Crimson Red Sports

No sooner had President Obama shocked the political world with a gloomy economic forecast — projecting 9.1 percent unemployment for this year and a reelection-killing 9 percent for 2012 — than the dismal August jobs report arrived showing no gain in nonfarm payrolls.

Obama’s economic policies have failed. Are we on the front end of yet another recession? This report alone suggests that we could be, although other data points disagree. But on the eve of President Obama’s so-called jobs speech, there’s a much bigger question here: Has the U.S. entered into long-term economic decline?

U.S. has actually lost jobs on a net basis. In August 2001, nonfarm payrolls calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics stood at 132 million. Through August 2011, payrolls stand at 131.1 million.

In fits and starts, a 4 percent unemployment rate has moved up to some kind of permanent 9 percent plateau. Following the Bush tax cuts of 2003, 8 million new jobs were created. But in the aftermath of the financial meltdown those jobs have disappeared. The so-called Obama recovery over the past two years has made no dent in this gloomy picture.

And through this whole period our economy has barely grown at a subpar 1.6 percent yearly rate for real GDP.