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

Jerry · Mar 19, 2009

Harry Guerrilla said:
US births break record; 40 pct out-of-wedlock

While I don't necessarily disagree with single women having children, I do have a problem with these women giving birth on the tax payers dime.

If statistics from 2002 still apply today and you account for additional births added about half of these women are using medicaid to give birth to children.

That is absolute bull**** in my opinion.

It's her bodey, her choice, remember?

A woman's reproductive choices have absolutly NO impact on anyone else, remember?

Jerry · Mar 19, 2009

RightinNYC said:
Yea, but you have 3 kids and are making $20k a year. That sucks.

No no, that $20K is spending money.

If you earn less than $20K and have 3 kids, you get ~$1.6K per child back when you file taxes, Section8 housing assistance valued at a maximum of ~$14.5K, medical coverage valued at $7.2K (assuming full coverage for a family of 4), food stamps valued at ~$7K...not to mention tuition assistance, TANIF, transportation assistance, mortgage bail outs, etc.

If you earn less than $20K per year your home will bring in well over $53K per year.

So, unless you land a dream job where you will jump from poverty to $53K+, you really have no incentive to make anything out of yourself.

Orion · Mar 19, 2009

I don't know why this has spun into a debate about socialism...

I've seen the claim here that women shouldn't be having kids if they can't afford them. If they are so poor, then charging them for the cost of delivering their child into the world is only going to set them back further. Do you actually think any of them will pay their hospital bills? Why make a child shoulder this debt for simply being born?

Second... if you think they are so poor that they shouldn't have kids, then you should logically support abortion, since poverty is a primary reason why a lot of women get one in the first place. But oh, wait... social conservatives don't like abortion.

So... basically, if the woman gets pregnant and wants the child, she is screwed; if the woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the child, she is screwed. It's all about punishing the mother.

Great logic.

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Agnapostate said:
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.

lol

Yea, I'm sure most 16 year olds getting knocked up by their baby daddy are doing it in order to avoid later disruptions in their career progression.

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Agnapostate said:
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.

Or maybe it's because you're posting cartoons from Bertell Ollman's "What is Marxism?"

What is Marxism? A Bird's-Eye View < DIALECTICAL MARXISM: The Writings of Bertell Ollman

Jerry · Mar 20, 2009

Orius said:
I don't know why this has spun into a debate about socialism...

Well if you would like to know, just ask :2wave:

Orius said:
I've seen the claim here that women shouldn't be having kids if they can't afford them.

Right. People in general should have a healthy dose of common sense and a plan in mind.

Any person who can not afford an expense, shouldn't create the expense.

Orius said:
If they are so poor, then charging them for the cost of delivering their child into the world is only going to set them back further. Do you actually think any of them will pay their hospital bills?

Exactly. See, you do understand.

If you're poor, don't create these expenses.

Orius said:
Why make a child shoulder this debt for simply being born?

Uhh, where did that come from? The child birth is the financial responsibility of the parent....as is every other expense the child has until they turn 18.

Orius said:
Second... if you think they are so poor that they shouldn't have kids, then you should logically support abortion, since poverty is a primary reason why a lot of women get one in the first place.

Poverty? No. A feeling of economic insecurity, sure, and we don't even know if that feeling is real or imagined when they tell the truth on those surveys.

Your average woman seeking an abortion is married middle class with at least 1 existing child, fyi.

Anyway, abortion is an expense those on my side are telling people they shouldn't make if they can't afford it. The point is, if you can't afford the abortion, you shouldn't be creating a need for one.

Orius said:
But oh, wait... social conservatives don't like abortion.

Mhmm, your point?

Orius said:
So... basically, if the woman gets pregnant and wants the child, she is screwed; if the woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the child, she is screwed. It's all about punishing the mother.

Wow, you have some personal issues shining through your posts here, I'll do my best to ignore them and stay on topic.

The point is that if you can't afford the expense, then you shouldn't be creating the expense.

Orius said:
Great logic.

Why thank you

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Orius said:
I don't know why this has spun into a debate about socialism...

I've seen the claim here that women shouldn't be having kids if they can't afford them. If they are so poor, then charging them for the cost of delivering their child into the world is only going to set them back further. Do you actually think any of them will pay their hospital bills? Why make a child shoulder this debt for simply being born?

By that logic...

Forcing them to pay for food is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay their rent while they can't work is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay for baby clothes/diapers/bottles/toys is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.

