Two stories of interest out of the UK this morning. First, RBS is still mad as hell that one of their windows got busted by protesters during the G2o conference. When this kind of stuff happens to me, I usually think okay, it is insured, no big deal. Maybe they insured the property with AIG or somebody they don’t think is good for the £40 large in damages, though, because they seem to think it is a better idea to recover it from a 17-year-old:

One of Britain’s biggest high street banks attempted to recoup the entire cost of damage to a branch during G20 protests from an unemployed teenage activist today.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was caught smashing computer equipment inside the Royal Bank of Scotland in Threadneedle Street.

But her solicitor, Miranda Ching, said the Scottish-born teenager, who lives in Brighton, is unemployed, does not claim benefits and lives on handouts from friends and family.

She has admitted to the crime, but had numerous accomplices. Not a solicitor, but I assume the UK must have some equivalent of the US’ “joint and several liability” – however, it appears that RBS has missed the point, in that the idea is to go after the person with the deepest pockets, not a broke teenager.

This brings me to my next story, which suggests that maybe instead of trying to smash the state, that girl should just get pregnant and take one for the team. This Freakonomics-style article from the Telegraph suggests that the best way to reduce the national debt is more teenage pregnancy:

Britain’s birth rate is rather greater than any of its other major developed nation counterparts. In other words, we do not face the demographic crisis likely to ravage Europe and Japan.

So, cry as we might about the social issues our nation of single mothers is causing us, their fecundity will at least provide us with a big enough future generation to help pay all this debt off. Who would have thought that teenage pregnancy may prove the answer to the biggest fiscal dilemma in peacetime history?

Presumably the ghost of Ceaucescu was hovering over the computer when their columnist wrote that. Anyway, I am proposing that in America, we erect 50-foot statues of Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears so that young girls can have an example of the importance of fecundity in their teenage years, because I cannot possibly see a single flaw in this argument.

(h/t to @MadameButcher for these two links. Yes, I’m on Twitter and stalk many of my dear readers there.)