Have you noticed despite the never ending jobs crisis, Jobs are removed from the political dialog? The unemployed are no longer mentioned? Or if they are, we get absurd nonsense policy that will actually do the opposite? Ship more jobs overseas and lose jobs?

Paul Krugman calls out this sweeping the unemployed under the rug, in an op-ed, Against Learned Helplessness. Krugman calls for policies, that would actually work, to create jobs.

we could have W.P.A.-type programs putting the unemployed to work doing useful things like repairing roads — which would also, by raising incomes, make it easier for households to pay down debt. We could have a serious program of mortgage modification, reducing the debts of troubled homeowners. We could try to get inflation back up to the 4 percent rate that prevailed during Ronald Reagan’s second term, which would help to reduce the real burden of debt.

Right on Krugman and if only politicians would follow the call. What Krugman doesn't mention is the trade deficit or confronting China on currency manipulation, which once again, we get more inaction by Geithner on China:

The Obama administration on Friday declined to cite China for manipulating its currency to gain trade advantages against the United States but said the pace of the currency's rise against the dollar needs to be accelerated.

The Treasury Department noted that China has been allowing its currency to rise against the dollar since last June, but it said Beijing needs to make more rapid progress. America's trade deficit with China hit a record high last year.

The department's finding came in a report it must submit to Congress every six months determining whether other countries are manipulating their currencies. American manufacturers have been pushing for China to be cited. That could result in penalty tariffs on Chinese imports.

U.S. manufacturers believe China's currency is undervalued against the dollar by as much as 40 percent. This makes Chinese goods cheaper in the U.S. market and American products more expensive in China.

Perhaps the learned helplessness is beyond the corrupt politicians and global elites but with the American people.

Since when did we stop demanding jobs? Demand they stop offshore outsourcing, stop creating more bad trade deals and start investing and manufacturing in the United States? Despite the Obama administration abandoning the unemployed, should the general public? We have no choice in the upcoming Presidential election in this regard, beyond protesting in the streets.

The spin and apathy is so pathetic, even Made in America is under attack and few blink an eye, on Memorial Day.

Yet, some are aware that the United States needs manufacturing to really generate some good jobs and upstate New York is attempting a comeback:

The effort in the Hudson Valley represents something new: an unusual partnership between government and private enterprise. And because it is no mere government bailout of a flagging industry and focuses on high-tech, future-oriented products, this initiative has potentially greater staying power.

If it succeeds, what's happening in upstate New York could help the whole country meet one of its most difficult challenges: re-creating the kinds of secure, long-term middle-class jobs that have long been the foundation of American prosperity.

Unless such a revitalization takes place, most economists agree, millions of people will face a more volatile and less prosperous future. And as consumers' ability to spend erodes, so will the prospects for corporate America.

It also will be extremely difficult for the country to deal with government deficits and the soaring cost of such fundamental programs as Social Security and Medicare.

While a WPA is a worthy goal, and the public works from the Great Depression are proof positive it works, we need more than that. We need to make things again and structure the economy, in particular reform trade to be Buy American and Hire America. to get the economy of scale required to put America back on the right course.