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> I'll advocate for something every other developed nation has, like paid paternity leave or a sane healthcare system Paid parental leave creates both deadweig

> I'll advocate for something every other developed nation has, like paid paternity leave or a sane healthcare system Paid parental leave creates both deadweight loss and moral hazard. It also tends to reduce labor inversely proportional to labor's cost, with the largest reduction in labor hitting highly skilled, sub middle-aged females. This should be obvious as it lowers the expected productivity of workers, moreso when you extend parental leave to family leave and allow for the care of ailing elders. The argument for it seems to hinge on the dollars allowing greater workforce participation, but I'm not sold that greater participation with lower expected productivity is greater than fewer productive workers. Why should I have to pay for Debbie across the country to have a kid? Or Fred across the state? Regarding healthcare, it's well known that decreasing prices increase demand. While some healthcare demand is totally inelastic (injuries, cancer, etc.), the front line pcp interactions are elastic. Compound in people's willingness to decrease self care since they don't have to pay for future healthcare, and you've increased the rate of inelastic demand instances in the future, increasing demand. Now consider that prices would no longer be dictated by free markets, and now we have trouble with price discovery, with the power seemingly going to the single consumer, so it's likely treatments will be underpaid, which may lead to fewer practicioners and fewer innovations. Maybe I'm wrong... I haven't thought about heath economics in a long while. My preference would be to see a forced decoupling of healthcare provided as work benefits such that everyone had to purchase it on the open market (even if that loss of negotiating freedom between private parties irks me).

