bls.gov · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Software Engineering by Exousia · 2005-01-20 09:16 · Score: 1 · on What Do You Do When Outsourcing Goes Bad?

On the contrary. "Computer Software Engineer" is described on the U.S. Dept of Labor website and makes a distinction between software engineering and programming, which is a subset:

"Software engineers first analyze users' needs. Then they design, construct, test, and maintain the needed software or systems. In programming, or coding, they tell a computer, line by line, how to function. They also solve any problems that arise. They must possess strong coding skills, but are more likely to develop algorithms and solve problems than write code."

See http://www.bls.gov/k12/computers04.htm

So there.

Re:What about the engineers? by Will_Malverson · 2005-01-16 04:37 · Score: 2, Interesting · on $113.5 billion worth of electronics sold in 2004

So, out of that revenue, how much goes to the engineers?

Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of November 2003, in the United States, there are

150,000 electrical engineers earning a median of $71k / year for a total of around $10 billion.

130,000 "electronics engineers, except computer" earning a median of $73k / year for another $9.5 billion or so.

70,000 computer hardware engineers earning a median of $79k / year for a total of $5.5 billion.

Yes, that's medians and not averages, but the BLS doesn't give averages, and it's probably within a few percent of the same thing. That's $25 billion of the $127.5 billion in wholesaler purchase price going back to the engineers in those three fields.

Re:What about the engineers? by Will_Malverson · 2005-01-16 04:37 · Score: 2, Interesting · on $113.5 billion worth of electronics sold in 2004

So, out of that revenue, how much goes to the engineers?

Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of November 2003, in the United States, there are

150,000 electrical engineers earning a median of $71k / year for a total of around $10 billion.

130,000 "electronics engineers, except computer" earning a median of $73k / year for another $9.5 billion or so.

70,000 computer hardware engineers earning a median of $79k / year for a total of $5.5 billion.

Yes, that's medians and not averages, but the BLS doesn't give averages, and it's probably within a few percent of the same thing. That's $25 billion of the $127.5 billion in wholesaler purchase price going back to the engineers in those three fields.

Re:What about the engineers? by Will_Malverson · 2005-01-16 04:37 · Score: 2, Interesting · on $113.5 billion worth of electronics sold in 2004

So, out of that revenue, how much goes to the engineers?

Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of November 2003, in the United States, there are

150,000 electrical engineers earning a median of $71k / year for a total of around $10 billion.

130,000 "electronics engineers, except computer" earning a median of $73k / year for another $9.5 billion or so.

70,000 computer hardware engineers earning a median of $79k / year for a total of $5.5 billion.

Yes, that's medians and not averages, but the BLS doesn't give averages, and it's probably within a few percent of the same thing. That's $25 billion of the $127.5 billion in wholesaler purchase price going back to the engineers in those three fields.

Re:Kid friendly? by CharlesEGrant · 2005-01-13 17:18 · Score: 2, Insightful · on Physicists Work on Physics' Uncool Image

I truly wonder why you think it is a misconception. It's not some urban legend or "rumors on the internets." The National Science Board is worried about it (NYTimes article here). It's a serious problem that a lot of people (e.g., the US government) are working on.

Because similar reports have been issued in the past about impending shortages of scientists and have mostly come to naught except for producing a bunch of Ph.D.'s bitter about their limited job prospects. Take a look at the employment outlook for Ph.D. mathematicians http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos043.htm/.
Much as in pro-sports there is a huge demand for scientists of exceptional talent, but not much demand for those of modest talent.

Don't get me wrong, it is a privilige to study for a Ph.D. in the sciences. Students who love and show talent in a field should be encouraged to consider graduate study. It should never be suggested though that a graduate degree in science is a guarantee of stable employment (as it would be if there were a genuine shortage).

Re:but what about the programmers? by miu · 2005-01-02 16:35 · Score: 1 · on The Care and Feeding of Open Source Software

According to the US bureau of labor statistics there were 400k people employed as computer programmers at last count (november 2003), and only 17k of those were employed by software publishers.

From my own experience I've worked entirely on in-house projects, they were occasionally sold or given to external customers, but were never developed with anything other than internal use in mind.

Re:Holy crap Ross Perot was right! by TopShelf · 2004-12-31 02:02 · Score: 1 · on The Super Superhighway

The boom took the unemployment rate down to just under 4%, but even with the post-boom recession it didn't rise very far, only peaking at just under 6.5% (currently more like 5.5%), a level which most other countries would drool over. Given Perot's predictions, you would have thought we'd be more like double that figure.

Face it, Perot missed half the story.

Re:Those Wishing Gov't Solutions by XopherMV · 2004-12-27 16:58 · Score: 1 · on Two Reviews of Yourdon's 'Outsource?'

Firstly the US economy is the largest in the world (at least for now), so it effectively swamps what other countries do.

And thus this proves that the US is not a free market economy? That is not a logical argument.

