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On September 05 2017 16:01 Big J wrote:
Can you go into specifics how you want to raise birth and integration rates? We have been trying that for years, we pay people for having babies, cut their taxes for having babies and many services are for free for children. We already have a huge system that is transferring money from the working people to babymaking people. How much more should people, who have trouble keeping their own living standard up, pay for other people's children?
Apologies for being super slow, I’m a lazy bum.
I guess I should first elaborate slightly on why I think birthrates/demographics are (should be) an important political topic. To me a lot of it is about dynamism, both from a cultural/societal perspective, but also purely economic. When people today flock to cities and metro regions they do so because there are more ‘things’ happening. More jobs, more companies, more options, more culture, more potential mates. Those things won’t necessarily be there if everyone is retired, or about to be. In addition, a smaller economy means less demand, -> harder to keep the economy running, less incentives to start new companies, less incentives to invest in research as well as less money to spend on research.
So yeah, it’s entirely true that it in many cases makes sense for an individual couple to have only one child and invest more in it to compensate. But if that becomes average behavior over a couple of generations society will freeze, stagnate, cease to produce new ideas and eventually cease to be a happy prosperous place.
To me politics is about designing a society where as many people as possible are free to live the kinds of lives they want and be happy. But I also think it’s important to design incentives so that individuals naturally chose/want to act in the ‘common’ interest. And since I think the long term health of a society is to a large degree dependent on healthy demographics, I think it’s important for people in most European countries to think about how to make people want to have more children.
As for what to do: seems like it (unsurprisingly) is less obvious than I thought. Sweden and France apparently have among the highest fertility rates in Europe. Both countries have paid maternity leave, extensive protections for pregnant workers (including right to return to work), easy access to childcare, etc etc. Cool those are all things that make it easier to have babies so that makes sense. However most of these policies are implemented in Germany as well, and Germanys population sans migration is still shrinking at a rapid and accelerating pace. Then we have the UK, which provides less support than say Sweden, most notably child care is much more expensive, but they still have high birthrates.
So I’m not convinced it is necessarily economic factors, or even about income inequality (The UK and France have taken very different approaches to that topic, and they have similar birthrate outcomes). Instead I will posit that birthrates correlate with cultural attitudes regarding moms and work. In all European countries (Ignoring Ireland, I don’t actually know anything about social norms in Ireland) with ‘high’ (meaning close to replacement) birthrates it is considered natural, indeed expected, for moms to return to work after having taken up to a year or so off to recover. My impression of Germany is that being a ‘working mother’ is still considered something rather ugly. The same can be seen in other more socially conservative leaning countries, from Italy, to Poland to Japan. All of which have far below replacement rates.
I think this explanation makes sense, in a world where women are finally allowed to be economically independent and live life as they see fit, many not going to want to give that up, even for children. Whereas in countries where it’s easier for women to retain independence and a self-fulfilling career and still have children, many more opt to do so.
Changing culture is a lot harder than changing economic policy though. I still think the goal is worth pursuing (one could imagine initiatives promoting mothers who work etc)
Basically I think a lot of it is that I don’t want to grow old in a society where the median citizen is another retired person, we are all being cared for by robots, and nothing else is happening lol. And 40 years is approximately the timescale for that to become reality if we don’t start doing something nowish.
Anyways, pet peeve rant over lol.
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On September 09 2017 16:13 KlaCkoN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2017 16:01 Big J wrote:
Can you go into specifics how you want to raise birth and integration rates? We have been trying that for years, we pay people for having babies, cut their taxes for having babies and many services are for free for children. We already have a huge system that is transferring money from the working people to babymaking people. How much more should people, who have trouble keeping their own living standard up, pay for other people's children? Apologies for being super slow, I’m a lazy bum. I guess I should first elaborate slightly on why I think birthrates/demographics are (should be) an important political topic. To me a lot of it is about dynamism, both from a cultural/societal perspective, but also purely economic. When people today flock to cities and metro regions they do so because there are more ‘things’ happening. More jobs, more companies, more options, more culture, more potential mates. Those things won’t necessarily be there if everyone is retired, or about to be. In addition, a smaller economy means less demand, -> harder to keep the economy running, less incentives to start new companies, less incentives to invest in research as well as less money to spend on research. So yeah, it’s entirely true that it in many cases makes sense for an individual couple to have only one child and invest more in it to compensate. But if that becomes average behavior over a couple of generations society will freeze, stagnate, cease to produce new ideas and eventually cease to be a happy prosperous place. To me politics is about designing a society where as many people as possible are free to live the kinds of lives they want and be happy. But I also think it’s important to design incentives so that individuals naturally chose/want to act in the ‘common’ interest. And since I think the long term health of a society is to a large degree dependent on healthy demographics, I think it’s important for people in most European countries to think about how to make people want to have more children. As for what to do: seems like it (unsurprisingly) is less obvious than I thought. Sweden and France apparently have among the highest fertility rates in Europe. Both countries have paid maternity leave, extensive protections for pregnant workers (including right to return to work), easy access to childcare, etc etc. Cool those are all things that make it easier to have babies so that makes sense. However most of these policies are implemented in Germany as well, and Germanys population sans migration is still shrinking at a rapid and accelerating pace. Then we have the UK, which provides less support than say Sweden, most notably child care is much more expensive, but they still have high birthrates. So I’m not convinced it is necessarily economic factors, or even about income inequality (The UK and France have taken very different approaches to that topic, and they have similar birthrate outcomes). Instead I will posit that birthrates correlate with cultural attitudes regarding moms and work. In all European countries (Ignoring Ireland, I don’t actually know anything about social norms in Ireland) with ‘high’ (meaning close to replacement) birthrates it is considered natural, indeed expected, for moms to return to work after having taken up to a year or so off to recover. My impression of Germany is that being a ‘working mother’ is still considered something rather ugly. The same can be seen in other more socially conservative leaning countries, from Italy, to Poland to Japan. All of which have far below replacement rates. I think this explanation makes sense, in a world where women are finally allowed to be economically independent and live life as they see fit, many not going to want to give that up, even for children. Whereas in countries where it’s easier for women to retain independence and a self-fulfilling career and still have children, many more opt to do so. Changing culture is a lot harder than changing economic policy though. I still think the goal is worth pursuing (one could imagine initiatives promoting mothers who work etc) Basically I think a lot of it is that I don’t want to grow old in a society where the median citizen is another retired person, we are all being cared for by robots, and nothing else is happening lol. And 40 years is approximately the timescale for that to become reality if we don’t start doing something nowish. Anyways, pet peeve rant over lol.
I don't think it's possible to push fertility rates in an age where women are no longer expected to just stay at home and take care of the household while their husbands are off providing for the family. Women have gained their independence, and men have always had theirs, and having many children takes away from that.
Also, bluntly put, on a family level we don't need to have many children anymore. We've got pensions, investments and nursing homes that allow us to live reasonably comfortable lives when we're old. We don't need children for that anymore. Having children has become a thing people do because of social expectations, or because they want to have one and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices for it. It's no longer something people do to make sure they are taken care off when they're old and no longer able to look after themselves very well.
Sure, having more children would definitely be beneficial from an economic point of view, but considering how densely populated Europe already is, I don't know if it's all that desirable. Sure, cities are where all the fun is, but there is a tendency among the reasonably well-off to go live in areas where housing is a little more spacious, where there's still room for a garden or where a green area is within walking distance even if it means having to make long commutes to work every day.
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On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Sure, having more children would definitely be beneficial from an economic point of view
You'll have to elaborate on this point...
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On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Also, bluntly put, on a family level we don't need to have many children anymore. We've got pensions, investments and nursing homes that allow us to live reasonably comfortable lives when we're old. We don't need children for that anymore.
Yes, if we assume that everyone around you produces enough children to pay for the social systems covering those, you can actually skip on children because you are covered... True!
The only problem arises when everyone suddenly thinks like you...
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On September 09 2017 17:46 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Sure, having more children would definitely be beneficial from an economic point of view You'll have to elaborate on this point...
More children -> More workers -> more consumers -> more economic benefits in long terms.
The opposite situation is happening in China (with the single child policy) and Japan (too few new borns). Their population is aging, their workforce reducing and it puts pressure on their economy as we speak.
Overpopulation adds new problems of course, but maartendq is right, having more children is good for the economy for 20-30 years terms.
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On September 09 2017 21:50 mahrgell wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Also, bluntly put, on a family level we don't need to have many children anymore. We've got pensions, investments and nursing homes that allow us to live reasonably comfortable lives when we're old. We don't need children for that anymore. Yes, if we assume that everyone around you produces enough children to pay for the social systems covering those, you can actually skip on children because you are covered... True! The only problem arises when everyone suddenly thinks like you...
The other problem arises when "nobody" in the country thinks like that, and it ends up with middle class families having less than two kids per household, eventually forcing the country to import people from countries where people do "think like him".
