4 ms·

That’s a pretty crazy position. In the US, there’s lots of material out there on the conditions that led to the creation of Social Security and subsequent legis

That’s a pretty crazy position. In the US, there’s lots of material out there on the conditions that led to the creation of Social Security and subsequent legislation like Medicare and Medicaid. Hopefully you are simply ignorant of that history and not demonstrating a blase tolerance of human suffering. These systems are very sustainable, and the solution to the funding issues would be best served by indexing the cutoff for contributions to inflation. As to birth rates, how do you expect people earning less than their parents to absorb the exponentially higher costs? My son was born over a decade ago. Thanks to a moderate, common complication, his birth cost $85k. His childcare at age 3 cost as much as our mortgage.

oblio 4y ago
I assume you're a software developer in the US. Doesn't your awesome insurance mean that you are out of pocket just a few thousand dollars?
- anon84873628 4y ago
  Even if so, that money was paid by the premiums of all the other people in the plan. The point is that having children is simply too expensive, partly due to cost disease in healthcare.
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    Your insurance most certainly didn't pay out 85K. They have negotiated lower rates which are not transparent to us. Source - my own kids deliveries were billed 40-50K. We paid at most a few hundred.
    - anon84873628 4y ago
      Are you trying to say US healthcare isn't expensive? What is the financial risk of having a child who needs insulin?
      - RestlessMind 4y ago
        > Are you trying to say US healthcare isn't expensive? I am only arguing with "The point is that having children is simply too expensive, partly due to cost disease in healthcare." Typically, the main cost of having children involves preschool childcare and good colleges. > What is the financial risk of having a child who needs insulin? How many children need insulin? Again, I only contend with the broad generalization that having children is expensive due to healthcare costs.
    - Auracle 4y ago
      I'm not sure where this thought comes from - on our explanation of benefits there's always a line item for how much they negotiated down and it usually never amounts to much. Insurance profit margins are pretty tiny. We (or our employers) pay a ton for insurance because healthcare costs are beyond ridiculous in our country.
anon84873628 4y ago
I think the parent comment is being overly reductive for rhetorical effect, but not necessarily wrong. At the end of the day, social security programs are an abstraction across the demographics of working people vs non-working people. And you only get more working people by giving birth to them. All the retirement savings won't make a difference if there is no one to spend them on. If the population is expected to decline, then you better hope your retirement investments are going into technology that can yield sufficient future productivity gains. It's apparent if you just think about the farm labor required to produce food, which can't be stored as easily and long term as money. (On that note, maybe the best retirement strategy is a whole bunch of kerosene and shelf stable foods...) Edit: As said elsewhere in the thread, I fully agree that the problem is due to children being too expensive, not that people just expect the government to take care of them.
sokoloff 4y ago
> the solution to the funding issues would be best served by indexing the cutoff for contributions to inflation. Social Security caps are indexed to inflation (they went up 9% from 2022 to 2023): https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html

oblio 4y ago

I assume you're a software developer in the US. Doesn't your awesome insurance mean that you are out of pocket just a few thousand dollars?

anon84873628 4y ago
Even if so, that money was paid by the premiums of all the other people in the plan. The point is that having children is simply too expensive, partly due to cost disease in healthcare.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  Your insurance most certainly didn't pay out 85K. They have negotiated lower rates which are not transparent to us. Source - my own kids deliveries were billed 40-50K. We paid at most a few hundred.
  - anon84873628 4y ago
    Are you trying to say US healthcare isn't expensive? What is the financial risk of having a child who needs insulin?
    - RestlessMind 4y ago
      > Are you trying to say US healthcare isn't expensive? I am only arguing with "The point is that having children is simply too expensive, partly due to cost disease in healthcare." Typically, the main cost of having children involves preschool childcare and good colleges. > What is the financial risk of having a child who needs insulin? How many children need insulin? Again, I only contend with the broad generalization that having children is expensive due to healthcare costs.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    I'm not sure where this thought comes from - on our explanation of benefits there's always a line item for how much they negotiated down and it usually never amounts to much. Insurance profit margins are pretty tiny. We (or our employers) pay a ton for insurance because healthcare costs are beyond ridiculous in our country.

anon84873628 4y ago

I think the parent comment is being overly reductive for rhetorical effect, but not necessarily wrong. At the end of the day, social security programs are an abstraction across the demographics of working people vs non-working people. And you only get more working people by giving birth to them. All the retirement savings won't make a difference if there is no one to spend them on. If the population is expected to decline, then you better hope your retirement investments are going into technology that can yield sufficient future productivity gains. It's apparent if you just think about the farm labor required to produce food, which can't be stored as easily and long term as money. (On that note, maybe the best retirement strategy is a whole bunch of kerosene and shelf stable foods...) Edit: As said elsewhere in the thread, I fully agree that the problem is due to children being too expensive, not that people just expect the government to take care of them.

sokoloff 4y ago

> the solution to the funding issues would be best served by indexing the cutoff for contributions to inflation. Social Security caps are indexed to inflation (they went up 9% from 2022 to 2023): https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/maxtax.html