本次播客摘自The economist

2, China’s consumer-price index fell by 0.3% in July, year on year. The index of factory-gate prices slumped by 4.4%. China had been teetering on the brink of deflation for months, as the rebound from lockdowns fizzled out. The value of Chinese exports declined by 14.5% in July at an annual rate, the biggest drop since the start of the pandemic.

3, The competition between America and Europe to attract investment in chipmaking heated up when TSMC, a big Taiwanese semiconductor company, said it would build a factory in Germany, TSMC is spending €3.5bn ($3.8bn) on the project; the German government is stumping up another €5bn. The EU recently approved the Chips Act, a package of subsidies that aims to double the EU’S global share in chipmaking from 10% to "at least” 20% by 2030.

4, SoftBank’s Vision Fund made its first investment gain in over a year during the latest quarter, though the Japanese tech conglomerate /kənˈɡlɑːmərət/ racked up another heavy net loss. SoftBank said it begin to invest again, especially in AI, but would do so "timidly /ˈtɪmɪdlɪ/, with fear in our hearts”. Meanwhile a slew of tech giants, including Amazon, Apple, Nvidia and Samsung, were reported to be lining up to take stakes in Arm, a chip designer, when SoftBank floats the firm on the stockmarket in September.

5, WeWork, one of SoftBank’s worst bets in recent years, warned of a "substantial doubt” about its "ability to continue as a going concern". The provider of shared working spaces said that a surplus of commercial property and economic uncertainty had contributed to its problems. Its stock slumped. WeWork was once valued at $47bn. It is now worth around $275m.

6, Disney reported another drop in subscribers for its streaming services, but the business's loss in the latest quarter narrowed to $512m from over $1bn a year ago. The company announced more big price rises, lifting the cost of subscribing to the ad-free version of Disney+ by 27%.

7, Zoom has told employees to return to the office at least two days a week. In May the company's boss, Eric Yuan, said it was hard to force workers back and that letting “employees work anywhere has sort of become a fashion”. Zoom’s technology enabled the shift to remote working during the pandemic more than anything else. Lauded as a permanent change to working patterns, there is now a move by corporations to curtail the practice. Even America’s federal government is clamping down on working from home.