When Progressives Try to Solve Fertility Collapse their Answers Are Idiotic
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about a new article from the Atlantic on the decline of fertility rates, and how to fix it, and why handouts aren t going far enough. We also talk about how to get people out of the labor force if they don't have kids.
Transcript
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I say that I'd massively increase marginal tax rate
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by lowering the opportunity cost of having children
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And I remember, have you heard of Zilligan Wild?
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That like, it was a cult, but it had all these like...
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And I'm like, this was clearly owned by a cult before.
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Like, if we bought that house, would it have shaped us?
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We definitely got ahead on this cottagecore trend here, right?
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See, I don't think I would be wearing a medieval corset with, you know, a chemise.
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If we were in the house on Batman Road, I would probably have to be wearing a beige jumpsuit
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It's just an article by somebody being like, look, progressives are finally waking up to
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And I see this repeatedly in progressive pieces.
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You know, the New York Times did a front page piece on this recently.
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But the crazy thing is, is I thought as progressives woke up to this, right?
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They would more and more, and I've always, you know, taken this position, that they'd use
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And so, creatively, you know, I point out, and I'm going to put up on the screen, the
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graph that shows that if you sort studies by how large their margin of error is, what
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you will see is all of the studies that show this matter have a huge margin of error, and
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all of the studies that show this doesn't help at all have a very small margin of error.
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If you look at something like a program that was in Hungary, where they spent literally
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5% of their GDP on this last year, so the year before last, because we just passed the
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New Year's, they got their fertility rates up by like 1.6%.
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Considering that, like, it's falling, like, 13% this year in Korea, like, you're getting
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double digits declines in a lot of places, that's irrelevant.
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And so I was like, well, they're going to try to use it to support those programs, and
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it's stupid, and it's not going to work, but, you know, at least, you know, they're part
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Well, to my surprise, they were dumber than I could have even conceded what they actually
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I mean, the thing is, like, handouts, it's a nuanced form of dumb, right?
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Like, money does make a difference, just not nearly enough of a difference.
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You know, it's like saying, oh, I'll help fund your trip to Europe, I'm going to give
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you $50, you know, like, oh, thanks, that's definitely going to get me across the Atlantic.
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The article here was in Quillet, you know, that's like Atlantic's, I think, like, mainstream
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publication or something, or like online publication.
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And the article was called Misunderstanding the Fertility Crisis.
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Of course, like an article where he misunderstands the fertility crisis.
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But of course, he's implying that all of us are misunderstanding the fertility crisis, because
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we think that culture has something to do with this.
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So first, one thing I find really interesting is he talked about how he began to realize this
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Is that he heard his conservative friends who, like, worked at Fox News saying that they
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were working on the fertility rate crisis, and he's like, and I'd never heard of this
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And so I looked at the data, and I begrudgingly suppose that it is a real problem, and we
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I say, and I'm quoting here, I say that I'd massively increase marginal tax rate on the
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second worker in any household to force them out of the labor market, which would lower
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And then in another part of the article, he goes further.
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Punitive marginal tax rates on the second earner in a household would knock many women
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and some men out of the labor force by lowering the opportunity cost of having children, because
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So then he goes on to say in another part of the article, two income households aren't
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vastly more common than they used to be because of a brutal Malthusian competition for increasingly
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So basically, he's arguing against the idea that, you know, as women entered the labor
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And now because of that, we need two income families to work.
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So then he goes on to say, basically, instead, women work because their wages are so much
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There's an expanded females economic opportunity trap.
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And that opportunity cost is what is contributing to the might, mightily to the decrease in fertility.
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So I, I'm like, our listeners, you're smart people.
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Can you immediately see the, the idiocy of this idea that what he is suggesting that we
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It wasn't obvious to you for what he is suggesting that we do.
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He is saying that individuals now as married couples, both people have so much economic
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opportunity that there is no reason to have kids.
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Like the competing things against having kids now are just so much bigger.
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Like all of the things you can do in the world, whether it's the internet or travel or everything
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So what we need to do is remove economic opportunities from people.
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If you could enforce this policy fairly without the very obvious unintended side effect, which
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I'm seeing of our viewers have already figured out.
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But if you could implement this policy, right, it would just impoverish a lot of people, which
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You know, if you remove people's economic potential, you increase their fertility rates.
