Is this some kind of April Fool's day joke?

Because if it isn't, this joker needs to slapped upside the head, repeatedly.

We aren't living under a Marxist government. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

More proof that the Left never met a tax increase that they didn't like. (Because they themselves don't pay taxes, as we've seen with numerous White House and Congressional officials.) If I'm not badly mistaken, I already pay a significant amount in property taxes to support schooling for other people's children. If I have to pay a non-parent surtax, do I get to deduct that?

The least we can do is offer them a bigger tax break.
Isn't this already the case? When Hubby and I filed taxes this year, we got "money back" because we have kids. (Yes, it was money back, we make just too much to qualify for an earned income credit, but I understand that many parents get more back than they paid in.)

Yet it is also true that we've stacked the deck against parents in all kinds of ways.
Who is this "we?" No one held a gun to my head and forced me to have children.

raising a child born in 2012 will cost a middle-income family a cumulative total of $301,970 over 18 years
And the fact the children are expensive is pretty common knowledge. If you don't want to pay to raise your child, don't have the child. (At least, that is how it would work in an ideal world.)

the nonparent has far more disposable income to play with
Duh? Again, it's not like this is a big secret that no one knows about until after they have a kid.

the satisfactions of parenting can be their own reward.
That is pretty much how it should be. I'll take being poor* and having my kids over having extra disposable income and not having them. Which was my choice. Amy chose not to have kids, so why should she retroactively be forced to support mine?

*I am not poor. I am not rich by any stretch, and I don't get to eat out, or travel or buy frivolous clothing very often, but I have a house, my own vehicle, cable t.v. and a smart phone. Not to mention, a fridge and freezer full of food, plenty of clothes, and I actually like living in a (much more affordable) small town.

While nonparents can focus on their jobs in laserlike fashion, parents are rarely in a position to do the same. Every time a sick child keeps a parent home from work, her earnings suffer, either directly, because she's taking an unpaid leave of absence, or indirectly, because she's missing out on opportunities to climb the corporate ladder.

People who work less make less.

People who don't "focus on their jobs in laserlike fashion" make less than those who do.

Yup. What's the beef?

Sorry, but I'm for the other direction -- sales tax rather than income tax. And smaller government. Far smaller.

1. Consumption taxes have their uses, but they are also regressive. 'Soak the impecunious' is not an appealing idea.

2. No occidental country other than Israel has a super-replacement fertility rate, so encouraging fertility is utile.

3. Again, the larger the household, the lower the per capita income therein. Credits or rate adjustments merely act to associate tax collections with the quantum of income over staple expenditures.

The dollar figure for raising a child is an example of meeting a targeted figure, not an independant finding.

Try the figure for an Amish or Navajo child.

For what it's worth, Cousin Dave, Salam is a conservative who also writes for National Review. I suspect that if he got his desired tax policy, he'd get a seriously result not particularly palatable to conservatism: single mothers would get a tax break for having children, which would mean even less incentive for marriage.

I think it's a good idea. For a good look at the American future under this plan check out China, India, Sao Paolo. There's still room to cram a few more bodies in there.

Sans water and breathable air, of course, but kids use so little.

"we will help give America's children a better start in life"

Does she know what parents really buy with their refund? A big friggin TV. That'll give the children a leg up.

Tax policy is used to create incentives for different kinds of behavior. If we want to incent people to have more children, tax policy is one means to do so.

In general, governments have a very limited number of ways to get people to change behavior. They can try to exhort people to behave in particular ways (in the US, this is often called the “bully pulpit), provide economic incentives for people to choose the particular behavior, or use the justice system to force people to follow the behavior.

One of the biggest complaints about the US tax system is that it has built up so many different kinds of incentives over the years that it is no longer really aligned to any particular policy goals. That may be true but it does not invlaidate the use of tax policy to provide incentives.

