261–270 of 563 posts
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My first child screamed whenever she was not on a human for the first six months. She slept, but only on a person.
She wouldve slept out of exhaustion too if you were willing to try. There's no such thing as screaming to death.
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When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall. In relation to the case in the article, I wonder if we couldn't subsidize certain items and allow parents to receive a one month supply at low to no cost? Why should we give disadvantaged people $180 a month just to let several middl…
Because those same middlemen are the ones who would benefit the most from UBI. Of course subsidizing goods and services means we will have to stop pretending that all choices are equally good and start acting like adults again, where just because you really, really want to do drugs and have 8 kids doesn't mean you will get to do that regardless of how much money you have.
Most folks don't do drugs excessively. But if it is OK for a middle class person to drink once a month, I'm OK with poor folks drinking once every few months. Or other drugs infrequently (i'm pro-legalization of many things). If you don't want folks to do drugs all that often, the only tool available with subsidies is to subsidize rehab and/or medical care and the family care that might come with inpatient rehab programs.
8 kids? How the heck do you expect to combat that with subsidies except though making sure birth control is nearly free (including the doctor's visit for women to get it, and actually offering low-cost sterilization). This completely glosses over the need for fact-based sex education (rather than the abstinence-only sort popular in some areas), for instance, and does nothing to deter folks that want 8 children.
There are a couple of ‘facts’ listed here that don’t line up with my current reality and very recent knowledge (3 kids, most recent is 18mo). First off, 12 changes a day is a huge outlier - even for a newborn. 8 would be a more reasonable number, and it drops down to the 4-6 range in the first year, and by now we’re at 3 if we don’t go swimming. Second item that sounds waaay off is $1000/yr for diapers. Again, that h…
And the articles does say “as many as 12, though older kids need fewer.” So, that seems spot-on.
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I like this notion that a new baby isn't a 16+ hour a day exhausting job in itself.
I apologize if it sounded like that - a baby is definitely 16+ hours of work a day if not more, that's why I said that no other job is possible, but I was saying that maybe the person can squeeze in a couple of hours to wash the diapers while the baby is asleep.
What I definitely don't like is sanctimonious knee jerking about how parents should do everything the hardest possible way, or else omg end of world happen and everybody will become super lazy. And if they don't do everything the most effective way from day one or dare to talk about their opinions, then the civilization will fall.
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12 changes a day is not an outlier for a newborn, it’s normal. My son is 18 months and we change him probably 6 times a day at least. Diaper pricing is dependent on how many you buy at once, I buy giant boxes so my unit cost is low. If you don’t have $40 to buy the giant box, but only $10 to buy a small package. You are paying twice the unit cost.
I realized in my thirties that if I had just dropped $1000 on a pallet of razor blades when I turned 18 I'd have saved a couple times that. Way better returns than the actual "investment" that money ended up in.
Ireland 5 nappies a day x 365 days = 1825 nappies / 30 per pack = 61 packs x euro 2.99 [1] = euro 182.39 per annum Which sounds about right to me. Where are they getting a $1000 from? [1] https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/05962400586...
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I realized in my thirties that if I had just dropped $1000 on a pallet of razor blades when I turned 18 I'd have saved a couple times that. Way better returns than the actual "investment" that money ended up in.
yes but storing a pallet of razor blades isn't easy and from 18 - 28 (when you would be using these razors) you are going to move a lot, due to work, college, just general renting. So moving a pallet each time is probably inefficient.
Someone told me that mid-rich people often group together to have a grocery accountant who will do their bulk shopping for them and it ends up costing them less than a supermarket prices for superior products.
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$30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
Try one of the poverty simulators, here's one: http://playspent.org/html/
Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month.
Do you really think poor people are that stupid? That's flat out insulting.
In my experience, poor people are fuckin great at managing money they got. Of course, some of them are barely functioning in a society due to illnesses or addictions. But there're plenty of well-off people who don't know jack shit about budgeting and live paycheck-to-paycheck.
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$30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
When you are making minimum wage, which I believe is ~$7.50/hr, and are most likely not working full time, that is a good chunk of a day's pay. Granted, if you are in that situation, you are probably getting some government assistance. Also, some people are just terrible at managing money.
Do you think poor people are stupid and can't plan even a week ahead? They're getting paid weekly or monthly in most cases after all.
In my experience, poor people are much better at managing money than better off folks. I could see plenty of people who couldn't bother to order bulk of diapers and then store them somewhere. But poor people usually go the extra mile even for couple bucks.
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I realized in my thirties that if I had just dropped $1000 on a pallet of razor blades when I turned 18 I'd have saved a couple times that. Way better returns than the actual "investment" that money ended up in.
yes but storing a pallet of razor blades isn't easy and from 18 - 28 (when you would be using these razors) you are going to move a lot, due to work, college, just general renting. So moving a pallet each time is probably inefficient.