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But the downside is the obvious effect it's going to have, which is people just won't
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Well, I mean, so yeah, like basically if everyone followed the rules or like you couldn't escape
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from it, like if, if common law marriage was also grandfathered into this.
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What they can then do is it's not get common law marriage.
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You just have more totally single mothers.
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But let's, so I mean, what he's really arguing though, which I think is, is first ironic is
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that this is roughly the same argument made by that conservative sub stack writer who wrote
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the sub stack we discussed on baby booms, who was like, oh, we just need to economically
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Because the problem is it like until men, excuse me, until men are given the opportunity to
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be more prestigious and higher status and women, women won't have marriageable men, which
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Then he's sort of arguing the same thing, but from a very different angle.
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And they're both sort of arguing for effectively the same thing, which is economic disempowerment
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Interesting that I've seen this come from this ultra progressive perspective, but it
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And keep in mind, you know, we're already in a certain situation in this country where
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I think the last numbers I saw, and I want to do a full episode on this, where 50% of
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children born in this country now are born to single mothers.
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I mean, you're probably not helping that much because you, you are assuming, and I seem to
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remember it was something like 10 years ago or something, or 20 years ago, it was something
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It was like a, I got to find this significantly.
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It's just exploded because again, and a lot of people are operating under this assumption
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that the way that our culture is changing and the way things like fertility rates are changing
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and who's having kids is changing has been a linear change.
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And it's just sort of like the stuff they saw in their own childhood, but more.
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We're seeing a complete sea change in who is having kids and these policies.
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So I mean, I want to know, do you have any other thoughts on this policy, Simone?
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It's, it's odd to me because one, this is someone who does have kids and who values kids.
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And, but, but two, like he's choosing a policy that I also think would dissuade more people
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So I was just watching a new segment on why dink couples, you know, exist and why they feel
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And the big, big argument that is made is the financial penalty for choosing any lifestyle
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arrangement that compromises their earning ability is, is meaningful enough for them to
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And this is no different basically saying, oh, well, you know, if you get married, we're
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going to penalize the second earner, like even worse than it is.
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So when you say that he is somebody who has kids and likes kids, I want to go into some
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of the stuff he says about his kids, because it's actually very elucidating.
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If you look at this from the progressive perspective and the way that they see this stuff.
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So he says, quote, I used to roll my eyes at people who said, quote, having kids is the
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The insights of evolution make it painfully obvious.
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After I had my first child, I described to a philosophy PhD friend how my new feelings
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My deep feelings for my children deserve a word other than love, which we use to describe
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the feelings we have for our spouse or an excellent movie.
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And I never felt that before learning that my wife was pregnant and seeing my son for
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By the way, I didn't feel love for my kids the first time I saw them.
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I think that might be a exclusively female phenomenon that has to do with that.
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There's also country songs about like the moment they see the first ultrasound.
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Yeah, I know I hear that, but I feel like it's something you're just supposed to say.
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First time I see babies, I'm like, they look gross.
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So then he goes on to say, my philosopher friend that it sounded like having children
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was a, quote, consciousness expanding experience, end quote, which was a great way to put it.
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So, you know, this guy, now that he has three kids and he has three kids now, you know, and
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And she's like, well, it would limit how much I can travel.
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And like, okay, yeah, denying a human a life, denying one of your kids.
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Like, if you knew that kid, would you be like, yeah, I treated you for travel because I really
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Like, it's so insane that anybody would do that.
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But I think this comes to culture, which is to say the way you culturally frame how you
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think about human life, when a human life begins, what is given up by not having a kid,
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you know, the way we do, where we say, you know, life begins before conception.
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And that that means that when you decide not to have a kid or you do something that prevents
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you from having a kid, you are denying that person existence.
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And then you've got to think, like, what am I denying them existence over?
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And it really reframes it for you, you know, having to explain to that kid in the future,
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like, the things that you thought were more important than them.
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So when he titles the article Misunderstanding the Falling Fertility Rate, what he thinks that
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we and all the other conservatives who care about this are misunderstanding is that culture
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So I'm going to read some quotes here because I found them just absolutely bizarre.
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The conversation has stuck with me because people who worry about low fertility rates focus
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on vague cultural explanations and don't look at the simple ones staring them in the face.
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Opportunity cost is what you must give up to buy what you want in terms of other goods and
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But the concept applies to every action you take.