1. Consumption taxes have their uses, but they are also regressive. 'Soak the impecunious' is not an appealing idea.

Just because you have consumption taxes doesn't mean you can't provide certain exemptions. For instance, in Florida there is no sales tax on food one buys in a grocery. But if you go out to eat, or order delivery, *boom* sales tax.

And then there's the Fair Tax:

The FairTax provides a progressive program called a prebate. This gives every legal resident household an “advance refund” at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWorks

Of course, the downside for the government is that for the first time in a long time people will get all of their paycheck straight up. They should fear that people who can do the math will say "hey, WTF have you people been doing with my money?"

10/10/09 - Robin Hanson in Denying Dominance
=== ===
Humans attend closely to status, an important part of status is dominance, and we show dominance when we tell others what to do. Telling someone else what to do affirms status.

We do not notice most of our status moves, and we attribute them to other motives. When possible, we claim the most admired of motives, altruism. We think we are directing others in order to help them, not to dominate them.
=== ===

The most glorious imposition of status is to take money from people (taxes), especially from the most powerful and wealthy people. Then, give that money to me so that I can right the wrongs of the universe by doing things so much better than you can.

I will correct the chaos which is your life and replace it with well-designed order and regularity. My door is always open to give you good advice. You're welcome.

"For what it's worth, Cousin Dave, Salam is a conservative who also writes for National Review. "

I stand corrected. However, the point stands that when people whose life goals are not in line with government policy get singled out for punitive treatment, it breeds contempt for the law and encourages wealth to flee the country. I guess the next move would be travel restrictions and capital controls on the childless, to "encourage" them to fall in line.

Disgusting, but not new. Childless women especially are denigrated, often cruelly, by uber moms. Since we "have no life" and "don't understand" the anguish of mommy martyrdom, we're often expected to clean up after them.

For a good look at the American future under this plan check out China, India, Sao Paolo.

China and Brazil both have below-replacement fertility rates. I certainly hope we do not have that in our future. (For Germany, that future is now and has been for a generation). As for India, total fertility rates have declined so steadily for the last 50 years that its a reasonable wager that they will fall below replacement levels in a decade or so.

While we are at it, the population density of the State of Sao Paulo is lower than that for the State of Maryland.

However, the point stands that when people whose life goals are not in line with government policy get singled out for punitive treatment, it breeds contempt for the law and encourages wealth to flee the country.

The trouble is, someone's interests will be injured no matter how you restructure the tax code. Parents with children amount to just about the most generic interest there is bar wager-earners-in-general.

+1
to especially Jazzhands, but also Radwaste, Hubbard and smurfy

Disgusting, but not new. Childless women especially are denigrated, often cruelly, by uber moms.

You need to visit some Catholic sites where mothers tell tales of people's remarks on their brood of children. It's sort of grossly amusing.

While we are at it, society should never be neutral between procreation or the lack of it.

Just because you have consumption taxes doesn't mean you can't provide certain exemptions.

I understand that, but that causes efficiency losses by altering relative prices.

A better idea would be to make final sales taxes completely non-discriminatory and then restore the real income of the impecunious through a general tax credit. However, if it be your business to complain that the childless are being 'soaked', you're not going to advocate that.

Does she know what parents really buy with their refund?

Money is fungible. What they 'buy' is not that lumpy purchase undertaken after receiving the check, but their whole consumption bundle. Charges for flat screens are a very small portion of what people spend.

Tax credits don't seem to incentivize people into having kids.

Money isn't what drives people into having kids.

I was talking to some immigrant Hispanic ladies and they were talking about their daughter and how the more educated a woman is the more it kills the desire for kids. They were saying it in a pitying way.

Like I feel so sorry my daughter is so focused on being a doctor she will never know the joy of kids.

And smaller government. Far smaller.

A piece of unsolicited advice: look at what the state does and ask if we can do without it and speculate as to what the expenditure might be if it were better run.

Money isn't what drives people into having kids.

