UPDATE

Today’s key jobs report for Oct is in keeping with the economic scenario we have come to expect - a recovery which has assigned the jobs sector to drag (while herding beef in the old days, the unfortunate cowboy assigned to "drag" gathered all the dust). Let’s take a look.

We lost another 190M jobs in October, bringing the number lost this year to 3.8MM. Unemployment is now 10.2% Yet just last week we were to understand that the economy grew at 3.5%! What gives here folks?

From Lee Ohanian, an econ prof at my old alma mater (UCLA), "It's not even a jobless recovery; it's a recovery with more job losses," said UCLA economist Lee Ohanian. "The idea of having essentially no net job creation after a remarkably severe recession is a real pathology for the U.S. economy."

And why? As we have highlighted in past blogs, all other recoveries carried employment right along with them. Why not this time? Answer - Extremists creations from an extremist administration.

Employers are spooked. They’d rather grow more efficient (at significant initial cost) and hope to never have to hire again. This is why so-called Non-farm productivity rose by 9.5% Q3 vs expectations of 6.5%! Productivity is now 4.3% above its year ago level.

No one in his right mind will hire now facing Obamacare and cap & trade, all the rest.

There are answers. One championed by several observers is a proposed tax credit for employers. At a cost of $12,000 per employee, a heck of lot cheaper than the $112,000 reported for the stimulus plan. Or, what we have favored all along - a cut in payroll taxes. Presto - employment. There are others, all sorts of solutions, yet all of them a threat to the far left.

For those of the chattering class who may lament, may complain that business remains poor, look no further than your own party.

Robert Craven