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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#971

Post by em-bee »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #627
accurrent wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that affordable housing is crucial, but the idea that this is 'impossible in a democratic society' ignores global realities. Several democracies heavily subsidize housing—look at Vienna's social housing model or Singapore's HDB system. Yet, this has not solved the birthrate problem; Singapore’s fertility rate recently hit a record low of 0.87. Ironically, the highest birth rates globally occur where economic…

Vienna massively depopulated in the mid-20th century, so it had a large excess of underused real estate. Vienna is only now starting to come back to its former population. It is like making the observation that housing is cheap in Detroit. We need to make cheap housing work in places that have not experienced large-scale depopulation.

large parts of vienna have also been destroyed in the wars, for example 80000 apartments were destroyed or unusable. so it's not underused real estate but more like empty space in the city to develop from scratch. any other city that is not densely packed can have that. new development currently happens on empty space that was never developed before.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#972

Post by saulpw »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #885
saulpw wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Land vertebrates", #1 is chickens, #2 is humans. But colloquially "animal" does not include ants or fish.

Insects I'll consider fair enough, but fish? Are you leaning on "fish isn't meat"? Otherwise, this isn't a colloquial use I'm familiar with.

Just try referring to a fish, alive or dead or cooked, as an 'animal' to your friends. Even if it doesn't sound weird to you, your friends will feel misled in the conversation, even though it's technically/scientifically correct.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#973

Post by blini-kot »

scoofy wrote: post #388
m_fayer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different pet explanation from the other replies here, and I honestly don't get why it's not talked about more. Basically, our economic reality and expectations have come into conflict with biology and human lifespan. If you want a secured dignified life and basic prerequisites to starting a family, every year that takes a little longer. And these days, almost everyone wants that dignified middle class life…

This is really the message of Abundance . If you want people to have kids, you need to make sure they are economically secure by the time they are of childbearing age... which means before they are 30. To do that, you cannot have supply constrained zero-sum shortage anywhere in society. It means that the cost of an apartment needs to be at-or-below the cost to build that apartment so people can just save up and buy o…

gee I wonder what other economic system was known for its apartment-building programs

>western society slowly collapses

good riddance

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#974

Post by Enginerrrd »

danny_codes wrote: post #207
Ajedi32 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the "cogs of the machine" freeze up and economy tanks the top 1% will be fine. You might not be.

Depends what we mean by freeze up. Revolutions usually mean some part of the elite class gets killed or exiled. Happens all the time.

Revolutions almost always involve one faction of the elites using the masses against another faction.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#975

Post by alexey-salmin »

triceratops wrote: post #963
alexey-salmin wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't eat assets. Retirees need goods and services, these should be produced by the workers and handed over to retirees for free. No wealth redistribution mechanism can solve the fundamental problem of less workers handing over more and more of their produce to the growing population of retirees.

> You can't eat assets Are farmland, greenhouses, livestock, tractors, silos full of grain, and refrigerated warehouses packed with produce not "assets"? > Retirees need goods and services Which are produced by...assets. Factories, labs, intellectual property. > these should be produced by the workers and handed over to retirees for free Well not exactly "free". Retirees make contributions to the retirement system th…

> Are farmland, greenhouses, livestock, tractors, silos full of grain, and refrigerated warehouses packed with produce not "assets"?

The elderly can't eat that directly unless they're in a good health and can be put to work on a farm.

> Which are produced by...assets. Factories, labs, intellectual property.

In the end nothing is produced by "assets", things are always produced by people with various degrees of automation. This makes the balance between the number of people who are working and the number of people who aren't the key factor.

> Well not exactly "free". Retirees make contributions to the retirement system throughout their career.

Contributions to the economy of the past give them some moral grounds to claim the share of the economy today. But the reality is, an old man today is someone who consumes but doesn't produce. Society feeds them and gets nothing in return. Except for old people who meaningfully help to raise grandchildren or find other ways to be useful.

> The solution is tax the workers' output (productivity and asset growth), not their salaries. I don't know what you mean by "wealth redistribution" here.

There are many ways of how a percentage of GDP can be diverted to the elderly: all kinds of taxes including taxes on salary and assets, stocks and bonds, stashes of cash under the mattress etc.

I'm making a more high-level point: regardless of the mechanism, the more the elderly, the more GDP you need to divert to them. Which means the rest of the population gets less and also less gets invested into the future growth. It's a fundamental problem, which doesn't depend on which exact tax you plan to apply.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#976

Post by littlexsparkee »

matchbok3 wrote: post #579
pelagicAustral wrote: post #29

> But as India and others hurtle through their demographic transition, the consequences will not be pain-free. Pain for whom? The people profiting from cheap labor probably. Why is such a massive sin to scale down? To slow down a bit, I don't think the whole world is about to collapse, but even if it was, I rather that than turning it all into the hellscapes we see on some of the most overpopulated places in the worl…

The world is not even close to 1% "overpopulated". The 1% indulge? The greatest thing a person can do is raise a child and build a legacy. No class warfare or nonsense about climate change can change that. If you want a smaller world, fine. Then give up your 401k, retirement funds, and government care in old age. Because my kids are the ones paying for 100% of that. Think of someone other than yourself.

you don't need pop growth for stock gains, increased productivity suffices

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#977

Post by abc123abc123 »

matchbok3 wrote: post #924
abc123abc123 wrote: post #921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, difficult to imagine a more egoistic personality. I'm afraid to be alone when I'm old, so I'll create little slaves to take care of me. I don't know how many families I know where the children live on other continents and the parents live by themselves, and see them once a year. So you'd better brush up on your social skills, having children is no guarantee that someone will take care of you when you are old.

Slaves? Get real kid. Obviously nothing is guaranteed. But family is family, and is worth having. You clearly are a angry, bitter person. Perhaps that is why you are alone.

Not to be that guy... but you seem way more angry and bitter. But I will pray for you! =)

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#979

Post by sieabahlpark »

missedthecue wrote: post #931
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #721

The real reason why nobody is having kids can be summarized by the sentence: "It takes a village to raise a kid". Look up how much time a mother actually used to spend holding their own child vs other people holding that same child. It was something like 40%. When you lived surrounded by your tribe, you had an extremely strong support network that no longer exists in industrialized society. Add to that all the other…

The "village" that used to raise kids was simply low labor force participation among women.

[dead]

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#980

Post by nashashmi »

trumpdong wrote: post #873
nashashmi wrote: post #370

Lots of theories here. Industrialization. Wealth. Education. First world transformation. Kids' expense. All of these are second-round of reasons. Primary reason: Materialistic wealth or wealth in general is preferred over human contact. Effect: People connection drops. Community drops. Independence and Individualism prosper. Secondary effect: The seeds for family development (community, human connection, village cama…

Thanks ChatGPT

Im flattered you think this came from ChatGPT. I thought it was an original unbacked take.
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