BOE Turns Hawkish, Japan Deflation, U.S. Delta Slowdown: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Happy Friday, Asia. Here's the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to take you through to the weekend:

• The Bank of England signaled its concerns over inflation are strong enough to warrant the withdrawal of some support to the economy
• Japan's inflation looks set to drop below zero again following a re-shuffling of items in the consumer-price basket
• From event cancellations to consumer behavior, there are growing signs the delta variant risks slowing the pace of the U.S. recovery
• Unlike the U.S. where anti-vaccine fringe groups have fueled resistance to Covid shots, Hong Kong is facing a different challenge. Most of the city's elderly are reluctant to get inoculated. Meantime, President Joe Biden said Hong Kong residents in the U.S. can remain in the country for as long as 18 months, citing Beijing's crackdown
• Extreme weather in China is becoming the latest challenge to global supply chains, as a heavy typhoon season threatens to further delay goods stuck at some of the world's busiest container ports
• Indonesia's economy snapped a year of contractions as a temporary relaxation of virus curbs benefited consumption and investment
• Bloomberg Economics dives into how exactly how the Fed will define “substantial further progress” in the labor market, in this wrap
• Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, says it's time for the Fed to consider raising rates before it is too late
• The only Bank of Korea board member to call for an interest-rate hike at last month's meeting has had a job transfer to head the nation's financial watchdog
• Applications for U.S. state unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, the latest sign that Americans are slowly, and in fits and starts, returning to work as the economy recovers
• The Czech Republic raised borrowing costs and said it would push on with one of Europe's most aggressive monetary-tightening campaigns
• The average hotel occupancy rate in major Chinese cities slumped since late-July after a new cluster of infections, as this chart shows
• Venezuela will remove six zeros from the bolivar in another attempt to save a currency that has been wracked by years of hyperinflation
• The U.S. economy is in the midst of an historic comeback. But it's happening with the lowest rate of labor force participation in more than four decades and a record number of unfilled jobs

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