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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:

Agriculture, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Dairy, Economics, Economy, Employment, Free Markets, Immigration, Labor

Daily Bread for 10.16.22: Our Dairyland Needs Dairy Workers

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Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 51. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 6:09 PM for 10h 59m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1923, The Walt Disney Company is founded. Embed from Getty Images…

Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, Charity, City, Corporate Welfare, Culture, Daily Bread, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Housing, Local Government, Poverty, School District, Zoning

Daily Bread for 9.28.22: Local and National Views of Child Poverty

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Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:40 PM for 11h 50m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.6% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.    On this day in 1781,…

Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Reasoning, Russia

Daily Bread for 8.2.22: The Russian Economy’s Not “Bouncing Back” (and What That Means for Local Policymaking)

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Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:48 AM and sunset 8:13 PM for 14h 25m 26s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 20.5% of its visible disk illuminated.   The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.   On this day in 1932, the positron (antiparticle…

America, CDA, Common Council, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Regulatory Capture, WEDC

Competition: Good for Individuals and Society

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Pres. Biden plans measures to increase market competition. David Leonhardt reports Biden’s New Push (‘The U.S. economy suffers from a lack of competition. President Biden wants to change that’): The U.S. economy has been less dynamic in the 21st century, by many measures, than it was in the late 20th century. Fewer new businesses are starting.…

Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, Scott Walker, Trump, WEDC

Foxconn: New, More Realistic Deal Means 90% Reduction in Goals

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After years of flamboyant lies about what Foxconn would be able to achieve in Wisconsin, there’s a new deal with that foreign corporation. That new arrangement reflects a reduction of 90% or more in what Wisconsin expects and what the state will offer. Local governments have already wasted millions on absurdly grandiose, false promises Not…

Boosterism, CDA, City, Culture, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Politics, School District, That Which Paved the Way, University

Local Politics Hasn’t Been Merely ‘Local’ for Years

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Over at the Wisconsin Examiner, Henry Redman writes (with concern) that All politics is national (‘Candidates for local office are ignoring community issues, instead highlighting national culture wars’). First, Redman’s case, then a few remarks. Woodman [Kyle Woodman, a Republican running for Eau Claire’s city council] is part of a mostly conservative group of candidates…

Business, CDA, Charity, Development, Economics, Economy, Failure, Free Markets, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Poverty, Press Release

Markets and Markets

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One reads that Whitewater now has an option, for most of the city, of grocery delivery from nearby cities. As it is, Whitewater has a Walmart, but no stand-alone, full-service grocery. Private delivery service is a benefit to the community. It’s better to have more grocery options than fewer. These are private enterprises providing private delivery…

Coronavirus, Economics, Economy, Employment, Federal Reserve, Public Health

Federal Reserve Chair Powell’s Interview on Economic Recovery

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Last night, 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in which Powell discussed current economic conditions and prospects for recovery. (Powell sat for the interview on Wednesday, 5.13.20 with Scott Pelley of CBS News.)  The interview is available online, as is a transcript. Below are excerpts from the transcript (although Powell’s…

Advertising, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Culture, Economics, Economy, History, Poverty

Boosterism, ’30s Style

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Although the Roosevelt Administration was (whatever its other mistakes) candid about the economic conditions it faced, there was in the ’30s, as there has been over the 2010s in Wisconsin, a delusional impulse to happy talk – regardless of economic conditions – among some politicians and some business groups. Margaret Bourke-White‘s Kentucky Flood depicts the…

Coronavirus, Economics, Public Health

‘Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America’

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Conservative Jonathan V. Last, writing at The Bulwark, invites readers to Come Meet the Biggest Fool in America. In part of an email newsletter sent to subscribers today, Last rightly excoriates economist Richard Epstein for minimizing the risks from the coronavirus pandemic. Last writes (yes, a pun) that I mention all of this as a…

Coronavirus, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Public Health

Public Policy Responses to the Coronavirus: ‘You have to address the health side’

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Economist Austan Goolsbee offers three scenes, in his words, for addressing the coronavirus pandemic. All three, in the order he presents them, are sound. Most economic schools of thought – and all sound ones across the continuum – would consider something like his suggestions in response to a pandemic. One obvious note – or at…

Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, City, Development, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Local Government, Poverty, School District, WEDC, Wisconsin

Local Public Policy as if Charitable Assistance

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Whitewater’s policymakers, and those of other small, rural cities, should – in these times of economic stagnation, a lingering opioid crisis, failed business welfare, and an approaching recession – view their principal obligation as if it were charitable outreach. (It’s not charity, of course, but that’s how policymakers should view it: as both palliative and…