The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis published several economic reports today that collectively offer a mixed bag of macroeconomic news. The updates on new orders for durable goods, personal income and spending, and weekly jobless claims are usually dispatched on separate days. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, all three were released this morning, leaving an unusually hefty dose of statistics to review. Here’s a brief tour of some of the noteworthy data points:

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Keynes was no fan of the gold standard. In fact, he railed against it. In the mid-1920s, for instance, he pressed Winston Churchill to take England off the gold standard. Curiously, Robert Skidelsky, who’s written a best-selling biography that’s favorable to the economist—Keynes: The Return of the Master—seems to favor the gold standard.

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