The stock market keeps rising, employment is slowly healing and jobless claims hit a four-year low. By many measures, the economy is gradually getting better. Risks remain, to be sure, among them Europe, a hard-landing in China, the student-loan bubble and oil prices. But this macro picture may be very different from, as politicians say, the conversations around dinner tables.

So, today's poll:

Read on for the links of the week and the haiku:

This Week's Links:

CPU act would lower tech workers' wages || Economic Policy Institute
The economics and politics of inequality || NDN
Why CEO pay spun out of control || Nell Minow/TNR
The renminbi's prospects as a global reserve currency || Vox
Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter on the issues of the day || EconoMonitor
Labor's declining share of total income || Conversable Economist
The Tea Party's war on mass transit || Salon
The sick man of Europe is Europe || Foreign Policy
Why not frack? || NY Review of Books
Nanosecond trading could make markets go haywire || Wired
Robo-calling settlement could end up costing taxpayers $40 billion || Zero Hedge

Today's Econ Haiku:

Air Force One at Paine
The big airplane hears the call
Come home to mama