The U.S. and China led the growth in global defense spending, which hit a new high in 2020 despite the economic stress brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, a report said Thursday.

In its annual report on military power, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said total military expenditures added up to $1.83 trillion in 2020, a 3.9% increase over the previous year. “This came despite the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent contraction in global economic output,” the London-based think tank said in a statement.

The United States remained the top spender, accounting for 40.3% of global spending. But China and other Asian powers concerned about Beijing’s rise also spent more, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in 2019 because of the pandemic, IISS said in its “Military Balance” report.

In Asia, overall spending was up 4.3%, down from the 4.9% growth rate of the previous year. Beijing boosted expenditures by $12 billion, or 5.2 %, with total spending at $193.3 billion.

Only army and tech/media giants are holding US now, and one can not exist without the other.

China-based power MOSFET and other power device suppliers have already raised their quotes by 10-15% recently amid tight foundry capacity, and will make another upward price adjustments, according to industry sources.

And it is same across many things, not MOSFET's only.

Mordor must take measures to reduce its dependence on the American currency, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. According to him, steps need to be taken due to new possible US sanctions.

“We need to isolate ourselves from the US financial and economic system in order to get rid of dependence on this toxic source of constant hostility ... We need to reduce the role of the dollar in any transactions,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Biggest catch here is that all USD accounts of our banks (including all personal account of clients) are located in US banks in reality. So blocking this money is possible and as we have huge amount of USD personal savings it can be big hit.

Mordor is one of the most liberal countries in this regard for now, with lot of people having savings in USD, EUR and lot of other currencies. As leading banks here have superb internal bank software and apps - it is very easy to do, including fast transfers and access to low fees exchange on FOREX or alike.

State Central Planning Committee existed in different forms since 1921, today is exactly 100 years from day of creation.

And must fun and absurd thing is that head of Gosplan, Nikolai Baibakov, had been real author of capitalism restoration in USSR:

This guy made gas for tubes agreement, before this invented way to support capitalists using oil and do many other things. Very versatile guy, he helped to make Chechnya problem in 50s and he was helping from safety during critical phase of counterrevolution - so called 1957 anti party group defeat.
Most serious USSR defeat in WWII, 1942 event - retreat from Ukraine that had been stopped only in Stalingrad can be also authored by this man, as few months before this he become responsible to fuel supply to armies and got access to all information about tanks and other motor forces. Researches still need to investigate this more.

In 1986 he went into shade to ensure stability in dangerous phase, but during restoration process in 1986-1991 three of his right hand people guided the country. One had been prime minister, second had been head of Gosplan and third wrote all major laws allowing restoration of private property, banks and so on. And Gorbachev just did the speaking and photos :-)

Proof exist because in China the plan failed, Rishkov (prime minister) and Maslyukov (head of Gosplan at the time) wanted to help open counterrevolution in China in 1989 and diring vamous Gorbachev visit at the time openly asked top officials to make communist party to step down and to "introduce democracy". Such way we know that they had been dangerous and long prepared traitors. Rishkov recently told top secret information that he headed special committee on capitalism restoration in 1983.

His people also saved capitalists during 1998 issues as they went from hiding back into open ruling for a short while.