won’t pay very much. That’s the message of the info from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, analyzed here at Forbes. That’s not Forbes’s analysis, it’s mine. Their analysis is that a lot of them don’t require college degrees, a drum I’ve been beating for some time. They also claim that the fastest growing jobs will pay well, something not borne out by the actual numbers. The median wage for all of the fastest-growing occupations is just under $34,000 and that includes quite a number of jobs, e.g. physical therapist, that require graduate degrees. Pretty obviously, Forbes’s analysts aren’t numbers guys.
Don’t be distracted by the bright, shiny objects, e.g. “biomedical engineer”. Biomedical engineer is a very good job, decent programs are hard to get into, and they make good money—more than $80,000 per year according to the BLS. But biomedical engineers account for only .03% of the total. By comparison personal care aides and home health aides account for about 1% of the total of the “fastest growing occupations” and they pay about $10 an hour.
At that wage you’d better hope you don’t have a college education. You’ll never pay off your student loans.
Some of the others? Veterinarians make okay money but vet schools are more selective than med schools, their tuition is about the same, and the median wage is about half what a medical doctor’s is. You’ve got to really want to be a vet to make that choice.
here at Forbes
Pretty obviously, Forbes’s analysts aren’t numbers guys.
Forbes’ thinks that pimping for the new economy is how they’ll sell more ads. They couldn’t give a shit about the actual numbers.
IOW, the two tier economy we have been shaping for the last 30-40 years.
Steve
You guys and gals all know what I do. If you can create big time value you can get paid handsomely.
Let’s cut the government as God bullshit and unleash the hounds.
Politicians and government employees aren’t going to make it happen. That I know for sure.
@ red barchetta
Unleash what hounds? Did you just finish up an early episode of Mad Men circa 1961. Between the bailed out major banks and massive corporate largess it is different now. Basically crony guys stealing. Textbook stuff gone. Funny too cuz Obama is Bush on steriods.
Drew:
You know dick about anything. You just went to OTB to claim that a Benghazi “cover up” killed the Americans whose cause of death you allege were covered up. You reversed causality. You turned time’s arrow around. And when everyone laughed at you, you ran away.
You always do run away because in the end, you have no game. A big suit full of nothing, just like your pathetic candidate, Mr. Romney.
And now you’re in full messiah complex mode. If only we’d “unleash” you, all would be well. Because now you’re Jesus — which may explain how you can reverse time itself.
Unleash the Drew! He’ll save us all! He’ll save the world! He’ll fly around the world really, really fast and make time go backward! He can’t go two rounds with John Persona, but he’ll save the whole world. . . if only we take off his leash.
Dude, you are certifiable. You actually need help. It’s reached the point where it’s not even cool to make fun of you any more because I’m starting to think you have actual psychological problems.
By the way, I started a business. Let’s see, I invested, oh, let’s say a thousand bucks, spent maybe four days of my time (including a day spent tooling around Venice Beach in an E-Class convertible.) And I’ll realize a minimum of a quarter million for another, oh, 6 days of actual work. That’s, what, 25 grand a day?
And yet: I’m totally leashed. Never even thought about the government. Huh. Does that make me a genius? Should I now rule the world? Can I also reverse cause and effect?
Fucking businessmen. You’re all just so impressed with yourselves. You’re exactly like novice writers who think they’re John Updike because they strung together enough sentences to form a paragraph. The only thing bigger than your egos is your insecurity. I mean, damn, Drew, I’m in the arts, I’m supposed to be insecure. I thought you guys were the stable ones. But you’re all just so needy. So desperate for validation.
Look at me! Look at me, mommy! I’m a businessman! And I can flyyyyyyy!
Off-topic but a provocative title:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/10044456/China-may-not-overtake-America-this-century-after-all.html
Yeah, I read that one, Ben. I’ve never been worried about China just as I wasn’t worried about Japan 20 years ago. I’ve always thought that the internal contradictions of their systems would ultimately work against them (just as the internal contradictions of our system work against us).
We’re our own greatest adversary. Not China. Not Japan. Not Russia.
Okay, Reynolds, I’ve got a few questions about your business venture.
Did you have to get any licenses for your business – city, state, federal? Did you have to build a plant or other facility? Did you have to work with state water management districts? Did you have to work with the Army Corps of Engineers? Did you have to deal with regulations involving various wildlife protection acts? (For example, did an abandoned Bald Eagle nest force you to have to sell your land at a loss and look for a different location?) Did you have to spend two years getting permits from the local county boards? Did you have to hire any employees? Were you in a business where background checks are needed for employees? Did you have to meet stringent OSHA requirements for their work environment? Did you have to purchase disability insurance for your workers? Did you spend the time to establish other benefits for those employees? Did you set up the accounting procedures necessary for taking out and paying their FICA and income taxes, as well as the company’s? Did you make certain to pay SUI and FUI? (Do you know what SUI and FUI are without looking them up?) Did you make certain to have procedures in place for handling sales taxes? Did you have to buy a lot of expensive equipment, such as machine tools? Did your company handle any hazardous materials? If so, did you meet all local, state and federal regulatory mandates for the purchase, delivery, handling, use and disposal of such materials? Did your company do any business with vendors or customers outside the country? Did you have to create an organizational structure because the company has too many workers for one person to be in charge of them all? Did you finance this yourself or did you have to raise capital from other sources? Did you have to set up an inventory control system to make certain that everything gets to the correct place at the correct time? Did you have to buy specialized software, or did you have to create proprietary software for running your business? (Buying Micro$oft Office software doesn’t count.)
If you didn’t have to do most of that (and more), you probably aren’t starting a manufacturing business.
