Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the mere specter of a U.S. default can have drastic consequences for U.S. financial markets and urged Democratic leadership to raise or suspend the debt ceiling as soon as possible.  Yellen reiterated that lawmakers have until some point in October before the Treasury exhausts its extended efforts to prevent what would be a historic default.  “We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States.

Job openings outnumbered the unemployed by more than 2 million in July as companies struggled to fill a record number of vacancies.  The department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which the Federal Reserve watches closely for signs of slack in employment, showed 10.9 million positions open.  There are just over 8 million people in the US who are unemployed, but 10.9 million job openings.

The latest edition of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed that home prices increased 18.6% from a year ago in July, marking the third consecutive month of record growth in the more than 30-year history of the index.   As in recent months, the largest price gains were recorded in Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle.