Every pension is a claim on other people's children. That's just how the human lifecycle works. If you can't keep yourself alive, other people are keeping you alive and those people are someone's children.
It doesn't matter what financial abstractions we layer on top of this fundamental truth. If you have $50MM of shares that you sell or thirty rental properties, you're still depending on other people's children.
This article is apparently propaganda aimed to cause people to have more children. ¿Cui bono? Is Julien worried his own pension won't be covered, or is he trying to enslave his children so the benefits of their work will go to him but not to me? There are far too many humans for the planet to support right now.
People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability. It was always some combination of "we've always done it like this" (at a societal level, that's religion), "there's nothing else to do" and "sex feels good".
(I know Latin doesn't use ¿ but I thought it was funny)
> People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability.
Sure they did. People having 15 kids to work on the family farm is a classic example. Any family business requires kids to take it over so the parents can retire. In many cultures the older generations live with the younger generations to take care of them as they age.
Even in a time before money, the younger generations needed to exist to do the hard jobs once the old people couldn't do them anymore.
It's arguing that more countries should adopt something like the German system, which recognizes that childless people should pay more for their pension than people with children.
An article saying "people who have children are double paying for their pension" is not effective propaganda in favor of having children.
Alternatively, pay people to have children. Isn't that standard capitalism? If you want something done, pay people to do it.
I know they have some 400€ bonus or something, but that hardly covers it.
I pay lots of taxes for lots of things that keep society running. One thing that keeps society running is a population that doesn't rapidly decline. If I also had to pay a tax to support the population, I wouldn't mind.
I know if there's a child tax it'll be levied on the actual workers while the billionaires pay nothing though. I think billionaires should pay, since they're the ones creating all the economic uncertainty that makes people not naturally have children.
> People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability.
AFAICT, that was the primary reason people had children. Not in the sense of "support me in retirement" because people expected to work until they died, but in the sense of "grow ourselves some workers to help out on the farm" for the poor and "somebody to inherit our title" for the rich.
Moderns are sometimes quite surprised to learn that, in the West and in Christian culture, children have always been obligated to support their parents. This is a concept called "alimentation".
As adult parents are obligated to care for their children, to give food, clothing and shelter for their well-being, children are also eventually obligated to their parents for the same exact care. It is a well-known fact that, eventually the human body wears out, we're no good for work anymore, we're sickly, we're widowed, all those things, and therefore children have always assumed the roles of caregiver and breadwinner for their parents.
In fact, there are still US laws on the books to this effect. That children may be obligated to pay medical bills or other support, if their parents cannot make ends meet. Adult children are sometimes blindsided by this responsibility. It seems a crazy thing, when I got to move out at 18 and my parents no longer had anything to do with me, that now they're calling in this favor. But that is, in fact, how the world has worked for thousands of years, formally and informally.
And that is why we've always done it this way, because the youth had respect for their elders, and cared for them, not this mercenary home-health nursing for-pay crap that we have today. That is the scourge of capitalism that unrelated people should be forced to "care for" people who are not their family, while their actual family tries to live off insurance coverage and the same mercenary system.
> there are still US laws on the books to this effect. That children may be obligated to pay medical bills or other support, if their parents cannot make ends meet. Adult children are sometimes blindsided by this responsibility
In most (if not all) states, this responsibility is permanently and irrevocably severed if the parent abandons/disowns the child, refuses to pay child support after a divorce, etc.
Even if you later make up and re-establish a relationship with an adult child, there is no way to re-establish that obligation. It is gone forever. Being a bad parent can have consequences!
I have started to see this argument being made more often, and wonder if it is a trial balloon: we know that discussions are starting to happen about how to deal with the impending US social security trust fund depletion and the cut in benefits that are going to have to happen.
You already know that your social security benefit depends on the 35 highest income years during your career. You (probably) also know that each of those years get an index number that is used to adjust your income for the purpose of dealing with the effects of inflation when looking at a 35+ year career.
When you file your taxes, you are already reporting the number and ages of each dependent you have. That data already exists. So what if that information is now used as an added indexing factor for each year of reported income? The result would be that the more children you have and the earlier you have them increases the calculated social security benefit. Or rather, since the index would be a floating point number from 0-1, not having a bunch of kids would prevent you from gaining the maximum possible benefit. And it would all be so opaque that it’s hard to notice or understand!
