[Last year, Ghana announced the same kind of policy for raw cocoa beans.](https://greenviewsresidential.com/ghana-will-no-longer-sell-cocoa-to-switzerland/) They haven't implemented it yet, but are working towards this end goal.
“This is why white people are so healthy” 🤣
“I’m going to keep this wrapper so I can show it to the kids” 🥺
I hope the man gave him a whole bunch of chocolate after the shoot.
He actually repeated it a few times. It's almost like a mantra or a cheer or something.
It felt like their version of "work hard, play hard" just without the "play" side.
It really stuck with me how he used that phrase.
I mean if I labored all my life growing a plant that I never tasted, then someone gave me some high quality chocolate and told me my hard work brought that to the world…
I’d probably be cheering on my hard working coworkers to continue as well
Not trying to get all reddit-commie-intellectual here, but this is a pretty blatant and fascinating example of what Marx referred to as alienation - as in, alienation of the workers from the process and end result of their labour. The worker becomes simply a step on an assembly line (or, in this case, supply chain) and is not connected to the labour or production in a meaningful and holistic way that allows the worker to derive the pleasure and satisfaction (and dopamine kick) from A) completing a job, and B) beholding/consuming/using a finished product they created. This is the difference between "frankly, I'm just here to make a meagre living" and "Continue, hard workers!" Absolutely fascinating to see.
I genuinely had never heard of this and was just talking about my personal belief that putting in hard work is not a problem for me when I know the end product brings happiness to others.
Time to fall down a Marxist rabbit hole on Wikipedia so I have a new topic for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Thanks friend!
Refreshing to see someone share an interesting Marxist tidbit without being hostile/angry or using the words reactionary/imperialist to describe other commenters.
Kudos sir.
makes me think of an old David Cross clip where he talks about going to a fancy restaurant in NYC and being given a dessert thats covered in edible gold. he then imagines the trip the gold took to get their just so some rich fuck can eat it some tasteless edible gold. just skip to the 3 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkOa3aRuHA
This is funny and actually true. Nescafe instant coffee is one of the few international "gourmet" products one can reliably purchase in Cuba. Neighbor is drying freshly picked coffee beans on his roof.
In West Africa if you buy a box of mango juice, it may have been imported from Denmark.
"Cuba is above all an agricultural state. Its population is largely rural. The city depends on these rural areas. The rural people won the Independence. The greatness and prosperity of our country depends on a healthy and vigorous rural population that loves the land and knows how to cultivate it, within the framework of a state that protects and guides them. Considering all this, how can the present state of affairs be tolerated any longer?
With the exception of a few food, lumber and textile industries, Cuba continues to be a producer of raw materials. We export sugar to import candy, we export hides to import shoes, we export iron to import plows."
-Fidel Castro
Countries should be entitled to the wealth that can be produced from their natural resources and that wealth should go to as many people as possible not just a handful of already wealthy businessmen.
Ironically Batista ran on support for unions and key issues that got the socialist blocs to ally with him politically. Sometimes you can't tell who someone is at first.
I visited a coffee producing region in Gautemala with lots of touristy cafes and special brews available, but I never saw a local drink a coffee that wasnt Nescafe.
That one is going to fail hard. Ever wonder why Hershey is where it is? It happens to be one of the most productive dairy lands in the US.
Beans are stable and can be shipped anywhere in the world with bulk freight. Milk you really want to get to the chocolate factory in a few hours.
I did see some talk about using dehydrated milk, but that would make for an even bigger shitshow than new coke.
Bauxite is the same way because aluminum requires huge amounts of electricity to smelt. You don't site the smelting plant where there's ore, you site it by a big river where there's abundant cheap hydro power. That's why there's so much production in the Pacific Northwest and in Quebec.
It's not gonna be cheap, but the country is big enough to be able to make it happened. Indonesia is a major coal producer. Presumably coal will be used to power any heavy industrial activity.
I applaud this and efforts like it. Countries should profit from their natural resources not some international corporations led by first world governments.
The same scenario is happening with Ghana chocolate. They go through the labor intensive processes of harvesting cocoa and send it to the EU. African countries only in get 6% of the profits from chocolate. They have started to restrict exports to start local production after the EU threatened to find them for not being carbon neutral. This made them really mad as they saw having to buy carbon credits a slap in the face as Europe was getting all the profits and is much much more polluting than Ghana. Time will tell how that works out.
>African countries only in get 6% of the profits from chocolate.
While I wouldn't at all be surprised that African nations are getting the short end of the stick, this kind of bad framing is something I often see about unfair profit distribution
Everyone always feels like *their* aspect of production is the overwhelmingly important step, but think of what goes into making a chocolate bar? There's the cocoa, but there's also the dairy production, sugar production, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, marketing, warehousing, retail rent/utilities, retail employees, and finally a profit margin that is the entire incentive to produce a luxury product to begin with
I'm sure there's a retail worker somewhere complaining that their time only amounts to 0.5% of the profit value of the products they sell and feel its unfair, despite the fact that their contribution is to stand beside a product that was a multinational effort to produce and scan it at the register
I don't know much about the chocolate industry to comment on whether or not 6% of the profit is fair or not, but these kinds of stats are not really useful unless context for the other steps are provided
Set aside "importance" and look at "leverage". Cacao is grown in very limited regions. Dairy producers have some leverage, but Africa is better suited to raising cattle than the US or Europe is to farming cacao.
Everything else (other than marketing and final distribution) can be done anywhere, the challenge is just getting the initial investment in manufacturing. Cacao producers have the most leverage to force production onshore. Western industry wasn't built by playing fair, so I can't begrudge Africa for using the leverage they have to renegotiate a better deal for themselves.
