An Obama statement from today to file away for future reference: “The CEOs I talked to are saying they are now making investments, and I anticipate that they’re going to start hiring at a more rapid clip.”

These sorts of statements have a tendency to not work out well for President Obama, at least so far.

Just about a year ago, Obama said, “Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.”

Caterpillar was offering “Hey, wait, we didn’t really say that” cautions the day afterward.

Then in March, Caterpillar laid off about 2,400 workers.

And then in July: “Thousands of Caterpillar Inc. employees will either be on vacation or temporarily laid off in the Peoria area over the next two weeks, the company confirmed Friday.”

All told, it was a brutal year: “The company has saved its bottom line from turning red by making a series of vicious cost cuts, including 30,000 layoffs.”

So when “they’ll be rehiring people” means “tens of thousands will be laid off,” perhaps we should be wary of happy talk from CEOs to the president.