Note that I’m not saying this is what should happen, just that it is strange that we start seeing this kind of argument at the same time we see that discussions are happening about making changes to social security…
If system is designed to save for your own pension, and system uses your savings for pensions of others then it is a system that doesn't work, not people looking for 'free ride'.
Also, if you want people to have more kids in rich countries you need to find other formula than just pouring money. And it has to be attractive to people, not forced on them.
All systems work this way. Even systems where you do it all yourself -- invest while you work and withdraw when you retire.
A 2026 dollar and a 2046 dollar are different things. A dollar is a share claim on the productive capacity of a nation. If a nation has less productive capacity because few people had children, that dollar is worth less.
Another relevant point - the birth rate decline is a civilization committing apoptosis - orderly cell death. When a living cell detects that it is full of misfolded proteins, or many other conditions, it will simply commit suicide - breaking open its cell membrane, spilling its contents, allowing them to be recycled, and allowing one of its healthy neighbor cells to divide into its space to replace it.
This is a good thing when a cell does it. Elimination of unhealthy cells and replacement by healthy cells helps keep the organism healthy. What does this say about civilisations and the human species?
Both are true. You should have a retirement plan, but kids are also needed on a societal level for that plan to actually work and for society to keep running.
There needs to be enough working aged people to run all the services a person relies on (utilities, health care, home maintenance, food production, etc). There also need to be enough people in the population to consume so all the investments in the retirement fund don't crash and burn.
At an individual level, a parent shouldn't be relying on their kids to pay for them in old age, at least not directly. But enough kids are needed to keep the world going and economies afloat.
Every pension is a claim on other people's children. That's just how the human lifecycle works. If you can't keep yourself alive, other people are keeping you alive and those people are someone's children.
It doesn't matter what financial abstractions we layer on top of this fundamental truth. If you have $50MM of shares that you sell or thirty rental properties, you're still depending on other people's children.
This article is apparently propaganda aimed to cause people to have more children. ¿Cui bono? Is Julien worried his own pension won't be covered, or is he trying to enslave his children so the benefits of their work will go to him but not to me? There are far too many humans for the planet to support right now.
People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability. It was always some combination of "we've always done it like this" (at a societal level, that's religion), "there's nothing else to do" and "sex feels good".
(I know Latin doesn't use ¿ but I thought it was funny)
> People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability.
Sure they did. People having 15 kids to work on the family farm is a classic example. Any family business requires kids to take it over so the parents can retire. In many cultures the older generations live with the younger generations to take care of them as they age.
Even in a time before money, the younger generations needed to exist to do the hard jobs once the old people couldn't do them anymore.
It's arguing that more countries should adopt something like the German system, which recognizes that childless people should pay more for their pension than people with children.
An article saying "people who have children are double paying for their pension" is not effective propaganda in favor of having children.
Alternatively, pay people to have children. Isn't that standard capitalism? If you want something done, pay people to do it.
I know they have some 400€ bonus or something, but that hardly covers it.
I pay lots of taxes for lots of things that keep society running. One thing that keeps society running is a population that doesn't rapidly decline. If I also had to pay a tax to support the population, I wouldn't mind.
I know if there's a child tax it'll be levied on the actual workers while the billionaires pay nothing though. I think billionaires should pay, since they're the ones creating all the economic uncertainty that makes people not naturally have children.
> People never had children to guarantee their future financial stability.
AFAICT, that was the primary reason people had children. Not in the sense of "support me in retirement" because people expected to work until they died, but in the sense of "grow ourselves some workers to help out on the farm" for the poor and "somebody to inherit our title" for the rich.
Is there evidence of this urban legend?
Would millenia of data from primarily agricultural, family-worked farms suffice?
Sure. Let's see the ancient Egyptian papyrus where poor farmers describe how they actually don't like sex but they need more farmhands.
it's not a legend at all. I think you skipped the article I quote near the end. https://julienreszka.com/blog/pensions-buy-fewer-babies-cutt...
This is AI slop.
no it's not
It's the opposite of propaganda.
Moderns are sometimes quite surprised to learn that, in the West and in Christian culture, children have always been obligated to support their parents. This is a concept called "alimentation".
