2022.09.08 中国的问题不是通胀

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Britons awoke to the first day of national mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, while tributes poured in from foreign leaders. The queen died on Thursday, aged 96, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Britain’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch acceded to the throne in 1952 and led Britain, and the Commonwealth, through a period of intense change. Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years, died in April 2021. Her funeral is likely to take place on September 19th.

The queen’s eldest son, Charles, has succeeded her as monarch. King Charles III is expected to address the country on Friday evening, having met with Liz Truss, the new prime minister, whom his mother appointed just three days ago. In a statement the king said that the royal family would be “comforted and sustained” by its “knowledge of the respect and deep affection” in which the queen was held.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, celebrated the counter-offensive launched by his country’s armed forces, saying that 1,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory and “dozens of settlements” had been reclaimed from Russian forces since September 1st. Meanwhile Antony Blinken, the American secretary of state, promised a further $2.2bn in military financing for Ukraine and other countries deemed at risk of Russian aggression.

The euro rose back above parity with the dollar, following the European Central Bank’s decision to sharply increase rates to temper euro-zone inflation. The dollar, which has served as a safe harbour for investors fleeing the euro and pound, fell in value by 0.95% against a basket of major currencies.

North Korea passed a law enshrining its right to have nuclear weapons and to protect itself “automatically” by using them in pre-emptive strikes. Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader, said that the law means the country will never denuclearise. International observers suspect that North Korea is preparing to resume nuclear testing, for the first time since 2017. Sanctions have failed to discourage it.

India, the world’s biggest exporter of rice, restricted its international sale in an effort to safeguard domestic supply. From Friday a 20% duty will be applied to most grades (though not basmati). Shipments of “broken rice”, eaten in some parts of Africa but otherwise feedstock, were banned outright. The tax will squeeze global food prices, already inflated by the war in Ukraine, and drive demand towards Thailand and Vietnam.

America’s Department of Justice said it would appeal against a judge’s order to appoint an independent arbiter to review documents seized from Donald Trump’s estate in Florida. The former president had requested the review, claiming the material was covered by executive privilege and should therefore be withheld from investigators looking into his handling of classified material.

Fact of the day: 20%, the amount by which the dollar has climbed over the past year. Read the full story.

The queen’s death: what happens now

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
For years the days following the death of Queen Elizabeth II have been subject to meticulous planning, under the codename “London Bridge”. According to the plan there will be ten days of mourning between the queen’s death and funeral, during which most official business will be suspended.

The queen’s successor, King Charles III, will broadcast to the nation today. He will be formally proclaimed by the Accession Council tomorrow. After that the plan calls for a tour of the kingdom. His mother will lie in state in Westminster Hall for four days, during which time thousands are expected to file past her coffin. Her funeral is expected on September 19th. The new king will be crowned ceremonially months later.

Elizabeth’s impossible act to follow

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Crowned on June 2nd 1953, Queen Elizabeth was Britain’s longest-serving monarch. The first of her 15 prime ministers was Winston Churchill; the last, Liz Truss, was sworn in just a few days ago. Elizabeth presided over an era of dramatic change in her country’s fortunes. Having acceded to the throne of a fading empire, she leaves behind a fissiparous, barely united kingdom. Yet she maintained a dignified silence through it all, as the constitution demanded. Only rarely did she hint at her own views; over the referendum in 2014 on Scottish independence, for instance, warning her subjects to “think very carefully” before voting.

The troughs of her reign were often caused by familial impropriety: the miserable marriage of Charles and Diana; the involvement of Prince Andrew in a transatlantic sex scandal. That the monarchy as an institution remained so popular was mostly down to Elizabeth’s personal example of duty and self-discipline, qualities less obvious in many family members. Queen Elizabeth II will be an almost impossible act to follow. Nonetheless, according to the line of succession, Charles has now become king.

