Retailers created 151,000 new jobs in October, nearly triple the number for the Octobers of 2009 and 2008, according to John Challenger and Barack Obama. Talking heads from the White House to WKRP have lauded this as the turn around we’ve waited for.

Let’s see what the prez to the pundits didn’t tell us:
(a) The number of US workers who filed new claims for unemployment benefits fell 24,000 last week to 446,500. That’s a net loss <mumble><mumble> carry-the-two of 295,500 jobs.
(b) The people losing those $50,000 jobs are engineers and teachers and not $17,000 Wally World clerks.
(c) Seasonal jobs like these always post gains during the holidays. Guess what happens after the holidays?
(d) Most surprising of all, population growth means we need 100,000 jobs just to stay even so October’s net loss wasn’t almost 300,000 jobs. It was nearly 400,000 jobs.

So what’s the peeve? Other than the fact that my friend and my wife are both still unemployed, everyone from the prez to the pundits have pulled the wool over your eyes. Again.