Remember a long, long, long time ago when Barack Obama declared that he was dedicating himself, body and soul, to being "focused like a laser" on job growth? It now seems that his "laser" was of the Dollar Store variety...capable of producing only a tiny glowing dot which can be chased by simple-minded pets until even they realize there was never really anything there to catch.
All of which is made clear by the latest round of job numbers, which not only show a steep decrease in hiring last month, but actually emit such a stench that economists are now questioning the accuracy of the previous months' encouraging reports.
Still, the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3% to 8.2%, which is good news for president laserbeam, right? Hardly.
Because the decline in unemployment came entirely from people who have joined the legions before them in abandoning all hope, quitting the search for a job, and resigning themselves to the idea that they won't be leaving their houses until Obama is dragged kicking and screaming out of his.
But when people give up their job searches, the government pretends that they cease to exist altogether. So the more people surrender to despair, the better the president's unemployment numbers look. And adding insult to injury, the supposed unemployment rate also goes down when employers throw up their hands and stop offering jobs.
But the real numbers are sobering: the number of Americans not in the labor force just hit an all-time high of 87,897,000...and the actual unemployment rate, including those who have either given up hope or taken a part-time job while wanting a full-time job, is a jaw-dropping 19.1%.
Those aren't exactly the numbers which a sitting president could use to win reelection.
Which is why those voters who get their news from the mainstream media so rarely hear them.
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