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Musk v Twitter

PHOTO: REUTERS
Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter smacked of recklessness and mercuriality from the off. Witness his baiting of the social-media firm’s board to his U-turn in July, when he sued Twitter to exit the purchase agreement. His argument that the company had misrepresented the extent of its spam accounts seemed, to many, a flimsy excuse to abandon a deal on which he had simply soured. In May Mr Musk texted one of his bankers that the bid “wouldn’t make sense…if we’re heading into world war three”, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But August brought a fillip to Mr Musk’s case. Twitter’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging lax data privacy at the company, as well as bots aplenty. On Friday Mr Musk’s lawyers will question Mr Zatko under oath. Twitter, however, alleges that Mr Musk wanted out because he feared overpaying. Mr Musk will have to prove that bots amounted to a “material adverse effect” on the business—a high legal bar. The trial proper starts on October 17th.

China’s problem is not inflation

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Ask an investor to name the world’s most pressing economic problem, and many would say inflation. But that worry is largely absent from the world’s second-biggest economy. Figures released on Friday showed that China’s consumer-price inflation fell to 2.5% in August, compared with a year earlier, still comfortably below the government’s ceiling of 3%.

The price of pork, a key economic indicator in China, has begun to level off and fuel costs have peaked. Price pressure elsewhere in the economy remains subdued. The unremitting threat of lockdowns in response to covid-19 outbreaks is depressing confidence and spending. The debt distress of China’s property developers is undermining home sales, which is only deepening the distress. Even exports, which have propped up China’s growth this year, have slowed sharply. China does not have the world’s inflation problem, but it has a world of problems all of its own.

Tackling Europe’s energy crisis

PHOTO: DPA
Another crisis, another emergency European Union meeting. On Friday it is the turn of national energy ministers. Europe is grappling with mind-boggling fuel prices. Economy-wide spending on gas and electricity could balloon from €200bn ($199bn) before the crisis to €1,400bn, or almost 10% of EU-wide GDP, over the next 12 months. Policymakers need to find ways to help households and businesses through an expensive winter, and to do so in a co-ordinated fashion, since gas and electricity markets across the continent are linked.

The ministers will discuss proposals by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to try to reduce peak electricity demand during morning and evening hours. The hope is to bring prices down, and to redistribute to consumers excess profits made by power, oil, and gas businesses. But ministers face a dilemma. The less they meddle with prices, the stronger the incentives for households and firms to cut back on energy use. But clawing back profits to help hard-hit consumers is justified, too.

Daily quiz

Our baristas will serve you a new question each day this week. On Friday your challenge is to give us all five answers and, as important, tell us the connecting theme. Email your responses (and include mention of your home city and country) by 1700 BST on Friday to QuizEspresso@economist.com. We’ll pick randomly from those with the right answers and crown one winner per continent on Saturday.

Friday: Which vehicle, first introduced at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, is Ford’s longest-produced car brand?

Thursday: What is the term for the smallest unit of information in a computer?

The winners of last week’s crossword

Thank you to everyone who took part in our new weekly crossword, published in the weekend edition of Espresso. The winners, chosen at random from each continent, were:

Asia: Yumi Arim, Tokyo, Japan
North America: Corien Kershey, Ottawa, Canada
Central and South America: Sebastian Agudelo-Restrepo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Europe: Sven Nilsson, Copenhagen, Denmark
Africa: Paul Leigh, Pretoria, South Africa
Oceania: Roberta MacDonald, Runaway Bay, Australia

They all gave the correct answers of Rosetta Stone, Rwanda, toxic and empire. Check back tomorrow for this week’s crossword.