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People who are concerned, and this is a separate part of the article, people who are concerned
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about the fertility crisis and want to reverse it should be the most interested in understanding
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This is why I find the vague cultural arguments that people raise for having children so frustrating.
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Culture is a set of human actions that evolved.
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Like, everything he has said so far is pretty dumb.
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But then he gets to some right stuff here.
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And there is some stuff that he's saying that is right.
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So culture is the set of human actions that evolved to partially deal with the problems
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Culture is not some magical force outside of economics, politics, and technology, but a
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set of human actions affected by economics, politics, and technology.
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Culture, in turn, affects economics, politics, and technology.
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To argue for changing the culture without changing the rest is unserious.
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The point is, yes, culture is not some magical force outside of culture, economics, and technology,
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So economics, politics, and technology are things that any movement is going to have a
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You know, you can make specific economic changes, but we can study how those affect fertility rates
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because we have innumerous examples of people who have tried this in other countries, and
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And if you make cultural changes, well, then that obviously then impacts the other systems
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And I think that he is afraid that if culture is the explanation, then the answer is going
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to be we have to go back to the way things were.
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And so that's why he has this huge reason to sort of twist his brain to argue for something
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And it would destroy, effectively destroy the thing that I guess would be more traditional,
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But I just, yeah, I don't think he's really thought through it.
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Like, this is why we're in this in the first place is it gets me so mad when so many people
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look at falling fertility and they're like, well, time to take away reproductive rights,
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And like, to see even a progressive person effectively say that really makes my blood
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boil because no, I mean, that's, that's just not, that's not how it works.
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And I think when we look at the past and we think, oh, well, things worked back then because
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Women had a lot of influence within the family.
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They had a lot of economic power within the family too.
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And like legally women were pretty disempowered in many places, but I don't know.
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There is one truth that he's capturing was in this article that I think sometimes lost
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to conservatives in the space is, is the, and progressives in the space as well is he's
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pointing out fundamentally, which is something that we really agree with is that the problem
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The problem is too much money, which is something that he fundamentally gets.
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You know, he's saying that women aren't leaving these positions because they don't have enough
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money, that it's not that the economics of families are depressed.
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It is that there is such a super abundance of opportunity that is competing with wanting
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What I think is missing is, well, then how realistically do you get people to go and have kids without,
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you know, making marriage seem like the worst, but let's, let's humor him on this.
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Let's assume you're going to design an actual economic system that is going to motivate people
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In a healthy way, like, like, like, let's try to do what he's doing, but make this healthy.
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I think people who are having kids are the people who should be getting tons and tons of
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tax advantages, like effectively not paying any tax because they are providing the next generation
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Like, yeah, I think tax, tax, taxes should be a huge thing here.
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I think you need some sort of like incremental decreasing taxes.
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Well, I think the tax, the tax decreases you should get should also, this should only apply
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to parents who are not utilizing low income based state services.
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Like if you are utilizing those that we just finished with Pernatalist.org, putting together
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both a guide to federal resources for parents and for state-based resources for parents.
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And what was really sobering to me is that the vast majority of states have pretty much
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And by that, I mean, like they don't have a few states do have things.
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And some examples of services that states provide to all families in some cases are
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like, oh, free transport, like free public transport for kids to go to school.
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If you're a minor or like, here's this home visiting program or community support program.
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Sorry, I was thinking about different countries, but yeah, good.
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This is United States states because that's where we started.
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And you can find these, by the way, if you go to Pernatalist.org and then under services,
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But the vast, vast, vast majority of services are for low income families.
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You know, I totally, I can't bear the idea of children suffering and going without and
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being hungry and not having the healthcare that they need.
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But you also then shouldn't be incentivized to have more kids if you like literally are not
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financially stable enough to handle those things yourself.
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But parents who are and are creating new tax, especially like, because if you're a family
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that is able to pay for your own children, you are also more likely to produce children
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who themselves will be high income generators and therefore high taxpayers.
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So you should be given the biggest reward in terms of tax cuts for having kids.
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Well, I think there's other incremental things you could do that would work really well.
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By the way, people are wondering what I keep looking at off screen.
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One of our sons, he got a big bag full of rocks, little gemstones for Christmas because
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And now the other kid loves it, you know, but this was a much better gift, but a much
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And now I'm playing with my little horde of gemstones on the table because they're so
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Except now that we've given Torsten, and of course his name is Thor Stone, but of course
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But like, now that we've given Torsten all these rocks, he now like is very, he's like,
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And he'll like freak out about not having, and they'll give him a rock.
