be deemed racist eugenics....even though you accurately mentioned single welfare dependant mothers are more often vanilla than chocolate.

And as I noted before: the notion that 'worthless people' produce 'worthless children' is a product of stupidity itself.

Genetics doesn't work linearly any more than most other natural phenomenon.

Yes, there is a significant nurture component, but equally so the nurture can be both positive and negative. History is replete with examples of how cultural and genetic inbreeding yield bad results.

And while there are absolutely abuses of the present system - both deadbeat child support fathers and predatory divorcee women - at the same time to lump all absentee non-paying fathers as deadbeat and all alimony seeking women as predatory divorcees is far too simplistic.

If anything, it is any absolute which allows abuses to become widespread.

[shiny!]

Re: Britain's silent, scandalous epidemic

While you might not equate birth control with sterilization, forced birth control is little different than sterilization. Other comments in this thread make it clear the objective is to prevent poor people from reproducing:

I'm the one who made that comment so I will make it clear that you entirely misinterpreted my objective. Contrary to your earlier insulting statement, I am not jonesing for a "eugenics attack" against the poor or against anyone. I have no objection whatsoever to poor people reproducing. I have no objection to poor people. But I do have an objection to people bringing children into the world when they must depend on taxpayers to financially support them.

And as I noted before: the notion that 'worthless people' produce 'worthless children' is a product of stupidity itself.

I totally agree with you. Who said otherwise?

Genetics doesn't work linearly any more than most other natural phenomenon.

Yes, there is a significant nurture component, but equally so the nurture can be both positive and negative. History is replete with examples of how cultural and genetic inbreeding yield bad results.

Inbreeding? Really? Did I miss something? Sometimes I think you create offensive notions out of thin air just so you can argue with them. If someone did in fact mention inbreeding earlier, then please accept my apology.

And while there are absolutely abuses of the present system - both deadbeat child support fathers and predatory divorcee women - at the same time to lump all absentee non-paying fathers as deadbeat and all alimony seeking women as predatory divorcees is far too simplistic.

If anything, it is any absolute which allows abuses to become widespread.

You are projecting that my proposal comes from a sense of moral outrage and a desire to punish. It doesn't. I don't care if the reason a man is not supporting his children is because he's a good man who can't make enough money or because he's a deliberate deadbeat dad. The fact is, other people are having their earnings forcibly taken from them in order to support his children. I'm just saying that if someone is depending on support from taxpayers to raise their children, they have a responsibility to make sure they don't create even more of a burden to the taxpayer by having more children.