Employment Uptrend?
Research for Online Investors

by John Dalt

8/04/2010

The market looks good today on a stronger than expected ADP Nonfarm Employment Report.  ADP showed 42,000 jobs added last month.  The market expected 25,000.  Amazing to see so much made over so little.  These numbers are for the United States, not one city!

“Official” government employment numbers come out Friday morning. CNN Money reports 7.9 million jobs lost in the last two years. At the rate announced this morning, it will take 13 years and 3 months to rehire everyone that lost a job in the last two years, I am under impressed.  You can only beat up on business and entrepreneurs so long, before they shrug their shoulders.

BP announced this morning that the static kill of the Macondo well was a success.  The government has now made it official, they can’t find the oil that leaked out of Macondo, or very much anyway.  74% of the oil has been contained, cleaned up or “disappeared.”

National Incident Commander Thad Allen said he has “high confidence” there will be no more oil leaking into the environment.  The Associated Press reports that Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) believes the spill will effect wildlife for “years and possibly decades to come.”

What is that effect, and why haven’t there been widespread fish kills and wildlife washing up on shore?  It seems that fish can smell.  They can smell oil and stay out of it, preferring to swim in clear ocean.  Microbes are present in the ocean ready to eat any carbon based mass; these microbes are also food for many of the smaller fish in the ocean.

BP applied nearly two million gallons of dispersant to the visible oil spills in the ocean.  This chemical broke the oil down into smaller droplets that could degrade rapidly.  The government believes the chemical dispersant affected over nine percent of the estimated 172 million gallons leaked into the gulf.  41% of the oil simply “evaporated, dissolved or dispersed” according to the report.

The microbes swimming in the ocean are predators waiting on something to eat.  When they found the oil they multiplied, since they had an oversupply of food.  What happens when all the oil is gone?  The fish come back because they don’t smell the oil, and eat the fish food (microbes) that are now plentiful.

The actual effect of the oil spill may be that the fish population will explode in the next few months in the gulf area surrounding the oil spill. We doubt the NOAA envisions this, but what do you expect from a bureaucracy that is trying to justify the importance of their office?

China’s English language paper reports that Iran’s Presidential Office claimed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was never in danger when a “firecracker” went off in close proximity to his motorcade in the city of Hamedan, Iran.  Al Arabiya reported the explosion as a home-made grenade.  Hamedan is 280 km South of Tehran.

The person that threw the grenade has been arrested.  Al Arabiya reported that a number of people were injured in the blast.  The President’s Office denies any injuries, and said children were excited and threw firecrackers.

The information presented in this newsletter is based on generally available news releases, corporate filings, current events, interviews and the editor’s opinions.  It may contain errors and you should not make investment decisions based solely on what you believe you have read here.  Do your own research, it is your money.  If you lose it, it is your responsibility, not ours or your grandmothers!  The editor may or may not have a position in any securities discussed.  The editor may have held a position in a security earlier, or in the future.

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