Monday, October 8, 2012

Quote of the Day

October 7, 2012
NFL: Kansas City fans cheer as Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel lay injured

"We are not gladiators, and this is not the Roman Colosseum. This is a game," said Winston, who spoke to Cassel briefly in the locker room after the game. "This is a game that's going to cost us a lot down the road. That's OK. We picked it. We deserve it. I don't want your pity. But we've got a lot of problems as a society if people think that's OK."

Sigh.

8 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

We've got a lot of problems as a society.

Stagflationary Mark said...

United States incarceration rate

While Americans only represent about 5 percent of the world's population, nearly one-quarter of the entire world's inmates have been incarcerated in the United States in recent years.

I have no idea why I bring it up. Sigh.

Troy said...

via another site I frequent:

Yup. If the US electorate is really capable of a 12 point swing on the basis of being lied to for a bit, you don't need to campaign any more, you just need to leave the country.
posted by howfar at 1:41 PM on October 8 [9 favorites]

Somebody making the assertion that programming jobs have increased a lot at CR's made me go look at the data (up ~100,000 in 12 years), and also take a look at what IS going to allegedly expand between 2010 and 2020.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_104.htm

I went through the XLS by hand and made my own list, here's the top 10 (in 1,000s):

Retail Salespersons 1959
Cashiers 1785
K-12 Teachers 1733
Business Operations Specialists 1563
Fast Food and Counter Workers 1497
Laborers and Material Movers, Hand 1403
Motor Vehicle Operators 1383
Computer Occupations 1366
Nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides 1353
Waiters and Waitresses 1324

The computer field is +1M software developers etc and +300,000 IT support, for a 20% growth rate over the decade.

I guess that's good, but the rest strike me as fields ripe for productivity gains instead of new workers.

e.g. BLS is saying we're going to need 14% more fast food workers in 2020 on a +9% growth in total population.

I do think the baby boom retirement is going to drive service sector jobs and general mass consumption, the question is how the hell we're going to pay for it all.

We probably won't . . .

Scott said...

Troy,
I think those BLS projections are no better than misleading guesses. Probably not intentionally misleading but I would't advise any recent high school graduate to rely on these projections for choosing a career field.

AllanF said...

How does the BLS make their guesses?

My guess is that they look backwards on how the industry did vs. population growth, make a population growth estimate, then adjust based on the industry's relative performance. They probably make more fanciful adjustments assuming a fixed rate of technological improvement, but I suspect nothing nearing the motivation of tomorrow's business owners when illegals are no longer flooding in and healthcare benefits are being mandated by the govt.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

I do think the baby boom retirement is going to drive service sector jobs and general mass consumption, the question is how the hell we're going to pay for it all.

I might bet the other way. I am certainly not driving service sector jobs lately. Then again, perhaps I'm not typical.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Scott,

Probably not intentionally misleading but I would't advise any recent high school graduate to rely on these projections for choosing a career field.

I would very much tend to agree.

Stagflationary Mark said...

AllanF,

I too suspect that simple extrapolation drives most of it. Too bad we live in an era of exponential trend failures.