Why Family Values Are Economic Values

[Speaker to Animals]

There is no evidence presented showing causality, only correlation - as is typical in hack economic articles. I feel no need to dignify it with a detailed data-driven retort.

Say wha?

The evidence is in “The Millennial Success Sequence” published by the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies and written by Wendy Wang of the IFS and W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia and AEI.

The success sequence, previously suggested in research by, among others, Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution, is this: First get at least a high school diploma, then get a job, then get married, and only then have children.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... e34765328f

There's a citation about the study from the Jeff Bezos owned, highly anti-Trump, Washington Post.
What is your issue with the data?

I don't doubt the results of the study - but the interpretation is ridiculous.

'Graduate, work, marry, kids' = not poor.

Do you suppose that poor people have more or less of that path available to them? Did they control for the family economic status at birth? Location? Ethnicity? (not because white people are 'better', but they have different influences, no matter what)

For most men, the mistake was in choosing a poor example of a woman to marry. That's his mistake, but the rest of it was the woman and the state.

But for the most part, this is exactly what leads towards poverty. Sex outside of marriage leads to pregnancy. Single motherhood is the worst possible family unit other than (I suppose) being raised by dogs in wilderness. Our government and legal system has created enormous incentives to fuel the growth of single mother households and to alienate fathers (for child support, which the state profits from as well). They even create welfare programs that penalize women who stay with the father of their children.

I think it's fallacious to argue that you can do those things and automatically not be poor, but it's pretty accurate to state that if you don't do those things, you are very likely to be poor. Or, if your wife decides to do those things without your consent, you are going to be poor and your children will be adversely affected for the rest of their lives.

We have to stop subsidizing and encouraging the ruin of families. Stop pretending like single mothers are brave or in any way laudable for what they have done. They fucked up. Their children pay the consequences for their poor choices. Stop incentivizing divorce with child support, alimony, and perverse tax/welfare policies. Stop creating disincentives to get married, including skyrocketing tuition for college degrees that are necessary now to get into the middle class, which in turn leave people in crushing debt, while the government facilitates the offshoring of jobs and the importation of millions of immigrants to glut labor markets.

It's true that there are issues of personal moral failings, bad decisions, and so forth. God knows I fucked up by marrying a chick with borderline personality disorder. That's on me. But the incentives the state creates to destroy marriages is a much bigger issue. So is the way welfare is setup. So is the way our society now forces people to wait very long to have children, if at all, because of huge debts incurred just so you don't lose your place in the economic hierarchy (i.e. fall from the middle class to the working poor, which is all to easy nowadays).

[SuburbanFarmer]

Let's take a hypothetical poor person - a white girl named SueAnn.

SueAnn grows up in a trailer park, dad left or beat the shit out of her. Maybe her uncles took a turn in her bed, you know how it is. Brother is smoking meth at 16, steals the family tv, gets arrested.

When our girl hits 18, who is she supposed to marry? She has no marketable skills, barely any education, no social breeding, and nothing to offer a good man. Where does she work, McDonald's? That should lead to success. Highschool - hell, maybe she graduated somehow, but that's the end of the "prosperity chain".

Let's say she's a real go-getter and goes to college on loans, etc. She's a fish out of water, surrounded by PC culture, with a background in the dirt. She gets isolated, frustrated, and drops out.

No wait, Commie Cat! She's a trooper, and does it anyway!!

Ok, well let's pretend that she somehow gets through all of those disadvantages and graduates college. What's next? Job interviews with a trailer park drawl and style don't lead to the BigTime, and she probably majored in nursing anyway (to help take care of her diabetic parents).

So, she gets a job at the local clinic, and pokes needles all day. That's not bad, but she's still single. Time to get a man! And she's back to what she knows - slumming at the trailer park, until some Joe Nowhere plants the seeds of her destruction. Single mama can't work, so back she goes to the trailer, and the cycle begins anew.....

If only she'd really done the HARD STUFF to get ahead, amirite? What a dumb POS she is, for not doing more.

:unfurl the glorious feathers, and drape them around yourself in glory:

[SuburbanFarmer]

It's true that there are issues of personal moral failings, bad decisions, and so forth. God knows I fucked up by marrying a chick with borderline personality disorder. That's on me. But the incentives the state creates to destroy marriages is a much bigger issue. So is the way welfare is setup. So is the way our society now forces people to wait very long to have children, if at all, because of huge debts incurred just so you don't lose your place in the economic hierarchy (i.e. fall from the middle class to the working poor, which is all to easy nowadays).

Agree for the most part. Our society strongly discourages procreation - and now you have the answer to why whites are becoming a minority in America.

It's not because of unchecked hordes of immigrants swarming over the border. Our incentives are fucked up.

[Fife]

Man this forum is really sucking pond water. It gets more low-brow by the thread.

Uh, anyway. Many people ponder the puzzle of why so many single parent families struggle so mightily compared to stable nuclear families.

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/ch ... inequality

Having a child out of wedlock is like dropping out of high school. It’s a behavior that tends to reflect social disadvantage while simultaneously compounding it. Both are additional millstones around the necks of Americans already struggling to stay afloat.

I don’t have an easy answer, but the first step to dealing with termites in any structure is acknowledging that they are there.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics ... ing-family

One inescapable issue that too many families around the world face is poverty.
Some say related to poverty are the moral issues affecting the family -- children born outside of marriage, the increasing rate of cohabitation and the overall disintegration of families.

Does one issue feed into the other? Is there a cause and effect?

