Slowing global growth, fading effects from the 2017 tax cut and rising trade frictions are weighing on the U.S. economy. “The domestic economy is not immune to all these headwinds,” said Lydia Boussour, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “The economy is gradually cooling.” Consumer spending is the driving force behind the U.S. economy, accounting for more than two-thirds of total economic output. Another key source of demand in the economy, business investment, continued a stretch of weakness in August, according to a separate report Friday. Orders for long-lasting equipment and machinery, a proxy for business investment, fell 0.2% last month from July and 1.7% from August 2018. Though some economists said Friday’s report exaggerated the extent of weakness among consumers, the pullback in consumer outlays and […]