The US Commerce Department announced that consumer spending fell 0.4% in February from January after adjusting for inflation. This may not seem like much, but real spending has dropped in three of the last four months. Without strength in household outlays, the economic expansion is doomed. Capital spending provided a minor boost to the economy but didn’t recover the losses ...

  Elon Musk bought a $3 billion stake in Twitter Inc, because when you’re the world’s richest human you can toss billions around just like that. This may be just another piece of performance art from Musk, who has alternately endorsed and pooh-poohed Bitcoin to great effect. He’s also taken to Twitter to hype altcoins such as Dogecoin and Shiba ...

  De-globalisation looks as though it’s happening. Calls for yet more sanctions on Russia after the horrifying images of dead bodies strewn across Ukrainian streets seem now to have every chance of success, with European nations possibly even prepared to inflict upon themselves the pain of an embargo on Russian energy imports. As the pandemic continues to disrupt supply chains, ...