Let me use a few historical facts to make the point that the CCP under the middle school dropout (a.k.a. General Secretary Xi) has lost its competitive edge. It is an indisputable fact that the CCP has beaten its opponents multiple times. For example, it beat the KMT and took over China. It has been beating the US in most aspects for the past few decades. IMHO, its success can be attributed to two factors:  They do not play by rules or respect contracts/agreements while their competitors do.   Pragmatism at a few critical points. Examples for #1: They agreed and promised everyone that they would fight the Imperial Japanese Army but instead, they colluded with the IJA and backstabbed the KMT which troops were making extraordinary sacrifices to fight the invaders.  They promised a lot of things while trying to join the WTO by fooling the US but largely ignored them. The CCP does not even bother to abide by the very constitution devised by themselves. To the CCP...

There is a good chance that the middle school dropout’s (a.k.a. General Secretary Xi) zero-tolerance idiocy will generate a situation very similar to that created by Mao’s Great Leap idiocy though not at the same scale of mass deaths but in terms of the power struggle and economy. I never believe Mao used the Great Leap to kill people in mass despite he was a ruthless monster. I believe he intended to generate an economic great leap. His biggest sin was continuing his idiocy when he already knew it caused mass starvation. Mao also purged those trying to stop his idiocy. In other words, the famine could have killed 10 million instead of 40 million if Mao had had some appreciation for human lives. The MSD’s zero-tolerance is generating a lot of pain for the people and businesses. I am sure some senior CCP officials have realized this because it is so obvious but they dare not to challenge the MSD. The MSD may purge those challenging his idiocy until the country can no longer bear it....

 It is challenging to estimate the number of lives saved by COVID vaccines. The easiest and quickest way is comparing a country with high a high vaccination rate with a country with a low vaccination rate. Russia has a low vaccination rate and there are questions about the efficacy of its COVID vaccine. To be conservative in estimating the number of Americans saved by the vaccines, let us suppose vaccines have not helped Russia, so its excess deaths represent what would happen to a country without the benefits of vaccines. Though Russia's vaccination rate has reached 50%, most of excess deaths occurred when the vaccination rate was below 30. Russia has 7,154 excess deaths per million by December 30, 2021. If the US had this excess death rate, the total excess deaths would be about 2.4 million.  The US had 909,943 reported excess deaths by November 28, 2021. Considering the data delay, to be conservative again, let us assume the US had 1 million excess deaths by December 30, 20...