Second... if you think they are so poor that they shouldn't have kids, then you should logically support abortion, since poverty is a primary reason why a lot of women get one in the first place. But oh, wait... social conservatives don't like abortion.

I'm a huge proponent of poor people getting abortions (assuming they want them). I'd love to someday start a nonprofit that would offer people $5k to get vasectomies/tubal ligations.

So... basically, if the woman gets pregnant and wants the child, she is screwed; if the woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the child, she is screwed. It's all about punishing the mother.

No, it's about disincentivizing negative actions.

Jerry · Mar 20, 2009

RightinNYC said:
By that logic...

Forcing them to pay for food is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay their rent while they can't work is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay for baby clothes/diapers/bottles/toys is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.

YouTube - obama fan - doesnt have to worry about mortgage payments and gas anymore

RightinNYC said:
I'd love to someday start a nonprofit that would offer people $5k to get vasectomies/tubal ligations.

Oh man, sign me up :mrgreen:

RightinNYC said:
No, it's about disincentivizing negative actions.

...and that, Orius, is why we took a turn ranting against socialism,

Orion · Mar 20, 2009

RightinNYC said:
Forcing them to pay for food is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay their rent while they can't work is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.
Forcing them to pay for baby clothes/diapers/bottles/toys is forcing them into debt and making the child shoulder the burden.

It's not quite the same thing because the cost of birthing a child is relatively static, but at least the open market provides cheaper options for food, clothing, housing etc. It's not like there's a "cheaper" labour option, aside from going into labour at home without any help and potentially dying. I guess midwives are one option, they're a bit cheaper than hospitals. Central to this argument is a medical care issue, I'm not really including the cost of raising the child into the equation. Those costs can always be mitigated with financial planning.

RightinNYC said:
I'm a huge proponent of poor people getting abortions (assuming they want them). I'd love to someday start a nonprofit that would offer people $5k to get vasectomies/tubal ligations.

If that's the case, then I have no problem with you being against the government paying for children to be born. If women have the option to avoid this expense with abortion (which is cheaper than labour and aftercare), then they can't claim they had no way out.

RightinNYC said:
No, it's about disincentivizing negative actions.

What is the "negative" action here? Giving birth?

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Orius said:
It's not quite the same thing because the cost of birthing a child is relatively static, but at least the open market provides cheaper options for food, clothing, housing etc. It's not like there's a "cheaper" labour option, aside from going into labour at home without any help and potentially dying. I guess midwives are one option, they're a bit cheaper than hospitals. Central to this argument is a medical care issue, I'm not really including the cost of raising the child into the equation. Those costs can always be mitigated with financial planning.

I'm not particularly opposed to paying for the childbirth itself, because as you note, selection of the "cheaper" option will probably lead to increased costs due to birth-related deaths/defects. I'm just wary of justifying it on the grounds that we shouldn't be burdening children with debt via their parents.

What is the "negative" action here? Giving birth?

Someone choosing to have children that they cannot afford on their own.

Orion · Mar 20, 2009

Jerry said:
Right. People in general should have a healthy dose of common sense and a plan in mind.

Any person who can not afford an expense, shouldn't create the expense.

This is not in tune with the reality of human nature. People can even have protected sex but an accident may still lead to pregnancy. It's the same stance that people take against abortion... they shouldn't have had sex in the first place. That's not reality. They did. It's like the Church saying people in Africa shouldn't have sex, and then they wouldn't get AIDS. People are going to have sex... it's just a reality that social conservatives can't seem to get their minds around.

Jerry said:
Exactly. See, you do understand.

If you're poor, don't create these expenses.

That actually wasn't my point, but nice try.

They are going to inevitably go to the hospital anyway, give birth, and accrue bills that they won't pay. That hurts the medical system more than it hurts them; and besides, once the kid is born, there will be other priorities like food, shelter, education, clothing, etc. They aren't going to care about the bill.

Children, the ones who are the future of your country, deserve to be born with a clean slate and not a hospital bill that will weigh down their family and them for years to come.

Again... saying they shouldn't get pregnant is irrelevant to the fact that they are.

Jerry said:
Uhh, where did that come from? The child birth is the financial responsibility of the parent....as is every other expense the child has until they turn 18.

