I think you missed the point. What I read from the statement is that Warren was not good at sports (arbitrary discipline not matching his forte for illustration

I think you missed the point. What I read from the statement is that Warren was not good at sports (arbitrary discipline not matching his forte for illustration) so he would suck in an economy focused around it. What he implies is that a lot of people suck at most of the fields that are in great demand, but also come with requirements that they just can't adjust to.. Especially with advanced age and with the disciplines commanding a certain amount of effort to master them (think years or decades). Most people are not very flexible and even the flexible people have their limits to adopt as the professions get more demanding on the menial side of preparation. ps. I wanted to imply that professions and sought for jobs change faster than generations pass in recent times, which adds to the challenge of training people (especially with the still used model of train once, execute until pension model). pps: oh, and low level grunt work for the folks that don't fancy studying is contracting fast, which compounds the problem.. you'll always have quite a few of these and they do have an impact.