Nobody said that. It’s beneficial to have an educated and well-trained population because we require educated people for the jobs in our industrialized economy. It’s also essential for a real democracy (not the American Republic thing) to have smart and thinking citizens, because otherwise you slide into idiocracy, where stupid solutions are pushed through because they appeal to the dumb part of the population, instead of what’s best.
Similar, it’s not only common human decency to not let the poor starve under the bridges, it makes sense for the economy: you never know where the next Einstein is being born, so you want to give the best chances to all children and citizens. You also can be fired from a job despite being extremely qualfied, that doesn’t mean that, given a chance again, you can contribute a lot to society in 8 or 10 years time.
J.K. Rowling is one of the most famous examples of this: she has a college degree and worked as a teacher, but when she came back from abroad, with a small child and personal relationship problems, she had a time of no job. Now her novels have made her rich and what she’s paid in taxes since more than make up for what she got back then - or had paid in while she was working before. Letting her starve under the bridge would have served no positive purpose. There are dozens of people with less spectalucar recoveries out there which you never hear about in the media. (And I keep my fingers crossed for Broomstick that we will soon hear she has a good job again, and we can count her as one positive anecdote).
Do the articles ever say that, or do you just think that? (And respectable magazines or slanted ones?)
It could be much more easily be attributed to a religious conviction that first forbids sex prevention education, and then forbids abortion.
I know from reports from the PLAN children’s help that teenagers living in slums in South America also want to get pregnant. Despite seeing the poverty all around them, in the macho culture, a girl becomes a woman by bearing a child; they want something they can play with and that they own, and a baby would be nice; they believe mistakingly that with a baby, their boy-friend will love them more (instead of deserting them). All that despite getting no money at all from the state down there. Teenagers thinking, believing and doing stupid things is them being teenagers and getting bad information from society (that’s the part that PLAN is trying to change). Often it’s also the authoritative upbringing where girls haven’t learned to say “no”.
They don’t think long-term, so they don’t think of kids when having sex; or they don’t think of the problems. None of this is related to tax breaks for people working hard.
To the specific problem of teenage mothers, staying with their parents so they can try to continue their education is much better long-term than kicking them out on the street. Forcing abortion is against the right to self-determination. Forcing them to give up the babies for adoption like-wise. (That would be the only alternative I can see, but the adoption process is tricky apparently in the US).
Since you seem to have missed my post, maybe I need to repeat the key parts in bold:
** people not getting by with their money is not their fault when the wage is too low**. You seem to have missed or be ignorant of the scientific findings at the turn of the century by German and English scientists. Back then, workers in big cities were living in appalling conditions - damp cellars rented on a shift system, not enough money to buy milk for all children, women working in factories to make additional money. The common assumption among the better-off classes at that time was - just like yours - that the low-class proletarians were simply unable to manage their money, squandering it on drinks and cards. But when sociologists looked at the data: income earned, cost for rent, bread, milk, clothes - and money spent on drinking, betting and other vices - the vast majority earned less than they needed to survive. In one study, 13 % of the men spent money on alcohol, but over 80% earned just enough for the rent and some food.
people spending their money on necessities is good for the economy; better than people saving money and investing it into high-risk fonds which create bubbles
Saving for a rainy day is good if you are earning well. Spending money for necessities to survive is better.
It would only be squandering if you had information on their financial situation and assets (which you don’t have if you are standing in line at the supermarket or wherever else you’re getting your impressions from). If somebody on a tight budget, instead of buying milk for the children, gets a new DVD-player, then that would be squandering. But - to use Broomsticks example- getting new tires for a truck if you live in the US without public transport is a necessity to find a job. Getting one pair of decent clothes for job interviews is not squandering, it’s necessary.
Tax money squandered is in other areas: Senators who brag about the pork they bring home, without looking whether it’s necessary to have that project in this state; money spent in the Iraq without ever looking at accounability; money spent on the banks without looking at accounatbility (and the big bonus the managers are getting are not helping the economy when you look at the facts - the idea that rich people invest money into business and thus create jobs is a myth not supported by any facts), and similar things.
Oh, and the proper solution to people who do squander their money on non-necessary things is not to eliminate that credit, **but to teach them **how to spend the money better. It’s cheaper to have a few classes, or have a social worker come in once a month to help them cope (some people are borderline in terms of money-management), than to have them broke on the street or in homes for mental-retarded.