That debt directly affects the child's upbringing no matter what way you slice it. Social conservatives that want to punish the mother for getting pregnant are also punishing the child. The average labour cost is between $11,000 and $17,000, assuming it is a standard labour with no complications and no need for c-section. Assuming the mother even tries to pay that off, it will be a debt that cuts into a meager income.

Jerry said:
Poverty? No. A feeling of economic insecurity, sure, and we don't even know if that feeling is real or imagined when they tell the truth on those surveys.

If they make 20k or less a year, they are below the poverty line. I'm not interested in your spin.

Jerry said:
Your average woman seeking an abortion is married middle class with at least 1 existing child, fyi.

This thread is about pregnant women out of wedlock. Try to keep up.

Jerry said:
Anyway, abortion is an expense those on my side are telling people they shouldn't make if they can't afford it. The point is, if you can't afford the abortion, you shouldn't be creating a need for one.

If the need exists, what they should have done is irrelevant, unless of course you've invented time travel, then you can warn them ahead of time.

Jerry said:
Wow, you have some personal issues shining through your posts here, I'll do my best to ignore them and stay on topic.

Pointing out an innate hypocrisy of social conservativism is not a personal issue, but a simple observation.

Jerry said:
The point is that if you can't afford the expense, then you shouldn't be creating the expense.

I guess no one should live their lives then, because everything they do is a potential expense. If I walk down the street and get hit by a car and need medical care, I guess I shouldn't have left my house. If I fall down the stairs and break my leg, needing medical care that I can't afford, I guess I shouldn't have bought a house with a second floor.

Life is full of risks, some whose consequences are accidental. I'm personally not into the blame game. Should've, could've, would've... the past is unalterable. I prefer to look at present realities and relevant solutions.

Jerry said:
Why thank you

It wasn't a compliment.

Orion · Mar 20, 2009

RightinNYC said:
I'm not particularly opposed to paying for the childbirth itself, because as you note, selection of the "cheaper" option will probably lead to increased costs due to birth-related deaths/defects. I'm just wary of justifying it on the grounds that we shouldn't be burdening children with debt via their parents.

When it comes to all other areas of life, I don't favour bailing out the parents to save the children. If parents have bad spending habits that ruin their families, that is their problem. When it comes to birth, I'm of a different view. A woman who is pregnant and presumably does not want an abortion has no choice but to give birth under the care of professionals if she wants to mitigate risk.

If government funding doesn't step in for that, more women will avoid the hospitals and professionals, and more women and their babies will be at risk during childbirth. This is the hypocrisy that I am trying to point out with social conservativism. They are against abortion, yet won't shoulder the social cost to bring these babies safely into the world. It is utterly hypocritical, and a reason why I am pro-choice.

RightinNYC said:
Someone choosing to have children that they cannot afford on their own.

This is kind of a separate debate, but in an ideal world, women would only choose to have kids when they are ready and when all factors line up perfectly; but as we know, human nature does not allow for this most of the time. I think it makes more sense to acknowledge this reality than to blame a woman who is already pregnant for being pregnant. It's beating a dead horse.

Call me a realist.

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Orius said:
This is kind of a separate debate, but in an ideal world, women would only choose to have kids when they are ready and when all factors line up perfectly; but as we know, human nature does not allow for this most of the time. I think it makes more sense to acknowledge this reality than to blame a woman who is already pregnant for being pregnant. It's beating a dead horse.

Call me a realist.

I completely agree that it's not a primary consideration for the vast majority of people that we're talking about here, which is why I don't favor using the law in a punitive fashion. I simply think that we should do what we can to disincentivize it in a humane fashion.

Jerry · Mar 20, 2009

Here it is:

Orius said:
Again... saying they shouldn't get pregnant is irrelevant to the fact that they are.

Only once? Ever?

No more women other than those who are pregnant at this single moment will ever become pregnant?

Both of those need to be true for your argument to have any merit.

Orion · Mar 20, 2009

Jerry said:
Only once? Ever?

No more women other than those who are pregnant at this single moment will ever become pregnant?

It's not my fault that you lack the imagination to envision a situation where a woman might accidentally get pregnant. It's also not my job to explain it to you. Furthermore, even if a woman chooses to get pregnant, I support the state funding her child's birth in order to mitigate risk to the mother and child. Children are the future of America and mothers who cannot afford the large hospital bill of bringing into the world should be helped. "Should" means a normative statement, and those are my ethics. Take it or leave it.

Jerry said:
Both of those need to be true for your argument to have any merit.

