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We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

nytimes.com

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Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#421

Post by supertrope »

imtringued wrote: post #408
willcipriano wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought experiment: You print a trillion dollar bill and throw it in a underground vault. You look around. "Hey no inflation" so you print some more. You keep this up for a while. Years pass and someone finds the vault and begins to spend the money inside, what happens? Right now much of that printed money is sitting in stocks and bonds, what happens when that is no longer a great place to be? What if those dollars d…

You know, the idea that we have run out of profitable investments is absurd when you consider the massive housing shortage in major cities. Is the truth that we simply banned all those investments and companies like Uber are trying to work around that backwards legislation?

Even with the benefit of a society built in the image of the automobile (toll free roads, free parking everywhere, highways, sprawl) Uber is not profitable.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#422

Post by yortpyperty »

rimiform wrote: post #222
yortpyperty wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a new father, I share this perspective. To get an anecdotal sense of our financial struggle, we have 2-4x the net worth that my parents when they were our age, but cannot afford the same house that I grew up in and doubt we ever will.

Makes you wonder whether you ever thought not having a baby might be a sensible option.

Please share the equation that determines the sensible option. I guess we'll disagree over the optimization ...

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#423

Post by supertrope »

frongpik wrote: post #388
bobthepanda wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add; limited housing development. Most new housing development after the war was gotten by turning farmlands and nature into single family houses. A lot of places have reached the limits of how far one can expand and run into some combination of geographical barriers, legal barriers (e.g. protected park or farmlands), or the barrier posed by time (most people have an upper limit of how long they are willing to c…

Ban building new office space in overcrowded areas. Big corps will be forced to build their offices elsewhere, in remote areas with plenty of land, workers will follow and so do small businesses.

What is the definition of overcrowded? Banning office space caps the size of the economy! A very bad result for a nebulous gain. That's like hoping for a recession or praising Gary, Indiana and Youngstown, Ohio for low housing prices.

They choose to set up shop in big cities and in CBDs because there's more opportunity well worth the higher rent. High rent makes buildings more productive because no one is going to waste prime real estate on low productivity or land intensive enterprises.

Some cities are pushing to ease car dependency by mandating businesses support remote working, not further invest in parking, and encourage walking, biking, and mass transit use. Those are ways of improving the land efficiency of businesses.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#424

Post by supertrope »

0xfaded wrote: post #202
whatshisface wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because nobody wants to hold currency for extended periods of time.

Or more precisely, once a house attains some value beyond providing a roof over heads, the price of a house is no longer representative of a house, but a government backed asset that can never depreciate lest the pension funds fold.

A single house's price can easily go down. Even an entire city like Detroit MI can devalue. But those mortgage backed securities represent the national average.

With climate change the music may suddenly stop for flood prone areas like Miami once investors stop underwriting 30 year mortgages.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#425

Post by pbourke »

hinkley wrote: post #377

The reason people have sex at the end of the adventure movie is because the heroes just went through a harrowing experience together, possibly almost dying. Sex falls under “life affirming activities”. It’s not a movie trope, it’s a human trope. This last year has been a shit show. You get people vaccinated and employed and people will hear their biological clocks again. There will be a rebound effect, and there will…

I would not be surprised if there’s a "roaring 20’s" effect after the pandemic is done (in a number of ways).

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#426

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #399
shortandsweet wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I don't understand, if population growth is stagnant or declining, how is it these housing prices are reaching such heights?

To some extent homes in affluent are expensive because they are expensive. Most rich people don't want to live near poor people and so they'll pay extra for that even if it seems economically irrational.

[deleted]

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#427

Post by curryst »

motohagiography wrote: post #64

Birthrates are a powerful, but lagging/post-hoc indicator of public policy effects. It's worth noting that we tend to associate high birthrates with poverty and negative social outcomes. Except, when rates are low we (western countries) use immigration from high-birthrate societies to shore up the population replacement rate, as the article notes. When you look at who is having kids in the US and Canada, the families…

> The mix of the promise of upward mobility that is always just out of reach, and the risk of "losing it all," creates a condition of constant low-level stress similar to other species that do not breed in captivity.

