Based Camp - Giving Poor Populations Money Lowers Their Birth Rate？

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm excited to be speaking with you today because there's this thing I've really

00:00:04.740 been stuck on recently. And I think I'm realizing that what it means to be rich and what we thought

00:00:11.800 it means to be poor is, is fundamentally changing and actually inverting and not the way you'd

00:00:17.940 think. So, so specifically rich people are starting to live like poor people used to live and poor

00:00:25.120 people are increasingly living like rich people used to live. You know, you just say this up front

00:00:30.140 and I'm like, oh my God, this actually checks out when I look like our poor friends. Yeah. And you

00:00:35.400 can see this coming in all sorts of places, which we'll talk about, but most notably, and I want to

00:00:40.200 couch this in, in this larger context, you can see this most notably in recent shifts in fertility.

00:00:45.800 And this, this is actually, it's a big deal. It has pretty significant implications and I want us

00:00:50.140 to explore it. So let's just dive right in. And I'll start with it on the fertility front is sort

00:00:54.620 of like premise setting thing to sort of get us into this thought experiment and like, whoa,

00:00:58.900 what's going on here? This doesn't make sense. In September, New Mexico's governor announced that

00:01:03.680 New Mexico will be the first U S state to offer universal free childcare, regardless of income,

00:01:09.340 which is, it's huge. Average household savings are estimated to be around $12,000 per child,

00:01:15.660 which checks out per year. And I actually think that's a major understatement because when we had

00:01:20.540 just three kids, we were spending around 4,000 a month. So around 50,000 a year,

00:01:25.960 we had to obviously stop because it burned through our savings. And that was for the daycare with a

00:01:31.020 terrible reputation, the daycare that a bunch of kids died at. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not the location

00:01:37.600 our kids were at, but you know, in New York, a very close location. Yeah. And this, this comes at a time

00:01:43.560 also, and we've reported on this separately when polling indicates that Americans want the U S to focus

00:01:49.820 on measures like this to calm black declining fertility rates and not other things. They're

00:01:54.640 just like, Oh, just pay for my childcare, like stay out of my life, but like make it easier.

00:01:59.020 So what you would expect from things like free childcare is, I mean, this is what I would

00:02:04.460 intuitively expect is if the state covers major basic costs of having kids, then rich people

00:02:11.340 are going to have fewer kids as their standards for raising kids are higher. And then, and, and poor

00:02:16.660 people, people have modest means for who this daycare expensive is. It's, it's huge, right?

00:02:21.300 Like it's devastating. They would have more kids. So like middle class and lower class people would 1.00

00:02:26.260 have more kids and rich, rich people would have still fewer kids. Like it wouldn't affect them 0.99

00:02:31.260 because do you remember what your mom said about how much money we needed? Like per kid.

00:02:36.260 It was a million dollars per kid, right?

00:02:38.120 Yeah. She's like, well, you need a million dollars in income per year. 1.00

00:02:40.820 Per, per kid. Cause she's unhinged, but that, that is a rich person norm around kids, right? 1.00

00:02:49.200 Yeah. You just think that like, well, but rich people have really unsustainable standards around

00:02:53.240 how much kids cost. You know, they have all these nannies and all the clothes and all the activities

00:02:57.020 and like, they want to fly around the world with them. And so they're too expensive. They wouldn't

00:03:00.980 have more kids just because childcare is paid for, but no, no. And this is what's so crazy.

00:03:07.040 Starting in 2017, we've seen a shift in wealthy countries that largely cover things like childcare

00:03:14.240 and education and healthcare in which wealthier and more educated families are having more children

00:03:23.480 than poorer and less educated families. I don't believe it. No, it's true. It's true. I don't believe

00:03:29.960 it. I will show you the data. No, man, this is insane. So the key question is why does giving

00:03:35.620 resources to poor people not increase their fertility proportionally to rich people? Because

00:03:41.360 that is a, that is a, like, this is so perplexing and what people are arguing. So it, when you go

00:03:46.720 into this, and even when you go into like the academic research covering this inversion and this strange

00:03:52.500 trend, they're like, Oh, well, when, when, when the state doesn't offer generous social services,

00:03:59.460 wealthy families aren't willing to pay for having kids, but somehow poor families are there. Like,

00:04:04.860 they're literally arguing this and, and they're basically arguing that basically having to work

00:04:09.860 at all as poor people do competes with family demands. But I, I hesitate to buy that at all

00:04:18.540 because wealthy people still work and have aggressive schedules. Like we know this, we have a lot of

00:04:23.560 wealthy friends and they are extremely busy. And they're also, well, no, that's, we're going to get

00:04:29.120 to that. That is true. Cause maybe that's not so true. Also though, why are they giving money to poor

00:04:35.780 people? These are also legit questions, but also like wealthy people have kids in more expensive

00:04:42.320 ways, not just in that, like, they want to get them the nannies and the fancy clothes and the fancy

00:04:45.960 toys, and they want to fly them everywhere and do things like that. But like, they're, they're typically

00:04:50.080 waiting to have kids and then until they're older and more infertile. So they're more likely to need 0.93

00:04:54.620 fertility treatments and need IVF and have more complicated pregnancies or even use surrogates,

00:04:58.720 you know, that's really common. Right. So like, that would also make me think that they're going

00:05:02.100 to have fewer kids. In fact, IVF is so expensive. People are increasingly traveling abroad to get it.

