MARKETS: A couple of comments before the jobs numbers come out, which may be very good. The Clintonista spin machine will have us all "interpret the figures" based on total job losses since Bush took office so that they will appear to be as bad as can be (no joy for America from them). The GOP will have us interpret the numbers based on the start of the recovery, which means nearly two million jobs created. It's up to you, based on your own feelings of good and bad, to interpret the numbers.

My feeling is (wrong)that since Bush has said nothing all day Thursday that the numbers are going to be very good, but everything depends on the debate tonight. Bush is done if he delivers another pathetic performance and the market will head so far south it will have ice caps.

But....emailer Carol H calls my attention to a market I never considered. It's sure, it's been around a long time, and your losses in a bear market are less than many conventional investments. Here are the numbers when compared with alternate investments. Start with $1,000 original capital.

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.
With Enron, you would have only had $16.50 left.
With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.
But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of Beer one year ago drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00 left.

5:30 JOBS ADD: Just ordinary but far under estimates. 1.2 million new jobs over the past 13 months ain't bad but this is not a strong number.