In the world of Jerry logic, I'm sure that's how it works.

:2wave:

Agnapostate · Mar 20, 2009

Voidwar said:
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.

I've posted a study that utilizes the stochastic frontier technique to determine the existence of underpayment in the capitalist economy. Do you have any empirical evidence to support your own claim?

Voidwar said:
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.

The fact that you do not understand the nature of asymmetric information necessarily means that you will lack an understanding of related agency costs, adverse selection and moral hazard problems, and various forms of imperfect contracting and exchange. Hence, you will lack an understanding of capitalist economic structure. I don't know why you would commit yourself to deliberate ignorance of such issues.

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

No. The means of production are subject to collective management as manifested through direct democracy in an anarchist economy.

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

Are you really going to ask so ignorant a question as that? Through a state protection of an inheritance, which was itself augmented through the extraction of surplus value of an earlier generation, and so on and so forth. Considering the role of the state in the creation of classes, you'll want to devote somewhat more study to this topic.

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

The underpayment caused by information asymmetries in a capitalist economy certainly provides such evidence to the contrary, as it is a powerful indication that surplus value is being extracted during the production process.

zimmer said:
You sound like a Marxist:
More and more...That is the value of free speech.

People identify their true selves.

The reason you inaccurately identify me as a Marxist is because you have little grasp of political economy. If you were able to comprehend the fact that I oppose hierarchical social and economic organization, and therefore a "workers' state" or a "dictatorship of the proletariat," you would understand this, but your level of comprehension evidently does not permit you to differentiate between different forms of socialism. That's not surprising, considering your likely inaccurate understanding of the topic.

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

Obama is neither a Marxist nor a socialist of any variety inasmuch as he does not advocate the public ownership of the means of production.

zimmer said:
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.

The problem is that extolling the virtues of hard work and self-responsibility does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that the meager wages of the working class are often lower than their respective welfare payments. This is sufficient reason for raising the minimum wage, but unfortunately, capitalist misinformation regarding an alleged increase in unemployment brought about by such a step dominates there.

zimmer said:
This is a pretty big concession for an Anarchist.

Concession? No. Merely an acknowledgment that the state can provide relatively benign functions to prevent greater coercion than would otherwise be the case, which is perfectly consistent given the nature of anarchist opposition to all forms of unwarranted hierarchy, not merely the state form. Indeed, many have concluded that capitalism is a greater offender than the state, although the two cannot be separated from one another.

zimmer said:
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.

Considering the greater coercion involved in capitalist disenfranchisement of working classes, the diminishing rate of marginal utility permits us to understand the relatively benign nature of "coercion" of a doctor compared to the deleterious consequences of an alternate course.

zimmer said:
Not quite the anarchists mode... perhaps the Amarxists.

You have an extraordinarily poor understanding of political economy, as evidenced thus far. Anarchists do not merely oppose the state; they oppose all variants of unwarranted hierarchy, which obviously includes a capitalist economic framework. Perhaps you need some help? A.1 What is anarchism?

zimmer said:
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.

If you really don't know that Noam Chomsky is an anarchist and not a Marxist, there's little hope for you.

zimmer said:
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?

Saved?
No.
Helped... yes, and private organizations are there if family is not.

Please make an attempt to abandon a utopian faith in "private charity" in favor of a greater dose of healthy pragmatism.

Grateful Heart said:
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:

And yet, your "negative rights" themselves require a state or public apparatus to forcibly prevent their violation if such attempts at violation are themselves forcible, and thus require that a state official or other individual be "coerced" to provide it. A shame that that infernal positive right of public police protection is necessary to ensure the survival of negative rights! :2wave:

Orius said:
I don't know why this has spun into a debate about socialism...

This has spun into a debate about socialism because of the rightist misrepresentation of a capitalist welfare state constituting a form of "socialism," to say nothing of their grotesque misunderstanding of political economy and empirical evidence regarding the reality of welfare recipients, as opposed to crude, recycled myths.

RightinNYC said:
lol

Yea, I'm sure most 16 year olds getting knocked up by their baby daddy are doing it in order to avoid later disruptions in their career progression.

They may not be consciously aware of the value of early childbearing in preventing labor interruption, just as the lower class may be unaware of specific data and statistical evidence regarding poverty, but that commentary does nothing whatsoever to address Hotz et al.

RightinNYC said:
Or maybe it's because you're posting cartoons from Bertell Ollman's "What is Marxism?"

What is Marxism? A Bird's-Eye View < DIALECTICAL MARXISM: The Writings of Bertell Ollman

An ignorance of political economy is revealed from yet another poster. The cartoon is not "from" Ollman's essay, which should be rather apparent to you inasmuch as the dollar amounts described in each cartoon are different. Rather, Ollman's critique of capitalism is merely similar to my own, and we thus incorporate similar doctrines within the context of criticizing capitalism. Regardless, Marxist and anarchist theories on socialist organization have been profoundly split ever since their most apparent divergence at the Hague Congress of the First International, when Marx and his supporters engineered the expulsion of Bakunin and his supporters. Perhaps if you possessed a greater degree of familiarity with the historical record you wouldn't make such inappropriate replies.

Indeed, anarchists were among the first commentators to condemn the authoritarian elements of Marxism, from Bakunin's ideological criticisms of the late nineteenth century to Kropotkin's harsh criticisms of the Bolshevik dictatorship after the Russian Revolution. With that in mind, it is nothing short of grotesque and obscene that the anarchist brand of socialism has been branded "authoritarian" because of the failure of Soviet state capitalism, first predicted by anarchists.

Agnapostate · Mar 20, 2009

Incidentally, I'm curious as to how rightists reconcile their opposition to abortion rights with their opposition to a welfare state. Ananat et al.'s Abortion and Selection indicates this:

Abortion legalization in the early 1970s led to dramatic changes in fertility. Some research has suggested that it altered cohort outcomes, but this literature has been limited and controversial. In this paper, we provide a framework for understanding selection mechanisms and use that framework to both address inconsistent past methodological approaches and provide evidence on the long-run impact on cohort characteristics. Our results indicate that lower-cost abortion brought about by legalization altered young adult outcomes through selection. In particular, it increased likelihood of college graduation, lower rates of welfare use, and lower odds of being a single parent.

Could it be that they utilize that dreaded *gasp* utilitarianism?! :shock:

Harry Guerrilla · Mar 20, 2009

PeteEU said:
Is it now? I bet the religious right would love such laws.

How about forcing abortion on any woman that cant support a child... how you think that would go down?

I thought you were the religious right?

I'm neither for nor against abortion, so I really don't know.

PeteEU said:
And why is that? Is it not in the nations interest to have as many births as possible? Is it also not in the nations interest not having a high child death rate because the women cant afford the required treatment? Is it also not morally and humanly societies job to help any child in need?

Not if they can support all the births.

The child death rate won't go up necessarily.

Maybe we can employ the Humane Society to help them? :2razz:

PeteEU said:
You might be pissed that you as a the tax payer is paying for these women (I know I am in my own country), but what is the alternative? Do you think that not having these "supposed incentives" will change the fact that women will have children? Do you really think that all these 40%, hell even a majority, are abusing the system to get more money? Could it not just be that they are in a situation where birth control is out of reach because of economic issues, lack of education or religious issues? Or could it be they are in a relationship and just dont want to get married?

First of all lets get this thought of restricted birth control out of your head.

It is just an absolute lie that people can't get birth control.

Come to the U.S. and go to any Walmart and you will find the aisle with all the birth control one would need, they also carry any kind of lube you want to from KY to Astroglide.

It would reduce incentive for sure. Since it has been proven that medicaid is an incentive.

PeteEU said:
Well it is a problem, because they cant and they still have children. Are you saying you want to deny them the right to have children based on economic standing? How can you at all solve this problem without tackling the issue of birth control teaching from an early age instead of this brain dead abstinence only teaching that quite a few want instead?

They can have all the kids they want provided that they can pay for them.
Schools teach more than abstinence, stop reading Fox news you religious right conservative!

PeteEU said:
And what after 3 years? The child is only slightly less vulnerable than it was a birth. Dump mother and child on the street? Take the kid away from her and put it in an ophrange and tie the mothers tubes (force ably of course)? What is your solution other than cutting off funds a few years after birth, and making a bad situation into a tragic one?

No, the mother has freaking 3 years to prepare. If you can't get your **** together in 3 years provided that all the other government assistance is still available then you have seriously ****ed up.

PeteEU said:
Like it or not, government is in one hell of a pickle here. They can say, no will not pay you extra depending on the amount of children you have.. fine, but that will only lead to malnourished children and dead children, because it sure in hell wont stop people from having kids.

And those crap parents can suffer the consequences.

PeteEU said:
I am? And are you sure about that everyone knows what the hell birth control is in the US? The teen pregnancy rate kinda disproves that.

And "a government school".. well, what about in the states that promote abstinence programs over birth control programs (if they at all have it)? What about private schools, especially the religious variant that brainwashes children?

You can not deny that the US has issues when it comes to sex and birth control...

The teen pregnancy rate proves that teens are ****ing.
They teach everyone about sex in school, unless your parents pull you out.

You have a real skewed view of the U.S. , you should visit it some time before making all these false assumptions.

Agnapostate · Mar 20, 2009

So is anyone planning on commenting on Hotz et al.?

Voidwar · Mar 20, 2009

Agnapostate said:
I've posted a study that utilizes the stochastic frontier technique to determine the existence of underpayment in the capitalist economy. Do you have any empirical evidence to support your own claim?

I don't need any. Simple logic will suffice. The fact that you wished you got more than you did, does not mean that you were in fact underpaid. Previously posted, doublespeak, claptrap does nothing to change that I see right thru the envy inherent in your false assertion. What your "study" attempts to do, is falsely fabricate the real proof of this question. If you want to claim you were underpaid, the ONLY acceptable proof is proving it to me by getting hired doing the same job, at a higher wage. When no one will hire you for what you wish you could get, your logical bubble pops from lack of actual proof.

Agnapostate said:
The fact that you do not understand

The fact that I reject something as poppycock does not in any way mean that I don't understand it. Your problem here, is that I understand it all too well. I have a thorough knowledge of its complete falseness.

Agnapostate said:
No. The means of production are subject to collective management

Quite simply false. The worker's means of producing labor are NOT subject to collective management, unless your collective is enslaving the individual.

Agnapostate said:
Are you really going to ask so ignorant a question as that? Through a state protection of an inheritance,

Its not ignorant, it just makes your fantasy world take a brief look at the real world. Property rights are enforced ? GOOD ! I can work and earn and leave my kids a head start ? GOOD !

Agnapostate said:
which was itself augmented through the extraction of surplus value of

OOOOPS, no such thing as "surplus value", or the Abominable Snowman for that matter.

Agnapostate said:
Considering the role of the state in the creation of classes, you'll want to devote somewhat more study to this topic.

Here's a topic you can study . . .

from : U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 9

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

So, as you can see, our "state" explicitly banned classes.
Too bad we didn't include classists.

Agnapostate said:
The underpayment

Does not exist, and neither does Bigfoot.

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Agnapostate said:
They may not be consciously aware of the value of early childbearing in preventing labor interruption, just as the lower class may be unaware of specific data and statistical evidence regarding poverty, but that commentary does nothing whatsoever to address Hotz et al.

You realize that repeating the phrase "Hotz et al." doesn't make your stance any more cogent, right?

However, you are correct that it doesn't address that, mostly because you haven't provided a link for it.

An ignorance of political economy is revealed from yet another poster. The cartoon is not "from" Ollman's essay, which should be rather apparent to you inasmuch as the dollar amounts described in each cartoon are different. Rather, Ollman's critique of capitalism is merely similar to my own, and we thus incorporate similar doctrines within the context of criticizing capitalism. Regardless, Marxist and anarchist theories on socialist organization have been profoundly split ever since their most apparent divergence at the Hague Congress of the First International, when Marx and his supporters engineered the expulsion of Bakunin and his supporters. Perhaps if you possessed a greater degree of familiarity with the historical record you wouldn't make such inappropriate replies.

Indeed, anarchists were among the first commentators to condemn the authoritarian elements of Marxism, from Bakunin's ideological criticisms of the late nineteenth century to Kropotkin's harsh criticisms of the Bolshevik dictatorship after the Russian Revolution. With that in mind, it is nothing short of grotesque and obscene that the anarchist brand of socialism has been branded "authoritarian" because of the failure of Soviet state capitalism, first predicted by anarchists.

Dude, I was merely pointing out:

1) That's the only place I've ever seen that cartoon referenced before, and
2) The fact that you posted a cartoon with a Marxist critique of capitalism was probably the reason people were...calling you a Marxist.

But by all means, feel free to expound further on completely irrelevant material and snigger at the fact that other people don't care about the Marxist-Anarchist schism at the First International as much as you do. That sure proved your point about children being born out of wedlock.