Secondly, the US (despite some window dressing) has a highly protectionist economy, particularly for agriculture. Your government provides _massive_ corporate welfare to agribusiness, and dumps subsidised food in other countries in much the same way as the EU, just a bit less obviously.

The US imports 100% of our coffee, tea, cocoa, and bananas. We also import 93% of our spices and herbs, 69% of our broccoli, and 55% of our fish and shellfish. Even so, agriculture is a tiny portion of the US economy. Only 0.8% of the US population works in agriculture.

Finding subsidies in a tiny section of the US economy hardly shows that the US is "highly protectionist". You'll have to find proof elsewhere. I suggest that you show me that proof before making any more wild accusations.

Truth is US business firms enjoy considerably greater flexibility than their counterparts in Western Europe and Japan in decisions to expand capital plant, to lay off surplus workers, and to develop new products. At the same time, they face higher barriers to entry in their rivals' home markets than the barriers to entry of foreign firms in US markets.

You obviously don't know what you are talking about.

You have obviously not proven that statement. In fact, you provided no proof for any of the statements you've made. However, I did provide proof for my statements.

Re:impossible [OT] by sharp-bang · 2004-12-21 09:55 · Score: 1 · on "Dark Alleys" on the Internet

That's funny, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has them the same (Choose 'Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted'; the astute reader might also want to compare Clinton's second term with Bush's first).

Note also that there are an increasing number of nonworkers not captured in these stats (NYT Archive reprint).

World's Most Dangerous Jobs by BobKagy · 2004-12-01 15:53 · Score: 1 · on How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree?

CNN.COM:

Timber Cutters: 117 / 100k / yr
Fishers: 71 / 100k / yr
Airplane Pilot & Navigator: 70 / 100k / yr

Fielding's DangerFinder:

Truck Driver - 762 Deaths / year
Farm Worker
Retail Salesman / Supervisor

Forbes:

Truck Drivers - 112,200 injuries
Nursing Aides - 79,000 injuries

Military Casualties in Iraq:

1,402 deaths / 623 days
9,326 wounded / 623 days

For average troop level of 100,000 troops (currently 138,000) this is:

821 deaths / 100k / yr
5,464 injured / 100k / yr

If 125,000 was the minimum troop level:

657 deaths / 100k / yr
4,371 injured / 100k / yr

So, I'd have to support your claim that joining the army is one of the more dangerous ways to pay for an education. But as others have said, if you stay out of the infantry, or serve during peacetime, the statistics are a lot better.

As for the payscale, Ask.com reports the starting pay is about $27k / yr. This doesn't compare favorably to the average U.S. salary of $36k / yr. Comparing a starting salary with an average covering a breadth of experience isn't fair. The average salary for someone with just a high school education is $15k / yr. So while I wouldn't say the military make much more than the average person , in some circumstances it can look pretty attractive.

Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 08:02 · Score: 0 · on How Do You Deal w/ User Induced Stress?

Do you honestly believe that today's economy in developed countries precludes homelessness/starvation/unemployment?

Do you live in a very rural area? Because I live in a major coastal city and we have the highest per capita homelessness rate in the country. On top of that I work at the county hospital, you know, the one where people without insurance go. Trust me, there are whole lots of unemployed people, there are whole lots of homeless and starving people, and trust me, with winter already here, there are whole lots of dead street people.

Maybe you should go here http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm to see that 8.7 million people were unemployed in 2003. By definition they are willing to work but unable to work, in direct contradiction of your statement.

I guess what I'm saying is, what you've said sounds like a big load of crap to me and I've taken the time to evaluate what you've said and come to a different conclusion. Perhaps that will spur you to re-evaluate what you've said in light of more information.

Be Mobile! by Black+Perl · 2004-11-19 07:16 · Score: 1 · on What is the Tech Jobs Situation in Late 2004?

The best thing to do is be willing to move to the areas with high demand for tech jobs. The unemployment rate, while not a precise indicator of demand in a particular industry, gives you a general indication of where it is easier to find a job.

Move to the "light blue states" on the unemployment map.

Nope by nwbvt · 2004-11-13 12:54 · Score: 1 · on A College Guide to EA

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_faq.htm#Ques5/

Don't believe everything you read. I once saw something saying Bush caused the Cubs to lose to the Marlins last year so that the oil companies could invade France (here is the source if you don't believe me).

Re:Judging by the numbers so far... by ThosLives · 2004-11-03 02:59 · Score: 1 · on How has the USA PATRIOT Act Affected You?

Okay, I went out and did some homework from here and here. This data is all from 1948-2003 (so we avoid the depression and most of the immediate effects of WWII). It does appear that there is no correlation (at best there is a very weak one) between national unemployment rate and nominal minimum wage percent change. Scaling to real minimum wage (using readily available CPI data) there is even less correlation. There is not even very much correlation between inflation and unemployment rate. I went to check the correlations using real GDP per capita growth and found that it has a fairly strong correlation (R-squared = 0.75) with unemployment. (Since no other parameters I used correlated with unemployment, no others will correlate with real GDP per capita growth either).

