Men's Apparel: 1.99%
Women's Apparel: 2.10%
Boys’ Apparel: 5.30%
Girls' Apparel: 3.13%
Everything seems to make sense. Even in tough economic times, parents still love their kids. Might make their children's clothes a priority over their own. Right?
So explain this?
Infants’ and Toddlers’ Apparel: -1.89%
I'm pretty sure that parents love their infants and toddlers at least as much as they love their boys and girls. Right? So that got me thinking.
My first thought was that there were a lot of naked infants and toddlers running around, lol. Unfortunately, that has probably always been true and therefore does not explain the phenomenon.
So my next thought was perhaps there were an unexpectedly fewer number of infants and toddlers. You'd certainly get some deflation that way. Picture a store that thinks 100 parents will visit and only 90 actually do. Hello clearance table.
So I now had a theory and it goes well with something I wrote previously about declining population growth. It was time to go looking for confirmation. It certainly didn't take long to find.
March 27, 2012
Birth Rate Plummets, Young Americans Too Poor To Have Kids
The number of children born in the U.S. has plunged 8 percent since its all-time high in 2007, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. More alarming: population growth is at its slowest growth rate since the Great Depression, according to the U.S. Census.
I'm going to suggest that underemployed workers might tend to think twice about having children. Since both men and women now work, it might only take one of the two being underemployed. The math therefore makes it even worse than it might otherwise appear. Consider the following table.
See the potential problem? Not much of the table is green.
What if it takes two employed breadwinners to both buy a dream home *and* have children?
What if high unemployment and/or skyrocketing tuition costs cause one of those two things to be postponed (or worse, cancelled)?
What if the epic housing bust and high gasoline prices permanently damage confidence?
September 16, 2009
Cash for kids in Japan
It isn’t easy to raise children in Japan, where the birth rate of 1.37 children per woman has fallen well below the replacement level of 2.07 and contributed to structural problems facing the world’s fastest-aging society. The reasons cited are myriad: the cost of schooling, a lack of daycare options and an increasing number of women unwilling to interrupt or forego their careers among them.
well, 2 things. first, the chart ignores the Idiocracy dynamic (though to be fair to the idiots births out of wedlock are also down).
ReplyDelete2ndly though, we're coming up on the baby boom echo's prime birthing years. Peak Gen Y birthyear was 1982, so they're just hitting their 30s now.
The population aged 25-35 actually bottomed around 2004-2006 at 37M but until 2020 it's going to rise at a pretty consistent +1% annual growth rate, to 43M+, and even exceed 44M in 2030 -- our breeding population will be 10% higher then than now, which will counteract fertility drops to that extent.
Troy,
ReplyDeleteAnd third, my chart does not factor in...
19 Kids and Counting
# of seasons: 9
# of episodes: 143 (and 6 specials)
I might have something that I'd really like to say about that but I think it would be best if I just kept my opinions to myself. ;)
Troy,
ReplyDeleteOne more thought from the Cash for kids in Japan link I offered in the post.
...an increasing number of women unwilling to interrupt or forego their careers...
Serious question. How much do you think that will be a factor?
The reason I ask is that it would seem to me that the more money one spends on college the more one would expect to use it for a career.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that's sort of a practical way of looking at it. I tend to be practical to a fault.
College is more preparation for marriage than a career for women in Japan . . .
ReplyDeleteArguably what Japan needs to get through their ongoing demographic decline is to get more women in the workforce.
Plus I think daycare attendant is a pretty desirable job for women, so they can kill (employ?) two birds with one stone with that.
Here's a ghetto table of my birth data:
http://i.imgur.com/ZwNMX.png
Since there will be 43M+ breeding age people after 2020, even if the rate remains depressed at 10% the 2007 bumper crop of 4.3M babies will be exceeded.
Ratio was at 0.09 for the early 1990s tho.
Troy,
ReplyDeleteI looked at your table twice. Very interesting.
Since there will be 43M+ breeding age people after 2020, even if the rate remains depressed at 10% the 2007 bumper crop of 4.3M babies will be exceeded.
Part of me wants to stick a trend line on the rate going from 2007 to 2010 and then use that to extrapolate forward. I'm into worst-case scenarios though.
11.68% -> 11.38% -> 10.83% -> 10.40% -> ? -> ? -> ?
