A Funny Old World

A Brookings study says the cost of $310,000 to raise a child. You could spend a lot more — just send your children to private schools and expensive colleges. But you could also spend a lot less.

A meeting of New York City Suffragette’s movement, 1894, Source: Getty Images

Wednesday, July 03, 2024

Bill Bonner, writing today from Poitou, France

Dying all the time 

Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind 

Ain’t life unkind 

—Ruby Tuesday, The Rolling Stones 

Poor Joe Biden. He’s gotten old. 

Here’s the New York Times on who might take Joe’s place: 

Kamala Harris Could Win This Election. Let Her. 

The obvious, logical path out of the mess President Biden created with his disastrous debate performance is for him to bow out with honor and endorse his young, vigorous and talented vice president to stand in his stead. 

Who are some of the other leading candidates to replace old Joe? Michelle Obama. Hillary Clinton. Two of the three were catapulted to political fame because they were married to presidents. The other was chosen, probably because she was born Black, female and Asian, to be Joe Biden’s Number Two. 

One of the main criticisms of monarchy was that leaders were chosen on the basis of birth, not merit. Another gripe was that ambitious women, such as Madame du Barry or Madame de Pompadour could gain influence simply by being fetching companions in the bedchamber.  

And what to make of Dr. Jill?  The New York Times reports that she may now be the most powerful person in Washington; she decides whether her husband stays or goes: 

In those first stricken moments after a raspy, rambling and at times incoherent performance, he [Biden] turned to his wife, Jill Biden. 

The first lady’s message to him was clear: They’d been counted out before, she was all in, and he — they — would stay in the race. Her thinking, according to people close to her, was that it was a bad night. And bad nights end. 

So Dr. Biden spent the 24 hours after the debate putting her decades as a political spouse to the test, projecting confidence and normalcy while effusively praising her husband. 

Our goal is to connect the dots. We call our system a ‘democracy.’ But is it really so different? 

And what happened to the white, male patriarchs? Have they all turned into feeble, fumbling oldsters? 

Marine Le Pen in France. Georgia Meloni in Italy. Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico. And in America, women are drawn to the White House like zombies to live flesh.  And as women rise up, birth rates fall.    

The BBC rings the alarm: 

The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a "jaw-dropping" impact on societies, say researchers. 

23 nations — including Spain and Japan — are expected to see their populations halve by 2100. 

Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born. 

It takes a birth rate of about 2.2 children per woman to maintain a steady population. But the rate in Ireland and France is only 1.8. In the UK, it’s only 1.6. And in Canada, only 1.5. Babies in Italy and Japan are even scarcer, with 1.3 births per woman. South Korea has almost no babies at all — with less than one per woman. 

Women are having fewer children. 

Or, to be more correct, fewer women are having children. Those who have children seem to be doing it at about the same rate as before, but more women are just not having any children at all. In Japan, in the 1970s, for example, it was rare for a woman to not have children. Today, one of three are ‘barren.’  

Why? Polls tell us that about 10% of them don’t have children intentionally. But most just don’t get around to it. They are busy with their careers... or have not found a decent mate... or not prepared financially or emotionally. 

Some commentators insist that falling birth rates have something to do with the economy or wages. And yes, raising a child is expensive. A Brookings study came up with a total cost of $310,000 to raise a child to adulthood. You could spend a lot more — just send your children to private schools and expensive colleges. But you could also spend a lot less. People who say they ‘can’t afford to have children’ probably really mean they don’t want to make the necessary trade-offs.  

There are also the ‘hidden costs’ of raising children. In addition to the investment of money, children take time. Begrudging your children time with their parents is like begrudging seed to a fertile field; the harvest is likely to be poor. 

We have a friend who wrote a book, The Price of Motherhood. She notes that a woman often sacrifices her prime years... when she could be embellishing her resume and developing her career skills. This is the real reason, say researchers, that female salaries lag those of their male counterparts; women are more likely to take time off work to care for children. 

Around the 1970s, widespread birth control helped women avoid getting pregnant. Their opportunities increased, but their imaginations failed. They didn’t want to ‘stay at home and bake cookies,’ as Hillary Clinton put it. They wanted an active role in what they thought was a more interesting or more important world — a man’s world. 

Like Hillary, many hung up their aprons and began to wear pant suits. They postponed having children so they could take seats in law schools... state houses... and corporate HQs. Today, they are our mayors, our city council members, our busybodies... our world-improvers... our White House press secretaries and Treasury secretaries... our BS-ers, fraudsters, and our candidates for president. 

Too bad they didn’t have something better to do. 

Regards, 

Bill Bonner