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US births break record; 40 pct out-of-wedlock

That makes sense. Considering we practically give an incentive for girls to have kids, I would think some of them might take advantage of Medicaid, espicially in a bad economy.

Remember, if you make 20,000 a year, and have 3 children, you don't pay federal income tax.

The incentive for minority women to become teenage parents doesn't come in the form of welfare; it comes through the strategic value of early childbearing in preventing labor interruptions later in life.
 
The solution is simple.

Any woman that is pregnant that is not married shall be put to death. Any man fathering a child outside wedlock shall be put to death. All couples need a certificate of permission by local authorities or even better by the church to be allowed to have children. To have children you must a certain income, certain education, a certain size house and of course be part of a church.
We are not complaining about poor people having children.
We are complaining that with all the contraceptives and MTV sex education shows, people get pregnant and then want strangers to pay for their kiddies well being.

Let them have kiddies, but do not make them my responsibility.
It is not my responsibility.
It was not my sperm.
I ddin't get to enjoy the ride but now must pay for it?


Seriously, what is it with conservatives in the US always wanting to go after the weak in society no matter what.

Good try, but you missed the dart board.
We believe people are equal under the law.
We aim to HELP the weak, but conspiring to steal other people's money for their CHOICE is what makes things WORSE.

What is wrong with personal responsibility?
Slapping on a rubber or taking a pill, using foam or some other form of contraception? Contraception is plentiful and cheap.

It does not matter if a woman is married or not for god sake, that is just religious babble and traditionalists that are still pissed that women are in the work place and on the pill and not in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
True... but it's not my problem if someone takes a rod and pops a kid.
They made the choice themselves.

Like it or not, we do not live in the dark ages any more, and women do have a right to control their own bodies and that includes having children.
Good, then grown up and take responsibility for YOUR ACTIONS.

On top of that, you have a society where sexual education is under attack on a daily basis and the word of "abstinence" is preferred over sensible birth control methods (especially when being taught to children of course, who grow up as adults not knowing or understanding the basics of birth control), then what do you expect!
Sex education can be found on any channel.
Try MTV.
You got the Bisexual Twins offering up their snatch for dickie and licky.
A bit off topic, but if I were writing the title for that show it would be:
Grab Bag Snatches... Or... ****s for the Taking... Scum Box Millionaires

As they're acting like little whores, they should be treated like them.

It is not like the biological mechanics of women and men can be switched on and off just because some paedophile church man says so.
LOL.
Now these people are uncontrollable animals.
No control, just hormones with legs.
OK... but I shouldn't have to pay for their haste in not being able to find the time to "rubber up".

If there's grass on the pitch and they wanna play... let 'em, but government shouldn't force strangers to pay for the all the goals scored.
 
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We are not complaining about poor people having children.

You effectively are, actually. Considering the aforementioned economically strategic nature of teenage childbearing for minority populations, condemnations of teenage childbearing and attempts to "prevent" it adversely impact the poor.

We are complaining that with all the contraceptives and MTV sex education shows, people get pregnant and then want strangers to pay for their kiddies well being.

You don't actually believe that, do you? I don't believe that the nature of far more sexually permissive Europe supports that claim.
 
The incentive for minority women to become teenage parents doesn't come in the form of welfare; it comes through the strategic value of early childbearing in preventing labor interruptions later in life.

Interesting insight, but it probably doesn't pan out considering the demographic distribution of your selected group, the competetivness of the likely positions in question, and the unassailabilty of Maternity leave.

If minority women were all going on Donald Trump's apprentice, then I could see your point, but in the average job your selected group is shooting for I don't really see much strategic loss.
 
Interesting insight, but it probably doesn't pan out considering the demographic distribution of your selected group, the competetivness of the likely positions in question, and the unassailabilty of Maternity leave.

If minority women were all going on Donald Trump's apprentice, then I could see your point, but in the average job your selected group is shooting for I don't really see much strategic loss.

My own analysis is specifically derived from literature of the nature of Hotz et al.'s Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment.

Our major finding is that many of the apparent negative consequences of teenage child bearing on the subsequent socioeconomic attainment of teen mothers are much smaller than those found in studies that use alternative methodologies to identify the causal effects of teenage childbearing. We also find evidence that teenage mothers earn more in the labor market at older ages than they would have earned if they had delayed their births.

The "economic consequences" of teenage childbearing are often grossly overestimated and mendaciously depicted, as acknowledged by researchers Geronimus and Korenman, for instance, as noted in The Socioeconomic Costs of Teen Childbearing Reconsidered.

