The Democrats and their media friends are pointing gleefully to the January unemployment numbers as indicators that Obama’s policies are working. The official rate fell to 8.3% with 243,000 jobs added.

Yeah, right… 8.3%. This is the Democrats defining “the new normal” for socialist Euro-type unemployment where we applaud bad news.

But look closely at the overall situation and you will see the real truth – that Obama/Democrat policies are in fact devastating the economy.

First, when did hiring start to pick up?

Answer: In 2011 after the huge nationwide Republican sweep into power on the state and federal level in November 2010. Businesses breathed a sigh of relief and loosened their belts just a little because they were no longer terrified that Obama could legislate against them with impunity.

What else happened?

In December 2010 the Congress passed and Obama signed into law a two-year extension of the lower Bush-era tax rates. And the Social Security tax holiday was put into effect. These tax abatement measures alone have been playing a major role in keeping the economy afloat.

And Obama signed them because he knew that they would help the economy. Because even a leftist like Obama has to admit the truth sometimes.

But the fact is that there still are many, many very serious problems in the economy like the fact that the real unemployment rate is anywhere from 10% to 18% depending on how you calculate it. This current “official” unemployment rate of 8.3% no longer has any validity to it. Everything is different than what it used to be.

Now look at what zerohedge.com reported (with bold face by zerohedge itself):

‘A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.  No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. ‘

So if all those people drop out, of course the unemployment rate is going to fall. Out of sight, out of mind for 1.2 million people. With millions more coming.

Other things are happening in politics right now that are encouraging some optimism and keeping the economy afloat.

Most polls show a majority of Americans dissatisfied with Obama and prepared to vote him out of office in the coming November elections. This is lifting up business confidence. The idea that a pro-business candidate like Mitt Romney may be in the White House next year at this time is buoying hopes.

But still the numbers are terrible. Because Obama still is a dark cloud on the economic horizon.

Look at the January numbers with cnbc.com reporting:

‘The so-called real unemployment rate, which measures discouraged workers as well and is referred to as the U-6, nudged lower to 15.1 percent.’

15.1 percent… And that is even after millions have dropped out of looking for work over the last few years.

And look at where in the economy the jobs were created, according to cnbc.com:

‘True to form, services were responsible for 162,000 of the January swell, with manufacturing payrolls growing 50,000.’

But “services” – waiters, bartenders, retail etc. – are not really great jobs, do not “create” wealth and they generally pay much less than manufacturing. Only manufacturing “creates” wealth. And manufacturing still is being harmed all over America by Democrat policies like restricting resource extraction (like the Democrat war on the Keystone pipeline and enviro crusades against natural gas extraction in New York and Pennsylvania); excess taxes, mandates and regulations on all business; labor union agitation; legal harassment by Democrat trial lawyers; and extremist environmental regs.

Meanwhile a horrible public education system controlled by Democrat teacher unions is leaving tens of millions of people without the ability to hold good jobs – even if they were available.

We need to create 100,000 manufacturing jobs every single month for years to get our economy back. But the Democrats are throttling our economy as they have for decades with increasingly socialistic/enviro policies designed to thwart genuine job creation particularly in the crucial manufacturing sector. 50,000 jobs is pent-up demand after years of stasis.

We also have a housing crisis, an energy crisis and a debt crisis. These unemployment numbers do zero for all that. And Obama policies are only making things worse overall.

And here is something else to think about: It would be interesting to see exactly where the jobs are being created because the Bureau of Labor Statistics report does not say specifically. Because we know that jobs generally are being created in conservative states like North Dakota, Texas, Georgia and Florida and they are generally being lost in heavily-Democrat states like New York, California and Obama’s home state of Illinois.

Please visit my website at www.nikitas3.com  for more conservative insights. Enjoy the lively new Arts section.