Why do people reproduce past their economic means?

[kittenOFchaos]

I imagine most people have a tendency to believe the future will be better than the present so they plan accordingly even if that turns out not to be true.

Or there was nothing good on TV that evening. Extrapolate.

[David Floyd]

BK,

Couple things here - the best implementation of this would be to drop people off of social assistance if they have a child after getting on it - far less intrusive.

The problem with this is, what about the child? Are we going to let it starve? You avoid the problem by avoiding the child altogether, and make receiving any social welfare payments contingent upon an implanted contraceptive. Nothing permanent, just something to prevent breeding while on the dole. And yes, I'm aware there are health risks in this -- to me, that's the price one pays. Public assistance shouldn't be free.

I'd wager it's substantially more likely that Floyd is dating someone not of his race tonight than you.

I'm not, but then again, what's his race anyway? I can't keep up.

Again - it goes back to the whole perception of what a child is. A child is a blessing. Seeing a child as a blessing is very radical. Think of it this way. Poverty is just suffering for you in this life here. After you die, is anyone really going to care about how well you lived this life? No. But your children? They will be out and walking around long after you are gone.

If you value say the 30 or so good years that you get here is one thing - but what about what happens with your family and what your family manages to accomplish. To me it's a no brainer. Even if you are the smartest person on the planet, it is not hard for your progeny to do more things for the world over time.

All that is fine. What I'm saying is that if you are going to "multiply your blessings", you should make sure you can pay for them and that you don't rely on the State. Additionally, even if you can pay for them, make sure you can give them enough attention to properly raise them. I don't want to see your family of 8 running around like banshees at the grocery store screaming because you can't properly train/discipline them. And yes, I see that all the damn time.

Whether Juan or Consuela's, or John and Constance have a child shouldn't have anything to do with you. This is the problem with Obamacare. Since you are paying for their contraception and their health care - suddenly their family planning decisions become your problem - since your tax dollars are being collected to fund them.

On the other token - it works both ways. John and Constance's children will have to support you if you don't have any children. Is that right? I would argue no - your well being isn't their concern anymore than theirs is yours. If they want to help you that is one thing - being forced through social security to help you is quite another.

I agree, yet taxes aren't going away. As long as Juan and Consuela continue to have children, people who have fewer or 0 children will continue to disproportionately support them. Saying that taxes are the problem is irrelevant, because we live in the real world. I'm trying to propose a reasonable solution, without saying "end all taxes" or "end all social programs" - neither is reasonable or possible, no matter how potentially desirable. My solution is to shut the problem off at the source - the mother. She is still free to pop out babies, just as long as she can pay for them. The second she needs food stamps to feed her family, though, is when she has to agree to contraception. No one is saying she doesn't get any more aid for her existing brood, she just doesn't get to have any more children. Basically, because she is choosing to be irresponsible, society is forcing her to be responsible in the future. And since society is paying for her irresponsibility in the first place, it isn't too unreasonable.

I do comprehend. This is why I'm saying that the problem isn't the children, the problem is the benefits.

No, wrong. The problem is the children. Without the children, there wouldn't be a need for the benefits. Even though 10 million children dying of treatable illnesses and starving to death doesn't particularly bother me any (and it's sad - it really doesn't), obviously that isn't going to be an acceptable solution. It's not even the best solution, because it isn't fair to the children already alive. Granted, supporting them isn't fair to me either, but then again we have to live in the real world. And in the real world, taxes and social benefits are not going away. Hell, my solution probably will never happen either - I'm just saying it's a hell of a lot more reasonable than ending all social programs and eliminating taxes.

All else being equal? Absolutely.

Not really, because it wouldn't be the wealthy or even the middle class having more babies. If that was the case, then perhaps we would see a benefit, because those babies would be affordable, educated, and raised well, ready to contribute to society. However, a spike in the birthrate in the US would more than likely be a spike in the birthrate of poor minorities. Not to say that poor minorities can't raise children, it's just that for economic reasons they are the least well equipped members of society to do so.

What's the single greatest action you could take to ensure that the views of Rand are passed on to others within your society?

