The loss of 263,000 nonfarm jobs is another depressing economic statistic reinforcing the prospects of a jobless and joyless economic recovery. Job losses were widespread, but concentrated in construction, manufacturing, retail trade and government.

Employers want to fire, not hire. The reasons for this lie in Washington, where lawmakers are busy piling on spending, taxes, and mandates. From an employer’s perspective, each new hire is a liability. The Obama administration’s economic recovery plan, which was centered on job creation, is now a manifest failure. The stimulus brew it concocted has proven to be an economic depressant.

In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Meredith Whitney highlights another serious economic drag on the economy: a continuing credit crunch. All the Obama Treasury and Fed lending programs have only served to direct credit to large companies, while small business — the engine of economic growth and job creation — has been starved of credit. The Treasury and Fed have a corporatist economic model, in which the favored few are benefited at the expense of the many. Their credit allocation policies have worked as a further drag on job creation.