Decisions on procreation may be fairly insensitive to pecuniary considerations. It is implausible that they are completely insensitive.

"For what it's worth, Cousin Dave, Salam is a conservative who also writes for National Review. "

He's on the contributors list at National Review. He's less a 'conservative' than an eccentric figure who has not been assimilated to the Borg-left (rather like R.M. Kaus and Megan McArdle, though with a different set of preferences).

> China and Brazil both have below-replacement
> fertility rates. …[Hope] we do not have that
> in our future.

   ☐  Correct 
   ☑  Incorrect

> society should never be neutral between
> procreation or the lack of it.

   ☐  Correct 
   ☑  Incorrect

> then restore the real income of the
> impecunious through a general tax credit.

   ☐  Correct 
   ☑  Incorrect

> What they 'buy' is not that lumpy purchase
> undertaken after receiving the check

   ☐  Correct 
   ☑  Incorrect

> look at what the state does and ask
> if we can do without it

   ☑  Correct 
   ☐  Incorrect

> speculate as to what the expenditure might
> be if it were better run.

   ☐  Correct 
   ☑  Incorrect

> Decisions on procreation may be fairly
> insensitive to pecuniary considerations.
> It is implausible that they are completely
> insensitive.

   ☑  Correct 
   ☐  Incorrect

Because Correct! INCORRECT!

Don't pout, Snooples.

Unlike other commenters, Arty covered a lot of territory, demonstrating ruminative (if faulty) consideration of several themes. He/She was specifically not speaking like a six-grader who's just learned of a job called "economist," and fantasizing about what it might be like. Despite often being wrong, his/her thoughts deserved respectful survey.

Also---

> 'Soak the impecunious' is not an appealing idea

☐  Correct
☑  Incorrect

At the very least, it's prettier than people say it is.

Evidently Crid

1. Has it in for poor people.

2. Believes we should never contemplate improvements in the performance of public agencies.

3. Thinks money is not fungible and that people's expenditure decisions are completely in the moment.

4. Thinks he knows better than the World Bank what the total fertility rate of Brazil is and what China's is.

5. Thinks society should die out.

6. Fancies he's intelligent and knowledgeable enough to be grading other people's remarks.

Thanks, Art, but I'm pointing at the areas where people live like animals - in Baltimore, since you like Maryland, Sao Paolo (the city, not the surrounding countryside) - but feel free to cite statistics and not breathe the air or wallow in the crime, feces, poverty, and hunger if that helps.

Especially in the booming population centers of industrial China. Yikes.

Actually, lest anyone think I'm anti-Art Deco, the question of 'less than replacement' birth rates begs the question: do we really WANT to have 7, 8, 12, 15, 30 billion humans on the planet?

I mean, Blade Runner was a cool-looking movie, but even they opted to go off-world to escape the crush.

If you like, check this out, by the ultra-conservative Don Feder:

http://www.grasstopsusa.com/df081213.html

I wrote back and suggested, politely, that he consider that while it's true that for centuries, couples had children for cold, selfish, practical reasons, even when it meant their kids would never go to school, that practice did NOT include having children they didn't need, didn't want, and could avoid having, just for the sake of the economy!! (Religious reasons might be a different story.)

Of course, he didn't respond.

A society where couples have only two or fewer children - if any - has only three economic choices, to my knowledge (not counting making birth control inaccessible, I trust!):

1. Create more opportunities and tax incentives for people who would LIKE to have children but can't even afford to marry

2. Loosen the immigration laws, especially for refugees

3. Bite the bullet and tell the voters that we will all, young and old, have to revert to an economy that is based on individuals' saving rather than spending - which, according to historian David Tucker, was the way of pretty much the whole world before the 20th century. (IIRC, he said that a popular plot in 19th-century novels was that of a spendthrift wife learning the error of her ways, and the family would live the happy, thrifty life ever after.)