So, I will cede the point that there is no historical evidence that a rise in minimum wage has an impact on national unemployment or real GDP per capita growth. I decided to look at real income per capita as well (the data I found only went to 1967-2001) and there is a very loose correlation between unemployment and per-capita income growth (R-squared .4) but, again, there was no correlation between minimum wage growth and real income growth.

I guess what we have learned here is that minimum wage doesn't really have any correlation with unemployment, personal income growth, or GDP growth - on a national scale. However, if I'm a pizza shop owner and I can afford $100 worth of salary per day, if minimum wage goes up that means I can a)hire fewer workers or b)keep the same number of workers for fewer hours each. The latter scenario basically keeps unemployment and income rates the same - the difference is that folks have more free time to possibly have more than one job. Hrm. There's an interesting idea that I'll have to pursue a little further I think...

Re:Maybe they need a new slogan by shark72 · 2004-10-25 15:12 · Score: 1 · on Bootlegged Music in Russia

"CDs were more expensive but the idea that they were $25 is complete crap. I don't have any receipts but I recall street prices close to $10. Were you even buying music 25 years ago? What I've watched over that time period is the price of CDs going steadily up so that a classical music album is often close to $20."

I was buying CDs in 1985 for around $16 in 1985 dollars (they went up after that; I remember $19.99 being common), but very well -- we'll use your numbers. $10 in 1985 dollars is $17 today. The average price of a new CD is sub-$13 and falling. That's a 25% drop even using your numbers. Some CDs, such as classical music, will cost more, and that's because the cost more to make and fewer are sold.

"The attempt to wave the magic wand of inflation is also nonsense. First, there hasn't been inflation to speak of since the Carter administration."

Incorrect. If you like, you can use a link on that page to generate a nice pop-up inflation calculator.

"Second, technology products don't get more expensive. Their price tends toward zero, often quite quickly."

There is a process in making a CD just as there's a process in making a plastic container for holding liquid soap. This does not make a CD a technology product. As has been explained before, the actual cost of creating the media is a tiny portion of the total cost of sale. If the cost of making the CD, jewel case and booklet were to magically go to zero, the effect on the total price of the CD would be only a few bucks. As an aside... unfortunately, we can expect plastics costs to go up due to petroleum price issues lately.

Your argument is based on misunderstandings of inflation and of manufacturing costs. Sorry. Strong opinions are great, but do your homework first. CDs are sold at a much lower profit margin than many other consumer goods, so if your general issue is of abnormally high margins, you'll want to tilt at another windmill.

Re:Ok by Dun+Malg · 2004-10-17 07:46 · Score: 1 · on The Extinction of the Programming Species

Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Commerce.

You mean the stats available here from the BLS web site that show (let's use July 2004 as an example) 138 million non-ag workers employed in the US, out of which only 4.6 million are part timers for "Economic reasons" and 17.6 million for NON-economic reasons? That's only 16% total, and less than 4% part time because that's all they could find. I wanna know which BLS stats you're looking at for your claim of "HALF OF THE WORKING-AGE POPULATION IS NOT EMPLOYED FULL-TIME".

Some numbers by karb · 2004-10-15 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

1999 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 528,600
Application Software Engineers : 287,600
System Software Engineers : 209,030
Total : 1,025,230

2000 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 530,730
Application Software Engineers : 374,640
System Software Engineers : 264,610
Total : 1,169,980

2001 Numbers :

Computer Programmers : 501,550
Application Software Engineers : 361,690
System Software Engineers : 261,520
Total : 1,124,760

2002 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 457,320
Application Software Engineers : 356,760
System Software Engineers : 255,040
Total : 1,170,840

2003 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 431,640
Application Software Engineers : 392,140
System Software Engineers : 285,760
Total : 1,109,540

Difference, 1999-2003

Computer programmers : -96,960
Application Software Engineers : 104,540
System Software Engineers : 76,730
Total : 84,310

Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).

I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.

Some numbers by karb · 2004-10-15 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

1999 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 528,600
Application Software Engineers : 287,600
System Software Engineers : 209,030
Total : 1,025,230

2000 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 530,730
Application Software Engineers : 374,640
System Software Engineers : 264,610
Total : 1,169,980

2001 Numbers :

Computer Programmers : 501,550
Application Software Engineers : 361,690
System Software Engineers : 261,520
Total : 1,124,760

2002 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 457,320
Application Software Engineers : 356,760
System Software Engineers : 255,040
Total : 1,170,840

2003 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 431,640
Application Software Engineers : 392,140
System Software Engineers : 285,760
Total : 1,109,540

Difference, 1999-2003

Computer programmers : -96,960
Application Software Engineers : 104,540
System Software Engineers : 76,730
Total : 84,310

Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).

