Economy

A measure that accounts for all federal subsidies also showed a reduction of almost half in the number of children below the poverty level.A second year of emergency pandemic aid from the federal government drove poverty to the lowest level on record in 2021 and cut the number of poor children by nearly half, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.The poverty rate fell to 7.8 percent, down from 9.2 percent the previous year, according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, a yardstick that includes wages, taxes and the fullest account of government aid. In addition, the share of children in poverty sank to another record low of 5.2 percent, down 4.5 percentage points from 2020, a sharp acceleration of a long-term trend. In large part, those changes reflect the trillions of stimulus dollars approved by Congress, culminating in the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan of March 2021, especially the expanded child tax credit, which temporarily provided an income guarantee to families with children.Real median household income reached $70,800, not significantly different from 2020, as increases in full-time employment were offset by rising inflation and decreases in unemployment insurance, which had been supplemented above normal levels through the summer of 2021. The “official” poverty rate, generally considered outdated because it omits hundreds of billions spent on programs like tax credits and housing assistance, also did not change significantly from the previous year.How Poverty Has DecreasedThe official poverty rate was 11.6 percent last year, but the supplemental rate — which accounts for the impact of government programs — fell to 7.8 percent.

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Share of the population living in poverty
The supplemental rate adjusts for geographic differences. It also includes wage income, taxes and the fullest account of government aid.Sources: Census Bureau; Columbia UniversityKarl RussellThis data covers a year that was profoundly influenced by a set of emergency programs that have largely expired. Since then, many families have again found themselves under financial strain.Progressives see the reduction in poverty — even if temporary — as evidence that the federal government has the power to give people a better standard of living and that it should continue to do so in the future.“Man, I’m just grinning ear to ear,” said Luke Shaefer, who runs a center on poverty at the University of Michigan and sees the expanded child tax credit as a blueprint for a permanent program. “Americans wonder if the government can shape successful policies that address poverty. This offers incontrovertible evidence that it can.”Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday confirmed that it is moving toward expanding emergency financing for countries hit by surging food prices and shortages triggered by the war in Ukraine, with some 20 to 30 countries seen most in need.IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the fund’s executive board members were “very positive” about the proposed “food shock window” when they met informally on Monday, and she hoped they would approve it to allow a swift disbursal of funds.The plan, first reported by Reuters on Monday, would allow the IMF to provide additional, unconditional emergency financing to countries hit hard by the food crisis unleashed by Russia’s war against Ukraine and global inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic.”There is a sense that it is a necessity and we have urgency to act,” Georgieva told an event hosted by the Center for Global Development. “What we are proposing is to increase access to emergency financing for a year to countries that are most vulnerable.”She said the changes would benefit low-income food importing countries that have seen their costs skyrocket, or others like Ukraine whose exports have been hampered by the war.Georgieva said the program would be available to countries that did not already have a larger IMF program, and estimated that some 50 countries would be eligible, of which 20 to 30 were expected to have the greatest need.IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said the fund has lent over $268 billion to 93 countries since the start of the pandemic and was looking at “all options to enhance our toolkit, including to help countries impacted by the food crisis.”Further discussions were planned with the executive board to ensure formal approval of the changes, he said.Rice said the fund had provided $27 billion in loans to 57 low-income countries, and was continuing to encourage its member countries to “come to us early for needed financial support.”The proposal discussed Monday would temporarily increase existing access limits and allow all member countries to borrow up to an additional 50% of their IMF quota under the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument, with low-income countries able to tap the Rapid Credit Facility, sources familiar with the plan said.Georgieva said she hoped it would be approved in time for the Fund’s annual meetings in October, they said.Food prices – already hit by inflation – surged worldwide after the start of the Ukraine war due to blocked supply routes, sanctions and other trade restrictions, although a UN-brokered deal that allowed resumed exports of grain from Ukrainian ports has begun to ease trade flows and lower prices in recent weeks. More

