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America, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.11.25: Doubling Down on Ignorant Economics

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 6:57, for 11 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

Monday in America: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate.

Tuesday in America:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.

Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.

After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.

See Josh Boak, Rob Gillies, and Michelle Price, Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies, Associated Press, March 11, 2025.

Update, 3.12.25: Only hours later on Tuesday, Trump reversed course. (Trump defines decisive down.)

The reporting is sound: tariffs do act as tax hikes, and Trump’s tariffs will be, in effect, colossal tax hikes on consumers and businesses. All America will feel them.

See Firefly’s Blue Ghost moon lander drill, vacuum and deploy electrodes:

The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander has begun its work on the moon using its drill, vacuum and electrodes. Blue Ghost has drilled into surface to determine heat flow from interior of Moon. It has deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes and an 8-foot mast to study the deep interior of the moon. Also, it’s Lunar PlanetVac collects lunar soil and more using pressurized nitrogen gas.

America, City, Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Flop Sweat, Populists, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.10.25: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 6:55, for 11 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 2017, the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in response to a major political scandal is unanimously upheld by the country’s Constitutional Court, ending her presidency.

Whitewater is in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is in America. The economic outlook for America is in decline. Whitewater will not escape national and state trends.

A man with six business bankruptcies now won’t rule out a recession in 2025:

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said when pressed about the possibility of a recession during a recorded interview that aired on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

….

The rosy economic outlook that greeted Trump’s return to the White House has dimmed in recent weeks. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in February, boosted by firings in the public sector. And consumer confidence fellby the most in any given month since August 2021. 

American consumers share concerns that tariffs will raise prices on everyday goods, while corporate CEOs are eager for clarity as the president has continually announced and then rolled back new tariff packages. His moves last week, levying and then delaying 25 percent tariffs on a major chunk of Mexican and Canadian goods until April, are just the latest example. The confusion has sent markets scrambling. The S&P 500 fell by more than 3 percent on the week.

See Gregory Svirnovskiy, Trump won’t rule out a recession in 2025, POLITICO, March 9, 2025.

The conservative populists have no sound grasp of economics, as theirs is a movement of cultural revenge, not economics. Trump’s first term was an economic failure, yet many of them delusionally imagine him as an economic guru.

Truth in advertising: Come for the culture war, stay for the recession.

Stocks take another tumble after Trump’s weekend comments on inflation:

America, City, Daily Bread, Drug War, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.10.25: Tariffs Won’t Solve America’s Fentanyl Addiction

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:58 and sunset is 5:20, for 10 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1906,  HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened.

In Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and across America, there are people addicted to fentanyl. Tariffs won’t relieve them of their addiction:

Americans consume more illicit drugs per capita than anyone else in the world; about 6% of the U.S. population uses them regularly. 

….

One such drug, fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine – is the leading reason U.S. overdose deaths have surged in recent years. While the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has dipped a bit recently, it’s still vastly higher than it was just five years ago.

Ending the fentanyl crisis won’t be easy. The U.S. has an addiction problem that spans decades – long predating the rise of fentanyl – and countless attempts to regulate, legislate and incarcerate have done little to reduce drug consumption. Meanwhile, the opioid crisis alone costs Americans tens of billions of dollars each year.

….

America’s experiments with tariffs can be traced back to the founding era with the passage of the Tariff Act of 1789. This long history has shown that tariffs, industrial subsidies and protectionist policies don’t do much to stimulate broad economic growth at home – but they raise prices for consumers and can even lead to global economic instability. History also shows that tariffs don’t work especially well as negotiating tools, failing to effect significant policy changes in target countries. Economists generally agree that the costs of tariffs outweigh the benefits.

Over the course of Trump’s first term, the average effective tariff rate on Chinese imports went from 3% to 11%. But while imports from China fell slightly, the overall trade relationship didn’t change much: China remains the second-largest supplier of goods to the U.S. 

The tariffs did have some benefit – for Vietnam and other nearby countries with relatively low labor costs. Essentially, the tariffs on China caused production to shift, with global companies investing billions of dollars in competitor nations.

This isn’t the first time Trump has used trade policy to pressure China on fentanyl– he did so in his first term. But while China made some policy changes in response, such as adding fentanyl to its controlled substances list in 2019, fentanyl deaths in the U.S. continued to rise. Currently, China still ranks as the No. 1 producer of fentanyl precursors, or chemicals used to produce illicit fentanyl. And there are others in the business: India, over that same period, has become a major producer of fentanyl.