I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.

Some numbers by karb · 2004-10-15 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

1999 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 528,600
Application Software Engineers : 287,600
System Software Engineers : 209,030
Total : 1,025,230

2000 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 530,730
Application Software Engineers : 374,640
System Software Engineers : 264,610
Total : 1,169,980

2001 Numbers :

Computer Programmers : 501,550
Application Software Engineers : 361,690
System Software Engineers : 261,520
Total : 1,124,760

2002 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 457,320
Application Software Engineers : 356,760
System Software Engineers : 255,040
Total : 1,170,840

2003 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 431,640
Application Software Engineers : 392,140
System Software Engineers : 285,760
Total : 1,109,540

Difference, 1999-2003

Computer programmers : -96,960
Application Software Engineers : 104,540
System Software Engineers : 76,730
Total : 84,310

Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).

I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.

Some numbers by karb · 2004-10-15 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

1999 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 528,600
Application Software Engineers : 287,600
System Software Engineers : 209,030
Total : 1,025,230

2000 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 530,730
Application Software Engineers : 374,640
System Software Engineers : 264,610
Total : 1,169,980

2001 Numbers :

Computer Programmers : 501,550
Application Software Engineers : 361,690
System Software Engineers : 261,520
Total : 1,124,760

2002 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 457,320
Application Software Engineers : 356,760
System Software Engineers : 255,040
Total : 1,170,840

2003 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 431,640
Application Software Engineers : 392,140
System Software Engineers : 285,760
Total : 1,109,540

Difference, 1999-2003

Computer programmers : -96,960
Application Software Engineers : 104,540
System Software Engineers : 76,730
Total : 84,310

Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).

I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.

Some numbers by karb · 2004-10-15 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

1999 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 528,600
Application Software Engineers : 287,600
System Software Engineers : 209,030
Total : 1,025,230

2000 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 530,730
Application Software Engineers : 374,640
System Software Engineers : 264,610
Total : 1,169,980

2001 Numbers :

Computer Programmers : 501,550
Application Software Engineers : 361,690
System Software Engineers : 261,520
Total : 1,124,760

2002 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 457,320
Application Software Engineers : 356,760
System Software Engineers : 255,040
Total : 1,170,840

2003 Numbers :

Computer programmers : 431,640
Application Software Engineers : 392,140
System Software Engineers : 285,760
Total : 1,109,540

Difference, 1999-2003

Computer programmers : -96,960
Application Software Engineers : 104,540
System Software Engineers : 76,730
Total : 84,310

Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).

I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.

Re:Slashdot editor commentary by pudge · 2004-10-09 02:46 · Score: 1 · on Last Pre-Election Jobs Report Released

In this case you mentioned the unemployement rate and compared it with the numbers of presidents that where relected but didn't mentioned the likelyhood of people who has fallen off unemployment and aren't counted anymore.

I was sticking as much as I could to the BLS data, and I don't know where "Discouraged workers" (the category used here) is in the historical data, so I had no basis for comparison. If you can find it, please do let me know.

I did find discouraged workers + unemployed as a percentage of employed. And those numbers go back only to '94 and do look a little better in 96 than they do now, but not by a heck of a lot. e.g., seasonally adjusted discouraged + unemployed + marginally attached as a percentage in Sep 96 was 6.2, now 6.4. Without marginally attached, 5.4 and 5.7. Not seasonally adjusted, a dead heat in both.

That's about the same as the difference in actual unemployment between the two years, so I really don't think there's much to this part of the story, at least not judging by the comparison to Clinton, and if anything it would only make Bush look better in that comparison. However, including it only for 96 would be misleading, since we don't have data that goes back to Reagan or Nixon, where the comparison might be less favorable.

You also mention what he has to do to get a net job gain, but don't mention the likely hood or unlikely hood of getting those numbers compared with the last four months.

Again, I was trying to stick to the data, not make a prediction.

I think it was obvious which direction you point because of what you chose to mention.

And I think you gave two examples, one where I left out data that I couldn't find but what little data I did find does not change the story, and one where you were asking me to make a prediction, which is something I would not do in this context. So, respectfully, I think you're wrong.

Re:Slashdot editor commentary by pudge · 2004-10-09 02:46 · Score: 1 · on Last Pre-Election Jobs Report Released

In this case you mentioned the unemployement rate and compared it with the numbers of presidents that where relected but didn't mentioned the likelyhood of people who has fallen off unemployment and aren't counted anymore.

I was sticking as much as I could to the BLS data, and I don't know where "Discouraged workers" (the category used here) is in the historical data, so I had no basis for comparison. If you can find it, please do let me know.

I did find discouraged workers + unemployed as a percentage of employed. And those numbers go back only to '94 and do look a little better in 96 than they do now, but not by a heck of a lot. e.g., seasonally adjusted discouraged + unemployed + marginally attached as a percentage in Sep 96 was 6.2, now 6.4. Without marginally attached, 5.4 and 5.7. Not seasonally adjusted, a dead heat in both.

