No. 217: On the Importance of the Male Breadwinner

⁂ Nashville's Alt-Daily ⁂ Automobile Evangelism · Bipartisianism · Breadwinners · Bar Hours · Much More!

By The Pamphleteer

Newsletter • 24 Mar 2022

Good morning, everyone.

If you're willing and able, join us tonight at 6 PM at Jackalope Brewing Company in Wedgewood-Houston for our first Bar Hours. Should be a nice, cool evening. Conversations and jokes will pour forth as generously as the ale allows. Hope to see some of y'all there.

Today, we introduce the latest entry in our Automobile Evangelism series, look at some heart-warming bipartisan efforts in Tennessee, and wonder aloud whether the male breadwinner will ever go the way of the dinosaur — the answer, of course, is no.

You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.

Thanks for reading.

♻︎♻︎♻︎ HOUSE CLEANING ♻︎♻︎♻︎

Flat Curver Awards We're continuing to compile entries for the Flat Curver Awards given to those who performed admirably and poorly over the course of the pandemic. We're looking for reader input on any businesses or leaders who either cowed to the tyrannical impulses brought forth by COVID or stood strong against them — the former for mockery, the latter for praise.

You can respond to this email with any input you have.

Bar Hours Additionally, starting tonight we're going to commence a new weekly event every Thursday evening that we're calling Bar Hours. Bar Hours is your chance to mix and mingle with other readers of The Pamphleteer — as well as the writers — while imbibing at Jackalope Brewery. The first ten people that show up will get their drinks comped on The Pamphleteer's tab.

We'll meet at 6 PM at one of the picnic tables outside at Jackalope Brewery.

Edward Landstreet returns with his latest look at a beautiful car you might see running around town.

☞ AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Politicians get a bad rap, but sometimes they do some stuff we like. Whether it be an altruistic effort (not just for show), something economical, or a surprisingly bipartisan effort — we’ve been taking notes. Here are some things Tennessee politicians have done that don’t suck. Shocking and surprising, we know.

Republican in Meigs County Helps Protect the History of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Tennessee House Representative Greg Vital (R-District 29) has dedicated some of the last few years to help protect part of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. A portion of the trail happens to be located on his property in Meigs County. As part of the House Transportation Committee, Vital has used his influence to protect the integrity of the historic site that serves as an artifact and reminder of the historical and forced migration of the Cherokee in 1838. In January, the Tennessee Historical Commission also voted to nominate the site for the National Register of Historic Places.

What Do You Get When You Combine Book’em, Parnassus Books, And Governor Lee
A seemingly unlikely combination, this February the Governor’s office reached out to Book’em to combine forces. The governor’s Early Literacy Program was attempting to find ways to extend its book bus program to Davidson County. In a joint effort to enrich the community, Book’em will be helping to provide books for the book bus. The non-profit also reached out to one of their partners, Parnassus books, who decided to donate their bus to the program! With the combined efforts, the Early Literacy Program’s book bus should be up and running in Davidson county by the summer.

HEADLINES

Maury County mayor latest to join crowded congressional race (Homepage) Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles on Tuesday made the expected announcement that he was joining the growing Republican field in Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District, newly redrawn to favor the GOP.
Gov. Lee says state open to helping Titans with new stadium project (Post) Speaking at the GM plant in Spring Hill on Monday morning, Lee disclosed that his administration is “willing to work” with the Titans as they put together their plan for a potential new stadium project, which could include help securing funding.
COVID funerals can be covered by federal funds, but less than half of eligible Tennessee families have applied (WPLN) A year into the program, the federal government has paid out more than $2 billion to cover funeral costs for COVID victims. But in Tennessee, fewer than half of COVID deaths have resulted in an application for the money.