Teen childbearing is commonly belied to cause long-term socioeconomic disadvantages for mothers and their children. However, earlier cross-sectional studies may have inadequately accounted for marked differences in family backgrounds among women who have first births at different ages. We present new estimates that take into account unmeasured family background heterogeneity by comparing sisters who timed their first births at different ages. In two of the three data sets we examine, sister comparisons suggest that biases from family background heterogeneity are important, and, therefore, that earlier studies may have overstated the consequences of teen childbearing.

This is certainly an area that deserves far more serious analysis and far less obnoxious misrepresentations from punditry.
 
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You effectively are, actually. Considering the aforementioned economically strategic nature of teenage childbearing for minority populations, condemnations of teenage childbearing and attempts to "prevent" it adversely impact the poor.
NO. I reject the premise of your argument in its totality.
Across the board, government should not be confiscating wealth for children these people created.

You don't actually believe that, do you? I don't believe that the nature of far more sexually permissive Europe supports that claim.
Believe what specifically?
 
NO. I reject the premise of your argument in its totality. Across the board, government should not be confiscating wealth for children these people created.

How is that even a response to what I said? I said that teenage childbearing often served a valuable purpose for minority women in that it maximized their chances of success in the labor market. Hence, teenage childbearing by minority groups would actually seem to be in the interests of those who encourage "work before welfare."

Believe what specifically?

This tired Christian Right drivel about MTV corrupting our society with heathenism and promoting vice and whatnot.
 
How is that even a response to what I said? I said that teenage childbearing often served a valuable purpose for minority women in that it maximized their chances of success in the labor market. Hence, teenage childbearing by minority groups would actually seem to be in the interests of those who encourage "work before welfare."
I don't care one way or the other, so long as people understand it is their choice and their child.

Government should not be stealing wealth, forcing people to pay for responsibilities that are not theirs and they have no means to influence.

This tired Christian Right drivel about MTV corrupting our society with heathenism and promoting vice and whatnot.
1. I didn't say they were "corrupting". I even said they were offering an educational service free for all.

2. Knee jerk... You will be hard pressed to find one post from this author about Christianity. I just don't go there.

3. As tired as you may be that Conservatives have morals, we are equally as tired of folks having government thieve the fruit of our labor to give to people that made poor choices.

Be it AIG, GM, or some dude and dudette that had a scratch that needed fixing... and produced offspring.

These are their choices. Not mine.
Live with them. Or will you be bailing out my poor choices?
If not...
...Deal with it. These folks made the decision themselves.

Now...

There is nothing wrong with asking for help, but confiscating wealth for their blunders?
Sorry, no dice.

.
 
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More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any other year in the nation's history — and a wedding band made increasingly little difference in the matter. The 4,317,119 births, reported by federal researchers Wednesday, topped a record first set in 1957 at the height of the baby boom.

And over here in Europe, birth rate is falling overall ... wanna give us some babies?
 
I don't care one way or the other, so long as people understand it is their choice and their child.

Government should not be stealing wealth, forcing people to pay for responsibilities that are not theirs and they have no means to influence.

Kimberley Christensen's commentary on the logic of the "welfare reform" of the 1990's provides a valuable insight on dispelling myths related to this topic:

[Welfare "reform"] supporters...claimed that [Aid to Families with Dependent Children] was responsible for the growth in single motherhood, particularly teen motherhood in minority communities, in the past generation. Abolishing AFDC would supposedly reduce this phenomenon and restore the nuclear family in poor communities. Again, the facts say otherwise. The average woman on AFDC was white and had two children, the same as the average American woman not on AFDC (Abramovitz 1996). In 1996, less than 8 percent of AFDC recipients were teens, with most of those being eighteen or nineteen years of age. (Albelda and Folbre 1996). Finally, if AFDC receipt were the cause of unwed pregnancy, one would expect those states with the highest AFDC benefit levels to have more unwed births. Exactly the contrary is true; in 1996, those states with the highest benefit levels had the lowest rates of unwed birth and vice versa (Abramovitz 1996).

(Excerpted from Empty Bellies, Empty Promises: Welfare "Reform" in the Nineties in Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism: Radical Perspectives on Economic Theory and Policy.

1. I didn't say they were "corrupting". I even said they were offering an educational service free for all.

If you say so. :roll:

2. Knee jerk... You will be hard pressed to find one post from this author about Christianity. I just don't go there.

No, it's simply an accurate observation on the sympathies of most who make such claims.

