Actually it exactly resembles stagflation. It's one of the reasons I said underemployment and not unemployment. During the 90s, Japan's inflation rate was around 3% and they couldn't get it under 2%. Sound familiar?

https://www.in2013dollars.com/japan/inflation/1990#:~:text=The%20yen%20had%20an%20average%20inflation%20rate%20of,82.953%25%20of%20what%20it%20could%20buy%20back%20then.

The other part was low unemployment, but mostly government jobs that didn't do anything. But it did create historically low unemployment and higher than average labor force participation.

https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14332/#:~:text=The%20%E2%80%98lost%20decade%E2%80%99%20in%20Japan%20was%20a%20period,when%20it%20reached%20a%20historical%20maximum%20of%205.5%25.

What you are seeing is USA doing exactly what Japan did in the 90s, which is have a target inflation rate of 2% that they can't reach and hiding the high unemployment numbers with underemployment in crappy jobs.

Edit: just look at this rocketing government employment.

https://usafacts.org/reports/2021/government-10-k/part-i/item-1-purpose-and-function-of-our-government-general/employees/#:~:text=As%20of%20the%20dates%20shown%20below%2C%20there%20were,local%20government%20employees%2C%20of%20whom%2023%25%20work%20part-time.

More than doubled in a decade.

I think you're misunderstanding me. Conflict is not war, two companies selling a similar product are in conflict. I don't think Google is sending a hit squad to Microsoft because of their competition.

China clearly wants to compete with USA on multiple levels, they've been doing this since the country was reformed under communism. It's not like they even pretended anything otherwise. From Mao to Deng to Xi China has always said it will develop in it's own way and will confront any one who tries to disturb the peace of the country. Sure enough, from the moment China was reformed, USA has constantly disturbed the peace of the country. Thus, China has always known they were in conflict with the US. It's only now they're strong enough to make it clear they want to be left alone and will use their military if it comes to it.

So yes, even though it's defensive (and I'm not saying countries shouldn't be defensive) China has wanted this conflict. They have every right to this conflict as it's literally the sovereignty of their nation, but it's still wanting conflict. One that they have a clear path to victory.

Absolutely, it's incredibly annoying everyone has a bias. But that's what we are going to see as the world splits into 2. In many ways it's inevitable. I'm just appreciative that at least for now, both sides seem to be opposed to war, with distressingly USA seemingly more likely to start it. Since historically when you have 2 superpowers, war is the first thing that they used to do.

Sadly for the US is it small scale manufacturing. Which is kind of the problem. There's been so much reduction in US manufacturing capability that they are essentially small scale. Other people have already pointed that out. What I will extend though is technically this is what the US is concerned about. The whole point that the US government is trying to make is that it's a national security issue that the US only produces at such small scale. So not only is what the US saying is that they want to destroy the environment and spend billions to start to maybe create large scale manufacturing again. Is it worth it? I dunno, but that's what's being proposed. Kill the environment, stick with ICE vehicles so USA can still compete in large scale manufacturing. Thus, Biden is a hypocrite.

Shows how little you understand. KMT wants the status quo, TPP wants to engage China.

There's 2 errors in your assessment. Otherwise, I pretty much agree.

1. Their problem isn't inflation, but deflation. As their output is greater than their domestic and international consumption. This leads to lower profit margins. It's a huge problem, just not in the direction your implying.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-27/china-s-industrial-profits-rise-though-deflation-concerns-linger

2. The brain drain is in the thousands per month leading to tens of thousands a year. It's not good, but no where as bad as your implying.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-27/china-s-industrial-profits-rise-though-deflation-concerns-linger

So, while yes I agree with you that China's economy is in bad shape. Those 2 data points are incorrect.

The weirder thing about that claim is if China is arming both sides, then how are they a puppet master? A puppet master chooses who wins and who loses to control the puppet. If they're not choosing a side, then they're letting the combatants decide for themselves. The exact opposite of a puppet master.

You could argue China is an agent of chaos as they're letting things play out however it will play out. But puppet master is hilariously wrong by even the most casual observation.

...yes, so google desperately needs those advertisers to advertise. And if they stop, their content stops existing. So yeah Google has to stop ad block. Otherwise who's going to make anything for YouTube?

*Edit as you said

Google isn’t just giving away their money.

So they need advertisers to give out that money or they have no one posting videos.

Unless you think Google will just start giving out money.

Pretty much nothing. Fentanyl for China is about an alliance with Mexico. China wants to be in USA's backyard. So this isn't a money thing for them. I expect the outcome of this is a shift to the precursor production in Mexico. There's not going to be a decrease in fentanyl for sure.

But since Mexico is already terrified of the US after Republicans said they wanted to invade, Mexico already let China's military come to work with them.

So all in all this is just a propaganda win for Biden. China's more than happy to just let Mexico make all the fentanyl themselves as long as Mexico continues to be friendly.

... you don't understand at all. I am not going to be able to explain it to you. There are no special spectrums. US equipment can only do mid band where as Huawei can also do high and low. That's the problem. There's no magic that you seem to think there is.

*Edit. Also this has nothing to do with how many towers there are. The towers near the airports were always there. Yet they interfered because USA can only do mid band. Had they been able to do low band there wouldn't have been issues.

That's absolutely true of China's military equipment. It is absolutely close to equal to US equipment. The problem China has is it has no soldiers. It has a lot of people they call soldiers, but do not have people actually ready to fight.

India recently sailed both their aircraft carriers and ran sorties on them. This was massive show of force to China. China the country with 3 aircraft carriers, one of them super carrier level. So why is just sailing 2 aircraft carriers a show of force?

China has never sailed more than one aircraft carrier at a time. They simply don't have enough sailors or pilots to do it. China's military has a budget just like any other military. They spent all the money on equipment and nothing on training. They have a couple hundred thousand soldiers with full body armor and night vision, and that's it. US in comparison, this is the most basic level of protection. China simply did not invest enough on training and basics.

This is why you see all the articles about China hiring foreign pilots to train them. China is fully aware of it's limits and are actively trying to change that. As the US generals have already said, China is moving towards being able to overpower, but not today.

*Edit. And this is also the biggest difference between Russia and China. China is aware of their capabilities, where as Russia believed it's own propaganda. If and when China attacks, it will be devastating. However, I'm in the camp of believing they will never attack. Because they'll never feel ready. For all Xi said about being ready for war, they're no better today with training than they were 10 years ago. Even though today they're flying 5th gen stealth fighters.

I think the problem you're having here is that not being democratic doesn't mean being a dictator. There are many forms of government that have existed before and will exist in the future. It'd be good if we took the time to understand at a minimum that.