Wealth does not necessarily improve quality of life.

Notably, electricity (among other things) is substantially cheaper in Shanghai.

Tbh this is a better signal for academic integrity checks than it is for anything else

It’s widely known that a number of individuals at top US universities have been directly implicated in falsification scandals… They just get away with it.

Yeah honestly I don’t really understand why Ukraine diverted forces to Kursk. They were dug into strong positions in Donetsk… Positions they’ve since had to give up as the Russian advance picks up pace.

Maybe Syrskyi saw the writing on the wall and went for a hail mary?

To get an idea of margins:

The BYD Seagull sells under the Dolphin Mini name in South America. The Seagull (see specs) is the BYD’s cheapest electric car launched in April last year. Its price range initially lay between 78,800 – 95,800 yuan (10,850 – 13,200 USD)

Isn’t Taiwan the country that literally jails political opponents?

Manufacturing labour costs were $8.31 per hour in China last year, compared with less than $3 in places such as India, Thailand and Vietnam. - The Economist

The Teslas from Shanghai are straight up better than the ones from Fremont… And if we’re being honest Shanghai probably has better quality of life than San Jose.

In Canada, Teslas from Shanghai are by far preferable to the ones from Fremont. Something about those Chinese factories man

looks at China

Manufacturing labour costs were $8.31 per hour in China last year, compared with less than $3 in places such as India, Thailand and Vietnam. - The Economist

looks at Mexico

Anyway, manufacturing in China is a low-skill role that employs a huge proportion of the market. In terms of social/cultural value, its closest parallel in the US would be the retail services sector.

I too love to jail my political competitors after the they successfully split the vote from my real political rival (the KMT) in the last election. A bastion of democracy in East Asia.

They’re CANDU designs, so probably SNC-Lavalin?

This is where China’s “debt trap diplomacy” might actually be beneficial for Kenya…

China’s loans serve to improve the top-line (economic growth), and China’s loan concessions don’t affect that. When Kenya puts Mombasa Port’s 50-year operating and port fees up for collateral, that’s a hit on the bottom line (Kenya’s government revenues) but does not change the fact that the port still exists to drive economic growth. Moreover, often the short-term hit in port revenues is less than the interest that would’ve been paid on the loan, so these collateralized loans are often cashflow neutral or even cashflow positive to default on.

The IMF and World Bank are more focused on padding the bottom line (tax revenues) by increasing taxes and decreasing subsidies. What an insane policy.

If a country can’t grow, how can you expect it to pay off it’s loans? The entire principle of government loans in the 21st century is that GDP growth makes loans progressively less expensive. The IMF and World Bank exist only to keep developing countries poor.

Well, the trade war is also a factor, but what I’m saying is that Chinese government policy is what’s keeping EV manufacturers from selling abroad. The EV supply chain has gotten so robust and cost-efficient in China that the government has to bribe manufacturers to focus their efforts on the domestic market instead of just eating the cake of everyone else.

You didn’t have to inject your pedantry everywhere either over 10% losses, and yet here we are.

AC/DC converter losses are on the order of 10%. Negligible, and don’t change the point. Your pedantry is noted and ignored.

Every single Chinese EV manufacturer wants to go make sales abroad because the price war in China makes profits barely attainable, but government policy and subsidies keep sales within the country.

The open secret is that China’s EV subsidies are designed to keep sales within the country, because otherwise Chinese EV companies could make obscenely higher margins selling overseas.

The BYD Seagull ($9700 in China) is being sold as the BYD Dolphin Mini in Mexico… For $21000.

The BYD Seal U (€19400 in China) is being sold in Germany for €41990.

Sanders could’ve won against Trump in 2016 and he could’ve won against in 2020. Yet, here we are in 2024…

Lai is a short-sighted idiot that would rather be dependent on external seaborne LNG imports than maintain any degree of energy independence with nuclear.

I don’t think I need to say anything about how bad natural gas is.

How much internal migration between Crimea and other regions has there been? The population of Crima has hovered around 2 million for decades.