Well if you don't understand what the different statistics actually reflect, its pretty easy to claim that jobs were lost even though they were not.
The population is not a static number, it is constantly growing and likewise the number of new workers entering the workforce -and in our country that is more than the number leaving the work force. The economy must create an average of about 200,000 new jobs each month in order to keep up with these numbers entering the employable work force for the first time. A country like Canada only needs to create a much smaller number because their numbers leaving the work force is much closer to the new numbers entering. (Which is why they have such a liberal immigration policy seeking a new influx of workers from anywhere to help pay for the social programs their ever growing number of retired and elderly count on.)
So if only 100,000 jobs are created instead, unemployment figures will tick up a bit even though no jobs were technically "lost" -enough new ones were not created. All you have to do is check NOT with some editorial but with the Department of Labor statistics to see that we aren't "losing" jobs. You do not get the number of how many new jobs were created or actually lost by looking at changes in the unemployment rate -which is what some people actually do and what Krugman's editorial has done. If 8,500 workers entering the work force for the first time were unable to get a job, then some people say "8,500 jobs were lost" when in fact no such thing happened. It means 192,000 new jobs were created and it wasn't enough to acommodate the additional 8,500 who also entered the work force during that time.
The unemployment rate is simply a figure that reflects whether the new job creation was or was not an adequate number to acommodate the influx of new workers that are constantly entering the employable work force. You have to have an unemployment rate that is above 8.0% and still rising from there before we are talking about real jobs actually being lost.
Current Population Survey(CPS)
In addition, the attack on 9/11 caused a major disruption in employment, ended up destroying almost half the entire value of our economy within a matter of months that snowballed for the next two years through one industry after another before even beginning to reverse - affecting and plowing through one industry after another from investment to airlines to hotel and service workers etc. And all a direct result of 9/11. The full damage caused by 9/11 was incredibly massive and in the trillions and could have easily resulted in an outright depression -with the wrong government policies.
So the first 4 years of Bush's Presidency was spent trying to aid an economy in its recovery from an attack that cost nearly half the value of our entire economy. Something Clinton didn't have to deal with in the first place and already had a stable economy from Reagan policies that he didn't change until the last 2 years he was in office and resulted in leaving with a recession!. So comparing Bush with Clinton on economy is a truly specious and phony one -no other President since FDR has had to deal with the kind of damage to the economy that Bush did. It is actually a major accomplishment that unemployment didn't skyrocket as it so easily could have following 9/11 -and as any economist could tell you, it takes much, much longer to recover from high unemployment than it did to hit in the first place.
Lastly, the combined factors of oil speculation, oil demand skyrocketing in foreign countries like China and India, OPEC keeping a lid on available supplies have all sharply driven up oil prices. Which has inflicted a whole lot more damage than you can apparently appreciate and actually could have been far worse with different government policies. Our economy is fueled by oil -from production, manufacturing to transportation etc. Where do you think the higher cost of oil has gone and how have companies and businesses handled this additional outlay? By creating fewer jobs in the first place.
Had Obama been handed this identical situation with the policies he is pushing now -our economy would have tanked out entirely and unemployment skyrocket close to double digits or higher. It sure did under Carter with the very same policies Obama is holding out right now. Thank God voters threw him out. And I say "thanks, but no thanks" to Obama for once again offering up the historically proven failed policies of both Hoover and Carter while trying to con people into believing its bound to get a different result this time around. No it won't. It would be disaster.
More savy??? You just got lucky, like me, and didn't buy in the housing bubble. You would have been no different than everyone else when your house took a dump. So either you were lucky with timing or you took a $30k hit on your home. Did you just buy a home recently? Lucky for you. Most people already bought. 