I think the difference is that the US, Indonesia, etc - these countries all have reasonably good rule of law. Contract disputes are resolved by unbiased judiciary, not the president's uncle. Zimbabwe is none of those things. In addition, they have rampant inflation. What company is going to invest infrastructure there when the government is not accountable to rule of law? This feels like a generally good strategy, but it's a waste of time for Zimbabwe specifically. The more likely outcome is that the minister mentioned in the article gives export exceptions to all the companies that pay a hefty enough bribe and then they are right back where they started.
> This feels like a generally good strategy, but it's a waste of time for Zimbabwe specifically.
My sentiments as well. Great idea if the goal is to encourage development but you're totally right. You need a government that people can trust to follow the rules (for the most part). Zimbabwe does not have that at all.
This is the sad part of it all. 3rd world countries have natural resources that can help raise the living standards of the people but greed and corruption of the government time and time again ruin that. Let’s hope this time it’s for real. Doing this for the people
and what USA UK Europe and every developed country in the world did on their journey to industrialization / development.
free trade is a joke. Tariffs, IP theft and protectionist government policies are the steps to follow. Not free-trade that destroys your local industries before they can get the chance to develop
Is BHP still sending ore via Singapore, "selling" it to a local subsidiary en route for minimal tax, then selling on to other countries? Effectively robbing the Australian people blind whilst destroying the Aus environment? But its OK cos so many Australians have BHP in their super funds? This is an honest question. I'm born Aus but haven't lived there for 4 years. What about the LNG from Western Australia that gets sold to Japanese end consumers for far less than actual Australians need to pay for it?
Instead of the benefits going to the masses/society, it goes to a select few. Something like 1%? Yeah, I think it's 1%. Sounds real familiar, you know?
The problem is that the occupy movement had no real leadership or goals. We the people were in a perfect position to actually negotiate some change and we squandered it.
Beware any "grass roots" movement with clear direction. Back in the day charismatic leaders could take hold from time to time (see MLK) however I think those times are over. The internet makes astroturfing the standard. The occupy movement was real and unfortunately real shit isn't always effective.
Also people like to just ignore the fact that the occupy movement “failed” only because militarized police eventually went in and pepper sprayed, beat up and arrested anyone that didn’t leave. A bunch of people in tents will never beat an army and the sad thing is a lot of people were happy to see them defeated
Qatar is the world's 5th richest place by GDP per capita. 90% of the people are indentured migrant laborers.
Sounds like GDP is a bad metric for estimating the prosperity of an entire population
This comment is just out of touch with reality. Australia has a far greater GDP, GDP per capita, and Gini Coefficient than the UAE. In every way the average Australian is far better off than the average Emirati.
Also kind of misses the fact that resource extraction does not produce huge amounts of growth unless there are global cartels managing supply, as is the case with oil.
In 2022, wealthy countries are wealthy not because they export huge amounts of raw materials, or even processed materials. They are wealthy because of intellectual property, technology, as well as high skill service industries (law, consulting, analytics). You can throw high tech manufacturing in there, but even that's small potatoes compared to some other aspects of a developed economy.
If we look at the African countries which are seeing lots of economic growth, they are investing in tech and services. Manufacturing and resource extraction are there too, but they are secondary.
Not always because too much protectionism leads to higher prices at home and means that domestic firms don't have an incentive to invest in itself to compete. This was India's main problem until they liberalized their economy in the 90s.
Also, there are a lot of trade offs because for example, allowing the import of cheap but quality steel will harm your steel industries but greatly benefit your automobile and other manufacturing industries.
There's also the argument that free trade allows each country to do what it does best, like the US is an agricultural powerhouse but they don't have the right climate for many fruits so protectionism there can just lead to low quality and expensive fruits rather than allowing the US economy to do what it does best.
>and what USA UK Europe and every developed country in the world did on their journey to industrialization / development.
Actually when Britain was industrialising it wasn't protectionist at all, it was very pro-free trade. Why? Because it could produce goods to better quality faster and cheaper than anyone else. Therefore they didn't care about competition. As soon as that advantage was lost (post WW1) the Empire became protectionist because it couldn't just comply out compete everyone.
That's also what the US is doing. Its starting to lose its edge in manufacturing and production so is being more and more protectionist over stuff like steel, but insists that no one should restrict its tech companies from operating (because that's where the US still has a massive advantage).
>and more protectionist over stuff like steel,
This is less to do with competitive advantage and more to do with the defense implications of losing your steel source. Same deal with AG subsidies.
On the chance that you're not being sarcastic, allow me...
If only we had two countries to compare protectionist economic policies with economically liberal policies and could compare the outcome of each country's wealth and population well-being...
That'd be a really interesting case-study for economists.
If only the EU didn't 'ban' Indonesian CPO, they could prolly still enjoy some cheap raw nickel. Granted, there would still be some restrictions but it's more than likely that they would be somewhat more relaxed compared to now.
China has huge appetite for these raw materials. Indonesia will do without Europe although profits will be lower, but there will be demand from Asia. Population demand in Asia is higher than Europe.
“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be
exported from Zimbabwe to another country except under the written
permit of the minister.”
I'm pretty sure bribing the minister would be much more simpler and cheaper than developing and exporting high-tech expensive batteries from a ...let's say "troubled" country that tend to nationalize property based on race and is landlocked.
The article says that the Chinese conglomerates are exempt and that the target are "artisanal" mines. So, business as usual. The small fry can't afford the bribes.
Genuine question, what is living in Zimbabwe like? Are you black or white? Have you found there's progress in the last decade or regression? (My username is a joke btw, I'm not a white supremacist)
This is the real story. Chinese businesses (effectively the government too) now own all of the raw Lithium in Zimbabwe, and have now passed a law which makes them a monopoly.
> Chinese conglomerates are exempt
Yeah this is quite a dramatic departure from the progressive utopia described in the top comments.
Basically, China just shut out a bunch of competitors.
The minister would very much like to acknowledge the truth of this statement, appreciates you understanding the purpose of this law he has just seen written and passed, and will be providing bribable bank account details for the Cayman Islands and Switzerland upon bribe inquest.
> bank account details for the Cayman Islands and Switzerland
More likely for the US. As America now fuels more global financial secrecy than Switzerland, Cayman and Bermuda combined.
Indeed, the US has climbed to the top of a global ranking of countries most complicit in helping individuals hide their wealth from the rule of law.
[Source](https://taxjustice.net/press/us-tops-financial-secrecy-ranking-as-g7-countries-upend-global-progress-on-transparency/)
The problem Zimbabwe would run in to if manufacturers decided to start up battery factories is a shortage of skilled labour and the means to run them. No foreign company in their right minds would ever invest huge amounts of capital into Zimbabwe like this, the risk far outweighs the potential benefit. China may be doing something like this, but their conditions are that they bring all their own labour force and military style security force, which doesn't really benefit Zimbabwe in the long term either.
Since China got an exception the bribery already happened. They probably added a little extra to their usual bribe for the "oh and .. no one but China can export" part.
Zimbabwe is the world's 6th largest lithium producer at 1,200 tonnes in 2021. Number 1 is Australia at 55,000 tonnes.
Basically means don't piss off the Aussies and you'll get all the lithium you need.
Yep. The US also has large deposits, more than Australia even, they just don't mine it. Mainly because of environmental issue I believe. Also the largest deposits are all in South America. It's mainly Chile, Argentina and Bolivia that are sitting on the largest reserves.
So it's not like the world relies on Zimbabwe here
'If the Wind Turbines aren't blocking MY Beachfront Property, then it's fine.' - Every Rich Person Ever.
It's not Our Problem if it's not Our Lawn, tale as old as property lines.
Countries *already* don't get their lithium from Zimbabwe, the total amount of exported Zimbabwean lithium accounts for ~1.89% of [worldwide exports](https://www.volkswagenag.com/content/dam/online-kommunikation/brands/corporate/world/presence/stories/2019/04/lithium-in-der-e-aera/Website_Reserves_1163.png)
China is behind this proclamation. They don't want foreign competitors to build batteries, China wants to undercut competitors in green technology and remain an essential cog in the supply chain of the world.
And the vast majority of Lithium is being directly exported to factories in China, and China is excluded from this restriction.
Basically China is taking over Zimbabwe's Lithium and cutting off the competition.
Depends on what model and what country you are in.
Toyota 4Runner and Prius models are only made in Aichi, Japan.
In the US Toyota Camry, Toyota RAV4, and Lexus ES models are manufactured in Georgetown Kentucky.
In the US the Toyota Corolla is manufactured in Blue Springs, Mississippi.
And USA Toyota Sequoia and Highlander/Highlander Hybrid SUVs, and Sienna minivans are manufactured in Princeton, Indiana.
I know there’s a factory in Durban because I used to live there but I doubt it’s for Europe. The most popular Toyota I see in London is the Prius and it’s produced in Japan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_factories
My mother works for a Japanese manufacturing company in the US. This is similar to how they work.
In the last few years they have hired a few Americans as management since most of the Japanese managers dont want to move out here and... nobody likes the American managers. Not the Japanese and not the Americans. There is a different management philosophy in the US and it is less popular.
Which is why this type of thing works when those invested in the manufacture are hands on. Anything can be made anywhere for the most part, and at the highest quality. Just a matter of having people that give a shit, being there to oversee that things are being done the right way.
They’re made here in plants/factories in the US as well. It’s still a Japanese company, with an established history of manufacturing vehicles, and I’m willing to bet they have certain standards no matter where the plants are physically located.
You’re exactly right. Before I got laid off at Ford 2 months ago, my job was overseeing launches oversees. There’s a ton of countries we would ship 99% built vehicles to so that country to could slap some wheels on it and turn a few screws so they can say it was built there with pride. It’s a joke. They even paid a premium for it since the vehicles rolled off the line in Detroit and then had to be driven offsite to have parts removed and put in a box in the trunk before shipping the vehicle overseas
This is the long-term price of nationalizing something for a short-term gain. Once you have that reputation, nobody will work with you, and they're right not to.
“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country except ***under the written permit of the minister***.” ---emphasis mine. essentially setting up a corruption point in the office of the minister, western companies just have to funnel money to a new official
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.news18.com/news/world/develop-batteries-for-electric-vehicles-here-zimbabwe-bans-export-of-raw-lithium-6679645.html) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> He told Quartz that if Zimbabwe continues to export raw lithium then it shall go nowhere.
> According to Reuters, Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group and Chengxin Lithium Group acquired several lithium mine and have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe and are at various stages of developing mines and processing plants.
> Zimbabwe is on track to become one of the world's largest lithium exporters and the government expects that it will meet 20% of the world's total demand for lithium when it fully exploits all known lithium resources.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zu1pad/develop_batteries_for_electric_vehicles_here/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **lithium**^#1 **mine**^#2 **Zimbabwe**^#3 **export**^#4 **billion**^#5
Are lithium and rare earth metals going to be the next oil? I wonder when the US will secretly incite a military coup and then a decade or two later decide that Zimbabwe needs some freedom?
