June 04, 2010 –
My new name for the spreading oil spill disaster is "Cajun Contagion". While this disaster is certainly not limited to Cajun country, scenes of the first of the crude oil washing ashore in Louisiana are still ripe (reeking?) in everyones memory. We just got the May jobs report showing continued weakness in the private sector. I can't help to think how many thousands more jobs will vanish as the disaster drags on. The wave of Tourism, commercial and sport fishing, oil drilling are just three devastated industries that come to mind right now. What will happen to the countless other businesses- Real Estate, casinos, car dealerships, shopping centers- in all the communities of the Gulf coast. Will they just dry up? The summer months normally teem with commercial activity in this region. It's their Christmas shopping season. Instead tourists and their dollars will stay away in droves. That's just from the fear factor alone, whether the tarballs actually land on their beach or not. Thanks to the loop current, the contagion could sweep down Florida's gulf peninsula, back up the Atlantic side and all the way up the easter seaboard. Nice!
Think back to Winter 2009 when large companies cut their costs by shedding jobs to the tune of thousands. Cajun Contagion could rival those massive layoffs, only slower and longer term. I wonder what kind of crater this disaster puts in the June, July, and August jobs report. [more]
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