But those lost jobs weren't in the media industry, right? So I imagine the mainstream media will continue to play the President's tune about the strong economy, measured in record rates of return at the highest levels (including, of course, the assorted broadcast newspeople who bring this happy news and ignore the reality at the street level -- stagnant real wages, diminishing benefits, gaping holes in health care coverage, precarious employment, increasing bankruptcies, and so on).

When they triumphantly trotted out the high American productivity information the other day, it was irritating to me, because it just means that the majority Americans are working harder than ever for less money. Productivity is bullshit -- it's just how fast you can run on the hamster wheel, and for how long; to me, it points out Third Worldish our economy is getting, versus something to be praised. What matters for Americans who aren't in the top 5% are real increases in wages, better employment and benefits, and universal health care coverage (and not that bogus Massachusetts you gotta pay-to-play approach).

I've always had reservations about those job numbers put out by the government since the Reagan administration found the way to cut unemployment was to simply drop unemployed people off the list. As Slackie said, we're running like hamsters. If a $20-per-hour job is eliminated, and replace by two people working $8-per-hour, I fail to see the improvement to the people working or to the economy as a whole. Sure, the conservative mantra would be "People (employers) are keeping more of their money." But that just means the amount of commerce is declining, not increasing.

...that this is somehow Bill Clinton's fault.

Given that we need at least 100,000 new jobs each month to keep up with new entries into the workforce, even the 92,000 constituted a loss of jobs (call it "adjusting for inflation").

Additionally, so many of the jobs created are second jobs, and crappy ones at that. Someone laid off from a $30/hr manufacturing job with healthcare, who is then forced to work two burger-flipping jobs, represents "job growth."

I'm sure none of this is new to readers; just want to keep things in perspective.

No, not Bill's fault, finally. It's Hillary's fault, you see it's like this...

Hillary is doing good in the polls, we all know Dems just want to ruin the economy, they're really just commies intent on class warfare, etc., so the markets are just waking up the fact that democracy and free markets will be destroyed in the next election, hence the markets are dropping, company's are laying off and confidence is dropping like a stone.

If you think this is over the top, just read the WSJ opinion page, or worse yet, the online letters to the editor.

If any of you were sober in high school you might have learned that "productivity" goes up when wages go down. That's what productivity IS. Of course the Larry Kudlow's of the world will be cheering about how much more productive we are today. That's kind of the point.

Wow, where was Salon reporting on job GROWTH for the last 4 years despite 9/11, Iraq & Katrina? So typical...

Go back to the coverage of job numbers prior to the 2004 election, and you will find plenty of stories. The thing is, and I don't understand why "conservatives" can't face this, while there has been job growth during Bush's second term, it has been quite anemic. Indeed, job growth has largely lagged far behind what would be expected under the pattern seen in most recoveries. You can't blame 9/11 for this (though I know you will), as it reflects changes in the American economy that make it more difficult to hold on to decent jobs and create new, good jobs, and which have been exacerbated by "conservative" policies. So why the coverage now? Well, because it its into a broader economic picture that includes the sub-prime mortgage problems and stock market problems, and points to the possibility of a major economic slow-down or even recession. Do you not think this is relevant simply because it has the likelihood of reflecting poorly on your beloved "conservative" king George? Are you one of those "conservatives" who believes that any time any news is reported that is not officially sanctioned government propaganda it is simply a reflection of liberal bias? If so, that is too bad.

Well, dang those immigrants. Not only did they take those manufacturing and construction jobs, they had the temerity to walk off with them.

We keep talking about the number of jobs ---- how about the quality of the job?

Again, if you fire someone making $20/hr with benefits and replace them with two temps earning no benefits making $8 or even $7/hr then according to the government jobs were "added."

But did things really improve for workers overall?

No.

Because while "jobs" went up -- actual worker wages went down.

If a company eliminates their health insurance and shifts those costs unto employees -- their wages may stay the same (in theory) but since they now have to pay $300 or $400 out of pocket just on insurance -- in pratical terms their wages went down. Instead of having $400 a month to put into savings or pay for chemotherapy -- that money essentially evaporates into nothing. The employee never gets to see it and he can't buy anything with it except crappy insurance. But the official government reports won't report that reality. They'll just say wages remained the same. Uh, technically maybe. But in reality, wages went down.

It's all an Enron-like numbers game designed to hide a failing economy built entirely on credit cards instead of wages.

It is mostly statistical manipulation.

We can lose 4000 jobs (instead of gaining 150,000), and the unemployement rate does not change whatsoever. The Bush Administration, dishonest and full of fucking lying shits in all areas, is full of lying shits in this area as well. When you lose jobs, either the unemployment rate goes up a teensy bit, or the entire report is full of lies. Well, the unemployment rate did not change, leading us to the conclusion that the jobs report is full of shit from bottom to top.

The Democrats need to do their own jobs report, based on a monthly survey. To get an accurate estimation of the unemployment rate where the rate with approximately 5 %, you need to survey a large number of people. Statistically, we can determine the number of people to survey VERY VERY easily. I can deliver to anyone a sample size for this estimation problem, and the sample size would be in the range of 800-900. That's just a guess. We can also specify the precision. You can say 5% +- 1% (probably 3000-4000 for that precision), 5% +- 2% (probably 800-900), or so forth.

But since these lying cheating weasels run the Government, you cannot expect them to tell the truth. They are lying about the unemployment rate. They have lied since 2000.

My guess is that the ACTUAL unemployment rate is much closer to 9 %.