In a U.s. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All

I’m not cruel because I think society operates best — in terms of human outcomes — if incentives and disincentives are tied to decisions in ways that maximize the likelihood and benefit of personal responsibility.

Parents need to be responsible for their children. The state should only step in if they fail in their responsibility.

How is it folks like yourself can understand these concepts across a myriad of domains, including things like wildlife and their rehabilitation, and the importance of fostering self-sufficiency, but not this?

It’s not kindness to create people dependent on the state, or to advantage businesses that do not pay a living wage by subsidizing their employees.

Hell, look at what we’ve done to the cost of education by creating government-backed loan programs that simply allow universities to charge as much as students can afford to mortgage from their future.

I think that gets difficult when we talk about incidental causes of needing support.

Like let's say there's two parents, the primary income earner dies, there's not enough in savings, so single parent now needs support. I don't think that's anyone's "fault".

On the other hand, we could look at a case where there's a family who's never made enough money to support their kids and keeps having more. You can take away the kids and fine the parents for fraud. (Obviously should issue a warning before this)

But I think that for some parts of this, tying the benefits to the child just reduces the opportunities for abuse. Medical care for children is a pretty straight forward one. You make it universal and the taxes are progressive such that you make it a wash for middle or upper middle income families and a loss for upper income families. So everyone gets the benefits but that creates an efficient system where we don't really need to do means testing on the child at time of their medical checkup. Same thing for something like food programs. Both of these can even utilize the existing schools so we don't need to build new facilities. For food, you just make it so access to the cafeteria is free. Provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Will people abuse the program? Absolutely. Nothing is 100% bulletproof. Will the cost of abuse outweigh the costs needed to avoid the abuse? Probably not. Will the costs of avoiding the abuse outweigh the costs of a child going hungry? Absolutely not.

I think this last part is important to note because frequently the complaints about these systems leverage the fact that the system is imperfect. We then spend years arguing about how to make it perfect (which is literally an impossible task) and meanwhile we leave the most important part of the problem unsolved, causing damage. If we are unable to recognize that perfection is impossible then our conversations just become silly as we love to "play devil's advocate" or "steelman" arguments. That adversarial nature is a very helpful tool for refinement, but it also can't serve as a complete blocker either.

Maybe I'm too tired to write clearly. I meant, the reason parents have ownership over their children (at least in America) is primarily for ideological indoctrination.

But what if Avery has the skills and training to watch 5 kids at once in a group?

The financials of childcare don't really make sense to me. YMMV depending on your situation, but childcare costs are basically equivalent to my wife's teacher salary. And because of our tax bracket, it'd actually be CHEAPER for her to quit her job and take care of 2 kids full time, vs getting paid teach like 20 kids. There's tradeoffs in terms of career progression, but it seems broken that there's a decent financial argument for leaving the workforce.

My SO spent a few months collecting the neighbour's daughter along with our own from kindergarten and in exchange the neighbour would make dinner for us. This arrangement started because the neighbours' shifts didn't align with kindergarten hours.

At some point it struck me that this is all labour, but there was no money exchanged for the services rendered and certainly no taxes collected. Even worse - without this our neighbours would have to take an inordinate amount of time off, as getting a babysitter was too expensive.

I have a suspicion a lot of the “why did wages stop keeping pace with the growth of the economy?” problem is because real productivity hasn’t been growing nearly as fast as our measures of it. But the measures are tied to ways for capitalists to extract more money, so that fake-growth does make line go up for owners. But there’s not nearly as much more actual work getting done as one might think from the numbers.

I mean what, 10ish% of our entire GDP in the US, and IIRC that’s generously low, is being throwing in a fire from excessive spending on healthcare for effectively no actual benefit, versus peer states. And that’s just one fake-productivity issue (though one that affects the US more than most). But our GDP would drop if we fixed that!

This analysis is incomplete for a couple of reasons:

1. any universal childcare scheme will involve groups larger than the median at-home familial group. Avery is watching ~1-2 kids, but if those kids are at creche, they are in a group of (say) ~4-5.

2. In much of the country, a) is financially out of reach for many couples due to cost of living generally being based around two-income households.

They are very different.

In scenario A, the labor of watching the kids is untaxed.

In Scenario B is Avery watches many kids and the effort per kid is reduced, but you get taxed.

In Scenario B the government gets to collect more tax revenues, and also has additional levers to influence certain behaviour (the government will tax you, but give you a tax break if you do Y). Also, the government can make your labor worth less by printing money and increasing inflation.

Interesting game engine:

1. Each sim gets a minimum wage of $childcare dollars

2. Each sim gets a maximum wage of $childcare dollars

It's not just about the economy, it is about freedom of choice. What does Max and Avery feel about their careers? Would they rather be working or watching kids? If one parent has to stay home, that might mean having to give up a good career.

No one should be forced to choose between a career and kids, unless the goal is falling birthrates.

