The Zero Man

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                     
          ..... from, The Hollow Men, by T.S. Eliot

Well, it's official, the most recent employment statistics show ZERO new jobs were created in August.  The acknowledged or admitted unemployment rate remains at 9.1%; honest assessments have it well into the double digits, and climbing.  Obama is living down to the performance expectations implied in the nickname (zerObama) I gave him.  How I wish I had been wrong, not prophetic.  Alas, it was not my choice, it was his.

Meanwhile, word is the so-called "Super Committee," which will deliberate on exactly how to screw this faltering and failing economy even deeper into the ground, is going to start meeting on September 8th.  Tragically, no matter what this exercise in faux-democracy produces, growth killing austerity has been foreordained by the process which created it. 

Remember, zerObama failed to achieve what he perversely called a "Grand Bargain" with Boehner, so he settled for what can only be dubbed a corrupt bargain.  As a result, the best we can hope for from the "Stupor Super Committee" is an agreement to further cripple this already hobbled and job-bleeding economy with cuts that at least do not affect Social Security and Medicare.  No doubt we won't get the best outcome.  Regardless, some 1.5 trillion dollars in reduced economic activity is coming our way, all thanks to zerObama. 

And now we are told the Zero Man will participate in the Detroit Labor Day celebration.  We have been provided with an advance version of the remarks he intends to deliver for our appreciation.  The attending crowd will be treated to empty gestures and poltergeistic assurances of progress. 

It's like the nuns at St. Alphonsus school would admonish us, as they tapped on our talkative heads with a yard stick, "an empty vessel makes the most noise."  And, might I add, there's nothing more hollow than zero.