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On September 09 2017 08:32 sc-darkness wrote:
I think I read in the past that he is cutting taxes for rich people and some reforms which you normally do near the end of term so you're more electable. Is that still the case why he is less popular?
- Weakest popular support to begin with (24% of expressed votes with a high % of votes by default)
- His first economic/fiscal measures were perceived as unfair
- Not as "new" as he claimed
- A few arrogant/authoritarian statements
- Some amateurism
- Overall, I would say that his key policies are contrary to general expectations within the French society
You can also read that:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/opinion/emmanuel-macron-popularity.html
Surprisingly corrosive and spot on.
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On September 09 2017 21:57 Agathon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 17:46 Furikawari wrote:On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Sure, having more children would definitely be beneficial from an economic point of view You'll have to elaborate on this point... More children -> More workers -> more consumers -> more economic benefits in long terms. The opposite situation is happening in China (with the single child policy) and Japan (too few new borns). Their population is aging, their workforce reducing and it puts pressure on their economy as we speak. Overpopulation adds new problems of course, but maartendq is right, having more children is good for the economy for 20-30 years terms.
Yeah, like our societies completly fullfill the more children -> more workers part. Funny capitalists.
Edit: wow, the ny times paper is really on point... Thanks for the link!
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On September 09 2017 21:57 Agathon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2017 17:46 Furikawari wrote:On September 09 2017 16:41 maartendq wrote:
Sure, having more children would definitely be beneficial from an economic point of view You'll have to elaborate on this point... More children -> More workers -> more consumers -> more economic benefits in long terms. The opposite situation is happening in China (with the single child policy) and Japan (too few new borns). Their population is aging, their workforce reducing and it puts pressure on their economy as we speak. Overpopulation adds new problems of course, but maartendq is right, having more children is good for the economy for 20-30 years terms.
There is no economic incentive for someone to have a lot of kids in a society where raising kids is capital intensive, and labour in large numbers is not required. You've got it the wrong way around. The whole idea behind the one child policy in China was to lift the country from agrarian society (many children, low education per child, children are social security and workforce) to a developed economy (middle class, children are independent, and so forth).
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They still are locked in the 19th/early 20th where workforce was a thing. The sad part is all their ideology is from the 19th...
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Well, 30 years ago their society was essentially a 19th century economy. Today, half of China is a modern economy but China has no real social security, so children (or in this case a single child) is ironically still their social security.
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On September 09 2017 16:13 KlaCkoN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2017 16:01 Big J wrote:
Can you go into specifics how you want to raise birth and integration rates? We have been trying that for years, we pay people for having babies, cut their taxes for having babies and many services are for free for children. We already have a huge system that is transferring money from the working people to babymaking people. How much more should people, who have trouble keeping their own living standard up, pay for other people's children? Apologies for being super slow, I’m a lazy bum. I guess I should first elaborate slightly on why I think birthrates/demographics are (should be) an important political topic. To me a lot of it is about dynamism, both from a cultural/societal perspective, but also purely economic. When people today flock to cities and metro regions they do so because there are more ‘things’ happening. More jobs, more companies, more options, more culture, more potential mates. Those things won’t necessarily be there if everyone is retired, or about to be. In addition, a smaller economy means less demand, -> harder to keep the economy running, less incentives to start new companies, less incentives to invest in research as well as less money to spend on research. So yeah, it’s entirely true that it in many cases makes sense for an individual couple to have only one child and invest more in it to compensate. But if that becomes average behavior over a couple of generations society will freeze, stagnate, cease to produce new ideas and eventually cease to be a happy prosperous place. To me politics is about designing a society where as many people as possible are free to live the kinds of lives they want and be happy. But I also think it’s important to design incentives so that individuals naturally chose/want to act in the ‘common’ interest. And since I think the long term health of a society is to a large degree dependent on healthy demographics, I think it’s important for people in most European countries to think about how to make people want to have more children. As for what to do: seems like it (unsurprisingly) is less obvious than I thought. Sweden and France apparently have among the highest fertility rates in Europe. Both countries have paid maternity leave, extensive protections for pregnant workers (including right to return to work), easy access to childcare, etc etc. Cool those are all things that make it easier to have babies so that makes sense. However most of these policies are implemented in Germany as well, and Germanys population sans migration is still shrinking at a rapid and accelerating pace. Then we have the UK, which provides less support than say Sweden, most notably child care is much more expensive, but they still have high birthrates. So I’m not convinced it is necessarily economic factors, or even about income inequality (The UK and France have taken very different approaches to that topic, and they have similar birthrate outcomes). Instead I will posit that birthrates correlate with cultural attitudes regarding moms and work. In all European countries (Ignoring Ireland, I don’t actually know anything about social norms in Ireland) with ‘high’ (meaning close to replacement) birthrates it is considered natural, indeed expected, for moms to return to work after having taken up to a year or so off to recover. My impression of Germany is that being a ‘working mother’ is still considered something rather ugly. The same can be seen in other more socially conservative leaning countries, from Italy, to Poland to Japan. All of which have far below replacement rates. I think this explanation makes sense, in a world where women are finally allowed to be economically independent and live life as they see fit, many not going to want to give that up, even for children. Whereas in countries where it’s easier for women to retain independence and a self-fulfilling career and still have children, many more opt to do so. Changing culture is a lot harder than changing economic policy though. I still think the goal is worth pursuing (one could imagine initiatives promoting mothers who work etc) Basically I think a lot of it is that I don’t want to grow old in a society where the median citizen is another retired person, we are all being cared for by robots, and nothing else is happening lol. And 40 years is approximately the timescale for that to become reality if we don’t start doing something nowish. Anyways, pet peeve rant over lol.
