monger187 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Gather any group of parents in a room and ask them > about the “opportunity cost.” I guarantee you > this concept only makes sense until you have > children of your own. Any lost freedom or time, > or any gain in stress, is no longer meaningful > once you experience actual parenthood. i agree with windjammer that this statement, oft said, sounds very much like post-ante self-encouragement. for those who planned for and wanted the additional stress and lost freedom/time, then nothing has changed because you asked for it and you actually wanted less freedom/time and more stress. for those who didn’t plan for it and thus did not want it at the time, it seems like saying it doesn’t matter because everything has changed is just an observation. yes, you’re a parent now, you have a legal responsibility (assuming you didn’t put it up for adoption), so you must be decent parent or lose even more freedom ala go to jail.
monger187 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Gather any group of parents in a room and ask them > about the “opportunity cost.” I guarantee you > this concept only makes sense until you have > children of your own. Any lost freedom or time, > or any gain in stress, is no longer meaningful > once you experience actual parenthood. You’re confusing finances with emotions.
monger187 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Gather any group of parents in a room and ask them > about the “opportunity cost.” I guarantee you > this concept only makes sense until you have > children of your own. Any lost freedom or time, > or any gain in stress, is no longer meaningful > once you experience actual parenthood. Disagree (father of two). I planned and am coming out ahead when you consider the non-financial components of being a dad, but on a dollar basis I’m taking it in the a$$ (loss of spousal income and substantial additional expenses). I wouldn’t change a thing, but you’re delirious if you dont think we all pay.
justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > spreads Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > it’s probably better off anyway, world > populations > > need to come down. > > uh, all the world’s social programs are ponzi > schemes… doesn’t work out so well with no > population growth. Oh there would have to be major changes, I agree with you there…many of them not pretty.
It should be fairly easy for those who are educated (or are in school here) to become citizens. Along with those who generally have something to offer. It should also be easy for hot chicks to get their citizenship. I think we should also recruit hot chicks from foreign countries and offer them a $10,000 interest free loan to be paid back over 10 years in exchange for them becoming citizens. This would help with population growth now and in the future.
spreads Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There’s all kinds of studies that link number of > children to education; inverse relationship. And > it makes a lot of sense, it’s not like with my > parents generation (the baby boomers) where you > could get a good job and be financially stable by > your early or mid twenties. With the push of > post-secondary education in our society, > individuals are entering the workforce much later > and those with debts aren’t in much of a position > to start families in their late twenties/early > thirties - just as careers are being established. > > > BTW, I do remember reading a video of a young > emerging working class in India that was choosing > the single (enjoy your freedom) route over the > traditional way of settling down early. All > societies will go through this as they develop and > it’s probably better off anyway, world populations > need to come down. Agreed. Populations do need to come down… but, dare I say it, not in the places it should be coming down. Most discussions of population decline ignore an even bigger problem with developed countries, which is essentially a loss of significant human capital. If the developing world cannot eventually match in terms of skills/intelligence/knowledge/etc… to the developed world you could see a general retraction of centuries of progress. Again a sweeping statement on my part, but if you look at places such as Japan, which is said to have 50% of its current population by 2050, you are going to see swaths of disappearing human capital. Though technology may thwart this trend.
What? No, say it ain’t so? The loss of Mozart is bad enough; must we lose Lady Gaga too?
monger187 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Gather any group of parents in a room and ask them > about the “opportunity cost.” I guarantee you > this concept only makes sense until you have > children of your own. Any lost freedom or time, > or any gain in stress, is no longer meaningful > once you experience actual parenthood. But isn’t the fear enough to intimidate people from subscribing to idea of possible joys of parenthood, which in “popular culture” are close to none!
