The big news this weekend was the dog that did not bark: Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration for chairman of the Federal Reserve. There are headlines on this in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, among others, and it was a lead question I discussed on CNBC this morning.

Which, of course, makes the average person ask, “So what?” Why do I care that an economics professor and former government official isn’t going to apply for a job? How does this affect my life?

A good question, and the short answer is interest rates. The longer answer is that it affects how much you pay to buy a house or a car, and how many jobs are created, as well as many other aspects of your daily economic life.

Of the candidates for the chairmanship of the Fed, Larry Summers would have injected the most uncertainty into the system. As a former Treasury Secretary and academic superstar, he unquestionably has the firepower to do the job, but there were questions about his ability to work well within the system. As a Federal Reserve outsider, he lacked the connections a long-term internal candidate would have, and it wasn’t clear that he could work effectively with people who disagreed with him.

His policy positions were also a key issue, with his work on Wall Street and positions on deregulation when he was Treasury Secretary prompting key Senate Democrats to announce they wouldn’t vote for him. Ultimately, it seems that opposition by the Democrats was what caused him to withdraw.

As I write this, stock futures are up and interest rates are down. On the surface, the market seems to be saying it’s glad Summers withdrew, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. What the market is really saying is that it’s glad uncertainty has been reduced. As an outsider, Summers would have introduced an element of policy uncertainty about raising rates and reducing stimulus that an internal candidate wouldn’t have.

With Summers out, the most probable contender is internal. Janet Yellen, currently vice chairwoman of the Fed and previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, is a long-term Fed insider. As one of the Fed members perceived as most “dovish” on inflation—that is, one of the most tolerant of allowing inflation to increase—she’s thought to be most likely to continue the current policies and to leave stimulus measures in place for the longest. With its reaction, the market is saying that Yellen is a safe choice who’s unlikely to rock the boat, and who will continue the current policies, which the market is used to.

I’m not sure that’s the case, longer term, although I think the perception is probably correct in the short run. Yellen is perceived as dovish, and that has been true, but her policy preferences have been based on her prescient views on the weakness of the economy. She was one of the first senior Fed officials to recognize the pending housing crisis and was also way ahead of the curve on the slowness of the current recovery. I think it’s fair to say that her policy prescriptions, thought dovish at the time, have in fact been right on. When the recovery starts to gear up, I suspect she might be equally prescient in recognizing, and responding, to that.

She is not, however, the only candidate. Two other names have been floated: Donald Kohn, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman, and Timothy Geithner. Both have extensive central bank experience and excellent credentials, and both would be good candidates. As with Summers, however, they would introduce more uncertainty into the system merely by virtue of not being there right now, possibly driving rates up again as the market tries to assess what their candidacy would bring.

The interest rate and stock price reaction may be short lived, as other factors are certainly in play, with Syria being a key one. I also believe that the decline in rates is due, at least in part, to the market getting better at price discovery in the face of the impending taper in Federal Reserve stimulus to the bond market. Nonetheless, the fact that something like this can move rates and markets highlights the continuing importance of government actions to the economy.

I hope that the White House acts as quickly as possible to finalize its candidate, to remove at least that section of uncertainty from the market. And, once that candidate assumes the chairmanship, I hope the Fed also acts to remove itself from the economy as quickly as possible.

Today is Friday the 13th, an apt day, perhaps, to consider the five-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the event that touched off the most recent financial crisis.

This is the third installment in a series on alternative asset classes and your portfolio. The first covered strategies that use liquid underlying assets like stocks and bonds, which are freely tradable. Yesterday, we talked about how illiquid asset classes can also fit into a portfolio, with some examples, but didn’t really delve into details. Today, I want to discuss real estate as an example of an asset class that can be used in both liquid and illiquid forms.

The liquid form is known as a real estate investment trust, or REIT for short. REITs are publicly traded and are essentially stocks in every way except for the underlying asset, which is a portfolio of commercial real estate buildings, mortgages, or both. Investopedia offers a pretty good definition of REITs.

My expectation, moving into September, was that all the economic issues that had been pretty much left alone during the summer would resurface. The debt ceiling, the situation in Europe, China—all would move back to the front pages.

Boy, was I wrong. Looking at today’s papers, I find no stories about economic problems on the front pages—none. The lead story is Syria, which makes sense. There’s also a story, in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, with a retrospective of the financial crisis. Old news.

I was in New York yesterday, meeting with clients and doing interviews, and the one thing everyone wanted to talk about was the employment numbers—the initial unemployment claims earlier in the week and today’s employment figures. Looking at the commentary, one paper called today’s release “probably the most scrutinized employment report in recent history.” So, now that they’re out, it seems only fair to take a look at the numbers.

In yesterday’s post, I discussed why I think both house sales and car sales are good indicators for the economy’s performance over the next 6–12 months. I went into some detail about the housing market and why I believe it will continue to support growth; today we’ll do the same for auto sales.

To recap a bit, anyone buying a car is making a long-term commitment, as well as a long-term bet on his or her own earning power. To be willing to make the commitment is to have confidence in the future. At the same time, since most autos are bought with financing, a lender must also have confidence in the future. Rising auto sales therefore reflect both consumer and business confidence, and are based on what people are really doing at a given point in time, without much room for interpretation or adjustment.

I wrote Commonwealth’s monthly market update this morning, and one of the topics I covered was the slowdown in the housing recovery. To be sure, I think this is just a slowdown to a more sustainable level of growth, but looking at it made me think about what I really consider some of the best indicators for future economic performance.

As you know, consumer spending represents more than two-thirds of the economy as a whole, so the consumer is paramount when considering where we’re going. We have multiple surveys of consumer confidence, which remains at high levels, and many data points on how much consumers are spending, but each of these is subject to revision, massaging, assumptions, and everything else that goes into the economic-statistics sausage grinder. It can be tough to see anything through the fog. What we need are simpler, easier data points that reflect underlying consumer demand in a clearer way.

I had an interesting talk with a reporter for a major newspaper yesterday about the debt ceiling issue. She wanted to know what we were doing about it and what changes if any we were making to our allocations.

One of my earliest musical memories is listening to the song “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel playing on a reel-to-reel tape recorder that my father had brought home when I was very young. I am sure that I had heard music before— on the radio at a minimum—but I remember being very struck by the beauty of the song, particularly the harmony of the voices, in a way that I had never been before. I actually trace my interest in music to that particular song and that particular moment.

I was remembering this in the context of a quiet week in Maine, where I have had the chance to do quite a bit of hiking in fairly unfrequented areas. The area around my cottage has also been quite empty during the week, so I have had a chance to listen to considerably more silence than is normally the case. Silence very definitely has a sound of its own, and, as much as I love Jackson, quiet he is not.

With the S&P 500 down almost 5 percent from its peak, and a drop yesterday, I am starting to hear from investors who are asking, “What is going on? Do I need to worry?” The short answer is, it depends on your portfolio and your time frame.

I have written extensively about how the market is either somewhat or very richly valued, based on historical standards, and how most of the appreciation this year has come from investors paying more for a given stream of earnings, rather than from an increase in the earnings themselves.