You want me to say "have a kid" - which sounds good on paper, except that the reality is that in sub-Saharan Africa, that additional child would more than likely end up in a Jimmy Carter commercial with a bloated stomach and flies buzzing around him.


Kid,

People are stupid and irresponsible. Wealthy people also don't have enough children. It's ****ed up. Poor people don't tend to be married or stay married either, yet they have more children. Wealthy people get married and stay married and hardly have any children.

Well, yeah. As income goes up, birthrate tends to go down. We see this all over the world, for a variety of reasons, but primarily because more children equates to less wealth.

Elok,

If there's one thing we don't have enough of in this country, it's proposals of simplistic solutions to complex problems. You are a true American hero, DF.

I don't see how my proposal is "simplistic". It's simple, sure, but it addresses multiple concerns - the rights of existing children, the rights of parents, and the rights of the rest of us. The extremes are far worse - BK's solution, which is to eliminate taxes and social programs is never going to happen, and the other extreme, which is to throw up our hands, and allow the poor to continue to have an exploding birthrate that society has to pay for is economically unviable.

loinburger,

"We'll only give you welfare if you use contraception."
"Whoops, we screwed up / forgot, and now we're pregnant."
"Oh well that's okay then, have fun watching your kids starve."

The obvious problem being that even if this sits well with you, it may not sit will with the rest of the voters. "Well that's okay, I'll just opt out of paying the taxes that fund welfare." What happens when 99% of the tax-payers opt out of paying for e.g. national defense, or something else that you consider essential?

That isn't my proposal. My proposal is to make applying for social services contingent upon taking a reversible contraceptive of some sort, to make reproducing while on social assistance impossible. Nobody is saying let babies starve - or at least, not me.

Al,

Floyd would never date a Black woman.

Correct. Doesn't make me racist, just unattracted, by and large, to black women.

My guess is this someone not of his race is Asian (most likely) or 'white Hispanic'.

I'm fine with an Americanized Asian or a Hispanic who falls outside of stereotypes (ie, one who doesn't have a massive extended family, want a bunch of kids, is heavily Catholic, etc.) - that's probably what you meant by "white Hispanic". I've also dated an Indian woman in the past (dot, not feather, as BK so eloquently put it), although it wasn't over the phone, so that's probably outside your frame of reference.

But, you're right, I almost only date white women. There's the 1 Indian, a couple of "white" Hispanics here and there, and 1 Asian, but for actual dating that's about it. Hooking up is an entirely different story, but if you want to compare sexual histories, this is not the time or place. Also, I wouldn't want to embarrass you.

Because Dave Floyd dating an Asian woman hardly means anything to counter the idea that he's a racist

In other words, who I choose to date has no bearing on whether or not I'm racist. Nice try, dip****.

[gregorydolan567]

Sounds Good...

[Sava]

It really doesn't.

[David Floyd]

You just want more poor minorities to be born to skew the electorate in 18 years.

[Al B. Sure!]

You just want more poor minorities to be born to skew the electorate in 18 years.

Why aren't you banned yet?

[David Floyd]

You mean, besides the fact I haven't done anything to deserve it? Also, don't try to racebait me. It's rude.

[Elok]

Elok, I don't see how my proposal is "simplistic". It's simple, sure, but it addresses multiple concerns - the rights of existing children, the rights of parents, and the rights of the rest of us. The extremes are far worse - BK's solution, which is to eliminate taxes and social programs is never going to happen, and the other extreme, which is to throw up our hands, and allow the poor to continue to have an exploding birthrate that society has to pay for is economically unviable.

Well, for starters: AFAICT, the root causes of poverty are not just "too many children," but a self-perpetuating culture of ****ty life decisions. People don't save, don't budget, don't prioritize, don't get educated, don't plan for the future, don't form stable households. Having lots of kids early is just a symptom of those problems, though of course it exacerbates them. And a large number of them get pregnant for the first time (even multiple times) well before they go on welfare--when they're teenagers and dependents.

I doubt it's a matter of religious scruples, as those beliefs are (from everything I've heard, though it's not like I've done intensive research) a bourgeois phenomenon, at least in America. Where they are followed among the underclass, they tend to form a community which can make up for their subpar family structure to a limited extent. Undermining that community is not advisable, especially not for such a questionable benefit. The RCC is heavily involved in social services in this country, as are certain other, like-minded groups; you'd be alienating them and thereby complicating delivery of services. Did I mention that the cost of implanting contraceptives in every female welfare recipient would quickly become ridiculous? It would, especially when the bureaucracy of tracking and enforcement is factored in.

