A Pregnancy Bonus?

I was just thinking random thoughts when I happened to revisit T. F.'s rant about taxes as well as the ludicrous request by the Louisiana Senator asking Congress for USD250 billion to rebuild New Orleans. Among other things, he claimed that using simple division, "if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012."

I love this idea of raining cash. I would transplant myself to New Orleans if this amount of money is going to drop on me. I would even vote a Dem.... Oh wait. You never trust a Democrat.

Then I thought about how the Singapore government is throwing money at its people to get married, have kids and look after their old. Ok, at least there is clearly a Baby Bonus, where parents of second, third and fourth (and maybe subsequent) newborns are given awards of money and in kind.

Yet, while we see some improvements in our birth rates, more needed to be done. This is especially so when the father now calls upon his generation to work as long as they can before they can go and kick the bucket. So the son's idea of having more kids is becoming less and less attractive, since knowing very well that these very kids you are going to bring to suffer the injustices of the world are now going to be saddled with an additional problem - a aged populace of working folks who simply won't shut up, get out and go away for good.

If people don't retire, we have corporations and organisations that are bloated at the top end of the age scale. If we go by seniority, these elderly workers may occupy the middle parts of the spectrum. Just like obesity, it's the middle layers that do you in. So, is that really sound? Perhaps there are jobs just to take care of such things.

But truly, death is an inevitable outcome of living. (I can't believe I had written something that corny but I did.) So we should let nature take its course and not play god. Not all of us are going to live on and on because we are not genetically predisposed to. Just yesterday, I found out from Wikipedia that kangaroos live four to six years in general and a female kangaroo is in a perpetual state of pregnancy. The only day she is not pregnant is when she gives birth. (I know - Wiki had that and I went D - U - H as well.)

Despite their short livespan, there are about 50 million of them in Australia but since hunters were allowed to kill these marsupials for food and hide (and roo meat is really nice!), the numbers are more controlled now. Still, they could easily become a pest if they are not culled on a regular basis. (Animal conservationists are going to take issue with this. Hey guys, I eat dog meat too!)

So, at this point, I can't believe I have digressed so much that I actually forgot that I was writing about the pregnancy bonus!

Let me get back on track.

Societal conditions have made it rather unpalatable for couples to have kids again. Perhaps we can resort of using yet another carrot to entice them to make babies. To this end, we can offer the Pregnancy Bonus.

I really believe this will come sooner or later. When it becomes bad enough, trust me - natural births might be offered free in government hospitals (just like budget air tickets). Parents are just liable for the relevant service charges and taxes.

For me, I await the day when men are given an "emission bonus" for bringing about pregnancies.