It’s not measured in GDP but it is measured. For example right now it’s estimated that household production is around 23% of GDP. So quite sizable.

Part of the reason it’s not included in GDP is just that it’s not reliable to measure precisely so it’s not as valuable as a statistic for making monetary and fiscal policy decisions.

> The same total work gets done by the same group of people in both cases, but the second measures as "better" for "the economy".

It's worse than that, because it's not the same work. In Scenario B the person watching the kids isn't their parent so they don't have the same bond or interest in the child's long-term success. It also introduces a lot of additional inefficiencies because now you have trust and vetting issues, either the child or the person watching the child has to commute every day so that they're in the same place because they no longer live in the same house as each other, etc.

It reminds me of Bujold.

“Oh, certainly, you could produce quantities of infants — although it would take enormous resources to do so. Highly trained techs, as well as equipment and supplies. But don’t you see, that’s just the beginning. It’s nothing, compared to what it takes to raise a child. Why, on Athos it absorbs most of the planet’s economic resources. Food, of course — housing — education, clothing, medical care — it takes nearly all our efforts just to maintain population replacement, let alone to increase. No government could possibly afford to raise such a specialized, nonproductive army.”

Elli Quinn quirked an eyebrow. “How odd. On other worlds, people seem to come in floods, and they’re not necessarily impoverished, either.”

Ethan, diverted, said, “Really? I don’t see how that can be. Why, the labor costs alone of bringing a child to maturity are astronomical. There must be something wrong with your accounting.”

Her eyes screwed up in an expression of sudden ironic insight. “Ah, but on other worlds the labor costs aren’t added in. They’re counted as free.”

Ethan stared. “What an absurd bit of double thinking! Athosians would never sit still for such a hidden labor tax! Don’t the primary nurturers even get social duty credits?”

“I believe” — her voice was edged with a peculiar dryness — “they call it women’s work. And the supply usually exceeds the demand — non-union scabs, as it were, undercutting the market.”

While in a low trust society, which you obviously already have, people are most productive when they're at perpetual risk of starvation.

Trust is irrelevant, families gain the after tax income of working mothers but society gains not just the pretax value but the actual value of work generated. Thus subsidizing childcare and moving the needle to align society’s benefits and family benefits is a net gain without the issue of trust being involved.

The same is true of quality public education etc, however creating US vs THEM narratives are politically powerful even if they don’t actually reflect reality.

It’s not, but we seem to have to keep convincing business people that they’re part of society, so it helps to be able to appeal to their pocketbooks, too.

Why is the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services (aka, the economy) the highest priority?

Well, mostly because it's required to keep the vast majority of people in society alive and the effects of disruption are only second to war in terms of potential for misery.

Slovenia doesn’t have free healthcare, only subsidized.

Source: https://www.gov.si/teme/znizano-placilo-vrtca/

Berlin, Germany. Admission from 1.5 y.o.

Russia and some other ex-Soviet states have it, as a leftover of the Soviet system. But it persists because people find it essential.

> In which country there is a cheap childcare, especially if we are talking about children under 3?

Norway. The maximum price for barnehage (kindergarten Norwegian style) is 1 200 NOK per month, about 120 USD, but never more than 6% of the household's income. Every child is guaranteed a place. Families with low income get 20 hours a week 'core time' free. Children can attend from one year old until they start school at five or six.

See https://www.statsforvalteren.no/innlandet/barnehage-og-oppla...

My kids very rarely got sick in pre-school (1-5 years old) or in school. Make sure they sleep enough and you are usually good.

> In which country there is a cheap childcare, especially if we are talking about children under 3?

France AFAICT

https://www.newsweek.com/us-mom-unpacks-costs-child-care-par...

https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/explainer-how-childcare...

Not if the samples are skewed. For example, the people who get the care are from stable environments with financial means. After universal childcare is implemented, we start measuring these things in the broader population that has fewer access to resources generally.

Yes, that's why I thought they'd cheer it. When the state provides day care, more Moms work and contribute to capitalism more than the cost of the day care.

What do you mean?

You should talk to some people with kids then. I can't find the source, but I think the US national average is something like $1500/month for <40 hour/wk daycare. That doesn't account for child-to-sitter ratio differences, or cost of living differences either. A few different friends around the country, not in big cities, have cited >$5K/month as the cheapest they can find for full time daycare. It's significant enough that families with multiple children are often cited as being unable to have both parents with careers, because the cost of childcare far exceeds what one of them can make in their career. To be fair, this makes some sense, you're effectively paying for a portion of a child care professionals career, plus the shared overhead for facilities and supplies. If you have a decent (<8 children per professional) ratio and have 2-3 kids needing daycare, you're paying for 25-30% of someone's direct salary, plus overhead. Very few people make so much more than a trained professional that they could afford to shell out that much.

i just got quoted 300/wk for 2-day daycare

It's actually cheaper now. the numbers I quote were from when my children were in barnehage many years ago. But remember that is the maximum one would pay, it's graduated according to your income. The rule now is not more than 6% of household income and not more than about 130 USD per month. Also remember that this is eight or more hours per day five days a week in a facility that doesn't only look after your children but also teaches them how to be independent, resilient, social, etc.

