Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
1–10 of 115 posts
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#2Great news for fans of rail and Africans alike. Also: environment is happier.
I'm just amazed at how China is moving forward where other countries (looking at you, USA) simply cannot. What's their secret?
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#3Great news for fans of rail and Africans alike. Also: environment is happier. I'm just amazed at how China is moving forward where other countries (looking at you, USA) simply cannot. What's their secret?
What about the coal-fired plants cheerfully mentioned in the article strikes you as good for the environment?
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#4Great news for fans of rail and Africans alike. Also: environment is happier. I'm just amazed at how China is moving forward where other countries (looking at you, USA) simply cannot. What's their secret?
I read another comment on HN about this recently. Their explanation was that it's due (at least in part) to the high savings rate of the Chinese compared to the USA (and other countries, I guess)[1]. The idea is that when people are stashing their money into bank accounts, the banks have a lot more money to work with.
For example, Americans will use their money to buy cars. The Chinese would save their money, and the banks can use that money to fund transit projects.
I don't know how true this is, but it makes sense in my brain. I'd love to do more reading about this as well. If it's true, that makes it mildly frustrating to me, since I save a lot of my income and refuse to own a car; I don't get any extra public transit out of that, though!
[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/25/china-savings-rate-versus-the...
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#5> For Djibouti, the debt is especially daunting, amounting to 60 percent of its gross domestic product.
This seems absolutely insane to me.
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#6Screw u. USA has been and always will be leading the world. Just wait till we build a wall along the african border. Guess who will pay for that? African! That is the power I am talking about.
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#7> For Djibouti, the debt is especially daunting, amounting to 60 percent of its gross domestic product. This seems absolutely insane to me.
There are about 30 countries with a net government debt greater than 60% of their GDP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_de...
There's another table but it doesn't let you sort by that figure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce...
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#8Screw u. USA has been and always will be leading the world. Just wait till we build a wall along the african border. Guess who will pay for that? African! That is the power I am talking about.
Well, meme is fine for a while. If I saw this in every tangibly relevant post in HN, I will be mad...
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#9Great news for fans of rail and Africans alike. Also: environment is happier. I'm just amazed at how China is moving forward where other countries (looking at you, USA) simply cannot. What's their secret?
What about the coal-fired plants cheerfully mentioned in the article strikes you as good for the environment?
A coal fired plant combined with an electric train and transmission losses is more efficient both energy and emissions-wise than the equivalent ICE engines to transport the same people.
Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help
#10Screw u. USA has been and always will be leading the world. Just wait till we build a wall along the african border. Guess who will pay for that? African! That is the power I am talking about.
Well, meme is fine for a while. If I saw this in every tangibly relevant post in HN, I will be mad...
As if it was in Trump's watch that this situation developed...