North Carolina economic-development officials have been all over the place regarding how many new jobs can be created quickly in the biotechnology industry. As I have previously discussed, some have predicted 100,000 new jobs by 2010. Some have predicted 100,000 new jobs within 10 years, or in 2014. Now Commerce Secretary Jim Fain says he is not sure whether North Carolina will create 50,000 or 100,000 new jobs in biotech within the next 20 years. The same story states that ?the state has said? it would like to create 125,000 new jobs in the industry by 2023, a formulation that manages to mix economic fallacy with an odd sort of geophysical animism.
I half-expect an Easley administration official at the next public opportunity to pat his jacket pocket and exclaim that ?I have here a list of 300 known capitalists in the biotechnology industry . . .?
