While the prospect of employment in the industry will always be an incentive for SEC Commissioners and staffers to fawn over the industry, responsiveness to investors should be a requirement for getting and keeping a job at the agency.

FORBES: SEC Inspector General Asked to Examine to Whom SEC Staff Is Beholden

With that in prospect around the world, one industry figure in Aberdeen said this week this is "a golden era for oilfield services".

BBC: Aberdeen's pipeline of solutions

Liberalisation of mobile phones, and the prospect of full competition in the industry from January next year, has created tens of thousands of new jobs many more than have been lost as Deutsche Telekom slims down. (Not all of these jobs are glamorous hi-tech ones: they include hundreds of men digging up streets to lay new cables).

ECONOMIST: German jobs

For a brief period before the judge's ruling, the global legal wig industry was excited by the prospect of its first growth spurt in decades.

WSJ: Wigged Out: Hong Kong's Lawyers Bristle Over Horsehair Headpieces

Prospect, the union for workers in the defence industry, said it was angry about the decision, which it claimed had come "out of the blue".

BBC: Strike considered over pay freeze

This is a prospect that is both beneficial for developing countries and potentially profitable for industry in the West.

ECONOMIST: Aiding Africa