Friday, September 7, 2012

Charles Blow, "The Engagement Gap": Obama Leads Among Narcissists

How do Obama and Romney fare when narcissists are polled?

Although there are obviously no such statistics being kept, perhaps an indication is provided by Charles Blow's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Engagement Gap" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/opinion/blow-the-engagement-gap.html?_r=0). Attempting to divine who will emerge victorious in November, Blow observes:

"Obama also has twice the number of Twitter retweets and YouTube comments, likes or views as Romney, and nearly 80 percent more Facebook likes, according to the report."

Facebook and Twitter? If they were to disappear tomorrow from the face of this earth, I don't think it would make much of an impact upon most of us, with the possible exception of those who foolishly invested in Facebook's IPO.

If Blow wishes to engage in a more relevant statistical analysis having a direct bearing on the election, perhaps he would do better to examine the employment figures released by the US Department of Labor yesterday. As observed by The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-adds-96000-jobs-in-august-unemployment-rate-drops-to-81-percent/2012/09/07/30374bfa-f8e9-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_story.html?hpid=z1):

"The unemployment rate declined in August to 8.1 percent, a drop that occurred largely because 368,000 people left the labor force. The Labor Department counts only those actively seeking a job as unemployed.

The percentage of people older than 16 in the workforce reached its lowest level since 1981, according to the Labor Department. Nearly 70 percent of men were working or looking for a job — the lowest percentage since the government began tracking the statistic in 1948."

I wonder how many of these unemployed persons and people who have left the labor force now spend their days tweeting.

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