Slate has an article discussing the benefits of reducing the number of people born every year. I am suprised that this this is so contraversial, it seems to make a lot of sense that if people had fewer children not only would the enviroment be better the people who are here would enjoy better quality of life. the whole article is worth a read but the argument for fewer children is made well in these paragraphs:
What’s the environmental cost of having a child? In the crudest terms, you’ve added another version of yourself into the world, which means you’re potentially doubling your carbon-dioxide emissions over the total life of your family. That’s a high estimate, since our kids won’t spew as much greenhouse gas as we do—automobiles, appliances, light bulbs, and everything else will become more efficient in coming generations. But these marginal improvements aren’t going to make our babies carbon-neutral. They’ll just contribute to global warming at somewhat lower rates than we do.
Our other green lifestyle choices can’t even begin to offset the cost of adding a brand-new CO2-emitter to the population. When I ran my own numbers through Al Gore’s carbon calculator, I discovered that a switch to 100 percent wind and solar power would reduce my emissions by just 1.3 tons per year. That’s not even enough to account for one quarter of today’s average American. Meanwhile, I’d have to do quite a bit of driving around in a Hummer H3 to mimic the environmental impact of creating another version of me. Not to mention the fact that my children might eventually decide to have their own children, who would emit even more carbon dioxide down the line.
The article is here
Until now it has been taboo to discuss overpopulation, and it is a glaring problem that will hopefully start to get some attention.
When FDR instituted Social Security, there were over 40 workers paying payroll taxes in for every retiree collecting benefits. Now we are down to about 3 payers for every payee, and given that we are at 2.1 per household replacement rate (not growth) plus longer life expectancy, we will be down to 2 workers per payee. With this silly proposal, we can break the promises to future beneficiaries by closing the program down, or increase the payroll tax by about 4 times its current level (which will nicely create approximately a 50% unemployment rate).
If we need more workers we can allow more immigration, although, I think the hope is to reduce global population, not just the US population.
One way to improve the social security situation might be to remove the tax deduction for children and use the extra tax revenue to help with retiree programs. This would have the extra benefit of removing the financial incentive of a large family.
If we get back to the progressive income tax policy as it existed prior to Republican dominance from 1980-present, there’d suddenly be money to use for social security, health care, infrastructure, etc.
The rate should be over 50% for income earned past a certain point, $3 million?
Before everything gets privatized, every service we count on to live gets neglected because there are shareholders who come first…there are plenty of think-tankers who would like local firefighters and police to be privatized, and we already know how the right-wing feels about public schools.
The argument caveat is making has been made since the 80s and before then. Do you think that George W. Bush honestly cares about the future of social security? He took this argument out on a ridiculous month-long tour with pre-selected audiences, assigned questions, etc…and he couldn’t sell it. Post-Katrina, there won’t be a Republican able to sell privatizing social security for a generation.
It’s time to get smart on taxes. To look around the country and over in Iraq, take into account how starving government and overpaying private interests to do the work it once did isn’t making life better or easier than promised.
The free market doesn’t give a damn about people, nor should it. The free market cares about money, as it must. Government isn’t the enemy…people who hate government while they’re in charge of it…they’re the enemy.
John, who pays for the elderly? Are you suggesting the government has no role? I think that the poor without family should get some assistance (preferably negative taxes). Socialism has utterly failed in public policy–but it thrives in the family. Having 3 kids helps elderly parents in the long run.
Al, I’m not here to defend Bush, so please let’s just let all things Dubya lie. (No sense wasting bytes on your most excellent website).
But taxes are much more progressive than they have ever been. In fact, in the 1970s, less than 20% of filers paid zero to negative taxes. Today, more than 40% of filers pay zero to negative taxes. And the top 1%, 2%, and 10% of income earners are paying a greater share of revenues.
I love your opinions, especially in our shared sports loyalties. But the facts aren’t there to support your comment above.
References:
http://slate.com/id/2108201
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1111.html
http://www.nber.org/digest/oct06/w11955.html
Amanda Marcotte at pandagon.net talks about the war on abortion and how it is really about stopping all kinds of birth control. That might tie in with why it is so hard to have a discussion about ways to slow down population growth, certain people really want the world pregnant at all times.
I think the idea that we need to keep producing more consumers or our society will collapse is pretty flawed, if we have less consumers they will consume less in total so we will need less workers, seems like a potentially good circle.
John, I agree with your point that increasing quantity of consumers is silly. Increasing quality of producers is how we reduce poverty and redistribute wealth.
Unfortuantely for us, FDRs policy legacy (exacerbated by LBJ and Carter) has been to reduce wealth and redistribute poverty.
