These families already are adequately supported. We need to find a way to guide people into the actions we want them to do.

Like, they want me to stop using the car to work. Okay, they allow everyone at my hospital to use their taxes to pay for a commuting e bike. It’s a financial incentive. (Don’t worry I’m not a healthcare worker, just administration, I am not the right person to work with people in need).

Indeed there are exceptions and therefore exemptions. If a medical examination says that it’s difficult for you or your partner to have children, then they’d be exempted of any punishment.

I don’t think it’s psychologically a smart move to punish not having kids, but to reward having kids. That’s why I say “extra pension”. (By behind closed doors reducing pensions in general first, but they don’t know that).

Helping people that can’t have kids… We could allocate resources to them to help them adopt a child. Something like that. Once again, psychologically it would help them accept this. People give them the option that nature didn’t provide them.

We’re competing against the funds actually. I own ETFs that tracks the Stoxx 600. It has a yearly expense of 0,07% while bank funds would take like 2% or whatever.

Personally I’m not even thinking about my pension, cannot know what will happen in 37 years so I’m definitely taking it into my two own hands to accumulate assets.

Now, I understand why a pension is desirable. It’s a safety net. And I agree with that. High minimum pension for anyone who is unable to work due to old age. Just like for people who can’t work for other reasons.

But as Belgian, I know a lot of people that try and take advantage of our social safety nets. For a lot of people it’s not because they need it, but view it as an extra passive income while doing nothing.

That’s damaging to the social democrats. We need to get rid of the abuse, the corruption. We need to motivate people to do effort and reward that. And we have. Minimum wage in Belgium is quite high. Income inequality is 0,26 gini. Median net wealth is 250k euros.

Motivating people to have kids is also a necessity. To live more together in the same household. To use fewer resources. Be economically sustainable in the long term.

People are scared in Belgium, everyone is retiring. We’ve been accepting a lot of immigrants to help us out with this. Luckily, second generation immigrants are tremendously helpful.

To have a meaningful social net, we do need a good amount of people that can work. That can be parents.

We need to motivate people. And everyone that really cannot help society with this, they are exempted of course.

My friend her parents never worked a day in their lives. It’s absolutely normal. Her dad’s disabled and her mom takes care of him.

But another guy “didn’t work for 10 years cuz his knees hurt” while he randomly showed up at our hospital working, magically, when he’d lose his free passive income. He’s doing a desk job. Like everyone else.