Good morning. 
Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 89. Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:43 PM, for 13h 32m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Urban Forestry Commission Arboretum Sponsorship Subcommittee meets at 4:30 PM. Whitewater’s School Board meets for a workshop and open session beginning at 5:30 PM and 7 PM, respectively (with a closed session, to return to open session later in the evening). Downtown Whitewater, Inc. meets at 6 PM,
On this day in 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, and Poland are divided between the two nations.
Heather Long writes The U.S. could be on the verge of a productivity boom, a game-changer for the economy:
The United States is currently experiencing a surge in worker productivity that could rival that of the tech boom 20 years ago — if it lasts.
As companies and customers embrace new technologies, making it easier for Americans to produce more with fewer workers, a growing number of economists say this is not a blip and could turn into a boom — or, at least, a “mini boom” ? with wide-ranging benefits for years to come.
Higher productivity is the economy’s special sauce. Productivity refers to how much output a worker can do in an hour. When workers have better tools or the help of robots and artificial intelligence, they can make cars or process data much faster. Higher productivity typically leads to more goods and services available at a lower cost and increases in wages. Without it, economic growth is sluggish.
The early data in this recovery is promising. Worker productivity grew 4.3 percent in the first quarter, one of the highest rates in years, according to the Labor Department. Second quarter productivity slowed to 2.3 percent growth, but that’s still nearly double the anemic productivity the nation experienced in the decade after the financial crisis — an average of just 1.2 percent.
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Conditions are ripe for productivity to remain elevated for years to come, according to analysts from Goldman Sachs and the McKinsey Global Institute. As policymakers run the economy hot, there’s heavy demand for products and services. There is also a worker shortage, which is forcing companies to innovate even more as they struggle to find enough employees to fill a record 10 million job openings. If a robot can do someone’s job, companies are trying it.
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“It looks like we’re on the cusp of a productivity boom, but you have to see it to believe it,” said David Beckworth, a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “The statistics coming out so far in this recovery show a productivity surge. Will that continue? It’s too early to know for sure.”
A national-average productivity boom may await America; some parts of the country will be better suited to it than others. There are parts of America still convinced that adding a building or a business is necessarily a sign of progress. Productivity, obviously, isn’t the same as mere production; it’s building more efficiently per worker.