I mean, what is so great about an economy based heavily on credit card debt, encouraging people to buy stuff they don't need, and not-so-wanted babies?

However, if NY Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat and columnist Betsy Hart are any indication, a lot of people prefer none of the above - they just want to shame people who refuse to have more children than they want or can afford for being "decadent" and "materialist." (Naturally, they won't even talk about how even rich couples don't necessarily WANT children and therefore would not be good parents.)

More on Douthat in this thread:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/12/30/do_you_have_unr.html

Excerpt:

Not surprisingly, (Douthat) says nothing about the childfree population as opposed to the childless - that is, if more and more people are turning away from parenthood for reasons that have nothing to do with economics or lack of a good marriage partner, he doesn't want to hear about it.

Thanks, Art, but I'm pointing at the areas where people live like animals - in Baltimore, since you like Maryland,

I used to live in Baltimore. No, people do not live like animals there. Baltimore had and has the same problems that inner cities do and which ill-structured institutions and a certain mentality among the political class perpetuate. Baltimore does not have a problem with population density. It would benefit from a federative metropolitan government with an adequate tax base and diversified run of office holders, a metropolitan police force, suspension of property tax collection in slums, modification of electoral procedures, a restructuring of the welfare system, and ABOVE ALL supervision of the police force by non-idiots.

Actually, lest anyone think I'm anti-Art Deco, the question of 'less than replacement' birth rates begs the question: do we really WANT to have 7, 8, 12, 15, 30 billion humans on the planet?

Whether we want to or not, the problem that Germany and Japan faces is a potential demographic death spiral. Younger cohorts are smaller than older cohorts.

My childless ass has no life, I and am quite happy with it.

Now go and pay for your own shit.

"Whether we want to or not, the problem that Germany and Japan faces is a potential demographic death spiral. Younger cohorts are smaller than older cohorts."

Oh shut up. I'm sick of hearing it. You don't deal with a Ponzi scheme by adding more layers to it. I don't give a fuck about the preponderance of old people, other than the fact that is a reflection of too many people in general, and it's going to take care of itself, at least in some countries. Even though I'm well on my way to becoming an old person myself.

Japan is an extremely crowded, beautiful country that will in future years become less crowded.

Since when is the failure of stupid social programs a reflection on humanity? It's the programs that were stupid. Everyone else figured out the facts just fine.

Oh shut up. I'm sick of hearing it.

It remains a social problem whether or not you're sick of hearing about it.

Japan is an extremely crowded, beautiful country that will in future years become less crowded.

Europe was 'less crowded' in 650 ad than it was in 250 ad. 'Less crowded' had some unfortunate auxilliaries.

All of us come into this world in a dependent position and most of us leave in the same circumstances and productive work is done by people betwixt and between. What gets troublesome is when the sources of productive manpower are systematically outnumbered by those in need of care due to senescence. Given the attitudes on this board, I am beginning to get the impression that most of you would put them out on ice floes.

Which is why the political class would do well to pay you no heed.

Oh shut up. I'm sick of hearing it. You don't deal with a Ponzi scheme by adding more layers to it. I don't give a fuck about the preponderance of old people, other than the fact that is a reflection of too many people in general, and it's going to take care of itself, at least in some countries. Even though I'm well on my way to becoming an old person myself.

Japan is an extremely crowded, beautiful country that will in future years become less crowded.

Since when is the failure of stupid social programs a reflection on humanity? It's the programs that were stupid. Everyone else figured out the facts just fine.

Posted by: Pirate Jo at April 1, 2014 5:23 PM

Life is a Ponzi scheme. One that doesnt work well in cultures with declining birth rates.

The question is not will people in general inherit the earth. We may or we may not, if some cosmic cataclysim intervenes.

The question for humantity is "which cultures" with which values will inherit the earth?

I for one, as a religious agnostic would prefer it be the Catholics the Mormons and the Jews, rather than the Muslims.