3. As tired as you may be that Conservatives have morals, we are equally as tired of folks having government thieve the fruit of our labor to give to people that made poor choices.

There's little morality in capitalist economic frameworks, conservatism obviously being among them, given its advocates endorsement of free-market capitalism and neoliberal expansion.

These are their choices. Not mine.
Live with them. Or will you be bailing out my poor choices?
If not...
...Deal with it. These folks made the decision themselves.

Now...

There is nothing wrong with asking for help, but confiscating wealth for their blunders? Sorry, no dice.

The primary "wealth confiscation" that occurs in our economic structure comes from the extraction of surplus value from the working class by the financial class, who are in turn protected by a state framework...As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words.

ed4a754f.png
 
The primary "wealth confiscation" that occurs in our economic structure comes from the extraction of surplus value from the working class by the financial class, who are in turn protected by a state framework...As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words.

Long discredited Marxist crap.

The "worker" is a capitalist, peddling his day's effort.
 
Long discredited Marxist crap.

The "worker" is a capitalist, peddling his day's effort.

I am not a Marxist, nor do I subscribe to Marxist ideology relating to economic organization, or indeed, much outside of some elements of Marxist criticism of capitalism. There is more coercion involved in wage labor then is immediately apparent, but I'll not derail this thread further if not necessary. Why don't you comment on Hotz et al.?
 
I am not a Marxist, nor do I subscribe to Marxist ideology relating to economic organization, or indeed, much outside of some elements of Marxist criticism of capitalism. There is more coercion involved in wage labor then is immediately apparent, but I'll not derail this thread further if not necessary. Why don't you comment on Hotz et al.?

Why do you sound like one then?

If the shoe fits... enjoy wearing it... or change shoes.

PS. I don't care what the result from the Psychobabbler.
I am not the father, they are not my kids and I should not have to pay for them.
Period.

Unless I choose to through charity.
 
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Why do you sound like one then?

If the shoe fits... enjoy wearing it... or change shoes.

I don't sound remotely like a Marxist, and any Marxist on here will be able to tell you that I am not one. The likely reason that I sound like a "Marxist" to you is because of a crude understanding of political philosophy and economics that prevails among capitalists. I am an anarchist.
 
I don't sound remotely like a Marxist, and any Marxist on here will be able to tell you that I am not one. The likely reason that I sound like a "Marxist" to you is because of a crude understanding of political philosophy and economics that prevails among capitalists. I am an anarchist.

Yet want government to confiscate wealth from individuals to support children they did not father.

Some anarchy you've got working.

Time for a rethink I'd say.
 
Yet want government to confiscate wealth from individuals to support children they did not father.

As was previously mentioned, capitalist talking points do not constitute empirical evidence regarding the actual nature of welfare programs. The aforementioned commentary from Christensen that you have dismissed without basis constitutes that.

Some anarchy you've got working.

Time for a rethink I'd say.

You are evidently unfamiliar with the tenets of anarchism, which involve opposition to all unwarranted hierarchy, which would include capitalism.
 
As was previously mentioned, capitalist talking points do not constitute empirical evidence regarding the actual nature of welfare programs. The aforementioned commentary from Christensen that you have dismissed without basis constitutes that.
What basis?
Where in the Constitution does it say anything about social engineering?

Where our labor and individual rights are subservient to the state welfare programs?

You are evidently unfamiliar with the tenets of anarchism, which involve opposition to all unwarranted hierarchy, which would include capitalism.
But for welfare to occur, you require structure, hierarchy, authority to forcibly confiscate wealth and redistribute it.

You need not only law but mechanisms to forcibly steal wealth from individuals.

* "No rulership or enforced authority." [1]
* "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."[2]
* "A social state in which there is no governing person or group of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder)."[3]
* "Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere."[4]
* A society free from coercive authority of any kind is the goal of proponents of the political philosophy of anarchism (anarchists).
* Independent from rule or authority.

I believe you need to go back to the drawing board and discover who you really are or want to be.

Anarchist sounds cool... but looks silly if you contradict yourself with such panache.

Perhaps you could start a new sect: Amarxists. Marxists who are confused and believe they are Anarchists.
 
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I am not a Marxist, nor do I subscribe to Marxist ideology

Well forgive me, but if you use phrases like "wealth confiscation" and "extraction of surplus value" I am not going to blame myself.