[Speaker to Animals]

It's true that there are issues of personal moral failings, bad decisions, and so forth. God knows I fucked up by marrying a chick with borderline personality disorder. That's on me. But the incentives the state creates to destroy marriages is a much bigger issue. So is the way welfare is setup. So is the way our society now forces people to wait very long to have children, if at all, because of huge debts incurred just so you don't lose your place in the economic hierarchy (i.e. fall from the middle class to the working poor, which is all to easy nowadays).

Agree for the most part. Our society strongly discourages procreation - and now you have the answer to why whites are becoming a minority in America.

It's not because of unchecked hordes of immigrants swarming over the border. Our incentives are fucked up.

It's both, and those hordes of immigrants are part of the issue. To remain in the middle class, you have to get a college degree now. That means you take on a huge debt. But lo and behold, the government just simultaneously facilitated the offhshoring of jobs to the third world and glutted the labor market with H1B and illegal immigrants. So here you have this degree and (if you can get a job) a much lower salary because of it. It now takes you even longer to pay that debt off, postponing children and possibly marriage altogether.

Meanwhile the government and the now marxist universities are giving immigrants (including illegal immigrants) free tuition, which white students have to pay through even higher tuition and taxes. We even incentivize these immigrants to have children with our welfare policies even as we create disincentives for whites to have babies.

Seriously think about what you are saying here. Immigration is a key component in the soft genocide against whites.

[Okeefenokee]

I'm completely shocked that grumps has come out against a reliable path to success with a screed about, "the game's rigged. there's nothing you can do. it's just correlation. success is impossible."

totally shocked.

never saw it coming.

ever.

[The Conservative]

Taking this into consideration, does it make more sense to focus like a laser beam on issues of race and racism, or might it be wiser to consider if our policies are subsidizing (and thereby encouraging) the destruction of the nuclear family, particularly in certain communities?

The two are linked. From the initial destruction of black nuclear families via forcible removal right through to today's forcible removal of black men from their families, our society has done pretty much everything it can to prevent the formation of black nuclear families. It's going to take a long, long time to repair the damage, but a couple of things that could help:

-financial incentives. Social workers used to go into the projects to search out women whose partners were living with them - it wasn't allowed. They couldn't get married because they'd lose their homes. Subsidizing black families would eventually phase out, but for now we need to do everything possible to encourage the formation of the black nuclear family.

-stop forcibly removing black men from their families for crap reasons. Decriminalize minor drug offenses, 'loitering' type offenses, etc., because they can lead to incarceration for no good reason.

-All of the most visible elements of black society (especially celebrities) should be joined in promoting marriage before children. Procreating with multiple partners should be socially unacceptable.

Just a few ideas.

No one forces any color or race of "father" from a "family" if they are law abiding citizens. The only time a family is broken apart by choice of both parties in a lot of cases is divorce. Otherwise if you have made an individual choice to do something stupid that got the attention of the police or worse.

Black men aren't targeted because of race, the only people that think that are liberal hypocrites.

[Speaker to Animals]

Taking this into consideration, does it make more sense to focus like a laser beam on issues of race and racism, or might it be wiser to consider if our policies are subsidizing (and thereby encouraging) the destruction of the nuclear family, particularly in certain communities?

The two are linked. From the initial destruction of black nuclear families via forcible removal right through to today's forcible removal of black men from their families, our society has done pretty much everything it can to prevent the formation of black nuclear families. It's going to take a long, long time to repair the damage, but a couple of things that could help:

-financial incentives. Social workers used to go into the projects to search out women whose partners were living with them - it wasn't allowed. They couldn't get married because they'd lose their homes. Subsidizing black families would eventually phase out, but for now we need to do everything possible to encourage the formation of the black nuclear family.

-stop forcibly removing black men from their families for crap reasons. Decriminalize minor drug offenses, 'loitering' type offenses, etc., because they can lead to incarceration for no good reason.

-All of the most visible elements of black society (especially celebrities) should be joined in promoting marriage before children. Procreating with multiple partners should be socially unacceptable.

Just a few ideas.

No one forces any color or race of "father" from a "family" if they are law abiding citizens. The only time a family is broken apart by choice of both parties in a lot of cases is divorce. Otherwise if you have made an individual choice to do something stupid that got the attention of the police or worse.

Black men aren't targeted because of race, the only people that think that are liberal hypocrites.

Boy will you be surprised if you ever land family court.

[The Conservative]

The two are linked. From the initial destruction of black nuclear families via forcible removal right through to today's forcible removal of black men from their families, our society has done pretty much everything it can to prevent the formation of black nuclear families. It's going to take a long, long time to repair the damage, but a couple of things that could help:

-financial incentives. Social workers used to go into the projects to search out women whose partners were living with them - it wasn't allowed. They couldn't get married because they'd lose their homes. Subsidizing black families would eventually phase out, but for now we need to do everything possible to encourage the formation of the black nuclear family.

-stop forcibly removing black men from their families for crap reasons. Decriminalize minor drug offenses, 'loitering' type offenses, etc., because they can lead to incarceration for no good reason.

-All of the most visible elements of black society (especially celebrities) should be joined in promoting marriage before children. Procreating with multiple partners should be socially unacceptable.

Just a few ideas.

No one forces any color or race of "father" from a "family" if they are law abiding citizens. The only time a family is broken apart by choice of both parties in a lot of cases is divorce. Otherwise if you have made an individual choice to do something stupid that got the attention of the police or worse.

Black men aren't targeted because of race, the only people that think that are liberal hypocrites.

Boy will you be surprised if you ever land family court.

My wife is from a divorced family, I speak out of experience.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I'm completely shocked that grumps has come out against a reliable path to success with a screed about, "the game's rigged. there's nothing you can do. it's just correlation. success is impossible."

totally shocked.

never saw it coming.

ever.

It's because of my weak moral character, no doubt. Where do I pick up my welfare checks? I'm tired of working.