Kai Risdahl

You know, sometimes in this economy, as in life, you can figure out where you're going by figuring out where you've been.

So we begin today.

by looking back, back to the first quarter of the year and an update on Q1 gross domestic product that we are going to get tomorrow morning.

The first look that we got from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, this was last month, came in at an annualized growth rate of 2% January through March.

Tomorrow's revision will fill in some more of that data for March, especially as you recall the first full months of the president's war with Iran.

Marketplace's Henriette gets us going with economic growth at the beginning of the year and what it might tell us about the economy today.

Also on the data calendar tomorrow is the April Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, PCE for short.

Best guesses are that the headline number that is with food and energy is going to come in right around 3.8% year on year.

That's up from 3.5% in March, headed very much in the wrong direction, away from the Federal Reserve's ever more elusive inflation target of 2%.

And the thing is, and here we get to the where this economy is going part of this story, what people think inflation is going to do, inflation expectations in the lingo, they are up sharply, too, for consumers and businesses and investors.

Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has that one.

Wall Street today, kind of a wash for equities, actually.

Oil took a digger.

And hey, look, the yield on the 30-year Treasury is still right at 5%.

We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

Inflation expectations are perhaps, as Mitchell was saying, keeping us frugal.

But there are some areas in which buyers are willing to shell out a bit more.

According to a 2022 survey from Wharton, consumers across generations, that baby boomers to Gen Z, will look past a higher price tag if it means buying a more sustainable product.

That said, it kind of doesn't matter how much people are willing to pay if the supply ain't there.

Wool is our commodity of choice today.