Syria is leading the news but Friday's jobs report is not too far back.  Once again, the unemployment rate dropped because Americans are not looking for work.   

Welcome to the world that Obama's voters did not vote for in 2008.

On Friday, we were once again reminded of President Carter, the one man in recent memory that many of us would rather not be reminded of.  Nice man, lousy president!

The numbers in this jobs report are awful:

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Friday job numbers show the nation's "labor force participation rate" -- i.e., the percentage of Americans over 16 who have jobs, or are looking for one -- dipped to 63.2 percent. 

That beats the sad record of 63.4 percent set in 1978, a harbinger of the Carter-era stagflation and malaise to come. 

Yes, the unemployment rate last month ticked down a tenth of a point, to 7.3 percent. But that's only slightly better than the 7.8 percent rate that prevailed when Obama first took office in 2009. And much of that gain is the result of workers simply giving up altogether on finding jobs: The BLS reports that a record 90 million Americans eligible for work are sitting on the sidelines. These workers don't count as "unemployed," hence the lower unemployment rate."

Naturally, we are all talking Syria but this "jobs report" reminds us that there is something very sick with the US economy.   We are not growing, not creating jobs and too many of us are "part timers."

The jobs report included another feature of recent jobs reports.The June and July numbers were revised downward. 

We can't wait to hear how The White House will spin this one. They will probably blame Bush but that's getting rather silly on the 4th anniversary of the stimulus.

As for me, maybe I'll go find my copy of Frankie Valli's "Grease." The music was OK in the summer of '78 but the economy smelled like burned grease.  Much like the one of the summer of 2013.

P.S. You can hear our discussion of Friday's jobs report at CANTO TALK here.