POLITICS

Tennessee House Speaker, other lawmakers subpoenaed by federal grand jury (Channel 5) Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury as part of an ongoing FBI investigation into Capitol Hill corruption
Social Media Common Carrier Bill Is One Step Closer To Becoming Law (TCN) The “Common Carrier Bill” that would stop social media censorship of Tennessee elections and citizens passed the full House Commerce Committee on Wednesday and will now move forward to the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee.
TN Lobbyist Association Urges Members To Action Against Lobbying Transparency Legislation (TCN) As introduced, the Act would require employers of lobbyists to include with their employer disclosure report filed with the ethics commission, the aggregate total amount of all employer expenses that were funded in whole or in part from taxpayer money, including expenses for lobbying, consulting, advocacy, and third-party associations utilized by the employer for such services.

DEVELOPMENT

🥃 Locally owned whiskey and gin distillery soon opening in Germantown (NBJ)
📸 First Look: The Residences Inside This Converted East Nashville Church (Now Next)
Work to start on industrial project near airport (Post)
Abandoned Antioch mall to be new VUMC site (Post)
Oracle to take space in North Gulch (Post)
Metro Nashville to buy former Hickory Hollow Mall property, adjacent office building for $44M (NBJ)
Warehouse home to national building products supplier sells for $9.87M (Post)
Single-family development planned for Nashville's west side following $15.5 million buy (NBJ)
Mixed-use development eyed for Lebanon Pike site (Post)

✦ THE MALE BREADWINNER IS ETERNAL ✦

No amount of political subterfuge can undermine the fact that men who earn more money tend to have more children. This is a fact we've seen born out by history and even expressed well into the word husband — "hús" (from the Old Norse for house) + "bóndi" (from the Old Norse for occupier and tiller of the soil). The word husband, in preindustrial times, meant a man who had a home and could therefore afford a family.

In an age when asking a judge "what a woman is" is viewed as a trick question, it should be obvious that the stable role of the husband as breadwinner would also be under attack. Equality or something. But, despite all the hooting and hollering from certain fringe elements of the Western political establishment, it seems that breadwinners continue to function much the same as they did prior to gender transition surgery being weaponized for political ends.

There is still a high correlation between men who earn a high salary and the number of children that they have. The opposite is true for women. The more money a woman earns, the fewer children she tends to have.

Within a marriage, the more a husbands' spouse earned, the fewer children the couple was likely to have. The findings hold true across all age demographics and education levels. Husbands raking in high incomes married to a wife bringing in a low income tend to have the most children. In other words, traditional gender roles tend to lead to larger families. Big surprise there. To most of us, these findings are obvious and barely even warrant mention.

We hear a lot about declining birth rates in affluent, liberal democracies. So, what is causing this? Why has it become more difficult for men to be the breadwinner than it used to be?

In the USA, government policy and the emergence of widely available contraceptives nudged women into the workforce whether they were interested in a "career" or not.

Following WWII, the US manufacturing base exploded while other nations in Europe and around the globe rebuilt themselves from the rubble. In the US, tight immigration laws, a higher marginal tax rate (which made it infeasible for a wife to work), and the fact that a college degree was much, much rarer lead to an explosion in wage earnings for workers across the spectrum.

The years between the end of World War II and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program were a veritable worker's paradise that was soon quashed by the massive increase in social spending — increasing from 20% of the federal budget to over 50% after Johnson's programs — looser immigration policies and the mass import of unskilled labor, and the opening effort to export the American manufacturing base to China. As tax rates lowered, it became more feasible for a wife to work which meant that a couple applying for a mortgage could afford to pay more due to now having two income streams. This led to an increase in housing prices, and normalized — and in many cases, necessitated — the historically anomalous dual-income household.

Even through the thick of it, the male breadwinner continues to inhabit the most traditional of roles: providing for a family, but the above changes combined with the rise of widely available birth control made the traditional family structure a luxury good only accessible to the highest earners. We see those borne out by birthrates broken down by income. Only the poorest and the richest reproduce above replacement levels (> 2). The poorest because they know they will have financial support from the welfare state and the richest because they have the money themselves. Nothing is more exhibitive of the hollowing out of the middle class than this.