I am not much in favor of stable birthrates for enviromental reasons anyways. But I believe the biggest factor is property. In rural areas you build a house, marry and get children (in no particular order) and then your children do the same. In the city you can't afford property, which means you rent, which means you spend a ton more in the longrun and you have no security at all. Your landlord may as well throw you out for no reason connect to you at all if he wants to. It's a shitty move for your children to have them in such an enviroment in my view. People like me who come from rural areas often rather go back to have children or just don't have them. If property isn't affordable it's a big factor imo and germany has a rental culture, so that makes sense in my view that they have less kids per person.
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So, the Norwegian election has concluded, and the right-wing block won again in a close race. It is an alliance of 4 parties: populist right, conservatives, liberals (!) and the christian centrist party. Last time, they failed to form a government with the 4 of them, so the 2 rightmost formed one, needing support from case to case, mostly from the 2 other parties in their block.
Like in other elecitions, the leftwing block had slightly more votes, but lost. This was because of the voting system, parties are losing out on "equilibration" seats by failing to get 4%, and votes from less populated areas count more.
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I don't know much about Norway but I suspect that your center is shifted to the left (given what we know of the policies you have) and that as such your "extreme rightwingers" are probably kind of tame when compared to the rightwingers of other countries, am I way off base?
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Norway28738 Posts
yeah, I voted for the second leftmost party in the parliament and I still think our populist right is mostly comprised of sensible people. Some of it is them having self awareness in terms of what is politically achievable, leader of our populist right party has cited Ayn Rand has a political inspiration, but in terms of policy pushed, she still wants a mixed economy and effective taxation rates only a couple % lower than the left of center labor party and a reasonably strong safety net.
I'm unhappy about the election but I do think we have the least populist populist right party there is. They matured significantly from being placed in a government position (last election) and with the exception of 1 minister, the youtube-commentary style of rhetoric isn't present among the influential members of the party.
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On September 12 2017 23:04 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't know much about Norway but I suspect that your center is shifted to the left (given what we know of the policies you have) and that as such your "extreme rightwingers" are probably kind of tame when compared to the rightwingers of other countries, am I way off base?
Yes, the whole spectrum is shifted pretty far left, and the distance between the parties is generally pretty small, especially on things like welfare. The progress party, populist right, is an odd mix of policies, but they play the anti-muslim and immigration card as much as any other far-right party, with their immigration minister, Sylvi Listhaug, as a prime example of a media-exploiting politician.
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Can someone expand upon what it is the French workers are so disgruntled with in the reforms?
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Norway28738 Posts
On September 13 2017 01:13 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 23:04 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't know much about Norway but I suspect that your center is shifted to the left (given what we know of the policies you have) and that as such your "extreme rightwingers" are probably kind of tame when compared to the rightwingers of other countries, am I way off base? Yes, the whole spectrum is shifted pretty far left, and the distance between the parties is generally pretty small, especially on things like welfare. The progress party, populist right, is an odd mix of policies, but they play the anti-muslim and immigration card as much as any other far-right party, with their immigration minister, Sylvi Listhaug, as a prime example of a media-exploiting politician.
This Sylvia Listhaug is the one minister i referenced to in my post. 
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On September 13 2017 01:15 Ghostcom wrote:
Can someone expand upon what it is the French workers are so disgruntled with in the reforms?
See here.
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Thanks, I hadn't connected the dots to that post.
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EPT