Erod · Mar 20, 2009

Want to know where the vast majority of Obama voters come from?

I give you this article.

Agnapostate · Mar 20, 2009

Voidwar said:
I don't need any. Simple logic will suffice. The fact that you wished you got more than you did, does not mean that you were in fact underpaid. Previously posted, doublespeak, claptrap does nothing to change that I see right thru the envy inherent in your false assertion. What your "study" attempts to do, is falsely fabricate the real proof of this question. If you want to claim you were underpaid, the ONLY acceptable proof is proving it to me by getting hired doing the same job, at a higher wage. When no one will hire you for what you wish you could get, your logical bubble pops from lack of actual proof.

The stochastic frontier analysis measures the difference between actual wages and wages if perfect or costless information in the labor market existed. The fact that you aren't able to understand the deleterious consequences of asymmetric information in a capitalist economy is no fault of mine, and it doesn't change the reality of its existence.

Voidwar said:
The fact that I reject something as poppycock does not in any way mean that I don't understand it. Your problem here, is that I understand it all too well. I have a thorough knowledge of its complete falseness.

An irrational conclusion without arguments or evidence in support.

Voidwar said:
Quite simply false. The worker's means of producing labor are NOT subject to collective management, unless your collective is enslaving the individual.

I'm referring to my preferred variety of organization. There's no means of "enslavement" involved, since membership in a collective is based on voluntary association and individuals are free to leave the collective and attempt self-sufficiency.

Voidwar said:
Its not ignorant, it just makes your fantasy world take a brief look at the real world. Property rights are enforced ? GOOD ! I can work and earn and leave my kids a head start ? GOOD !

Actually, no, the only one promoting a fantasy is you, given your utopian conception of political economy. We can refer back to utility issues again when considering the greater interest in promoting equality of opportunity among a living generation than honoring the "right" of a dying member of the financial class, inasmuch as very little utility would be provided to him one way or the other.

Voidwar said:
OOOOPS, no such thing as "surplus value", or the Abominable Snowman for that matter.

You've done absolutely nothing to disprove its existence.

Voidwar said:
Here's a topic you can study . . .

from : U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 9

So, as you can see, our "state" explicitly banned classes.
Too bad we didn't include classists.

I really hope you don't actually believe that supports the claim that the state has not created and upheld class structure.

Voidwar said:
Does not exist, and neither does Bigfoot.

Still no evidence from you!

RightinNYC said:
You realize that repeating the phrase "Hotz et al." doesn't make your stance any more cogent, right?

However, you are correct that it doesn't address that, mostly because you haven't provided a link for it.

Since I mentioned the study's name (and posted an excerpt), the first time I brought it up, it was really a matter of a simple Google Scholar search to find it. Regardless, here is Hotz et al.'s Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment, which indicates that teenage childbearing can be an economic strategy for minority women in that it eliminates labor interruption later in life. As noted by the abstract:

In this paper, we exploit a "natural experiment" associated with human reproduction to identify the effect of teen childbearing on subsequent educational attainment, family structure, labor market outcomes, and financial self-sufficiency. In particular, we exploit the fact that a substantial fraction of women who become pregnant experience a miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) and thus do not have a birth. If miscarriages were purely random and if miscarriages were the only way, other than by live births, that a pregnancy ended, then women who had a miscarriage as a teen would constitute an ideal control group with which to contrast teenage mothers. Exploiting this natural experiment, we devise an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimators for the consequences of teen mothers not delaying their childbearing, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 (NLSY79). Our major finding is that many of the negative consequences of not delaying childbearing until adulthood are much smaller than has been estimated in previous studies. While we do find adverse consequences of teenage childbearing immediately following a teen mother's first birth, these negative consequences appear short-lived. By the time a teen mother reaches her late twenties, she appears to have only slightly more children, is only slightly more likely to be a single mother, and has no lower levels of educational attainment than if she had delayed her childbearing to adulthood. In fact, by this age teen mothers appear to be better off in some aspects of their lives. Teenage childbearing appears to raise levels of labor supply, accumulated work experience, and labor market earnings, and appears to reduce the chances of living in poverty and participating in the associated social welfare programs. These estimated effects imply that the cost of teenage childbearing to U.S. taxpayers is negligible. In particular, our estimates imply that the widely held view that teenage childbearing imposes a substantial cost on government is an artifact of the failure to appropriately account for preexisting socioeconomic differences between teen mothers and other women when estimating the causal effects of early childbearing. While teen mothers are very likely to live in poverty and experience other forms of adversity, our results imply that little of this would be changed just by getting teen mothers to delay their childbearing into adulthood.