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And then I need a, he's like all these, we have no idea what rock he's looking for.
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It's always like one very specific rock out of like the hundreds of rocks he was given
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So the question of like, what could you actually do?
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I think you can, you can, is economically incentivize the steps leading up to having kids
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I think there should be a level of economic incentivization for marriage, but then you need
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So, but I guess you wouldn't have that many people doing it just for the economic incentives.
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Don't people get married like for immigration purposes?
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So a light level of economic incentive for marriage, a heavier economic incentive level,
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and you would want this to scale logarithmically, like with the more kids you have.
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Like if you've been married for five years, then it starts kicking in.
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You could also make it something that could be really good.
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Is the economic incentives kick in at higher levels the earlier you have your first kid?
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So you get this larger tax break because you don't know how much money you're going to
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So again, you know, you are less likely to like try to cheat the system if you're a very
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Because like I'm a wealthy 50-year-old and I can just produce kids and that gets me out
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That's not a useful thing to have in the economy, right?
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Like you wanted to have some marginal increase there, but not a big one.
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What you would want is the huge advantage to come where if you start having kids,
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you know, in your late 20s or mid 20s, and then you end up becoming wealthy after that,
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I think that's where you should get the real advantage so that people sort of normalize
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to having kids much earlier in life, which is what we need if we're realistically going
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I think it was something like, God, what was it?
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Something like in the 1970s, the average age of the first mother, first child in the US
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Like even by 1800 standards, it's not, it's interesting.
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So that means a lot of women were having kids, you know, in 18 and 17 and, you know.
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But I mean, tax cuts aside, well, I mean, yeah, tax cuts aside, there's so many additional
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Like it is insane to me that parents pay for childcare and for tuition with post-tax dollars.
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It's also insane to me that most universities, like if they're giving you financial support
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for kids, but this would be one of the first things that I would really target is they do
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not calculate how many kids you have into that.
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So if you have 10 kids, you are treated the same as somebody who has one kid in terms of
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So the only way that they will give you a break on this is if multiple kids are in the
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So if I have a few in the system at the same time, but the reality is that parents often
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aren't paying for the university out of like their yearly income.
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They're paying for it out of a huge amount that they saved up over decades to send their
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So that is an insane system for how you're pricing this.
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So very obviously, you know, if you want to be fair and deal with these systems, that
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Well, Simone, at least the world is waking up to this to some extent.
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And maybe they'll start to think for more than five seconds about it.
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It's very hard to get people to take this issue as seriously as it needs to be taken.
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But the world is waking up like I'm seeing this now.
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They're begrudgingly like if you say a fertility rate crisis, they're no longer like, oh, you
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must be saying that because you have a breeding fetish, which is like literally that used
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Spring of last year, that was the one of the most common assumptions and conclusions.
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Remember, I was like, what if you love our kids more than?
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I want you to love our kids more than you love me.
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So, you know, these people, you know, something that he talks about in the article is like you
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cannot communicate someone who doesn't have kids what they're missing out on.
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And yet a lot of child free couples are like, you don't understand the love I feel for my
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Well, this is a guy being like, well, you know, I, yeah, I don't want to get gross here.
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They're masturbating an emotional subset that a baby is supposed to fulfill with a pet.
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And then they pour their parenting instinct, you know, instead of into a baby, into a pet,
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you know, this is what somebody is doing when they're using pornography instead of sex or
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They are using their pet for masturbation and it's gross.
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But they're doing it like publicly and, and proudly.
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And it's like, I, this does not come off the way that you think it comes off.
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I saw this one article that made me really sad.
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There was a two sisters and the, one of the wives had written into this magazine about
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In the will, their mom had given additional money to her sister because her sister had
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Like when her sister had kids, the kid sister had a kid.
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Does she know how hurtful this is to me that, that I don't have this additional money for
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Like that she had gotten into this level of psychosis where she actually thinks it costs
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And that like, have you seen how much that refrigerated pet food is?
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I mean, well, no, and then her dog is like the equivalent of like a continuation of the
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And that could have kids itself that would then continue the family, you know, the dog
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in any way, like she's lucky she got a dime from her parent because this woman sounds like
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a psychopath as everyone does whenever they, they clearly and loudly signal that they are using
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