I think there's a mix of underlying causes for it, but I think college is one of the big ones. If you want a stable life, college may help. Many people go to college. However it is not conducive to having children while you do it. Then you graduate, and move into the job market.

Except it doesn't have the stability it used to. Pensions are gone, and rewards for loyalty remain too low to be compelling most place. So people job hop to get raises. You have to make sure you earn enough to live stably and comfortably, and also fund your retirement after all. Declining real wages also mean that you hit the "comfortable and stable" stage of life later in life (if at all).

The push to equalize the gender income gap also puts downward pressure on the birth rate, imo. Pushing women to want to be mothers is wrong, but it does seem that it would increase the birth rate. It may also be harder to get to higher paying jobs while handling pregnancy and children, which could discourage having children. To be clear, I'm not blaming women, those were horrible societal acts and I don't think we should revert them, just noting that the birth rate in a more equal society might be lower.

And lastly, I think social media has taken "keeping up with the Jones" to a whole new level where you're trying to compete on a global scale. Even if you can avoid that, there are ads lurking around every corner trying to convince you to spend money on things you don't really need. I'm not against the premise of ads in general, but they're so pervasive now. You can't do anything without someone trying to convince you to buy something. I truly believe it creates more pressure to spend, which creates downward pressure on peoples' ability to save. If ads were really that easy to resist, they wouldn't be worth much, and Google would be a tiny company.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#428

Post by bradleyjg »

rayiner wrote: post #397
bradleyjg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1980s NYC did not have “the faintest whiff of a city about to take off”. That couple bought property in a crime ridden part of a crime ridden city. Tompkins Square Park was an open air drug market. The equivalent today is a bad area of Detroit. I’m certain you can find something affordable there today. I doubt it will turn you into a multimillionaire, but if we were having this conversation in 1984 everyone would dou…

Having grown up in the 1990s in the D.C. suburbs, and visiting family in Queens (recent immigrants) I still reflexively do a double take when new associates at my law firm say they're living in Brooklyn, or in D.C., in Capitol Hill. Like--I know you can afford to live somewhere decent!

There’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Bed-Stuy. In Billy Joel’s song about being manic there’s a verse:

“I walked through Bedford Stuy alone / even rode my motorcycle in the rain”

because it was something only a crazy person would do. I can never quite get over the fact that a young coworker of mine was living there with his girlfriend. It is mind blowing.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#429

Post by pojzon »

deelowe wrote: post #350
pojzon wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary the price of up-keeping a household has increased dramatically. 30-40y ago it was not uncommon for a single pension to cover all expenses of: - food - car or two - paying a mortage - having 4 kids going to school - other household expenses - saving up money / Currently it is not possible. How in such a case do you still think we live in deflation times? I would rather say that “some things” became che…

A fairly simplistic empirical examination of the monetary policy since 2009 proves this: - Historically low mortgage rates - Decreasing bond yields - Increasing withdrawals from 401k and other retirement funds - Increased savings rates for the younger demographic - Reduction in consumer spending - Over a decade of QE

Low rates and reduction in consumer spending are rather signs of recession not deflation..

From 2008 crisis pretty much every country in the world is printing money like crazy. Its easy to print more digital numbers, its harder to gain actual land to inhabit ppl.

Thats why properties and land gain so much value lately and thats why its the biggest issue of them all - huge inflation in the housing department.

Re: We Expect 300k Fewer Births Than Usual This Year in the US

#430

Post by wcarss »

rayiner wrote: post #394
wcarss wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what the value to you is here in arguing that we all ought to just settle for less. More space is preferable, better conditions are preferable, and we do have the capabilities to work toward these things for all humans. The specific factors of post-WWII America may be unlikely ever to be repeated, but I can't agree that we should all settle for life as it was in the 1910s or earlier on the basis th…

A sentence with "ought" in it is a signal that what follows is a pointless thought. You can't will things into existence by saying it "ought" to be that way. As to your other point, some aspects of living conditions are scalable, and others are not--something that's obvious if you're thinking about what "is" rather than what "ought to be." Technology doesn't magic more land into existence. As the population of the co…

> A sentence with "ought" in it is a signal that what follows is a pointless thought. You can't will things into existence by saying it "ought" to be that way.

Thanks for making it clear right up front that any time spent trying to communicate with you is wasted. :)

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