SO NOW WE KNOW. The U.S. economy created 248,000 non-farm jobs in May, OPEC decided to increase output only slightly, consumers reined in their spending a bit despite the better jobs market, perhaps because the value of their homes increased a mere 1 percent in the first quarter, and the Economist says that the drop in house prices in Australia shows that it doesn’t take a rise in interest rates to blow the froth off the housing market.