00:05:07.800 And to, to the extent that we're seeing major mainstream news outlets covering it recently.

00:05:13.300 IVF clinic is going to open the Philippines and do like embryo testing. Is that happening still?

00:05:17.060 It's still happening. Yeah.

00:05:18.580 Do you have a memory on that for like our fans?

00:05:20.080 We're under an NDA, so I can't say anything, but once, once we have an update, we can share

00:05:23.960 information, but like CBS news recently did an article about it. They talked about one couple

00:05:28.880 that found a clinic in Bogota that they were going to, that offered a package of four IVF rounds for

00:05:35.700 $11,000, which, you know, compared to like the $60,000 it would cost to do four rounds. Then that's

00:05:42.380 on the lower end in the United States. That's like really good. So my hypothesis here is that the

00:05:49.880 issue is more that governments and societies are turning poor people into wealthy people,

00:05:55.000 or at least people who live like wealthy people historically lived and turning wealthy people

00:06:01.020 into poor people, or at least the way that poor people used to live. And, and, and we'll, we'll

00:06:06.560 explore that in greater detail, but first I just want to give a caveat. And, and this can be really

00:06:11.120 summed up well by a thread that, that more births did when covering this, this research.

00:06:17.200 You know, he's going to love this data, right? Is Lyman stone.

00:06:20.620 Actually, I'm also going to cover Lyman stone had actually, he didn't chime in about this just as

00:06:26.440 it came out because this was a 2025 thing. I'm going to, I'm going to look at Lyman stone as a

00:06:31.660 take on this. He published in April of last year though, or like spring of last year, but in this

00:06:36.740 thread, more births explains a lower income has been associated with higher fertility, but now that

00:06:43.800 the relationship is completely flipped. He writes in many developed countries, higher incomes are

00:06:48.300 now associated with higher fertility, almost everywhere in Europe, both for men and women

00:06:52.280 at 2025 paper shows. And we're going to look at that paper, his second tweet though. And this is

00:06:56.680 important, but this is only within countries across countries. The correlation between income and

00:07:03.000 fertility remains very negative. Wealthy countries continue to have far lower birth rates than poor

00:07:08.920 countries. Also fertility tends to go down for countries as a whole, as they get richer. Also,

00:07:15.660 I kind of just wanted to, to show you this thread just because one of the animations that shows

00:07:20.200 basically the fertility of countries going down as they get wealthier literally looks like sperm.

00:07:25.340 Look at, look at, look at the link I just said.

00:07:28.160 What is wrong with you? Come on, look at juvenile.

00:07:31.140 It's thematic. It's thematic. Okay. I just find that extremely amusing.

00:07:35.140 It's swimming downhill. Yeah.

00:07:36.260 Yeah. There's, there's little sperm swimming down hills. They get wealthier. Their fertility

00:07:39.700 goes down along with their sperm motility as their testosterone levels plummet. But obviously

00:07:44.640 wealthy countries, fertility rates being low, it is important to be looking at what we can do to

00:07:51.220 increase fertility in these countries. And it's pretty wild that now the wealthier people,

00:07:55.000 yeah, outside of, yeah, outside of that. So let's, let's look at this wealthy country shift

00:08:00.720 that we need to investigate. So for most of the 20th century, there was a negative relationship

00:08:06.020 between wealth and fertility in Europe. Wealthier individuals typically had fewer children while

00:08:10.860 poorer families had more. Everyone knows this. We talk about this a lot. However, starting around

00:08:15.140 2017, this pattern weakened, and it's been even reversed in several prosperous, and this is the

00:08:21.660 important thing, prosperous European countries by 2021. In some places, the association is now neutral,

00:08:27.320 even slightly positive. And similar patterns hold when using education as a proxy for income. So low

00:08:33.260 educated Nordic women and men now have the lowest fertility and highest childlessness, 15 to 36% in

00:08:40.880 recent cohorts, while higher educated groups have stabilized near replacement levels around 1.8 to

00:08:46.680 2.0 children. What countries is this in? The Nordic countries. The Nordic countries. So the Nordic

00:08:52.120 countries is now the lower income and lower education you are as a man, the lower your fertility

00:08:57.160 rate. And woman. And woman. And woman. And woman. But here's, no, there are different,

00:09:01.940 there are different regional and gender variations that I'm glad you're pointing to this. So in Nordic

00:09:07.700 countries, such as Sweden, studies show a clear positive connection between high lifetime earnings and

00:09:13.960 having more children, especially among men. But for women, the relationship shifted from women having

00:09:19.940 more kids up to women born around the 1940s to positive or flat in the 70s cohorts, with the poorest

00:09:28.600 women now having the fewest children due to higher childlessness rates. In Southern Europe, however,

00:09:34.720 prenatal wealth, or sorry, parental wealth is still related to lower fertility.

00:09:41.520 So in poorer countries, the poorer you are, the higher your fertility rate is.

00:09:46.200 But in wealthier countries, the poorer you are, the lower their fertility rate is. And it seems to be

00:09:52.320 correlated with the amount of social services that poor people are getting. So the aim to sterilize the 0.98

00:09:57.620 poor is to give them money. So that's why we're giving poor people money.