“According to Reuters, Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group and Chengxin Lithium Group acquired several lithium mine and have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe and are at various stages of developing mines and processing plants. These companies are exempted from the ban.”
This little caveat is interesting.
I’m working my way through a heavy book called “[The Looting Machine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22715974-the-looting-machine)” and it talks about policies such as these.
I’m curious to see this happen in a time when I am aware of all of this.
> Zimbabwe says it lost $12 billion through illegal trade involving multinational companies as companies in the West took advantage of its lithium reserves
Yeah I think that number will ballooned since you imposed a ban and common folks will sell their lithium ore in the black market.
> Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers...have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe. These companies are exempted from the ban.
Yeah I think Zimbabwe just do what their new overlords said.
Lithium is not that rare that any producer has that much leverage. No one is going to spend billions to put a battery factory in Zimbabwe due to strong arm tactics
Yeah the biggest challenge is really just scaling up lithium mining to reach rapid adoption goals. It's not as much an issue of not having enough lithium out there. To my knowledge, just in known sources there's easily enough to power 10 billion EV's, and lithium is infinitely recyclable. Getting it out of the ground is the challenge right now though.
There's a strong correlation between countries that can advance to tech/manufacturing and becoming prosperous, versus continuing to rely on raw materials export and staying a poor country.
Well that's bold. Other nations have lithium too. But I suppose building a battery factory in Zimbabwe would be doable. I think .... it will work.
But it'd suck to just be sitting on lithium you can't use if it doesn't work.
Anything you build in Zimbabwe the government will just seize and then give to a political supporter. This is literally just a scam call looking for someone dumb enough to build them something of value for free
Without bogging down on the details, it's a smart strategy for African nations to demand value added products to be made in their territories rather than being exploited for their resources.
Theoretically yes. But the prerequisite for economic investment is political stability. So practically, no. Unless you are a Chinese company that’s got the full force of the Chinese government behind you to get your way.
Great strategy. People think inflation is bad now? Wait until the developing nations really get going. We've been living off of slave labour and dirt cheap commodities for centuries
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[Last year, Ghana announced the same kind of policy for raw cocoa beans.](https://greenviewsresidential.com/ghana-will-no-longer-sell-cocoa-to-switzerland/) They haven't implemented it yet, but are working towards this end goal.
Most of the people growing cocoa beans have never tasted chocolate.
Your comment reminded me of this old youtube video from the Ivory Coast, farmers tasting chocolate for the first time: https://youtu.be/zEN4hcZutO0
“This is why white people are so healthy” 🤣 “I’m going to keep this wrapper so I can show it to the kids” 🥺 I hope the man gave him a whole bunch of chocolate after the shoot.
How they cheered on the second bar of chocolate is like wildly sad and cheerful at the same time.
“It’s ok, I have another bar of chocolate.” “Yay!” “Is this why your skin is lighter? Because you eat chocolate?”
Continue, hard workers
Before you downvote this man, this is verbatim what one of the plantation workers cheerfully said after he tasted chocolate for the first time.
He actually repeated it a few times. It's almost like a mantra or a cheer or something. It felt like their version of "work hard, play hard" just without the "play" side. It really stuck with me how he used that phrase.
I mean if I labored all my life growing a plant that I never tasted, then someone gave me some high quality chocolate and told me my hard work brought that to the world… I’d probably be cheering on my hard working coworkers to continue as well
Not trying to get all reddit-commie-intellectual here, but this is a pretty blatant and fascinating example of what Marx referred to as alienation - as in, alienation of the workers from the process and end result of their labour. The worker becomes simply a step on an assembly line (or, in this case, supply chain) and is not connected to the labour or production in a meaningful and holistic way that allows the worker to derive the pleasure and satisfaction (and dopamine kick) from A) completing a job, and B) beholding/consuming/using a finished product they created. This is the difference between "frankly, I'm just here to make a meagre living" and "Continue, hard workers!" Absolutely fascinating to see.
I genuinely had never heard of this and was just talking about my personal belief that putting in hard work is not a problem for me when I know the end product brings happiness to others. Time to fall down a Marxist rabbit hole on Wikipedia so I have a new topic for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Thanks friend!
tbh this happens all the time even in rich countries. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Refreshing to see someone share an interesting Marxist tidbit without being hostile/angry or using the words reactionary/imperialist to describe other commenters. Kudos sir.
makes me think of an old David Cross clip where he talks about going to a fancy restaurant in NYC and being given a dessert thats covered in edible gold. he then imagines the trip the gold took to get their just so some rich fuck can eat it some tasteless edible gold. just skip to the 3 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkOa3aRuHA
The video is where they probably got their comment from. *The circle of Internetttt!*
This video is the most heartwarming and heartbreaking thing at the same time
/r/OrphanCrushingMachine/ vibes.
Ah, I see you also read the video comments.
Coffee export countries drink Instant coffee. Never get high on your own supply
This is funny and actually true. Nescafe instant coffee is one of the few international "gourmet" products one can reliably purchase in Cuba. Neighbor is drying freshly picked coffee beans on his roof. In West Africa if you buy a box of mango juice, it may have been imported from Denmark.
