Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, oil closed back up above $63 a barrel today. I earlier expressed the opinion that demand pressure would prevent an oil price collapse. But the news driving the market this week seems not to be demand but instead new concerns about supply.
Government interest payments on the rise
Government interest payments are on their way up. Payments to non-residents are going up even faster.
Properties of Some Labor Market Indicators
The information content of the establishment vs. household-based employment series vs. hours worked.
Who’s afraid of the big bad yield curve?
Lots of talk this week of an inverted yield curve, such as
Macroblog, Big Picture,
Economist’s View,
Hypothetical Bias, and Mises Economics Blog. What’s the big deal?
Natural gas prices
Whee, it sure is fun being a natural gas trader, don’t you think?
Here and there around the web
Catching my eye here and there around the web this week: the source found for one of Saturn’s rings and some interesting comments on Enron, Iran, and Americans serving in Iraq.
The post-recession employment record
How well are workers doing?
Prices and energy use
More evidence that yes, rising prices change consumers’ behavior.
Wages and compensation: a correction
Thanks to my readers Movie Guy, Joe Rotger, and Spencer (as well as Dave Altig in personal email communication) for helping to clarify a misunderstanding I may have helped promote with my post earlier this week on wages and total compensation.
Podcast with Kudlow & Company
I had a reunion with two of my previous pajama party participants, Paul Hoffmeister of Polyconomics, and Larry Kudlow of Kudlow and Company and Money Politics. This time we had an old-fashioned spoken conversation on the state of the economy that’s available as a podcast.