Here we have been suggesting that
part of the problem, for both individuals
and our society more generally, is poor
people having kids they can't afford to
support well, i.e., in the sense of
good parenting.

But from some poor countries there
are claims that when outside forces
result in poor people having more money,
right away they slow down on having
children -- the rate of births falls.

So, for one related point, using some
version of socialism to raise poor
people from poverty should reduce
the burden on society of children
of poor people and not increase that
burden. Or, in this case, poverty does
not cause people to exercise more
discipline and be more responsible
but on both points, less. So,
society might calculate an expected
return on investment: Invest some
money in raising poor people out of
poverty and see how much society
saves later in expenditures on the
social problems of children with
poor parents with poor parenting.

But, wait, there's more! Finland
beat back the Swedes, Russians,
and Germans, but now they are losing!
How? They are having only about 1.5
children per woman. Extrapolate that
out for 100 years and see a smaller
Finland; for 300 years and see nearly
no Finland. And that figure of
1.5 is close to what holds in
several countries in Europe.
Why? So far in the more advanced
countries with the higher standards
of living, they have decided they
don't want to be parents.

Joke: Come back in 500 years and
find nearly everyone super fired
up about being good parents.
Why? Because all the other
branches of the tree died out!

Darwin wins again! Of course,
there is likely a grain of truth
in this joke, and if so then
we stand to be in one of the
periods of relatively fast
genetic change, assuming that
the desire to be good parents
is significantly a genetic thing.

But, wait, there's more! So, some of the
people lost their jobs because
in effect their jobs were shipped overseas.
So, we go to a retail store, buy
an item made overseas, pay for it,
and then also pay taxes to pay
to help the person who lost their
job as we bought this item from
overseas. Are we actually
helping the US in this way?

I know; I know; all those textile
workers in the Carolinas were
supposed to get much better jobs
at Microsoft as Microsoft sold
software to the overseas textile
industry. Who believed this?

Yes, apparently in the US we can
import items with low or no
import tariffs; I've heard that
this policy on imports is rare
in the world, that most
other countries protect
their domestic workers.

There are claims that such
protectionism is, net, bad
for the US economy, but this
argument seems to write off
the training, experience, and
capital associated with the person
who lost their job with this
expensive write off ignored.

For more, the economy is important.
Then destroying the financial system
is a disaster. How to do that?
We saw how in the 1920s: Use
high leverage to blow an asset bubble.
In response we put in a lot of controls
in finance to keep that from happening
again. Then starting in 2000 or so,
we did it to ourselves again,
although this time with real estate.
Plenty of people, e.g., the COB of
Wells Fargo who said clearly
that we would not like the results,
saw the problem coming.
Yet, we let the bubble inflate.
If we want to say that actions
have consequences, then we should
be willing to say that bubble blowing
has consequences and with discipline,
we had plenty of information, we wouldn't
do such a thing.

For more, one of the problems in the
US is social problems from
poor people, but actually
we wanted poor people and have worked,
more than once,
to import a distinctive lower
class we could have as
poor people and cheap labor.
We've deliberately created
an underclass, and we are
seeing some of the consequences.

From all I can see, except for
new technology in the last 60 years,
the US standard of living was higher
in the 1950s.
Then we exported a lot but imported
very little. But how did the exporting
help the US? Or, workers at Caterpillar
built an earth moving machine and
sent it to a third world country or
one of the countries so damaged in
WWII that they couldn't make
such a machine again yet. So, the
US got paid in foreign currency
that we swapped for gold or some
such -- nearly useless. Net,
the US was able to do better being
nearly self sufficient. Sure,
we might import rubber and tin,
but mostly we were self sufficient.
Sounds like maybe we should be
self sufficient again.