dtcwee: The Value of Nothing

Is having children to care for you in old age a good strategy? The social contract, particularly in Confucian societies, is that adults are expected to care for their elderly, reciprocating the care received as children. But how well is this expectation played out in fact?

Why you should want to work. The fable of the 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' is often used to prime the work-shy for shame and deprivation.

It's not the size, it's the growth. As the world ages, it's worth wondering if retiree benefits will increasingly drive inflation through supporting elderly buying power and enabling them to exit the labour supply. Let's plot pension replacement rates , a measure of pension generosity, against 2023 inflation for the G20, the world's largest economies. In short, countries' circumstances and systems are too diverse for a strong relationship between pension generosity and inflation, but let's break it down further.

Will having children make marriages last? Children, it is supposed, so enrich a marriage that it is more likely to endure over time. They bring a unique stimulus, necessitate close teamwork, and foster intimate communication. While some would argue that they could seek such stimuli elsewhere, and others would say that they can do without that sort of personal development, the naysayers are not strong enough to displace a nuclear family ideal that has persisted despite change in the 20th and 21st centuries.

TLDR: Individuals pay the most tax, followed by large enterprises (Government-owned and publicly listed). 📊  Code generated by Gemini. Figures from FY 2023-2024. Company tax breakdown (Into large corporates and other) estimated from FY 2022-2023.

Invaders don't win. Defenders lose. If we're fretting about our own Golden Age falling to usurpers, let us remember that barbarians don't operate in a vacuum. The Khwarazmian (Persian) Empire was corrupt and rife with elite infighting before the Mongols arrived.