Felix Salmon

Among Thursday's top online stories for investors: Is employment coming back? Are we still in danger of a double-dip recession? Is the U.S. economy on fire?

Last week during the Data is Money panel at SXSW, Aaron Patzer, the CEO of popular personal finance management Web site Mint.com, ignited a firestorm of controversy by bragging about the high quality of real time data that Mint is able to see -- such as which movie rental services are used most,...