The results come even as MSCI’s gauge of stocks around the world has rallied 3% so far in September, though after a bruising first half the index is still down 16% this year. The survey also marks a return to doom and gloom after August’s iteration found investors were bearish but no longer “apocalyptically” so. BofA, which polled 212 investors overseeing $616 billion in assets from Sept. 2-8, said 72% of those surveyed said they expected a weaker economy next year, and the most crowded trade was long U.S. dollar.The U.S. currency is typically seen as a safe haven in times of economic difficulty. In contrast, investors were staying away from equities which typically rise in good times, and the survey found investors had a record underweight position in stocks. They found the net percentage of investors who said they were overweight stocks was -52% compared to -26% the previous month, a lower level than during the financial crisis. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva said she and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday agreed to explore ways to expand the IMF’s support for the war-torn country and build toward a full-fledged financing program.Georgieva told an event hosted by the Center for Global Development that she and Zelenskiy agreed that an IMF mission would meet with Ukrainian authorities in the next weeks to work on a “pathway of engagement that is deeper.”She said the IMF was also working to ensure board approval for a proposal aimed at expanding emergency aid for Ukraine and other countries facing urgent balance of payments problems due to Russia’s war against Ukraine.The new “food shock window” in the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument would provide Kyiv with about the same amount of funding as the $1.4 billion it got in March, shortly after the Russian invasion, Georgieva said.”We discussed first how we can immediately be of help to Ukraine,” she said, adding that Ukraine’s needs had grown since the first disbursement of emergency financing.”Secondly we discussed a longer-term engagement with Ukraine and how we can build towards a program that can more comprehensively benefit Ukraine,” she said. “That is a build up towards a full-fledged fund program.”Georgieva said Zelenskiy also expressed interest in how the fund could work with other institutions to provide policy support for Ukraine, and start working on how it will transition to a sound, sustainable future.Alfred Kammer, director of the IMF’s European department and his deputy, Julie Kozack, will meet with Ukrainian officials in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo this week, an IMF spokesperson said.”Excellent call with President @ZelenskyyUa,” Georgieva wrote on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), before the event. She said they discussed how the global lender could “continue to back Ukraine and agreed to explore ways to ramp up our financial and policy engagement to (Ukraine) using all tools available to us.”In a separate posting on Twitter, Zelenskiy said he spoke with Georgieva and thanked her for “the allocation of $1.4 billion of additional support. Discussed future cooperation to increase Ukraine’s financial stability.”Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials have grown frustrated in recent months by what they see as slow progress toward a larger financing package.Ukraine’s central bank governor, Kyrylo Shevchenko, told Reuters in July that Kyiv was seeking $15-20 billion from the IMF over two or three years – an amount that would put Ukraine well over the fund’s “exceptional access limit” for lending. Speaking through an interpreter, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a conference on Sunday that the IMF had been “very passive” in responding to Ukraine’s request to date.He said the fund loaned Ukraine $17 billion after Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region in 2014, but was dragging its heels this time around.”Now we have a certain procrastination, but we have to speed up our cooperation and the response of the IMF, which was created to support countries in dire straits like we find ourselves in,” he said. He said Ukraine was working closely with the United States, Germany and other partners, but the IMF was an important “uniting factor.””It’s very important to have the IMF on board with their leadership and partnership,” he added. More

The president is trying once again to accentuate the positives in the recovery from recession, but stubbornly high prices are complicating the message.The Consumer Price Index report for August showed inflation had not cooled as the administration had hoped and Americans had lost buying power over the last year as prices rose faster than wages.Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — President Biden gathered with top Democrats at the White House on Tuesday to celebrate their inflation fight at an inopportune moment, as a sobering new report showed just how far the economy still has to go to bring soaring consumer prices under control.The Consumer Price Index report for August contained a large dose of unwelcome news for the president, who has sought to defuse Republican attacks over rising prices in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. It showed that inflation had not cooled as White House economists and other forecasters had hoped, and that workers had lost buying power over the last year as prices increased faster than wages.Another report, from the Census Bureau, showed that the typical American household saw its inflation-adjusted income fall slightly in 2021 from 2020. Perhaps more troubling for a president who has promised to close the gap between the very wealthy and the middle