In the blink of an eye, the economic focus in Louisiana has shifted from recession recovery to avoiding actual and potential job losses piling up at a staggering rate.The Oysters are Dead
And there's very little that the state can do: The tally is due to the Obama administration decisions affecting petroleum, defense and space -- all coming together in a perfect storm.
Last Tuesday, Northrop Grumman Corp., faced with tighter Pentagon spending and Obama administration priorities aimed at Afghanistan and away from the Navy, said it would shut its Avondale shipyard -- the state's largest industrial employer with about 5,000 workers -- in early 2013 after two military ships are finished.
Another source of misery is the deepwater petroleum drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. The six-month "pause" that the Obama administration insists on could kill the drilling business off the Louisiana coast for years, industry and government officials warn.
Of the 33 deepwater rigs in the Gulf when the Deepwater Horizon exploded, two found new long-term homes in Egypt and off the coast of Africa within a week -- just as the industry promised would happen.
Louisiana State University economist James Richardson said a six-month moratorium could slash 18,000 to 20,000 jobs. With that prediction, consider that the entire state, at the lowest point of the post-2008 economic meltdown, had lost about 49,000 jobs.
The oil spill already has had a well-documented effect on fishing and tourism along the coast. Quantifying a number is difficult -- the first state jobs report since the moratorium and the full arrival of the spill is due out July 23 -- but state officials already have warned that it won't be pretty.
Then there's the end of the space shuttle program. Earlier this month, the last external fuel tank expected to fly rolled out of the Lockheed Martin Corp. operation at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. By the end of September, only about 200 workers will still be around from a payroll of 2,700 in 2008 and 5,000 during the mid-1980s.
Please consider this video regarding oyster harvesting in the gulf.
Alternative link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Larp-93rWp0
Oysters are bottom feeders and concentrate pollutants. Even if the oysters were not dead, would you want to eat them? With that thought in mind, perhaps it's a good thing they are dead or someone might attempt to sell them.
My advice: Don't eat oysters or for that matter warm-water fish unless you know exactly where they are from.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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