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Antisuji comments on Proportional Giving - Less Wrong
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Perhaps because my economic intuition isn't that sharp, I'm having trouble connecting the dots on this statement. I'm not seeing how the example implies the assertion, and I'm having trouble coming up with another example. Can you expand on this?
As kids grow older, they become more expensive because they increasingly demand more money.
The reason they demand more money is because money becomes more valuable to them as they age.
The reason money becomes more valuable to them as they age is because they can buy more utility per dollar.
(I don't know if this is true, I'm just explaining the argument).
Analogous to: People who like chocolate more eat more chocolate, people will spend more money when the store has a special sales deal, etc. Lower prices//higher benefits drive up demand.
Suppose that I weight my own utility such that I'm willing to buy utility at 10 utils per dollar. As gjm noted, this exchange rate should stay constant unless my utility weightings change. But suppose that there are a number of things that provide utility at this rate:
These things become available increasingly late in life, so my consumption would increase even though I spent money rationally (well, rationally_{weighted utilitarianism}) throughout.
I'm still confused about how kids becoming more expensive is an example of becoming an increasingly good utility deal. Doesn't it sound like the opposite? Or do you assume that the utility from parenting goes up faster as the children age than the cost does?
It doesn't matter how the utility is distributed, just that it averages out to 10 utils per dollar (such that having the kid is a good buy overall), while the costs rise.
I am fairly confused as well, but the parent post might mean opportunity costs.
If when you are young you can buy 10 utilons per dollar and when you are older you can get 20 utilons per dollar then spending the same amount of dollars on your kids represents a greater "loss" of utilons at the later age.