英国人在伊丽莎白二世女王去世后的第一个全国哀悼日中醒来，而外国领导人的悼念也纷至沓来。女王于周四在苏格兰的巴尔莫勒尔城堡去世，享年96岁。英国最年长、在位时间最长的君主于1952年登基，带领英国和英联邦经历了一个激烈的变革时期。菲利普亲王是她73年的丈夫，于2021年4月去世。她的葬礼可能会在9月19日举行。

女王的长子查尔斯接替她成为君主。国王查尔斯三世预计将在周五晚上向全国发表讲话，他已经与他母亲三天前刚刚任命的新总理莉兹-特拉斯会面。国王在一份声明中说，王室将因其 "了解女王所受到的尊重和深情 "而得到 "安慰和支持"。

乌克兰总统沃洛基米尔-泽伦斯基(Volodymyr Zelensky)庆祝该国武装部队发起的反攻，称自9月1日以来已从俄罗斯军队手中夺回1000平方公里的乌克兰领土和 "数十个定居点"。同时，美国国务卿安东尼-布林肯(Antony Blinken)承诺为乌克兰和其他被认为面临俄罗斯侵略风险的国家再提供22亿美元的军事资助。

在欧洲央行决定大幅提高利率以抑制欧元区的通货膨胀之后，欧元回升到与美元平价之上。作为逃离欧元和英镑的投资者的安全港湾，美元兑一篮子主要货币的价值下降了0.95%。

朝鲜通过了一项法律，规定其有权拥有核武器，并通过在先发制人的打击中使用核武器来 "自动 "保护自己。朝鲜领导人金正恩说，这项法律意味着朝鲜将永远不会无核化。国际观察员怀疑朝鲜正准备恢复核试验，这是2017年以来的第一次。制裁未能阻止它。

世界上最大的大米出口国印度限制其国际销售，以努力保障国内供应。从周五开始，将对大多数等级的大米（尽管不包括巴斯马蒂）征收20%的关税。在非洲一些地方吃的 "碎米"，否则就是原料，被完全禁止运输。这项税收将挤压已经因乌克兰战争而膨胀的全球粮食价格，并将需求推向泰国和越南。

美国司法部表示，它将对法官关于任命一名独立仲裁员审查从唐纳德-特朗普在佛罗里达州的房产中查获的文件的命令提出上诉。这位前总统要求进行审查，声称这些材料受行政特权保护，因此应拒绝接受调查人员对他处理机密材料的调查。

今日要闻：20%，美元在过去一年中攀升的幅度。阅读完整的故事。

女王之死：现在会发生什么

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多年来，女王伊丽莎白二世去世后的日子一直受到精心策划，其代号为 "伦敦桥"。根据计划，在女王去世和葬礼之间将有10天的哀悼期，在此期间，大多数官方事务将暂停。

女王的继任者，国王查尔斯三世，将在今天向全国广播。他将于明天由继任委员会正式宣布。此后，计划要求对王国进行巡视。他的母亲将在威斯敏斯特大厅静卧四天，在此期间，预计将有成千上万的人从她的棺材前经过。她的葬礼预计将于9月19日举行。新国王将在几个月后举行加冕仪式。

伊丽莎白不可能完成的任务

照片。GETTY IMAGES
伊丽莎白女王于1953年6月2日登基，是英国在位时间最长的君主。她的15位首相中的第一位是温斯顿-丘吉尔；最后一位是几天前刚刚宣誓就职的莉斯-特拉斯。伊丽莎白主持了她的国家命运的一个戏剧性变化的时代。在登上一个正在消亡的帝国的王位后，她留下了一个分裂的、几乎没有统一的王国。然而，正如宪法要求的那样，她在这一切中保持了有尊严的沉默。她很少暗示自己的观点；例如，在2014年苏格兰独立公投中，她警告她的臣民在投票前要 "仔细考虑"。

她统治时期的低谷往往是由家族的不正当行为造成的：查尔斯和戴安娜的悲惨婚姻；安德鲁王子卷入跨大西洋性丑闻。君主制作为一个机构仍然如此受欢迎，主要归功于伊丽莎白个人的责任和自律的榜样，这些品质在许多家庭成员身上并不明显。伊丽莎白二世女王将是一个几乎不可能效仿的行为。尽管如此，根据继承顺序，查尔斯现在已经成为国王。