And right now, the US, Europe, and Japan are losing the population wars to some really poisonous cultures.

And you dont know jack shit about Japan. Tokyo is rather crowded, but the rural areas, (like where we live) are much more open than any of the states on the eastern seaboard of the US.

> 1. [Etc.]

I hate poor people! …And all that stuff. And yes, I'm you're towering superior in all respects.

Over the years, many thoughtful friends have asked: "Cridmo, is it a burden for you to be so clear-headed while moving through America's tawdry swirl of reductive rhetoric and transparently egotistical posturing?"

(It's not a bad question!)

"No," I tell 'em. "After all, each of us has gifts and weaknesess… The presumption and desperation for approval seen in the common man are built from private humiliations and punishing resentments, torments neither felt not seen in orderly spirits such as yours and mine."

Then my friends and I will kinda chuckle for a moment, and then we'll smile primly.

But… There is one fantasy.

D'yever wish y'could Velcro™-rip a fully-charged mondo-phaser from your beltline, Spock-style, and stun some of these fuckers into a healthy coma for two hundred years, and then caffeinate them to their personally-typical levels of consciousness and social acuity —no matter how feeble those attunements might be— in the America of the twenty-third century?

Because I wish I could do that all the time. Happens several times a day.

Because when you read the pop lit of the 17th & 18th centuries, it's pretty obvious that the guy on the street was full of shit. He had despicable ideas about nature, women, authority, wealth, illness and cosmology. And music.

He was convinced his understanding was golden & bankable, that humility need not be a factor in his judgment. After all!: The Renaissance, Dood, the Renaissance…

Human nature was a problem in those days. Human nature hasn't changed.

Today the guy on the street is certain that nothing in his head could ever be as loathesome as the slavery of Africans, or as misguided as bucketload-bloodletting for consumption.

But I bet the guy on the street is wrong. I bet that —if America continues to improve as it has in the last 20 decades— the guy on the street today could have ten minutes of conversation with a high-schooler in a diner in 2214, and the teen of of the future would be no less appalled by the guy's beliefs. Or by the guy's certitude.

(Specifically, beliefs about the universal applicability of government power, the cancer of mundane policy, our responsibilities to the poor, and the mechanics of public discourse. But these are guesses on my part.)

(They're brilliant guesses… but still.)

So that's one daydream: The pitiless deflation of somnabulent conceit through time travel.

In another daydream, my phaser has all the usual modes.

Bad link in the previous comment.

I ache with regret, but will make it up to you one day.

It amazes me on a daily basis how many people think others should pay for their life choices. I already pay for schools I don't use (and frankly I don't think these kids are learning much in there anymore other than how to be barely-literate sheep), I don't get tax breaks, and my carbon footprint is MUCH smaller than anyone's who has kids. So I'm already doing more than my fare share to help out, thank you very much.

"I ache with regret, but will make it up to you one day."

No you don't, but I trust that you will make it up to me. You are just that kinda guy.

In another daydream, my phaser has all the usual modes.

Whatever.

It amazes me on a daily basis how many people think others should pay for their life choices. I already pay for schools I don't use

That happens over the life cycle. Health and life insurance also involve paying for something you're not using right now.

That happens over the life cycle. Health and life insurance also involve paying for something you're not using right now.

That's why both are, and morally must stay, voluntary individual choices.

> You are just that kinda guy.

Exactly. Each of us is constrained by identity.

> Whatever.

When a phaser is dialed for maximal throughput, targets needn't bother with blasé capitulation… But your courtesy is noted.

> I'm already doing more than my fare share
> to help out, thank you very much.

Twitter has been all over the Salam thing. I haven't read it all, just passages. But we gotta remember these guys are in the business of saying vaguely provocative things to punch their website hit numbers, etc.

What I mean is, there's no way to tell if he's kidding.