The bald fact of the matter is that Marx was quite simply completely wrong, and there never was any such thing as "surplus value", nor was there this "coercion" you allege.
 
And over here in Europe, birth rate is falling overall ... wanna give us some babies?

for Europeans it is dwindling, for Muslims its booming.
 
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What basis?
Where in the Constitution does it say anything about social engineering?

Where our labor and individual rights are subservient to the state welfare programs?

But for welfare to occur, you require structure, hierarchy, authority to forcibly confiscate wealth and redistribute it.

You need not only law but mechanisms to forcibly steal wealth from individuals.

You have committed the common fallacy of assuming that anarchism merely involves opposition to the state. This is not so. Anarchism involves opposition to all forms of unwarranted hierarchy, and the deleterious consequences created by capitalism are themselves greater impositions than the relatively benign function of the state in alleviating them, which thus makes state intervention acceptable according to my consequentialist perspective.

As Noam Chomsky notes:

Well, it's true that the anarchist vision in just about all its varieties looks forward to dismantling state power-and personally I share that vision. But right now it runs directly counter to my goals: my immediate goals have been, and now very much are, to defend and even strenghten certain elements of state authority that are now under severe attack. And I don't think there's any contradiction there-none at all, really.

For example, take the so-called "welfare state." What's been called the "welfare state" is essentially a recognition that every child has a right to have food, and to have health care and so on-and as I've been saying, these programs were set up in the nation-state system after a century of very hard struggle, by the labor movement, and the socialist movement, and so on. Well, according to the new spirit of the age, in the case of a fourteen-year-old girl (sic) who got raped and has a child, her child has to learn "personal responsibility" by not accepting state welfare handouts, meaning, by not having enough to eat. Alright, I don't agree with that on any level. In fact, I think it's grotesque at any level. I think those children should be saved. And in today's world, that's going to have to involve working through the state system; it's not the only case.

So despite the anarchist "vision," I think aspects of the state system, like the one that makes sure children eat, have to be defended-in fact, defended very vigorously. And given the accelerating effort that's being made these days to roll back the victories for justice and human rights in the West, in my opinion the immediate goal of even committed anarchists should be to defend some state institutions, while helping to pry them open to more meaningful public participation, and ultimately to dismantle them in a much more free society.

So I'd advise you to correct the fallacy, and then move on to collecting empirical evidence to support your claims.

I believe you need to go back to the drawing board and discover who you really are or want to be.

Anarchist sounds cool... but looks silly if you contradict yourself with such panache.

Perhaps you could start a new sect: Amarxists. Marxists who are confused and believe they are Anarchists.

Perhaps you could start a sect devoted to those with crude and inaccurate understandings of political economy...oh wait, you're already a capitalist, so you've got that one down.

Well forgive me, but if you use phrases like "wealth confiscation" and "extraction of surplus value" I am not going to blame myself.

The bald fact of the matter is that Marx was quite simply completely wrong, and there never was any such thing as "surplus value", nor was there this "coercion" you allege.

As I mentioned, my conception of surplus value is not explicitly Marxist and involves the difference between the value of the worker's marginal product and his/her wage. If we consider the adverse nature of asymmetric information in the capitalist economic framework, we can certainly determine that underpayment plays a role in fostering such unjust appropriation. For instance, we might examine Hofler and Murphy's Underpaid and Overworked: Measuring the Effect of Imperfect Information on Wages, which incorporates the stochastic frontier regression technique to reach its conclusions regarding mass underpayment of workers.

As noted by the abstract:

This paper investigates the degree of shortfall between the wages workers earn and what they could earn assuming perfect or costless information in the labor market. The authors use the stochastic frontier regression technique to estimate the degree of shortfall found in wages on an individual basis. The paper tests, in addition, a number of hypotheses supplied by search theory in this context. The results generally confirm the propositions from search theory and indicate that, on the average, worker wages fall short of worker potential wages by approximately 10 percent.

As to the coercive nature of capitalism, it's simply a matter of the aforementioned utilization of wage labor. Since the means of production are privately owned, large components of the public have no alternative but to subordinate themselves under an employer. The best way to illustrate this form of authoritarianism is to use the "robbery analogy." If a person were to be violently tackled by an assailant and have his/her valuables torn out of his/her pockets, we would accurately call this a robbery. Now, if the assailant were to instead point a gun at the victim and demand that the valuables be surrendered, we would still call this a robbery, as coercion was used to gain the valuables, if not outright physical violence. The fact that the victim technically "consented" to surrender his/her valuables is not pertinent, since it was consent yielded while under duress.

