Quote from: TheGreatPython on Today at 09:01:29 AM

Considering USA has a bigger military budget than 25 next nations combined,

That means nothing because:

1. Everything is ultra expensive in US. That means manufacturing the simplest thing in US costs a lot more compared to manufacturing the same exact thing elsewhere. For example a single missile in Patriot system that can't shoot shit costs over $3 million! Same with salaries. A quick google search says a US soldier is paid starting from $2944 (that is $500 in Russia).
Same with literary everything else. A kilo of potato costs $1.05 in US but it is $0.4 here.

2. A large part of that budget is wasted on adventures. For example when they fly one of their oldest and most useless planes like B-52 for media coverage it costs a ton of money (roughly $70k per hour). This is money wasted.

3. A large part of that budget is wasted on stupid projects. As Secretary of Defense Esper said, they'd wasted billions of dollars on projects such as the Crusader Mobile Artillery System and Future Combat System, etc. all silly projects created by those who scammed the US military out of billions of dollars.

4. What they build using that money is also proven to be useless. I already mentioned their defense systems like Patriot that are completely useless. Their aircraft is also far behind the technology and are useless against modern air defense systems. Same with their radars, navy, etc.

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Definitely, it looks like Russia can do this much longer and they are doing financially fine "now", but the moment they realize they do not have too many more soldiers left to send, and too many weapons to attack with, I agree that those asset numbers will force them to stop and USA could prolong this as long as they want. They have the assets for it, and they are not the ones dying.

I agree with this to some extent. US will continue the proxy war with Russia to the last Ukrainian as long as they can. What I'm afraid of is how long is Russia going to tolerate the losses before they start using "other" type of weapons on Ukraine.
I already mentioned US wants to turn Ukraine to Afghanistan for Russia since US was caught in Afghanistan for 20 years and wasted thousands of troops and $7 trillion. I should also mention US at some point used MOAB in Afghanistan in 2017 after being stuck there for 16 years which is 16 years of losing...

Quote from: Smack That Ace on Today at 10:09:43 AM

Inflation is causing a crisis for the American people but has pushed the USD to a new position, affirming the dominant position of the USD. The US dollar appreciates in favor of the US in lending and debt repayment. This is considered a tool to export US inflation to the world.

I'm curiously watching to see how US is going to deal with the fact that more than 60% of the world is starting a new economic bloc that is not only not going to use USD but also is going to use a new currency among them.
In other words US is going to export its inflation to Europe mainly not the world.