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.
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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: