The cheerful news that unemployment has dropped to 8.9 percent (from 9 percent) is leading to a bit of false optimism. The economy may be improving (or not), but the amount of damage from the recession/restructuring we have to overcome is greater than most people realize. Economist John Williams, (covered at World Net Daily) has the real unemployment rate--including discouraged workers--at more like 22 percent.

Elaine Chao, former Labor Secretary under G. W. Bush believes the figure is 16.7 percent ("see Table 6A of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report," she told me after a speech she gave in Florida recently), and the sad news is that many of "new jobs" of the past year have been in the public sector and do not reflect real economic growth.

Chao contends that the Obama Administration is impeding job growth, rather than stimulating it. Obama officials, she notes, "have never worked in the private sector" and and don't understand that all their new regulations, taxes and fees under Obamacare, statements demonizing business leaders and proposals for cap and trade lead companies to hold back on investments or to move overseas.

The Department of Labor "has over 400 lawyers," says Chao. "Essentially it is an AFL-CIO office." Already there are 104 new regulations of business in the labor field.

Add to all that the rising cost of oil, in part due to failure to develop sources in the US, and you have a low-growth, low-job creation economy.