Althouse: "What Do 'Mama's Boys' Have to Do With the Euro Debt Crisis?"

February 19, 2012

"What Do 'Mama's Boys' Have to Do With the Euro Debt Crisis?"

A lot, if you believe this chart.

26 comments:

Peter said...: Amusing, but my guess is that the chart exemplifies that correlation is not necessarily causation.; 2/19/12, 9:37 AM
madAsHell said...: Those that produce vs. those that..hmmm...wait on tourists?; 2/19/12, 9:51 AM
edutcher said...: All it says is that a big Welfare State means a lousy economy once the bills come due to the extent young males can't find a job.

Republicans were warning about this 80 years ago.; 2/19/12, 9:56 AM
chickelit said...: Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowed boys.; 2/19/12, 10:06 AM
William said...: I think this chart is suspect. It shows more Irish boys living with their mothers than Italians. That can't possibly be right.; 2/19/12, 10:48 AM
David said...: It would be interesting to compare this with a chart for females in the same countries.; 2/19/12, 10:51 AM
Jose_K said...: There is a joke that goes: Jesus was italian : 33 yo, without known job , lives with her mother and believes his mother is virgin.he was un mammone
Without the virgin he would be spaniard; 2/19/12, 11:04 AM
Jose_K said...: The main cause of divorce in Italy. the mother in law; 2/19/12, 11:05 AM
Jose_K said...: shows more Irish boys living with their mothers than Italians.. of course it is right. Famines and the harsh english rule forced every single risk taker irish into America. Only the most risk averse remained back.
And yes there is causation. The pigs have in common a high emmigration rate. Those risk takers and well prepered left theit countries. Portugal and Spain were colonial powers. And people left the countries to enrich themselves and their countries became poor under mercantilism and protectionism. Then even more people , specially the intellectual class in the case of Spain , hicieron las Américas. Only mom´s boys remained there.
ireland was under english rule. They were harsher with them than any other colony.
Italy was destroyed by the war( And they were in the winning side) and theier brave people went to America.
Greece? They were turk colony for a while( and turkish rule is far different from the usually kind bristish rule) but was the economics crisis caused by taking the wrong side in the war( their ruling class was nazi) that forced them too into America.
So the pigs inhabitant able to leave the house at 18 yo are now known as italo-americans, irish-americand, greek-americans.; 2/19/12, 11:30 AM
Chip S. said...: if you believe this chart

Statistics aren't a matter of belief or denial. They're a matter of verification and interpretation.

In this case the likely causal chain is clear and uncomplicated, and has been stated by edutcher.

One of the most striking effects of the Great Recession back in '09 was a pretty sudden and dramatic increase in apartment vacancies in my neighborhood, in those buildings populated by 20-somethings. It seemed likely that a big chunk of them had moved back in with their parents.; 2/19/12, 12:10 PM
Rialby said...: Just a symptom of a pernicious disease. Men are living with their mamas because 1) they no incentive not to and 2) because society forces them to. This disease will destroy Europe. They are on the path to civil and international war.; 2/19/12, 12:22 PM
Rialby said...: Oh and Happy Sunday!; 2/19/12, 12:23 PM
David said...: Rialby, the Italian boys live with their mammas because they want to, and because the mammas continue to cook for them, do their laundry, clean up their rooms and excuse their faults.; 2/19/12, 12:35 PM
traditionalguy said...: The study exposes how dirt poor Europe was in 1945 but came into a decent standard of living until the entitlements of 6 weeks vacations and retirement on full pensions at age 50 rose up and bit them.

But don't worry, Obama has a plan.; 2/19/12, 1:09 PM
Bob_R said...: Those who read more Irish than Italians living with parents are not reading the chart the same way that I am.

In the mid '80's I was a Van Vleck postdoc in Madison. There were a couple of Italians on postdocs as well. The told me stories of academics living in their home town and commuting (sometime several hours) to give lectures in the city where they had an academic position. They waited (sometimes decades) for a position to open up in their home town. They were rarely at the institution that paid them. Often at the institution in their home town. When I was in Italy I saw at least some evidence that correlated with this. My impression was of a very risk adverse paternalistic/maternalistic society with great restaurants! At the time the restaurants seemed more important; 2/19/12, 1:34 PM
Chip S. said...: Those who read more Irish than Italians living with parents are not reading the chart the same way that I am.

Their vision was probably blurred by captcha.; 2/19/12, 1:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Jose K wins. Occam's razor rules.; 2/19/12, 2:20 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: This phenomenon was featured on 60 Minutes over 10 years ago in a piece titled Mammoni (an Italian term for momma's boy). It was an interesting piece and confirm's what David said in his post above. These guys have good jobs and their own apartments where they can take dates; but they prefer staying at home where Momma cooks, does laundry, and cleans for them. These guys aren't getting married and procreating.; 2/19/12, 2:24 PM
Kate Danaher said...: The original "living at home" data set:

http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do?dvsc=7

Ireland is actually below the EU average. Of course, cross just about anything with Ireland's 5 yr CDS and it will look worse.; 2/19/12, 3:43 PM
viator said...: That means we are screwed.

Also many of that same crew seems to be very successful at being kept by women, that is women who are not their moms.; 2/19/12, 4:42 PM
Rialby said...: "These guys aren't getting married and procreating."

Which is why there "Italian" as an ethnicity will cease to exist outside of the caricatures you see on the Sopranos and Mob Wives. Italians are upside down on breeding - they are near lowest low. It also spells doom for their social model and that of the other European countries that adopted the socialist pyramid scheme but threw away the pyramid.; 2/19/12, 7:58 PM
Rialby said...: Interesting that, isn't it? Here in America, we have a candidate who is deemed "very scary" on social issues. And he is an Italian-American who brought with him his faith in the Catholic Church. That same belief kept Europe, generally, and Italy, specifically, demographically strong. It created the fertile soil in which socialism took root. But you cannot have both - you cannot give gifts to without asking everyone's grandchildren to pay for it. But there are no grandchildren. They won't exist.

Now, I'm no Santorum supporter and I'd hardly call myself a social conservative but it is interesting to see how these things all tie together.; 2/19/12, 8:06 PM
Methadras said...: When you spend a decades raising man-babies world-wide the world over, this is what you get. And a lot of other undesirable things as well. More to come. Don't get me wrong. I love my mother, she is a wonderful woman who put up with a lot of stuff when I was growing up as a kid, but I cut my strings from her when I was 12 and she and I knew it. My brother, not so much and he is an example of how boys who cling to there mothers for so long do a lot of damage to themselves and to others.; 2/19/12, 9:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Jose_K said... "Italy was destroyed by the war( And they were in the winning side)..."

On the winning side? Not of the Second War.; 2/20/12, 9:01 AM
Eric Palmer, PeopleSoft Consultant said...: Peter is of course right that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. Nonetheless, I would guess there is correlation going on here. You probably have two (at least) phenomena feeding off each other. As the government becomes increasingly paternalistic, young men increasingly fail to value self reliance. This failure to value self-reliance leads to males who never become men, and remain with their parents. This leads to the government becoming increasingly paternalistic, etc.; 2/20/12, 9:16 AM
Eric Palmer, PeopleSoft Consultant said...: "Nonetheless, I would guess there is correlation going on here."

Sorry, I meant "Causation."; 2/20/12, 9:24 AM