Belgian 29 year old male, accountant, into physical fitness, outings and watching TV series/films. Enjoy pestering you about your political views and interested in economics.

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Joined 23 days ago
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Cake day: March 10th, 2025

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  • See, so easily baited.

    China owns majority stake in the cobalt mines in Congo. Controlling 80% of their cobalt in order to have influence in the battery market. Which they use for dominance in smartphone and electric vehicle markets. The government subsidises this as well with tax payer money, which is good for the shareholders of Xiaomi, BYD, …

    At the height of Belgian Congo, wallonia was wealthier than flanders. Now wallonia is quite poorer than flanders because their mines ran down. The industrialisation moved away.

    We have a great economy because of services that we provide. We have a highly educated population.

    We don’t depend on resources from Africa, south east Asia, etc. Why? We don’t do those industries.

    That’s all delegated to China. China is our bitch, they do the child labour, the bad ethics, exploiting poor countries, and then sell us the products cheaply. We buy it, they do the dirty deed.

    It’s almost as if raw materials are important to the economy that wants to turn them into a product.

    And not important to an economy that basically just sells services?

    What the fuck? Using brain? Logic? In a tankie sub?!

    https://www.cecc.gov/events/hearings/from-cobalt-to-cars-how-china-exploits-child-and-forced-labor-in-the-congo

    Go find some other sources, from various parts of the world.

    Russia is invading Ukraine literally for resources for their industry, or rather to sell them to us with an extra price.



  • Real Belgium? These oldies have been on strike and they haven’t seen a tank. Welcome to democracy. The NVA has the most votes, they were voted for in order to increase the work force.

    Major amount of people on sick leave for more than 5 years. People were on unemployment benefits for more than 2 years. People used to retire at age 55. While barely having children.

    For example my mate is in Germany now, his gf worked one year and now she’s relaxing 2 years on sick leave for “burnout”.

    They are reducing taxes for people that work.

    The minimum wage in Belgium is high. Education is free or cheap.

    If you want to work, you have work. Social mobility is high in Belgium.

    if we correct for purchasing power then the net wealths would be.

    Belgium 333k euros. China 54k euros. Russia 28k euros. (Compared to USA)

    With a year’s savings I can buy a 100 sq meters house in Indonesia. A Chinese or Russian cannot do that.

    Not only is my internal purchasing power far higher, so is my external purchasing power.








  • RSF was just an example to show that such a ranking exists. Removing conflict of interest and the ability to censor will be what’s needed in order to have real unguided public opinion.

    That’s difficult to achieve.

    The major thing to think about are things like CP, obviously that needs to be removed from existence.

    So there’s positives to control, but nobody does anything for free.

    Like here at Lemmy, I assume an instance creator of a popular instance will be able to be bought by companies or politicians.

    Like Musk just bought twitter, lots of newspaper companies are owned by oligarchs. Other sources of news are owned by governments.

    There’s always a conflict of interest.

    It’s difficult to get away from.



  • Sent you a message after clicking on your username on the post I got banned on, just to see if it reaches you.

    I know Belgium isn’t socialist, we’re rather social democratic.

    There’s also market socialism which doesn’t require public ownership, just that the workers own the company. Something like Huawei.

    But the end result. We have a median net wealth of 250k euros per adult. I’m quite happy about that.

    We have some nationalised stuff. Our commuting train company, post company, Bank and insurance, bus transport, télécommunications company. Infrabel.

    The government plays a major role in our lives but they are still liberal.

    They just tax and transfer. 45% of the GDP is tax revenue. Belgians are doing just fine.

    Owning key industries is useful, like the french with their nuclear reactors. But you as employee it’s better to have private options as well when it comes to employment.

    Like in Cuba they have 1 employer. The government. Sure, the doctors get paid the most in the country, but still they flee to other Latin American countries so that they can fund their family in a luxurious housing unit in Havana.

    This is because there’s more competition to buy the doctors their services in those other Spanish speaking countries in the Americas.

    Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike socialist economic stuff, if it’s used properly.

    I despise the censorship.