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In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

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Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#371

Post by crazygringo »

terminalshort wrote: post #317
crazygringo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, you had personally known everyone, for years, who you might hand your child off to for a few hours. We have things like licensing because we're handing off our children to perfect strangers, and want some level of assurance that it's not going to be a disaster.

We are only handing them off to complete strangers because the informal system has been driven underground by laws that only allow the state licensed bureaucratic monopoly. If state licensing was optional and people were allowed to run neighborhood businesses I bet you would see something very different.

I dunno -- it's not like you know people in your neighborhood the way humans used to know members of their tribes. And I've known people in the neighborhood who seemed totally normal and safe, and then got arrested for something shocking. We're not spending all day long with even our next-door neighbors, let alone the ones five blocks away.

Having standards in training, operation, and oversight of childcare seems just as important as safety standards in the food supply. Even though everybody cooks at home, you're not allowed to run a restaurant without certifications and inspections either. And thank goodness.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#372

Post by Retric »

dmitrygr wrote: post #131
Retric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you yourself alongside everyone else in your country benefits why should you care if you happen to dislike some of those people?

Because YOU are paying for those benefits and they aren’t. If you truly don’t see how offering something for free would attract all the freeloaders, increasing the load on those who work, there’s no saving you.

What I am describing is you literally saving money.

If a government can convert a 1k outlay into 1.1k of tax revenue that same month you aren’t actually paying for those benefits you are getting a little revenue instead of zero revenue. Due to their debts operating across such long timescales people make the same basic argument for things that take longer to see positive returns, but daycare is a very short loop.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#373

Post by venturecruelty »

terminalshort wrote: post #317
crazygringo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, you had personally known everyone, for years, who you might hand your child off to for a few hours. We have things like licensing because we're handing off our children to perfect strangers, and want some level of assurance that it's not going to be a disaster.

We are only handing them off to complete strangers because the informal system has been driven underground by laws that only allow the state licensed bureaucratic monopoly. If state licensing was optional and people were allowed to run neighborhood businesses I bet you would see something very different.

I'm sorry, America hasn't been Mayberry since the 1950s, and it never will be again. Most of us live in towns with more than just a post office, so this Norman Rockwell-esque fantasy of just dropping your kid off with the nice housewife next door is not just dead, it's starting to smell really bad.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#374

Post by venturecruelty »

rs186 wrote: post #137
kittensmittens5 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently in human history 100% of humans were illiterate.

Terrible analogy. btw analogy is not a good way to win arguments.

Lmao welcome to HN, baby! Every reply chain here:

1. Some point.

2. Counterpoint.

3. Countercounterpoint.

4-10. Belabored analogies that people argue about.

11-15. Weird blood-and-soil stuff.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#375

Post by venturecruelty »

siliconc0w wrote: post #113

My current theory is that we've basically gotten addicted to importing the world's smartest kids so we have been unwilling to invest in our own children.

Man, the "anti-immigration" square on my HN bingo card has a hole in it from all the pen marks. Anyway, we stopped investing in kids because kids aren't profitable in the next quarter, like everything else that's beneficial to society and not the eight wealthy people currently running it.

Hope this helps.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#376

Post by venturecruelty »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #316
marysminefnuf wrote: post #296

At most high schools in our district we offer childcare to the teachers for free. I think thats really the model we should be moving to. Just add pre-k and daycare to the public school system. We have the space already.

Give the state your kids and get to work, comrade? https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/17/archives/in-soviet-union-... > The vast majority of Soviet families require the salary of a working wife to make ends meet. Repeatedly, Soviet citizens express astonishment when they learn that an American father can support a family of two, three or four children without his wife's working. Many are also surprised that American wom…

Man, even the Soviet Union was able to provide free childcare. Really makes you think, doesn't it.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#377

Post by venturecruelty »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #124
Workaccount2 wrote: post #70

All for it, but free birth control should also be provided.

Children are a positive externality so we should actually tax birth control rather than make it free. ;)

Sounds like you're volunteering your time and resources to help raise them! Thanks, you can stop by the adoption agency any time today. :)

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#378

Post by AnthonyMouse »

coryrc wrote: post #343
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That either means that childcare is too expensive or teachers don't get paid enough (probably both tbh) It's not necessarily either one. If you do it yourself, you reuse the existing home instead of needing a separate building with its own rent, maintenance and security, the children and the adult watching them wake up in the same place instead of both having to commute to the childcare building, you have no admini…

Poorer people use home-based daycares, which has the same cost advantages.

It doesn't. You still need someone to commute to where the daycare is because they don't live there, transaction costs related to payment processing, and that's often illegal if you do it for money because of zoning ordinances etc.

Those facilities also often don't qualify for subsidies like this because it allows all the people doing it themselves to claim the subsidy. Either you take care of your own kids as before but sign up as a daycare that only your own kids attend to get the subsidy yourself, or you find someone else who takes care of their own kids and then each sign up to watch the other's kids when you each actually watch your own. And you rightfully should be able to get the subsidy if you're doing it yourself, except that then it gets a lot more attractive to actually stay at home, which the government doesn't like because it makes the program more expensive and corporations hate because it reduces supply in the labor market.

Re: In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

#380

Post by venturecruelty »

bilsbie wrote: post #293

Unpopular opinion but leaving your kids with strangers not invested in their development during their most critical years is a terrible idea.

Popular opinion but raising the price of everything just because you can so people can't even afford kids anymore and then blaming poor people for that is a terrible idea.
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