HaZeust 1y ago
>"Why should I have to pay for Debbie across the country to have a kid? Or Fred across the state?" Because they pay for the same benefits you get, that they might not reap as often as you. That's the foundation of socialization, everyone's resources - that they fork over from taxation - is shared for various activities and settlements that give as many individuals (past, present and emerging) as much of an acceptable baseline of living as it can. To be sure, the goal of socialization is also not usually to make everyone rich or give immense quality of life, it's to make sure everyone has the same "lowest" bar for things that members of society deem as essential, and that the bar set as "lowest" is as humane and efficient as possible.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  > that the bar set as "lowest" is as humane and efficient as possible But by definition it is inefficient. Redistribution of money from Person A to Person B necessarily means Person A can't spend that money. If their optimal utility was to give that money to Person B, you wouldn't need such a policy governmentally. Socialization makes sense for public goods, but healthcare and parental leave are both nonpublic. As an annecdotal example, my state offers 12 weeks of parental leave. The maximum they are willing to pay is about $550/week. My company provides two weeks of paid leave. So for 10 weeks, I get the $550 from the state. But my w2 income is about 2k/week post tax, post 401k max. So I would forgo about $1400 a week to stay home. Daycare costs $550/week, so it's far better for me to work. But then I don't get the time off. And yet I still pay for others. This is an example of a terrible implementation of the already bad policy.
  - jakelazaroff 1y ago
    No, it's definitely more efficient: - Preventative care is far cheaper and more effective than reactive care (e.g. your dentist telling you to floss more in a particular area vs. filling a cavity vs. filling a root canal) - Insurance is more effective at dispersing costs amongst a larger pool of people - In a system like the US where insurance companies must negotiate prices with healthcare providers, larger pools have more bargaining power
    - hellojesus 1y ago
      Yes, but what happens when you remove competition? Bargining power becomes absolute. What happens when the single purchaser of healthcare refuses to pay an amount sufficient to raise supply to meet demand?
      - jakelazaroff 1y ago
        There's no need to ask this as a hypothetical; simply look at the many, many countries that have successfully implemented such systems.
      - 1y ago
trealira 1y ago
>Why should I have to pay for Debbie across the country to have a kid? Or Fred across the state? It's a net benefit to society encourage people to have kids and keep the number of births closer to replacement rate.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  I don't think it's reasonable to steal from some for the betterment of others. Clearly if those from which money is taken maximized their utility by charitably giving it away to familes with newborns, this policy wouldn't be necessary. To that end, this policy creates deadweight loss for those from whom the redistributive policy takes more than it returns.
  - trealira 1y ago
    > Clearly if those from which money is taken maximized their utility by charitably giving it away to familes with newborns, this policy wouldn't be necessary. >To that end, this policy creates deadweight loss for those from whom the redistributive policy takes more than it returns. First, clearly such people don't donate to families, making that a pointless argument, and second, even if they gave new parents money directly, they might still not have a baby if they don't have time to take care of the baby without parental leave. Long work hours for couples decreasing the national birth rate is a negative externality. If all companies acted hostile to parents and no one became a parent, that might boost each individual company's productivity levels, but they would be killing off the workforce in the long term. That, like overfishing, would be an example of the tragedy of the commons.
    - hellojesus 1y ago
      > First, clearly such people don't donate to families, making that a pointless argument, and second, even if they gave new parents money directly Yes. That is my point. Theft is required to execute this policy, which defines the deadweight loss. I argue that companies may offer better leave benefits in order to attract workers. My company provides six weeks for primary and two for secondary caretakers. Amazon gives a month or something like that. Clearly I would have incentive to work there if I could, and by that I mean others better skilled than me fill those vacancies. The policy is effective.
lokar 1y ago
What do you think your retirement savings represent? They are a claim on goods and services to be produced by a future generation. For that to work there has to be a future generation of sufficient productive capacity. If population declines faster then productivity increases the system will collapse. Look at what is happening to South Korea.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  That is part of the risk one must take into account when investing. The same happens regardless of population; you must invest where you expect there to still exist market demand in the future.
  - lokar 1y ago
    If the productive capacity of the economy declines your capital will be inflated away. Money is a social construct built on a stable or growing economy.
    - hellojesus 1y ago
      The FED can target either interest rates or the money supply. It could very well adjust supply to meet a shrinking population pool. Otherwise post war losses of many able bodied men would inflate away economies.
      - lokar 1y ago
        Either way you won’t be able to obtain the goods and services you saved for, there just won’t be enough of them.
        hellojesus 1y ago
        There could be. Our example hasn't considered productivity gains due to capital improvements or tech advancements. We may not need the same population to produce the samd product count in the future.
mindslight 1y ago
You're missing the elephant in the room that our society doesn't have enough distributed wealth to allow most people to pay for their own time off. I too hate the top-down prescriptivism of narrow "benefit" policies administered by employers. But until we fix the economy so most people have the market power to tell their employer they're taking 3-6+ months off for $whatever, have the savings to pay for it, and be confident that that either their employer will want them back at the end or that they will be able to find a different employer, then it's what we're stuck with. So if you really want to reform this, then work towards fixing wealth inequality. (The healthcare thing is a politically radioactive topic. It would be fantastic to prevent employers anticompetitively bundling healthcare with employment, but it would take a lot of political capital to rise above fearmongering to people with "good" employer plans and the desire of politicians to lean on the current system out of expedience)
- hellojesus 1y ago
  I understand your point, but I am unable to reconcile the inefficiencies introduced by redistributive policies. I would instead prefer a charitable system whereby people voluntarily provide funds to be allocated to new parents to afford them the time off for caretaking.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    You're ignoring the current overriding redistributive policy of continually printing a large amount of new money (monetary inflation), and handing most of it to the banks to give away to asset holders. This siphons real wealth away from the edges of our society, and is a significant contributor to wealth inequality. If you focus on smaller instances of redistributive policies without addressing that, you've done the equivalent of admitting a logical contradiction to your axioms and thus are able to come to some decidedly anti-individual-freedom conclusions. In this case, further turning the financial screws on the edges.
    - hellojesus 1y ago
      I don't mind turning back the Keynesian dials and abolishing the federal reserve. The reason my discussion is focused on PFML and universal healthcare is because that was the topic of the OP to which I replied at the root of my comment chain. Those two are also not current or longstanding federal policy, which should making their prevention far easier than their repeal.
immibis 1y ago
The people who say they don't want the government to help pay for raising children are the same people who complain about low birth rates. You can't eat your cake and still have it. Would you like sustainable population or would you like low taxes? You can't have both. Sensible government programs aren't deadweight loss - they are net gains - although a lot of what governments do, especially what the US government does, is not sensible. For example, you pay taxes to have property rights, and I don't think you think that is deadweight loss. Meanwhile your concern about "why should I pay for someone else?" is literally just insurance but I bet you have insurance, and you only hate insurance when the government does it.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  > is literally just insurance but I bet you have insurance, and you only hate insurance when the government does it. Yes. This is exactly right. And that is because private insurance allows people to voluntarily consume it. Not everyone has the same appetite for risk. Allow people to maximize their individual utility!

