Aight, I agree it’s better to give positive help at one group instead of trying to punish the other.

I’m literally going to financially reward my wife for taking time off work in order to take care of our kid.

Parenting is labour. When you’re parenting, you can’t be doing a different job.

My wife’s parents in Indonesia don’t have a pension much. It’s barely anything. Her mom just gets money from my wife and her 2 sisters.

That’s how it used to be for a long time, pension is relatively new.

So in the vast majority of history, parents always were financially rewarded for having children.

Median age in Indonesia is 30, while in Belgium it’s 42. While we’re far wealthier in resources. People just stopped having children because it wasn’t necessary anymore.

We can’t act like this isn’t a problem, unless the people that willingly caused the aging population issue take full responsibility and go through hardships in order to help the society battle a period of low work force.

These families already are adequately supported. We need to find a way to guide people into the actions we want them to do.

Like, they want me to stop using the car to work. Okay, they allow everyone at my hospital to use their taxes to pay for a commuting e bike. It’s a financial incentive. (Don’t worry I’m not a healthcare worker, just administration, I am not the right person to work with people in need).

Indeed there are exceptions and therefore exemptions. If a medical examination says that it’s difficult for you or your partner to have children, then they’d be exempted of any punishment.

I don’t think it’s psychologically a smart move to punish not having kids, but to reward having kids. That’s why I say “extra pension”. (By behind closed doors reducing pensions in general first, but they don’t know that).

Helping people that can’t have kids… We could allocate resources to them to help them adopt a child. Something like that. Once again, psychologically it would help them accept this. People give them the option that nature didn’t provide them.

We’re competing against the funds actually. I own ETFs that tracks the Stoxx 600. It has a yearly expense of 0,07% while bank funds would take like 2% or whatever.

Personally I’m not even thinking about my pension, cannot know what will happen in 37 years so I’m definitely taking it into my two own hands to accumulate assets.

Now, I understand why a pension is desirable. It’s a safety net. And I agree with that. High minimum pension for anyone who is unable to work due to old age. Just like for people who can’t work for other reasons.

But as Belgian, I know a lot of people that try and take advantage of our social safety nets. For a lot of people it’s not because they need it, but view it as an extra passive income while doing nothing.

That’s damaging to the social democrats. We need to get rid of the abuse, the corruption. We need to motivate people to do effort and reward that. And we have. Minimum wage in Belgium is quite high. Income inequality is 0,26 gini. Median net wealth is 250k euros.

Motivating people to have kids is also a necessity. To live more together in the same household. To use fewer resources. Be economically sustainable in the long term.

People are scared in Belgium, everyone is retiring. We’ve been accepting a lot of immigrants to help us out with this. Luckily, second generation immigrants are tremendously helpful.

To have a meaningful social net, we do need a good amount of people that can work. That can be parents.

We need to motivate people. And everyone that really cannot help society with this, they are exempted of course.

My friend her parents never worked a day in their lives. It’s absolutely normal. Her dad’s disabled and her mom takes care of him.

But another guy “didn’t work for 10 years cuz his knees hurt” while he randomly showed up at our hospital working, magically, when he’d lose his free passive income. He’s doing a desk job. Like everyone else.

Believe it or not, but I also am a leftist. Social democrat.

I say a lot of bad stuff though. Like: old people that did not have kids, should have less pension and use the money they have been saving up by not having kids.

This is seen as insane, but… old people are the wealthiest class in most societies.

Yes there are exceptions and these people need help. High minimum pension for sure. They need a decent life.

But why would I want someone who didn’t even have a kid to replace themselves as productive entity to gain a fantastic passive income on top of their already passive income generating assets?

a compromise would be something as simple as: retired person above age 65 gets +amount of euros per working child in insert home country.

It would incentivise having kids.

The reaction I get usually is that it’s inhumane, that people are seen as production houses only, that people don’t wanna be born… A lot of doomer stuff to be honest.

It would be fun if there’s a place where you can only deny an idea if you can replace it with your own solution to the issue. In this case “aging population” (popular issue in Belgium right now)

People started having kids at later age. My parents were 36 and 37 when I was born, so here I am, mildly autistic.

On top of that, I’d never have known if I didn’t go to a psychologist and ask my doctor.

My dad likely is autistic too. Just never went to a psychologist in his life. (He’s the last child of 6 kids, so his parents were likely old at that stage too)

If it’s not causing serious impairment, people won’t seek information about it. There’s a ton of people with neurodivergency that live perfectly fine lives.

It’s the overactive amygdala that caused me the most impairment anyways, not autism. Luckily, that can be helped with a simple medicine.

Lemmy is just left wing politics in an echo chamber

My mate is applying to Amazon as warehouse worker. He has an IT degree.

My coworker in the bookkeeping department has two degrees. Accountancy and IT. She can’t find an IT job.

