An acquaintance of mine with many years of sorting through (and, at times, dishing out) political spin writes the following:

"Are you looking at yesterday's numbers on jobs 'created or saved?'  Even if you accept the Patrick Administration's own numbers, consider:

* Buried in the Globe article: 'The 23,533 individual jobs created or retained amount to 8,792 full-time positions, according to the administration’s calculations.' They only created 8,792 jobs!  Everyone who hears 'jobs' thinks they are full-time, 40 hours a week.  They should be saying 23,533 part-time jobs, at best.

* According to the AP, the 23,533 includes 6,000 summer interns. So if my math is correct, a full 25% of the jobs went to college students.  That's not exactly robust economic development.

* Teachers, firefighters and school teachers -- all necessary and valued jobs -- do not contribute to growing businesses or the economy. It's just the nature of the jobs.  And I'm sorry, but adding a new job at the pizza shop because of a nearby construction project is not impressive economic stimulus.

* Where are the tax incentives for R&D?  Where are the breaks on payroll taxes to encourage new hiring?  What is Patrick doing at all to help private industry recover?  (They always cite biotech, but that's a very small fraction of the total employment in Massachusetts.)"

To which I can only ruefully agree and add this: the feds are blowing smoke on job creation as well.

Buon appetito everyone!