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A comment on Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses 401(K) Policy. Parent comment

Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by mikeash on Saturday February 08, 2014 @10:29PM (#7204208)
All the other points about morality and such aside, a million dollars isn't even that much. Even from a pure cold-hearted rational perspective, the kid can be expected to contribute two or three times that much in economic activity over his life, so it's actually worth the money too.
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Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by dredmorbius on Saturday February 08, 2014 @11:21PM (#7204360)
the kid can be expected to contribute two or three times that much

Likely rather more than that. Your economic contribution isn't your lifetime earnings, but your lifetime value contribution. That's the productivity-of-labor side of the equation.

Your salary/income is (generally) some small fraction of that.

Look up revenues or profits at a company on a per-employee basis for a proxy of this.

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Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by rdtsc on Saturday February 08, 2014 @11:43PM (#7204407)
> "isn't even that much"

Especially coming from this clown, who, if had just paid that out of his annual salary would still have $10M left to party with.

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Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by w1ntermute on Saturday February 08, 2014 @11:31PM (#7204381)
Right, it might make sense to save an infant (although it makes a lot more economic sense for women who cannot have healthy children to adopt instead).

But the bigger question is why we spend so much money to prolong the life of someone who's in their 70s or 80s (and often suffering and in pain) for another couple of years, or even just months.

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Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by ars on Sunday February 09, 2014 @12:43AM (#7204536)
That's part of what makes us human and not computers or animals. Some things are not rational yet we do them anyway.
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Re:Distressed by Baby Controversy, AOL’s Armstrong Reverses ... by w1ntermute on Monday February 10, 2014 @12:56AM (#7209394)
Human folly has lead to a variety of illogical practices, many of which have been stamped out over the centuries. There's no reason the same couldn't be done here.
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