That's about the same as the difference in actual unemployment between the two years, so I really don't think there's much to this part of the story, at least not judging by the comparison to Clinton, and if anything it would only make Bush look better in that comparison. However, including it only for 96 would be misleading, since we don't have data that goes back to Reagan or Nixon, where the comparison might be less favorable.

You also mention what he has to do to get a net job gain, but don't mention the likely hood or unlikely hood of getting those numbers compared with the last four months.

Again, I was trying to stick to the data, not make a prediction.

I think it was obvious which direction you point because of what you chose to mention.

And I think you gave two examples, one where I left out data that I couldn't find but what little data I did find does not change the story, and one where you were asking me to make a prediction, which is something I would not do in this context. So, respectfully, I think you're wrong.

Damned statistics at work. by Doc+Ruby · 2004-10-08 05:15 · Score: 1, Troll · on Last Pre-Election Jobs Report Released

From the actual report:

"Total employment was about unchanged in September at 139.5 million, and the employment-population ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs--was little changed at 62.3 percent. Over the month, the civilian labor force was essentially unchanged at 147.5 million. The labor force participation rate was 65.9 percent in September and has been at or near that level since late last year. (See table A-1.)"

Bush and his apologists can spin these numbers any way they want, as they define "unemployment" to exclude all kinds of people without jobs. How many of those "new jobs" Bush will talk about are jobs left idle by the thousands of reservists in Iraq and elsewhere? We've got 293M people in the US, with only 66.9% aged 15-65; even these numbers lie, somehow saying we've got 4.6% without jobs, compared with the still-rosy 5.4% summarized in the report. How many of these jobs are part time? How many pay too little to matter? How many are people working past their retirement age because they've lost their pensions, or their investments? We remember what the job market was like "when Clinton was reelected" in 1996: jobs were falling off the trees. Now, they're flying overseas, where the labor, environment and pay conditions are already in the cesspool into which Bush is herding this economy. Do your career a favor and see through these lies, and get someone new to manage the economy on which we depend, who hasn't been a miserable lying failure all his life.

Re:Ummm... by severoon · 2004-10-03 19:53 · Score: 4, Insightful · on Smart Cars Tell You About Road Signs

OH NO YOU DI'INT! <rolls up sleeves> :-)

You're right to be suspicious of those numbers from westegg. I checked an authoritative source before I even posted (I should've included it, I guess I forgot the /. crowd is inherently skeptical :-) ): Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (search for the "inflation calculator" link).

According to the BLS, $5800 [1989] is $8414.68 [2002] (when I priced Focuses at $11K). This year, the 2005 Foci (sorry, had to) go for a stone-stripped base price of $13,090, which is $8565.44 [1989]. That's a difference of $2765.44 [1989] or $4226.22 [2004].

So the Focus is about $4200 more (today's dollars) than the equivalent car in 1989. I know for a fact that this isn't far off the mark, because if you look at home much it costs per car to computer chip the engine, meet more stringent bumper protection guidelines, add airbags, and do other things more or less mandated now by law or practically mandated by insurance companies (costs more in premiums to not have the feature than pay for it up front), it adds up to about $3800 for parts and labor. That leaves about $400 in profit for the car companies (which is a much higher margin than they make on the rest of the car because it doesn't account for R&D for incorporating these new features into their products and factory upgrades, etc).

The upshot is, what I'm saying is true. All this stuff costs money, and all this stuff limits low-income families from owning cars. It's true that the used car market is still there, but airbags and other mandated features don't make these cars last any longer or continue at any higher quality. (That's not to say they're not higher quality, just that they would have been higher quality anyway, and the used cars would have been that much cheaper.) But the used car market is a fickle market to try and gauge to understand the effects on low-income families--this is because used cars are not under warranty, and therefore they can't be counted as reliable transportation...necessary to, say, keep from losing a job.

Besides, if you look at the actual numbers, you'll find that in actuality, used cars aren't drastically cheaper than new cars on a consistent basis. "Consistent" is the watchword in that last sentence--we all know someone or other who's gotten a million miles out of a car with all original parts and only standard maintenance, but that's not the usual experience. If you amortize all of the cost of up-trended maintenance costs and sudden, large purchases (like when a tranny gets smoked--and these are the hardest on low-income families because they can't make a sudden investment in anything, regardless of what the upside is), you'll see that new, warrantied cars are indeed more expensive, but not *nearly* as much as you probably thought. (Considering a brand new $25k 2005 model against a 2002 model and a 1997 model, both of which were equivalently priced when new, you'll find the difference in total cost of ownership about $45/month and $60/month respectively if the "average" amount of stuff goes wrong with the used, non-warrantied cars. And if you think the extended warranty is a good deal...well, let's just say I have a bridge you might be interested in. So you can have a brand new 2005 Chrysler minivan for $360/month, or a used 8-year old for about $300/month--and this monthly fee will be unpredictably collected at that.)