Understanding these dynamics will go a long way towards understanding why the American middle class does not have as many children as it used to.

Something to consider.

An interesting political candidate running on a platform that promises to return us to the age of the single-income household is Senate candidate Blake Masters who is challenging Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona this year.

⚔︎ MISSIVES ⚔︎

🇷🇺 President Biden intends to announce the sanctions on more than 300 members of the Russian State Duma as soon as Thursday during his trip to Europe, where he will meet with allies from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to formulate their next steps
🛫 The Biden administration should lift its mask mandate and Covid-testing requirements for air travelers, ten CEOs of U.S. passenger and cargo airlines said in a letter released on Wednesday.
🇬🇧 The U.S. and U.K. struck a trade accord Tuesday that will remove U.S. tariffs on British steel and aluminum, while the U.K. will lift levies on American whiskey, motorcycles, and tobacco. Biden administration officials said the agreement with the U.K. will allow the U.K to ship “historically-based sustainable volumes” of steel and aluminum products to the U.S. without levies imposed under the former Trump administration.
💸 Around 37 million federal student-loan borrowers were spared $195 billion in loan payments since the government froze their payments at the onset of the pandemic, and many of them are likely to struggle with their debts when the moratorium is lifted.
💉 Moderna will seek emergency authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine in children under six, the company announced Wednesday, meaning that this age demographic will likely soon be eligible for the shot.
💰 Amazon has closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, the companies said Thursday. The pact was first announced in May and has been winding its way through the regulatory process.
🛑 Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, vetoed a bill on Monday that would have banned transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams in K-12 schools.

THINGS TO DO

View the full calendar here.

🆕 Bar Hours 🆕 this Thursday at Jackalope Brewery starting at 6 PM. The first ten guests of The Pamphleteer will have their drinks comped. Come out to meet other readers of The Pamphleteer and mix and mingle with the writers.

🖌 At the Cheekwood, Spanning the Atlantic, The Arts and Crafts Movement, an international trend in the decorative arts that originated in the British Isles during the 19th century.

TONIGHT

🎙 Elvis Fest @ The Factory Franklin, 5p, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌
+ Best honky tonk in Nashville

🥁 Stewart Copeland Police Deranged @ Schermerhorn, 7p, $47+, Info

😂 Tim Dillon @ The Ryman, $29.75+, 7p, Info

🎸 End of the Line: Allman Brothers Tribute @ Brooklyn Bowl, 8p, $12, Info

GET ‘EM WHILE YOU CAN

😂 Tim Dillon (3/24) @ The Ryman, $29.75+, 7p, Info

🎸 Buddy Guy (3/26) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $80, Info

🎸 Jerry Cantrell (4/17) @ The Ryman, $35, 7p, Info

🎻 Billy Strings (5/6 -5/8) @ The Ryman, $39.50+, 8:30, Info for 3/6, 3/7, 3/8

🐷 Primus a Farewell to Kings tour (05/09) @ The Ryman, 7:30p, $55+, Info

NEW THIS WEEK

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Around the Web

⬅ California’s progressives are in retreat Failed experiments now haunt the Democrats

❁ Psychedelics are a waste of life Psychedelic enthusiasts are an irritation of modernity. People make wild claims about these substances. These claims are mostly demonstrably horse shit.

⌘ Follow-up: Why we stopped making Einsteins The current state of aristocratic tutoring, its future possibilities, and objections to the theory

Political Theater Highlight Reel

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon set to DJ Lollapalooza
Howard Stern complains about mask mandate being lifted: ‘The wackos are winning!’
Mitt Romney ridicules ‘off course’ attacks of Judge Jackson from GOP Senators: ‘There is no there there’

Words of Wisdom

"That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly considered good."

Friedrich Nietzsche