See Rodney Coates, Why Trump’s tariffs can’t solve America’s fentanyl crisis, The Conversation, February 1, 2025.

Drug War or Trade War: prohibition has been and will be futile against addiction. Domestic demand seeks supply, whether that supply is produced on this continent or elsewhere.

More on tariffs, apart from supposed drug reduction: Metals tariffs ‘will have significant cost’ for US:

US President Donald Trump said he will introduce new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the US, in a major escalation of his trade policy overhaul. Economist Vicky Pryce of CEBR talks about the impact his announcement will have on trade.

Agriculture, America, Daily Bread, Federal Government, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.16.24: Slow Going on the Farm Bill (From Those Who Say the Farm Bill Matters)

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:15 PM and resumes open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board also meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1773,  members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

If rural America matters, and if it needs what advocates for rural America insist it should have1, then there’d be a new Farm Bill by now. The best that these advocates and professed defenders of rural America will produce, however, is likely to be a second extension of the existing legislation:

Wisconsin’s federal lawmakers are blaming the other side of the aisle for getting in the way of extending the farm bill.

The legislation is renewed every five years to fund programs around agriculture, conservation and food assistance.

Congress failed to pass a new farm bill in September 2023 and have instead extended the 2018 bill in order to keep programs operating. After making little progress on new legislation this year, federal lawmakers are expected to pass another extension as part of a deal to fund the government into early 2025. 

See Hope Kirwan, Partisan approach to farm bill delaying updates for Wisconsin farmers, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 16, 2024.

Rescuers seek cyclone survivors in devastated Mayotte:

Emergency workers race to find survivors and restore services to the French overseas territory of Mayotte, where hundreds, possibly thousands, are feared dead from the worst cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean islands in nearly a century.

_____

  1. Not what this libertarian blogger insists rural America should have, but what professed advocates of rural America (from both parties) insist rural communities should have. ↩︎

America, City, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.6.24: Eight Years On

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:36, and sunset is 4:36, for 10 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 23 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1971,  the United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.

Eight years ago, after an election night, I wrote a post entitled Unexpected and Expected. The first paragraph from that post, with a few changes, is fitting yet again:

Last night’s election results are both [generally] unexpected (nationally) and expected (locally), I’d say.  Few thought that Trump would win the presidency, but many of the other results for Wisconsin or Whitewater were easier to predict.

Trump’s victory nationally will be the big topic for years, first about its cause and then about its effects. Because I believe that national shapes local (and that purely hyper-local assessments are short-sighted), Trump’s win (coupled with a Republican Congress [Senate and possibly House] and a conservative Supreme Court) will transform this city as it will much larger places.

None of us can say how this story unfolds, and in any event it matters still more how we in this small city respond to what unfolds. Each day, one begins anew, confronting the challenges of the moment.

For national, state, and local election results see AP Election Results and Journal Sentinel 2024 Wisconsin General Election Results.

NASA’s Perseverance rover captures Martian moon Phobos eclipse the sun:

The Mastcam-Z camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the Martian moon Phobos on Sept. 30, 2024 as it eclipsed the sun.

America, City, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.5.24: Election Day

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of 66. Sunrise is 6:34, and sunset is 4:41, for 10 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 15.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1872, in defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.

A wooden ballot box used in the northeastern United States circa 1870. From the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution in the Vote: The Machinery of Democracy exhibit.

Fireball lights up skies over Ohio, Pennsylvania and Toronto:

The American Meteor Society recieved several reports of fireball in the skies over Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ontario and more on Oct. 21, 2024.

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 10.30.24: National Economy Grows, Inflation Cools

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 7:27, and sunset is 5:49, for 10 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 3.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4 PM.

On this day in 1938,  Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, causing a panic in some of the audience in the United States.

Megan Leonhardt reports U.S. Economy Sees Solid Growth and Cooling Inflation in Third Quarter, GDP Report Shows:

The U.S. economy expanded at a healthy pace during the third quarter, keeping fears of a downturn at bay while Federal Reserve officials eye further interest-rate cuts.

Inflation-adjusted, or real, gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% over the three months ended in September, according to the first estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis released Wednesday. The consensus call among economists surveyed by FactSet was for growth of 2.6% in the third quarter, though Bloomberg’s forecast was for 2.9%.

Wednesday’s solid third-quarter growth is a tick slower from real GDP growth of 3% during the second quarter. The economy expanded 1.6% during the first three months of the year.