Speaking of which, the extremely invasive nature of this whole scheme would generate massive hostility overnight. Ben's fellow-believers in the government would use it as an excuse to gut welfare, while on the street level you'd see a barrage of rumors that the government was scheming to sterilize minorities. You would see the ACLU, feminists of every persuasion, and the RCC fighting in lockstep to snuff this. And even if the whole thing "worked" and it didn't turn into a hog-trough of contractor mooching, the weird demographic shift would wreak all kinds of unforeseen/unforeseeable havoc on the economy. And it still wouldn't work in the sense you mean because, as noted, most of the poor get pregnant well before they sign up for welfare. If you wanna sign up all their female dependents as well--alas, that's unenforceable without a big leap in government record-keeping. Which isn't exactly unimpeachable even at its current level.

There's prolly more reasons, but those will do for starters.

[Ben Kenobi]

The problem with this is, what about the child? Are we going to let it starve? You avoid the problem by avoiding the child altogether, and make receiving any social welfare payments contingent upon an implanted contraceptive.

What if someone signs up for social services and then has the child after promising to have contraception? Unless you're advocating stertilization (which has it's own problems), implanted contraception can be removed. Are you going to kick the child out with no support whatsoever? It's really the same problem.

Forcing people to undergo contraception is just bad news all the way around. What about concerns regarding consent? Say a family with someone with a disability - takes them into a doctor, gets them put on benefits and then they get contraception without their consent? It already happens to some extent and it's not a very pretty picture. It would be seen as a cheap way to get rid of 'burdensome people', especially children.

Nothing permanent, just something to prevent breeding while on the dole. And yes, I'm aware there are health risks in this -- to me, that's the price one pays. Public assistance shouldn't be free.

It would be better to do away with public assistance altogether. Odd. Weird to be defending this position on grounds of liberty and autonomy. The state could require that a person work as a slave, but we don't do that anymore... why would this be immune from the same issues? How different is this from forcing people to become guinea pigs for medical experimentation on the grounds that they are wards of the state? What happens when some girl dies from a blood clot at 15 because her family (not her), chose to take social assistance?

I'm not, but then again, what's his race anyway? I can't keep up.

Neither can I.

All that is fine. What I'm saying is that if you are going to "multiply your blessings", you should make sure you can pay for them and that you don't rely on the State.

I agree. You don't see me with 8 kids for precisely that reason. I can't afford them and it's not right to put that burden on teeh state.

Additionally, even if you can pay for them, make sure you can give them enough attention to properly raise them. I don't want to see your family of 8 running around like banshees at the grocery store screaming because you can't properly train/discipline them. And yes, I see that all the damn time.

One of the reasons I advocate wife staying home with her kids... It all fits together.

I agree, yet taxes aren't going away. As long as Juan and Consuela continue to have children, people who have fewer or 0 children will continue to disproportionately support them.

And when you are old, through social security, it's reversed. Taxes are the problem. Entitlements are the problem. The system as is is unsustainable. Surely you see this is the case. If you removed every other thing out of the budget, entitlements alone would be more than revenue in another 10 years. I'm not arguing 'this isn't the real world', I'm arguing that entitlements are going to have to be eliminated. If not now, then later.

I'm not arguing for taxes as a whole to go - but that income taxes go because they really don't raise more money than say sales taxes. Plus, the state actually makes more not less revenue, as people if they aren't paying so much in income taxes have more to spend.

I'm trying to propose a reasonable solution, without saying "end all taxes" or "end all social programs" - neither is reasonable or possible, no matter how potentially desirable.

The problem is this. The entitlement situation as is is unsustainable. Means-testing isn't going to deal with social security, medicare, etc. In fact, you're attacking the wrong problem. We need more young people, not fewer.

My solution is to shut the problem off at the source - the mother. She is still free to pop out babies, just as long as she can pay for them. The second she needs food stamps to feed her family, though, is when she has to agree to contraception. No one is saying she doesn't get any more aid for her existing brood, she just doesn't get to have any more children. Basically, because she is choosing to be irresponsible, society is forcing her to be responsible in the future. And since society is paying for her irresponsibility in the first place, it isn't too unreasonable.

So lets say we do all this, and we see a drop in the birthrate in America to say, what we see in europe. Like 1.5 in Germany. Entitlement on welfare spending goes down for now. Does that fix the growth of entitlements? No. The bulk of it is social security. That will grow even with the implementation of your plan. Your plan would see China style collapse due to the one child policy. Sure, America is not doing well, but they are doing better than Japan and China.

I see your concept and trying to solve the problem, the problem is that it's a temporary fix even if successful, and still doesn't address the major growth in entitlements. At best, it's a 20 year improvement, followed by an even worse problem 20 years from now. The worst - that it doesn't actually change welfare utilization and you see the aforementioned 15 year old die.

All else being equal? Absolutely. Not really, because it wouldn't be the wealthy or even the middle class having more babies. If that was the case, then perhaps we would see a benefit, because those babies would be affordable, educated, and raised well, ready to contribute to society. However, a spike in the birthrate in the US would more than likely be a spike in the birthrate of poor minorities. Not to say that poor minorities can't raise children, it's just that for economic reasons they are the least well equipped members of society to do so.

So why then aren't the middle class or the wealthy having children? The solution isn't to force them to stop having kids - the solution is getting them off the dole.

What's the single greatest action you could take to ensure that the views of Rand are passed on to others within your society? You want me to say "have a kid" - which sounds good on paper, except that the reality is that in sub-Saharan Africa, that additional child would more than likely end up in a Jimmy Carter commercial with a bloated stomach and flies buzzing around him.

So what's the solution then? The situation isn't really different in Africa is it? The system is ****ed and one man isn't going to change things.

Poor people don't tend to be married or stay married either, yet they have more children.

This is part of the problem. Kids out of wedlock means single mom, means poverty and benefits. Getting them out of poverty would mean getting married, staying married and waiting to get married. Radical concept, eh?

Wealthy people get married and stay married and hardly have any children. Well, yeah. As income goes up, birthrate tends to go down. We see this all over the world, for a variety of reasons, but primarily because more children equates to less wealth.

Nothing to do with having a second income? Taxation levels?

[Ben Kenobi]

I've also dated an Indian woman in the past (dot, not feather, as BK so eloquently put it), although it wasn't over the phone, so that's probably outside your frame of reference.

But, you're right, I almost only date white women. There's the 1 Indian, a couple of "white" Hispanics here and there, and 1 Asian, but for actual dating that's about it. Hooking up is an entirely different story, but if you want to compare sexual histories, this is not the time or place. Also, I wouldn't want to embarrass you.

Pretty much 100 percent true, although I'd argue you're selling yourself a bit short here. When I lived there at least, I think I was the one more people accused of being a racist.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why aren't you banned yet?

Mr. Albert Speer passing himself off as a proponent of racial equality. Hah! Maybe you might get away with some of that elsewhere, but I think it's pretty clear. We've also seen your 'contributions' to the hot or not thread.

[Elok]

Oh, and given the way implanted contraceptives work, it might not be advisable to implant them in every girl on welfare as soon as she becomes old enough to have kids. Might screw up their development a wee bit to keep them pumped full of horse hormones or whateverTF they use, especially since the gummint has no way of knowing when any given girl hits puberty and thus you'd inevitably dump them into a number of girls before they even started developing their own biochemistry.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why is Elok giving the Catholic argument to everything? Thanks for that btw. You made some excellent points.

[Elok]

For the record (and before anyone asks), Orthodoxy has no "official" stance on contraceptives. American priests generally conclude that they're okay, provided you're married and the contraceptives can't cause an abortion or failure-to-implant. Oh, and the overarching goal should be to space out kids, not to render the marriage permanently sterile. What that last one means in practice is debatable, but we don't do hard rules so much. Anyway, that's what I usually hear from American authorities; I expect old world churches are a bit more conservative.

[MRT144]

Its the only way some people find meaning in life since they don't have the luxuries of a middle class or higher lifestyle.