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The irony here being that if you have more free time and more social safety net, having more kids becomes easier, hence you grow your consumer market and labor

The irony here being that if you have more free time and more social safety net, having more kids becomes easier, hence you grow your consumer market and labor force. I wonder what a 4-day work week would do to birth rates… Maybe falling fertility is the true capitalist death spiral?

HPsquared 2y ago
Aren't they being crushed by social welfare costs though, at the end of the day? It's not a 1-dimensional thing. Expensive pensions, healthcare etc extracted from the working age population.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  How can you not be crushed by social welfare costs if your population is not constantly growing (which is impossible in a finite system, but most especially when women are empowered to not have children they don't want)?
  - logicchains 2y ago
    If you have a savings-based pension system like Australian superannuation, where the elderly live off the interest on their savings, not off wealth transfers from working people.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Whether investment gains or direct payment transfers, the old are still living off the young, it is simply which Rube Goldberg design it is. Someone is being productive (young), and someone else (old) is gaining from them by some shared delusion economic accounting claim. Doesn't matter if those are investment gains in a capital market allocation system or direct wage tax transfers to social payments. Neither system works if the old don't have enough young to squeeze, hence the panic over the rapidly falling fertility rate and population decline: there will be, for at least the next 100 years, many less young productive people to dump the debts of today on (regardless of the accounting mechanism). https://www.ceda.com.au/newsandresources/news/tax-superannuation/super-system-not-adequate-for-the-future https://www.ceda.com.au/newsandresources/news/tax-superannua... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-02/blackrock-uk-envy-australia-s-pensions-but-retirees-still-worry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-02/blackrock... https://www.moneymag.com.au/aussies-not-enough-superannuation https://www.moneymag.com.au/aussies-not-enough-superannuatio...
    - throwuxiytayq 2y ago
      Having savings allows old people to assert ownership over a larger part of the economy, but it doesn't prevent the economy from shrinking. The amount of wealth produced depends on the amount of people doing the producing. In an economy without working age people, there is nothing for the elderly to buy.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    By allocating fewer resources in that area, and not building the system around a Ponzi scheme. Basically, going back to the way things used to work pre-Ponzi.
  - Qem 2y ago
    By taxing the super-rich, so the productivity gains in the economy are fairly shared with workers to raise children and sustain their families, and do not end mostly stashed in tax heavens.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Good luck moving the needle faster than the total fertility rate declines. Based on the evidence, this is unlikely to occur even though it is the only path to success. It’ll take decades for the old folks with their ideas age out [1], and young folks can get leverage. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0

HPsquared 2y ago

Aren't they being crushed by social welfare costs though, at the end of the day? It's not a 1-dimensional thing. Expensive pensions, healthcare etc extracted from the working age population.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
How can you not be crushed by social welfare costs if your population is not constantly growing (which is impossible in a finite system, but most especially when women are empowered to not have children they don't want)?
- logicchains 2y ago
  If you have a savings-based pension system like Australian superannuation, where the elderly live off the interest on their savings, not off wealth transfers from working people.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Whether investment gains or direct payment transfers, the old are still living off the young, it is simply which Rube Goldberg design it is. Someone is being productive (young), and someone else (old) is gaining from them by some shared delusion economic accounting claim. Doesn't matter if those are investment gains in a capital market allocation system or direct wage tax transfers to social payments. Neither system works if the old don't have enough young to squeeze, hence the panic over the rapidly falling fertility rate and population decline: there will be, for at least the next 100 years, many less young productive people to dump the debts of today on (regardless of the accounting mechanism). https://www.ceda.com.au/newsandresources/news/tax-superannuation/super-system-not-adequate-for-the-future https://www.ceda.com.au/newsandresources/news/tax-superannua... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-02/blackrock-uk-envy-australia-s-pensions-but-retirees-still-worry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-02/blackrock... https://www.moneymag.com.au/aussies-not-enough-superannuation https://www.moneymag.com.au/aussies-not-enough-superannuatio...
  - throwuxiytayq 2y ago
    Having savings allows old people to assert ownership over a larger part of the economy, but it doesn't prevent the economy from shrinking. The amount of wealth produced depends on the amount of people doing the producing. In an economy without working age people, there is nothing for the elderly to buy.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  By allocating fewer resources in that area, and not building the system around a Ponzi scheme. Basically, going back to the way things used to work pre-Ponzi.
- Qem 2y ago
  By taxing the super-rich, so the productivity gains in the economy are fairly shared with workers to raise children and sustain their families, and do not end mostly stashed in tax heavens.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Good luck moving the needle faster than the total fertility rate declines. Based on the evidence, this is unlikely to occur even though it is the only path to success. It’ll take decades for the old folks with their ideas age out [1], and young folks can get leverage. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0