The future of work?

As AI and globalization chew up good jobs for the non-elites, there is a bright spot on the career horizon. The market for household staff is booming.

According to the WSJ, "A good housekeeper earns $60,000 to $90,000 a year. A lady's maid can make $75,000 a year. A butler may start at $80,000 a year and can earn as much as $200,000."

And, there are openings, "Demand for the well-staffed home is on the rise, according to agencies and house managers alike. Clients are calling for live-in couples, live-out housekeepers, flight attendants for private jets, stewards for the yachts and chefs for the summer house. In San Francisco, Town and Country Resources, a staffing agency for domestic help, has seen demand for estate managers and trained housekeepers grow so fast the agency is going to offer its own training programs in subjects like laundry, ironing and spring cleaning starting in 2014. Claudia Kahn, founder of The Help Company, a staffing agency based in Los Angeles, says she used to get one call a month for a butler but has gotten three in the past week alone."

If your skill set is more exotic, don't despair:

"She will also be bringing with her the two animal trainers who come seven days a week to care for Prince Mikey, a white-faced capuchin monkey. Prince Mikey's trainers work with him five to six hours a day during the week and three hours a day on weekends.  The annual cost is in the six figures"

Behold the future of American mass employment!

Fade into New?

Wow. Mazzy Star is coming back with a new album!

Really.

You can stream it here. Judging from the first song, it's pretty good.

I've been a big David Roback fan since Rain Parade, Opal, & the early Mazzy Star recordings.

They are even touring.

Apropos of very little, check out this amazing J. Macsis cover of the Mazzy Star classic, Fade Into You:

Indie Math

OK people, here we go.

Pedro the Lion + Centro-Matic+(Bedhead/The New Year) = Overseas

Got that? Want to check my math? Think that I've just mis-described the Undertow Orchestra?

No, it's all correct.

David Bazan, Will Johnson, and the Kadane Brothers are touring and recording as Overseas.

This of course is beyond self-recommending.

If you don't know the components, for Pedro the Lion try "It's hard to find a friend" or "Control".

For Centro-matic, try "South San Gabriel Songs".

For the Kadanes as Bedhead, there's "Transaction de Novo"; as The New Year, there's "The New Year".

Bonus Kadane math: There's also a sweet split out there called "Macha Loved Bedhead" and Matt Kadane joined Mission of Burma mainstay Clint Conley in a band called Consonant. Their self titled first album is well worth checking out.

Capex implosion

New durable goods orders were down 5.7% in March. Yikes!

But the sequester.....

Excluding defense, they were down 4.7%


Is it going to be another spring swoon and summer of discontent? Will Joe Biden have to go back out on the road?

Or has the new housing bubble stoked the economy sufficiently to continue its vaguely upward drift?

Tell me in the comments.

What goes up....

(clic the pic for an even more bubbly image)

Your Thunder draft pick update

As part of the Harden trade, the Thunder received a protected first round pick from the Toronto Raptors. If it turns out to be one of the top 3 picks or worse than the 14th pick, the Thunder would have to wait at least another year to get the pick.

Obviously, the dream scenario would be for it to be the number 4 pick.

Right now, the Raptors are tied with Detroit for the second-worst record in the NBA with a .214 winning percentage. The Whizzers are winless, and Cleveland is 1/2 game better than Toronto (notice how all the truly pitiful teams are in the East).

Kyrie Irving's injury is a bit of a plus for the Thunder as it might help push Cleveland below Toronto.

Yes, I know that there is an element of randomness in the lottery, but it looks like, at this early point in the season, the Raptors might be too crappy for the Thunder to get their pick this year.

Wow!! Doug Hibbs basically calls the election for Mittens!

Here is the money quote:

"according  to  the  Bread  and  Peace  model  per  capita  real   income  growth  rates  must  average out  at  nearly  6  percent  after  2012:q2  for  Obama  to  have  a   decent  chance  of  re-­‐election."

You can get to the whole paper from here (and obviously a hat tip goes to Brendan).

Beyond this bombshell, the paper is well worth reading as Hibbs excoriates his competitors for using ad-hoc and ex-post dummy variables as well as endogenous approval ratings as explanatory variables in their vote-share equations.

Bad Mojo

Yikes!! Anybody want to buy a pair of Thunder season tickets? I'll never be able to un-see this:

Two part question: (A) which country US or Spain has the worst unis? (B) which of the three Thunder players looks the silliest?