00:10:02.540 Yeah, they're trying to steal. No, but seriously, in European countries with limited social welfare

00:10:07.220 support, like if they don't have free childcare, if they don't have universal healthcare, fertility rates

00:10:12.280 among wealthier citizens generally show only a weak positive association or sometimes remain lower,

00:10:17.940 especially in Southern and Eastern Europe. So in Southern Europe, and some conservative welfare

00:10:22.180 states like Greece and Italy, with weak higher parental wealth does not strongly correlate or compensate for

00:10:29.240 limited public support. In contrast, Nordic countries and regions with extensive social support show a

00:10:34.540 clearer trend. High income individuals, especially men, tend to have more children. And so what spurred this

00:10:41.220 discourse about this and the paper that Marberth cited that just came out this year? Oh my god,

00:10:46.520 can you hear a text snoring? No. Oh my god. You can put the microphone up there for all of the ladies 1.00

00:10:53.920 watching.

00:11:00.460 I think I've woken him up. Oh dear. Oh, you woke him up.

00:11:04.780 Crumbs. Oh god, I just, when he snores, it's the cutest sound ever, but whatever. I, the moment is past, I ruined it.

00:11:14.980 But so, right, so there was a paper that came out that discussed this trend that is, that is the whole spark of all this.

00:11:24.480 And it's called, let's see, it is the, it is the sexiest and most catchy title of all research papers.

00:11:33.480 A research note on the increasing income, pre-reported parenthood, country-specific or universal in Western Europe?

00:11:41.520 That is, that is the title. Not exactly the best. But the TLDR is, they're trying to argue that wealth is beginning to correlate with having more kids,

00:11:50.920 because having kids is so expensive. They're, they're, they're trying to say we need to give people more money for kids.

00:11:57.180 Like, that, that is literally their takeaway in this whole thing.

00:12:00.680 Which is insane. But here's just, like, the key question they wanted to ask is,

00:12:05.660 has the role of income in enabling parenthood strengthened in Western Europe from 2006 to 2020,

00:12:11.040 and are increasing fertility inequalities present between higher and lower income groups for both men and women?

00:12:16.260 And their main findings were that higher individual income strongly increases the likelihood of having a first child,

00:12:22.940 both for men and women across 16 Western European countries that they studied.

00:12:27.520 The effect is stronger and more widespread in women, especially in countries with robust welfare systems.

00:12:33.940 The role of income as a prerequisite for parenthood has increased over time.

00:12:38.120 Income-based fertility gaps have widened, primarily due to declining birth rates among low-income men and women,

00:12:43.680 not just rising births among higher-income groups.

00:12:47.000 So this is important, as you said, right?

00:12:48.980 The way to sterilize poor people is to give them resources. 1.00

00:12:52.540 UBI would do so much harm to fertility rates from what we've seen in the data.

00:12:56.940 Well, but especially among poor people, and that's the really crazy thing. 0.76

00:13:00.140 Because you'd think, like, oh, well, this is all, and that, that is what is constantly being argued, right?

00:13:04.420 It's like, well, we're, we're not the rich people in this country.

00:13:07.400 We can't afford to have kids, but what's clearly shown in this data is, that's totally the opposite.

00:13:14.860 Like, that is not at all how this is going to work, which is, it just so surprises me.

00:13:20.200 And, but what, what also really surprises me is that the researchers are trying to argue

00:13:27.840 that this is just because it's so expensive to have kids.

00:13:32.780 Well, that actually isn't a terrible argument.

00:13:36.640 So if you're thinking about the amount of aid in the United States that poor people get around kids,

00:13:42.300 it's just comical compared to middle-class people.

00:13:44.600 That's true. That's true.

00:13:46.040 And middle-class people can actually be priced out of having kids,

00:13:49.420 whereas it's very hard to price a poor person out of having kids in the United States.

00:13:52.580 That's true. And for context, in the United States,

00:13:54.400 because we did really extensive research on this to try to create, like,

00:13:57.740 sort of an index of resources for parents,

00:13:59.640 because we thought there would be more for just, like, your average normal parent.

00:14:02.780 But basically, if you're at or below the poverty line,

00:14:05.660 health care is taken care of for, for kids and typically their parents too,

00:14:10.540 or at least their mothers, food assistance, child care assistance,

00:14:14.440 often housing assistance, often heat and electricity assistance.

00:14:17.840 So you really get levels of subsidies that you,

00:14:20.500 you would otherwise just expect in, like, the wealthy Gulf states for all citizens,

00:14:26.280 which is insane.

00:14:27.080 Like, just be impoverished.

00:14:28.880 And there are many families in the United States who actively game the system to create the appearance of poverty,

00:14:36.000 just to get access to these resources, because they're so compelling,

00:14:41.060 which is not the best.

00:14:43.600 But go on.

00:14:45.340 No, I mean, you're right.

00:14:47.480 I was also telling you about this earlier today, which I didn't know about.

00:14:49.960 But, like, true poverty doesn't really exist in the United States.

00:14:54.880 And I know that this is an offensive thing to say.

00:14:56.960 I was pointing out to you that, for example, starvation in the United States,

00:14:59.360 it virtually just doesn't happen.

00:15:00.920 It happens to, like, 150 people a year or something.

00:15:03.080 And almost all of them are elderly people or people who can't move in some way. 0.99

00:15:07.260 Right.

00:15:07.500 Like, if it wasn't the starvation, it would be bed sores or, like,

00:15:11.320 literally their dogs eating them alive or something because they can't move.

00:15:14.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:15.520 Because they're stuck at home and nobody's bringing them food.

00:15:17.440 Like, if you can go out and get food, you're going to be okay in the United States.

00:15:21.600 Well, I want to show you, actually.

00:15:22.960 So the research study that did these graphs and correlations between, like,

00:15:28.100 being more wealthy and having more kids, I was like,

00:15:30.580 just how generous are all these countries that we're looking at?

00:15:33.480 So first I just looked at all the graphs.

00:15:35.260 And then I sorted the European countries that they looked at in this research

00:15:39.640 by just how generous they were in terms of their social services.

00:15:43.520 And I color-coded them.

00:15:46.320 So red is most generous.

00:15:48.900 And orange is slightly middle, like, mid-tier generous.

00:15:52.460 Like, they don't support as much of health care and education and child care.

00:15:58.540 And then yellow is least generous.

00:16:00.680 And pretty much the vast majority of the countries that they looked at here

00:16:03.600 were all extremely generous countries.

00:16:06.320 Even in the ones that are yellow-circled, like the UK,

00:16:08.960 I circled in yellow because it is generally considered to be a little bit weaker.

00:16:13.000 On social services.

00:16:14.540 Keep in mind, the UK still has the NHS.

00:16:16.960 It has nationalized health care.

00:16:19.020 And the caveat with the UK, too, is that the social services in the UK

00:16:22.380 skew toward children really heavily.

00:16:25.820 So the emphasis is more on, like, giving people, citizens, a really strong start.

00:16:30.340 So yellow means a lot of social services?

00:16:32.620 Is the weakest social services.

00:16:34.300 Red is the strongest.

00:16:35.000 The vast majority of the countries that this study looked at are extremely generous

00:16:40.580 in their services, meaning that this really does, this is about countries providing

00:16:46.460 very, very, very generous social services, basically just like free child care,

00:16:52.540 free good health care, and free education, among other things.

00:16:56.300 So that's, that's, that's, it just, it needs to be emphasized that the countries investigated

00:17:02.560 in this academic paper already do a lot to support parents.

00:17:07.400 And I can go into it, like some, some examples, Luxembourg has the highest per capita spending

00:17:13.800 on family benefits.

00:17:14.600 It has extensive free education and health care, substantial child care support.

00:17:19.300 The Nordic countries like Norway and Denmark and Iceland and Switzerland and Finland, they have

00:17:24.040 a really, really high expenditure per person, universal health care, free or highly subsidized

00:17:29.220 education and robust child care systems.

00:17:32.060 Denmark, for example, is noted for the most generous overall welfare package.

00:17:36.100 France leads in overall social spending.

00:17:38.320 Nearly a third of their GDP is devoted to social services, including free health care, subsidized

00:17:43.640 child care and free, free higher education in Germany and Austria and Switzerland and Ireland

00:17:48.660 all spend above 1,000 euros per person yearly on family benefits, maintain

00:17:53.720 generous health care and education systems and support families and have very substantial

00:17:58.360 social programs.

00:17:59.840 So again, like this is, we're talking very generous.

00:18:02.980 This is, this is an American's dream in terms of what we keep asking for. 0.97

00:18:07.280 I just want to emphasize again, that this is just, it's just ridiculous. 0.73

00:18:11.840 Are you saying we need to be socialists now? 0.82

00:18:14.060 I'm not.

00:18:14.540 And speaking of socialists, did someone say socialists?

00:18:17.660 I want to bring Lyman Stone to the chat.

00:18:19.520 So Lyman Stone actually, so one thing that we've, we've talked about in the past and

00:18:25.500 that anyone who discusses fertility talks about is this U-shaped curve in fertility.

00:18:29.900 That's very often discussed, right?

00:18:31.620 Which has to do with income.

00:18:33.200 And it's this, the famous U-shaped graph that, that shows fertility levels being really

00:18:38.980 high among those who are impoverished.

00:18:41.200 And then for the middle class, it just plummets.

00:18:43.700 And then when you see incomes above $500,000 per household or whatever, then it goes up

00:18:50.560 again.

00:18:50.940 And so like, oh, well, having a big family is just a super rich person thing and a super

00:18:54.740 poor person thing. 1.00

00:18:56.300 And Lyman Stone in an article that he published in April 24 called fertility income, some notes.

00:19:03.880 He argues that income reporting in surveys is unreliable for very small subgroups, but that

00:19:10.840 is to say like 1 million plus households.

00:19:13.460 And so he wants to say that, that the findings about ultra high earners can be artifacts and

00:19:19.420 not robust trends.

00:19:21.320 Oh, so he doesn't think that high earners actually have a very good fertility.

00:19:24.100 Yeah.

00:19:24.360 He thinks that like, because so few people are in that income bracket and also responding

00:19:29.500 to surveys that like, probably what we're seeing is like someone accidentally filling

00:19:34.660 in the wrong, like thing on a survey, like just the error.

00:19:38.060 And that's, it's, it's, it is a legitimate concern, but he nevertheless does make some

00:19:44.400 concessions.

00:19:45.300 He, he says there's some evidence on, on causal ties between income and fertility.

00:19:50.280 At least one study shows exogenous positive shocks to, to male income boost fertility.

00:19:56.080 And there are many others using quasi experimental variation from sectoral or occupational exposures,

00:20:03.360 but he also argues male income is an income, the, the figure, the U-shape advocates, essentially

00:20:11.140 he says, rely on for, is for family household income.

00:20:15.280 It includes male income and female income so that he thinks that's not the thing.

00:20:19.920 Like really the thing he would encourage people to look at, and I don't think he's wrong is

00:20:24.540 relative, relative male income that meant men doing disproportionately better seems to correlate

00:20:32.200 more.

00:20:32.580 And that even shows up in a lot of this more recent research that I can't remember who it

00:20:38.460 was when I was going into some more of the, the ephemera of this discourse, people were

00:20:44.300 pointing out that when you look at, when you break out female fertility in these countries,

00:20:52.760 women with higher wealth had higher fertility, but if they had just higher income, they didn't, 1.00

00:21:00.080 it was sort of like a neutral thing.

00:21:01.740 So essentially like if you're working, your, your, your fertility is not going to be higher

00:21:08.080 if you're a woman.

00:21:08.740 And that makes sense because if you're working and you're a woman, it's, it's kind of harder

00:21:14.640 to have a ton of kids and, and we're going to get to that.

00:21:17.800 So, so the, what the public is arguing in terms of what's going on here, because that's what

00:21:22.340 we really want to talk about here.

00:21:23.780 They, the public argues that poorer families are less healthy, poorer families are too busy

00:21:29.380 to trying to make ends meet to start new families and the poorer families have less flexible

00:21:34.380 schedules and they have less work-life balance.

00:21:36.540 And so it's harder to have kids or more kids, poorer families have less stable marriages

00:21:41.760 and partnerships.

00:21:42.880 So they're, they're maybe less likely to even have a partner with them.

00:21:45.720 They can have kids consistently and that wealthier families have stronger social networks.

00:21:50.440 So they have, you know, maybe, you know, grandparents that are wealthy and available.

00:21:54.980 They can take care of kids. 0.90

00:21:56.300 They're more comfortable having more kids.

00:21:57.720 And they also frame children as luxury goods and society has largely framed children as luxury

00:22:04.560 There's been a cultural shift among some wealthy groups, like, especially when you're talking

00:22:08.480 about ultra wealthy groups, which we hang out with having a lot of the kids has become

00:22:11.940 quite the flex.

00:22:13.020 No, but even, I would say among all levels of society, except for like some religious

00:22:18.420 communities, kids are kind of seen as this thing that you do if you can afford them and

00:22:22.540 they're a luxury product, but they're not something there's something you don't have them

00:22:26.080 unless you can afford them.

00:22:27.080 You don't have them unless you have your stable career.

00:22:28.900 Yeah, I think, you know, walking through a grocery store with five kids, I feel like

00:22:32.600 Prince Ali, like, like, and they're all dressed the same as me and they're marching in line

00:22:39.660 and I'm like, you know, it feels like that.

00:22:44.740 It really does.

00:22:46.000 No, there's, you know, everybody tries to look at us and you're like, yeah, I got, I got

00:22:50.540 five kids money.

00:22:52.140 Yeah.

00:22:52.580 No, it really, it really does feel that way, but, but I mean, so I think those are legitimate

00:22:59.460 things, but what I think is much more interesting here is that poor people are becoming like 0.95

00:23:06.140 wealthy people in, in these countries used to live.

00:23:10.280 Kids are being cared for by staff.

00:23:14.000 They're being cared for by, by, by these childcare facilities.

00:23:18.380 They're being cared for by paid people and, and, and, and there, there's more work outside

00:23:25.100 the home.

00:23:25.600 People are leaving the home to go do things just like Lords used to go to parliament or

00:23:31.080 like go out on their trading ships or something.

00:23:33.640 And there's more, there's more focus on material wealth on conspicuous consumption on, on, on,

00:23:41.540 on showing other people how fancy you are.

00:23:44.900 Whereas the wealthy people we know are really starting to behave a lot more like serfs did

00:23:51.280 in the past.

00:23:51.880 We're like, there's less focus on work and there's more focus on really like focusing

00:23:59.520 in on industry of the home.

00:24:01.860 There's more work from home and within the home.

00:24:04.720 And there's less focus on material wealth and conspicuous material consumption and more

00:24:10.880 stealth wealth.

00:24:11.600 Like, look at, look at the rise of stealth wealth, look at the rise of, of, of influencers

00:24:15.260 like ballerina farms where like, they're very, very wealthy, but they, they're living on

00:24:21.080 their like homesteading farm and they're living like a corporate family and the kids are shoveling

00:24:25.920 manure and you know, they're, they're, they're harvesting their own food and pumpkins and making

00:24:31.020 meals from scratch.

00:24:32.580 They're living life like serfs and then like the whole Maha movement is like that too. 0.99

00:24:36.880 You know, it's, it's very much like back to the land, back to the homestead, you know,

00:24:40.820 very, very crunchy, very like no brand names on anything.

00:24:44.620 And there's a lot more focus on autonomy and separation from society.

00:24:49.540 There's this retreat from society. 0.98

00:24:51.100 We're not, there's no balls. 0.98

00:24:52.560 There are no galas. 0.93

00:24:53.600 There's no like, you know, going out and fronting to people.

00:24:56.780 It's very, it's very isolationist.

00:25:00.500 There are balls and galas.

00:25:02.260 It's like when we go to Austin, we often go to like a, a gala or something.

00:25:05.720 Sometimes.

00:25:06.260 Yeah.

00:25:06.540 But it's, I would say it's, it's pretty unusual.

00:25:08.580 It's mostly people retreating to their, if they're really wealthy, I mean, sure.

