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Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

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Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#21

Post by lazide »

reducesuffering wrote: post #18
lazide wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all post-facto rationalization to avoid a more glaring truth. Women aren’t having kids - because they can avoid having kids. While still having sex and having societal benefits, including retirement. That is a very, very new and unusual situation when looking at the span of human history. Birth control is a pretty new invention (mid 60’s approximately), and societies globally have been steadily rolling it out…

> including retirement I think social safety nets are an under-reported cause of this. 80 years ago, children were your retirement plan. Long term stable value pensions and 401ks, along with government ensured healthcare and social security, weren't a thing. If you got to 70 without kids, you would eventually not be able to work and probably die poor. Now, almost everyone thinks not having kids could be an option, be…

The issue of course being that when there is a population crunch, there is no ‘rest of societies labor’ free, like there would be with a normal population age curve.

If the crunch is big enough, anyway.

Same with the tax base used to fund gov’t healthcare and similar programs.

That said, Japan has… problems. But they aren’t apocalyptic. At least not yet.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#22

Post by cue_the_strings »

lazide wrote: post #16
jiggawatts wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been scientific studies done by anthropologists, but they're a different clique to economists and they basically "don't talk to each other". Essentially, there's a sort-of phase diagram for the optimal human reproduction strategy where the axes are things like "income inequality" and "environmental stress". You can then color in patches of the diagram with what strategy members of a society will settle on.…

This is all post-facto rationalization to avoid a more glaring truth. Women aren’t having kids - because they can avoid having kids. While still having sex and having societal benefits, including retirement. That is a very, very new and unusual situation when looking at the span of human history. Birth control is a pretty new invention (mid 60’s approximately), and societies globally have been steadily rolling it out…

We're in a situation where even discussing or proposing any realistic solution to this is considered too radical (how dare you propose controlling other peoples' lives). Yet societies will collapse because of it, or come close to collapse.

The only "allowed" solution is importing people from poor countries into richer ones, but disguised as something humanitarian, taking in refugees of war or whatnot.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

reducesuffering wrote: post #19
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe every 100% debt-to-GDP at current 5% rates is like an extra indefinite 5%/year tax taken from everyone You're wrong. You need to consider the real returns on that debt, its real burden, and interagency holdings ( e.g. the Treasury paying the Fed interest). Also, that debt is serviced with taxes. Adding it to the tax burden is double counting. The debt is analogous to taxation.…

> real returns on that debt, its real burden It's real GDP, and it's not being inflated away. It theoretically attempts to, (2% inflation), but because more real debt is taken out, GDP still goes from 100% -> 105% the next year. The real returns on this debt is hardly investments and infrastructure that will make more things in the future, it's mostly social spending like healthcare. > that debt is serviced with taxe…

> If I would normally pay 35% taxes for the country's defense and social spending, but there's also servicing interest, I now have to pay 40% taxes

This is where interagency holdings and real debt burdens kick in. (Also, again, that 35% already includes interest payments already.)

Let's assume a rule that says no new borrowing and no spending cuts. There would need to be tax raises. But if we know one thing, we know it would be less than 5%. Even if we remove the 20% held by agencies [1], which is absolutely not a clean procedure, we know the number would still be less than 4%. Because that debt is nominally denominated, and you're making interest payments in the future with less-valuable money, and, of course, the double counting.

This is before we even touch monetising the debt. Taxation is a bad mental model for thinking about our federal debt. It's in some ways more benign, and other ways much nastier, than a simple tax increase.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#24

Post by reducesuffering »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
reducesuffering wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> real returns on that debt, its real burden It's real GDP, and it's not being inflated away. It theoretically attempts to, (2% inflation), but because more real debt is taken out, GDP still goes from 100% -> 105% the next year. The real returns on this debt is hardly investments and infrastructure that will make more things in the future, it's mostly social spending like healthcare. > that debt is serviced with taxe…

> If I would normally pay 35% taxes for the country's defense and social spending, but there's also servicing interest, I now have to pay 40% taxes This is where interagency holdings and real debt burdens kick in. (Also, again, that 35% already includes interest payments already.) Let's assume a rule that says no new borrowing and no spending cuts. There would need to be tax raises. But if we know one thing, we know…

> (Also, again, that 35% already includes interest payments already.)

Again, no, because if the 35% included interest payments, then if hypothetically there were no interest payments, my tax burden would be 30% now (no 5% taxes to interest).

I understand that if nominal debt remained the same, then 2% inflation would eventually whittle it away (or whichever inflation/monetizing rate), but effectively whether by monetary inflation or taxes, taxpayers still pays the same amount, just a matter of when and in what way.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

reducesuffering wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I would normally pay 35% taxes for the country's defense and social spending, but there's also servicing interest, I now have to pay 40% taxes This is where interagency holdings and real debt burdens kick in. (Also, again, that 35% already includes interest payments already.) Let's assume a rule that says no new borrowing and no spending cuts. There would need to be tax raises. But if we know one thing, we know…

> (Also, again, that 35% already includes interest payments already.) Again, no, because if the 35% included interest payments, then if hypothetically there were no interest payments, my tax burden would be 30% now (no 5% taxes to interest). I understand that if nominal debt remained the same, then 2% inflation would eventually whittle it away (or whichever inflation/monetizing rate), but effectively whether by monet…

> no, because if the 35% included interest payments, then if hypothetically there were no interest payments, my tax burden would be 30% now (no 5% taxes to interest)

No. To illustrate one element of the complexity, imagine we just defaulted on our debt and ignore the credit (but not asset) consequences. No more government debt. Let's now assume that no new spending is allowed, and the surplus must be returned in the form of tax cuts.