HaZeust 1y ago

>"Why should I have to pay for Debbie across the country to have a kid? Or Fred across the state?" Because they pay for the same benefits you get, that they might not reap as often as you. That's the foundation of socialization, everyone's resources - that they fork over from taxation - is shared for various activities and settlements that give as many individuals (past, present and emerging) as much of an acceptable baseline of living as it can. To be sure, the goal of socialization is also not usually to make everyone rich or give immense quality of life, it's to make sure everyone has the same "lowest" bar for things that members of society deem as essential, and that the bar set as "lowest" is as humane and efficient as possible.

hellojesus 1y ago
> that the bar set as "lowest" is as humane and efficient as possible But by definition it is inefficient. Redistribution of money from Person A to Person B necessarily means Person A can't spend that money. If their optimal utility was to give that money to Person B, you wouldn't need such a policy governmentally. Socialization makes sense for public goods, but healthcare and parental leave are both nonpublic. As an annecdotal example, my state offers 12 weeks of parental leave. The maximum they are willing to pay is about $550/week. My company provides two weeks of paid leave. So for 10 weeks, I get the $550 from the state. But my w2 income is about 2k/week post tax, post 401k max. So I would forgo about $1400 a week to stay home. Daycare costs $550/week, so it's far better for me to work. But then I don't get the time off. And yet I still pay for others. This is an example of a terrible implementation of the already bad policy.
- jakelazaroff 1y ago
  No, it's definitely more efficient: - Preventative care is far cheaper and more effective than reactive care (e.g. your dentist telling you to floss more in a particular area vs. filling a cavity vs. filling a root canal) - Insurance is more effective at dispersing costs amongst a larger pool of people - In a system like the US where insurance companies must negotiate prices with healthcare providers, larger pools have more bargaining power
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    Yes, but what happens when you remove competition? Bargining power becomes absolute. What happens when the single purchaser of healthcare refuses to pay an amount sufficient to raise supply to meet demand?
    - jakelazaroff 1y ago
      There's no need to ask this as a hypothetical; simply look at the many, many countries that have successfully implemented such systems.
    - 1y ago

trealira 1y ago

>Why should I have to pay for Debbie across the country to have a kid? Or Fred across the state? It's a net benefit to society encourage people to have kids and keep the number of births closer to replacement rate.

hellojesus 1y ago
I don't think it's reasonable to steal from some for the betterment of others. Clearly if those from which money is taken maximized their utility by charitably giving it away to familes with newborns, this policy wouldn't be necessary. To that end, this policy creates deadweight loss for those from whom the redistributive policy takes more than it returns.
- trealira 1y ago
  > Clearly if those from which money is taken maximized their utility by charitably giving it away to familes with newborns, this policy wouldn't be necessary. >To that end, this policy creates deadweight loss for those from whom the redistributive policy takes more than it returns. First, clearly such people don't donate to families, making that a pointless argument, and second, even if they gave new parents money directly, they might still not have a baby if they don't have time to take care of the baby without parental leave. Long work hours for couples decreasing the national birth rate is a negative externality. If all companies acted hostile to parents and no one became a parent, that might boost each individual company's productivity levels, but they would be killing off the workforce in the long term. That, like overfishing, would be an example of the tragedy of the commons.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    > First, clearly such people don't donate to families, making that a pointless argument, and second, even if they gave new parents money directly Yes. That is my point. Theft is required to execute this policy, which defines the deadweight loss. I argue that companies may offer better leave benefits in order to attract workers. My company provides six weeks for primary and two for secondary caretakers. Amazon gives a month or something like that. Clearly I would have incentive to work there if I could, and by that I mean others better skilled than me fill those vacancies. The policy is effective.

