Abortion is Wrong

[Nickkay]

Not only that but if we do end up paying support the we should also have the option of purchasing items for the child at an agreed amount of value. I would be far more comfortable sending $500 worth of things the child needs every month, rather than just handing over 500 bucks a month with no guarantee of how much the child sees of the money.

 

[EvanB]

I quite like the idea of replacing cash in benefits with food stamps and the like. Be interesting to do that for child support.

 

[danny14551]

Why make the mother and the child into that? Why not hang a bell around their necks to let everyone know how supportive Daddy is?

 

[JeffSmoker]

As I understand it any kind of food stamps don't work because they get a stigma or prejudice attached to them. Sad I know but it happens IIRC.

 

[mumba]

I never said they'd have a giant sticker on them saying "CHILD SUPPORT"



Doesn't surprise me sadly. Still, being on benefits full stop has stigma surrounding it. Were people not buying food because they couldn't stand the shame?

Also I'm into the point of looking at this from my perfect utopia type thing and in AaronLand people aren't looked down on for using the state support that is there to help them.

 

[leneiaann]

Let me just clear up one thing. I am NOT talking about purchasing food stamps. I am talking about purchasing actual food and everything else the child needs.

 

[RSJ]

I like the sound of AaronLand!

This is why I support the idea of universal benefit.

You'd have to get rid of armies and nuclear weapons, but everyone would get £300-£500 a week, regardless of income or anything else.

The amount a country would save on admin alone would probably go a fair way to freeing up the cash to do it. No more stigma, no more "undeserving poor".

 

[pirateprincess]

Charity (mostly church-led) food banks are becoming the new welfare safety-net. I guess that's what Cameron means by "The Big Society"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22715451

Disabled people are being thrown on the street because of benefit "reforms". That is not an exaggeration. We live in appalling times.

 

[PelMel]

I'm good with keeping armies, they're really large employers especially when you add in people like BAE and Lockheed as well.

The underserving poor thing reminded me of something else I wanted to ask at some point: Whether or not you agree with the idea of meritocracy, why does every group advocating it seem to be some openly illuminati super cult thing? Its really really weird.

 

[Draco]

It's not something I know a lot about, but I was under the impression they are not really profit-making enterprises anymore (since the death of empire). At some point the public ends up paying for it, whatever obfuscation they use to cook the books.

I can't help but think we could profit more from less desctructive endeavors.

 

[freedav05]

I'm getting ready to enlist myself so I'm not really impartial

BAE though has been profitable for a while and is a big employer down here. Last I heard unemployment is fairly high In Portsmouth anyway, but a few thousand people get work from the navy contracts with the dockyard. Course that's irrelevant once robots take over industry jobs and the capitalist system collapses before the resulting war for organic survival.

Lockheed I think is still making money too but I'm farly sure they lost some big contract recently. Planes or something. I dunno.

 

[yakusa3000]

Cheers for explaining in simple terms for me

That sucks, but can't it also be changed quite easily? If it wasn't assumed that there was compulsory support from an ex partner then it makes sense to revise adding child support to state benefits if needed to take up the slack.

 

[heavysoviet]

I thought bitching about their employers was a favourite pastime of military folk?



I'd have to do some googling, but apart from selling arms and aircraft to dictators and dodgy regimes, I think there's a lot of behind-the-scenes public subsidy of our military industries.

For example, the proliferation of private "security" firms (they don't like being called mercaneries): http://bobshepherdauthor.com/2012/10/01/private-security-a-bad-deal-for-british-tax-payers/

 

[gurtzinator]

Well, yes. In utopia that would be fine. But we don't have the money to make sure everyone in the country is fed and sheltered, so I don't know where the deficit could be compensated for if child support payments were suddenly made voluntary.

 

[wash_yer_nuts]

You mean like the $115.2 billion in no-bid contracts that US federal agencies awarded in 2012 alone? That kinda stuff really burns me up. I don't see how it is allowed at all! This is just one example of the stupidity: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/04/dod-awards-no-bid-contract-to-co-that-overbilled-it-757-mil/