Fillies and gentlecolts, I come before you today to bring an issue which has eluded an answer for far too many years to light. Equestria is a great country to live in no doubt, do not mark me wrong. But it does have its share of problems that could threaten the structure of our country if they are not dealt with accordingly. One such problem is that of overpopulation in small towns with a lack of provision for the constant offspring. The inability to care for our young is a thought that shakes my very soul. Why can we not care for our young, you may ask. That answer is simple: there are not enough jobs to go around. Ponies go day to day without producing anything that would help Equestria’s economy, society, or welfare. If they lived alone, that would be one thing; but they problem is there are families out there who suffer each night because they cannot feed those they love. I can see in your eyes, my dear ponies, the same feeling of sadness and disbelief I felt the first time I became aware of this problem. However you may put your tears away, for I have come up with a reasonable solution to this problem which will not only fix the overpopulation and unemployment, but also ensure that families who cannot care for their children will not have to worry about their children’s fate.
For simplicities sake, let me use the country town of Ponyville for an example. I have recently traveled there, and seen that its businesses exist solely for themselves. There are no more than possibly two businesses that actually export their products. So no wonder ponies there do not have jobs, as the owners of the small town shops and companies do not need any help. It would financially be more harmful to them to hire helpers. Is that right? Should we let them continue with this course of action? In my own opinion, that is a crime. It is stealing from the town, and from its ponies. But, with no further ado, let me propose to you my reasonable solution. Export the children. The young fillies and colts who cannot be supported by their families should be used as products. This would cut overpopulation, as the young who cannot be supported will become a thing for sale. This would create jobs in the towns where they were exported, and jobs in the towns and cities where the exports arrived and were sold.
Before you ask, no I do not mean adoption. The problem would not be solved, just slightly stunted. Orphanages would face the same problems as the families would. No, I mean certain aspects of the children would be exported; specifically the coat. Young ponies have a very luscious coat, which only grows dimmer and looses its natural glisten as they grow. One of the few companies in Ponyville that actually export its products is a fashion boutique known as Carousel Boutique. This boutique could buy pony hide/fur/coats and create clothes of this material. Also, the clothes that would be made would have a natural luster to them, and of course the fur would keep you warm. An all purpose article of clothing, made with only natural products, to reduce suffering.
Of course ponies could buy the hides by themselves, and do with them what they wish. Wall decorations perhaps, or a welcome mat. This way the ponies who became products would not actually have left. Why, their own family could buy them and be together forever. Is that not a better solution than trying to endure the agonizing torture of starvation and the lack of ability to care for your young? Hearing them cry every night out of hunger and cold, or have them keep you warm with no worries about needing to be fed?
You may be wondering how this whole operation would actually work. Well, I do have the numbers on my reasonable solution, and will now present to you the details of the operation. First, families who cannot support their children would give them to specialized warehouses, which would keep the offspring in cages. The young fillies and colts would have to be taken almost immediately, before they can recognize their actual mother and father. Also, the younger the ponies are, the more luscious their coats. The warehouses would feed the products, keeping them slightly plump, and prevent them from potentially damaging themselves, which would lower the price of course. The number of workers it would take to manage a single warehouse would be on the order of fifty ponies tending to the products, five supervisors to ensure operations are running smoothly, and one manager of the warehouse to deal with the process of exporting all over Equestria, as well as general inventory and the health of the products. No pony would want a coat with a sickly pallor to it. So, fifty-six jobs created in one warehouse. Multiply that by the number of warehouses all across Equestria, say fifty, and that creates twenty eight hundred jobs. Families can travel to find work, of course. They always have before.
Now, once the products are ripe to be sold, the warehouses may do one of two things: transport the products to live dispensaries, where ponies may buy the filly or colt of their choice while it is still alive, and they can observe and inspect the health and nature of the bearer of the hide. Alternatively, the warehouses may separate the actual product from the unwanted aspects before they ship them off. This operation of dealing with the live young ponies, the product, and the extra would take about twenty workers per warehouse. It is of course granted that the warehouses would take the time to treat the hides before sending them off. Otherwise the potential buyers would be observing a bloody mess, and no one wants to buy that. No civilized pony anyway.
Warehouses that export the final products only may have the hides be sold in shops singular to the separated product, or have other stores that carry clothes, cloth, and similar products sell them as well. If stores singular to the separated product did arise, it would take approximately ten ponies to sell, store, and stock the products once they came in. These hides would be hung within the store, already treated and having a variety of colors and types. Hides of the same color may be sewn together in for the purpose of having exceptionally larger sizes to sell. If a hide happens to have a cutie mark, very unlikely as these are very young colt and fillies remember, the coat would be treated in a way to give it the absolute best appearance. Have dozens of those all over Equestria, and we are well over four thousand jobs for unemployed ponies. Is this not better? The chance for work, for money, and being able to support the remaining family is a superior and logical choice of action to the alternative of starvation and misery.
