An Irritating Article Makes for Some Very Insightful Comments

The Article:

Minister: housewives threaten EU economy

I found this article very irritating, and was going to make some clever remarks about it. The comments beat me to it. Some were very insightful.

A few choice early comments:

#4 17:10 March 8, 2011 by spidernik84
It's all about GDP, always. That stupid parameter by which every time I crash my car I theoretically make the society wealthier.
Really, what about just considering life and attention towards children more important than the bare money? Is a children seen just as a replacement for old men and women in the system, just a "spare part"?
To me it seems just ridiculous that we're trading our children's future with money. We're already parking them in the dagis and schools or in front of a TV because we don't have time for them, what's next?

#5 18:57 March 8, 2011 by jackx123
omg another politician that needs a brain check. GDP is all about money in circulation. one can very simply boost the gdp, as sweden has in the past, by having more people on the dole.
unless there is non-government work, this utterly dumb comment from a minister, paid for by the tax payers and, yes is part of the gdp, belongs in a bar after midnight twhen everyone is to drunk to pay any attention.
the question is: where will the new non-governemnt jobs come from and how will they be created.
i thought i had seen a lot and heard a lot but this is a gold medal winner. 

#11 22:22 March 8, 2011 by krrodman
The "Law of Unintended Consequences" strikes again. As the standard of living has improved across industrialized Europe, families are now wealthy enough to elect to have one member, typically the mother, stay at home to raise the children rather than work. 
The social planners are apoplectic over this situation for several reasons: First, and foremost, in the socialist utopian state everyone will find fulfillment through work rather than through the mundane task of raising children. Social planners cannot begin to understand that some people might find great joy in staying at home.(In any case, shouldn't it be the choice of the individual rather than the state?) And, of course, a core truth of the modern socialist world is that men and women are equivalent, interchangeable worker units. What happens to modern socialism if women elect to stay at home, and as a result more men are in the work place? 
The obvious solution to the problem is to make families poorer. That can be accomplished easily by increasing taxes, a favorite socialist trick. With less money, women will be forced to return to the workplace, and socialists everywhere will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.