The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has put together some very useful timelines of the financial crisis, if you want a handy reference for what happened when in both the United States and around the world.

The BEA reported that disposable personal income increased 1.6% between April and May. In the absence of the stimulus cuts to personal taxes and increases in social benefit payments, the number would have been 0.2%. Real personal consumption expenditures were up 0.2% for the month, though that leaves the April-May average 0.1% below the January-March average. Calculated Risk, always your go-to source for these matters, sums it up this way:

Usually PCE and Residential Investment (RI) lead the economy out of recession, and right now both remain weak. As households increase their savings rate to repair their balance sheets, it seems unlikely that PCE will increase significantly any time soon.

And via Craig Newmark, earn $11 a day by working in hell.

Last 5 posts by James Hamilton

• Receiver operating characteristics curve - November 18th, 2009
• Commodity inflation - November 15th, 2009
• Will rising oil prices derail the recovery? - November 10th, 2009
• Consequences of the Lehman failure - November 7th, 2009
• Current economic conditions - November 4th, 2009