Stunningly disastrous news on employment

Net ZERO new jobs in August (BLS report here). As in nada, nothing, nadir... pick your favorite disaster-evoking word. The only possible silver lining is if things are now "bad enough" that the momentum for doing what non-"regular" economists (a slam on Barro's most recent lunacy; subscription required), that is economists who understand and fundamentally believe Keynesian macro models, know how to do.

This is the worst job performance since 1945, I just heard, but haven't verified.

President Obama needs to lead. Meaning capture the essence of fixing the problem and communicate it in a compelling way.

My proposal for that is simple: 400,000 new jobs per month, private and public, we desperately need them all. Hell or high water. At this point arguing over the details means absolutely nothing -- we must commit to creating any kind of job that moves us toward 400K.

Given this truly abysmal news, maybe it should be hell AND high water. C'mon Mr. President!