Well... its a rare day that Yabby Pericles and BD are on the same page but we sure are this time....

I never thought to enquire about TC's pay package, I just assumed that because WV is a nominally Christian organization remuneration would reflect that reality.

So, Pericles has hit the nail on the head.. with 1 seriously heavy blow.

Imparting 'guilt' to others is a good fund raising strategy.

After all, at $200k per year, how else could you do it ? You sure can't do it by the "Look at my great example" approach so ..whats left ? aah.. talk about 'poor so_and_so' and mention the 'injustice of poverty' etc.. make us all cringe at our luxury and abundance etc.

Maybe its time WV dropped the 'Christian' tag completely ?

Who knows, maybe Tim gives 90% of his huge salary to the organization? but isn't it better for the sake of public relations and image to be up front and say "I don't NEED such a salary, but the people we serve sure do, so I'll pass on the package and take hmm.. say $60,000" (which is considerable in this day and age.)

SHONGA.. mate.. respect ? bear in mind, this is a place where public figures and institutions are debated. I don't know Tim, I only know what is in the public arena and that is what I'm scrutinizing.

I find nothing to respect about a Christian being paid $200k to run a supposedly Christian Charity.

All we need now is for Tim to tell us how many poverty stricken children will be saved by us denying ourselves 1_big_mac a week.

PAULs view(1cor9)

3This is my defense to those who would examine me. 4Do we not have the right to eat and drink? 5Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife,[a] as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas ?
Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

'Feeding children' is somewhat of a simplistic diagnosis to the problems many of these countries are facing, but I can't go on to agree with Banjo that feeding children will only create more hungry children... The highest fertility rates remain in countries whom are enduring extreme poverty, but economic development is proportional to fertility rates, the higher the economic development then the need to have more children diminishes.

It comes down to the circumstances poor households are facing where to avert the risk of hunger in the future, families have more children because they are viewed as assets, rather than having lesser children where the parents are actually able invest in their future such as sending them to school.
Maybe it comes down to investing in families to move from subsistent agriculture to commercial farming which is the basis of a simple economy, as investing in extreme poverty is what's going to diminish the need for families to have more children

The analogy of comparing cattle fertility to poverty is much to simplistic of an argument...

every plant and animal species on this planet expands to fill as much space as possible. humans are no different.

expanding population and finite, decreasing, resources ensures that poverty is here to stay, unless humanity starts ordering it's affairs with planning and scientific analysis of the place we all live.

only the people's republic of china has made a serious attempt at this, and the world's other societies decried the chinese effort. i suspect capitalism doesn't work in a world with visibly limited resources, so ceos and directors demand rising populations. china was not only communist, they were trying for a steady-state society. no wonder this 'one-child policy' prompted horror at the limitation of human rights: the right of shareholders was threatened.

we aren't suddenly going to plan our societies, we aren't going to provide education and work for every citizen, because too many are determined to do better, much better, than that.

in the end, the death of all those african children is a good thing: they won't grow up to have more starving children. if 90% of africa dies, there'll be enough land for the survivors. if 50% of australia dies, there'll be enough water for the survivors.

there's too many people. either plan to reduce population humanely, or be prepared for mother nature to do it rudely.

But Demos, your referring to a continent that has one of the richest allocation of resources in the world. The proportion of the African population is small compared to the vast amount of land the continent encompasses and to accept that social Darwinism needs to play its part is a needless proposition, and was discredited a long time ago...

A concerted global effort to eliminate poverty or more so pull developing countries out of the 'poverty trap' is in the global communities best interest, as it encourages sustainability rather than the view that real life is a competition and struggle, of "nature red in tooth and claw", and that these people should be left to suffer.

This topic was discussed by a past OLO author Eric Claus, "Reduce Poverty & Sustainability Will Follow"

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3771

"as investing in extreme poverty is what's going to diminish the need for families to have more children"

Peachy, I think that you'll find that in much of the poorest areas,
they also don't have family planning. So kids just kind of come along
when they do, some survive some don't.

The link between poverty and lack of family planning is well documented.

http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2002/english/ch1/index.htm

You need to go beyond the first couple of pages, its quite a detailed
report.

Look how well microcredit works, when you empower women to help
themselves. Family planning is the same. It empowers women to
plan their families and help themselves. Without it, what you
get is more starving babies, its a never ending cycle. More food,
more vaccines, means more babies, etc. etc. Its not the solution.

Peachy,
The "Fertility Rate" so often quoted is not an actual measure of womens fertility, it is a count of how many babies she produces. Women in developed ountries, that are well nourished, are actually more fertile. The reason they produce less babies is because of birth control.

In the countries where people are starving birth control is not practised and when a woman becomes pregnant again depends on the nutrition she receives. When her bodily reserves are sufficiently built up she will then ovulate and then become pregnant again. This is common to all or most warm blooded animals. Even the animals that only mate at a certain time of year, if the females reserves are low she does not ovulate and therefore not get pregnant that season.

Ensuring people are well fed is not the long term answer, as it compounds the problem. Population control by one means or another is the only solution. The problem will persist if the country cannot sustain the number of people and cannot afford to buy in food.