My first thought is this will make the aquisition of tax revenues increasingly difficult for .gov.
ReplyDeleteSo my next thought is this will make it increasingly difficult for .gov to keep its promises to its lenders.
So I now have a theory that making future retirement plans based upon interest payments from and return of principle by .gov is a plan that has gone looking for confirmation.
My first thought is this will make the aquisition of tax revenues increasingly difficult for .gov.
ReplyDeletedepends what you tax . . .
wages/total personal income
After-tax Corporate profits / GDP
Trade deficit
If we aren't going to tax the "job creators" or our trade deficits, then the 99% are just going to have to bend over and choose between higher taxes vs. less government cheese.
There are still 15M surplus people here, so declining population isn't a bad thing in my book.
I tend to lean towards the physiocrat school -- sustainable wealth creation comes from the land. Everything else is just zero-sum games. Fewer people = having to make do with "more".
This is why I'd rather have Japan's problems than ours. They won the global economy game with 120M people back in 1985, and if they can get their politics sorted they'll be in arguably OK shape this century with 75M people in their boat.
Our problem is that we've got a fictional economy distorted by trillions of debt-take on.
The Japanese have that too but it's just money owed to themselves so if they ever get their internal politics sorted things will be OK.
Us on the other hand owe trillions to China, a trillion to Japan, and about that to OPEC etc. I don't know what's going to happen when our going-into-debt trend reverses. Nor does anyone, I suspect.
But I temper my pessimism with the understanding that there's a lot of BS in our economy that can be purged away. We could easily (?) cut household health expenses $10,000/yr with significant reforms in our health system (eg. moving to Canada's Medicare model). That's a lot of money.
Housing rents are still insane and there's simply no economic justification for this trillion-dollar parasitical tap on the middle quintiles. The owners here are of course well-funded and well-connected so any reform here is just as politically difficult as health reforms, plus it sucks that less than half the population is actually suffering under this rent tap regime, and they don't vote all that much anyway.
But even without explicit new policies wrt housing, it's my thesis that the rents we pay come out of our consumer surplus, so if taxes and life expenses go up, housing rents have to go down.
(This is more of a hope than a thesis, but I'm sticking to it.)
Part of me wants to stick a trend line on the rate going from 2007 to 2010 and then use that to extrapolate forward. I'm into worst-case scenarios though.
ReplyDeleteDoing the same study on Japan's birth data I see their birthrate fell 25% from their peak (1986) to trough (2005).
During their mid-late 80s bubble, Japan peaked at 0.07 births per 25-35 yos, bottoming at 0.05 in 2005. For 2011 it's now at 0.06 actually.
In 1982 there were 23M 25-35 yos. During my stay in the 1990s this ranged from 18M (1992) to 21M (2000-2003). But this year this has fallen to 17M already, 2020 will have 14M, 2030 13M . . .
This has gotta be immensely deflationary to land values. So much for scarcity rents (at least outside Tokyo, everybody wants to live there).
Fritz_O,
ReplyDeleteSo I now have a theory that making future retirement plans based upon interest payments from and return of principle by .gov is a plan that has gone looking for confirmation.
When I turned bearish in 2004 I immediately assumed a -2% growth rate on my nest egg (after taxes). I altered my spending habits to compensate.
In the beginning, it seemed a bit silly. I could earn 2% in treasury inflation protected securities and after taxes net about 1% (assuming inflation stayed relatively low).
It doesn't seem so silly now though. The yield is now 0%. After paying taxes on inflationary gains I'll net -1%.
Fortunately, I locked in rates on a good chunk of my nest egg before rates fell (contrary to the advice of Wharton School economics professors). Doesn't help the people behind me though. Sigh.
Troy,
ReplyDeleteFewer people = having to make do with "more".
Case in point. During a Zombie Apocalypse there would be ample gold for everyone. Heck, might even choose to stop digging it up at some point, lol.
I say this mostly tongue-in-cheek of course. Mostly. :)
Troy,
ReplyDeleteThis has gotta be immensely deflationary to land values.
If you were on Donald Trump's Apprentice, he'd probably fire you for saying that.
Some people just don't want to hear it!
Doug Heller, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, said Trump is the "most egregious, almost comical example" of the disparity between what the average American faces when going through bankruptcy and the "ease with which the very rich can move in and out of bankruptcy."