Certainly data worthy of consideration.

RightinNYC said:
Dude, I was merely pointing out:

1) That's the only place I've ever seen that cartoon referenced before, and
2) The fact that you posted a cartoon with a Marxist critique of capitalism was probably the reason people were...calling you a Marxist.

That cartoon's a broadly anti-capitalist critique; there's no reason that it's explicitly "Marxist." My stated opposition to hierarchy, my black flag avatar, Kropotkin signature, etc., all should have indicated that I'm an anarchist and not a Marxist. However, I'm quite aware that the persons in this thread who referred to me as a Marxist are unfamiliar with the accurate usage of such terminology. Understandable.

RightinNYC said:
But by all means, feel free to expound further on completely irrelevant material and snigger at the fact that other people don't care about the Marxist-Anarchist schism at the First International as much as you do. That sure proved your point about children being born out of wedlock.

People chose to bring it up...I chose to rebut it.

RightinNYC · Mar 20, 2009

Agnapostate said:
Since I mentioned the study's name (and posted an excerpt), the first time I brought it up, it was really a matter of a simple Google Scholar search to find it. Regardless, here is Hotz et al.'s Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment, which indicates that teenage childbearing can be an economic strategy for minority women in that it eliminates labor interruption later in life. As noted by the abstract:

That's a link to the abstract, which states explicitly that the paper itself is unavailable for download. Have you actually read the paper, or are you just basing all of this off of a two paragraph abstract from a 10 year old paper that used 30 year old data?

And from a more recent (and downloadable!) paper that cites your article:

To summarise, we find that having a child as a teenager reduces the chances of post-compulsory schooling by 12% to 24%. The long-term consequences on labour market outcomes are also dire. Labour market experience of teenage mothers is reduced by up to 3 years and the pay differential between women who bore a child as a teenager and other women ranges from 5% to 22%. Teenage motherhood appears to have long-term consequences on the career development of women and hence is likely to lead to the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next. It would thus appear that policies preventing the long-term consequences of teenage motherhood should attach focus first on helping teenage mothers to achieve their potential schooling. The effect of teenage motherhood may be substantial even after accounting for educational differential, which suggests that teenage mothers have difficulties combining labour market participation and child rearing.

Sort of refutes your hypothesis, eh?

Agnapostate · Mar 20, 2009

RightinNYC said:
That's a link to the abstract, which states explicitly that the paper itself is unavailable for download. Have you actually read the paper, or are you just basing all of this off of a two paragraph abstract from a 10 year old paper that used 30 year old data?

Hmmm.

The National Child Development Study is a continuous survey of all individuals born in Britain during the first week of March 1958.

:2wave:

RightinNYC said:
And from a more recent (and downloadable!) paper that cites your article:

To summarise, we find that having a child as a teenager reduces the chances of post-compulsory schooling by 12% to 24%. The long-term consequences on labour market outcomes are also dire. Labour market experience of teenage mothers is reduced by up to 3 years and the pay differential between women who bore a child as a teenager and other women ranges from 5% to 22%. Teenage motherhood appears to have long-term consequences on the career development of women and hence is likely to lead to the transmission of poverty from one generation to the next. It would thus appear that policies preventing the long-term consequences of teenage motherhood should attach focus first on helping teenage mothers to achieve their potential schooling. The effect of teenage motherhood may be substantial even after accounting for educational differential, which suggests that teenage mothers have difficulties combining labour market participation and child rearing.

Click to expand...

Sort of refutes your hypothesis, eh?

It might...if I lived in the UK. :rofl

If you knew a bit more about the topic, you could at least drag this out a bit longer by citing Hoffman. The sacred art of the Google search doesn't seem to have worked out for you so far.

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

Jerry

Jerry

Orion

RightinNYC

Girthless

RightinNYC

Girthless

Jerry

RightinNYC

Girthless

Jerry

Orion

RightinNYC

Girthless

Orion

Orion

RightinNYC

Girthless

Jerry

Orion

Agnapostate

Agnapostate

Harry Guerrilla

Agnapostate

Voidwar

RightinNYC

Girthless

Erod

Agnapostate

RightinNYC

Girthless

Agnapostate