The former example represents the direct tyranny of statism, often blunt, direct, and brutal, whereas the latter represents the more subtle tyranny of capitalism, specifically wage labor, in which a person technically "consents" to work for an employer, but does this only because he/she has no other alternative for sustenance.

Moreover, while laborers work for a capitalist employer, a significant component of value above their pay, or surplus value, is extracted from their labor during the production process, another unjust imposition of private ownership. That unjust extraction of surplus value is then followed by a "subsequent utilization in the circulation process in order to perpetuate a vicious cycle of capital accumulation," as was mentioned above.
 
As I mentioned, my conception of surplus value is not explicitly Marxist and involves the difference between the value of the worker's marginal product and his/her wage.

Fine N Dandy, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. The man's day of work is worth what he was paid for it, and as proof, I will quote you a market rate for his days labor that looks a lot like a paycheck.

The worker is not peddling "information", he is peddling his day's work, so your attempted doublespeak about "information" is summarily rejected as off-topic. It is poppycock, new age, redefinitionist, mumbo jumbo, crap, and I'm not fooled for a second.

Since the means of production are privately owned,

You mean like the worker privately owns his "labor factory" ?

large components of the public have no alternative but to subordinate themselves under an employer.

If this silly little contention is in ANY way accurate, perhaps you can explain how the "employer" found this "unfindable" alternative ?

Moreover, while laborers work for a capitalist employer, a significant component of value above their pay, or surplus value, is extracted from their labor during the production process, another unjust imposition of private ownership.

Simply false. Surplus value does not exist. It is a bogeyman created by Marx.

Further, if private ownership is unjust then what about that worker privately owning his "labor factory" ?
 
You sound like a Marxist:
More and more...That is the value of free speech.

People identify their true selves.

Of course, in Obama's case... they attack those that get the Oaf to say what he really means.

As Noam Chomsky notes:
For example, take the so-called "welfare state."

What's been called the "welfare state" is essentially a recognition that every child has a right to have food, and to have health care and so on-and as I've been saying, these programs were set up in the nation-state system after a century of very hard struggle, by the labor movement, and the socialist movement, and so on.
No.
There is no "right" to have food.
That is a responsibility by parents.

When they cannot fulfill this simple responsibility, others usually step in.
It's compassion that triggers these responses.

This is a pretty big concession for an Anarchist.


Health care is not a right either.
It's a service.
You can try to make it a "right" through coercion.
By forcing individuals, Doctors to provide care.

Not quite the anarchists mode... perhaps the Amarxists.


Well, according to the new spirit of the age, in the case of a fourteen-year-old girl (sic) who got raped and has a child, her child has to learn "personal responsibility" by not accepting state welfare handouts, meaning, by not having enough to eat.
Like this is a common occurrence.
This is the typical Marxist ploy; take a freak and use THAT as the baseline.
Make the remainder of society pay for the rare occurrence.

You know, there are a lot of charities that help such people.

Of course ObaMarx wants to cut deductions for individuals supporting such organizations.
Wonder why?

I think those children should be saved. And in today's world, that's going to have to involve working through the state system; it's not the only case.
Saved?
No.
Helped... yes, and private organizations are there if family is not.
 
Well the question of health care fore children is a basic choice between who you want to "punish" for the mistake of the parents. Either the innocent child that don't get the health care it's need or the taxpayer that gets a bit higher taxes. Personally I choose to "punish" the taxpayer over the child. Also raising a child takes 18 years so it can be very hard to predict everything that can happen during all those years. That you can have a hard working tax payers that get a child, but after 12 years her partner dies and she loses her job at the same time. Then it could be good to have the security that the child at least get the healthcare it needs.

Also I don't think health care will lead to a lot more children. Because even with payed health care it will be a lot of cost having children. Instead things like saying that after day pills are murder or that condoms are bad have a lot more responsibility for unwanted pregnancies.
 
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Health care is not a right either.
It's a service.
You can try to make it a "right" through coercion.
By forcing individuals, Doctors to provide care.

The argument that health care or food or a roof over one's head are 'human rights' certainly has a compassionate ring to it. But you're correct, it fails the simple common sense test.

If I have a 'right' to health care, then by definition some other individual must be coerced to provide it. The same with food or shelter.

On the other hand, I can exercise my 'right to free speech' by disgorging voluminous posts on message boards from sunup to sundown... and no one else need lift a finger.

:2wave:
 
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