The third quarter’s real GDP growth was primarily driven by increases in consumer spending, as well as federal expenditures and net exports, the bureau said Wednesday. Imports, which act as a drag on GDP, did increase markedly during the past quarter and weighed on the overall growth. Economists noted Tuesday, however, that this uptick in imports is likely a short-term trend due to the threat of the longshoremen strike in October.

….

Wednesday’s data included a quarterly update on the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index. During the third quarter, PCE inflation increased 1.5%, putting it lower than the Fed’s 2% target. That should make it easier for policymakers to justify additional rate cuts. It also marked a slower pace of price growth than the 2.5% rate logged during the second quarter.

Favorable, notably favorable.

POV Part 2: You are the pumpkin:

America, Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Elections

Daily Bread for 10.25.24: Conspiracy Theories & Lies Grip Nation

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 7:21, and sunset is 5:56, for 10 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 38.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.

Matt Vasilogambros reports ‘Firehose’ of election conspiracy theories floods final days of the campaign:

In the final days of the presidential election, lies about noncitizens voting, the vulnerability of mail-in ballots and the security of voting machines are spreading widely over social media.

Fanned by former President Donald Trump and notable allies such as tech tycoon Elon Musk, election disinformation is warping voters’ faith in the integrity of the democratic process, polls show, and setting the stage once again for potential public unrest if the Republican nominee fails to win the presidency. At the same time, federal officials are investigating ongoing Russian interference through social media and shadow disinformation campaigns.

The “firehose” of disinformation is working as intended, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that advocates for responsible use of technology in elections.

“This issue is designed to sow general distrust,” she said. “Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin’s uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official. Don’t repeat it. Check it instead.”

Although human affairs are disordered, some happy traditions carry on. Animals enjoy eating pumpkins before Halloween:

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Immigration, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.17.24: Mass Deportation Would Be Economically ($1,000,000,000,000) Devastating

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 7:11, and sunset is 6:08, for 10 hours, 57 minutes of daytime. The moon is full, with 100 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1781, British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Battle (Siege) of Yorktown:

The British Prime Minister, Lord North, is reported to have exclaimed “Oh God, it’s all over” when told of the defeat.[87] Three months after the battle, a motion to end “further prosecution of offensive warfare on the continent of North America” – effectively a no confidence motion – passed in the British House of Commons. Lord North and his government resigned.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric often proposes with mass deportation, although in neither Wisconsin nor Whitewater is there majority support for that extreme approach. See The Curious Case of the ‘Invasion’ that Didn’t Bark in the Night and Wisconsin Polling on Immigration.

Mass deportation would be a moral failure, as wholesale detention and dispossession would be an ethic cleansing abhorrent to the reasonable & civilized. It would, secondarily, be an economic catastrophe for America.

In a review of mass deportation, Eric Boehm @ Reason writes Trump’s Deportation Plan Would Cost Nearly $1 Trillion (‘And it would wreck the economy’):

The governmental infrastructure required to arrest, process, and remove 13 million undocumented immigrants would cost nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and would deal a “devastating” hit to economic growth, according to a report published last week by the American Immigration Council (AIC). The think tank estimates that a mass deportation plan would shrink America’s gross domestic product by at least 4.2 percent, due to the loss of workers in industries already struggling to find enough labor.

Trump has promised to create a “deportation force” to round up undocumented immigrants and eject them from the country. This would entail targeting two groups: the roughly 11 million people who lacked permanent legal status as of 2022 (that’s the most recent number from the American Community Survey) and the estimated 2.3 million people who have entered the country without legal status since January 2023 (that figure come from the Department of Homeland Security).

The notion that the native born would fill jobs and gaps is false, as Boehm writes:

The costs of mass deportation would rebound into the economy in several ways. The economy would shrink and federal tax revenues would decline. The construction industry, where an estimated 14 percent of workers are undocumented migrants, would be particularly hard hit, but the effects would be felt throughout the economy.

“Removing that labor would disrupt all forms of construction across the nation, from homes to businesses to basic infrastructure,” the AIC notes. “As industries suffer, hundreds of thousands of U.S.-born workers could lose their jobs.”

That’s an important point. Immigration restrictionists often assume that deporting millions of undocumented workers would allow more Americans to fill those jobs, but the economy is not a zero-sum game. A shrinking economy would be bad news for many workers who aren’t directly impacted by Trump’s deportation plan.

