BusinessWeek’s economist, Michael Mandel, continues with his discussion of private sector job growth for the last ten years. The bad news? A month or so ago it was trending towards zero. Today it managed to get there.

That’s right, for the past ten years we have lost more jobs in the private sector than were created. Here’s the graph:

Mandel also takes this a step further and compares job growth from recession trough to recession trough. This to quiet critics that contended he was comparing boom to bust years. Here’s that graph:

I suspect that there will be some objections raised to this as well. The reality is that there is no perfect measure but, however imperfect, Mandel’s graphs paint a picture of an economy in long-term decline. Smoke and mirrors only work so long and sooner or later you have to create private sector jobs or an economy will collapse. Right now, I’d say that smoke and mirrors are still the preferred tactic.