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01312b.htm
As adult parents are obligated to care for their children, to give food, clothing and shelter for their well-being, children are also eventually obligated to their parents for the same exact care. It is a well-known fact that, eventually the human body wears out, we're no good for work anymore, we're sickly, we're widowed, all those things, and therefore children have always assumed the roles of caregiver and breadwinner for their parents.
In fact, there are still US laws on the books to this effect. That children may be obligated to pay medical bills or other support, if their parents cannot make ends meet. Adult children are sometimes blindsided by this responsibility. It seems a crazy thing, when I got to move out at 18 and my parents no longer had anything to do with me, that now they're calling in this favor. But that is, in fact, how the world has worked for thousands of years, formally and informally.
And that is why we've always done it this way, because the youth had respect for their elders, and cared for them, not this mercenary home-health nursing for-pay crap that we have today. That is the scourge of capitalism that unrelated people should be forced to "care for" people who are not their family, while their actual family tries to live off insurance coverage and the same mercenary system.
> there are still US laws on the books to this effect. That children may be obligated to pay medical bills or other support, if their parents cannot make ends meet. Adult children are sometimes blindsided by this responsibility
In most (if not all) states, this responsibility is permanently and irrevocably severed if the parent abandons/disowns the child, refuses to pay child support after a divorce, etc.
Even if you later make up and re-establish a relationship with an adult child, there is no way to re-establish that obligation. It is gone forever. Being a bad parent can have consequences!
I have started to see this argument being made more often, and wonder if it is a trial balloon: we know that discussions are starting to happen about how to deal with the impending US social security trust fund depletion and the cut in benefits that are going to have to happen.
You already know that your social security benefit depends on the 35 highest income years during your career. You (probably) also know that each of those years get an index number that is used to adjust your income for the purpose of dealing with the effects of inflation when looking at a 35+ year career.
When you file your taxes, you are already reporting the number and ages of each dependent you have. That data already exists. So what if that information is now used as an added indexing factor for each year of reported income? The result would be that the more children you have and the earlier you have them increases the calculated social security benefit. Or rather, since the index would be a floating point number from 0-1, not having a bunch of kids would prevent you from gaining the maximum possible benefit. And it would all be so opaque that it’s hard to notice or understand!
Note that I’m not saying this is what should happen, just that it is strange that we start seeing this kind of argument at the same time we see that discussions are happening about making changes to social security…
If system is designed to save for your own pension, and system uses your savings for pensions of others then it is a system that doesn't work, not people looking for 'free ride'.
Also, if you want people to have more kids in rich countries you need to find other formula than just pouring money. And it has to be attractive to people, not forced on them.
All systems work this way. Even systems where you do it all yourself -- invest while you work and withdraw when you retire.
A 2026 dollar and a 2046 dollar are different things. A dollar is a share claim on the productive capacity of a nation. If a nation has less productive capacity because few people had children, that dollar is worth less.
The comment you are replying to doesn't concern inflation and GDP. It simply states the system is ill-planned.
On the other hand, school taxes are paid for children someone else had. :)
Pension==retirement funds here.
Another relevant point - the birth rate decline is a civilization committing apoptosis - orderly cell death. When a living cell detects that it is full of misfolded proteins, or many other conditions, it will simply commit suicide - breaking open its cell membrane, spilling its contents, allowing them to be recycled, and allowing one of its healthy neighbor cells to divide into its space to replace it.
This is a good thing when a cell does it. Elimination of unhealthy cells and replacement by healthy cells helps keep the organism healthy. What does this say about civilisations and the human species?
no. that's not a good metaphor at all. it's ridiculous.
Why not?
The equivalent of unfolded protein stress, as the trigger of cell death, is economic uncertainty/pessimism.
get real
This is propaganda of the most obvious kind. You should have a retirement plan. Kids are not a plan.
Both are true. You should have a retirement plan, but kids are also needed on a societal level for that plan to actually work and for society to keep running.
There needs to be enough working aged people to run all the services a person relies on (utilities, health care, home maintenance, food production, etc). There also need to be enough people in the population to consume so all the investments in the retirement fund don't crash and burn.
At an individual level, a parent shouldn't be relying on their kids to pay for them in old age, at least not directly. But enough kids are needed to keep the world going and economies afloat.
No It's not propaganda. If anything it's the opposite.
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