Author Archives: Karl

Python Escapes the Classroom

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An O’Reilly article covering pyKarel, “a Python implementation of Karel the Robot. Introduced in the 80’s, Karel was intended to jump-start students in the Pascal programming language. A virtual robot moves about a maze, interacting with walls and beepers, performing programmed tasks. It has a Pascal-like structure, but only five commands: move, turn left, pick beeper, put beeper, turn off. There are 18 or so conditionals that are mostly repetitious “if facing north”, or “if facing south.” There are no variables. Karel’s virtue is in being both visual and simple.” via ZopeNewbies.

Bill answers a Wal-Mart question for me

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This post concluded that Wal-Mart’s growth did not displace work in other sectors of the economy based upon Andrew Cassel’s article. During that time the state suffered a loss 100,000 manufacturing jobs due to other reasons. That led me to ask a new question.

“…if Wal-Mart hasn’t filled those jobs – what has?”

Bill says it’s technology. My gut tells me he’s right.

Andrew Cassel answers some of my Wal-Mart questions

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Not directly atleast 🙂 Here goes the Inquirer article.

“Did Wal-Mart displace other jobs?”

Nope, not in number of retailing jobs, and it had no effect on other employment sectors either. That’s important.

Although Wal-Mart grew like topsy in Pennsylvania in the 1990s, that has essentially nothing to do with the disappearance of manufacturing jobs.

The numbers prove it: In 1990 – before Wal-Mart had a presence in Pennsylvania – retailing accounted for 17.5 percent of the state’s nonagricultural jobs.

At the end of 2001, with more than 110 Wal-Mart stores scattered across the state, retail’s proportion of the state’s workforce was 17.6 percent – essentially unchanged.

“If so, were they low paying or high paying?”

This is unanswered. The quality of the new retailing positions vs. the old seems to be up for debate. Dave King was nice enough to post a link on a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Wal-Mart employees against the company on it’s employment practices.

“If not, did Wal-Mart simply fill a gap?”

No as well. Wal-Mart jobs have not filled the void left as manufacturing jobs have left the area.

And what the statistics suggest is that we have two separate stories here.

One is about the evolution of Pennsylvania’s economy away from its old dependence on heavy manufacturing toward something that looks more like the rest of America.

The second is about the evolution of retailing, with large, well-financed discount chains taking market share from old-line department stores.

What’s the connection between the two? There isn’t one, unless you include the march of technology, which underlies every economic story of our time.

While it is true, in other words, that Pennsylvania has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs – around 100,000 during the 1990s – it’s a huge leap to conclude that those jobs have been replaced by jobs at Wal-Mart and other retailers.

New question – if Wal-Mart hasn’t filled those jobs – what has?