The Conversation

Variety is the sauce of life. Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe via Getty ImagesAt its heart, pizza is deceptively simple. Made from just a few humble ingredients – baked dough, tangy sauce, melted cheese and maybe a few toppings – it might seem like a perfect candidate for the kind of mass-produced standardization that defines many global food chains, where predictable menus reign supreme.

Oleg Golovnev/ShutterstockImages of flashy sports cars. Lavish lifestyle shots. These are just some of the red flags consumers should watch out for when they turn to social media for financial advice.

Consumers should not believe everything they see on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube from the growing numbers of “finfluencers” – content creators who build their audience by giving out financial advice.

Something dangerous is happening to the U.S. economy, and it’s not inflation or trade wars. Chaotic deregulation and the selective enforcement of laws have upended markets and investor confidence. At one point, the threat of tariffs and resulting chaos evaporated US$4 trillion in value in the U.S. stock market. This approach isn’t helping the economy, and there are troubling signs it will hurt both the U.S.

Musician Jimmy Buffett and his wife, Jane Slagsvol, attend a Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts event in 2018 in New York.