Calling all fathers

[Gluestick]

An interesting, insightful and thought provoking analysis of this area has been carried out by the think tank, Civitas.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/experiments.php

On pensions, of course, the core problem is that governments have taken all the money: and spent it.

The very term "National Insurance Contributions" is risible: if an insurance company took the premiums and and spent them then the directors would finish up in gaol: one did, in fact: Dr Emil Savundra. The core precept of insurance companies is in taking premiums and covering operational costs from investment; not cash flow.

 

 

 

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="woolybanana"]The men you are talking about are NOT fathers, but inseminators. Fatherhood has nothin g to do with their behaviour. What some of the women are is not mentionable on a decent family forum like this![/quote]

I agree entirely with Wooly. Due to a major fault in mammalian design, the male contribution to reproduction lasts a few seconds, the female contribution several years. Any man worthy of respect will share the onerous and difficult task of childrearing - in or out of marriage.

If I recall correctly, the main problem with the CPS was that the Treasury demanded - from the start - that its primary function would be to reimburse the Treasury for the money being providing in benefits to lone mothers. The CPS was trying to do two things simultaneously and failing at both.

[Chancer]

The overpopulation of this planet scares the hell out of me as well, I dont have the figures to hand but at the current birth rate only a couple of years after I am due to punch my ticket the world will have half as many mouths again to feed.

I used to blame large families and  those who live on benefits and push out kids, indeed both play their part but I knew that could not explain he massive growth since the industrial revolution, medecine and life expectancy also play their part and now (as opposed to the early years of Christianity) having only two children is not enough unless you are willing to be euthanised when they reach maturity.

If couples only had two or two point four children but critically had to wait until they were 40 years old to start a family we would not have a population and demographic time bomb ticking away. Fine tuning of the population either upward or downward woud be made by tweaking the age.

Simplistic I know but what would be the likely problems other than the fact that western economies survive on expansion and overconsumption?

I think that it is telling that the only country that does impose birth restrictions on its citizens is the one that has most need of an increased population to feed, clothe and produce flat screen TV's and games consoles demanded by the rest of the world that has no such restriction.

[Russethouse]

Have you ever been married with children Chancer ?

I suspect that making women waiting until they were 40 to have babies would lead to more problems than it solved, there can sometimes be additional risks and complications for mother and child when parenthood is delayed.

[woolybanana]

Only pay family allowances for the first three kids maximum. That might help.

[Dog]

Don't pay any child allowance and charge for schooling.

Getting pregnant out of wedlock and without sufficient funds to support the offspring should be made illegal with a heavy fine.

Somehow the population must shrink.

[Russethouse]

Great, so then we have a poverty ridden uneducated population - who are more likely due to their ignorance, to have more poor uneducated children. What a fab plan - not [6]

[Dog]

Don't be so negative.

If people had to pay their way they would be more careful with their choices and make better use of and appreciate education.

The current system is failing badly.

The idea we should have an increase in population just so you can have a pension is not a good idea.

The world needs a population cut and soon.

 

[Gluestick]

The London Evening Standard is running a series of articles which provide much food for thought.

It's a reprise of areas on child poverty et al, they covered 15 years ago.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23810841-the-dispossessed-babies-buried-four-to-a-grave-not-dickens-but-london-today.do

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23810792-how-politics-turned-its-back-on-the-dispossessed.do

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/advertorials/dispossessed.do

 

[Chancer]

I somehow knew that you would be first off  the mark Russethouse [;-)]

[Russethouse]

If people had to pay their way they would be more careful with their choices and make better use of and appreciate education.

If you believe that you'll believe anything

[Quillan]

[quote user="Chancer"]

The overpopulation of this planet scares the hell out of me as well, I dont have the figures to hand but at the current birth rate only a couple of years after I am due to punch my ticket the world will have half as many mouths again to feed.

[/quote]

Some time ago I looked at world population growth (somebody said something so I thought, interesting, lets have a look). The problem is that future prediction is very difficult and the furthest you can predict until the figures start to vary by extreme amounts is 2050. We have about 6.8Bn at the moment and most sources seem to predict it rising to 9.4Bn by then. From that point onwards some seem to predict massive growth, like off the scale, others show a much more modest grown and some show a decline. There really are too many people, national statistics and international groups producing figures to get any real idea. If you want to know more then try googling 'Future World Population' and you will see what I mean. What does seem however to be a constant theme is the damage we will do to the planet as the population increases. We are not talking about the pollution we directly make (cars, burning carbon fuels etc) but more to do with the necessity to farm more and more land to feed all these people which in turns severely damages the worlds ecosystem.

Some suggest we are too compassionate in that we will fed people in starving countries either by sending them food or creating designer GM crops that will grow in areas where you can't normally get these crops to grow which in turn damage the worlds ecosystem. Basically they are saying that the ecosystem causes the population to drop by letting the people starve to death because it can't support them. Bit like fish in a fish tank, their size and quantity depends on the size of the tank. Of course our own morality, conscious won't allow this to happen so we are in a way the master of our own impending destruction by trying to feed these people. Its a bit like science saying the universe is still expanding and one day the earth won't exist but we have a long way to go and in both cases, fortunately, some might say, we won't be around.

[Gluestick]

Good points, Q and Chancer.

The present Western population is of course, only sustainable by the use of Intensive Farming methodology which, in itself, is unsustainable!

Where man does not intervene on natural food chains, in particular the seas, then as Darwin reported, species increase until their natural food sources can no longer sustain them: thus the successful species were self-regulated.

To me, unpalatable though it be, whilst Western social conscience dictates a raft of intervention in the Third World, in most cases it is only prolonging their separate and collective agony.

Back to give a man a fish, etc.

Simple medicines have alleviated many endemic causes of death: in some cases, international energy has almost erradicated certain diseses: Rotary International (I used to be involved) has almost succeeded in stamping out Polio in Third World states.

Something which to me is complete anathema is the current New Wave corporate greed, where major food companies are buying up Third World farms to grow foodstuffs for sale in the West!

No doubt those same companies throw a few pennies into charities to demonstrate their corporate caring: great for the PR image; not so great for the starving................

[:@]

[Chancer]

Quillan, they were the numbers that I carried in my head, usually my memory has a tendancy to exaggerate but not so in this case.

Does this figure not shock and scare the hell out of other forum members? Perhaps its because god willing I might still be alive then but with 1.5 times the population to feed I reckon I will no longer be quick enough to be the first in the scrum [:(]

Places and countries that I have revisited after a break of 10 or 15 years are already unrecognisable.

The only ways in which the population could decline are disease, disaster, famine or population control so severe that only one in 3 families would have the right to have children or waiting until until our forties to have children, or to put it another way, not living long enough to see our grandchildren.

Most of my grandparents didnt survive to see their grandchildren, my mother and grandmother on my fathers side did not even get to see their own children reach maturity.

[Russethouse]

or population control so severe that only one in 3 families would have the right to have children or waiting until until our forties

And how on earth would that work practically ? If you look at family history its not that unusual for women to have children in each of their childbearing years, one relative of my husbands had 18 children and only lost a couple as infants, she had several children during in her 40's

Hard to stop anyone doing the most natural thing in the world[;-)][;-)]

[Quillan]

What we want is a bloody good war, nothing like a bloody good war to sort the world population out. Lets go nuke a few countries, where can we start. [;-)]

Alternatively, as we are so good at it ([;-)]), we could GM ourselves to stop men and women staying fertile beyond their 25th year. We could do it as part of the infant inoculation program. [I]

[Gardengirl]

Interesting suggestion of women not having children until their 40s, just as the risk of having Down's syndrome babies escalates!

I did notice at the weekend that Hilary Mantel, winner of last year's Man Booker prize, has claimed that girls are not allowed to have babies at the age of 14 only because society is run on a male timetable! I underestand the idea should be for females to decide when they were ready to have children, and have education at a later stage when they wanted it.

 

[Gluestick]

[quote user="gardengirl "]

Interesting suggestion of women not having children until their 40s, just as the risk of having Down's syndrome babies escalates!

I did notice at the weekend that Hilary Mantel, winner of last year's Man Booker prize, has claimed that girls are not allowed to have babies at the age of 14 only because society is run on a male timetable! I underestand the idea should be for females to decide when they were ready to have children, and have education at a later stage when they wanted it.

 

[/quote]

Sorry, GG: now that is utter feminist tripe, which is so silly, it even defeats the central ethos of most arrant feminists!

OK: Arabia indeed married off its females still in puberty: however this was and in many places still is, because their societies were male-centric and the women were simply chattels: chattels of their fathers when unmarried; and chattels of their husbands thereafter.

For myself, one of the current social problems in Britain is over-exposure of kids to adult concepts and behavioural patterns. Before they are able mentally, to deal with them.

Expecting girls of 14 to demonstrate responsibility,  plus maturity both mental and physical is wholly ludicrous.

And this, I believe, is a core problem: well before maturing, kids believe they are old enough to behave like adults: and society sees the consequences.

Oh for the days when 14 year old girls, in majority, were more focused on hockey, netball, horses and the rest and dressed and behaved like 14 year olds, rather than assume the style of their latest coke-snorting, bed-hopping talentless, celeb icon!

 

[Will]

So what does the panel have to say about a country where the larger the family, the more favourable the tax break, and which gives medals to women in reward for having large numbers of offspring?

Where is this country? The name escapes me for the minute, but I am sure it begins with Fr and ends in e.

[Chancer]

And my region proudly boasts to be the most fecund in France [:'(]

I am just off to Lidl and Aldi to rub shoulders with some of these products of fecundity, its enough to drive me (back) to drink, in fact for the next few hours that is what 90% of their sales will be. [:(]

[velcorin]

And Will, a country that produces a mass audience TV talent show based on pre-pubescent children singing, dancing, dressing and miming to the music of their favourite "coke-snorting, bed-hopping, talentless, celeb icon".....................I don't think Gluey has had to suffer too much French TV or news. Probably best. Can be a bit of a dream breaker.

[mint]

I'd laugh at your post, Velcorin, if it weren't so terribly sad................

[velcorin]

The audience profile might be interesting for certain agencies [:-))]

[Will]

Although we are getting away from the 'broken' families where this topic started, I found this site - Canadian, so no more likely to be pro-France than pro-UK or vice versa - making worldwide comparisons on taxation of families. It was compiled in 2006, but there are not likely to have been that many significant changes since, and it produces some very unexpected results.

A pity that single parent families are not included.

[Chancer]

I am a French telly addict Velcorin and I thought that I had plumbed the depths but I have not come across that show, what is it called and on what channel is it ?