The uphill battle to critizise the Taiwan administration

 

I’m starting to feel even more sorry for the opposition parties in Taiwan. Every day they hurl criticism at the administration only to make themselves look petty and foolish.

Most of their brickbats serve only to highlight what an excellent job the President and her team are doing. By global standards, a world-beating performance during the entire Covid crisis and an economy that is only intact but doing well is amazing when you compare with what is happening elsewhere in the world. 

I lived through the entire Covid crisis in Taiwan and constantly had messages from friends in the UK about how awful things were there. The UK is a developed G7 country with a fully mature democracy and has three times the population of Taiwan, by contrast,  Taiwan is a young democracy and not even recognised by the United Nations.

The global list of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, Taiwan ranks 25th, the UK 37th and the US 15th. Make no mistake, Taiwan already plays alongside the big boys when it comes to economic performance when allowing for its size and population.

If you build on this thought and consider Taiwan has political pressures from abroad that would horrify the likes of the UK and the US, it holds its own amazingly well on the world stage. 

There is always room of criticism, but look at the UK where gas prices have just surged over 400 percent, the supermarket shelves are empty because of Brexit and Covid, hospitals are full, taxes are being raised, petrol is being rationed and a major topic in the press is whether there will be enough toys and food for the Christmas celebrations in a few months time. I weep for the country of my birth and the shocking state it finds itself in now...all the fault of the administration.

I hear the opposition in Taiwan saying “We should be like other countries.” Whatever the subject, albeit Covid, vaccinations or the economy...I think not. Other countries are largely getting it wrong for all sorts of reasons. Taiwan is a bastion of stability in a world slowly going mad and becoming more unstable. 

So feel some sympathy for the opposition parties when they rant and rave and stamp their feet. They really don’t have anything to criticize and must be hugely frustrated. 

It’s a little like telling Leonardo da Vinci he didn’t get the eyes quite right on The Mona Lisa.  

Tinkerty Tonk...

《批評台灣政府的苦戰》

我越來越為台灣的在野黨感到悲傷，他們每天都向政府提出批評，但卻只讓自己顯得小氣和愚蠢。

他們大多數的攻擊，其實都只突顯出台灣總統和她的團隊表現其實是很出色的。就全球標準來看，甚至與世界其他地方正在發生的情況相較，台灣對 Covid 病毒的控制，期間維持經濟運作甚至表現良好，令人驚艷。

過去兩年我住在台灣，疫情期間不斷收到來自英國親友的消息，告訴我那裡的一切有多糟糕。英國是 G7 發達國家，有完全成熟的民主，人口是台灣的三倍。相比之下，台灣是一個年輕的民主國家，甚至沒有得到聯合國的承認。

然而全球按購買力平價計算的人均GDP排行榜，台灣排名第25位，英國第37位，美國第15位。不必懷疑，在考慮大小和人口的情況下，台灣在經濟表現方面已經與一些世界大國並駕齊驅。

如果你以這個想法為出發點，並考慮到台灣面臨來自境外的政治壓力，那會讓英國和美國等國感到驚恐。然而台灣在世界舞台上的表現，卻是如此令人驚艷。

沒錯，凡事總有批評的空間。但看看英國，過去一年來油電價格飆升，超市架上因為脫歐和Covid空空如也，醫院人滿為患，加稅勢在必行，運送到加油站的汽油開始配給。至於媒體的主要話題之一，是幾個月後會不會有足夠的玩具和食物來慶祝聖誕節。

我出生的國家和其現在的處境令人震驚，我一想到就幾乎要掉眼淚了，這些都是政府的錯。

所以當我聽說台灣反對黨要求，“我們應該像其他國家一樣”時，不論他們指的是 Covid、疫苗或經濟，我認為他們不知道自己在說什麼。從各方面看來，其他國家在很大程度上都犯了錯誤，在這個正在慢慢變得瘋狂並越來越動盪的世界上，台灣是一個穩定的堡壘。

因此當反對黨抱怨、咆哮和跺腳時，請對他們表示同情，因為他們真的沒有什麼具體的批評，他們一定感覺到非常沮喪。

這有點像告訴達文西，他在畫《蒙娜麗莎》時，眼神畫得不太對。

Tinkerty Tonk...掰掰

Economics 101- 2

It is seldom edifying to listen to a politician when it comes to economics. I would argue that it is even less edifying to listen to a doctor, who almost by definition, has little or no knowledge of the subject. 

So when our Pants-up Doc began to hold forth about inflation my ears pricked up. Ah ha, I thought, here comes something stupid. 

I was not disappointed. 

Yet again his team of misfits led him towards a huge pile of shit which Doctor Daft stamped into by confidently stating that the government’s voucher scheme will cause problem inflation. 

What his merry band of Hobbits fail to understand is the idea of pumping money into the economy is to help reflate it. Yes, that’s right, reflate.

I can only imagine his microscopic knowledge of economics had him thinking.. Inflation BAD, as he remembers years back when high inflation was bad. To criticize the government now for stimulus measures aimed at reflation is the economic analysis of a poodle, and a dimwitted  poodle at that.    

As with the 2008 crisis and the US adding several zeros to the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, effectively printing money, was aimed at heading off deflation. In other words what they needed to be doing was reflating. 

Yes, runaway inflation is bad when economies are hot, right now they are not...they need the stimulus of reflation because of the hit to growth caused by the pandemic. 

There was a famous quote at the time by a Fed official who said something like “the only way we can pump more money into the economy now is by flying over New York in a helicopter shovelling dollar bills out of the door.”

Did it lead to inflation? Yes but only enough for the economy to recover to something more normal. Has there been a problem with high inflation since, no.  

