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Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

nytimes.com

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Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#81

Post by Sacho »

matt4077 wrote: post #44
gozur88 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there's no actual indication he has any such intentions. I wish people on the left would recover from their hysterical election freakout.

Ahh, the thread is de-railing... I'm busy stopping friends from promoting conspiracy theories and Hitler comparisons left and far-left. Yet the fear voiced in the comment you're replying to doesn't seem to be completely unwarranted. One of the key principles of "democratic procedures" is that the courts have final say over all executive activities. It is obvious that this principle is centre to some of the recent twe…

> One of the key principles of "democratic procedures" is that the courts have final say over all executive activities.

Then surely you support the Republican party? One of their first orders of business after the election was to move to gut Chevron deference[0], a concession by the judicial system towards the executive(essentially, courts would defer the interpretation of a law to the government agencies tasked with enforcing it)[1].

[0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5/te...

[1] https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/01/20/chevron-deference-k...

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#82

Post by omegaworks »

r00fus wrote: post #2

Great 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?

Wanting to grow their geopolitical influence by winning hearts and minds. Wouldn't be surprised if China wasn't making this move for more influence in / around the Bab al-Mandab Strait - the narrow opening of the Red Sea into the Arabian Sea. It's formed by Yemen to the East and Djibouti to the west.

This sea route is the fastest way from Europe to Asia. Tons of oil from the Middle East flows through here.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#84

Post by fegul »

luckystartup wrote: post #74

Does this open up any investment or business opportunities? I feel like the shipping and railroad industry is enormous and impenetrable, but there must be some smaller opportunities in here. Even if it's something sort of intangible, like "increasing transparency and fighting corruption". Because you know some percentage of this money went into the wrong pockets. If you were just a programmer from a western country,…

This opens up a lot of investment/business opportunities.

Ethiopia is land-locked and given its not-so-great relationship with Eritrea, uses Djibouti as its primary port. The time-savings of the railway will bring down port-to-Addis shipment times to 12 hours which is awesome considering it can take 3 days now (although the customs process will need to be improved to really speed it up)

It will also reduce the costs necessary to repair the roadways that trucks take to get to Djibouti and back. The incoming lane on these roads is often rutted like crazy due to the weight of the goods and truck drivers are not always the most reliable people.

Ethiopia is also home to one of the fastest growing economies in the world and it is extremely import-dependent. The lower the costs for transit, the lower the costs for the consumer.

RE: wanting to be where the growth is, you really need to be here to see it (I spend most of my time in Ethiopia) You don't have to know the local language and you don't need millions of dollars but you need to have an appetite for risk and be an extremely patient person. Nothing generally works out the way you think it will here so be open to other outcomes and be resilient through it all.

PM if you have any questions.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#85

Post by brdltbrncle »

It's not a totally rosy picture across the continent. In Kenya, Chinese infrastructure projects are hugely disruptive to local communities and wildlife and are poorly managed and implemented, seemingly providing short-term improvement but questionable over the long term. http://africanbusinessmagazine.com/region/east-africa/rising...

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#86

Post by ChrisjayHenn »

r00fus wrote: post #2

Great 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 think one of their secrets is being a net capital exporter, something the US hasn't been for some time now.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#87

Post by elcapitan »

averagewall wrote: post #76
tomcam wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- They give zero fucks about environmental impact

Environment? It's a desert, you can hardly break it worse than it already is. Also, it's Africa. Concern for the environment is a luxury for rich countries where the people already have a good quality of life and can put more effort into secondary effects like pollution/etc. Ultimately, humans are more important than the environment so where you can give a big boost to the former at a moderate cost to the latter, it…

"Concern for the environment is a luxury for rich countries" because they have methods in place to deal with pollution. In agricultural societies it's not a luxury, but a necessity. Polluting the ground and water has very direct negative health impact, because people can't filter the water or use measures against ground pollution.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#88

Post by throw2016 »

There is a pattern to evolution of societies. A lot of 'third world' countries including social structures are a lot like our societies were 100-200 years ago. Anyone doing even basic research will not fail to see the similarities. There is basic survival, greed, feudal systems, corruption and the primacy of religion and traditional social structures.

Prosperity breaks a lot of these and the evolution of the west came first from economic colonialism and the resulting wealth then spurred on the growth of technology and newer economic, social and political structures.

Without the benefit of colonialism a lot of emerging economies are 'stuck' and they have to deal with extremely powerful and organized entrenched power structures and play by their rules designed to maintain their primacy at all costs.

Isn't this what 'the great game' is? Its got little to do with human rights, humanity, environment or social consciousness. Its purely driven by power, self interest and greed. Its played out in backroom deals, corruption, financial systems, collusion, dirty tricks, geo politics and wars like we see in the middle east and Russia. This is the road China is learning to navigate in Africa. A road already taken by the west 400 years ago. Exciting times ahead.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#89

Post by ww520 »

ezzaf wrote: post #65
ww520 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP is per year while debt is spread over time, like 30 years. Assuming 5%/yr for the amount of interest and principle repayment, 5% x 60% = 3% of GDP for debt service per year. Not too bad. Assuming the project adds 1% to GDP growth, it would boost the GDP by 35% at the end. Adding 2% would boost by 81%. And the effect will continue after the debt has been paid off. That's a good investment.

I don't think you're accounting for interest in that calculation. If they have borrowed 60% of GDP at an interest rate of 3%, it would take a 1.8% annual increase in GDP just to match the interest on the loan. That is also ignoring the fact that you can't just take the entire GDP growth and use it to pay the loan, you have to collect fares and taxes which can only be a proportion of that growth. If you collect more i…

The sample 5%/year loan payment already includes the interest and principle repayment, where the interest rate incidentally is about 3%. Annual debt service is 5% x 60% of GDP = 3% of GDP. As the GDP grows, the portion of the debt service each year becomes less and less, 2.9%, 2.8%, ...

The train system presumably generates revenue, where the operating income can be used to pay off the debt, rather than paid by tax on the GDP. A train system has transformative benefits to a nation. The benefits are still there long after the debt is gone. The ROI period is way longer than 30 years.

Re: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, with China’s Help

#90

Post by EdiX »

matt4077 wrote: post #41
r00fus wrote: post #2

Great 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?

– They can finance stuff like this on credit unchecked by ny public opposition to growing national debt – Having started later than western countries, their public debt (41% GDP) is much lower – High GDP growth rates further lower the effective burden of their debt – They can act largely unencumbered by the historic debt of colonialism, while western countries face opposition both internally as well as locally in the…

geopolitical advantage: when their internal labor becomes too expensive they'll have a place to outsource to.
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