00:25:12.800 Like Peter Thiel may show up at Hereticon, but then he goes off to his like New Zealand

00:25:17.420 compound or, you know, like these other people and then they disappear to some, you know,

00:25:20.900 to Prospera, to their charter city or to their like homesteading permaculture farm thing. 0.79

00:25:26.840 You know, like in short, I, I think in the end that so much of fertility, again, as you've

00:25:34.440 always said, it's about how your household is composed and where you get your services.

00:25:41.160 You keep saying fertility started to drop with the industrial revolution first when men left

00:25:46.840 the home.

00:25:47.200 And then when women left the home and children left the home and every, all the services 0.88

00:25:50.320 left the home.

00:25:50.980 And because now what being wealthy is, is it's more about everything is coming back

00:25:58.080 into the home.

00:25:59.440 You are able to see this rise of fertility again within the home because there's, there's

00:26:04.560 value in it and there's the time for it and the resources for it.

00:26:08.500 Whereas for the, for those who are poor now, who are now living more like wealthy people

00:26:13.780 are getting door dashed and delivery.

00:26:15.320 And they, you basically have your servants and your livery and, and your conspicuous consumption

00:26:19.860 and, and, you know, the, all this staff that serves you much of it, government subsidized.

00:26:25.580 Now it doesn't matter though.

00:26:26.580 It doesn't matter if it's your own wealth or the government's wealth.

00:26:29.540 When you have the staff, when things are provided from without the home, when, when there isn't

00:26:34.180 this beating heart of your hearth and your family, your fertility drops.

00:26:41.220 And because we're seeing this inversion, I think that's what I know.

00:26:44.040 The best way to stabilize the core is to give them money.

00:26:46.440 That works for both parties.

00:26:48.700 Everyone wins.

00:26:49.500 I mean, this, I think this, this does have interesting implications when it comes to fertility

00:26:53.380 ratio cascades, because as we point out, this is not a warm bodies problem.

00:26:57.380 This is a taxpayer problem.

00:26:59.500 And, and so what you really want, if you're a country that's really concerned about not

00:27:03.340 being able to pay for really essential social services for all these life-saving food programs

00:27:09.780 and, and even the childcare and the healthcare and all this, you need people who are going to

00:27:14.100 generate a lot of tax revenue to pay for it.

00:27:16.020 And the fact that the people who generate a lot of tax revenue are now the ones having

00:27:19.680 more kids power to the people, literally power to like money to the people.

00:27:24.120 Like that, that is a good thing.

00:27:25.900 So could this be the solution?

00:27:27.400 Like, are we already seeing like, because I don't think we expected this, right?

00:27:33.300 We didn't expect that like paying for people's lives would, would actually solve fertility

00:27:43.380 cascade problems.

00:27:44.360 Is this kind of like, I mean, on one hand, it doesn't solve the problem because poor people

00:27:49.140 aren't having more kids, but does it solve the problem because rich people are having

00:27:52.960 more kids?

00:27:53.840 I mean, it kind of, you're doing two things, right?

00:27:56.040 Like you're, you're, you're, you're reducing the population that is most dependent on these

00:28:00.500 services, thereby maybe reducing the financial load while increasing the population that subsidizes

00:28:06.620 these services, therefore increasing revenue.

00:28:08.420 Like, is this actually a subversion of trends that means the problem is going to be potentially

00:28:14.240 solved?

00:28:18.240 You don't know.

00:28:19.160 So my question for you is, does this make you more socialist in your politics?

00:28:25.440 You know, my views are evolving on this actually, because I, what we found, and this, this has

00:28:33.800 been confirmed also, like Scott Alexander, I think mentioned this recently too.

00:28:39.220 So I'm like, okay, this isn't just us.

00:28:41.060 Basically, while cash transfers seem to do a lot of good and really impoverished countries,

00:28:46.020 it's pretty clear that things like universal basic income and cash transfers cause harm in

00:28:50.700 developed countries, right?

00:28:51.720 They're not good.

00:28:52.700 However, it does appear to be that providing in-kind services like free childcare, education,

00:28:59.220 sometimes housing can actually cause pretty beneficial effects or at least neutral effects

00:29:05.540 in developed countries.

00:29:06.980 We looked at this in the Gulf States, like, well, it didn't seem to necessarily, it didn't,

00:29:11.120 it didn't create thriving societies.

00:29:13.220 Like the Gulf States aren't exactly known for their innovation and their, you know, thriving

00:29:19.060 whatever, like they're doing all right.

00:29:21.260 Like, right.

00:29:21.700 Like there's some base school people, their fertility rates are decent in some cases, not, not at all,

00:29:26.880 but like, it could be worse.

00:29:28.920 Right.

00:29:29.340 But like, it's not terrible.

00:29:31.480 So I'm kind of warming up to the idea of providing in-kind services, not money.

00:29:39.000 People don't get to choose.

00:29:40.440 Like, you don't just get your cash transfer, but in-kind services.

00:29:44.700 And this is also saying, I was just talking with you about this today because right now

00:29:47.740 snap is being discussed a lot.

00:29:49.280 It's, it's a form of food assistance in the United States where you get basically a debit

00:29:53.000 card, like money is loaded to your card and you get to use that on a bunch.

00:29:56.820 And a lot of people are just spending it on junk food.

00:29:59.360 There's this other program in at least a lot of States called WIC women, infant and infants

00:30:05.280 and children.

00:30:05.980 It's for pregnant women, infants, and children under five years old that meet certain requirements.

00:30:10.260 And instead of providing money, it will cover very specific, healthy foods.

