Hurricane Gustav was no Katrina, and the worst fears that it would newly devastate New Orleans mostly blew away with the Labor Day weekend. But the economic blowback--which Real Time Economics feared could have been worse than Katrina--will keep coming. On main street, retail industry blog No Turn on Red says retailers, who missed an important weekend for shopping and tourism, will be allowed back into the city on Wednesday to assess their properties. But there's much debate about how quickly tourism and shopping will revive. On Wall Street, stocks started lower today. The Stock Masters suggests airline stocks that have dipped are worth a look now. GoldSeek notes that Gustav's low impact caused the U.S. dollar to surge today versus the euro and the price of gold to fall by 2 percent.

Blogging Stocks points out that oil prices dropped almost $5 per barrel after Gustav's gusts proved less harmful than anticipated and reckons that this "may be the most significant indication yet that the dynamics of the price of crude have substantially changed." That is, speculators are out of the market (for now) and U.S. demand truly has tapered. In just three months, the psychology of oil prices have moved from one of neurosis to one of normality, adds 24/7 Wall St. The Oil Drum is tracking the storm's impact on specific Gulf Coast oil facilities, with, maps, data, and field reports.

In the big picture, Scoop's Views says even though Gustav's total costs won't be known immediately, "those costs will be minimal considering the rash of wasteful spending, fraud, and outright theft that took place in the mayhem that followed Hurricane Katrina."  But Lara Jakes Jordan at The Huffington Post writes that the Big Easy's reprieve doesn't remove The Big Question: is rebuilding New Orleans worth it? She says the feds have devoted at least $133 billion in emergency funds and tax credits for Gulf Coast disaster relief, yet there's still no escaping what Beverly Cigler, a professor at Penn State University, pointed out: the city is "a soup bowl and it's not safe."  Adds Lemur King's Folly (after expressing sympathy for residents): "I don't want any more of my tax dollars going to take care of people who live BELOW SEA LEVEL IN HURRICANE COUNTRY."