Zero jobs. None.

Not one for the entire month of August.

Friday’s jobs report came out and “unexpectedly” showed zero job creation. “Unexpected by whom?” would be a good question. The so-called experts and Washington pundits were predicting 70,000 added jobs. AP was giving their best effort as White House stenographer by predicting as many as 90,000 new jobs up until a few hours before the report was released. Their original article said that the “report could show signs of modest growth.” After a frantic rewrite, the original article was scrubbed and a google search for “AP modest growth jobs report” shows no sign of their original (totally wrong) prediction; only the corrected version.

Unemployment held at 9.1%. This number itself is a deception in that the Labor Department  arbitrarily decided that there are just less jobs out there to be had so they made an “adjustment” in how the rate is calculated. Had there been no adjustments in the calculation method since President Obama took office the rate would be in excess of 11%. The August U-6 unemployment rate, which counts those who have given up looking for a job and those who have had to settle for part time work, rose to 16.2%. Unemployment among blacks rose to 16.7%, the highest in 27 years. The unemployment rate in August for black teenagers was a third-worldly 41%. That’s right, 41%.

This is a disgrace. In the greatest country on Earth (at least until now), rather than address these very real problems, our government spends billions on windmills which are so ineffective that they require the simultaneous construction of the system they were intended to replace as a backup. Our government, in the name of the environment, spends billions to mandate the use of half of our most basic food crop for an ecologically harmful gasoline additive sending corn prices to record levels. As a basic feed crop for meat production, any rise in corn prices creates similar price rises across the board for food. Our government forbids certain kinds of work (gulf oil drilling) for which there is a real need and a real market. Our government wants to tell private businesses where they can build their factories (Boeing). Our government wants to tell us what kind of light bulbs we may use, what types of medicine we may have, and what types of cars we may drive. There are new government regulations on the “turbidity” (dirtiness) of rainwater runoff from home construction sites. There are even requirements for the sleeping arrangements of sheep herders and mandates that they be given cell phones. All of this in the face of an economic depression. Make no mistake. The recession has not ended and the economy continues to sink further no matter how the White House and their mainstream press “stenographers” massage the numbers. As Ronald Reagan reminded us, government is not the solution to the problem – government is the problem.

American business is the greatest engine of prosperity ever created and could begin putting people back to work immediately if government would just get out of the way. With that in mind, here are a few simple ideas for President Obama to include in his campaign speech  jobs speech to Congress next week:

1. Reopen the Gulf to drilling. This would begin to bring back the 50,000 jobs that have been lost in the region.
2. Stop obstructing and get behind the construction of the Trans-Canada pipeline from Canadian shale-oil fields to the U.S. One estimate is that 100,000 jobs would be created for the construction alone.
3. Put an end to the Boeing fiasco. The more meddlesome our government appears, the less attractive the U.S. appears to outside investors (job creators).
4. Scrap Obamacare and start over. Obamacare is a Queen Mary sized anchor tied to the ankle of this economy. Some reforms to our health care system may be in order but this monster is killing jobs by the thousands. There will be no recovery with this law in place.

Of course, none of this is likely. We will probably be offered more of the same old Keynesian failure food we’ve been dosed with since this administration took over. It will all be about politics and “positioning” for the elections. It sure would be nice if our President would consider the “position” of those good Americans who can’t find a job.