China and Africa; The Slavery of Debt and the Creation of Allies
I was going through a long list of African countries that borrow money from foreign bodies/countries and I ask myself, why do these African countries borrow this money, and do they actually enjoy the money they borrow from these governments?
Borrowing is now a habit for virtually all countries as they want to grow, as well as pay debt. It is no crime for a country to loan money provided they can pay it back within the stipulated time but then, a lot of these countries cannot even pay these loans back. They just want to develop their country and most time, you use what you have to get what you want. Countries who borrow this money are actually enslaved but they do not know. There are two ways to enslave a person, First is through conquering war, the other is through giving out loans. The first is outdated as human rights organizations are against this but the latter is a more decent way to enslave a nation.
Countries like the US were at the forefront of helping nations in the past but suddenly, there is a country that is willing to give loans to any country even when the loan would be used for the wrong thing. There is really no need to beat up members of the country to get whatever its desired, all that needs to be done is give out money.
Africa has been at the mercy of China (the Chinese government) for years now. It is very simple, the Chinese government is willing to give out money to African countries without checking if the infrastructure is profitable or not. The joy of China is that the infrastructure isn't profitable for the country so they can be in deep shit with the debt. Two things are requested from doing the project, Natural resources or the right to use the project for up to 50 or 100 years, and China would start to lend country money for major projects that are not liable to be profitable such as Dam, Seaports and so on, with China requesting that 70% of the contract in the project be awarded to Chinese companies.
China has a monopoly on African countries' construction and although I can't say if it is still profitable or not, I can tell that if the projects go bad, Africa will be in a deep mess. It could affect international votes where African countries indebted to china will either support China or remain neutral to vote. It looks just like China is building Allies and Arica is the home for such.
Hey I also had a private student loan from the same bank of $9k and $3k for a total of $12k. It accrued while I was in school and after 2 years of making minimal payments I owed $16k. The interest rate went from 7% to 11% during that time. It's absolutely stupid. What I did to pay it off was transfer the whole amount to a 0% APR credit line with my bank (https://maggieloans.com/title-loans/are-there-online-title-loans-no-store-visit). The interest free period was 18 months. I then divided the total amount by 18 to determine how much I needed to pay per month to get it paid off, interest free.
I don't think anyone in this sub hates productive debt. I, for one, hate debt that isn't necessary, or that is frivolous. A house is equity, it is a roof of my head, it is security. A 35k car instead of a 10k car, when I can only afford the latter is frivolous. Debt that is unsustainable is bad. Debt that you have no way of paying off is bad. My honest opinion is that when it comes to frivolous items, if you don't have the money to pay for it now, you really shouldn't buy it. This is exactly how people get into trouble. They underestimate how many things they need to pay off, interest kicks in and now they're barely keep their head afloat. Plus, you end up paying for the item 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 25 times over.
Cool