Business

Here’s my State of the Union

This is what President Obama should have said in his State of the Union on Tuesday.

“Hello, my fellow Americans. How ya’ doin’? I hope you are well. And if you aren’t, then at least I hope you are getting better. Believe me, we are trying. We are all trying, even if sometimes it doesn’t seem that way.

“Sometimes we have different solutions to our economic problems. Reasonable men can disagree.

“I’m not going to get into how bad things were back in 2008, when I came to the presidency and how the financial system almost . . . you know, you’ve heard it before. There’s a problem with repeating how the economy and the banks nearly had a crisis.

“The more people mention it, the more people remember it. It’s almost as bad as crying fire in a crowded movie theater. In this instance, we aren’t crying fire. We are simply repeating the news about the fire.

“That’s nearly as dangerous. People remember the financial fire and get nervous about being singed the next time.

“I’m going to be straight with you. The problems we are having today took decades to create. Politicians of both parties were to blame. Banks share a good part of the responsibility.

“And Wall Street — oh, Wall Street! Wall Street has to take so much of the responsibility and yet they were treated so well when the crisis came. You remember the bailouts, right?

“We all thought this was the right thing to do. Do we still think that? Some reasonable people now have their doubts.

“And you, some of you Americans out there in your homes, you are responsible, too! Those mortgage applications didn’t get filed on their own. And you were the ones who kept whipping out your credit cards to buy stuff.

“I’m supposed to tell you how America is doing today — the State of the Union. America is a strong country — still. You’ve heard that other countries are becoming stronger than us. In one small sense that’s true. We welcome a friendly China to the world economic stage.

“China has a lot invested in the US. Way too much, many people would say.

“That doesn’t make America less great.

“But you don’t want to hear about any of this macroeconomic stuff tonight. You want to know about jobs. And about the cost of things: oil, gasoline, food and clothing. Health-care costs. Insurance premiums.

“These are the things that matter to you each and every day . . . that make your life better or make it worse.

“First, let me talk about jobs. America is creating them. But as you know the numbers are not in the millions. Once all the revisions and corrections are said and done, there are about 500,000 new jobs being created each year.

“That’s about a third of what we absolutely need. We’d like four times that amount.

“The unemployment rate went down last month. But you and I both know that was a statistical fluke. The rate is much too high. Nearly one in five Americans who wants a full-time job can’t find one. Many millions have completely given up.

“This coming year we will have one goal: to encourage companies to hire. By hook, crook, coercion or pleading, companies will take on more workers. Period. That’s our most important goal.

“Did ObamaCare, as my health-care rules are being called, hurt job creation? I hope not. That, obviously, wasn’t the intention. We were simply trying to help people in medical distress.

“If we need to change the program to make companies more comfortable so they will create jobs, we will.

“Jobs will be our focus. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.

“Not Wall Street. Not the banks. Not the many squabbles that elected officials in Washington seem to enjoy. Jobs are key.

“Second goal, prices. I will ask regulators throughout Washington to do all they can to stop energy prices from climbing. And if that means cutting off the Wall Street speculation that is causing artificial price increases — well, Wall Street is just going to have to deal with that.

“Lastly, I’m going to listen to John Crudele‘s plan for helping the real-estate industry. Congress and I will soon draft a law to change how personal retirement plans can be invested. If stocks and bonds — with their lousy returns — are good enough for these plans to invest in, then so too is a roof over a family’s head.

“The trillions of dollars of retirement plan money will bail out many municipalities that find themselves swamped by foreclosed real estate. It’ll help the banks and the real estate industry, too.

“OK, that’s all I have. Michelle and I sometimes spend Tuesday night watching some of the wonderful shows on TV. You probably do also. And right now you are likely angry with me for preempting those shows.

“So get outta here. Grab a beer and sit back. And if a chan nel has too much commentary about what I just said, change the channel.

“Hopefully I’ll have better news for you next year. Maybe you’ll even let me keep this job for another four years. But if not, let me say this: it’s been fun — sometimes.” jcrudele@nypost.com