Also, you'll see that many of the benefits of all this new-fangled technology we're paying for actually makes used cars more expensive to maintain in the long run. Used to be you could go to the auto parts store and throw a new distributor on your car. Used to be you could change your own engine coolant. Now with cars being closed systems, you have to pay a mechanic to do much of this long-term work, pumping up the cost of keeping these older cars.

What the Bubble got wrong by br00tus · 2004-09-28 16:30 · Score: 3, Interesting · on What The Bubble Got Right

This person seems to have no grasp of political economy.

First off, he says he is coming from the vantage point of Yahoo.com. When Yahoo IPO'd, I knew "the market" had gotten ridiculous (the fact that Yahoo, was IPO'ing, never mind what it IPO'd at and went to). I had been buying stocks up to them using the fundamental analysis technique pioneered by Benjamin Graham. This is the technique the best stock pickers of the second half of the 20th century - Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch - use. Among all things it concentrates on profit and profit growth. Yahoo had made no profit, in fact it was losing money, so I knew it was ridiculous. In fact, I remember most clearly August 10th, 1995 when Netscape IPO'd and went to over 100. That's when the stock market bubble started in most estimations. I actually bought Netscape that day, and even made money on it. But I always felt the market was unstable after that, and I was right.

All this person sees is the small piece of ice on the top of a giant iceberg. He's still speaking in bubble-speak. The only thing connected to reality is #10, productivity. And everything he says within that is nonsense.

One thing neglected in all of his delusions that IPO's and Venture Capital in the mid-1990's created the massive Internet that we have today is the decades of government paid R&D, in the billions of dollars, through DARPA, that actually created the Internet. The Internet was a socialist, or, to be technical about it, a fascistly modelled (business/government cooperation) economic program. Decades of taxpayer dollars poured into R&D which creates something which *starting* in the mid-1990s can be used to start increasing productivity.

Economists have been debating whether or not productivity increased due to the Internet thus far and it very may well not have - it may take decades for that to hit. Despite all of the technical innovations in the early 20th century (cars, assembly lines), it wasn't until the end of World War II that any of this productivity was significantly felt, and that was after massive government involvement in the economy, starting with the New Deal, through the WWII almost total takeover of the economy by the government including rationing, on to Eisenhower and his "military" buildup. It wasn't all to strictly military purposes, the highway system was originally sold as a military expense (Original name the National Defense Highway System) along with the government funded R&D that created transistors, computers and so forth.

Also not mentioned is the severe world economic crisis that became apparent starting in the mid-1960's, started affecting things obviously in the early 1970's and which is still with us today. The average US inflation-adjusted hourly wage is below what it was 30 years ago. That does not sound like the economic utopia he is talking about - the US (and industrialized world) has been digging a whole for 30 years, with brief respites in the mid 1980s and late 1990s, where capital went hog wild during the short lived good period.

This person doesn't even seem to understand equity fundamental analysis within the current dominant economic viewpoint, never mind alternative economic viewpoints which see the economic system as even more fragile, which I subscribe to. Even dominant psyche stalwarts like Alan Greenspan or chief economists on Wall Street like Stephen Roach often speak gloomy things which you can read about in the Wall Street Journal, but not in the local newspaper for idiots with a big sports section on the back cover and local murder news on the front.

What a big fat target ... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-27 14:09 · Score: 0 · on Flash Mobs a Threat to Security?

I did something about heart disease and obesity today. I put on my shoes, went to the park, and ran six miles.

A good pair of running shoes costs less than a TV set. And a good run takes less than the 2.5 hours that the average American adult spends watching that TV (source: American Time-Use Survey Summary.

There's a big, big divide here. On one side is the parent poster, placing responsibility on the government for cancer, heart disease, and obesity. On the other side is me, taking responsibility for my own body weight and my own heart condition (not to mention that I don't smoke and I eat a lot of veggies and I spend $3 per month on vitamins,all of which lower my cancer risk).

but you do by gomel · 2004-09-27 01:00 · Score: 1 · on The Jobs Crunch

sorry to dispel your illusions:
in the same thread someone wrote:

IIRC, the unemployment rates in France include measurement of discouraged workers. The number that gets flashed on TV in the US does not include such persons. If you compare fairly, our current unemployment rate is 9.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

Re:All I know is... by OoSync · 2004-09-25 15:16 · Score: 4, Interesting · on The Jobs Crunch

I seriously suggest you check out the 10-15% long term unemplyment and microscopic growth rates in France and Germany.

IIRC, the unemployment rates in France include measurement of discouraged workers. The number that gets flashed on TV in the US does not include such persons. If you compare fairly, our current unemployment rate is 9.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So, doesn't look like such a good comparison after all, does it?