Maybe we have some common ground on this one, I would argue that if we reduced the overall population it might increase the quality of producers, or at least increase the quality of training that each person can recieve and hopefully this would make them more productive and happy people.
I was thinking about that family with the 17 kids, all the kids names start with “j” I doubt that those kids are getting much indavidual attention and when it comes time to attend college it seems unlikely that they are going to be able to cover the costs for each of those kids and some of them are very likely to fall through the cracks. I think the same can be said in almost any case.
It seems like any discussion of overpopulation usually gets derailed, I took a class on Africa, and it seemed pretyy obviuos that the country has too many people for the resources and any time someone suggested that, the professor shut them down pretty quickly. The taboo against talking about population issues seems to cross party lines. I think it was Hilary Clinton who said “it takes a village to raise a child” maybe it would be better if the village had a few less children to raise.
Having an average of 17 kids per household near guarantees that some of them will probably 1) have a tough upbringing and very limited resources, and 2) add less value to society.
Having 0 kids guarantees that life expectancy will be halved.
I think the ideal is for each pair of grandparents having 5 grandkids. That is 4 parents and 5 grandkids who can help care for the grandparents in their older age–and also, 4 grandparents and 4 parents who can help care for the grandkids in their younger age. And I also think each kid should be born 3 years apart, because of the huge advantage of language acquisition from 2 to 3 years.
But yeah, this is a bit Big Brother.
I think the Travis Henry plan of 9 children with 9 different women is the way to go.
Where did you hear that not having children halves your life expectancy? I wonder if that is a stastical anomoly as the majority of people who die from accidents are young as well as the fact that a lot people die from childhood diseases, so they die before they have a chance to reproduce.
John, I don’t have time to get the references for you now, but it seems like the current science we have show some positive correlation between fertility and life expectancy, and it is stronger in women.
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek on the mathematical limits of the statement–if we average all the living people with the non-living people that we didn’t spawn, then it’s half.
But I would project life expectancy to dive if we didn’t have kids. Who would provide the elderly their food, medical care, housing maintenance, etc. if they had no kids? Our life expectancy would probably revert back to African continental levels.
I know they have shown that single people don’t live as long as married people. I have always assumed that was due to diet and life style, when you are single generally you don’t eat as well and going out drinking and carousing every night is probably not very healthy, but what a way to go.
This discussion may be heading towards bad science fiction, I may go rent that movie where no one can get pregnant, birth of man(or something like that) to keep these idea fresh.
It’s not science fiction, but empirically verifiable, that the goods and services provided to the elderly are provided by the non-elderly. Workers engage in trade-surplus activity; retirees in trade-deficit. As long as the productive strongly outweigh the non-productive, we can carry all of us. Once we fall below population replacement rate, we are heading for third-world chaos.
Some good stuff in today’s WSJ on China:
On current trajectories, China’s total population will start to decline around 2030. Even so, China must expect a “population explosion” between then and now — one entirely comprised of senior citizens. Between 2005 and 2030, China’s 65-plus age cohort will likely more than double in size, to 235 million or more, from about 100 million now. And because of the fall-off in young people, China’s age profile will “gray” in the decades ahead at a pace almost never before witnessed in human history. China is still a fairly youthful society today — but by 2030, by such metrics as median population age, the country will be “grayer” than the United States — “grayer,” that is, than the U.S. of 2030, not the U.S. of today.
How will China’s future senior citizens support themselves? China still has no official national pension system. Up to now, China’s de facto national pension system has been the family — but that social safety net is unraveling, and rapidly. Until very recently, thanks to relatively large Chinese families, almost every Chinese woman had given birth to at least one son — under Confucian tradition, their first line of support. But just two decades from now, thanks to the “success” of the one-child policy, roughly a third of women entering their 60s will have no living son.
In such numbers, one can see the making of a slow-motion humanitarian tragedy. But the withering away of the Chinese family under population control has even more far-reaching implications.
It is no secret that China is already a “low trust society”: Personal and business transactions still rely heavily upon guanxi, the network of personal relations largely demarcated by family ties. What exactly will provide the “social capital” to undergird commercial and economic development in a future China where “families” are, increasingly, little more than atomized households and isolated individuals?
One final consequence of China’s population-control program requires comment: the eerie, unnatural and increasingly extreme imbalance between baby boys and baby girls. Under normal circumstances, about 103 to 105 baby boys are born for every 100 baby girls. Shortly after the advent of the one-child policy, however, China began reporting biologically impossible disparities between boys and girls — and the imbalance has only continued to rise. Today China reports 123 baby boys for every 100 girls.
Over the coming generation, those same little boys and girls will grow up to be prospective brides and grooms. One need not be a demographer to see from these numbers the massive imbalance in the “marriage market” in a generation, or less. How will China cope with the sudden and very rapid emergence of tens of millions of essentially unmarriageable young men?
Trusting China’s people to act in their own self-interest — not least of all, trusting their choices and preferences with respect to their own family size — may very well prove to be the key to whether China ultimately succeeds in abolishing poverty and attaining mass affluence in the decades and generations ahead.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118997971938828979.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The Economic Recovery Act of 1981 reduced the top income tax bracket’s percentage (over a certain amount) down to 50%.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 brought the top rate from 50% to 28%, and also cut the corporate tax rate from 50% to 35%
We all know what the national debt began to look like year to year from 1980-present, and in 1990 the top rate went from 28% to 31%, eventually raised to 36% in 1993. THE BUDGET IS BALANCED, NATIONAL DEBT IS BEING PAID OFF!
caveat – those are facts. I’m always reading the words of economists, but the majority of them tend to regard taxes as a black or white issue, meaning, a cut is always good, a hike is always bad. Lately, after the bridge in Minnesotta fell to be precise, the “never raise taxes” crowd has been saying “it’s time to privatize those bridges.”
The editorial from Barrons two weeks ago said just that. So the game (and it is a game) being played when politics and economics are so powerfull in the heads of these experts, is what to ignore, rather than what to point out. Our national debt is something that doesn’t seem to concern 1 out of 10 economists, but it does concern more than 1 out of 10 voters. That taxes on the top bracket of earners was cut, which led to the doubling of our nation’s debt from 2001 to today, IS real and warrants debate.
The Social Security debate and others like it, amidst an economic situation today that is so unique in its simplicity, is a distraction, and primarily based on the theory I layed out above, that economists today simply decide what to ignore. Until when?
Talking about birth rates and diagnosing economic conditions tied to them…caveat, compared to ‘the national debt doubled after the tax cuts’, it might as well be science fiction. Or purely political, which is what it sounds like when you inject references to ‘socialism’ into it. I don’t see economics as a series of black and white issues, where a political word or theory predetermines what the correct economic policy should be in a given situation.
I feel that type of thing basically rips the science out of policymaking altogether, much like forcing religion and natural science to play along with one another in the making of policy. It leads to poor decisionmaking.
Al, one thing on the 1980-present deficit and debt outlook–please check on the percentage of GDP spent on defense, and how it crashed from over 4% to under 3% during the Clinton admin. Without that +1% cut, there is no surplus. Fact.
Let’s start with a clean slate, no complex tax code. What is the optimal marginal tax rate for someone making $20k, $200k, and $2mil, in your view? We all agree that it should be greater than 0% (and I assume less than 100%). And I also think we agree that it is a good thing to reduce poverty and to redistribute wealth. So what marginal rates get us to that promised land? Feel free to continue citing voter majorities without much economics background, I think it is quite relevant to the current circumstance.
This talk of the complexity of the tax code is a relic from the 80s as well. The percentage of tax brackets from 1980 to today has already been cut by over 50%. What idiot can’t get their taxes filed correctly by April 15th? From the time you get your W2 in January…if it’s too complicated, there’s H&R Block.
I think these topics are diversions. I honestly do. Defense spending went down, basically meaning a small chunk of the overall fraud and waste was trimmed away. The top tax bracket still had their percentage bumped around 5% on average from 1990-1997, and when you’re talking about the Bill Gates’ of the world, 1% is equivalent to the contribution of the entire state of Wyoming over a decade (kidding of course, but you get my point).
caveat – I wonder how many hedge fund managers, those who averaged over $50 million a year since 2004, how many of their funds were capsized by natural gas or these bundled mortgage products. In hindsight, since the government is having to bail Wall Street out anyhow, wouldn’t a 50% tax on all income over $10 million have helped out in that regard?
I honestly don’t see how it is unfair to tax at a higher rate over a certain amount. At the same time, I don’t see how it can be justified for Republicans like Judd Gregg (former finance committed chairman in the senate) to be scheming to reduce taxes on dividends and trying to attach a reduction or elimination of the estate tax onto bills is morally or ethically acceptable.
Spitballing on the 20/200/2mil – I’d prefer to leave all wages earned within families under the poverty line untaxed, but that can be written into the code to pay out after they file each year. So in the first two, I’d withhold 15% and for the third, I’d withhold 20%.
On all income earned up to $5 million, I’d keep it at 30% or below.
That sounds crazy, but what we reimplement, is the split, where instead of the tax rate being 30% and all of a hedge fund managers’ $900million being taxed at that rate, we tax the first $5million at 30%, and after that, bump it up to 50% or higher.
