The new jobless report is out: same old same old.

Here are two headlines that give us an extended picture of the past three years.

JOBLESS FOR WEAK: 424,000... UPDATE: GDP 1.8%...

The "jobless" number is the weekly count of those who claimed unemployment benefits for the first time. Understand that the US population adds 240,000 people to the work force each and every month. We do not seriously gain on the net job count until the weekly number gets close to 350,000. In the current climate, the economy adds approximately 130,000 to 220,000 jobs per month. That number is "eaten up" by the 240,000 who come into the work force each month, leaving us with a negative gain. Aaaaahhh, anyway, this is all getting rather confusing.

The long and short of this sad tale is this: the "new zero" when applied to the weekly jobless total is 350,000. Total unemployment grows when first time benefits total more than that approximate 350,000 number.

As to the GDP -- For starters, that 1.8 figure is our growth in production compared to the previous month. Our "real" GDP since Obama has been president is very close to zero. That's right. There has been virtually no growth in our national product in terms of real GDP and that is why the unemployment totals remain very much the same month after month. The number given above is not the "real" GPD, which comes in later in the year and takes into account unreported positives and negatives relating to the GDP report. It is believed that real GDP for this year is 1.2%, an improvement over the previous year. Most analysts tell us that net job creation does not occur until the GDP monthly report(s) comes in at 2.8% and does so consistently.

Note: I am not the only one who makes "typos." In the headline above, "weak" should read "week." Its tough to catch all those typos when you are a one man show and work a real job some 60 to 70 hours per weak. . . . . I mean, week.