The government “adjusts” employment data in order to smooth out bumps to hide these sorts of seasonal changes. So how do you feel about 2.2 million people losing their jobs last month? That 8.3% unemployment rate still sound good to you knowing this?

But the 0.2% drop is just the smoke screen to cover up the fact that fewer Americans are working today, as a percentage of our population, than when Obama took office. Yes, there were 243,000 jobs created in January. But the number of unemployed dropped by 339,000. That means 96,000 Americans just simply stopped looking and almost 30% of those that wanted work are now sitting idle.

The fact is that when President Obama took office in January of 2009 the civilian labor force participation rate was 65.7%. Today it is just 63.7% (bls.gov). Consider that the population has increased and that 2% drop is magnified and glaring and points to an overall loss of jobs because they were never created to keep up with the traditional 65-67% historical participation rate of the previous decade.

Make no mistake, the President has found his strategy to get the unemployment rate appear as low as possible by November. They are just going to discourage the living heck out of US workers. As Americans stop looking for work the rate will in turn drop and to those not paying attention it will look like the current Administration has done something wonderful. In fact all they are doing is sweeping the dirt under the rug and hoping you won’t find it.

In January of 2012, GM sold just 603 of its flagship, government endorsed, electric car. That is less than half of what they sold in December by the way.

GM said that instead of setting lofty and unattainable targets for sales of the Volt that it would instead simply meet whatever demand for the cars would be. Well, so far there really isn’t very much demand at all. But the government loves the Volt and greenie weenies gush over them. So GM will no doubt keep producing them and also loosing money on every one. Thus requiring them to need further government subsidies to keep producing possibly the biggest flop since the AMC’s Gremlin

The January number is being reported as just 170,000 which is barely enough to just cover new entrants into the work force and not provide any relief for millions of long term unemployed workers who need real growth to help them get back into the workforce.

“I don’t know what your husband’s speciality [is], but I can tell you that there is a huge demand around the country for engineers,” Obama told the woman.

“I understand that,” she responded. “But how am — given the list that you’re getting, I mean we’re not getting that. You said in the State of the Union address for business leaders to ask what can they do to bring jobs back to America

During the back and forth between Obama and the wife of an unemployed engineer, Obama asked for his resume.

“Can I ask you what kind of engineer your husband is?,” Obama said to the wife of the unemployed engineer.

“He’s a semiconductor engineer,” she responded.

“It is interesting to me — and I meant what I said if your send me your husband’s resume, I’d be interested in finding out exactly what’s happening right there because the word that we’re getting is that somebody in that type of high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away.”

Real Clear Politics

What’s going on, you buffoon, is that the economy still sucks! We are now, thanks to you tripping down on socialism, years behind in job creation to the point where millions of Americans have given up even looking for work because there are not enough jobs.

Seriously? You’ll look into “what’s happening” because some little birdie is tweeting in your ear how great the economy is out here in the real world? Go back to fiddling. America is still burning.

Like it or not, it is just a Big Lie.

Wow! Can’t say I am enthusiastic the hear that at all. Sure it is growth, but it is about as anemic of growth as you can be without serious worries of another recession.

The markets this morning are reacting by selling of. I think that is a temporary thing however as some people are getting spooked and on again pulling their money out. It should be a short livens market dip although it could be the start of a slight correction.

As for me, I’m riding it out. I see better times on the horizon especially if we get Obama out of the White House and make Harry Reid Minority Leader in the Senate.

But that’s good right? It is under 400,000!

Ok, do the math. Let’s give the economy the benefit of the doubt and say we are in for a year of just 350,000 initial claims per week on average. Multiply that by 52 weeks in the year. That is 18.2 million Americans filing for benefits. Now does it sound good? I didn’t think so.

Also reported in the data was that total persons claiming unemployment benefits across all programs, including extended benefits, state additional benefits and Workshare were 7,826,665 on December 31st of 2011. This was an increase of 493,566 from the prior week ending December 24th. Looks like it was a not so very merry Christmas last year.

On Friday the 13th, how appropriate, S&P cut the credit ratings of nine European nations.  Both France and Austria lost their Tripple A status.  Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia also were cut.  Italy’s two point cut gives is an anemic BBB+ rating for its debt.

But what does all this really mean?  Country’s like Italy and France have been well known to be on this road to ruin for years.  Yet only after they are suspended in mid air after jumping off the cliff does S&P feel compelled to say, “Hey, we think there might be a problem here.”?  What good are rating agencies if they are so far behind the curve that they only dare to speak up when the point of no return has been passed?

The answer to that question is a stark one – none.