Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 7:10 and sunset is 6:59 for 11 hours 49 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1930, the Lowell Observatory announces Clyde Tombaugh‘s discovery of Pluto.
In a healthy economy, growth goes up, and inflation stays down. Mr. Trump has brought America just the opposite:
Economic growth was much slower than expected in the final three months of 2025 while core inflation rose to start 2026, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Gross domestic product, a measure of all the goods and services produced across the sprawling U.S. economy, rose at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of just 0.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The first revision of the GDP reading was a sharp step down from the previous estimate of 1.4% and well below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 1.5%. It also marked a considerable slowdown from the 4.4% gain in the prior period.
For the full year, GDP posted a 2.1% increase, or one-tenth of a percentage point lower than the previous reading. In 2024, the economy rose at a 2.8% pace.
[…]Stripping out volatile food and energy costs, the core PCE inflation rose 0.4% in January and 3.1% on a 12-month basis. Fed officials focus more closely on the core reading as a better indication of longer-run trends. The core reading was 0.1 percentage point higher than December.
[…]“The big downward revision in GDP is a gut check going into this energy crunch, increasing the risk of stagflation,” said David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation. “The soft January durable goods data also suggests the economy entered this crisis weaker than hoped. This creates challenges for investors with PCE inflation still running well above the Fed’s target.”
See Jeff Cox, Fourth-quarter GDP revised down to just 0.7% growth; January core inflation was 3.1%, CNBC, March 13, 2026.
A very stable genius, indeed.
The biggest threat to Whitewater’s economic well-being lies 1,337.76 miles to our city’s southeast.
How rising oil prices from the Iran war could drive up everyday costs: