RogueCaptain, we're growing an obese lot of kids... who stuff their faces with unhealthy food, don't go out and play and who are becoming diabetic. Care to guess what that costs? Why should everyone end up with higher health costs because of that?

And what does that have to do with the OT? If your point is the government can't do anything right, this isn't a good example. There are much better ones.

"Qui custodiet ipsos Custodiens?"  = Who guards the guardians?  

The public.

Oh, it's those 'The Public' folks again, always getting in the way of the Government.  Something should be done about those folks. 

Now what was it that 'Readers Digest' used to say about Humor?

When you say we're, do you mean everyone as a whole or do you mean the parents that don't bother with ensuring their children are not stuffing themselves with McDonalds, BKs, $.99 Little Debbie cakes and 2 litter cokes every day while sitting in front of a tv with 20 to 30 children networks all afternoon and the sending them to bed at about 11:30PM all while the kids complain they don't get enough to eat, don't get to stay up a little more to see one more cartoon and probably brush their teen only once a day and within 30 seconds.

I guess we should be putting the cost on the ones responsible for this, the parents.

Sorry for the derail it's just that every time I hear about how money gets dumped left and right for some project it can bug me.  I saw that video this morning and then reading about the national cybersecurity plan (googled for more info afterward) well I went into rant and vented.  It was an outburst, I apologize.

The folks that decide to get together and have children should be the ones that are responsible for their actions.  I like that 'rule' but it don't work.  It just so works out that some parents out there are either unable to or just don't want to live up to their responsibilities. 

If we are talking public schools than by virtue of paying school taxes (yes even folks who don't have children pay school taxes) it then becomes a problem for all of us. 

There are plenty of times when I want to say it's someone else's responsibility, somehow though it seems hard to find those responsible.

I honestly take offense to this, both as a parent and as an informed member of society. We as a society live in a unique time in the history of human civilization, as the traditional gender roles have faded and non-local full time employment being common for both parents in a family unit. Thus, for many families, neither parent has the time or energy to both work a full-time job and then take on a part time job of homemaker. Fast food and ready-to-eat foods have replaced the more traditional home-made cooking of a full or even part time homemaker. On top of this, these families must also manage within a limited budget, as most of the American population is slowly pushed farther and farther into states of financial burden. Thus,  the average American family is not simply feeding their children unhealthy foods because they have no thought for the health or well-being of their children. They simply find themselves as victims of a system that places heavy strains on working class families. This reason does not simply apply to the food most families eat, but to many of the supposed poor choices of modern parents. In the case of the over use of television by parents as de facto babysitters,  it is obvious that under these same conditions child rearing has been equally strained by the requirements of modern parents to produce a certain wage. While it is still an undesired situation and overall a problem to be handled, simply placing blame upon parents ignores the fact that our overly greedy and amoral corporatocracy has almost made strong and positive family relations impossible.

BS. Show me one offensive word. There isn't one. "I don't like it" is not equivalent to "I take offense..". You don't like it? Then do diffferently and teach your offspring. Oh, you have? Then who elected you spokesperson for the irresponsible?

Really? Then don't take on parenthood. That is the more important job, incidentally. "I work long hours to be able to send my kid to school, to college, to the doctor, to feed him/her...". Nonsense. YOU made the kid? YOU owe the kid. What you owe him/her is what YOU decide it to be.

In any case don't expect my kids to pay for your kids' love of coca-cola and fast food causing them to be obese because the big meanie corporation made you work and sweat. They're overweight because you and they chose to be. So you pay for it.

Nonsense. You work a poor paying job so I pay for your kid not exercising and guzzling coke and potato chips? That's just plain wrong. Don't hand your kid money to buy crap until you make sure he/she is responsible. Ever hear of "brown bagging" it? It's your responsibility to teach and train your kids, and the school's. They're trying to hold up their end and yours, for the kids' sake. The job you work and where you do it are your responsibility too. Plenty of people break their backs trying to change those things.

And the food thing is still OT. 

I'm going to say it again -- we need to put birth control in the drinking water supply, and once a person decides they want a child, takes a test, buys a license thereby proving they deserve to be a parent, THEN they can be administered an antidote.

Absolutely right. You have to get licensed to drive a car, but kids? Hey! Have at it!

Nonsense. The people should have to prove they're responsible enough to have and raise kids. THAT'S the future of the world we're talking about.

, Karen.  

... and 1 day the antidote stops working. Oh oh.

After 2 or 3 generations whos kids are going to actually do the labour if they're collage educated.

Not one person can actually think of the underlying cause of these issues. When did a family have to start earning 2 incomes to survive. When and why did wages stop rising even though productivity did rise. Why are we working 20% more hours than we did 30 years ago. All these points are leaving kids to be raised by pizza pops and MTV.

EDIT:

The Disappearing Male is a CBC documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system. The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia.

Education is for yourself. What you choose to do with it is quite another thing.

Because people cannot save, and buy goods from outside the country and go into debt the dollar loses its value and you need more to buy less.

Not that hard to understand.

No. Parents cannot abrogate their responsibility to their children. Sorry. Parents are responsible until age 18 (that's law). After that, newly formed adult is responsible.

Job, work, relative value of the dollar are all reasons to put off childbearing/rearing until feasable and to complete education before doing so. It's up to the parents to enforce that.

There needs to be responsibility testing before conception licensure is allowed. 

What's more important - cars or kids? 

Inflation is caused by consumers and not by the money masters at the Federal Reserve? Couldn't disagree more. Look up the charts of money supply or total debt over time. The dollar has lost 97% of it's purchasing power the last 100 years. Consumers haven't caused that - inflating the money supply has caused that. Who inflates the money supply - the Federal Reserve.

For anyone interested please research what the Federal Reserve actually is. What you may learn may shock you. How a dollar is created and destroyed, it's relationship to debt, and fractional-reserve banking. Do you think the Federal Reserve serves the American people? The Federal Reserve serves its owners and shareholders - banks. Look it up.

On your other points agree parents *should* be responsible. However, your arguments there are simplistic in the extreme and completely absolve the architects of the current system of blame. The ones at the top (bankers) are laughing all the way to the bank (excuse the pun) while us peons point fingers at each other. That's the point Kenata was trying to make and I completely agree. We're chasing the almighty dollar (moving target due to inflation) and that's the way the ones at the top like it.