But I think where the real problem lies is population in lower strata of society while population decline in upper strata. If you are a millionaire then you don’t need a wife for emotional and sexual needs, you will probably be having excess of both without any fear of loosing your wealth. As far as thing about kids go, I don’t think you can’t even realise (in terms of happiness) what it means to be a father/mother unless you become one, so that doesn’t help in attracting more to become parents. Considering the case of a (majority) poor man, bed… is poor man’s grand opera, there’s nothing close to it in terms of satisfaction and it’s the cheapest thing after marriage, so marriage becomes a necessity for those in lower sections, that’s why poor sections of society/world have turned into a baby making machine and condoms aren’t helping. Here the biggest problem lies, even with estate taxes, the wealth is getting accumulated at top with time, which is problem. Btw, I’m not a socialist, and I’m totally against estate taxes, but accumulation of wealth I consider fatal, because it’ll feed into crime and law lessness, which will decrease the opportunity, and raise the costs of doing business and at end it’ll be much much more costly to gain or protect wealth, as ransom, threats, security, thefts will slowly end up depreciating the wealth. Redistribution is inevitable, so better do it tastefully, and rich people should give birth to much more kids then poor, or they might adopt from poor, fine both ways.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What? No, say it ain’t so? The loss of Mozart is > bad enough; must we lose Lady Gaga too? As long as we don’t lose this. http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2010/12/08
Bernanke Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But I think where the real problem lies is > population in lower strata of society while > population decline in upper strata. If you are a > millionaire then you don’t need a wife for > emotional and sexual needs, you will probably be > having excess of both without any fear of loosing > your wealth. As far as thing about kids go, I > don’t think you can’t even realise (in terms of > happiness) what it means to be a father/mother > unless you become one, so that doesn’t help in > attracting more to become parents. > > Considering the case of a (majority) poor man, > bed… is poor man’s grand opera, there’s nothing > close to it in terms of satisfaction and it’s the > cheapest thing after marriage, so marriage becomes > a necessity for those in lower sections, that’s > why poor sections of society/world have turned > into a baby making machine and condoms aren’t > helping. Here the biggest problem lies, even with > estate taxes, the wealth is getting accumulated at > top with time, which is problem. > > Btw, I’m not a socialist, and I’m totally against > estate taxes, but accumulation of wealth I > consider fatal, because it’ll feed into crime and > law lessness, which will decrease the opportunity, > and raise the costs of doing business and at end > it’ll be much much more costly to gain or protect > wealth, as ransom, threats, security, thefts will > slowly end up depreciating the wealth. > Redistribution is inevitable, so better do it > tastefully, and rich people should give birth to > much more kids then poor, or they might adopt from > poor, fine both ways. Are you trying to say the the children of rich parents are more intelligent than their poorer counterparts? Most of the technological innovations of today are from children who grew up in middle class or lower middle class families.
^ correct, but they are like just one percent of total while rest stay poor and often resort to crime and corruption as they see lack of opportunities to do anything in their life (because they were not good students like very few of their friends who escaped the mud) as compared to their rich counterparts who have better access to education, better environment for education, and chance to do something in life if they screw up education. Rich kids have plenty of chances to screw up in life while poor kids have only one chance to escape i.e. to remain the meritorious student throughout student life, once that chance is gone it is easy to resort to crime and corruption to get around lack of options, more poor someone is much lesser scope he/she has to screw up in life… if lived according to law. It’s not about giving money to dumb and poor (which we end up doing currently), it’s about the lack of opportunity to poor. Poor people didn’t did anything wrong to be born in poor families so that they are having lack of opportunities. Now who compensates for bad luck, at end it’ll always be rich either through higher taxes to do it elegantly or the other way, you can’t expect people to accept the bad deal forcefully, you’ll receive a fight to make them accept, which will at end increase cost of everything (and might impose stupidity like socialism or communism if society is very much divided). It isn’t possible to make a world with equal opportunities to all, so we pay, either to pay their bills or to avoid disruption caused by frustrated mass or to pay for their skills improvement so they come out of poverty, sadly first two ways of paying up are used (thanks to politicians) while the third option, which is best one, is used least! I’m not a socialist, but you don’t change human nature with elegant theories and law about how world should behave. At end, society goes up as a whole, goes down as a whole, and thinking that technology will change it is misconception IMO, and yes I subscribe to utilitarianism but the version formulated initially by John Stuart Mill. But if population growth in poor people becomes negative, and positive in rich people, it will do the same effect of redistribution, but that’s like a fairy tale scenario.