If the idea of a 14 Trillion dollar United States national debt is not already mind-blowing, just think about the number of American workers needed to pay down that bill.
The wise and worried shout, “Don’t Leave This Debt to Our Grandkids”. But this statement is presumptuous. It assumes that women will actually be making grandkids or rather enough of them to pay down this debt.
American women are not having children at the rate that they once did. Anyone considering the mathematical implications of this on debt repayment, would start to realize this calls for a fundamental overhaul of the entire system.
Kids, you'll have to work harder for your money.
Recently, our Blue vs. Red politicians have produced glossy and creative budget projections. These economic propaganda pamphlets are to be the blueprint for how America reinvents itself as a credible, powerful, ethical, rich nation. These plans extend out 5, 10, 20, even 70 years (the Reds are in it for the long-run). But they presume the birth of numerous humans and a sustained allegiance of the current economic ideology.
I have not read them but its probably safe to say that the budgets are creative agendas laden with the now-legendary super-capitalist speculation and delusion. In other words, works of utter fantasy. But even the smartest guys in the room are failing to include into their calculus one key component. Who is going to make the mythical characters in the script come to life?
The Politics Of Making People
It is presumed – as has been for eons – that women would mindlessly birth the requisite population to carry on the system as we know it.
The advent of birth control, women’s influx into the workforce, improved women’s rights and reproductive protections requires all of us to rethink how future workers could realistically rid the U.S. of it’s current debt obligations.
Because educated women lack incentives to keep births at replacement levels, the powers that be have been knowingly relying on an alternative method of population growth: the migration of immigrants into the U.S. They have been catered to as consumers and cheap labor and are here to stay regardless of any criticism put out by a few concerned citizens in Arizona. They provide a market base for our economic system to continue. They were allowed in for years, deferring the day for the ultimate fate of this imperfect system: collapse.
Regardless if one identifies Red or Blue, it’s time to focus on the lives of our children. We are all tethered to an economy and politics that relies on the making of people — but those who do bear little to no influence in those processes. It is time for that to change.
Maternal Authority
Mothers are key in raising dignified, respected, educated, thriving, healthy society. The making of people starts with mothers and their authority over that process. If we want a quality and educated future workforce (we do), politicians would do well to consult with those responsible for the act of making people.
Now, I tinker with ideas on this blog. The concept of Maternal Authority is a big, complex concept I’m trying to sort out in my head. I will expand on that in future posts.
But I will say my ideas run in line with Paternal Authority, such as to create the ultimate framework for equality and shared sense of responsibility and privileges for all persons as individuals and parents.
The world says I need to be like this.
We all influence the tone of the future of people everywhere — mothers especially. We need to own it. Our mothers are all too often in positions of dependency. There is an accepted vulnerability and even childlikeness imposed on mothers. This perpetuates the acceptance for marginalizing the work they do. I am exploring ways to take mothers and their concerns out of the shadows.
But I feel like this.
Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons/-JosephB-
Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Colin Whiteside
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Kathryn Hanley
/ August 7, 2011Thank you! So few links of relevance came up when I did a google search for maternal authority.
I am interested in your thoughts on combining work outside the home with traditional motherhood (by which I mean mother as the primary transmitter of the culture and traditions, mother as primary care-taker and home instructor beginning with breastfeeding and lasting through the birth of a new, third generation, and primary homemaker). That is not to say that there isn’t plenty of room for a paternal role, one that starts by establishing and protecting maternal authority and evolves into the teacher of roles and responsibilities that are deemed male/masculine and/or that are most fitting to the parent and child(ren)’s personalities and temperaments.
Mobility, time management and distraction see to me the most central problems or challenges.
Thank you, again, for your article!
Heather
/ August 7, 2011Hi Kathyrn,
I’m excited to hear from you! These matters are definitely what I want to explore further. Right now, I’m taking a lot of information in from other writers. There is a movement to connect these aspects but I get a sense that women equate power with money exclusively — all the while, not reconciling the inherent power they have over the people who make the systems that make modern life possible. That is a powerful position that is taken from mothers and/or we relinquish too easily. The problems you mention are deep-rooted but the solution I see on the horizon is the fact that there are more mother in the world than ever with financial and influential backing to change things. I’m encouraged by that. I’ll be in touch with you!
Thanks for connecting.
marina delvecchio
/ May 4, 2011Heather, this is a wonderful and sharp piece. You have to look into submitting it to WeMagazine online. They have tons of readers and your piece would fit nicely in there.
I love the whole concept of maternal authority — and I see now this motiff you have going about an economic system based on women, by women, for women. I always wonder how it is that we are so undervalued considering we give life — and women most certainly gave these politicians the opportunity to live their lives. Shame on them, but kudos to you.
Heather
/ May 4, 2011Hi Marina, thanks for sharing that suggestion. I will give it a try. I have a lot of ideas brewing on that topic. Moms are an important missing link on so many things. I am trying to come up with an economic system based on what I am learning. There is a real opportunity here. I look forward to getting your feedback as I explore my ideas in the future.
Reedu
/ May 1, 2011Interesting topic and I will be more interested to read what you sort out and write of regarding Maternal Authority. I for one, am so disillusioned with the makings and breakings of issues on Capitol Hill, including and most of all, this country’s mind-blowing debt.
Heather
/ May 3, 2011Reedu,
I almost think it is by design that people have become so bothered by the political climate that the public is disengaged — and so the powers that be can just do whatever they want. No one wants to watch this childish behavior. Especially those of us with kids! The parallels of 3 year olds on a playground and the 50 year old American politicians in Congress are shameful. Thanks for your comments, as always.
Citizen Tom
/ April 30, 2011Heather – With respect to corporations, I see nothing wrong with your realism. I just hope you will apply the same realism to government.
Just as there never existed the Camelot told of in the fairytales, there never existed a perfect American republic. There was an accident of history, perhaps a moment of divine providence, when a Christian people by some odd quirk did not eat each other up when they rebelled against King George III.
Are corporations evil or always bad? No, but when given power most men will be tempted to abuse it. That is why the Founders created a government full of checks and balances. That is why, in spite of the fact most of them knew it to be evil, the Constitution let slavery stand. Men, not institutions, are inherently tempted to do wrong.
If we want to protect our individual rights, we have no choice except to limit to power and influence of collectives. That includes government institutions, nonprofit corporations, commercial corporations, co-ops and so forth. In fact, because government authorizes and regulates their existence, almost all collectives are in most respects creatures of government. Commercial corporations, in particular, exist only because government makes them possible.
Hence, I think your ideas to limit corporate power worthy of consideration. I would only suggest that you keep the focus on protecting individual rights. Whenever we give politicians power — our intent matters too little — they will abuse it. Therefore, whenever we give politicians more power than absolutely needed, we would have been better off relying private charity.
Jittery
/ May 3, 2011Good points Citizen Tom, government and corporations are definitely intermingled. An “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” is common place and unfortunately the debt of our country does not affect them, at least not yet. When the jobs are gone and the consumer has no money to spend, then and only then will the corporations fail.
Heather
/ May 3, 2011Hi Jittery,
Thanks for stopping in and sharing your thoughts. The corporations will implode from their lack of foresight and take us all with it if things don’t change.
Heather
/ May 3, 2011Thanks Tom for expanding on your thoughts.
Freedom, by the way
/ April 29, 2011You are getting quite the meaty discussion going here! Of course corporations–any business actually–wants to limit their competition. Every business is in business to make money, from Mircrosoft to the corner restaurant. There are regulations in place to prevent monopolies and price fixing, albiet the system isn’t perfect–no system is. I wouldn’t throw capitalsim under the bus just yet. As corrupt as it is in America, it is no less corrupt than our government. I am certainly not giving up on our system of government or on capitalism. Together, they have created the highest standard of living per capita and the most liberated society of any nation in history. We must remain deligent and work to returning both capitalism and our republic to their purest forms. That will benefit ALL Americans.
Heather
/ April 29, 2011Hi Freedom,
Thanks for popping in again and sharing your thoughts!
I agree with you that capitalism in a checked form (preventing monopolies, reasonable care to not pollute the environment) is really a great system and really brings people up. I consider myself a “Mama Capitalist” for good reasons
.
The problem is that capitalism must find new markets to sustain itself. When everyone is satisfied with their current car, Ipod, shaver, TV, house the cash flow reverses. Then we have serious trouble. Capitalism should not be the only system we use to move money around. It’s fundamentally flawed this way. We need a third leg to the republic, capitalist stool — one with serious checks and balances. I’m thinking beyond the typical balancing mechanisms of commodities, bonds and stocks. The fundamental ideas that made our country great in the beginning have been lost on those with the most money unfortunately.
The economy today is a reflection of industries that could not longer hold on — dead and we die right along with it because it thrives on a customer-base that is ill-informed. Most people don’t really understand how to take advantage of the good times and make dumb decisions…example: Housing bubble/mortgage disaster.
Citizen Tom
/ April 29, 2011There are lots of interesting ideas and acute observation here, but that is not necessarily a good thing. We are simple-minded creatures. To solve a problem, we have to break it into manageable parts.
Will we pay off the debt and how? How important is the deficit? What is the effect of immigration and the role of mothers? Lot of questions and projections that require assumptions to produce predictions (not answers). That is principle reason all those budgets our leaders produce are worthless. They don’t try to solve the problem now. They put the solution too far off to be believeable.
Consider the basics. What is the role of money? Money serves two purposes. Money provides a medium of exchange and a measure of profitably. To serve those purposes, money must maintain some sort of intrinsic value. What is the intrinsic value of our money? We need it to pay taxes. Otherwise, it is worthless.
Inflation occurs, undermining the value of money, when the supply of money increases faster than the amount of goods and services we produce. Because we are running huge deficits, we have inflation. However, that is not the only problem. Because our government is spending so much money, producing so many stupid regulations, and actually interfering with the conduct of legitimate business, it is both stifling commerce and driving it out of the country. Thus, our government makes American industry less competitive. Therefore, we have inflation on both ends, we spend too much money, and we produce fewer goods and services.
As a practical matter, inflation serves as a measure of the profitably of government. When we have inflation, it suggests our government is not spending our money wisely, is getting in the way of commerce, or is both is not spending our money wisely and getting in the way of commerce.
How do we solve the problem? I am not certain what you mean by paternal or maternal authority. However, I do think parents must exercise authority. When our leaders try to father and mother us instead of just protecting our rights, we have to stop them before they impoverish our children.
Heather
/ April 29, 2011Hi Tom,
I always appreciate your thoughts. You are right, solving these matters is infinitely more complex than I could get into a post but you summed it up well at the end:
“I do think parents must exercise authority…. we have to stop them before they impoverish our children”.
Which is really what has already been done. And that is my angle — the protective, respectful, loving principals of parenting…not totalitarian or anything like it. It could do us some good to look at our society in this way — again. That is actually an old principal.
You give a great condensed version of the money movements and inflation effects. I part ways abit regarding use and monetary strategy, however. We not only use money for the payment of taxes, most of us are dependent on it for food, shelter and general needs. Money’s intrinsic value is actually not in what it can buy it is in the energy that people use to produce things, provide services. It’s value is ultimately in people, not things. The problem is that our economy is not set up to value the human capital it takes to do things and to make more people — but it should be.
Inflation does not have to be that big of an issue if more money circulated to create jobs/income/spending. It’s the set up right now. The banksters are just holding it to create fear and allegiance to their existence — and to great effect.
I do agree that there are some ridiculous regulations interfering with business but I do not think it is the government creating them. It is the corporations seeking to reduce market competition disguised as “government”. We lost our government to corporations decades ago.
I don’t think a government working in the public’s interest really cares much about limiting innovation — but existing companies do. This is evidenced in electric car technologies, patents in less-invasive cancer treatments, Microsoft’s business practices…the market for new products and services has been greatly suppressed so existing businesses could remain profitable in the public eye, even though they are really government sponsored. They buy our politicians….who in turn make those regulations. It is the corporate welfare state we live in. I refuse to beat a drum for ‘capitalism’ when it is been preverted into a form of ‘socialism for the rich and incorporated’.
Freedom, by the way
/ April 28, 2011Thanks, Bruno for the first-hand account of what’s happening in France.
brunolem
/ April 28, 2011First, it would be extremely surprising if the coming generations had to deal with our actual national debts, because they are already way too high, therefore unsustainable, and the house of cards is going to collapse sooner rather than later.
So, the baby boomers will have to deal with the mess.
The problem(s) for the coming generations is that they will be left with both a devastated economy and environment (they’d better get familiar with “Mad Max”, “The book of Eli” and the likes as soon as possible).
Now to France.
France doesn’t really have a “Muslim problem”; it is just a way to hide much more unpleasant things.
What happened is that, in the 60s, French President De Gaulle called for immigrants to come to France and help develop the country’s industries.
Most of them came from North Africa and worked in the automobile industry.
There wasn’t any problem with that.
Then, in the 70s, president Giscard d’Estaing made one of the most stupid decision ever, by authorizing what was called the “regroupement familial”.
In other words, the families of the immigrant workers, which had remained home, were invited to France!
And, of course, they started… having children.
The bomb was ticking.
While the French were having, on average, 2 children, the immigrants had 7 or 8!
Twenty years after, the bomb went off!
Without even realizing it, France had become “black and muslim”!
Just an example: when I went on the Champs Elysees in 2000, to celebrate the French victory in the European football championship, the famous avenue was covered with 500,000 to 1,000,000 people, 95% of them “black and muslim”!
Yet, the truth is that these second generation “immigrants” are neither immigrants, nor muslims.
Since they were born in France, they all have French ID cards.
As for their religion, they don’t have any, but they quickly understood that it was all good for them to pretend that they were muslims (on the basis that they are named Muhamad), because this automatically put them under the protection of (insane) laws repressing “racism”.
For example, if someone, say, like me, goes into a fight with one of these “beurs” (this is how they call themselves: “beur” is supposed to be the word “arab” read in reverse), one will be accused of attacking a muslim, being a racist, will be investigated and will become a pariah.
On the other hand, if a group of beurs rob a grandmother sitting in the metro (which happens 20 times per day), this will be described by the police as “delinquent youth attacking an elderly passenger”.
This situation, which is getting worse by the day, is what pushed me to leave France for Thailand 12 years ago.
Since then, things have turned even more badly.
Enjoying impunity, the “beurs” have formed gangs, mostly in the drug business, which operate from… Thailand! (talk about being cursed).
From there, they send shipments of “exotic” products to their country of adoption and, in return, collect huge amounts of cash.
So much so that they buy entire buildings in Thailand, while in France they spend their pocket money in luxury cars (I have photos that I will forward later).
It has been estimated that by 2020, France would be a country with a muslim majority, which is wrong… and right!
It is wrong because these people only pretend to be muslims, but it is right that they will soon make the majority of the population in numbers…
A frightening perspective!
At least, French citizens won’t have to wonder where their future warlords will come from, once the EU and its economy will collapse…
Heather
/ April 28, 2011Bruno,
Thanks so much for that insight and for bringing it up Freedom. It’s a very interesting situation. I’ll read up more on it.
It — like everything else — brings to mind my desire to explore new ideas. It is more acceptable for people align themselves religiously or with national identity, because humans have placed value on those above honoring and respecting each other person to person. It’s what we get when there is measured respect for those institutions above the most basic and fundamental notion of respect taught parent to child. Especially, in a time when corporate goals supercede the family ties, causing those to start to fray.
Will it take a collapse? History says yes, but I hope we can learn from history…
Rio Guzman
/ April 27, 2011Heather, you are forgetting that we don’t need a budget. The problem we have is much deeper; we have to clean house. To start join: http://www.AE911Truth.org and spread the word.
Heather
/ April 28, 2011I know, Rio. We need a whole new thing…great to see you, as always.
Freedom, by the way
/ April 27, 2011Very interesting thought, Heather–can our birthrate keep up with our budget requirements? Of course, over time, a smaller population, should require less government, and thus, less revenue. (We could and should make do with a lot less government now). But I just read an article that more US citizens are living to be 100. And we know, an aging population costs much more than a young, vibrant population. I believe France is facing a huge economic delimma right now–their birthrate is so low they are actally losing French populace. Of course they have a huge influx of Muslims. But because most Muslim immigrants are not intigrating well into French society and it may be only the matter of a few decades before the French culture is but a memory.
Heather
/ April 27, 2011Hi Freedom,
We definitely do have a serious issue with supporting the elderly. In a way it will be case of reaping what was sown though. The people to have lacked foresight to deal with that dilemma (the baby boomers) will feel it’s repercussions. And I agree to the statement that we need less of everything, including government waste. But saving money goes against the current economic set-up and is why neither party cuts spending. We need to figure out how to get the same amount of money moving in the economy with fewer people. Currently, the model is to buy more weapons. I say — pay mothers like is currently done 100+ countries around the world. We are far behind the curve on this.
Bruno, a regular reader here, is from France and I know he has strong views on the aging population there. Perhaps he can also shed light on the influx of muslims and what it means for the future there.
The deficit calls for a serious reconfiguration of what we value and how the money moves in the economy. A few adjustments and an effort to reinvent ourselves as population with integrity could go a long way. I fear the corruption from the top has seeped into so much of our government. But the average American I know is still fairly good and trustworthy. There is a foundation to build on, I think.
As always, thanks for your comment.