Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers on an otherwise partly sunny and humid day with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:13 and sunset is 7:39 for 13 hours 26 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certifies that the 19th Amendment — that provides that ‘[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex’ — had been ratified by the required number of states.
In Whitewater, as is their lawful right, some number of local or out-of-city landlords, and a lobbyist now and again, will often speak on economic and development topics during public comment periods before the Whitewater Common Council. They will do so despite many of them likely backing the federal administration that has brought only failure on economic policy and development policy across an entire continent (and much of the world beyond). This should not surprise, as their policies when controlling the Community Development Authority left this city — by their own admission — as a low-income community.
(One inescapable observation: although many in this city are genuinely struggling, in nineteen years of blogging, I have never seen a landlord or lobbyist in this town who is not evidently well-fed, if not over-fed.)
The federal administration, like the economic and development policies of Whitewater’s past, continues to disappoint.
On January 20, 2025, in his second inaugural address, Florida resident Donald J. Trump declared that his administration would “rapidly bring down costs and prices.” That is, Trump didn’t merely promise to reduce the rate of inflation — he promised to bring prices down. (We can leave aside this morning the effects of a true deflationary effort.) It’s enough that Trump promised to reduce inflation that had, in fact, already been falling for two years. When Trump entered office in January 2025, inflation remained above the Federal Reserve’s two-percent objective, but it had already fallen dramatically — from 9.1 percent in June 2022 to 2.9 percent in December 2024.
Many months later, after trade wars and actual wars, after redistributive legislation to benefit his donors and cronies, one finds that inflation is rising again:
Prices consumers pay for a variety of goods and services rose slightly in July, according to the Federal Reserve’s main inflation gauge.
The personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Fed uses as its preferred forecasting tool, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3.7%, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Both were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus.
See Jeff Cox, Fed’s preferred inflation gauge shows core prices rose 3.3% annually in July, CNBC, August 26, 2026.
For many families, however, the situation is less complicated. Consumers are paying higher prices for essentials, particularly gas, while wage growth has stagnated. That is putting stress on household budgets. Consumer confidence fell in August for the second month in a row, the Conference Board said Tuesday.
“It’s hard to ignore the reality of those higher prices,” said Tom Porcelli, chief economist at Wells Fargo. “People are feeling the pinch of it.”
See Ben Casselman, Inflation Remains Elevated as Energy Costs Push on Prices, New York Times, August 26, 2026.
When Randy Madden saw the way diesel prices were rising, he decided to delay purchasing the fuel that powers his 3,000-acre farm in Iowa.
Except prices are at around the same level as when he made that decision in May.
Now, going into harvest season, he expects to spend more than $40,000 on fuel — roughly double what he typically pays from late summer through the end of the year.
“The volatility and the price is coming at a very bad time,” he said.
The average price of diesel in the United States was $5.62 a gallon on Wednesday, 53 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the AAA motor club. Because fuel supplies were disrupted after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran, diesel prices are now hovering close to a record high and could drive up prices of many other goods and services.
Diesel powers a vast chunk of America’s economy. It fuels equipment on farms like Mr. Madden’s, as well as trains, trucks and other heavy machinery. As prices climb, businesses often have to pass on that higher cost to their customers.
See Aruni Soni, The Price of Diesel, the ‘Workhorse’ of Fuels, Nears a Record High, New York Times, August 26, 2026.
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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): Development in Downtown Whitewater (Follow-Up), The Value of a UW-Whitewater Education, A New Ethics Ordinance, Polling Places in the City (Further Considerations), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.