My wife used to work for a consulting firm that handled environmental requirements for other companies that built new buildings. The third through sixth questions above directly relate to what her company did. This time maybe you get approval from the state water management districts, but not from the Army Corps of Engineers. Or maybe you get the Army Corps permission but the water management district throws up a block this time. The next time both sign on but now a local environmental group has put the screws to the county boards. And on and on and on. But the point is, there are companies who exist solely for the purpose of helping other companies comply with existing governmental regulations, because if the companies had to do it themselves, they’d never get anywhere. And THAT creates a barrier to entry if you can’t afford such services. But hey, if you can bank on your name and drive around in a convertible for a few days to make money, great. But don’t assume that is exactly how it is for every person in every business.
I’ll also note that a business that lasts TEN DAYS doesn’t have anywhere near the concerns of a business that plans on being in continuous operation indefinitely. I would think you could grasp that simple point, Reynolds, except that then it would get in the way of you telling us how fucking brilliant you are and how wonderful the economy is California. (All hail the brilliance of Governor Moonbeam and Chairman Obama!) I guess all the unemployed people out there are just imaginary, if the business environment is that fucking friendly.
“Off-topic but a provocative title”
The author of that piece is the son of the great English anthropologist, E. E. Evans-Pritchard whose most famous, and still worth reading, work was Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. His son writes on economics. That apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Good for you. You do realize that is atypical?
What exactly did you spent that $1,000 on? And what exactly will this business venture do?
FormerNumbersGuy,
Bravo for your spot-on response……
By the way, I started a business. Let’s see, I invested, oh, let’s say a thousand bucks, spent maybe four days of my time (including a day spent tooling around Venice Beach in an E-Class convertible.) And I’ll realize a minimum of a quarter million for another, oh, 6 days of actual work. That’s, what, 25 grand a day?
…and, who did you say was so impressed with themselves?
No, Steve V, you are wrong. It is completely typical to spend a thousand dollars, invest ten days of work, and make a quarter of a million dollars. It’s just that all the racist white people in America want Obama to fail, so they’re not doing it. I mean, that’s why I’m not doing it – I’d rather have my daughter grow up in a shithole neighborhood than make $24,900 a day – just to say I can’t get a job in ObamaNation.
Michael
“You know dick about anything.”
Blah, blah, blah
I’ll see your few hundred thousand and raise you about $500 million.
Cannons
Completely understand your banking etc comment. And you will find, as you are new here, that the rent seeking/regulatory capture and subsidized professions like medicine and banking have no standing here. With Dave or most of the commenters.
The “hounds” are the entrepreneurs.
By the way, I started a business. Let’s see, I invested, oh, let’s say a thousand bucks, spent maybe four days of my time (including a day spent tooling around Venice Beach in an E-Class convertible.) And I’ll realize a minimum of a quarter million for another, oh, 6 days of actual work. That’s, what, 25 grand a day?
And yet: I’m totally leashed. Never even thought about the government. Huh. Does that make me a genius? Should I now rule the world? Can I also reverse cause and effect?
The more I think about this example, the more gutless it becomes. Let’s see, a rich, moderately famous writer risks $1,000 and a few days free time to make a minimum of quarter million dollars from potentially ten days of work. He compares that to someone who isn’t famous or rich that decides to risk everything, all their credit, all their savings, perhaps their house and potentially investments from family and friends on something that has a fairly high chance of failure – not to mention an enterprise that may well involve more interaction with the government than having to pay some fees on the rental of a fancy automobile for driving around Venice Beach, trying to avoid running over the bodybuilders while staring at the bikini babes.
It’s truly a staggeringly cowardly comparison. Where’s the risk to Reynolds in all of this? A thousand dollars to Mr. Famous Best Selling Author? OMG! What if he loses it!?
And don’t think of Drew being the guy behind the start-up, but some master machinist who’s saved up for fifteen years and has a REALLY good idea – if he can put everything together on a shoe-string budget. That guy is risking much MUCH more and has a helluva lot more exposure to governmental interactions.
Let me weigh in here. Reynolds is a very, very good author. I have made inquiries. I admire and respect his work. It is undeniable.
This is the problem. As a classic liberal, his view is that because I’m good at this…………….I’m good at that. Its like Hollywood actors who actually think they have something useful to say. They have nothing.
Reynolds runs what amounts to a two bit proprietorship. It would be malpractice on my part if I listened to this guy on one word on what this guy had to say on investment or management of real, big time businesses. And I tell him so. And it pisses him off.
He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Typical liberal.
I think that those who are asking them questions are more at fault in this than the actors. Like any artists, what they have to say about their art they’ve said in their art. If they have more, it means their art is that much less.
There’s an old story about Socrates, after seeing the first performance of Oedipus at Colonnus, buttonholing Sophocles to ask him some questions about the meaning of the play. The philosopher came away astonished at how little the playwright knew about his own work.
Dave
Perhaps that’s a good take. But how many times have I said this? For me to lecture Michael on writing or publishing would be preposterous on its face.
I have views on the business of medicine, but lecturing steve on the practice of medicine would be preposterous on its face.
Yet they (actually, steve is pretty good) feel no responsibility to consider that someone who has spent a successful career in engineering and manufacturing management, credit, equity investing with entrepreneurs………and understands like the back of his hand how government tax policy, regulatory policy, employment costs etc works in the real world, not some little cottage industry setting, should get some quarter.
I see Reynolds has shifted gears. I’m not a racist now, I’m psychotic. Cool. I rest my case. When you can’t make an argument, pound the table or hurl invective. (And as we all know, I’m a guy who hurls invective, but just in sport.) Michael is floundering.