At the other side though, my brother, an experienced software developer, is earning quite a lot of money now.

Basically, the industry is not investing in new blood.

Why’s this removed, bruv

Aight, let’s continue. You’re tougher than the other fella. You literally see the video of a Chinese speaking fella beating two scared submissive kids. Nah, it ain’t going to take it with ya.

Bring it on buddy, I’ll crack ya.

I’m curious which countries you folks live in tho

You actually admitted that a Chinese citizen did something bad, for Chinese gain.

That’s all I wanted. Good day to you, sir.

https://zeenews.india.com/video/news/viral-video-of-chinese-employers-assault-on-african-workers-sparks-racism-and-slavery-allegations-2746407.html

Ah don’t worry, just some fun stuff. I’ve seen a lot of the world, not as naive as you. Have you seen what they do in Brazil? I have, it ain’t that nice.

The video is pretty soft core.

Congo is still using Belgian railroads and trains, we sell old trucks to there. We buy oil from Nigeria which funds their economy. We help east Congo against Rwanda.

you wish to be at both sides of the argument and win twice.

You know what 1850s Belgium was? Well lil buddy, it’s where Marx wrote communist manifesto.

Look at us now, rich and not communist.

EU gives 20 billion euros in aid to Africa every year.

Showing me that china forgave 3,4 billion USD in interest between 2000 and 2019 is peanuts.

See, so easily baited.

China owns majority stake in the cobalt mines in Congo. Controlling 80% of their cobalt in order to have influence in the battery market. Which they use for dominance in smartphone and electric vehicle markets. The government subsidises this as well with tax payer money, which is good for the shareholders of Xiaomi, BYD, …

At the height of Belgian Congo, wallonia was wealthier than flanders. Now wallonia is quite poorer than flanders because their mines ran down. The industrialisation moved away.

We have a great economy because of services that we provide. We have a highly educated population.

We don’t depend on resources from Africa, south east Asia, etc. Why? We don’t do those industries.

That’s all delegated to China. China is our bitch, they do the child labour, the bad ethics, exploiting poor countries, and then sell us the products cheaply. We buy it, they do the dirty deed.

It’s almost as if raw materials are important to the economy that wants to turn them into a product.

And not important to an economy that basically just sells services?

What the fuck? Using brain? Logic? In a tankie sub?!

https://www.cecc.gov/events/hearings/from-cobalt-to-cars-how-china-exploits-child-and-forced-labor-in-the-congo

Go find some other sources, from various parts of the world.

Russia is invading Ukraine literally for resources for their industry, or rather to sell them to us with an extra price.

Removed by mod

Real Belgium? These oldies have been on strike and they haven’t seen a tank. Welcome to democracy. The NVA has the most votes, they were voted for in order to increase the work force.

Major amount of people on sick leave for more than 5 years. People were on unemployment benefits for more than 2 years. People used to retire at age 55. While barely having children.

For example my mate is in Germany now, his gf worked one year and now she’s relaxing 2 years on sick leave for “burnout”.

They are reducing taxes for people that work.

The minimum wage in Belgium is high. Education is free or cheap.

If you want to work, you have work. Social mobility is high in Belgium.

if we correct for purchasing power then the net wealths would be.

Belgium 333k euros. China 54k euros. Russia 28k euros. (Compared to USA)

With a year’s savings I can buy a 100 sq meters house in Indonesia. A Chinese or Russian cannot do that.

Not only is my internal purchasing power far higher, so is my external purchasing power.

The median net worth of an adult Belgian is 250k euros.

In china it’s 27k euros.

Those damn oligarchs :(

In Russia median net worth is 8,5k euros.

Those damn oligarchs :(

If only I had 200 billion USD net worth Putin at my side

Aight, show me how my country Belgium censors me.

Just a hint, criticising the government is our national sport.

Which is why I find you utterly pathetic being unable to criticise the country you wish to live in.

I am completely fine with moving to Indonesia. They have an ex general as president, that’s crazy dumb. He’s mixing military with political power and going back to 1998. The taxes are too low in Indonesia, they need to increase that in order to fund education.

See. It’s easy. Now grow a fucking spine.

I’ll do it for you.

China censors the shit out of their population. And if you want to be part of the 0,1% immigrants in china, you cannot afford to criticise a government of 1,4 billion people.

Because you are nothing compared to the government.

Go to china, so that I can’t read your comments anymore because of the great firewall.

Say something bad about china :)

Europe lacks independence. There’s far right movements, infiltrated by foreign interest. There’s racism here.

USA is going totalitarian.

Now, say something bad about china :) you might get banned though by your homies

You cannot be a refugee there, you need a job.

EU has 10% immigrants. China has 0,1% immigrants.

1,3 million Syrians took refuge in the EU while barely any could go to china.

China isn’t poor, they are unwilling.