Keep going with that. After 75 million, it goes to 75%. By the time you get to $1 billion, it caps out at 90%. This solves a lot of problems in terms of the haves and the have-nots in this country.
Where we get bogged down on the topic of economics, those of us on opposite sides of the political spectrum when it comes to a lot of things, as you and I are, is with these distractions of “how do we pay for social security in 2040?, etc.” – – – The brillant thing about this government of ours, is that when it is faced with a make or break situation regarding the numbers, either the government shuts down or they figure something out.
Social security and medical payments in 2040 has been a hot topic since before I was in high school, and like clockwork, it gets pounded over and over and over and over, year after year. Checks are still going out. And the government is paying medical bills on time. My insurance company certainly doesn’t!
A better retirment plan might be to take the money you would spend caring for your children and invest it in mutual funds or just put it in a savings account. I don’t know how much it costs to raise a kid but I bet if you saved all the money that you would spend on child even at 5% ROI it would be a substantial amount of money.
Plus, it still takes a lot of resources to support all those children even if they do support you well in your old age, it seems like their has to be a more efficient way to help retirees than producing millions of little workers.
Kids are fun – – – I don’t go splattering my day to day joy up on the front page, but Max and Sam, unlike most people I’ve known in this life, I really look forward to hanging out with every day. Cool shit, day after day.
It’s not for everyone, and while I was feeling the same way you are now when I was younger, things change. I’m not trying to sound like an asshole, “ah, give it a few years and everyone in the world will be just like me”, but wanted to interject with this.
Like in Congress I suppose…I want to get that into the record.
Al:
I am not saying people shouldn’t have kids, although it might be good advice in my case, what I am saying is that while kids may bring joy to certain people, they are probably not a good tool for financial planning, and large families do have a certain enviromental cost as well as a financial cost that is generally passed on to the rest of society.
These costs are in the form of higher medical bills and public education costs.
This seems like it has been one of the many chisms that have devoloped between the religous right, and their go forth and multiply message, and the libertarian, do what you want as long as I don’t have to pay for it message. This also might be a problem for president Clinton, if she is elected as she trys to be a soccer grandma president. She might be tempted to make child rearing to much of a government responsibility.
I am not advocating for a policy like the chinees, of one kid per couple, I just would like to see people start discussing ways to lower or perhaps reverse population growth as I think it would improve everyones quality of life.
John: If the education and medical costs for people outweigh their productivity (over the lifetime), then I’d agree that having less children makes sense. But if people can produce enough for themselves, and also help the elderly and children (who can’t)–then we actually should be having more kids.
Of course, the reason why education and medical costs are hyperinflationary are because the government subsidizes them. If they stopped doing so, and went free market, we would have massive productivity gains (better care for less money). Sorta like what happens with food, housing, telecommunications, electronics, and everything else. The free market sucks, but not as much as a market distorted by government subsidies (as Nobel Laureate George Stigler found).
Al, so you are saying: 0% tax for $20k income earned,
15% for $200k,
20% for $2 mil,
30% for $5 mil,
50% for $10 mil
75% for $75 mil
90% for $1 bil
I think this is great–this would be an effective tax cut for everyone making under $5 mil, and an increase for those making over that. I think we should keep the top rate under 50%, but we are not talking about many tax payers nor much marginal tax revenue into the treasury. Your suggested tax curve would undoubtedly create more jobs, therby reducing poverty and redistributing wealth.
I would actually suggest negative tax rates for those households who make $25k or less–such as the child credit and also education vouchers and health insurance vouchers.
Ed Glaeser thinks we need larger families:
I am also unenthusiastic about eliminating tax preferences for larger families. Most people seem to think that giving tax relief to bigger families is a matter of simple fairness. As an economist, I lack standing to make proclamations about fairness, but there is another reason to subsidize larger families. When parents decide to have kids, they are creating a massive benefit for their children. As much as parents may love their children, they are unlikely to reap all the benefits those children will offer during their lives. Economists often think that it makes sense to subsidize behavior that generates big “external” benefits for others: parenting seems like a particularly natural example of such behavior.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/07/outdated_tax_policy/
The AMT reduces subsidies on large families, that seems like a good thing as overpopulation is becoming a huge problem worldwide. Same can be said for reducing the subsidies on large homes that generally get a larger deduction for property taxes paid.
A tax system where the majority of taxpayers fall under the AMT, as it seems a little more equitable than our current system, might be a step in the right direction.
I agree John; the AMT is emerging as flat-tax reality.
Perhaps if the average marginal rate of tax was reduced slightly, more wealth could be created and distributed (instead of poverty).