Sort of like the last days of Númenor.
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Jn
We have the same problem. There gets to a point where a family has enough children where the parents almost don’t need to work.Alatar wrote: Actually, the poor in Ireland have the largest families. Due to an incredibly stupid method of calculating support for lower income families many of those families are better off with more kids.
Ditto.VtF wrote:Jnyusa wrote: The elderly and the military consume about 80% of our federal budget.What an eye-opening statistic that is.
people usually look at that in isolation, what they forget is that 80% of budget is also generating a fare amount of employment, and those people who are employed also pay taxes, they consume and they are not on welfare, so in a sense it's a big chunck of money that's being reinvested in the economy. If you take a look at military expediture, then a lot of it these days go on kit, and the US almost always only buy's from US companies, something I know too well, so effectively by paying for the elderly and the military you are in fact a significant amount of the national income stays within the domestic market - and gives lots of people jobs.Jnyusa wrote:The elderly and the military consume about 80% of our federal budget.
Don't worry, Jny. According to the cyclical history model described in "The Fourth Turning" by Howe and Straus, the elderly will cease to be taken care of by the time I get old. It's happened before regularly in the US, and is due to happen again soon. What form this will take is, of course, unknown at this time but I'm sure it will involve old people being scorned, starving and medically ignored in the next ten years or twenty years.Jn wrote:Can a society sustain itself economically when nine generations are required to pay the bills of one? No.
Jn, that was a very insightful post. Thank you!My stock broker and I have agreed that our parents' generation should have their name changed from The Greatest Generation to The Greediest Generation, and my generation should have its name changed from The Me Generation to the The Stupidest Generation.