Fluke & Kagan and many others sincerely affirm that distant strangers are responsible for the cost of a woman's birth control... And yet those strangers will have no concern for who and when she fucks. That makes sense to them.

So this guy might be serious.

That's why both are, and morally must stay, voluntary individual choices.

Evidently Daghain never went to school.

Actually, lest anyone think I'm anti-Art Deco, the question of 'less than replacement' birth rates begs the question: do we really WANT to have 7, 8, 12, 15, 30 billion humans on the planet? ~ Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 1, 2014 4:2 0 PM

Depends. As Michael Porter points out, growing populations spur technological advances in dealing with the inevitable issues of overpopulation, pollution, food production, etc.

US cities in the early 1900s were overcrowded, polluted cesspools.

Power plants burning soft coal and an inability to transmit power generated elsewhere over long distances left most cities so polluted that folks with means moved out of them to the suburbs. Demand for better living conditions drove innovation in power generation and transmission. As a result, power plants could be located far from population centers.

Innovations in structural engineering (and the invention of elevators) spurred the construction of high-rise buildings which eased overcrowding by enabling people to live more comfortably in the same ground space.

Malthus forgot to (or intentionally chose not to) make allowances for technological advancements in his theories - as do most zero population growth advocates today. Instead of the world running out of arable land due to overpopulation, it figured out how to grow more food on less land and expanded its living space vertically.

I mean, Blade Runner was a cool-looking movie, but even they opted to go off-world to escape the crush. ~ Posted by: Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 1, 2014 4:2 0 PM

We really shouldn't make policy based on a 1980s movie based on a 1960s science fiction novella - even one as cool as Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

We're already allowed propaganda films like An Inconvenient Truth and Bowling for Columbine to have way too much influence on government policy.

And those polluting power plants were an improvement over each and every house and building burning soft coal for heat.

The fairest taxation proposal I've ever heard was from the extremely prophetic 1975 John Brunner novel, The Shockwave Rider. The book predicts the Internet, viruses, TiVo, smartphones, hackers, and data mining - among other things- back when TV had 3 channels and most phones still had to be dialed.

"Categorizes occupations on three axes. One: necessary special training, or uncommon talent in lieu - that's to cover people with exceptional creative gifts like musicians or artists. Two: drawbacks like unpredictable hours and dirty working conditions. Three: social indispensability"

Are people playing identity games again? Puppetry?

I have a better idea than that Salon article.

NO

I really hate the argument that parents are slighted when they are parents because they wanted to be. For those who slipped up or got raped they didn't bother putting the shit up for adoption did they? I am already on the hook for their schooling, government programs for kids or WIC, or the multitude of other local things.

How about the so-called parents make sure that having kids at the expense of other things fits what they want in life.

"Categorizes occupations on three axes. One: necessary special training, or uncommon talent in lieu - that's to cover people with exceptional creative gifts like musicians or artists. Two: drawbacks like unpredictable hours and dirty working conditions. Three: social indispensability"

Posted by: bmused at April 1, 2014 11:56 PM

You know what does this job better than the smartest best trained bureaucrat?

The free market.

OK first of all Crid how do you make those boxes?

So there are several questions...

1) Is sub-replacement fertility a problem?
2) If so, should the government intervene?
3) If so, how?

To me, it seems unlikely that people aren't having kids because their taxes are too high... in my admittedly anecdotal experience people put off having kids because there are several life goalposts they want to meet first, (College, grad school, marriage, a solid career foundation) and by the time they've met them they're in their early 30s, which doesn't leave them much time to have tons of kids. And the longer you wait, the more likely you are to encounter problems. So one solution would be for the government to facilitate or fund fertility treatments, including possibly the adoption of leftover embryos for infertile couples to adopt and incubate.

The second problem is with most women working full-time, having a whole tribe of kids makes no sense. By the time the parents get home, they're not going to want to put 10 kids to bed. So logistically, 1 or 2 kids makes more sense. Maybe 3. Having 2 parents full-time working leaves very little time left over for them to care for their kids. So if we wanted government involvement, there'd have to be some solution here, maybe policies support families with a stay-at-home parent, or two part-time parents, or funding the sorts of jobs where people work from home.

Again, that's assuming
a) sub-replacement fertility is a problem
and
b) ... and the government needs to intervene.

Both are big "ifs" aren't they?

To me, it seems unlikely that people aren't having kids because their taxes are too high... in my admittedly anecdotal experience people put off having kids because there are several life goalposts they want to meet first

1. Most people are in wage earning occupations.

The second problem is with most women working full-time, having a whole tribe of kids makes no sense.

About a third of the workforce was female in 1957, when the tfr was 3.5 children per woman per lifetime. Occidental countries in general have depressed fertility rates (as does the affluent Orient), but the severity and durability of the problem varies a great deal from one place to another. Israeli Jews have super-replacement fertility rates. The United States had a period of moderately subreplacement fertility from around 1975 to 1990 but generally has been around replacement. Ireland has remained at replacement. Britain and France have had a fertility recovery and are around replacement. Germany and Austria have been below replacement for more than three decades; they are stuck with a tfr of 1.4, which is consistent with the eventual emergence of a death spiral where cohorts decline in size by a third over generational timespans.

So Art Deco what do you see as the cause?

No clue. Following suggestions:

1. Miscellaneous changes in taste preferences.

2. Risk aversion concerning family formation and maintenance. Between 1967 and 1979 the society as a whole flipped to a different social ecosystem and there have been incremental changes since then. (I think this in particular causes men to delay marriage, not merely because husbands are understood to be disposable, but because available women often have bastard children already and a dubious history).

3. Changing labor economics (driven to some extent by these other factors) which have redistributed wage and salary income away from heads of households and have added impediments to entering the labor force full time.

4. (Perhaps) secular trends in the distribution of tax burdens.

--

In an earlier age, we'd have added the decline in the share of employment in agriculture, but that could only be a small factor re the last fifty odd years.

--

I suspect that altering tax burdens will have an agreeable effect on the margins (though that may be enough to induce a switch from mildly sub-replacement fertility to replacement-level fertility). Changes in public policy which would act to reduce the propensity of prospective workers to devote time and money to formal schooling would help some. Changing matrimonial and abortion law might help but that would be intermediated through the culture: the law educates, people's concept of human relations changes, and that change induces a greater orientation toward domestic life. I think that supposes, though, an interim period of more risk averse behavior by women which would reduce fertility for a period. Replacing means-tested welfare with alternatives might help with a certain social set through the same mechanisms.

One possibility: better social conditions and more discretion in the hands of parents might reduce fertility aversion.

> I think that supposes, though, an

Tell us more about your life on Planet Policy.

Is the atmosphere similar to our own? How do you bring nutrients & energy into your bodies? Do the seasons change throughout the year, as on our world? Is gravitation similarly a source of both terror and delight?

Yours is a realm where people are very, very pleased with themselves... This we know.

Tell us more about your life on Planet Policy.

None of your business. Don't visit. Emitters of poisonous gas are shot on sight.

"The pitiless deflation of somnabulent conceit through time travel."

That should have been a song title. Zappa or Tangerine Dream, maybe.

Oh, Crid, that whole planet policy post was epic. Thanks for my laugh for today.

And Art Deco, you're attributing a comment from jdgalt to me. Apparently, your ability to read for comprehension is broken.

Agreed. The Planet Policy post was a complete thread win.

> Emitters of poisonous gas are shot
> on sight.

Beyotch, you've already been diddled by my phaser… Yer shootin' days are over.




We should take you at your word, y'know? We should judge you only by what you've offered of yourself on this thread.

You adore policy, and "the state." You like to compare America to other countries… As if compelling, secret-tunnel truths could thus be exposed, despite America's stunning pre-eminence in almost every context, including her good fortune.

Etc etc etc...

And then, you believe that someone "Has it in for poor people."

You really said that. On this blog. At 4:01 PM Tuesday. And that someone (ahem) "Thinks society should die out."

This is how highly you think of yourself. This is how poorly you regard others. You said that shit.

It couldn't have been an accident, y'know? You sincerely believe that those who casually disagree with you 'have it in for poor people'... Or that so affirming will cover your ass as you get all flowery with your rhetoric.

We're left to wonder how generous you've been to the "poor" in your private life. The United States tax code is a remarkable thing, but the Judeo-Christian tradition has different and more powerful tools: The Ten Commandments don't speak of deductions, nor has any Rabbi I've stopped to admire.

And I'd wager my next ten mortgage payments that you've not done anything meaningful for any distant poor person in the last ten years with your own money.

You're the kind of fuckball who thinks you're being kind to the poor by asking others to be nice to them. And by sharing your daydream fairy-works in the most snarking, spineless wordings you can devise.

Because policy!

Or do I misunderstand you?

> Changing matrimonial and abortion
> law might help...

I should warn you, "though," that an extended pinky is no excuse for limp dick.

Later, I remembered other stuff I was going to put in there, how you were probably working in an academic context(community college if teaching, PAC-12 conference if janitorial) or as office help for a State Senator in Iowa, if actually a government employee....

Point being that I've zero doubt that you're not anywhere near wealth creation. Never in your life have you turned something worth 98¢ into a dollar, and then looked into the eyes of a paying customer who was impressed with your effort. I know this.

I just don't like you.

Naw, I support a Logan's Run type scenario where we just kill them outright

And Art Deco, you're attributing a comment from jdgalt to me.

The person who uttered the words
I already pay for schools I don't use

Signed herself "Daghain".

--

I just don't like you.

Bully for you.

As Michael Porter points out, growing populations spur technological advances in dealing with the inevitable issues of overpopulation, pollution, food production, etc.

And declining populations spur technological advances in automation and force multipliers for manual labor

As for taxes.

25% flat, on all net income. Salary, dividends, interest on investments and bank accounts.

5% to the Fed
5% to the State
5% to the city you live in, or county if unincorporated
5% to your retirement account, and you can add as much after tax as you want
5% to your individual health account, and you can add as much after tax as you want

No social security, no medicare, no medicaid, no welfare unless you have no money, and have already sold off your possessions and home. You wnat government charity thats fine, but it should not be enough for you to remain in "your" home.

Sales tax

0% on raw, non preped food, milk, unaltered fruit/veggie juice, toiletries, baby foods
5% on things liked pre sliced cheese & meat, corn dogs, preped foods, gatorade type energy drinks
10% on candy, soda, potato chips, ice cream, restaurants, ect
15% on liquor, cigarettes

0% on used goods, cars, clothes, furniture, ect
10% on new
15% on jewelry, boats, RV, campers, and anything over $50,000 dollars regardless of what it is

That should be more than enough money to run the government without unduly burdening the "poor" or the gouging "rich"

Also no corporate tax and a property tax based on lot size not on the value of the improvements to the lot.

No deductions, or tax credits or exemptions for anyone or any business

@lujlp

You are going to need several constitutional amendments to federalize all tax collection, and remove the ability of the states to collect their own income taxes and sales taxes.

Also if a business cant write off their production costs, and expenses against their profits, they wont be in business very long.

No, idiot, THIS IS THE QUOTE YOU ATTRIBUTED TO ME:

"That's why both are, and morally must stay, voluntary individual choices."

Who didn't go to school now? Go back and read it, it's right there.

And yeah, you're right about one thing. I don't like you.

THIS IS THE QUOTE YOU ATTRIBUTED TO ME

No, that is a third person's quote. The discussion, however, concerned your antecedent remarks, which he was defending and I was not.