The US government is pumping money and credit into the economy on a mindblowing scale equated with a war-time splurge. The excuse is that it needs to counter the damage done by the pandemic, but the Biden administration views it as an opportunity to pour money into its favoured interests – voters, welfare, public services.

Commodity prices are surging and there’s the prospect of demand for some natural resources exceeding supplies for years to come. Some leading investment advisers now say that we’re in the early stages of another “super-cycle.”

Prices of commodities are surging despite the fact that economies, many of them still in the grip of lockdowns, are still far from full recovery from the pandemic.

War risk is “consistently underestimated by money people” says FT commentator John Dizard following the escalation of tensions between China and Taiwan. The latter runs itself as a highly successful independent nation, but China insists it is a breakaway province that it is determined to recover.