The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs last month. That’s the word from the Labor Department this morning. The private sector
accounted for all the job creation, adding 172,000. Government employment actually declined by 9,000. And the unemployment rate ticked up from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent.

Part of this month’s jobs report of course is focused on the manufacturing industry; manufacturers added 25,000 jobs in July. A big part of the growth in the country’s manufacturing base is actually in plastics.

There’s some troubling news out of Europe this morning. Just yesterday, the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, failed to impress global markets with his plan to save the euro. And when he resorted to the insect world to bolster the eurozone,
entomologists were not impressed either.

Imagine sleeping through your alarm clock on the day you’re supposed to compete in the Olympics. That’s exactly what happened to a British weightlifter named Jack Oliver this week. He was supposed to get up at 6. But he woke up at 7:05 instead, to the sound of his trainer banging on the door. He did make it to his event and amazingly, set a new personal record.

Procter and Gamble — which makes Tide, Spic and Span, and a long list of other household products — is reporting a drop in quarterly sales this morning. A big hedge fund could be maneuvering to clean P&G’s house.

DirecTV is reporting its first-ever quarterly loss of customers. And it appears those customers are not flocking to the  competition. Time Warner Cable also lost subscribers for the tenth quarter in a row.

This Sunday night, NASA’s Curiosity Rover will be landing on Mars. And the $2.5 billion mission will be getting some big time publicity. The landing will broadcast live on the huge Toshiba Screen in New York’s Times Square.