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Personally what I find the most frustrating is finally escaping poverty and getting pushed firmly against an artificial, middle-class, ceiling where it isn't po

Personally what I find the most frustrating is finally escaping poverty and getting pushed firmly against an artificial, middle-class, ceiling where it isn't possible to become more financially free because of constant inflation and the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family. Meanwhile productivity and profitability continue to increase

cletus 9y ago
Sorry but I have to pick a bone with you about one of your contentions: having children is a choice. Are you contributing to society? At a basic level of course if no one had children we'd cease to exist but at the same time it's also arguable that there are simply too many of us on the planet to support, which shifts having children into a more selfish choice. On a more personal level, I suspect you chose to had kids because you wanted kids. This is fine. But you're not doing this for the good of society. Lastly, in the developed world we WAY overspend on child-rearing. Like... it's ridiculous. It may well be that in the US each child will cost nigh on $1m to raise. That's... ludicrous. But it also comes about from making a bunch of unessential choices (eg private school). Again, if that's what you want to do, fine. But it's another choice.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  > there are simply too many of us on the planet to support No, we could easily support 10 times this many people. The problem is that people are "selfish" and will starve, steal, and kill others for power or property. Starvation isn't because of the lack of food or resources - its the governments, rebels, gangs, and guerrilla fighters.
  - pizzetta 9y ago
    One "hidden" cost of people over replacement numbers is "footprint". The more people the more we encroach upon wilderness. As people gain purchasing power, the more they plug-in to consumerism. It all adds-up to a leger human foot print on the planet.
    - Xeoncross 9y ago
      Certainly, especially since everyone wants low-cost items. It creates huge pressure for non-sustainable items and processes.
  - echlebek 9y ago
    That's quite a claim. It's not at all clear that the world can support 70 bn people.
    - Xeoncross 9y ago
      As people are now I would agree. I meant simply producing enough food for 73 billion people.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- cmurf 9y ago
  What happens to an economy when there's negative population growth? It shrinks unless you dramatically change the economics to permit shrinking while also not making everyone poor or otherwise destabilizing society. Thus far our societies have been predicated on positive population growth, and if that can't happen by birth rates then it must happen with immigration. About the closest approximation to a shrinking population society, is Japan. They have negative native growth and also don't bring in immigrants. And as a result they have widespread consolidation, aging, and ghost towns. And also the really unanswered questions about how to deal with an aging population with so few youth to care for the old, and where the money comes from to maintain standard of living. The main way they've done this is technological advances as an offset. OK, so is there a limit to such advances as compensatory elements of a shrinking society? Uncertain, but there probably is, and then what happens? There's way more known what happens with societies that have strong population growth than what happens to shrinking ones that also survive. Typically the shrinking societies end up in the realm of anthropology and archaeology.
- bayonetz 9y ago
  AKA "The Baby-Industrial Complex"
learnstats2 9y ago
Inflation helped you to escape poverty by reducing the purchasing power of other people's wealth so that you could catch up.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  Invested wealth grows faster than inflation, almost always. Wealthy people are disproportionately protected from the effects of inflation because they can invest more. Poorer people spend their income.
  - learnstats2 9y ago
    Without inflation it grows even faster. Warren Buffet literally describes inflation as a tax - I agree with that. Taxes are [should be] a way of redistributing wealth more fairly. Responding to your later edit: yes, wealthy people have more opportunities that come from wealth, and therefore can expect their wealth to collect more wealth disproportionately quickly. Inflation does work to correct this.
    - skookumchuck 9y ago
      Inflation is a tax. You're also explicitly taxed on the fake capital "gain" from inflation.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- jacobolus 9y ago
  Indeed, inflation is a way of transferring wealth away from the wealthy, and helping debtors (people with student loans, auto loans, mortgages, credit card debt, etc.) and the poor (people without money saved). It also correlates with reduced unemployment. A legal change to make minimum wage track inflation and dramatically increase (double?) the currently unlivable federal minimum wage would also be helpful though, as would restoring workers' rights (especially collective bargaining rights) which have been gradually but systematically eroded for the past 40 years.
gaius 9y ago
the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family You thought about it long and hard and decided "what society really, really needs, more than anything, is another one of me"?
- seymour333 9y ago
  What, that's not how everyone decides to have kids? Weird
  - mlevental 9y ago
    of course but op said explicitly they'd made a choice >the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family
- shemnon42 9y ago
  Without more people society has no future, eventually everyone will die. So you need to make a decision: will my kids be a net negative or a net positive to future society? In this case with what little I know about seymour333's situation (one HN comment) I would call it a net positive because these kids grew up in an environment where they or their parents experienced upward social mobility. Perhaps mom and dad can't break the middle class ceiling, but since the kids know escaping poverty is a thing that gives them incentive to elevate past middle class.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Without more people society has no future, eventually everyone will die The population of the world has doubled in just my lifetime. The risk of the species dying out is negligible.
- classicsnoot 9y ago
  The US government recognizes that raising children in a secure environment is a necessity for national continuity and rewards it as such. Every major religion recognizes that raising children within their prescribed belief structure is essential to continuity and honors it as such. Every tribe, ethnicity, and nation that wishes to continue recognizes the absolute necessity of propagation and establishes it's paramountcy as such. It always flusters me to see just how deeply the insidious ideologies of post-modernism and cultural Marxism have crept into the psyche of the generations of students who have grown up under their reign in academia. One need not know the scale of their contribution to make a contribution. Raising children is a gift to civilization. Only in the last 40 years has this come into question, and only by people living in places of disgustingly lavish excess. I submit that you are not your parents, regardless of similarities, and I would urge you to consider that no child is a carbon copy.
throw8998231 9y ago
Dont complain, you are not even divorced yet ;-)
skookumchuck 9y ago
You aren't going to get up out of the middle class without embarking on a sensible investment program.
- seymour333 9y ago
  If you could go ahead and just outline that program in point form as a reply to this that'd be great
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    There are lots of ways, but the simplest is to take 10% of your income and invest it in an S&P 500 index fund. Also take maximum advantage of any 401k plan your employer offers.
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      For most tech people, 10% of your income in an index fund is not going to get you out of the middle class. Most tech people are not in SV.
      - seymour333 9y ago
        Pretty much this. I can't afford to commit that level of income to investments, and even if I could, the impact on my financial standing would not be significant (probably? I have no idea what kind of % return you get on an index fund)
        dv_dt 9y ago
        Rule of thumb is often an average 10% growth for index fund return (e.g. S&P 500) - this would be over many decades. If you can't put in 10%, at least put in up to what an employer matches - unless you are very low income, it's worth it and once it's sequestered from your day to day budget you won't feel the difference of 1-5%.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
corpMaverick 9y ago
Not general inflation. But these three are becoming big problems... - Expensive health care. And no plan to fix it. - Climbing college costs. - High housing costs.

cletus 9y ago

Sorry but I have to pick a bone with you about one of your contentions: having children is a choice. Are you contributing to society? At a basic level of course if no one had children we'd cease to exist but at the same time it's also arguable that there are simply too many of us on the planet to support, which shifts having children into a more selfish choice. On a more personal level, I suspect you chose to had kids because you wanted kids. This is fine. But you're not doing this for the good of society. Lastly, in the developed world we WAY overspend on child-rearing. Like... it's ridiculous. It may well be that in the US each child will cost nigh on $1m to raise. That's... ludicrous. But it also comes about from making a bunch of unessential choices (eg private school). Again, if that's what you want to do, fine. But it's another choice.

Xeoncross 9y ago
> there are simply too many of us on the planet to support No, we could easily support 10 times this many people. The problem is that people are "selfish" and will starve, steal, and kill others for power or property. Starvation isn't because of the lack of food or resources - its the governments, rebels, gangs, and guerrilla fighters.
- pizzetta 9y ago
  One "hidden" cost of people over replacement numbers is "footprint". The more people the more we encroach upon wilderness. As people gain purchasing power, the more they plug-in to consumerism. It all adds-up to a leger human foot print on the planet.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    Certainly, especially since everyone wants low-cost items. It creates huge pressure for non-sustainable items and processes.
- echlebek 9y ago
  That's quite a claim. It's not at all clear that the world can support 70 bn people.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    As people are now I would agree. I meant simply producing enough food for 73 billion people.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
cmurf 9y ago
What happens to an economy when there's negative population growth? It shrinks unless you dramatically change the economics to permit shrinking while also not making everyone poor or otherwise destabilizing society. Thus far our societies have been predicated on positive population growth, and if that can't happen by birth rates then it must happen with immigration. About the closest approximation to a shrinking population society, is Japan. They have negative native growth and also don't bring in immigrants. And as a result they have widespread consolidation, aging, and ghost towns. And also the really unanswered questions about how to deal with an aging population with so few youth to care for the old, and where the money comes from to maintain standard of living. The main way they've done this is technological advances as an offset. OK, so is there a limit to such advances as compensatory elements of a shrinking society? Uncertain, but there probably is, and then what happens? There's way more known what happens with societies that have strong population growth than what happens to shrinking ones that also survive. Typically the shrinking societies end up in the realm of anthropology and archaeology.
bayonetz 9y ago
AKA "The Baby-Industrial Complex"

learnstats2 9y ago

Inflation helped you to escape poverty by reducing the purchasing power of other people's wealth so that you could catch up.

robotresearcher 9y ago
Invested wealth grows faster than inflation, almost always. Wealthy people are disproportionately protected from the effects of inflation because they can invest more. Poorer people spend their income.
- learnstats2 9y ago
  Without inflation it grows even faster. Warren Buffet literally describes inflation as a tax - I agree with that. Taxes are [should be] a way of redistributing wealth more fairly. Responding to your later edit: yes, wealthy people have more opportunities that come from wealth, and therefore can expect their wealth to collect more wealth disproportionately quickly. Inflation does work to correct this.
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    Inflation is a tax. You're also explicitly taxed on the fake capital "gain" from inflation.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jacobolus 9y ago
Indeed, inflation is a way of transferring wealth away from the wealthy, and helping debtors (people with student loans, auto loans, mortgages, credit card debt, etc.) and the poor (people without money saved). It also correlates with reduced unemployment. A legal change to make minimum wage track inflation and dramatically increase (double?) the currently unlivable federal minimum wage would also be helpful though, as would restoring workers' rights (especially collective bargaining rights) which have been gradually but systematically eroded for the past 40 years.

gaius 9y ago

the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family You thought about it long and hard and decided "what society really, really needs, more than anything, is another one of me"?

seymour333 9y ago
What, that's not how everyone decides to have kids? Weird
- mlevental 9y ago
  of course but op said explicitly they'd made a choice >the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family
shemnon42 9y ago
Without more people society has no future, eventually everyone will die. So you need to make a decision: will my kids be a net negative or a net positive to future society? In this case with what little I know about seymour333's situation (one HN comment) I would call it a net positive because these kids grew up in an environment where they or their parents experienced upward social mobility. Perhaps mom and dad can't break the middle class ceiling, but since the kids know escaping poverty is a thing that gives them incentive to elevate past middle class.
- gaius 9y ago
  Without more people society has no future, eventually everyone will die The population of the world has doubled in just my lifetime. The risk of the species dying out is negligible.
classicsnoot 9y ago
The US government recognizes that raising children in a secure environment is a necessity for national continuity and rewards it as such. Every major religion recognizes that raising children within their prescribed belief structure is essential to continuity and honors it as such. Every tribe, ethnicity, and nation that wishes to continue recognizes the absolute necessity of propagation and establishes it's paramountcy as such. It always flusters me to see just how deeply the insidious ideologies of post-modernism and cultural Marxism have crept into the psyche of the generations of students who have grown up under their reign in academia. One need not know the scale of their contribution to make a contribution. Raising children is a gift to civilization. Only in the last 40 years has this come into question, and only by people living in places of disgustingly lavish excess. I submit that you are not your parents, regardless of similarities, and I would urge you to consider that no child is a carbon copy.

throw8998231 9y ago

Dont complain, you are not even divorced yet ;-)

skookumchuck 9y ago

You aren't going to get up out of the middle class without embarking on a sensible investment program.

seymour333 9y ago
If you could go ahead and just outline that program in point form as a reply to this that'd be great
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  There are lots of ways, but the simplest is to take 10% of your income and invest it in an S&P 500 index fund. Also take maximum advantage of any 401k plan your employer offers.
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    For most tech people, 10% of your income in an index fund is not going to get you out of the middle class. Most tech people are not in SV.
    - seymour333 9y ago
      Pretty much this. I can't afford to commit that level of income to investments, and even if I could, the impact on my financial standing would not be significant (probably? I have no idea what kind of % return you get on an index fund)
      - dv_dt 9y ago
        Rule of thumb is often an average 10% growth for index fund return (e.g. S&P 500) - this would be over many decades. If you can't put in 10%, at least put in up to what an employer matches - unless you are very low income, it's worth it and once it's sequestered from your day to day budget you won't feel the difference of 1-5%.
    - conanbatt 9y ago

corpMaverick 9y ago

Not general inflation. But these three are becoming big problems... - Expensive health care. And no plan to fix it. - Climbing college costs. - High housing costs.