CAP AND TRADE - Coming to your state soon?

[antagon]

does an environmentalist who hunts preclude them from being an environmentalist?

 

[westwall]

prosperity or education, fox?

maybe a bit of both, i guess, but prosperity takes its toll by way of wasteful consumption. what drives efficiency in prosperous economies is the cost of operation - heavily influenced by government and their standards. that's why i think we have smaller and smaller families and smaller and smaller workforces.

This I will disagree with. Wealthy (comparitively) people have fewer children because they don't want them nor do they need them. The governments only influence IMO is to keep poor people producing children by enticing thm with welfare. The poor produce lots of children, the well off don't. Compare the birth rates of any First World Nation and there is a direct correlation between wealth and childbirth.

Prosperity can be wasteful, but it can just as easily be ethical as well. If the people are given a choice and have the money available they will choose 8 times out of ten to do the more ethical buying even though it costs them more. Take their income down to a certain level though and they MUST stop.

WHOA!

West we agree on a great many things but on this I have to disagree with you...

I cannot understand the logic behind your idea that poor people have more children because of welfare... The reason more poor have more children is the same reason most of them are poor in the first place. A lack of discipline, a lack of a firm grasp of reality, and a careless or complacent lifestyle where they are content to just get by....

Most of them I am sure do not plan to have children to get more welfare. I cannot imagine how the trade-off is so beneficial. They have more kids then get more money, but the money they would get will never match the costs and difficulty involved in having more children. I don't know how much they get per child or anything but I can't hardly believe it could possibly be so much....

Hi gslack,

It is simple economics my good man. Poor countries use children as a form of indentured servitude (I am being very general with terminology here) discipline has nothing to do with it, the simple fact is they have no machinery to do the work so it is the children who do it.I am of course speaking about Third World countries....you have to realise a simple fact. People here in the States build gas powered motors for fun, and they use them to do nothing more than make noise. That same motor in Africa could be used for water pumping so that the women wouldn't have to walk an average of 3 miles every day just to get clean water.

Here in the States we have multi-generational welfare families who have found that when they have children they get "X" amount of money. More children = more money. Go to work for even a little bit of time and you lose the welfare check....and believe me the government pays pretty well. The last time I checked the states like California were paying an average of 13 bucks an hour to sit around the section 8 housing (also paid for by the government) and watch TV.

So do they "plan" to do this? No, but it is what they know. There is no incentive to do any different and they do not value education so their children don't value it either. And it is not a racial thing either. There are more caucasian families on the dole than there are of the other races, it is a socio-economic issue nothing more. And you assume that they are caring parents and yet the news is replete with stories of abused and neglected children in every town and city. I am being very general here because there are certainly a great many welfare families who care a great deal for their children but go to any major inner city welfare office or WIC organization and you will be sickened by the huge number who really could care less. How many times do you read about the teachers complaining that the parents are not taking a part in their childrens educations? It is the same with raising them as well.....they really can't be bothered.

 

[westwall]

Not at all but it was not the environmental organizations that saved the animals...it was the hunting organizations.

does an environmentalist who hunts preclude them from being an environmentalist?

 

[westwall]

prosperity or education, fox?

maybe a bit of both, i guess, but prosperity takes its toll by way of wasteful consumption. what drives efficiency in prosperous economies is the cost of operation - heavily influenced by government and their standards. that's why i think we have smaller and smaller families and smaller and smaller workforces.

This I will disagree with. Wealthy (comparitively) people have fewer children because they don't want them nor do they need them. The governments only influence IMO is to keep poor people producing children by enticing thm with welfare. The poor produce lots of children, the well off don't. Compare the birth rates of any First World Nation and there is a direct correlation between wealth and childbirth.

Prosperity can be wasteful, but it can just as easily be ethical as well. If the people are given a choice and have the money available they will choose 8 times out of ten to do the more ethical buying even though it costs them more. Take their income down to a certain level though and they MUST stop.

smaller households among wealthy can be a factor of the opportunity cost of having children as much as the real cost is considered for working-class people in the same economy. welfare recipients could tie larger families to their prosperity, rather than this converse, whereby the cost of children is a limiting factor to family size.

diversion in prosperous nations is a factor, but only to the extent of costs in a limited-income scenario, or opportunity cost for high-earners. this has a cultural effect, as do religious and ethnic traditions on family size. where family is considered a factor of prosperity, these cultures (including the social state culture) perceive family size as laudable.

I don't quite understand why you are using the term opportunity cost as regards children. This is primarily an investing term whose basic meaning is what benefit you could have realised by following a different path. Having children entails real cost. The investment is primarily one way in wealthier families. The children are no longer viewed as labor but as
a continuation of the family goals (in a very general sense) whatever the patriarch or matriarch wishes those goals to be. So I don't see opportunity cost as a meaningful consideration.

 

[gslack]

This I will disagree with. Wealthy (comparitively) people have fewer children because they don't want them nor do they need them. The governments only influence IMO is to keep poor people producing children by enticing thm with welfare. The poor produce lots of children, the well off don't. Compare the birth rates of any First World Nation and there is a direct correlation between wealth and childbirth.

Prosperity can be wasteful, but it can just as easily be ethical as well. If the people are given a choice and have the money available they will choose 8 times out of ten to do the more ethical buying even though it costs them more. Take their income down to a certain level though and they MUST stop.

WHOA!

West we agree on a great many things but on this I have to disagree with you...

I cannot understand the logic behind your idea that poor people have more children because of welfare... The reason more poor have more children is the same reason most of them are poor in the first place. A lack of discipline, a lack of a firm grasp of reality, and a careless or complacent lifestyle where they are content to just get by....

Most of them I am sure do not plan to have children to get more welfare. I cannot imagine how the trade-off is so beneficial. They have more kids then get more money, but the money they would get will never match the costs and difficulty involved in having more children. I don't know how much they get per child or anything but I can't hardly believe it could possibly be so much....

Hi gslack,

It is simple economics my good man. Poor countries use children as a form of indentured servitude (I am being very general with terminology here) discipline has nothing to do with it, the simple fact is they have no machinery to do the work so it is the children who do it.I am of course speaking about Third World countries....you have to realise a simple fact. People here in the States build gas powered motors for fun, and they use them to do nothing more than make noise. That same motor in Africa could be used for water pumping so that the women wouldn't have to walk an average of 3 miles every day just to get clean water.

Here in the States we have multi-generational welfare families who have found that when they have children they get "X" amount of money. More children = more money. Go to work for even a little bit of time and you lose the welfare check....and believe me the government pays pretty well. The last time I checked the states like California were paying an average of 13 bucks an hour to sit around the section 8 housing (also paid for by the government) and watch TV.

So do they "plan" to do this? No, but it is what they know. There is no incentive to do any different and they do not value education so their children don't value it either. And it is not a racial thing either. There are more caucasian families on the dole than there are of the other races, it is a socio-economic issue nothing more. And you assume that they are caring parents and yet the news is replete with stories of abused and neglected children in every town and city. I am being very general here because there are certainly a great many welfare families who care a great deal for their children but go to any major inner city welfare office or WIC organization and you will be sickened by the huge number who really could care less. How many times do you read about the teachers complaining that the parents are not taking a part in their childrens educations? It is the same with raising them as well.....they really can't be bothered.

As much as I agree with a great deal in your post. I cannot get by the one simple premise required to make this a near universal rule of thumb... We would have to assume a parent would willingly wish the same existence on their children...

I have 3 children, and frankly I would do just about anything to empower them to never have to take a job they do not like just to survive, or to simply accept what is given by a government bent on making them ignorant and subservient. I would hope that I am not so rare in my thinking especially amongst those who have so much more everyday motivation.

But then again this could just me hidden idealist coming out....

 

[westwall]

in opportunity-rich economies poverty is of its own making, indeed.

there is validity, however, in the choice to obtain dependents when they constitute income. for an increasing amount of american women, that is an attractive option when faced with the underbelly of our economy. the last thing you or i might do is get a second or third kid, but with flat, rather than curved or capped compensation on a per-child basis, a higher household net income provides a better household than a lower one, notwithstanding the mouths there are to feed. it certainly doesnt inspire your discipline factor.

Once again the discipline arrises because with money come other opportunities for entertainment. Poor people don't have a lot of options. Wealthy people don't want to be tied down with children. Look how many professional women wait till their late 30's and early 40's to finally have children. Why do you think the birth rates are so low in Europe and the rest of the First World.

 

[westwall]

WHOA!

West we agree on a great many things but on this I have to disagree with you...

I cannot understand the logic behind your idea that poor people have more children because of welfare... The reason more poor have more children is the same reason most of them are poor in the first place. A lack of discipline, a lack of a firm grasp of reality, and a careless or complacent lifestyle where they are content to just get by....

Most of them I am sure do not plan to have children to get more welfare. I cannot imagine how the trade-off is so beneficial. They have more kids then get more money, but the money they would get will never match the costs and difficulty involved in having more children. I don't know how much they get per child or anything but I can't hardly believe it could possibly be so much....

Hi gslack,

It is simple economics my good man. Poor countries use children as a form of indentured servitude (I am being very general with terminology here) discipline has nothing to do with it, the simple fact is they have no machinery to do the work so it is the children who do it.I am of course speaking about Third World countries....you have to realise a simple fact. People here in the States build gas powered motors for fun, and they use them to do nothing more than make noise. That same motor in Africa could be used for water pumping so that the women wouldn't have to walk an average of 3 miles every day just to get clean water.

Here in the States we have multi-generational welfare families who have found that when they have children they get "X" amount of money. More children = more money. Go to work for even a little bit of time and you lose the welfare check....and believe me the government pays pretty well. The last time I checked the states like California were paying an average of 13 bucks an hour to sit around the section 8 housing (also paid for by the government) and watch TV.

So do they "plan" to do this? No, but it is what they know. There is no incentive to do any different and they do not value education so their children don't value it either. And it is not a racial thing either. There are more caucasian families on the dole than there are of the other races, it is a socio-economic issue nothing more. And you assume that they are caring parents and yet the news is replete with stories of abused and neglected children in every town and city. I am being very general here because there are certainly a great many welfare families who care a great deal for their children but go to any major inner city welfare office or WIC organization and you will be sickened by the huge number who really could care less. How many times do you read about the teachers complaining that the parents are not taking a part in their childrens educations? It is the same with raising them as well.....they really can't be bothered.

As much as I agree with a great deal in your post. I cannot get by the one simple premise required to make this a near universal rule of thumb... We would have to assume a parent would willingly wish the same existence on their children...

I have 3 children, and frankly I would do just about anything to empower them to never have to take a job they do not like just to survive, or to simply accept what is given by a government bent on making them ignorant and subservient. I would hope that I am not so rare in my thinking especially amongst those who have so much more everyday motivation.

But then again this could just me hidden idealist coming out....

gslack,

All I can say is go to a WIC office or other welfare organization and see for yourself. In many cases the parents get jealous if their children advance farther than them so intentionally try to screw up their opportunities. It is sickening to me but it happens all the time.

 

[Foxfyre]

gslack,

All I can say is go to a WIC office or other welfare organization and see for yourself. In many cases the parents get jealous if their children advance farther than them so intentionally try to screw up their opportunities. It is sickening to me but it happens all the time.

Also, many of those folks are caught up in a self-defeating culture and are fully insulated from anything to spark any kind of initiative to escape it. Kids grow up seeing their parent get that government check every month, cash in the food stamps, get the government cheese or whatever even as they are told by their parents, teachers, neighbors that they are victims and oppressed and to expect nothing more. Certainly their supposed benefactors in government or whatever have no interest in improving their status in life because they don't want anybody not being dependent on government and possibly not voting for those who promote the dependency.

That sounds cruel, harsh, unfair, perhaps, but it is the honest truth.

I had opportunity to work with some Katrina refugees who wound up in Albuquerque. All born and raised in the New Orleans ghetto culture, they honestly did not know any other way to think. Once on the outside, being exposed to a different mindset, and seeing themselves differently than they had before, the lightbulbs started switching on. And I don't believe more than a handful chose to return to New Orleans.

 

[gslack]

Hi gslack,

It is simple economics my good man. Poor countries use children as a form of indentured servitude (I am being very general with terminology here) discipline has nothing to do with it, the simple fact is they have no machinery to do the work so it is the children who do it.I am of course speaking about Third World countries....you have to realise a simple fact. People here in the States build gas powered motors for fun, and they use them to do nothing more than make noise. That same motor in Africa could be used for water pumping so that the women wouldn't have to walk an average of 3 miles every day just to get clean water.

Here in the States we have multi-generational welfare families who have found that when they have children they get "X" amount of money. More children = more money. Go to work for even a little bit of time and you lose the welfare check....and believe me the government pays pretty well. The last time I checked the states like California were paying an average of 13 bucks an hour to sit around the section 8 housing (also paid for by the government) and watch TV.

So do they "plan" to do this? No, but it is what they know. There is no incentive to do any different and they do not value education so their children don't value it either. And it is not a racial thing either. There are more caucasian families on the dole than there are of the other races, it is a socio-economic issue nothing more. And you assume that they are caring parents and yet the news is replete with stories of abused and neglected children in every town and city. I am being very general here because there are certainly a great many welfare families who care a great deal for their children but go to any major inner city welfare office or WIC organization and you will be sickened by the huge number who really could care less. How many times do you read about the teachers complaining that the parents are not taking a part in their childrens educations? It is the same with raising them as well.....they really can't be bothered.

As much as I agree with a great deal in your post. I cannot get by the one simple premise required to make this a near universal rule of thumb... We would have to assume a parent would willingly wish the same existence on their children...

I have 3 children, and frankly I would do just about anything to empower them to never have to take a job they do not like just to survive, or to simply accept what is given by a government bent on making them ignorant and subservient. I would hope that I am not so rare in my thinking especially amongst those who have so much more everyday motivation.

But then again this could just me hidden idealist coming out....

gslack,

All I can say is go to a WIC office or other welfare organization and see for yourself. In many cases the parents get jealous if their children advance farther than them so intentionally try to screw up their opportunities. It is sickening to me but it happens all the time.

Well for the sake of all humanity I hope you are wrong bro.... no offense... i just really don't like the idea of parents being that way...

 

[westwall]

gslack,

All I can say is go to a WIC office or other welfare organization and see for yourself. In many cases the parents get jealous if their children advance farther than them so intentionally try to screw up their opportunities. It is sickening to me but it happens all the time.

Also, many of those folks are caught up in a self-defeating culture and are fully insulated from anything to spark any kind of initiative to escape it. Kids grow up seeing their parent get that government check every month, cash in the food stamps, get the government cheese or whatever even as they are told by their parents, teachers, neighbors that they are victims and oppressed and to expect nothing more. Certainly their supposed benefactors in government or whatever have no interest in improving their status in life because they don't want anybody not being dependent on government and possibly not voting for those who promote the dependency.

That sounds cruel, harsh, unfair, perhaps, but it is the honest truth.

I had opportunity to work with some Katrina refugees who wound up in Albuquerque. All born and raised in the New Orleans ghetto culture, they honestly did not know any other way to think. Once on the outside, being exposed to a different mindset, and seeing themselves differently than they had before, the lightbulbs started switching on. And I don't believe more than a handful chose to return to New Orleans.

I have heard that from more than one aid worker to be frank. I was exposed to the same mindset when I went to St Louis to help after the big floods they had back in 1993. It sucks but it is oh so true.

 

[westwall]

As much as I agree with a great deal in your post. I cannot get by the one simple premise required to make this a near universal rule of thumb... We would have to assume a parent would willingly wish the same existence on their children...

I have 3 children, and frankly I would do just about anything to empower them to never have to take a job they do not like just to survive, or to simply accept what is given by a government bent on making them ignorant and subservient. I would hope that I am not so rare in my thinking especially amongst those who have so much more everyday motivation.

But then again this could just me hidden idealist coming out....

gslack,

All I can say is go to a WIC office or other welfare organization and see for yourself. In many cases the parents get jealous if their children advance farther than them so intentionally try to screw up their opportunities. It is sickening to me but it happens all the time.

Well for the sake of all humanity I hope you are wrong bro.... no offense... i just really don't like the idea of parents being that way...

Believe me I don't either but it is a simple fact that must be dealt with.

 

[antagon]

This I will disagree with. Wealthy (comparitively) people have fewer children because they don't want them nor do they need them. The governments only influence IMO is to keep poor people producing children by enticing thm with welfare. The poor produce lots of children, the well off don't. Compare the birth rates of any First World Nation and there is a direct correlation between wealth and childbirth.

Prosperity can be wasteful, but it can just as easily be ethical as well. If the people are given a choice and have the money available they will choose 8 times out of ten to do the more ethical buying even though it costs them more. Take their income down to a certain level though and they MUST stop.

smaller households among wealthy can be a factor of the opportunity cost of having children as much as the real cost is considered for working-class people in the same economy. welfare recipients could tie larger families to their prosperity, rather than this converse, whereby the cost of children is a limiting factor to family size.

diversion in prosperous nations is a factor, but only to the extent of costs in a limited-income scenario, or opportunity cost for high-earners. this has a cultural effect, as do religious and ethnic traditions on family size. where family is considered a factor of prosperity, these cultures (including the social state culture) perceive family size as laudable.

I don't quite understand why you are using the term opportunity cost as regards children. This is primarily an investing term whose basic meaning is what benefit you could have realised by following a different path. Having children entails real cost. The investment is primarily one way in wealthier families. The children are no longer viewed as labor but as
a continuation of the family goals (in a very general sense) whatever the patriarch or matriarch wishes those goals to be. So I don't see opportunity cost as a meaningful consideration.

caring for children entails serious compromises to one's ability to earn money, not just how and how much it is spent. people hoping to educate themselves and have illustrious careers consider this cost, rather than the financial burden alone.

 

[antagon]

in opportunity-rich economies poverty is of its own making, indeed.

there is validity, however, in the choice to obtain dependents when they constitute income. for an increasing amount of american women, that is an attractive option when faced with the underbelly of our economy. the last thing you or i might do is get a second or third kid, but with flat, rather than curved or capped compensation on a per-child basis, a higher household net income provides a better household than a lower one, notwithstanding the mouths there are to feed. it certainly doesnt inspire your discipline factor.

Once again the discipline arrises because with money come other opportunities for entertainment. Poor people don't have a lot of options. Wealthy people don't want to be tied down with children. Look how many professional women wait till their late 30's and early 40's to finally have children. Why do you think the birth rates are so low in Europe and the rest of the First World.

cost of living and return on alternative investment.. even time.