The special stores that will sell the products alive will keep said products separated from each other in single cages. The cages will have room for the young to lie down in, but not stand up. They will be given food and drink during their period of storage, so as not to lose their appearance and value. A time of three weeks must have passed before they are set aside and transferred to a facility where their product will be separated and sold cold and treated. While they are there, however, buyers will, upon entering the shop, describe the certain specifications they are looking for. An attendant will bring out the candidates who are the closest to the desire of the customer. The customer will then have the ability to observe and inspect the products in order to find one of satisfaction. The buyer has the ability to either ask the store to send the live product to a facility where the desired hide will be separated and sent to the buyer, or have the ability to take the live product home and deal with it themselves. This option is, of course, the preferable one; as a warm filly or colt hide is very easy to work with and thus is best to receive it hot from under the knife.
Hides, still being covered in the fur don’t forget, can easily be used as a very nice welcome mat, or made into various articles of clothing, as I stated before, or as a piece of art if they are luxurious enough. It goes without saying that the hides will be stretched to a variety greater dimensions for a greater selection, as it is probable that the fillies and colts who these products will come from will be around the same age and thus the same size. Any smart businesspony would be aware that only offering the same size of something would lead to financial disaster for the company, and would thus lose all of the jobs that it would provide.
A young pony hide could go to a decent and worthwhile household for a minimum of twenty bits, depending on the shine and size. The smallest size of the hides would go for twenty bits, as I said, and would increase in accordance with the increasing size. A medium-small could go for, oh say…thirty? A very reasonable price for the product as such. Medium would most likely go for forty-five, and a medium-large would be in the order of fifty-five to sixty. Large sizes would start at seventy-five and increase by increments of fifteen bits per three inches past the standard “large” size. An extra ten bits would be included for added shine, upon demand. Any hide with a cutie mark would start at one hundred and fifty bits and increase due to size and shine.
I would like to indulge the audience now, please bear with me and imagine. See a family, struggling to survive, with no work, no money, no food, and no hope. The young fillies and colts, crying at a mother’s feet, and she knows she can’t do anything to help them. It is a dark, dark image no denying it. Perhaps this is why it has been avoided, and unnoticed. Or, perhaps it is not unnoticed, but just ignored by those who can make a difference to the less fortunate. The elite of Manehattan and Canterlot, rolling in wealth, have done nothing to prevent this. Fillies and gentlecolts, I see in your eyes that you desire to do the right thing, the right thing for our families, our towns, cities, country and ourselves. If you don’t help the ponies who struggle just to stay alive, then you are condemning them to die a miserable and lonely death.
I am not a foolish pony, I know that there is that little voice whispering in your ear: “What else?” An unfair question, and every pony who hears it knows it. But, there is more for those who demand that there must be, and in this case they are right to ask. What about the waste? What about that which is separated from the product? Well the “extra”, as you may call it, would be shipped to yet another facility, or perhaps the same warehouse where this all starts, and held to be transported to the Everfree forest. Now I can see what you are thinking, and no we are not going to just dump them there, if nothing else the smell would be atrocious. This is the way to finally find a settlement with the Ursas. We give them the extra from the product, and in turn they stay away from any pony settlement, and never harm any pony who they come across. Through this reasonable solution, we can make Equestria close to being perfectly safe. We can let our young, happy and fed, run through the forests and caves without worry.
Now, I cannot understand why anypony would reject this solution. Think of the benefits to society, economy, and family. Families have the opportunity to free their young, who they cannot afford to keep, a freedom from suffering. The economy will rise with the availability of jobs and exports. Thousands of jobs will open up all across Equestria, only a select few settlements and solitary towns will not be benefited directly by having branches of the company placed within their borders. But any proper and respectable town or city will have the product available, live or treated. The warehouses would be set up in the largest and therefore best-suited cities, such as Manehattan and Canterlot. Ponies needing work will not have to travel far or at all to be employed. As for society, a new line of fashion could easily arise with this business in place. Any town or city that sells the product would become richer with a large cut of sales going directly to the town from the store. Expansion, improvement, development, culture…the list of benefits goes on and on. And safety! Do not forget that the residents of Equestria, the loyal subjects of Princess Celestia, would be able to sleep a little more soundly at night, knowing that they are not going to be attacked. Does this not seem like the perfect solution to a problem that is devastating for anypony who has had to endure it? Yes there are one or two small obstacles which would have to be overcome, but the same could be said of any solution or plan. This may seem a bit radical for many of you ponies, but I must implore you to answer me yet another question before you disregard what you have heard. Think about this, we take the rising of our sun and moon via magic for granted, correct? Imagine this, the sun and moon rose and set without any help. I realize this is a ridiculous notion, but hear me out. Just say that the sun and moon rose and set without any magical help, and all of a sudden somepony comes along and tells us that it would be better to rise and set the moon with magic, instead of letting them go by themselves. If the normal scenario was that the sun and moon didn’t need any help, wouldn’t that notion be absurd and unthinkable? The only reason any of you would disagree with my reasonable solution is that it is not normal, and therefore absurd. If this entire scenario was reversed, and I was proposing that we quit selling the product, which we had been selling for many years, wouldn’t that be absurd? I realize my time is almost up, and I do not wish to make any more enemies today than I already have. I will leave you with a last thought: if you do not like my reasonable solution to a problem which is indeed very important to fix, find one yourself that you agree with. Fillies and gentlecolts, thank you for your time.