I call bulls--- ... by ggreeneva · 2004-09-25 04:29 · Score: 1 · on The Jobs Crunch

5.4 are the latest numbers, the lowest since Oct 2001. sorry

Hold your horses. Unemployment rates only cover people currently in the labor force and according to government statistics, the portion of the adult population actually working or seeking work has dropped by more than two percent since its peak level in April 2000.

Our unemployment rate only looks good thanks to people who quit looking for work. If Bush wins, he owes those poor chumps a debt of gratitude.

Re:That IS correct by rush22 · 2004-09-25 01:59 · Score: 2, Informative · on The Jobs Crunch

They don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.

That's not correct

You are misinterpreting the point. Though the "collecting unemployment" part may be incorrect and not a factor in determining unemployment rate (as per the snopes article you cited), it is correct that people who have "simply given up" are not counted.

Unemployment rate:
The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Labor force (Current Population Survey):
The labor force includes all persons classified as employed or unemployed in accordance with the definitions contained in this glossary

Unemployed persons:
Persons 16 years and over who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.

http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm

also look up "Discouraged Workers".

Re:All I know is... by xigxag · 2004-09-25 01:06 · Score: 5, Insightful · on The Jobs Crunch

Why go to snopes when you can go to the source?

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_faq.htm#Ques5

Who is counted as unemployed?

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

Now, if you look at the qualifications for collecting unemployment, you'll see that unemployment eligible people are a proper subset of "unemployed" people. If you're unemployment benefits ineligible, you're not considered "unemployed." So the poster you were disagreeing with was exactly right in saying that the figures "don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.."

Re:All I know is... by True+Grit · 2004-09-25 00:39 · Score: 1 · on The Jobs Crunch

They don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.

That's not correct. From http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/unemploy.htm

I'm afraid it is correct. I'll give up my chance to mod some people down in this thread to correct this (I would dearly love to mod the guy who said people who give up looking for a job are "people who want to die" as '-5 Idiot'). That link above is an answer to a *different* (false) statement. The parent poster pasted in the answer, but didn't show us the statement the answer was in response to, which was:

The government understates the unemployment rate because they report how many people are collecting unemployment insurance rather than how many people are out of work.

This is *not* the same as:

They don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.

Since this statement has another component besides the reference to employment insurance. If we leave out that part and just say "They don't count people who have simply given up.", the answer to that is **TRUE**. From the Department of Labor:

Unemployed persons are:

* All persons who were not classified as employed during the survey reference week, made specific active efforts to find a job during the prior 4 weeks, and were available for work.

* All persons who were not working and were waiting to be called back to a job from which they had been temporarily laid off.

If you don't qualify under one of those 2 criteria you are not considered "unemployed". The CPS survey only asks if you've tried in the last 4 weeks to get a job, it doesn't ask the people if they've "given up trying" (after looking for a job while they had UI and longer). So, the people who have given up trying are usually referred to as "not in the workforce" (see the definition of this in the same link), because they aren't "actively" trying to find a job.

The unemployment numbers just tell us who is currently trying to find a job now, it doesn't tell us how hard those jobs are to find or that they exist at all. Obviously, if the jobs are rare and hard to find, many people will fail to find one, and a lot of *them*, such as spouses of other employed persons, or those who can fall back on family support, *will* give up, at least for a time.

Re:one omission by Patrick+Lewis · 2004-09-22 09:07 · Score: 3, Informative · on IT (And Other) Salaries On The Rise In The U.S.

First, that's not what you originally said. You said It doesn't include food and energy (gas, natural gas, fuel oil, petro, or electricty) in its figures. This is demonstrably not true.

Second, home energy costs make up 3.83% of the CPI budget, auto fuel makes up 3.25%, dairy makes up 0.84% of the budget, and all food makes up 15.38% of the budget. Assuming a $2,000/month budget, this translates to $76.60 a month for home energy, $65 for auto fuel, $16.80 for dairy, and $307.60 for all food. None of those figures look too terribly out of line to me. Specifically, which one do you object to?

Third, the BLS table shows dairy up 10.4% since August 2003, and auto fuel up 16.5% over the same period. I calculate the price rise from the USDA numbersto be about 23%, and the Department of Energy has fuel prices up 15.9%. Granted, the milk number looks skewed, but the DOE numbers are actually higer for fuel costs.

I will concede that the CPI numbers aren't perfect; no measure of "inflation" can be. But, to insinuate they are cooked or are made up is really tenuous.

Re:one omission by Patrick+Lewis · 2004-09-22 07:42 · Score: 1 · on IT (And Other) Salaries On The Rise In The U.S.

I think your link is somewhat misinformed. CPI does include a 'owners equivalent rent' cost, which tries to split out the 'I need a place to live' component from the 'this is an investment' component of home ownership. There is a pretty good description on the bls site. I think reasonable people could argue about the accuracy of the measure, but to say that the CPI people are ignoring that component is a little misguided.

