● To my assertion in this weekend’s Radio Derb that the bottom quartile of the IQ bell curve is pretty much screwed employmentwise, quantitative blogger Randall Parker reminds me that he has been monitoring the numbers on this for some years.
There is concern that in the future robots, computers, and other forms of automation will cause mass unemployment. I share that concern but in the present I think it has already arrived among the less skilled and less talented. I think the use of unemployment rate as a measure of how many people aren’t working has created a very widespread misconception about how this problem only lies in the future. Really, it has already happened. Lets have a look at US Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment rate, labor market participation rate, and employment-population ratio. It is the last one that tells us the real story. [Employment-Population Ratio By Education Level by FuturePundit; February 1st 2015.]Randall then reproduces some key BLS tables, passes comment, and wonders: “So what will high school dropouts do for a living 20 years hence? Anyone see a future for them in the labor force?”
● Several readers had things to say about the low self-esteem I exhibited at the end of this post. Samples:
Reader A: When I am asked to do TV appearances (not often), I always say: “I have a face made for radio.”
Me: Thank you, Sir. I shall steal that.
Reader B: If you are too ugly for video why do you appear several times driving a stick shift and drinking moonshine whiskey in the 1988 music video of Copper Head Road? e.g., at 1m33s, 2m47s, and 2m52s.
Me: Yeah, I remember making that video. It was good moonshine.
● Finally, I heartily second Peter Brimelow’s scorn for ignorant lefties like Kevin Foley and the Southern Poverty Law Center who throw the word “Nazi” around with such abandon.
The actual Nazis were resisted and defeated, at great personal cost, by patriots—including close relatives of Peter and me—who would have found very little to disagree with in the material we post here at VDARE.com.
And those patriots suffered and fought under leaders like Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—immigration restrictionists who, if they were alive today and not otherwise employed, might comfortably be writing for VDAREcom.