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每周六次在早餐前送达。

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马斯克诉推特

照片。REUTERS
埃隆-马斯克对推特的竞购从一开始就充满了鲁莽和多变的味道。从他对这家社交媒体公司董事会的诱导，到7月他起诉推特退出收购协议时的转身，都是如此。他认为该公司歪曲了其垃圾邮件账户的范围，在许多人看来，这似乎是放弃一项他根本不喜欢的交易的一个站不住脚的借口。5月，马斯克先生给他的一位银行家发短信说，"如果我们正在进入第三次世界大战，竞标就没有意义了"，指的是俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵。

但8月给马斯克先生的案子带来了新的希望。Twitter的前安全主管Peiter Zatko提交了一份举报信，声称该公司的数据隐私保护不严，而且还有大量的机器人。周五，马斯克的律师将在宣誓后询问扎特科先生。然而，Twitter声称，马斯克先生想退出，因为他担心支付过高的费用。马斯克先生必须证明，机器人对企业构成了 "重大不利影响"--这是一个很高的法律门槛。审判将于10月17日正式开始。

中国的问题不是通货膨胀

照片。GETTY IMAGES
如果让投资者说出世界上最紧迫的经济问题，许多人会说是通货膨胀。但世界第二大经济体基本上没有这种担忧。周五公布的数据显示，中国8月份的消费者价格通胀率与上年同期相比下降到2.5%，仍然远远低于政府规定的3%的上限。

中国的一个关键经济指标--猪肉价格已经开始趋于平稳，燃料成本已经达到顶峰。经济中其他方面的价格压力仍然受到抑制。为应对19号病毒的爆发而不断进行的封锁威胁正在压制信心和支出。中国房地产开发商的债务困境正在削弱房屋销售，这只会加深困境。即使是今年支撑中国经济增长的出口也急剧放缓。中国没有世界上的通货膨胀问题，但它有自己的世界问题。

应对欧洲的能源危机

照片。德新社
又一场危机，又一次欧盟紧急会议。周五将轮到各国能源部长。欧洲正在努力应对令人匪夷所思的燃料价格。在未来12个月内，整个经济在天然气和电力方面的支出可能会从危机前的2000亿欧元（199亿美元）膨胀到14000亿欧元，或几乎占整个欧盟国内生产总值的10%。政策制定者需要找到帮助家庭和企业度过昂贵冬季的方法，并以协调的方式做到这一点，因为整个欧洲大陆的天然气和电力市场是相互关联的。

部长们将讨论欧盟委员会（欧盟的执行机构）提出的建议，试图减少早晨和晚上的电力需求高峰。希望能使价格下降，并将电力、石油和天然气企业的超额利润重新分配给消费者。但部长们面临着一个两难境地。他们对价格的干预越少，对家庭和公司减少能源使用的激励就越强。但收回利润以帮助受到严重打击的消费者也是合理的。

每日小测验

本周，我们的咖啡师将每天为您提供一个新问题。在周五，你的挑战是给我们所有的五个答案，并且，同样重要的是，告诉我们连接的主题。在北京时间周五17点前，将你的回答（包括提及你的家乡和国家）发到邮箱：QuizEspresso@economist.com。我们将从那些有正确答案的人中随机挑选，并在周六为每个大洲选出一名获胜者。

周五。哪款汽车于1964年首次在纽约世界博览会上推出，是福特公司生产时间最长的汽车品牌？

星期四。计算机中最小的信息单位的术语是什么？

上周填字游戏的获胜者

感谢所有参加我们新的每周填字游戏的人，该游戏刊登在周末版的《Espresso》上。从各大洲随机选出的获奖者是：。

亚洲。Yumi Arim，日本东京
北美洲。Corien Kershey，加拿大渥太华
中美洲和南美洲。塞巴斯蒂安-阿古德洛-雷斯特雷波，多米尼加共和国，圣多明各
欧洲：斯文-尼尔森，丹麦，哥本哈根
非洲。保罗-利，南非，比勒陀利亚
大洋洲。罗伯塔-麦克唐纳，澳大利亚鲁纳韦湾

他们都给出了正确的答案：罗塞塔石碑、卢旺达、有毒和帝国。明天再来看看本周的填字游戏。