Re:one omission by Patrick+Lewis · 2004-09-22 07:30 · Score: 3, Informative · on IT (And Other) Salaries On The Rise In The U.S.

You are (politely speaking) misinformed. CPI-U (which the parent linked) includes both energy and food components. Don't believe me? See the FAQ and the most recent (detailed) release. Milk and gas are clearly included.

Re:one omission by Patrick+Lewis · 2004-09-22 07:30 · Score: 3, Informative · on IT (And Other) Salaries On The Rise In The U.S.

You are (politely speaking) misinformed. CPI-U (which the parent linked) includes both energy and food components. Don't believe me? See the FAQ and the most recent (detailed) release. Milk and gas are clearly included.

Re:Got to be an average. by ReverendHoss · 2004-09-22 06:25 · Score: 4, Informative · on IT (And Other) Salaries On The Rise In The U.S.

Agreed, averages may be useful to spot trends, but never compare your actual salary to them.

Programmers in NYC get 80K per year just so they can keep up with the increased housing, cost of living, etc. Programmers in the Midwest get 35K. Same quality of life, just different numbers. Take a look at these numbers to make a comparison by region.

Comes from employers/tax returns (I believe), so will probably be more accurate than surveys which have voluntary participation.

Re:I estimate that... by Untimely+Ripp'd · 2004-09-10 07:12 · Score: 1 · on How Well Do You Estimate?

Who says a C is average? Generally speaking, a C is the minimum grade that indicates enough understanding to proceed to the next course. Whether you are speaking of the mean or the median, I would hope that the average would be well above C.

From this doc we can see that the college degree question is a bit tricky, because of at least two factors:

a. people over 60 have a much lower rate of college education, and bring down the overall average. presumably, we are more interested in comparing our children to those in the workforce -- the percentage for employed civilians age 25-64 is 32.7%, and for everyone 25-60 it looks like it is about 30%.

b. the 27% stat doesn't include associate's degrees. when you ask people your question, you should be careful to specify, "What percentage of Americans have a bachelor's degree or higher?" Over 50% of folks have SOME college education, though not necessarily a degree. Only 40% of all employed members of the labor force have NO college education, while 55% of unemployed members of the labor force have NO college education.

Beyond all of which, is it unreasonable to suppose that your aunt wished she had been to college, and wished she had been able to send her kids to college?

By the way, what percentage of Americans do you believe perform unskilled labor? (I don't know the answer to that, though I'm sure you can find out at the bureau of labor stats.

Re:Hell yeah by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-08 03:45 · Score: 0 · on Michael Moore Seeks TV Airing of Fahrenheit 9/11

As far as unemployment being the same as 1996 levels, it is funny that the US Census bureau doesn't agree with you. Furthermore, when the exectutive branch gets the country into superfluous and immoral wars, that certainly does affect employment levels as salaries have dropped in large sectors of several industries as the government isn't spending money there.

Intellectual Dishonesty by randall_burns · 2004-08-27 18:53 · Score: 2, Informative · on Outsourcing is Good for You

The use of statistics in http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&p a=showpage&pid=179
was one of the most intellectually dishonest pieces I've seen in a long time.

First off, both of the major categories cited are part of an overall pool that is decreasing according to the BLS There were
2.933 Million workers in "Computer and Mathematical Occupations" according the BLS in 2000
2.827 Million workers in "Computer and Mathematical Occupations" in 2003

Secondly, this job category has been affect massively by immigration polices that IT companies paid congressmen handsomely to get:

In this period, we had 300K new H-1b visas issued inside the cap to folks that went to work in IT.
Probably about - 80K visa holder went home at the end of their visas(about 50% get permanet residency)
80K The US pool of IT workers expanded by about 80K (natural increase--this is probably way too low because the retiree pool is small and the academic programs expanded dramatically)
20K visa holders "went illegal"(Which they can do now that they have friends in the USA). This proportion is a guess. This number may be quite a bit larger due to the tendency of folks to use business visas this way.
100K IT workers that came in outside the cap to folks in IT (this is an estimate)
100K IT workers that came in under L-1 (this was lower then and is just now getting ramped up(this is an estimate)
100K IT workers that came by other means(married a US citizen or chain migration)

The estimates are necessary because the figures the government keeps are so bad.

If we had the above up, we get around 640K. So we are looking at about a 21% displacement rate of US tech workers overall during this period-and this is probably much higher in some categories like DBA's and programmers-and much less among statisticians and actuaries from looking at the BLS category.

The issue here is that in many cases there is an active bias towards hiring foreigners for these jobs. Businesses like Enron like having a workforce that they can control (due to the illegal nature of their business). Managers at places like Hewlett Packard see as part of their personal "bottom line" the ability to get friend and family "green cards"(which would be worth upwards of $100,000 if they could be purchased on the open market). It is quite simply worth considerable investment and organization to obtain those immigration rights. Acting like simple "education" of US workers will solve the problem is sadistic in this context.