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Ethiopia becomes first country to ban internal combustion engines: Only EVs allowed
(www.notebookcheck.net)
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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I applaud Ethiopia. Why are they the only ones to do so as drastically as we all should be?
Money. It says so in the article. They can't afford to import fossils anymore but they have enough (or will have enough) domestically produced electricity.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is keeping the prices on fossil fuels low through inefficient subsidies worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Specifically, they are just finishing a rather impressive 5GW hydropower project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam
Because a lot of people are „experts“ in how a country should be run. Like we‘re all master soccer trainers when the worldcup starts.
The fact that a country might lose export or gdp numbers due to its drastic clean air measures is like fingers on a chalk board for these people.
The fact that these numbers are meaningless just shows we‘re all brainwashed to be nice little worker bees and care for our masters wealth more than our own air.
Its the same when a person with 30k yearly income says taxing the rich is bad.
You know you're right, Taxing the rich IS bad. It doesn't go far enough, we should seize all their assets instead. Good thinking imaginary blue collar moron.
Wait, no, that's not what I ...
We should absolutely collect 100% tax on every penny above 999 mil for starters. Trickle down economics is a lie.
That makes absolutely no sense. For one, it's not like there are people who have a billion dollars salary - that's just not how it works.
Second, if you make a hard cutoff like that you disincentivize producing anything above that cutoff, so nobody would ever bother actually making that money if you take it all away anyway.
Third, if your taxes are too too drastic you'll just drive those people and their investment (which - like it or not - still usually has some positive impact) away creating competition for yourself in regions with less strict taxes effectively kneecapping yourself.
It makes all the sense.
I‘m not talking income, I‘m talking assets. Net worth if you will.
Example: you own 3 businesses worth 500 mil $ each (or whatever combination makes sense to you). To make business in a country with this mindset or even travel through it, you can only own up to 999 mil so you either give away 501 mil worh or you are banned from said country.
Your argument is in bad faith because you‘re not actually in the position to be affected by the negative impact of this so you just assume what they will do (not making more money, going to the competition etc.). Billionaires arent smart, they start privileged and are ruthless. We dont need ruthless to survive as a species, nor do we need it to live a good life. I say we need to get rid of it to survive.
Additionally, in opposition what daddy corpo tells you, competition is what makes things evolve. All companies that have killed off competition have slowed down improvement, made everything worse for the customers. Competition between companies is what keeps them improving, not monopolisties.
Classic tech bro speak btw.
FFS. That's not how any of this works. I'm kinda tired of pointing out the issues because your mind is clearly set, so it'll be just a few.
Ahh I see. My bad, that's even dumber than I thought. For starters, you do realize that net worth is a made up number that cannot actually be calculated, right? It's an educated guess, at best.
There is a lot wrong with this thinking, like the fact that "net worth" is not some official number you can actually calculate, it's just a guess.
So because (you think) it doesn't affect me I can't voice my opinion on it and it's automatically bad faith because I disagree? Wow, what a way to discuss.
If your idea led to a change in economy (which it most definitely would), it would affect me. It's kind of sad you don't realize that that is a possibility. Comparatively tiny changes in taxation have had massive impact on some industries, companies, and thus the people employed there.
I see you've met a lot of rich people and know how they operate, why they do what they do, and that all their wealth has been obtained immorally to say the least. That kinda tells me all I need to know.
I'm talking about competition for your country (or whatever region that would enact such rules). That's not a good thing, not for the people living there who would (supposedly) push for such change.
Like, look. I get your sentiment, I also don't like how companies evade taxes and that there's a squeeze on the middle class where a tiny fraction ascends to the 0.01% of wealth while everyone else is pushed towards poverty. That all sucks and should be addressed. But the way you think it can be fixed is just nonsense and sounds like something a 15 year old with no idea how the world works came up with.
I‘m pretty shocked at the amount of condescension and insults you‘re throwing my way. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Frankly, I know a thing or two about making money and building companies. I have built several. I have also met many very rich people. Needless to say I was quite shocked at how few of them are actually competent or even original.
The vast majority I‘ve met is quite smart but vastly more dominant than other people which makes all the difference. There are a few that are outrageously smart but usually thats not the defining factor. Millionaires and billionaires are not great inventors. They‘re good at manipulation first and intelligent second.
Its the same in every class. The narcissists and psychopaths dominate everyone else. I‘m obviously not talking about people who suffer from clinically diagnosed npd and aspd but the undiagnosed „functional“ variety. But I digress.
The important part in the people I talk about (billionaires) isnt making a lot of money. Thats easy if you’re smart and determined or ruthless. The hard part is not losing it, either by being stolen from or making mistakes. But that also does not explain billionaires imo. To go over the top like this, you need to accumulate against any form of empathy you might have with other people. Instead of steadily giving away to others so they can have a life too you need to amass it all in your pocket because others are so beneath you that you dont trust them even the welfare they would be paid from your taxes.
Also, since you dont seem to know the basics of investment: there are extensive archives about every penny these people own. They usually own many companies, which in turn own other companies. Thankfully this is all written down and banks check for this every time someone needs a loan. Otherwise someone like musk wouldn’t have gotten a multi billion dollar loan. It’s incredibly naive to think that its not possible to determine it. The funniest thing is that the government tax agencies make assumptions about your income if you fail to report it and tax you according to it. Thats exactly what I‘m talking about. It would be so easy to make this happen and one reason some people dont want this is because they are so naive to believe they can get there, ever. Otherwise there is no reason for a normal person to accept billionaire overlords.
One other possibility would be that starbucks for example, one of the worst tax evaders in history, would leave your country if they werent allowed to make their business as usual. But what corpo apologists dont see is that this is not how the market works. If they leave, someone else comes. And as much as I despise the leader of russia, making someone follow your law or taking away their IPs was a pretty ballsy move. Thats what I would do with companies that fail to meet the criteria to make business in my country.
It is all a little rough around the edges and someone with a little nuance should sand it down here and there but I‘m pretty sure this would help.
I‘m giving you a chance btw. I wont block you if you do away with the condescension and insults. If you dont, be ready to be blocked.
Have a good one.
Because it's idiocy and it's going to create great hardship for already impoverished people.
Read up on Sri Lanka's big move to being exclusively organic produce. They couldn't afford fertiliser imports so banned all fertiliser and pesticides. It was an unmitigated disaster.
The same is happening here. Their economy is a train wreck, no one will sell them fuel because they don't have any US currency and their own currency could be worthless tomorrow.
This law just makes corrupt border official shenanigans more lucrative. They'll repeal it in 6 months or so when there are riots.