00:30:15.480 It's like, it will buy you a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs and a whole grain and $26 worth

00:30:21.880 of vegetables per child and like some cheese, like, like the whole foods.

00:30:26.860 This has also made me realize there's another solution to fertility collapse that I had never

00:30:32.100 considered before.

00:30:33.280 What's that?

00:30:33.760 Which is, you can fix the problem of a dependency ratio cascade, uh, within a country.

00:30:40.980 So obviously you can do it by keeping the population stable as it exists right now.

00:30:47.180 Yeah.

00:30:47.520 But you could also do it just by stopping poor people from having kids. 0.99

00:30:51.220 Well, and, but these do that, but in like a very kind way.

00:30:56.560 Oh God.

00:30:57.460 No, we're not talking about sterilizing.

00:30:58.960 No, no, no, no, this is getting way too close to eugenics. 0.52

00:31:02.680 And I don't like, I didn't say this is a good, I'm not saying it's a good idea.

00:31:05.480 I'm just saying it would solve the problem because what you're dealing with in a society

00:31:10.300 is, you know, the, the, the elderly are almost always on the government dole, right?

00:31:15.360 You know, so that's why you get the fertility ratio cascade because too big a portion of society 1.00

00:31:20.580 is elderly, but you have poor people who are also on the government dole.

00:31:25.300 And if you could remove them as a segment of the population, then pretty much no matter

00:31:30.920 how many elderly people you got, it would be a lot more to tip the scales of the system. 0.96

00:31:36.840 Yeah.

00:31:37.560 No.

00:31:38.080 I mean, anyway, this has just been very thought provoking for me and text now needs to eat.

00:31:42.200 So I got to go around, but like, I love you.

00:31:44.560 Thank you for humoring me on this.

00:31:46.220 I'm very excited for my God prowl or whatever it's called.

00:31:50.200 The capown.

00:31:52.660 Whatever.

00:31:52.960 I don't know, man.

00:31:54.420 It's tasty and it's Thai.

00:31:55.220 Cook it in oil again.

00:31:56.160 That was really good.

00:31:57.100 I might use a little bit more oil and then scoop some chili flakes in when you cook it

00:32:02.560 as well.

00:32:03.060 Oh yeah.

00:32:03.420 Chili flakes.

00:32:04.080 Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:05.020 Yeah.

00:32:05.200 I think it could be some chili flakes.

00:32:07.420 And then no other note, the egg was really good.

00:32:10.140 I might do two eggs today.

00:32:11.260 Actually.

00:32:11.940 I asked you about two eggs.

00:32:13.080 You said the serving was fine, but two eggs?

00:32:15.340 Yeah.

00:32:17.080 I'd be more greedy with the eggs if I had two of them.

00:32:20.380 And they were so good.

00:32:21.040 Let's just try two eggs. 0.92

00:32:21.940 It's from our coop, man.

00:32:23.320 I'm so glad you're like actually enjoying some of our coop eggs.

00:32:25.660 Okay.

00:32:26.020 I love you.

00:32:27.280 And I'll see you in the dinner.

00:32:28.300 I love you too.

00:32:28.820 You're amazing.

00:32:30.000 Bye.

00:32:30.200 You're amazing.

00:32:30.920 Gorgeous and so pretty.

00:32:32.520 Great.

00:32:32.780 I know what you're doing.

00:32:33.740 You're just going to set up your Korean romance manga right to the side of the screen.

00:32:38.580 I actually don't even have my, I need to get my phone. 0.95

00:32:41.280 You nerd.

00:32:42.400 But hurry up. 0.86

00:32:43.760 Simone, I have to know what happens.

00:32:45.180 Pull it up.

00:32:45.760 Pull up webtoons.

00:32:46.840 Don't worry about it.

00:32:47.840 I have to know what happens to the empress. 0.83

00:32:51.200 Yes.

00:32:51.960 Simone, I have to know.

00:32:53.620 We really need to cover this on like, for framing them Patreon and Substack, but your

00:32:59.600 secret list of amazing romance manga.

00:33:02.380 We are the biggest nerds in the world.

00:33:04.740 And I think that when people first came to our podcast, they were like, wait, you guys

00:33:09.680 can't be like, at first they were confused.

00:33:12.340 Cause they're like, you look too nerdy to be Republican.

00:33:15.580 Like, and, and then it was like, you got to fashion yourself as like a non-nerd, like 0.91

00:33:20.380 get buff and like look a lot nerdy.

00:33:22.760 You got a lift, bro.

00:33:24.620 And it's like, this is, this is, I am nerd from front to back.

00:33:29.300 This is base camp.

00:33:31.120 Like, do you guys understand what camp is?

00:33:33.560 Is this an old person thing?

00:33:35.200 Like, is everyone too young to understand what camp is?

00:33:38.540 No, but imagine I come on and I'm like really trying to look like, like, like cool and stuff.

00:33:45.140 It would be so cringe.

00:33:46.620 I'd be so cringe.

00:33:47.600 It'd be like Asmogold doing that or something.

00:33:49.500 Yeah.

00:33:50.100 Asmogold recently went viral.

00:33:51.640 I don't know if you saw for showing that he eats just junk food all day and like, so

00:33:55.180 he's always shown that he eats just junk food all day.

00:33:57.600 I think the secret is that he walks to the 7-Eleven to buy the junk food.

00:34:02.200 And as long as he eats it in moderation and, and that's the thing you can eat whatever

00:34:06.660 you want, you know.

