when someone on insta is like "i dont get why a declining birth rate is a bad thing" so i, the student studying macroeconomics in college, reply and am like "yeah i mean in extreme cases it's bad bc it'll fuck up your labor force and can cause recessions but that's like. china one child policy levels of extreme" and then they're like "ok buddy ur gonna have to give me a better answer than tHe eCoNoMY, maybe then the evil ppl will finally suffer"
maam do u know how recessions work. do u think corporations just cut the paychecks of their execs to continue paying all of their employees. absolutely not they fire the most replaceable positions and then middle/low class families are Fucked Over because they no longer have jobs.
but again this is like. in extreme cases?? and not quite at the point where the US needs to be like. panicking massively. yes our birth rate is down but more at the point where policymakers should be like "hmm i wonder why nobody wants to have kids" and then listen when people are like "yeah everything is way too expensive and i cant afford to keep myself alive very well much less a child, and also maybe the world will explode in 5-10 years so is it really worth it to have a kid?" and then they'll say "oh i could maybe fix a few of those things"
like genuinely if you are rich/well off/have lots of savings, unless you're just an idiot who put all of your money into mortgage backed securities in early 2008, recessions will probably not hurt you that much
anyway