lokar 1y ago

What do you think your retirement savings represent? They are a claim on goods and services to be produced by a future generation. For that to work there has to be a future generation of sufficient productive capacity. If population declines faster then productivity increases the system will collapse. Look at what is happening to South Korea.

hellojesus 1y ago
That is part of the risk one must take into account when investing. The same happens regardless of population; you must invest where you expect there to still exist market demand in the future.
- lokar 1y ago
  If the productive capacity of the economy declines your capital will be inflated away. Money is a social construct built on a stable or growing economy.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    The FED can target either interest rates or the money supply. It could very well adjust supply to meet a shrinking population pool. Otherwise post war losses of many able bodied men would inflate away economies.
    - lokar 1y ago
      Either way you won’t be able to obtain the goods and services you saved for, there just won’t be enough of them.
      - hellojesus 1y ago
        There could be. Our example hasn't considered productivity gains due to capital improvements or tech advancements. We may not need the same population to produce the samd product count in the future.

mindslight 1y ago

You're missing the elephant in the room that our society doesn't have enough distributed wealth to allow most people to pay for their own time off. I too hate the top-down prescriptivism of narrow "benefit" policies administered by employers. But until we fix the economy so most people have the market power to tell their employer they're taking 3-6+ months off for $whatever, have the savings to pay for it, and be confident that that either their employer will want them back at the end or that they will be able to find a different employer, then it's what we're stuck with. So if you really want to reform this, then work towards fixing wealth inequality. (The healthcare thing is a politically radioactive topic. It would be fantastic to prevent employers anticompetitively bundling healthcare with employment, but it would take a lot of political capital to rise above fearmongering to people with "good" employer plans and the desire of politicians to lean on the current system out of expedience)

hellojesus 1y ago
I understand your point, but I am unable to reconcile the inefficiencies introduced by redistributive policies. I would instead prefer a charitable system whereby people voluntarily provide funds to be allocated to new parents to afford them the time off for caretaking.
- mindslight 1y ago
  You're ignoring the current overriding redistributive policy of continually printing a large amount of new money (monetary inflation), and handing most of it to the banks to give away to asset holders. This siphons real wealth away from the edges of our society, and is a significant contributor to wealth inequality. If you focus on smaller instances of redistributive policies without addressing that, you've done the equivalent of admitting a logical contradiction to your axioms and thus are able to come to some decidedly anti-individual-freedom conclusions. In this case, further turning the financial screws on the edges.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    I don't mind turning back the Keynesian dials and abolishing the federal reserve. The reason my discussion is focused on PFML and universal healthcare is because that was the topic of the OP to which I replied at the root of my comment chain. Those two are also not current or longstanding federal policy, which should making their prevention far easier than their repeal.

immibis 1y ago

The people who say they don't want the government to help pay for raising children are the same people who complain about low birth rates. You can't eat your cake and still have it. Would you like sustainable population or would you like low taxes? You can't have both. Sensible government programs aren't deadweight loss - they are net gains - although a lot of what governments do, especially what the US government does, is not sensible. For example, you pay taxes to have property rights, and I don't think you think that is deadweight loss. Meanwhile your concern about "why should I pay for someone else?" is literally just insurance but I bet you have insurance, and you only hate insurance when the government does it.

hellojesus 1y ago
> is literally just insurance but I bet you have insurance, and you only hate insurance when the government does it. Yes. This is exactly right. And that is because private insurance allows people to voluntarily consume it. Not everyone has the same appetite for risk. Allow people to maximize their individual utility!