The AIC’s estimates are generally in line with the estimates made earlier this year by analysts at the Penn Wharton Budget Center (PWBM), a fiscal policy think tank housed at the University of Pennsylvania. “The costs of the former president’s plan to deport the more than 14 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. today could easily reach more than $1 trillion over 10 years, before taking into account the labor costs necessary for such a project or the unforeseen consequences of reducing the labor supply by such drastic amounts over a short period,” reported Marketwatch, which requested the PWBM estimate.

Of the AIC report, see Mass Deportation Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy.

Mass deportation would be morally reprehensible and economically devastating.

Commuter distracted by phone survives close call with train:

A commuter distracted by their phone survived a close call with an oncoming train in Buenos Aires.

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 10.10.24: National Inflation Rate Falls Again

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 7:03, and sunset is 6:19, for 11 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 48 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1985,  US Navy aircraft intercept an Egyptian airliner carrying the perpetrators of the Achille Lauro hijacking, and force it to land in Italy.

Christopher Rugaber reports US inflation reaches lowest point since February 2021, though some price pressures remain:

Inflation in the United States dropped last month to its lowest point since it first began surging more than three years ago, adding to a spate of encouraging economic news in the closing weeks of the presidential race. 

Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August, and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.

These favorable national measures are beneficial throughout the county.

Go ahead, Whitewater, make the most of these better times. Take someone’s recommendation and turn the page.

Nearly One Hundred — 100! — Raccoons Surround Seattle-Area Woman’s House:

America, Daily Bread, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia

Daily Bread for 10.8.24: For Mr. Trump, It’s Russia First

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 7:00, and sunset is 6:23, for 11 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 28.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Innovation Center Board meets at 8:30 AM, the city’s Finance Committee at 4:30 PM, and the Public Works Committee at 5 PM.

On this day in 1871, Peshtigo, Wisconsin is devastated by a fire which took 1,200 lives:

The fire caused over $2 million in damages and destroyed 1.25 million acres of forest. This was the greatest human loss due to fire in the history of the United States. The Peshtigo Fire was overshadowed by the Great Chicago fire which occurred on the same day, killing 250 people and lasting three days. While the Chicago fire is said to have started by a cow kicking over a lantern, it is uncertain how the Peshtigo fire began. 

Isaac Stanley-Becker, writing of Bob Woodward’s new book (War, about international crises), reports:

As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.

Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”

America’s COVID test kits for Russia’s dictator.

Trump needs to revise one of his his oft-repeated slogans.

‘Russia First’ would be more accurate.

Gyms in Japan Now Offer Laundry, Karaoke, Etc.:

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Self-Dealing, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 9.18.24: Now’s the Time

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:39, and sunset is 6:57, for 12h 18m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 99.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Library Board Development Committee meets at 4:30 PM and the Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1942,  Spring Valley endures a flood:

On the evening of September 17, 1942, after a day of heavy rain, water began rolling through the streets of Spring Valley, in Pierce Co. The village, strung out along the Eau Galle River in a deep valley, had been inundated before, but this was no ordinary flood. By 11:30p.m., water in the streets was 12 to 20 feet deep, flowing at 12 to 15 miles an hour, and laden with logs, lumber, and dislodged buildings. Throughout the early morning hours of Sept. 18th, village residents became trapped in their homes or were carried downstream as buildings were swept off foundations and floated away. One couple spent the night chest-deep in water in their living room, holding their family dog above the water and fending off floating furniture. The raging torrent uprooted and twisted the tracks of the Northwestern Railroad like wire, and electricity and drinking water were unavailable for several days. Miraculously, there were no deaths or serious injuries.

On this day in 1945, General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo.

Now’s the time for Whitewater to make good on improving national conditions. (The best way for the city to do so is to set aside the low-quality work but above-average sense of entitlement of the aged special-interest men who have kept Whitewater back for a generation1. See of yesteryear’s serial mediocrity Whitewater’s Still Waiting for That Boom.)

Of those improving national conditions, Jeff Cox reports The Fed’s biggest interest rate call in years happens Wednesday. Here’s what to expect:

For all the hype that goes into them, Federal Reserve meetings are usually pretty predictable affairs. Policymakers telegraph their intentions ahead of time, markets react, and everyone has at least a general idea of what’s going to happen.

Not this time.

This week’s gathering of the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee carries an uncommon air of mystery. While markets have made up their collective mind that the Fed is going to lower interest rates, there’s a vigorous debate over how far policymakers will go.

Will it be the traditional quarter-percentage-point, or 25-basis-point, rate reduction, or will the Fed take an aggressive first step and go 50, or half a point?

Fed watchers are unsure, setting up the potential for an FOMC meeting that could be even more impactful than usual. The meeting wraps up Wednesday afternoon, with the release of the Fed’s rate decision coming at 2 p.m. ET.

“I hope they cut 50 basis points, but I suspect they’ll cut 25. My hope is 50, because I think rates are just too high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “They have achieved their mandate for full employment and inflation back at target, and that’s not consistent with a five and a half percent-ish funds rate target. So I think they need to normalize rates quickly and have a lot of room to do so.”

A rate cut of either size will be good for all America, including small-town Whitewater.

  1. One might wonder why these aged men didn’t have more time to choose well for Whitewater when they were younger. Wonder not: exaggerating, tale-bearing, pretending, posing, scheming, memorizing trickle-down jargon, and shoving themselves to the front of the line takes a lot of time, for goodness’ sake. ↩︎

America, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 9.11.24: National Inflation Reaches a Three-Year Low

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:31, and sunset is 7:10, for 12h 38m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 53.13 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

There is a Special Lakes Advisory Committee meeting at 4:30 PM, and a Special Finance Committee meeting at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1789, Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury. On this day in 2001, the September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks kill 2,977 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

We have in our small town this morning some good national economic news. Christopher Rugaber of the Associated Press reports Consumer prices rose 2.5% last month, with U.S. inflation reaching a 3-year low:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The post-pandemic spike in U.S. inflation eased further last month as year-over-year price increases reached a three-year low, clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and likely shaping the economic debate in the final weeks of the presidential race.

Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose 2.5% in August from a year earlier, down from 2.9% in July. It was the fifth straight annual drop and the smallest since February 2021. From July to August, prices rose just 0.2%.

America had a good night last night, and today the nation awakes to good economic news. And yet, much work lies ahead…

Behind the Spacecraft: Europa Clipper:

Meet some of the engineers contributing to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which will study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa to see if it has conditions suitable to support life. This trailer is an introduction to the team members profiled in the “Behind the Spacecraft: Europa Clipper” video series.

America, Daily Bread, Sports, University

Daily Bread for 9.8.24: Team USA Wheelchair Basketball Defeats Great Britain, 73-69

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:28, and sunset is 7:15, for 12h 46m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1760, during the French and Indian War, the French surrender Montreal to the British, completing the latter’s conquest of New France.

Led by Steve Serio’s near triple double in his final game, Team USA won their third straight men’s wheelchair basketball gold medal with a 73-69 victory over Great Britain.

It was a good day for America — and for UW-Whitewater — yesterday in Paris as the United States took its third consecutive gold medal in wheelchair basketball. Liam Griffin of the Wheelchair Sports Federation writes On Top Again: U.S. Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Tops Great Britain for Third Straight Paralympic Gold:

Paris, France (Sept. 8) — Winning two consecutive championships is widely considered one of the hardest things to do in sports. Three in a row? Even tougher.

Team USA men’s wheelchair basketball had none of that on Saturday at Bercy Arena.

Great Britain gave the U.S. all it could handle, but it wasn’t enough. Team USA pulled out a 73-69 victory to secure gold once again.

“This team has grown so much over the course of the last couple of years,” proclaimed Steve Serio, team captain. “We knew that Great Britain was going to be a great opponent, a really tough group of guys. Right now, we’re just excited that we won a basketball game and got to bring home another gold medal for our country.

“It feels awesome,” exclaimed Jake Williams [UW-Whitewater alumnus, profile @ Team USA], owner of a third gold medal. “Gold medals are never easy, and I think this was one of the hardest ones with only eight teams being in the tournament, they’re all really good, but we stayed together as a team and I’m definitely glad that we came out on top.”

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The win is a bittersweet one for Team USA. Before the game, Serio made a major announcement. The opening ceremony flag-bearer revealed that the Paris Games would be his last.

“He definitely makes my job a lot easier,” said Williams. “Playing for Team USA has been so much fun, definitely the most fun I’ve had playing basketball.”

Boeing Starliner successfully returns to earth without crew:

Boeing’s Starliner capsule successfully returned from the International Space Station Friday evening with an empty cabin, leaving behind two test pilots who must now remain on the station for another five or six months.