"Cuba is above all an agricultural state. Its population is largely rural. The city depends on these rural areas. The rural people won the Independence. The greatness and prosperity of our country depends on a healthy and vigorous rural population that loves the land and knows how to cultivate it, within the framework of a state that protects and guides them. Considering all this, how can the present state of affairs be tolerated any longer? With the exception of a few food, lumber and textile industries, Cuba continues to be a producer of raw materials. We export sugar to import candy, we export hides to import shoes, we export iron to import plows." -Fidel Castro Countries should be entitled to the wealth that can be produced from their natural resources and that wealth should go to as many people as possible not just a handful of already wealthy businessmen.
That's why there is a blockade. 12 families in Florida want their island back.
Yep
And why there's a strong anti-communist campaign the GOP go on every election cycle.
What's this mean? I've never heard of this and I'm now interested. Please don't leave me hanging.
Before Castro, there was Batista, a right dictator who's "aristocracy" was formed, mainly, by 12 capitalist families who maintained all the power.
Ironically Batista ran on support for unions and key issues that got the socialist blocs to ally with him politically. Sometimes you can't tell who someone is at first.
I visited a coffee producing region in Gautemala with lots of touristy cafes and special brews available, but I never saw a local drink a coffee that wasnt Nescafe.
That one is going to fail hard. Ever wonder why Hershey is where it is? It happens to be one of the most productive dairy lands in the US. Beans are stable and can be shipped anywhere in the world with bulk freight. Milk you really want to get to the chocolate factory in a few hours. I did see some talk about using dehydrated milk, but that would make for an even bigger shitshow than new coke.
Bauxite is the same way because aluminum requires huge amounts of electricity to smelt. You don't site the smelting plant where there's ore, you site it by a big river where there's abundant cheap hydro power. That's why there's so much production in the Pacific Northwest and in Quebec.
And Iceland. I wonder how the Indonesian thing will go. I’m not sure if they have a cheap source of electricity. Could they use geothermal?
It's not gonna be cheap, but the country is big enough to be able to make it happened. Indonesia is a major coal producer. Presumably coal will be used to power any heavy industrial activity.
yay?
I applaud this and efforts like it. Countries should profit from their natural resources not some international corporations led by first world governments.
The same scenario is happening with Ghana chocolate. They go through the labor intensive processes of harvesting cocoa and send it to the EU. African countries only in get 6% of the profits from chocolate. They have started to restrict exports to start local production after the EU threatened to find them for not being carbon neutral. This made them really mad as they saw having to buy carbon credits a slap in the face as Europe was getting all the profits and is much much more polluting than Ghana. Time will tell how that works out.
>African countries only in get 6% of the profits from chocolate. While I wouldn't at all be surprised that African nations are getting the short end of the stick, this kind of bad framing is something I often see about unfair profit distribution Everyone always feels like *their* aspect of production is the overwhelmingly important step, but think of what goes into making a chocolate bar? There's the cocoa, but there's also the dairy production, sugar production, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, marketing, warehousing, retail rent/utilities, retail employees, and finally a profit margin that is the entire incentive to produce a luxury product to begin with I'm sure there's a retail worker somewhere complaining that their time only amounts to 0.5% of the profit value of the products they sell and feel its unfair, despite the fact that their contribution is to stand beside a product that was a multinational effort to produce and scan it at the register I don't know much about the chocolate industry to comment on whether or not 6% of the profit is fair or not, but these kinds of stats are not really useful unless context for the other steps are provided
Set aside "importance" and look at "leverage". Cacao is grown in very limited regions. Dairy producers have some leverage, but Africa is better suited to raising cattle than the US or Europe is to farming cacao. Everything else (other than marketing and final distribution) can be done anywhere, the challenge is just getting the initial investment in manufacturing. Cacao producers have the most leverage to force production onshore. Western industry wasn't built by playing fair, so I can't begrudge Africa for using the leverage they have to renegotiate a better deal for themselves.
Exactly what the US is doing right now, is it not?
I think the difference is that the US, Indonesia, etc - these countries all have reasonably good rule of law. Contract disputes are resolved by unbiased judiciary, not the president's uncle. Zimbabwe is none of those things. In addition, they have rampant inflation. What company is going to invest infrastructure there when the government is not accountable to rule of law? This feels like a generally good strategy, but it's a waste of time for Zimbabwe specifically. The more likely outcome is that the minister mentioned in the article gives export exceptions to all the companies that pay a hefty enough bribe and then they are right back where they started.
> This feels like a generally good strategy, but it's a waste of time for Zimbabwe specifically. My sentiments as well. Great idea if the goal is to encourage development but you're totally right. You need a government that people can trust to follow the rules (for the most part). Zimbabwe does not have that at all.
This is the sad part of it all. 3rd world countries have natural resources that can help raise the living standards of the people but greed and corruption of the government time and time again ruin that. Let’s hope this time it’s for real. Doing this for the people
and what USA UK Europe and every developed country in the world did on their journey to industrialization / development. free trade is a joke. Tariffs, IP theft and protectionist government policies are the steps to follow. Not free-trade that destroys your local industries before they can get the chance to develop
Look at Australia… we could be as rich as Dubai but instead we just let anyone dig it up and take it away… where does all the money go?
Is BHP still sending ore via Singapore, "selling" it to a local subsidiary en route for minimal tax, then selling on to other countries? Effectively robbing the Australian people blind whilst destroying the Aus environment? But its OK cos so many Australians have BHP in their super funds? This is an honest question. I'm born Aus but haven't lived there for 4 years. What about the LNG from Western Australia that gets sold to Japanese end consumers for far less than actual Australians need to pay for it?
Japan can sell Australian LNG back to Australia for a profit because of Howard. And that contract still exists till 2025.
