You must have a very short memory.

Go to this BLS site, and click on the category labeled "Unemployment Rate (Seasonally Adjusted)"

When you get to that page, click on "include graphs," and use the entry box to run the beginning back to 1970 or so. Then take a look.

For extra credit, check "Total Nonfarm Employment - Seasonally Adjusted" on that first page, and do the same things. That's the payroll number.

Then sit back and have a nice, steaming mug of perspective.

I'm listening to the news people today tell us this 80,000 job loss is the "worst number in five years." That sounds a lot scarier than telling us that the past three months are the first negative employment numbers AT ALL in almost four and a half years.

The American public is being driven by the media like buffalo off a cliff.