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A 1920s millionaire set off a race to have the most babies
- mayakacz 11y agoHmmm. There was a TV movie I saw about this when I was growing up in Canada... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stork_Derby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stork_Derby
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lordnacho 11y agoPeople couldn't have been completely crazy. Anyone taking part would understand that not winning would be hugely burdensome, and winning would mean you have money but a huge number of mouths to feed.
- kevin_b_er 11y agoIf you won, it was $153 million dollars in today's money. That's more than enough money to feed all those mouths.
- goodJobWalrus 11y agoNo, it was $10 million in today's dollars (it's in the article), although your point still stands. Still, being able to pay for, and being able to raise about 10 kids under 10 at the same time is not the same.
- TinyRick 11y agoFrom the article: "In addition to his work as a lawyer, Millar amassed a net worth of more than $10 million (in today’s Canadian dollars)..." Each winner received $125,000, which is a little over $2 million in today's Canadian dollars.
- patorjk 11y agoActually, the article says his net worth was more than "$10 million (in today’s Canadian dollars)". That's about 7.2 million in today's US dollars. The most any winner got was 2 million CAD (or 1.46 million USD) and the winners each had 9 kids. So that's like getting 162k to have a kid, which isn't that great of a deal.
- tosseraccount 11y ago$7.2 million in today's values is plenty for the Canadian fellow. Historical inflation = 3% Historical stock market returns=11% 11-3=8 8 percent real return (inflation adjusted) on average per year. Let's say he plays it a little safe, let's call it 5% real return. That's $360K/year forever ... and ever. Sounds pretty easy to me finance wise. People get raised in big families on a lot less and do just fine.
- celticninja 11y agoOnly if you never spend any of the capital. I expect having 10 kids there are a number of costs and debts that woukd need to be repaid so the actual interest received would be less.
- fasteddie 11y agoWhich presumably would also get hit with more taxes, lowering it by another 30-40%
- cperciva 11y agoCanada doesn't have any inheritance tax. As far as I know, this was the case at the time in question, too.
- refurb 11y agoThe article seems to suggest that a lot of the families planned on having big families anyways. It wasn't like the decision was between "no kids" and "maximum kids". More like "stop at 6 kids" and "maximum kids".
- kuschku 11y agoIndeed. Germany, in the 1930s, also had a rewards program, where you would get additional rewards for every child you had, plus a special reward every 4 childs. (Obviously, to create a larger army. One could argue, though, that such a program would be necessary today again, in the time of 2 million more jobs than people, and birth rates of 1.2)
- biot 11y agoInteresting comment from the judge: "A child born dead is not in truth a child," Middleton wrote. "It was that which might have been a child." Following this, abortion isn't the termination of a child; only that which might have been a child.
- orbitur 11y agoI don't see how that follows, since a stillbirth can happen without external influence.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- foldr 11y agoOpponents of abortion don't usually claim that the foetus is a child, they claim that it's a person.
- eru 11y agoWe do terminate some legal persons with abandon. Like corporations.
- refurb 11y agoYou don't see the difference between an overt act and a natural occurrence?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- clock_tower 11y agoOr else the judge was wrong.
- cperciva 11y agoNote that this was specifically in the context of bequests and registrations under the provincial Vital Statistics Act. Stillbirths were registered differently from live children; and I don't think anyone would expect a stillborn child to be considered for purposes of dividing up an estate.
- clock_tower 11y agoFrom the title and the time period, I was expecting this to be something about encouraging the rich to have more children -- a common concern among interwar eugenicists. As it is... well, this was certainly eccentric, among other things.
- downandout 11y agoHolding out the carrot of what sounds like a large payday to poor people in order to encourage them to do something that will financially destroy all participants except the winner(s) sounds a lot like what the gaming/lottery industry does today. He didn't profit from it, but it's just as cruel and damaging. He may have viewed it as a practical joke, but the impoverished children that resulted from this probably didn't find it as funny.
- alextgordon 11y agoI'm sure they were quite happy with it. How can anyone regret their own birth?
- downandout 11y ago>I'm sure they were quite happy with it. A significant portion of the world's population lives in poverty and the resulting misery. Misery is far from "quite happy," and I suspect most of them wish their parents had some self-control.
- alextgordon 11y agoPeople who live in poverty aren't miserable. Far from it. They experience exactly the same gamut of emotion as you or me, including copious amounts of happiness. It is a very strong determination to make, that someone should wish they were never born, simply because their standard of living doesn't match what you think it should be.
- downandout 11y ago>People who live in poverty aren't miserable. Far from it You know this how exactly? I'm guessing you have never lived in poverty, but even if you have, you're making a demonstrably false generalization. Poverty permeates every aspect of the human experience. Studies have shown a clear correlation between it and suicide, likelihood of arrest and imprisonment, depression, and virtually every other negative thing a person can experience. Impoverished parents are inflicting their poverty on defenseless children that had no say in the matter.