class, it showed that income inequality increased last year for the first time in a decade.Those developments challenged Mr. Biden’s renewed efforts to reframe the economy as a winning issue for him and his party before the midterms — though the president seemed unfazed.Mr. Biden welcomed thousands of supporters to the White House lawn to toast a new law that he says will help reduce the cost of electricity, prescription drugs and other staples of American life.The event was essentially a rally for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which raised taxes on large corporations, targeted nearly $400 billion in spending and tax incentives to reduce the fossil fuel emissions driving climate change, and took steps to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare and premium costs for Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.Mr. Biden called the law “the single most important legislation passed in the Congress to combat inflation and one of the most significant laws in our nation’s history.”“There’s an extraordinary story being written in America today by this administration,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “This bill cut costs for families, helped reduce inflation at the kitchen table.”On Wednesday, Mr. Biden will head to the Detroit auto show, where he will champion his policies to bolster manufacturing and low-emission sources of energy.But the country’s economic reality remains more muddled than Mr. Biden’s rosy message, as the inflation report underscored. Food prices are continuing to spike, straining lower-income families in particular. The global economy is slowing sharply, and threats remain to the American recovery if European sanctions force millions of barrels of Russian oil off the global market in the months to come.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries winding down, both parties are starting to shift their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Polling Warnings: Democratic Senate candidates are polling well in the same places where surveys overestimated President Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Intraparty G.O.P. Fight: Ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, mainstream Republicans have been vying to stop a Trump-style 2020 election denier running for Senate.Abortion Ballot Measures: First came Kansas. Now, Michigan voters will decide whether abortion will remain legal in their state. Democrats are hoping referendums like these will drive voter turnout.A possible railroad strike could disrupt domestic supply chains. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Tuesday that the president had called union and company leaders on Monday in an attempt to broker an agreement to avert the strike.Most important — and perhaps most damaging for Mr. Biden and Democrats — Americans’ wages have struggled to keep pace with fast-rising prices, an uncomfortable truth for a president who promised to make real wage gains a centerpiece of his economic program. Inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings ticked up across the economy in August, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, but they remain down nearly 3 percent from a year ago.Republicans were quick to criticize Mr. Biden after the report on Tuesday. “Every day, Americans endure Biden’s economic crisis,” said Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, the top Republican on the Small Business Committee. “The Democrats’ inflation continues to drive up costs and leads more and more small businesses and families questioning their future.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Biden and his aides have celebrated falling gasoline prices on a daily basis throughout the summer. Those decreasing prices have helped inflation moderate from its high point this year, though not enough to offset rising rent, food and other costs last month.Even as he acknowledges the pain of rapid price increases across the economy, Mr. Biden has claimed progress in the fight against inflation, including with the signing last month of the energy, health care and tax bill that Democrats called the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday morning, he sought to put a positive shine on the August data, saying in a statement issued by the White House that it was a sign of “more progress” in bringing down inflation.At his celebration on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Biden barely mentioned the word “inflation.” Instead, he talked about reducing medical and energy costs — and, to a much larger extent, about the law’s efforts to combat climate change.Near the end of the speech, he gave a strident defense of his administration’s economic record, including strong job creation, record small-business formation and a rebound of the manufacturing sector.“And guess what?” Mr. Biden said. “For all the criticism I got and the help you gave me for gas prices bringing — they’re down more than $1.30 a gallon since the start of the summer. We’re making progress. We’re getting other prices down as well. We have more to do. But we’re getting there.”Recent weeks have brought signs of hope for administration officials, among both consumers and companies. The National Federation of Independent Business reported on Tuesday that its Small Business Optimism Index rose in August as inflation anxiety eased, continuing a rebound from its depths this year. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported on Monday that consumer inflation expectations were also falling.Officials inside the administration and at the Federal Reserve say strong job growth and consumer spending this summer have put to rest fears that the country slipped into recession in the first half of the year.