Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Stop paying for babies

The idea of the government paying people to have babies is stupid.

Why? Babies are basically a massive drain on society. After we pay people to have babies, we then fork out massive amounts for child care schemes, family bonuses and education. Their mothers also tend not to work as much and thus we end up collecting far less tax. If anything we should be discouraging Australians from having babies and rewarding women who don’t spend their days hanging out at the park with a stroller.

People may argue that we need babies to pay for the pensions of our ageing population. Frankly, that’s bull.  If we ever have a population shortfall we have a huge number of international students who would be quite happy to get permanent residency and start working immediately. There’s no waiting 20 years for them to be productive and we don’t have to pay absolutely anything to nurture them.

Throwing money at people to have babies is economically quite unproductive. Most is shovelled back into real estate, pushing up house prices further. And why do Australians struggle to afford having children? Ridiculously high house prices which are the result of other stupid government incentives.

Somehow basic economic theory has been lost over the past decades as politicians attempt to bribe voters with all sorts of middle class welfare. Why not get rid of it all and let the market do its thing?


The most ridiculous policy is the Coalition’s parental leave scheme. Somehow fancy-pants bankers and lawyers who choose to push out a puppy will end up with up to $75,000 while a woman on the minimum wage would end up with a huge chunk less. How is that at all morally justifiable? Seems to me like it is a scheme aimed at upping the birth rates among pearl wearing liberal voters. I’m really starting to dislike their take from me, give to the rich attitude. How many fucking silver spoons do I have to subsidise?