The unemployment statistics are terrible.  Tens of millions are struggling to find jobs that are not there.

Obama and other DINOs doing what they do best, caving to the GOP, have allowed the Herbert Hoover Republicans to place the blame for the economic mess that Reagan and the Bushes and the rest of the GOP and their corporate cronies created on the Democrats. 

Instead of tackling the jobless crisis by creating a 21st century New Deal WPA to put people to work, Obama maintains a deliberately myopic and woodenheaded stance regarding the unemployment disaster in this country, leaving job creation to the business sector that keeps shedding jobs.  Ditto for the former so called Democratic majority on Capitol Hill.  Now, the GOP controlled House will make the situation even worse. 

On his Asian trip, the president was crowing about the 50,000 US jobs created by American and Indian companies' upcoming deals.  His spin was an exercise in polishing a turd.

US jobless numbers are staggering.

From Heidi Shierholz at Economic Policy Institute: "The total number of job openings in September was 2.9 million, while the total number of unemployed workers was 14.8 million (the latter data are from the Current Population Survey).  This means that the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was 5.0-to-1 in September, an increase from the revised August ratio of 4.8-to-1.

"It is important to note that the job-seekers ratio does not measure the number of applicants for each job.  There may be throngs of applicants for every job posting, since job seekers apply for multiple jobs.  Instead, the 5-to-1 ratio means that for every five unemployed workers, there is only one job available -- or for every four out of five unemployed workers, there simply are no jobs.

"With so many unemployed workers per available job, it is no surprise that workers who have been laid off continue to get stuck in unemployment for very long periods.  In September, 41.7% of this country’s unemployed workers had been unemployed for over six months, the maximum amount of time a worker who has been laid off can receive regular state benefits.  On November 30th, the federally funded extended unemployment insurance benefits are set to expire.  These benefits provide a lifeline to the unemployed and their families during the deepest and longest downturn since the 1930s, while at the same time boosting spending in the economy and therefore generating jobs."

And Shiierholz states in a prior posting:  "If the rate of job growth were to continue at October’s rate, the economy would achieve prerecession unemployment rates (5% in December 2007) in roughly 20 years.

"The labor market remains 7.5 million payroll jobs below where it was at the start of the recession in December 2007, and this number understates the size of the gap in the labor market by failing to take into account the fact that simply to keep up with the growth in the working-age population, the labor market should have added around 3.5 million jobs in the nearly three years since December 2007.  This means the labor market is now roughly 11 million jobs below the level needed to restore the pre-recession unemployment rate (5.0% in December 2007).  To get down to the pre-recession unemployment rate within five years, the labor market would have to add around 300,000 jobs every month for that entire period."