Only in times of war. It’s literally one of the checks and balances to specifically prevent a president from stopping an election. Now, if we start a full blown war with Russia…

Oh thank God for a moment there I thought we might actually do the right thing. Thank God for our global leaders assuring the universe will be safe from the disease that is humanity. /s

This is true, China doesn’t care. I’m actually confused about the narrative around China wanting to take TSMC. Even the most cursory glace at the situation should make it obvious this isn’t one of China’s goals. This is because these EUV machines don’t work on magic. They work on knowledge and spare parts. Even in the unlikely scenario that China somehow invades and these machines aren’t destroyed by either China or the retreating Taiwanese, they aren’t going to be able to operate them and more importantly get spare parts to keep them running. They’d at best be used to disassemble and review.

All of this ignores the fact that China is already at 5nm using their own equipment anyway. For the extra 2nm of difference between TSMC’s 3nm to SMIC’s 5nm isn’t large enough to rationalize anything close to what they’re talking about. It’d be cheaper to just keep subsidizing the Chinese industry rather than invading.

All of this is to say, that China may or may not invade, but TSMC isn’t on the list of reasons. If anything, it’s on the opposite end. China has a LOT of motivation to bomb TSMC to prevent the west from getting chips as if TSMC is gone, then suddenly Chinese 5nm are pretty much the most advanced chips in the world (besides Samsung). Thus, the real conclusion is we need to invest in Samsung, which surprisingly isn’t happening for whatever reason is beyond me.

This is just it getting doled out. You agree to 60 Billion and then you slowly release it as they are doing now. It would be impossible to actually just ship 60 billion worth of weapons, there are logistical issues as well as supply issues. The 60 billion is also partially going to making the missiles and weapons that Ukraine will need in the future.

On the other hand, it would be super cool if humanity figured out teleportation and we could just beam 60 billion dollars worth of goods, but until then, this is what you should expect.

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 yen had an average inflation rate of,82.953%25 of what it could buy back then.

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 ‘lost decade’ in Japan was a period,when it reached a historical maximum of 5.5%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 of the dates shown below%2C there were,local government employees%2C of whom 23%25 work part-time.

More than doubled in a decade.

It’s not a bubble, it’s much much worse. You only hear of it in whispers among the financial world. It’s stagflation. Japan seen this story before, they call it their lost decade that has been going on for nearly half a century. It’s when you deficit spend like crazy to prop up the economy and that leads to high inflation and stubbornly high costs (IE: Housing). It’s coupled with basically no wage growth and high underemployment. Does any of this sound familiar? It buried Japan, it might bury USA.

It’s good that you point that out. Because it shows US really can’t sanction China and only entities within it like it does to its own allies as opposed to straight country sanctions like Iran and North Korea.

https://www.tradecompliance.pitt.edu/embargoed-and-sanctioned-countries

Here’s a list.

In fairness though, that list also shows the US can’t sanction Russia either. So not sure how much of a flex not being able to sanction China is.

Bizarrely there are, that’s what black water essentially is, a paramilitary group that can hold off a military. If you think it’s insane that we allow private companies own their own military, well it is. They of course not allowed to operate on US soil, but they exist.

Even Russia has laws against this, it’s kind of nut USA allows it. Of course, Russian law is one thing and wagers existence shows how well that law is followed. But even the Russian founders understood having a private military is insane.

*Edit arguably, Putin flaunting the law and creating Wagner is a reason he became a dictator and what the country was trying to prevent when they made the laws.

The funny thing is the electoral college was designed to counter exactly this event. In the case an absolute tyrant is going to get voted in, the electoral college is supposed to be the last chance to challenge it. But with the way the GOP is going, ain’t no one gonna challenge anything.

As they say, the devil will come bearing a cross wrapped in the American flag.

How is that different than now? DnD fell apart because Hasbro is a world stage corporation, they’re just trading it to another world stage corporation which will kill it further until they pass it on too.

Whatever you remember liking is long long dead.

Ah America. Where we have the great options of genocidal maniac or other genocidal maniac. You see, we’re better, because we have the freedom to choose!