Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:00, and sunset is 7:58, for 13h 57m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1961, East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants’ attempts to escape to the West, and construction of the Berlin Wall is started. The day is known as Barbed Wire Sunday.
Of wholesale inflation, Jeff Cox reports Wholesale inflation measure rose 0.1% in July, less than expected:
A key measure of wholesale inflation rose less than expected in July, opening the door further for the Federal Reserve to start lowering interest rates.
The producer price index, which measures selling prices that producers get for goods and services, increased 0.1% on the month, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Excluding volatile food and energy components, the core PPI was flat.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of 0.2% on both the all-items and the core readings.
A further core measure that also excludes trade services showed a rise of 0.3%.
On a year-over-year basis, the headline PPI increased 2.2%, a sharp drop from the 2.7% reading in June.
Inflation is abating, and growth is up, and in these improving conditions residents of both big cities and also small towns (like Whitewater!) have a chance to avoid the economic mistakes of the past (and those who made them).
Some of Whitewater’s special-interest men (from the 2000s and 2010s) are like declining athletes who should have retired from the game years ago. They stayed too long, and now can’t hit, can’t field, can’t circle the bases. Overweight and underpowered. They want to blame everyone else for their below-average performance. One wonders: why pretend it’s a major-league game with these minor-league banjo-hitters stumbling up to the plate?
Whitewater deserves better.