Think the unthinkable - let's help the coalition with some blue-skies thinking...

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

you seem to forget that capitalism needs future wage slaves to continue. if you price everyone out of the market for having kids and raising them decently then who is going to provide the next batch of employee fodder?

But it hasn't been the native born population where the 'wage slaves' have been coming from in the last ten years in the UK, it's been immigrants. We've got 2.5m on the dole too at the moment and a lot more on IB, working part time etc...we're hardly in urgent need of a bigger workforce.

ninky_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

But it hasn't been the native born population where the 'wage slaves' have been coming from in the last ten years in the UK, it's been immigrants. We've got 2.5m on the dole too at the moment and a lot more on IB, working part time etc...we're hardly in urgent need of a bigger workforce.

so no one native born has got a job in the last 10 years????

i agree that immigrants are an important flow of wage slaves. not only that but they don't need the expensive state paid for child health care or education required of native born ones.

so would you suggest then that the native population should rightly be priced out of reproducing and we just import workers from now on?

Harry_Powell

lynzpower wrote: »

Read it again.

I said IF I GOT PREGNANT

Just to be clear, we dont have any children.

It wasn't very clear, and it did read as though you had children already. After all, why would you go on about your income and chilcare costs otherwise? Very odd.

lynzpower wrote: »

In the old days people died in thier early 70s and didnt need a further 20 years of NHS and pension support as they did the decent thing and karked it.

People are living longer and living much more healthier lives. Ignoring that, are you saying we need to keep breeding to keep these pension and NHS ponzi schemes ticking over? well at least for your generation, what about in 100 years time when there are even more elderly people, do we keep breeding and breeding until all resources are used up and we're all standing shoulder to shoulder across the globe?

Whatever the solution is, it's not to increase the birthrate that's for sure!

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

!!!!!!? sorry don't employers have a responsibility to make sure their employees can feed, clothes and house themselves etc on their wages??? or are they just planning on letting them starve or get sick and die and then get a fresh batch in?

If you raised the minimum wage by 35% to £8/hour, it doesn't matter how much pseudo-socialist moralising and posturing people like you do, it would simply cause more unemployment. You have to let employers pay what they are capable of paying within reason - most employers aren't the money guzzling global capitalists you are probably imagining, they are small businesses with tight margins.

I think the current system works fine - because it is low enough to maximise employment, and the tax credits and other benefits boost people's income to give them a higher standard of living.

I've worked on the minimum wage a long time ago, personally I found it was enough to cloth and feed myself, but I had to live at home with my parents. Luckily for me, I figured out that it was worth getting an education to earn more money. If you want to enjoy a higher standard of living, try getting a better job, not assuming you 'deserve' money from other people.

Anyway, you're making an issue out of nothing, because you make it sound like we're living in Victorian England, circa 1860, talking about people starving and dying. Last time I looked, people don't starve to death in this country...:eek:

Kohoutek

ninky wrote: »

so no one native born has got a job in the last 10 years????

I thought you talking about low paid jobs, 'wage slaves' not all jobs...A very large proportion of low paid jobs has gone to immigrants, and immigrants are the main reason for the higher population increase from 2000-2010 than 1990-2000.

ninky wrote: »

i agree that immigrants are an important flow of wage slaves. not only that but they don't need the expensive state paid for child health care or education required of native born ones.

so would you suggest then that the native population should rightly be priced out of reproducing and we just import workers from now on?

I don't know what you mean by priced out - no-ones's suggesting a tax on children. Very few people are actually 'priced out' of children, it's just they expect to give their children a certain standard of living. Go back a two or three generations, and fewer people would probably say that money such a limiting factor - they would just make do with second hand clothes and few luxuries.

I suppose I would argue for example that child benefit should be limited to two children, but that's purely because I don't think it's desirable for this small country to have a population significantly beyond the projected 70 million in the next 20 years.

lynzpower

Harry_Powell wrote: »

It wasn't very clear, and it did read as though you had children already. After all, why would you go on about your income and chilcare costs otherwise? Very odd.



People are living longer and living much more healthier lives. Ignoring that, are you saying we need to keep breeding to keep these pension and NHS ponzi schemes ticking over? well at least for your generation, what about in 100 years time when there are even more elderly people, do we keep breeding and breeding until all resources are used up and we're all standing shoulder to shoulder across the globe?

Whatever the solution is, it's not to increase the birthrate that's for sure!

I said before in this thread, Euthanasia simply has to be an option for those of us that want it.

lynzpower

Harry_Powell wrote: »

It wasn't very clear, and it did read as though you had children already. After all, why would you go on about your income and chilcare costs otherwise? Very odd.

because Im 32 years of age nad most women my age have a ticking clock and I have spent the last 5 years of my life moneysaving like mad shoud it be possible for me to have a family with my partner. Im doing all the considering thatr apparently people are suppowsed to do before they have kids!?!!

:think:
Is that OK with you?

jamesd

lynzpower wrote: »

And what do you propose to people who have made all those considerations and suddlently double digit inflation takes hold and they can no longer pay the fuel bills/petrol to work/ food on the table?

Double digit inflation is something that can be planned for. So are things like temporary unemployment, critical illness, a new lifelong inability to work, death and retirement. Insurance is readily available for some of those risks. I'd like to see prospective parents plan for those things and try to protect their future children against those possible bad things.

The state safety net is entirely fine for those who face unpredictable situations, even more so for those who have done at least reasonable amounts of planning to try to protect their children from the bad events that can happen in life. Parent planning to try to give the children a good life doesn't mean that the rest of us can't help if the planning fails.

Good luck with your planning, both the money side and the child bearing side.

chucky wrote: »

we're talking about human beings not machines.

everything seems so black and white that you can either afford to have children or you can't. if you can't you should not be allowed to have children. would chemical castration be ok to roll out to the masses that are on benefits James? or even to people who are fairing badly due the financial crisis we've just had? does that work for you?

the arrogance of people telling us what is wrong or right around children is quite astounding...

Humans can think of the future and plan and try to provide the future for their children that they want. Machines can't.

Personally I don't think that someone on the various disability-related benefits should in any way be discouraged from having children provided they are doing the same sort of prudent planning to look after the children properly that anyone else planning to have children should be trying.

I'm entirely content for society to provide free chemical or surgical birth control to anyone who wants it, regardless of their income level, though I'd prefer those who can easily afford it to pay the bill themselves. Beats an undesired or not properly cared for child. I don't agree with or support compulsory sterilisation without consent.

I don't agree that it's arrogant to write that people planning to have children should be trying to provide for the needs of those children. Children shouldn't expect anything less from their parents, it's what adults are supposed to be trying to do for those they are responsible for.

Just about nothing involving humans is black and white. Way too many variations. Hopefully most people would agree that it'd be nice if children had plenty of food and a nice warm home to live in along with great childcare and education, though. Not all parents will be able to arrange all of that but I like to hope that all want to at least try and are willing to do a bit of advance planning to try to arrange it.

chucky wrote: »

yeah but children happen - having children around a budget forcast is a little bit clinical...

Maybe a bit clinical but parents are supposed to take responsibility for their children and plan to look after them well. Accidents, crimes and the unexpected are a fact of life, no problem for me to have the rest of us help out in such cases.

Aspiring_Writer

My point exactly. Don't have children if you can't afford to pay for them or take reasonable care for them. Stop smoking,you don't 'need' a cigarette, and stop drinking, you don't 'need' a drink either.

Nor do the little darlings or you, need a playstation, a nintendo, a wii or a mobile phone for christ sake, ok the the parents but not the child, good grief...

ninky_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

I don't know what you mean by priced out - no-ones's suggesting a tax on children. Very few people are actually 'priced out' of children, it's just they expect to give their children a certain standard of living. Go back a two or three generations, and fewer people would probably say that money such a limiting factor - they would just make do with second hand clothes and few luxuries.

we are the one of the first generations where birth control is an option and there is no longer a moral or religious imperative to reproduce for the majority. if people feel they can't expect a certain standard of living for their children they will increasingly choose not to have them. this is already happening among large sections of the middle class where birth rates have fallen significantly.

of course longer life spans and large areas of the world that still have very different attitudes to reproduction make up for this leaving the global population to grow.

but i think there is a very real chance some will be priced out of having children. i personally feel i have been. of course i could scrimp and save and we could live like paupers. but why should we?

i plan to enjoy life as much as possible and leave anything to my niece and nephew in the hope this will help them rise above becoming wage slaves themselves.