Birth Control: A Twenty-Something’s Best Asset Class | Hacker News Reader

Birth Control: A Twenty-Something’s Best Asset Class

blog.futureadvisor.com

33 pointsvonnik26 comments

Delaying having a child for ten years also implies that the associated costs of having that child will have continued to climb over the intervening ten years.

As many of those costs (healthcare, childcare, education) have been growing at similar (or greater) rates than plausible investment returns, the calculated return of the birth control investment may be overstated a bit.

Depends on where that 20-something lives. Children are considered valuable assets in many developing countries where they start generating income for the parents at an early age for a relatively low cost.

Would also be interesting to factor in some non-tangibles: Non-parents get more sleep, are healthier, have more financial and career freedom, lead better social lives, get to enjoy their favorite music and TV shows more, worry less, have less general stress, and are less likely to say they are very happy than parents. [0]

[0] http://qz.com/262645/people-without-kids-live-better-than-pa...

And this is why Idiocracy will end up being prophesy: when your society makes having kids the dumb thing to do, you end up having lots of dumb people.

I have three kids.

We're not saying having kids is the dumb thing to do. Kids are great. Kids with smart, caring parents are even greater. What we're saying is there are consequences to being careless with birth control. An unplanned pregnancy can be traumatic both emotionally and financially. People who want kids should think about when they'll have the bandwidth to raise them. If you want to spend your 20s raising kids, then by all means. If you're not thinking about it, and behaving carelessly, then maybe this article will make you wake up.

You are saying it is dumb to do from a financial standpoint. And your analysis is entirely correct. Mr. Money Moustache made effectively the same point in a recent blog post (although he of course had to rationalize having one child since that's what he did):

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/09/10/great-news-youre-a...

What I would note is that this is also the analysis at the start of Idiocracy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8

I believe that the second and third order effects of this analysis, which Idiocracy points to, are negative in the long run. Idiocracy is prophesy.

I know this strikes many people as flippant, and I do find it quite funny, but I'm entirely serious.

Carson - we are saying that it is dumb to do in your 20s if you have income you could otherwise invest. Early investments trump later investments. We're not saying don't have kids. We're saying that 20-somethings could do themselves a favor by thinking long term.

If people are going to have kids, then I certainly want the smart, hard-working, forward-looking people to have kids. We're not arguing against that. We're making an argument about a time of life.

Personally, I have a daughter whom I love very much. She was not planned. I'm not actually sure that this planet will be a good place for her or for humans in a few decades, at the rate we are changing the environment. Given that we are headed for large-scale natural disaster, you could argue that the Idiocracy already prevails. Or from another angle, that humans act like idiots when in large groups. In either case, the quality of the humans reproducing may be a moot point.

This also makes the point for why access to (and use of) birth control/family planning (and, even abortion) are so important for the financial wellbeing of lower-income individuals (women in particular, due to the imbalance in biological burden).

Infinite ROI: stop having sex.

That's a failing business model, and I suspect you know it.

Not necessarily: Why do you think porn sites exist?

ROFL

And just what do you think happens in many of the videos and pics on these sites?

Only if you value things very differently than most people, I believe. For most people, foregoing romantic relationships seems to be a pretty steep cost.

That was basically my point, the article is absurd - you don't calculate P&L on having kids.

Are you actually suggesting that having unplanned kids out of wedlock before you are ready is a good idea? Because otherwise, I don't see the absurdity. It's unquestionably expensive and if you don't want it, it does not have value that you would seek out, so yes, we can say it's a huge money sink.

Without immigration and unplanned pregnancies, we'd be well below replacement rate. Maybe it isn't good for your individual finances, but it'd be disastrous on a societal level.

Unless birth control reduces immigration, I don't see why that would necessarily be so.

> if you don't want it, it does not have value that you would seek out

Many people are quite happy with their unplanned children, so it is difficult to make this value judgment. It is also extremely difficult to measure as I suspect most of those who regret unplanned children are unwilling to admit it.

You are considering cost versus benefit without any reasonable estimation of benefit.

I am considering the individual's value estimation at the time the decision is being made. I don't feel like the fact that they might revise their values later really matters for something like this.

When estimating the future costs and benefits of a decision why would you use the persons present values and not their future values? It seems silly to consider how much present day me would enjoy something in the future instead of how much future me would enjoy it when it will clearly be future me, not present me enjoying it.

Are you kidding?

Where are you going to get the next generation of freemium mobile game and social network users from, eh?

No; more importantly, who are you going to sell them to?

When your livelihood depends on "a sucker born every minute", you need to keep that flow going!

Open borders!

Observation unrelated to article content: For some reason this site hijacks the swipe-left and swipe-right actions on a magic mouse, preventing Safari swipe navigation. It scrolls up and down instead.

Note: this was (briefly) flagged as dead, either through automagic or mods.

This is exactly the sort of article that I like seeing on HN: funny, well-written, and with hard (snicker) numbers to back up its assertions.

Thanks, angersock. Not sure why it got modded. We were pleasantly surprised that it climbed to #9 on organic upvotes, disappointed when it got knocked to #54. I posted it. I manage the blog where it was published, and I don't know what we did wrong...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com