Could you get private child care for 300 USD per month?

Pre-school nurseries in my area typically charge around £100 ($132) per day.

America is the place without universal childcare being used as a control here.

The high level point is idealism not grounded in historical facts and probably not worthy spending time and going deeper with criticism, because full rebuttal isn’t some expert knowledge - ChatGPT can do that for you. America of 1800s is everything but libertarian paradise and is not truly exceptional. Industrialization in Europe increased prosperity while building welfare states at the same time.

Well, that‘s not related to this specific conversation, but industrialization in socialist states did that in a number of cases. Soviet Union between 1950s and 1970s has seen significant growth and by various accounts achieved up to 5x improvement in purchase power compared to Russian Empire at its peak, in 1913 (how much goods could a worker buy for their salary, not including welfare, which was obviously superior in SU). I‘m not saying socialism is good, the price paid for that was terrible. And anyway my argument wasn’t that there were better societies, just that America of 1800s was ugly place to live even for many white Europeans (and let’s not forget that 60% of the time in that century there existed slavery). People went there not because it was great (and not everyone went there, many German settlers chose opposite direction, moving to Wild East, helping colonial expansion of Russian empire). It was just marginally better than certain places in Europe with its wars and famines.

I agree on that. It doesn’t make your previous comment right.

when you say 'individual rights', you should be honest about which classes of people that was referring to. By the way, don't be so defensive, the working poor are being absolutely crushed by capital right now, your guys won!

What do you think patriotism is, if not "community sacrifice"?

GP's point is that you are playing fast and loose with words here, so much so that your point doesn't make sense. "Community sacrifice" is a much broader category than those few policies you dislike.

> Did you know that the Slave South was unable to supply their troops? They were largely barefoot. The reason they were in Pennsylvania was to raid a shoe factory (but got smashed at Gettysburg instead). Towns and cities and industry sprouted up all over in the free North, not so much in the South.

Guess where the north got their cotton to make those shoes? The south. The textile industries of the north would've never gotten their start without cheap cotton made possible by slavery.

> As for natural resources, why is resource-rich S. America mired in poverty? Why did the Indian nations never industrialize, and remained poor? Why did resource-poor Japan become super rich after being burned to the ground in WW2? Why did resource-rich Russia never become prosperous? Why did zero-resource Taiwan become a wealthy powerhouse? Why is resource rich Africa still stuck in poverty?

Every South American nation that tried to raise itself out of poverty had their government overthrown or their leader assassinated with the help of good ol' USA. Japan/S. Korea/Taiwan industrialized because USA decided they needed strong allies to counter Russia/China. Check out the grand area plans. Africa was colonized, exported millions of their people to slavery, and is continually destabilized by the west (corporations, world bank, IMF, etc) to perpetuate resource extraction.

The poor is kept poor so the rich can get richer. Why is food so plentiful and cheap? Slave labor. Read Tomatoland for a taste. Why are clothes so cheap? People are working for pennies to make those clothes. Why doesn't the iPhone price rise with inflation? There are millions of poor rural Chinese pounding for a chance to work at inhumane conditions for a few dollars a day. You think they make enough to pull their families out of poverty? Nope, it's mostly foreign companies that are reaping the bulk of the profit while continually pressing their costs (labor wages) down.

> There is no connection between resource rich and prosperity.

This is false, and easily disproved by history. I don't have time right now to go through it point by point -- but will try to when I can get to it.

It's indisputable that had the US been resource poor -- in arable land and exploitable resources -- it would have never become a powerhouse able to not only sustain millions of incoming immigrants from Europe, but ultimately make them prosperous. And it got that arable land and exploitable resources by driving out the local inhabitants and stealing their land--that is not a "theory". The fact that much of the early economy needed to catapult the US to the top by cotton and tobacco, which was harvested by slaves and powered the factories in the non-slave states, is not a "theory" either.

> Guess which half prospered? The free North! Which stagnated? The slave South.

The slave owners were very prosperous. The majority of the population was slaves and they indeed were by definition impoverished. No need to build infrastructure for a slave population, no need for much in the way of cities either. The factories in the north were powered by the raw materials from the south. (It's the reason the North accepted the Slave south in the first place and later went to war to keep them in the Union.) The US got rich the same way the European countries became so prosperous in the 1600-1800s: occupying other lands that were resource rich, and extracting their resources, and where possible, using slave labor.

Edit: If you're talking about the _modern_ economy, then yes, I would agree with you to some extend. And you use the example of Taiwan -- which was impoverished by the way until 60 years ago. But remember this conversation is about "the founding the US" -- that's the economy being discussed, not one where TSMC emerges.