Let the Private Sector Create Jobs

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- As the unemployment rate crossed the double-digit barrier for the first time since Michael Jackson learned to moonwalk, President Obama announced that he will convene a "jobs summit" to finally bring the problem under control.

Using all the analytic skill that his administration can muster, the president is determined to figure out why so many people are losing their jobs and then formulate a solution. That's a relief. For a while there, I thought we were in real trouble!

In fact, the absolute last thing our economy needs is more federal government interference. If Obama really wants to know what's behind entrenched joblessness, he should start by looking at the man in the mirror.

Obama is pursuing, with unprecedented vigor, the same policies that have for decades undermined our industrial base and yoked us to an unsustainable consumer/credit driven economy. This doubling down on Washington's past failures is destroying jobs at an alarming rate.

On Friday we learned that the September trade deficit surged by 18.2%, the largest gain in 10 years. Much of the deficit resulted from Americans spending Cash-for-Clunkers stimulus money on imported cars -- or "American" cars loaded to the sunroof with imported parts. In exchange for more domestic debt, we have succeeded only in creating foreign jobs.

An recent New York Times article by veteran writer Louis Uchitelle confirmed a fact that I have been alleging for years. Uchitelle pointed out that foreign outsourcing of component manufacturing has led to consistent overstatement of U.S. GDP and productivity. The connection goes a long way to explain why we keep losing jobs even as GDP is apparently expanding.