You would expect the surplus to vastly exceed the amount of interest being paid. Because now we're talking about principal, too. You'd also expect tax receipts to fall as everyone who expected those interest payments pulls back spending. That money paid to Americans supports the economy--and through it, taxation--in a complicatedly circular way.

(You're also conflating personal income and GDP, but we'll let that slip and count any taxes you incur directly or indirectly, as taxes you pay.)

> effectively whether by monetary inflation or taxes, taxpayers still pays the same amount, just a matter of when and in what way

No, that's the point. Inflation is heterogenous in a way taxation is not. You could erode the purchasing power of a Treasury by $1 without causing a commensurate amount of inflation. It might be more or less depending on a number of factors.

Your mental model works for a small country with a pegged currency, e.g. Panama. It doesn't when we consider monetary effects.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#27

Post by pupppet »

xeornet wrote: post #26

At least they won’t open up to mass immigration to replace the native population - something being looked at as a solution in the West. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...

That’s not replacing the native population, it’s replacing the births that never took place.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#28

Post by jiggawatts »

lazide wrote: post #16
jiggawatts wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been scientific studies done by anthropologists, but they're a different clique to economists and they basically "don't talk to each other". Essentially, there's a sort-of phase diagram for the optimal human reproduction strategy where the axes are things like "income inequality" and "environmental stress". You can then color in patches of the diagram with what strategy members of a society will settle on.…

This is all post-facto rationalization to avoid a more glaring truth. Women aren’t having kids - because they can avoid having kids. While still having sex and having societal benefits, including retirement. That is a very, very new and unusual situation when looking at the span of human history. Birth control is a pretty new invention (mid 60’s approximately), and societies globally have been steadily rolling it out…

You're looking at the trees but missing the forest.

Birth control is available in countries where women are having over 5 kids on average each despite that. Similarly, legalisation or the illegality of abortion has no significant effect on child birth rates. Availability of birth control (or abortion) alone doesn't explain the "big picture", it just alters it a little bit. These are Catholic and conservative talking points, not scientific theories with evidence, charts, graphs, and equations.

Similarly, childbirth has always been dangerous, but is less dangerous now, so that has no explanatory power either.

Etc...

You're also confusing something else: Women's careers being interrupted by childbirth is the much closer to the truth. Women didn't work previously on anything but raising a family! In the economy/stress phase diagram, this is a different place, where a single income is no longer sufficient. THAT is the problem. If women are forced to enter the general workforce, then that alters the game-theoretic optimum for family planning.

Similarly, the mere existence of a social safety net such as a government pension substantially alters the equation. Individual families are no longer incentivised to "invest" in their future by having kids themselves, because they expect "society to take care of it" with unemployment benefits and retirement funds. In the past, people had individual incentives to have kids, because that was their retirement plan.

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#29

Post by marcusverus »

pupppet wrote: post #27
xeornet wrote: post #26

At least they won’t open up to mass immigration to replace the native population - something being looked at as a solution in the West. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve...

That’s not replacing the native population, it’s replacing the births that never took place.

The Mexicans who lived in Texas in the early 19th century saw a relentless stream of Anglo settlers from the USA and beyond. Within a couple of decades, Texas demographics changed radically, and society changed along with it. The previous (Mexican) inhabitants' children went on to grow up in a society with a radically different culture with a different language.

Imagine a Mexican child coming home from a visit to a white-majority, English-language town. Imagine them complaining about the feeling of otherness in their own country, and asking their parents why they allowed themselves to be replaced by the Anglos.

Imagine their parent bending over, looking that child in the eye, and saying: "ackshually, they didn't "replace" us, chico. They merely replaced births that never took place."

Re: Japan's birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

#30

Post by dalyons »

cue_the_strings wrote: post #22
lazide wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all post-facto rationalization to avoid a more glaring truth. Women aren’t having kids - because they can avoid having kids. While still having sex and having societal benefits, including retirement. That is a very, very new and unusual situation when looking at the span of human history. Birth control is a pretty new invention (mid 60’s approximately), and societies globally have been steadily rolling it out…

We're in a situation where even discussing or proposing any realistic solution to this is considered too radical (how dare you propose controlling other peoples' lives). Yet societies will collapse because of it, or come close to collapse. The only "allowed" solution is importing people from poor countries into richer ones, but disguised as something humanitarian, taking in refugees of war or whatnot.

If your realistic solution is some form of forced natalism, then yeah, we shouldn’t be talking about that. It’s ethically wrong and unpalatable to the vast majority of people in developed societies, it’s not a thing that we should be entertaining.
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