Only Children

[kyrax12]

With the global economic turmoil currently happening, do you think many middle income parents should opt for a single children?

From what I heard, cities like Hong Kong are preferring a single child rather than multiple ones.

It makes sense though. Education is expensive, and having a single child would ensure that many middle income families can allocate more resources to that one child instead of multiples.

Usually this means tutoring lessons, sports lesson, and etc.

What do you think?

 

[Rakehellion]

Here you go: http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24

 

[z1ggy]

Not as long as boning keeps feeling so good.

 

[IronWing]

No children > one child > two children > ...

 

[OCGuy]

"What do people go to 4chan for, Alex?"

 

[surfsatwerk]

"what do people go to 4chan for, alex?"

<.<













>.>

 

[PricklyPete]

Reverse evolution?

 

[_Rick_]

Children are an investment in your retirement.
They may have up-front cost, but without them, you'll be broke when you're too old to work.

 

[OCGuy]

Children are an investment in your retirement.
They may have up-front cost, but without them, you'll be broke when you're too old to work.

This may be the dumbest thing I have read in quite a while. God I love ATOT.

(Assuming you weren't being sarcastic, but it is early and I can't determine if that is the case)

 

[SaurusX]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, imo.

 

[mmntech]

Big families aren't practical and probably never were. The hard truth is the human population can't keep growing ad infinitum.

 

[_Rick_]

I wasn't being sarcastic.
Having strong links to Germany, I can see what's happening, when people don't have enough children.
As the young always pay for the old people (retirement money isn't magic, and bears little correlation with the money that's been paid in 20 years ago), the smaller the young generation is, the less workers there are in a society to support the retired.
I think in Germany there'll soon be more retirees than workers, probably in a decade or two. This means there'll be a large number of people splitting the same productivity, and therefore average income is going to go down.

Sure, you can attempt to invest in other funds, and retire from that, but most investments are directly dependant on the economy they're attached to. If that economy goes belly-up, because there aren't enough children, then your investment will be worth nothing, and you'll go broke.

Of course, I'm all too willing to hear, how you think that analysis is flawed. Immigrants are probably the only way to alleviate the issue, but that's opening a whole new can of worms. (cf. the current situation in Switzerland, for example)

 

[Strk]

This is what happens as countries become developed anyways. Most developed countries that still have decent population growth are doing it through immigration.

 

[OCGuy]

I wasn't being sarcastic.
Having strong links to Germany, I can see what's happening, when people don't have enough children.
As the young always pay for the old people (retirement money isn't magic, and bears little correlation with the money that's been paid in 20 years ago), the smaller the young generation is, the less workers there are in a society to support the retired.
I think in Germany there'll soon be more retirees than workers, probably in a decade or two. This means there'll be a large number of people splitting the same productivity, and therefore average income is going to go down.

Sure, you can attempt to invest in other funds, and retire from that, but most investments are directly dependant on the economy they're attached to. If that economy goes belly-up, because there aren't enough children, then your investment will be worth nothing, and you'll go broke.

Of course, I'm all too willing to hear, how you think that analysis is flawed. Immigrants are probably the only way to alleviate the issue, but that's opening a whole new can of worms. (cf. the current situation in Switzerland, for example)

In the US, Social Security is already an upside-down pyramid. We had a population explosion after WWII, referred to as "Baby boomers". As they all retire, SS (which is very meager) starts to dry up.

Immigrants are *generally* poor, and pay no income tax to start new social programs, which isn't going to happen anytime soon.

The only person you should rely on is yourself. If you end up retired with only SS to fall back on, then yes I hope you have children successful enough and willing to support you. But having children as a safety net can not only potentially back-fire, it is selfish.

Factor in today's cost of raising a child, along with the rising average age that offspring live with their parents, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy due to your retirement funds getting eaten up.

 

[nageov3t]

Big families aren't practical and probably never were. The hard truth is the human population can't keep growing ad infinitum.

big families were probably super practical in the olden days, when infant mortality was extremely high (keep pumping out babies, because who knows how many will live past childhood) and more kids meant more labor to work the family farm.

 

[_Rick_]

The only person you should rely on is yourself. If you end up retired with only SS to fall back on, then yes I hope you have children successful enough and willing to support you. But having children as a safety net can not only potentially back-fire, it is selfish.

Wait, what?



Not to mention, that I fail to see how having children is selfish, since they contribute to everyone's society, and are currently in demand in most advanced economies.

Not having children will potentially back-fire just as badly, and is way more selfish.

 

[OCGuy]

Wait, what?

Not to mention, that I fail to see how having children is selfish, since they contribute to everyone's society, and are currently in demand in most advanced economies.

Not having children will potentially back-fire just as badly, and is way more selfish.

I don't think you understand how the US system works. The freedom to fail and be a net-loss for society is just as sacred as the freedom to succeed in this country.

But this isn't P&N, so ill leave it at that.

 

[amdhunter]

"What do people go to 4chan for, Alex?"

 

[_Rick_]

I understand how the system works, my argument is that it doesn't matter how it works, when the economy goes down the shitter, because then everyone is screwed, no matter how large their savings appeared to be.
By continually infusing children into the system at a sufficient rate, the drop in workforce can be more gradual, and the economy may adapt, saving everyone's asses.

Few individuals are free from interactions of societies behavior - a free market depends very much on the market. By having an unsustainable market, the economy will tank, taking many individuals assets with them - be it via banks, or by crashing the real estate market.

I suppose if your retirement plan is to outright buy a ranch and stockpile non-growable items of use (fuel, seed, spares, water) then you can comfortably retire, as long as the farmer you employ doesn't think he can get away with murdering you

 

[z1ggy]

I don't think you understand how the US system works. The freedom to fail and be a net-loss for society is just as sacred as the freedom to succeed in this country.

But this isn't P&N, so ill leave it at that.

I'm pretty sure he's not from the US, so it makes sense he hasn't a clue how SS works.

Rick, it's a persons responsibilty to save money in a 401k, an IRA or other long term means of security. Relying on your children to support you is a terrible idea. Especially if your an asshole or raise asshole kids who end up hating you.

 

[halik]

Having kids is no way connected to ability to pay for said kids.

 

[OCGuy]

I understand how the system works, my argument is that it doesn't matter how it works, when the economy goes down the shitter, because then everyone is screwed, no matter how large their savings appeared to be.
By continually infusing children into the system at a sufficient rate, the drop in workforce can be more gradual, and the economy may adapt, saving everyone's asses.

Few individuals are free from interactions of societies behavior - a free market depends very much on the market. By having an unsustainable market, the economy will tank, taking many individuals assets with them - be it via banks, or by crashing the real estate market.

I suppose if your retirement plan is to outright buy a ranch and stockpile non-growable items of use (fuel, seed, spares, water) then you can comfortably retire, as long as the farmer you employ doesn't think he can get away with murdering you

You go ahead and rely on government and offspring to support you through retirement, and I will attempt to acquire and grow enough resources to be self-sufficient excluding SS, which I have paid into in amounts much larger than most people my age. :thumbsup:

 

[fleshconsumed]

I'm pretty sure he's not from the US, so it makes sense he hasn't a clue how SS works.

Rick, it's a persons responsibilty to save money in a 401k, an IRA or other long term means of security. Relying on your children to support you is a terrible idea. Especially if your an asshole or raise asshole kids who end up hating you.

You missed his point. His point was that if there are not enough kids to replace the aging population, the population shrinks. When population shrinks, so does economy. Your 401K and IRA are investments in individual companies with valuations tied to the overall size of the economy.

Say you have CocaCola stock. 50 years from now the population declines by 10%, so CocaCola sales decline by 10% and so does the price of their stock, and so does the value of your 401K. This is what he is talking about.

You can look at Japan economy and their declining population problem. To be honest, I think it's hard to pin precisely what's wrong with Japan economy, but I'm sure the declining population is not doing them any favors.

 

[Kaido]

From what I heard, cities like Hong Kong are preferring a single child rather than multiple ones.

I have a friend who moved from Hong Kong. They were paying $10,000 USD a month for their apartment in the city. They had a maid, but they weren't even considered wealthy there...just kind of like here in America, "well enough" off, not rich.

 

[_Rick_]

I'm pretty sure he's not from the US, so it makes sense he hasn't a clue how SS works.

Rick, it's a persons responsibilty to save money in a 401k, an IRA or other long term means of security. Relying on your children to support you is a terrible idea. Especially if your an asshole or raise asshole kids who end up hating you.

Yes, but the 401k is no guarantee that the money you receive will have any worth by retirement.
Why it may be backed by some government guarantees, that's the only thing that prevents them from going worthless, when either inflation hits, or quite simply the investments made with the money turn sour.
So you're still dependent on the government honoring your investment, should the bank be unable to do so.

That's what I'm trying to get at - your retirement money isn't magic, just because it's not state managed. It will lose value (you can only hope that the returns stay above inflation), and it may disappear down to the state-guaranteed amount. And that amount is also not guaranteed to be kept up-to-date with inflation.

So, as much as you believe that you can now independently prepare for your retirement, you're still very much dependent on the economic situation when you eventually hit retirement. And that situation is going to be dire, if there is a significant shortage of workers relative to non-workers.
Completely independent of how well or badly the SS-funds are looking.

edit: shoutout to fleshconsumed for getting my point - sorry I failed so hard to get it across