“What is most notable about where we are right now is the resilience of the labor market recovery, the resilience of American consumers and households, and that we are beginning to see some signs that prices may be moderating,” Brian Deese, the director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, said in an interview this week.“There’s more work to do,” Mr. Deese said. “But I think that is a signal that the economic decisions that this president has made are bearing fruit.”But polls continue to show that inflation is hurting Mr. Biden and his party at a pivotal moment, as Democrats seek to retain control of the House and the Senate. High prices loom as the top issue for voters in national opinion polls, and Americans say they trust Republicans more to handle inflation and the economy overall than Democrats.On Tuesday, stock markets recorded their largest daily loss in two years, driven by investor fears of stubborn inflation pushing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates higher and faster than many expected.Economists on Wall Street and in policy circles are debating whether the U.S. economy can achieve a so-called soft landing, with economic and job growth slowing in order to bring inflation down — but not slowing so much as to push millions of Americans out of work. Some, like the former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, have warned that the unemployment rate will need to rise significantly to bring price growth down to historical levels.Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, whose analyses of Mr. Biden’s policy proposals are often promoted by the White House, said on Twitter on Tuesday that “job and wage growth must sharply slow” to reduce price increases in the service sector. “This is on the Fed, which must hike rates to get job and wage growth down without pushing the economy under.”Tuesday’s inflation report, he added, “suggests that while still doable, it won’t be easy.” More

NEW YORK (Reuters) -An already-murky outlook for U.S. stocks and bonds is growing darker, as sizzling inflation ratchets up expectations for how aggressively the Federal Reserve will need to raise rates. For weeks, investors had debated whether the full extent of Fed hawkishness had been priced into markets, after the central bank already raised rates by 225 basis points this year, with many penciling in another 75 basis point rate hike at its meeting next week.Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected inflation report – which slammed stock and bond prices – is bolstering the case for those who argue the central bank will need to be far more hawkish than anticipated in the weeks ahead. That’s forcing investors to gird themselves for a potentially bigger dose of Fed tightening that has rocked asset prices all year. The closely watched CPI report showed U.S. consumer prices unexpectedly rose in August, with such prices rising at an annual pace of 8.3%, not far from the four-decade peak reached in June.“The Fed was already going on a tightening path in the next several months and now they have got to actually increase that given this report,” said Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. “It’s pretty negative across the board for markets.”Fed funds futures are now pricing in a roughly 36% chance that the Fed next week raises its benchmark rate by a full percentage point, a view supported by analysts at Nomura, who on Tuesday forecast a 100 basis point hike in September. Some analysts also raised expectations on how high the central bank will lift rates in coming months. The reaction in markets was swift: the benchmark S&P 500 ended down 4.3% on Tuesday and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 5.2%, the biggest one-day drops for both indexes since June 2020. Yields on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note, which move inversely to bond prices, rose as high as 3.46%, the highest in about three months.Growing expectations for Fed hawkishness are an unwelcome development for a market already contending with uncertainty on multiple fronts, from worries over whether the central bank’s inflation fight will bring in a recession to the knock-on effects of rising real yields on asset prices.September also sees the Fed ramp up the unwinding of its balance sheet to $95 billion per month, a move some investors worry may add volatility in markets and weigh on the economy.Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Hermes (NYSE:FHI), said the market “at a minimum” could test its mid-June low of around 3,600.“The market has been completely wrong in judging the inflation question,” he said. “Today … was a massive wake-up call that forced equity investors to face reality.”’PIVOT’ HOPES DASHEDEven the time of year is to some, a source of concern: the S&P 500 has fallen an average of 0.5% in September since 1950, the worst monthly performance for the index, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac. So far for the month, the index was logging a 0.6% loss; for the year it is down over 17%.Tuesday’s inflation report put further pressure on a rebound that had seen the S&P 500 rise by 17% from its mid-June low. Stocks have now given back roughly half of those gains.It also dashed some optimism that the Fed would soon be able to “pivot” to easing monetary policy, hopes for which has periodically helped support risk assets.”Any impending Fed pivot isn’t in front of us and this data point confirms