Economy and General Discussion

Lots of interesting thoughts, but lots of contradictions. 

How does he square this:

So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are modernizing.  For example, a woman being brought into the workforce and colleges in Afghanistan is good.

With this:

The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it.

The fundamental principle of economics is scarcity.  Time is scarce, for both men and women.  A woman has a choice that a man does not.  She can have children and a family, or she can have a career.  Or she can try to have both, while being dissatisfied with both. 

Unfortunately, it is the equivalent of political suicide to say publically that there are some options that are LOGICALLY denied to women. simply because time is scarce.  To say that women MUST choose between family and carrer is seen as being "against" women.  

The idea a woman can have a demanding, challenging career AND a happy, healthy, well-adjusted family life AT THE SAME TIME is absurd. Both family and carreer require TIME to develop.  Time, as should be obvious, is not unlimitted.

At the very least, you can't be taking care of children AND trying to rule the business world at the same time.  To think so implies that children are easy to raise, and always a pleasure. 

The decline in bithrate has nothing to do with the decline in "religion."  I don't need to believe in God, Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny in order to want to screw around, or have kids.  The desire to reproduce is the most natural thing in the world.  I agree it is remarkable the modern world has created a system that discourages it.

The fact is, the inflationist, Keynesian policies, and the nanny state make the mixed economic system we currently live in inevitably  unstable, as von Mises had argued decades ago.  Demographic trends are only a symptom of this.

In referring to the aging population in Europe and the U.S. Meyer writes: "Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics."  I think it is clear that no single person has any idea how to run an economy with ANY particular demographics.  The very idea "the economy" needs to be directed, tells you where his heart and mind are located.  He is a creature of the bureaucratic state that has served him so well.   

The fertility crisis has nothing to do with religion.  It has to do with the incentives the managers of the current economic system have created.  With social securty, there is less need to have kids to take care of you when you are old.  This article explains the fertility crisis much more elegantly than the "decline in religion" hypothesis.

http://www.mises.org/story/2451

With policies that "make education and healthcare affordable", the managers like Meyer have succeeded in doing the opposite--making education BOTH unaffordable (without govt. assisatnce), LOW quality, while also discouraging the creation of families and children due to the cost.

The govt. can always try to raise taxes to pay for those benefits it promised.  Unfortunately, it will never collect.  Business will relocate, workers will move to areas where they see the benefits of their labor,  and the economy will contract--making the govt. fiscal problems worse. 

The only real solution is to cap benefits and plan on phasing out the program.  I won't hold my breath waiting to happen.