Missing Work

Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
And I'm standing here, and you're miles away
And I'm wondering why you left
--John Waite

Big miss in the jobs number this am. And it should be noted (because most mainstream media won't), that the 54,000 number includes 206,000 estimated jobs created using the laughable 'birth/death' model of the BLS.

Over the past 3 years, government has borrowed and spent $trillions, and printed and spent $trillions more largely in the name of 'creating jobs.' Yet, anemic employment persists despite the federal government's best efforts to paint the data pretty.

Those who have put themselves in charge of 'creating jobs' (a charge, btw, that is not granted by the Constitution), seemingly face one of two courses of action from here. One is to conclude that this intervention is not working and that government should step back and do less. Let people and the markets they create work things out.

The other course is to conclude that the $trillions in intervention is simply not enough and that government needs to escalate its involvement in the economy. Increase bureaucratic influence on the economic relative to people and markets.

Which course do you suppose government officials will select?