that,” said Matt Peron, director of research at Janus Henderson Investors. “The market got a little ahead of itself over the last couple of weeks with the peak hawkishness narrative.”More declines in stocks and bonds promise further pain to investors who had counted on a mix of the two asset classes to cushion market declines.So-called 60/40 portfolios – which hold 60% of their assets in equities and 40% in bonds in anticipation that declines in one asset class will lead to gains in the other – are down more than 12% for the year to date, their worst performance since 1936, according to BofA Global Research.Of course, many investors have been preparing for more volatility after an already rocky year so far. Fund managers increased cash balances to 6.1% in September, the highest in over 20 years, according to BofA Global Research’s monthly survey released on Tuesday.”The key question is at what point does the Fed build enough confidence that they’ve done enough. It’s clear that we’re not near that point now,” said Ed Al-Hussainy, senior global rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle. “On the risk asset side I think there’s more damage to be done.” More

Overall inflation moderated less than anticipated, and a closely watched measure of price pressures jumped, bad news for the Federal Reserve.Price increases remained uncomfortably rapid in August as a broad array of goods and services became more expensive even as gas prices fell, evidence that the sustainable inflation slowdown the Federal Reserve and White House have been hoping for remains elusive.Prices rose 8.3 percent from a year earlier, a fresh Consumer Price Index report released on Tuesday showed. While slightly better than July’s 8.5 percent, the rate was not as much of a moderation as economists had expected as rent costs, restaurant meals and medical care became more expensive. Compounding the bad news, a core measure of inflation that strips out gas and food to get a sense of underlying price trends accelerated more than forecast.Stocks plummeted on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 falling 4.3 percent — its biggest drop since the depths of the pandemic in 2020 — as the data appeared to cement the case for another unusually large interest rate increase of three-quarters of a percentage point at the Fed’s meeting next week. That would be the third consecutive move of that size and bring rates to a range of 3 to 3.25 percent. Investors speculated that officials could even opt for a more drastic adjustment of a full percentage point this month or extend their campaign of swift rate moves for longer.Fed officials have been raising interest rates since March to slow the economy in a bid to tame America’s worst bout of inflation in four decades, but the data suggested that their efforts were not yet having much of an effect. Inflation’s relentlessness may force central bankers to clamp down on the economy harder, potentially pushing up unemployment more starkly, as they try to wrestle prices back under control.“Inflation momentum accelerated in all the wrong places,” said Blerina Uruci, a U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price, explaining that strong household balance sheets may be helping to sustain demand even as interest rates rise and borrowing becomes expensive.“In this environment, monetary policy has to do that much more to cool down demand and have an effect on prices,” Ms. Uruci said.Prices, including rapid increases for food away from home, climbed from July to August.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe inflation data also contained unwelcome news for the White House. President Biden, whose popularity with voters has suffered amid rising costs, sought to put a positive spin on the new data by noting that prices overall have been essentially flat over the past two months thanks to cheaper gas. But the fact that inflation retains so much staying power is likely to detract from the administration’s positive talking points.That’s because the latest report’s details offered plenty to worry about.Two products that had been major factors in inflation over the past year — gas and used cars — are now falling in price, a widely expected and important development. But the cost of other goods and services is rising so much that it is more than offsetting those declines.Prices climbed 0.1 percent from July as rapid increases hit a variety of products and services, including food away from home, new cars, dental care and vehicle repair. Given how much gas prices fell in August, the price index had been forecast to decline on a monthly basis.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

Good morning. The US Senate foreign relations committee is poised to vote on a bill that would finance weapons exports to Taiwan for the first time and significantly alter relations with Taipei amid rising pressure from China. The Taiwan Policy Act, which will come up for a vote on Wednesday in the US, would provide Taiwan with $4.5bn in weapons and security assistance over the next four years. It would also create a $2bn loan facility to help Taipei buy arms and make Taiwan eligible for a war reserve arms stockpile mechanism.The bill would also punish China if it took military action against Taiwan by requiring the White House to impose sanctions on large Chinese financial institutions over “escalating hostile actions in or against Taiwan”.Coming on the heels of China’s large-scale military exercises in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei last month, the bill has sparked debate in the US about how to support Taiwan. Backers of the bill say the US must do more to help the country, while some worry that certain provisions will antagonise China while doing very little to secure Taiwan.Thanks for reading FirstFT Asia. How do you think lawmakers should vote on the Taiwan Policy Act? Tell me what you think at [email protected] — EmilyFive more stories in the news1. Wall Street suffers worst sell-off since June 2020 The benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbled 4.3 per cent, its worst day since June 2020 with 99 per cent of its companies sliding in value after official data showed US inflation increased unexpectedly in August. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.2 per cent as technology groups seen as most exposed to higher rates bore the brunt of the selling.2. Evergrande vows to restart all stalled property projects The developer has pledged to resume the construction of 38 remaining projects by the end of September and accelerate 62 restarted projects to “normal level”, according to a company statement released late on Monday that cited its chair, Hui Ka Yan, in a weekly meeting.Related read: Hong Kong’s property developers are having to construct more flexible leasing offers to attract businesses, as the city faces more than 246 football fields of excess supply of office space by 2025.3. Vedanta and Foxconn to build chip plant in India’s Gujarat The two companies are to invest Rs1.54tn ($19.4bn) in prime minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat to build one of India’s first semiconductor manufacturing complexes — part of a high-stakes, government-backed push to build domestic chipmaking capacity.More on the semiconductor industry: The US is struggling to mobilise its East Asian “Chip 4” alliance amid internal tensions and concerns over China undermining the proposed grouping with South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. 4. Ukraine steps up offensive with push east into Donbas Ukraine’s armed forces are battling for control of a string of towns in the Donbas region, as Kyiv’s counteroffensive pushes east against Russian troops. Serhiy Hayday, the exiled Ukrainian head of the Luhansk region, said fierce battles were under way in Lyman, a town east of Izyum, a big military command post from which Russian forces fled days earlier.Go deeper: The Russian army has been hobbled by a shortage of soldiers.5. JPMorgan warns of up to 50% drop in investment banking fees One of the bank’s most senior executives has said he expected third-quarter investment banking fees to be down 45-50 per cent on the $3.3bn achieved a year earlier, having fallen 44 per cent in the first six months of 2022. The bank will announce its results on October 14.The day aheadXi Jinping’s first trip abroad since Covid pandemic The China president will be among friends and allies — including Russia president Vladimir Putin — when he travels to Kazakhstan today to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, beginning tomorrow. Japan economic data The Tankan business sentiment survey results will be released as well as monthly industrial production data.Queen “lying-in-state” Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin will be placed on a platform in Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the Houses of Parliament, from today until her funeral on Monday.What else we’re reading Queen’s death sparks nostalgia for Hong Kong’s ‘golden era’ Beijing and the Hong Kong government have increasingly denied Britain’s role in the development of the financial hub. Still, thousands of mourners queued outside the British consulate in the territory to pay tribute to the Queen, with many lamenting the territory’s loss of freedoms since the 1997 handover.Shareholders challenge India’s new crop of listed tech groups Last year’s new-age IPOs marked a historic moment for Indian tech. But the experience of Patym’s bungled listing should be a wake-up call for India’s listed tech companies. Investors are growing tired of inconsistent messages and struggles to turn a profit.Globalisation is not dying, it’s changing Evidence suggests that natural economic forces have largely been responsible for past changes in the pattern of world trade. Growing concern over the security of supply chains will no doubt add to these changes, though whether the result will be “reshoring” or “friendshoring” is doubtful, writes Martin Wolf. More likely is a complex pattern of diversification.Debt monsters in the downturn As central banks raise rates to tame inflation, debt-laden companies are facing the uncomfortable prospect of servicing higher interest bills with crimped cash flows. Which groups are flashing warning signals? The Financial Times has compiled a list of companies with debt trading more than 10 percentage points above government bonds.‘Quiet quitting’ is worse than nonsense According to Gallup, about half of Americans are “quiet quitters”: people who are “not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description”. HR specialists have been quick to advise on how to fix this problem. But Sarah O’Connor argues that it’s not a problem at all — staff who turn up to do exactly what is asked of them are still working. WellnessThe Theragun massage device, which promises to relax and tone facial muscles, apparently met with enthusiastic approval from footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who signed a sponsorship deal with Therabody in 2021 and has long been a champion of the brand. Therabody is determined to own the sports recovery market. Can it hit the perfect pressure point? More