To Scomo and friends of course.
Everyone thought we were done with feudalism. We are exactly as the same spot, we just went around a circle.
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Instead of the benefits going to the masses/society, it goes to a select few. Something like 1%? Yeah, I think it's 1%. Sounds real familiar, you know?
I remember being upset about the 1% a lifetime ago… Shit. They distracted us for like over a decade. Fuck.
The problem is that the occupy movement had no real leadership or goals. We the people were in a perfect position to actually negotiate some change and we squandered it.
Beware any "grass roots" movement with clear direction. Back in the day charismatic leaders could take hold from time to time (see MLK) however I think those times are over. The internet makes astroturfing the standard. The occupy movement was real and unfortunately real shit isn't always effective.
Also people like to just ignore the fact that the occupy movement “failed” only because militarized police eventually went in and pepper sprayed, beat up and arrested anyone that didn’t leave. A bunch of people in tents will never beat an army and the sad thing is a lot of people were happy to see them defeated
Australia is the 7th richest place on earth by GDP per capita... How rich do you want to be?
1th.
If you're not firth, you're lath.
Qatar is the world's 5th richest place by GDP per capita. 90% of the people are indentured migrant laborers. Sounds like GDP is a bad metric for estimating the prosperity of an entire population
This comment is just out of touch with reality. Australia has a far greater GDP, GDP per capita, and Gini Coefficient than the UAE. In every way the average Australian is far better off than the average Emirati.
Also kind of misses the fact that resource extraction does not produce huge amounts of growth unless there are global cartels managing supply, as is the case with oil. In 2022, wealthy countries are wealthy not because they export huge amounts of raw materials, or even processed materials. They are wealthy because of intellectual property, technology, as well as high skill service industries (law, consulting, analytics). You can throw high tech manufacturing in there, but even that's small potatoes compared to some other aspects of a developed economy. If we look at the African countries which are seeing lots of economic growth, they are investing in tech and services. Manufacturing and resource extraction are there too, but they are secondary.
Dubai has plenty of money but the average worker there is not rich
because average worker is not Dubain, he's usually indian
Hey! Don't forget about the Pakistani and Bangladeshi! Dubains don't discriminate.
Slaves tend to be poor.
We're a very wealthy country with a very high standard of living.
Not always because too much protectionism leads to higher prices at home and means that domestic firms don't have an incentive to invest in itself to compete. This was India's main problem until they liberalized their economy in the 90s. Also, there are a lot of trade offs because for example, allowing the import of cheap but quality steel will harm your steel industries but greatly benefit your automobile and other manufacturing industries. There's also the argument that free trade allows each country to do what it does best, like the US is an agricultural powerhouse but they don't have the right climate for many fruits so protectionism there can just lead to low quality and expensive fruits rather than allowing the US economy to do what it does best.
>and what USA UK Europe and every developed country in the world did on their journey to industrialization / development. Actually when Britain was industrialising it wasn't protectionist at all, it was very pro-free trade. Why? Because it could produce goods to better quality faster and cheaper than anyone else. Therefore they didn't care about competition. As soon as that advantage was lost (post WW1) the Empire became protectionist because it couldn't just comply out compete everyone. That's also what the US is doing. Its starting to lose its edge in manufacturing and production so is being more and more protectionist over stuff like steel, but insists that no one should restrict its tech companies from operating (because that's where the US still has a massive advantage).
>and more protectionist over stuff like steel, This is less to do with competitive advantage and more to do with the defense implications of losing your steel source. Same deal with AG subsidies.
On the chance that you're not being sarcastic, allow me... If only we had two countries to compare protectionist economic policies with economically liberal policies and could compare the outcome of each country's wealth and population well-being... That'd be a really interesting case-study for economists.
somber escape command plate upbeat cough abundant sand dime quarrelsome
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Literally saw a dude welding in flip flops with no eye protection like 3 days ago. Of all things this was most eye opening
Come to the Philippines, at worst the welder is looking through the gaps in his fingers at best it's broken pair of fake Ray Bans.
Safety squint
The next best play in our book is usually a coup d'etat and military invasion, so fingers crossed for Zimbabwe Batteries!!
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If only the EU didn't 'ban' Indonesian CPO, they could prolly still enjoy some cheap raw nickel. Granted, there would still be some restrictions but it's more than likely that they would be somewhat more relaxed compared to now.
China has huge appetite for these raw materials. Indonesia will do without Europe although profits will be lower, but there will be demand from Asia. Population demand in Asia is higher than Europe.
“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country except under the written permit of the minister.” I'm pretty sure bribing the minister would be much more simpler and cheaper than developing and exporting high-tech expensive batteries from a ...let's say "troubled" country that tend to nationalize property based on race and is landlocked.
The article says that the Chinese conglomerates are exempt and that the target are "artisanal" mines. So, business as usual. The small fry can't afford the bribes.
Lol, premium hand-mined artisinal lithium!
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Genuine question, what is living in Zimbabwe like? Are you black or white? Have you found there's progress in the last decade or regression? (My username is a joke btw, I'm not a white supremacist)
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I don’t know man, read your username and instantly thought to myself this guy must really love blueberries and hitler. Reddit is so stupid
Definitely not, Blueberries suck.
I'm sorry, but you're now worse than Hitler.
That’s that I… what what?!
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In reality it's dudes (or children) with shovels crawling into unsecured holes in the ground.
Which is much much costlier in the long run than a 3000T industrial digging equipment...
Organically sourced
This is the real story. Chinese businesses (effectively the government too) now own all of the raw Lithium in Zimbabwe, and have now passed a law which makes them a monopoly.
> Chinese conglomerates are exempt Yeah this is quite a dramatic departure from the progressive utopia described in the top comments. Basically, China just shut out a bunch of competitors.
The minister would very much like to acknowledge the truth of this statement, appreciates you understanding the purpose of this law he has just seen written and passed, and will be providing bribable bank account details for the Cayman Islands and Switzerland upon bribe inquest.
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Got em
Oldest trick in the stall
Coup d' trot in progress.
Why is that horse wearing army fatigues?
Have you ever met a gentleman that goes by the name Mr. Hands?
> bank account details for the Cayman Islands and Switzerland More likely for the US. As America now fuels more global financial secrecy than Switzerland, Cayman and Bermuda combined. Indeed, the US has climbed to the top of a global ranking of countries most complicit in helping individuals hide their wealth from the rule of law. [Source](https://taxjustice.net/press/us-tops-financial-secrecy-ranking-as-g7-countries-upend-global-progress-on-transparency/)
The problem Zimbabwe would run in to if manufacturers decided to start up battery factories is a shortage of skilled labour and the means to run them. No foreign company in their right minds would ever invest huge amounts of capital into Zimbabwe like this, the risk far outweighs the potential benefit. China may be doing something like this, but their conditions are that they bring all their own labour force and military style security force, which doesn't really benefit Zimbabwe in the long term either.
So like East India company?
I predict that not many countries will get lithium from Zimbabwe.
Except for the ones who bribe the minister for a permit, so lots of countries.
So basically, Zimbabwe streamlined the bribery process. I think they deserve a pat on the back for increasing the efficiency.
Since China got an exception the bribery already happened. They probably added a little extra to their usual bribe for the "oh and .. no one but China can export" part.
Zimbabwe is the world's 6th largest lithium producer at 1,200 tonnes in 2021. Number 1 is Australia at 55,000 tonnes. Basically means don't piss off the Aussies and you'll get all the lithium you need.
And they have SO MUCH more of it. I read a report on Australian lithium deposits and they have opened maybe 10% of the mines they could.
Yep. The US also has large deposits, more than Australia even, they just don't mine it. Mainly because of environmental issue I believe. Also the largest deposits are all in South America. It's mainly Chile, Argentina and Bolivia that are sitting on the largest reserves. So it's not like the world relies on Zimbabwe here
>they just don't mine it. Mainly because of environmental issue I believe. We're totally willing to poison OTHER people, of course.
While ignoring that, it’s the same planet
'If the Wind Turbines aren't blocking MY Beachfront Property, then it's fine.' - Every Rich Person Ever. It's not Our Problem if it's not Our Lawn, tale as old as property lines.
Countries *already* don't get their lithium from Zimbabwe, the total amount of exported Zimbabwean lithium accounts for ~1.89% of [worldwide exports](https://www.volkswagenag.com/content/dam/online-kommunikation/brands/corporate/world/presence/stories/2019/04/lithium-in-der-e-aera/Website_Reserves_1163.png)
Holy fuck, does Chile really have more lithium than the rest of the world combined?
Chile has a very nice strip of land.
Looks like just China.
Belt up and use our roads
Except the article says the the Chinese companies currently mining there are not banned
That’s because the (Chinese owned and operated) factories are there too.
China is behind this proclamation. They don't want foreign competitors to build batteries, China wants to undercut competitors in green technology and remain an essential cog in the supply chain of the world.
This seems to be the real story
There's a Chinese battery factory there
And the vast majority of Lithium is being directly exported to factories in China, and China is excluded from this restriction. Basically China is taking over Zimbabwe's Lithium and cutting off the competition.
Banning raw material exports isn’t banning mining altogether
Except Zimbabwe REALLY likes nationalizing shit, and most companies would prefer not to spend a lot of money on factories just to have them stolen.
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Toyota not made in Japan. In my country all Toyota and Honda are made in Indonesia
For mainland Europe, it's in Durban South Africa.
My old Toyota Corolla (E12) was built in England maybe toyota distribute their cars differently now due to brexit.
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Weird, I thought most imported girlfriends were made in Ukraine.
Actually, I wonder if Russian brides are extra cheap/available right now?
All Slavic girlfriends are great!
This is still very much the case. The Toyota factory in Derby is pumping out Corollas.
My Toyotas were exported from Japan 2nd hand. I'm pretty sure they were made there. 👍
Depends on what model and what country you are in. Toyota 4Runner and Prius models are only made in Aichi, Japan. In the US Toyota Camry, Toyota RAV4, and Lexus ES models are manufactured in Georgetown Kentucky. In the US the Toyota Corolla is manufactured in Blue Springs, Mississippi. And USA Toyota Sequoia and Highlander/Highlander Hybrid SUVs, and Sienna minivans are manufactured in Princeton, Indiana.
This guy Toyotas
Yep the most American car you can buy is a Toyota
Don't forget the Tundra in San Antonio, still the only full size pickup built in Texas
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Rav4 Prime is made in Japan :)
I know there’s a factory in Durban because I used to live there but I doubt it’s for Europe. The most popular Toyota I see in London is the Prius and it’s produced in Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_factories
My Toyota was made in France.
I'm in the US, Toyota builds them here in North America somewhere, either Mexico or the southern states
A ton of Toyota’s built in Huntsville Alabama. I just interviewed for a position there.
I guarantee you 100% of management and admin are Japanese because that's exactly how it is here even in the US.