00:34:07.980 Yeah.

00:34:08.080 Like that famous Twinkie diet guy.

00:34:11.040 Well, the professor who showed that like on like pure junk food, you could lose a ton

00:34:15.840 of weight.

00:34:16.360 I think actually multiple people did.

00:34:17.900 Cause after also super size me came out, I think a high school teacher demonstrated that

00:34:22.960 you can lose a lot of weight eating while they McDonald's, something like that.

00:34:25.720 Like I can't, I can't.

00:34:26.800 If you are struggling with weight loss, my suggestion would be, as is my suggestion for

00:34:30.940 everything is get naltrexone, look up the Sinclair method.

00:34:35.740 It's yeah.

00:34:36.160 It's less expensive than GLPs.

00:34:38.760 So yeah, it's less expensive than the other things.

00:34:40.600 And it's way healthier for you than like, Oh yeah, that's true.

00:34:43.820 I mean, like as, as much as it can be naltrexone and we're not giving medical advice, by the

00:34:48.360 way, as much as naltrexone can be hard on the kidneys, GLP-1 inhibitors are, which is

00:34:54.260 what they are, right?

00:34:54.880 Is that they are very hard on your digestive system.

00:34:58.240 The side effects are really intense for people.

00:34:59.960 Yeah, naltrexone is a little bad on the liver, but every, all the other things that

00:35:05.360 it cures, like alcoholism and obesity.

00:35:07.980 Yeah, dude, even gambling, gambling's hard on everything, man.

00:35:12.120 And gambling's a really big problem.

00:35:13.400 Well, and, and if you, if you have a problem with, with being too sexual, like you're-

00:35:17.460 Yeah, sex addiction, food addiction, gambling, porn addiction, like all these things.

00:35:22.800 Incredibly effective, and I just hate that it's not more known about.

00:35:25.900 Yeah, seriously.

00:35:27.160 It's, it's, it's one of the biggest-

00:35:28.460 Well, y'all can read Katie Herzog's book.

00:35:29.920 I think it's called Drink Yourself Sober.

00:35:31.380 No, that's not what it is.

00:35:32.420 I can't remember what it is, but check out Katie Herzog's book.

00:35:34.900 She wrote about it in depth.

00:35:36.640 And she's really unhappy with the amount of book sales.

00:35:40.300 Yeah, it's really sad.

00:35:41.040 Well, she had like 12,000 sales or something.

00:35:42.820 Yeah, like just, yeah, abysmal, and she put a lot of work into the launch, and interviewed

00:35:47.840 with all the best platforms.

00:35:50.060 Yeah, I mean, but on, on background, and she didn't want to name you because you're too

00:35:53.440 polarizing.

00:35:55.300 Oh, but whatever.

00:35:56.740 Buy, buy Katie Herzog's book.

00:35:58.360 We like it.

00:35:58.960 We like blocked and reported.

00:36:00.600 I bet Katie Herzog, and well, I think, I think Justy Single just really doesn't like us

00:36:05.220 now.

00:36:05.400 He stopped responding.

00:36:05.660 He used to come to our parties, and now he's like-

00:36:07.540 I know, but also I think he's, he's a little, a little Trump derangement.

00:36:11.700 And yeah, I mean, Katie Herzog is too, but she responded to us at least.

00:36:15.300 I think she cares less.

00:36:17.040 Anyway, we'll get into it.

00:36:18.800 I love you.

00:36:19.380 Here we go.

00:36:19.960 Ready?

00:36:21.220 Okay.

00:36:21.440 Wait, did you think this was the best Christmas ever?

00:36:29.120 Yeah.

00:36:29.800 Do you think so?

00:36:30.420 I want to go in my bed and put this in my bedroom.

00:36:33.300 I want to put this in my bed.

00:36:35.420 It would be like one, two.

00:36:36.960 Well, we'll go up and put them in your bed for future day decorations.

00:36:42.340 You like them, guys?

00:36:43.640 Yeah.

00:36:44.220 Let's go.

00:36:44.840 Let's go, Mommy. 0.99

00:36:45.720 Let's go.

00:36:46.640 Yeah, you're super set.

00:36:47.940 You want to install it right now?

00:36:49.360 Yeah.

00:36:50.800 Let's open up your presents so you can play with those, and then tonight we'll put them

00:36:54.040 in to start future day, okay?

00:36:56.020 Yeah.

00:36:56.540 Does that sound good?

00:36:57.940 Yeah.

00:36:58.560 Okay, keep it safe right here for now.

00:37:00.620 My T-Rex is honey.

00:37:01.880 Here, Octavian.

00:37:02.480 You have it to me, and I'll make sure it goes to your bed.

00:37:04.920 My T-Rex is honey.

00:37:07.480 Honey?

00:37:08.300 Your T-Rex's name is honey?

00:37:09.900 It's going to be the best place.

00:37:11.860 No?

00:37:13.120 What are the colors for future day?

00:37:16.620 Oh, do you want milk and children, Stinson?

00:37:17.800 What are the colors for future day?

00:37:20.000 No.

00:37:20.500 No?

00:37:21.080 What does T-Rex want to be?

00:37:21.900 What are the colors for future day?

00:37:24.040 T-Rex wants to eat sandwiches.

00:37:25.840 He wants to eat sandwiches?

00:37:27.560 Yeah.

Based Camp - December 26, 2025

Giving Poor Populations Money Lowers Their Birth Rate？

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