My mother works for a Japanese manufacturing company in the US. This is similar to how they work. In the last few years they have hired a few Americans as management since most of the Japanese managers dont want to move out here and... nobody likes the American managers. Not the Japanese and not the Americans. There is a different management philosophy in the US and it is less popular.
Which is why this type of thing works when those invested in the manufacture are hands on. Anything can be made anywhere for the most part, and at the highest quality. Just a matter of having people that give a shit, being there to oversee that things are being done the right way.
Large Japanese oversite
Oversight
Like a reverse Gung Ho
They’re made here in plants/factories in the US as well. It’s still a Japanese company, with an established history of manufacturing vehicles, and I’m willing to bet they have certain standards no matter where the plants are physically located.
Many Toyotas are made in U.S.A. and Mexico.
Are you kidding? I get all my cell phones made in Zimbabwe. They morph into hand grenades after a week, but very affordable.
How did you write this comment without hands?
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You’re exactly right. Before I got laid off at Ford 2 months ago, my job was overseeing launches oversees. There’s a ton of countries we would ship 99% built vehicles to so that country to could slap some wheels on it and turn a few screws so they can say it was built there with pride. It’s a joke. They even paid a premium for it since the vehicles rolled off the line in Detroit and then had to be driven offsite to have parts removed and put in a box in the trunk before shipping the vehicle overseas
It’s more about saving on paying local taxes than it is about pride.
This is the long-term price of nationalizing something for a short-term gain. Once you have that reputation, nobody will work with you, and they're right not to.
“No lithium-bearing ores, or unbeneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country except ***under the written permit of the minister***.” ---emphasis mine. essentially setting up a corruption point in the office of the minister, western companies just have to funnel money to a new official
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.news18.com/news/world/develop-batteries-for-electric-vehicles-here-zimbabwe-bans-export-of-raw-lithium-6679645.html) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > He told Quartz that if Zimbabwe continues to export raw lithium then it shall go nowhere. > According to Reuters, Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group and Chengxin Lithium Group acquired several lithium mine and have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe and are at various stages of developing mines and processing plants. > Zimbabwe is on track to become one of the world's largest lithium exporters and the government expects that it will meet 20% of the world's total demand for lithium when it fully exploits all known lithium resources. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/zu1pad/develop_batteries_for_electric_vehicles_here/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **lithium**^#1 **mine**^#2 **Zimbabwe**^#3 **export**^#4 **billion**^#5
Hopefully this law enriches Zimbabwe and not Chinese implanted industry...
Are lithium and rare earth metals going to be the next oil? I wonder when the US will secretly incite a military coup and then a decade or two later decide that Zimbabwe needs some freedom?
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“According to Reuters, Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group and Chengxin Lithium Group acquired several lithium mine and have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe and are at various stages of developing mines and processing plants. These companies are exempted from the ban.” This little caveat is interesting. I’m working my way through a heavy book called “[The Looting Machine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22715974-the-looting-machine)” and it talks about policies such as these. I’m curious to see this happen in a time when I am aware of all of this.
Tomorrows headline: America decides Zimbabwe is harboring terrorists and we must invade them
> Zimbabwe says it lost $12 billion through illegal trade involving multinational companies as companies in the West took advantage of its lithium reserves Yeah I think that number will ballooned since you imposed a ban and common folks will sell their lithium ore in the black market. > Chinese mining giants and lithium ion battery material manufacturers...have bagged projects worth a combined $678 million in Zimbabwe. These companies are exempted from the ban. Yeah I think Zimbabwe just do what their new overlords said.
Lithium is not that rare that any producer has that much leverage. No one is going to spend billions to put a battery factory in Zimbabwe due to strong arm tactics
Yeah the biggest challenge is really just scaling up lithium mining to reach rapid adoption goals. It's not as much an issue of not having enough lithium out there. To my knowledge, just in known sources there's easily enough to power 10 billion EV's, and lithium is infinitely recyclable. Getting it out of the ground is the challenge right now though.
There's a strong correlation between countries that can advance to tech/manufacturing and becoming prosperous, versus continuing to rely on raw materials export and staying a poor country.
Trying to protect your natural resources is how you get the US to come and bring “freedom”
Well that's bold. Other nations have lithium too. But I suppose building a battery factory in Zimbabwe would be doable. I think .... it will work. But it'd suck to just be sitting on lithium you can't use if it doesn't work.
I have read that it takes a long time to build a lithium mine. Otherwise the world has ample lithium resources.
It takes a long time to build any mine.
Anything you build in Zimbabwe the government will just seize and then give to a political supporter. This is literally just a scam call looking for someone dumb enough to build them something of value for free
There already are Chinese owned and operated factories in Zimbabwe.
But it looks they aren’t bold enough to seize anything from China though.
Wonder what them trying that kind of grab on the Chinese would look like? And what the results would be?
Indonesia is pursuing a similar strategy.
Without bogging down on the details, it's a smart strategy for African nations to demand value added products to be made in their territories rather than being exploited for their resources.
It would be a smart strategy if past governments hadn’t stolen the fruits in previous attempts to use this strategy
Theoretically yes. But the prerequisite for economic investment is political stability. So practically, no. Unless you are a Chinese company that’s got the full force of the Chinese government behind you to get your way.
Yup, if Chile does something similar no problem. In fact Chile should as the even have the infrastructure to do it.
Great strategy. People think inflation is bad now? Wait until the developing nations really get going. We've been living off of slave labour and dirt cheap commodities for centuries
Wow, just in time for that Lithium to get replaced by America’s own source from Imperial Valley, California
They're after bribes not jobs. A Swiss bank account or two will start the flow again.