Any economy which is growing has an element of inflation. If you have a growing economy you will have a level of inflation. During difficult times when an economy is slowing or under pressure, there are the opposite forces of disinflation at work as the economy is strained, or in extreme cases shrinking, in which case you will get deflation.

Stimulating the Taiwan economy by the addition of funds via vouchers is aimed at boosting growth to the benefit of all. 

To scream THIS WILL CAUSE A INFLATION PROBLEM IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS from the sidelines does not only display an almost total lack of any understanding of economics of the current situation, but is dangerous scaremongering by someone who should be a responsible official. 

Here is a graph of Taiwan inflation which I hope will reassure anyone who thinks this sensible economic stimulus by the government will create an inflation issue in the coming months. It won’t. 

This kind of scaremongering by an elected official is absurd and irresponsible. 

 

Captain Obvious AKA Captain Kovid

We are all guilty of stating the obvious from time to time. For the British, by far the most common is, of course, weather related. “It’s a nice day” or “Nice to see a bit of sunshine for a change” is likely uttered millions of times when Solis makes a rare appearance in the sky over my soggy homeland. 

Likely more common is “More rain!” or “I can’t believe this weather!” or “Well the garden needs it!” which again would be uttered probably millions of times a day across the country. 

These are forgivable obvious statements as they are intended to simply begin a conversation with a friend, neighbour or stranger, like opening a door before entering a room.

Things start to get mildly irritating when stating the obvious goes a notch lower with “I see you have smashed in the front of your car!” or “You got home late last night!” or “Your cat is always shitting on my flowerbeds!”

These are statements of the obvious aimed at sometimes containing information the speaker wants to hint at ie. don’t slam your car doors when you come home late as it wakes us up, or maybe when someone may not realise that their cat is a serial defecator on a neighbour’s prize Chrysanthemums. 

The above is just part of conversation and forgivable to a degree. 

Stating the obvious really starts to get irritating when it descends to the level of speaking to someone like they are two years old and reaches the level of Grandma and said child with “Does you like your teddy bear then?” or “Oh, you like ice-cream, don’t you?” or “Is you tired then?” when said child has been gently sleeping for the past three hours.  

When this happens in the UK it is generally met with “No Shit Sherlock!” Which broadly translates to...Yes you are insulting me by telling me something that is mind-bogglingly obvious to anyone who is not two.  

Enter Captain Obvious AKA Captain Kovid with his latest  absurd utterances. During his latest press conference he excelled himself. “I think the infection of the EVA pilot may be due to going abroad,” the towering genius opined. 

In case he thought us too stupid to even understand that, he added “In fact, there are still about 600,000 new confirmed cases every day in the world, so infection in foreign countries is possible.” 

Oddly enough, with this piece of gold-plated statement of the obvious, he is actually admitting the current administration has done a fantastic job in keeping Covid from these shores. 

I also liked the fact his hard working department has taken the time to work out for us that 4 was 80 percent of 5. “We have calculated that in the past 7 days in Taipei City, there were 5 confirmed cases and 4 of unknown sources of infection, and the proportion of unknown sources of infection is 80 percent.”

Phew, it’s just as well his team of intellectuals were on hand to spend a few hours with their calculators working that out for us. Where would we be without these people to guide us through the intricacies of advanced mathematics. 

Small wonder Doctor Dimwit, his team of numbskulls and sad little party is lagging in the polls.

Tinkerty Tonk.

我們常犯的一個毛病就是不時陳述一些明顯的事實，直接點說，就是廢話。就英國人而言，最常見的當然是談論天氣。當太陽罕見地出現在我潮濕的故鄉上空時，「今天天氣很好！」或「難得看到一點陽光真好！」這類的句型，大概會出現幾百萬遍。

可能更常聽見的句型是「還在下雨！」 或「我簡直不敢相信這種鬼天氣！」或「好吧花園總是需要澆點水！」 不必懷疑，這種句型一天之內也會在全國被說出數百萬次。

這些是可以原諒的明顯陳述，因為說這些話只是為了與朋友、鄰居或陌生人開始對話，就跟進入房間之前得先開門一樣。

這個標準再降低一點時，事情就會開始變得有點惹人厭，例如「我看到你車子前面撞爛了！」 或者「你昨晚很晚才回家！」 或是「你的貓總是在我的花圃上拉屎！」 。這些明顯的陳述，有時包含了說話者想要暗示的訊息，那就是當你回家晚了，不要用力關車門，因為會把我們吵醒。或者暗示你跟自己的貓不熟，不知道它是總是在鄰居種了得獎菊花的花圃上連續排便。

不過以上也只是談話的一部分，在一定程度上還是可以原諒。

當說廢話的程度下降到把對方當成兩歲小孩時，那就開始令人火大了。就像老奶奶對小孩說，「你喜歡你的泰迪熊嗎？」 或者「哦，你喜歡冰淇淋，是嗎？」，或者「那你累了嗎？」，而她說這話時，那個孩子在過去的三個小時一直安安穩穩地在睡覺。

這種情況發生在英國時，通常會遇上「當然呢，福爾摩斯! 」(No Shit Sherlock!)這樣的反應。翻譯成白話就是：對，你正在告訴我一些對任何不是兩歲的人來說都是令人難以置信的廢話，那就是在侮辱我。

說到這裡， Captain Obvious，又名 Captain Kovid 最近的荒謬發言不得不提。在最近一次記者會上，他又超越自己了。「 長榮機師的感染我想是有可能因為到國外去，」這個自認智商高聳雲霄的天才如此發表了他的見解。

接著好像他擔心我們太愚蠢了以致無法理解，他補充說：「目前事實上全世界大概每天還是60萬確診案例新發生的，所以在外國感染是有可能。」

奇怪的是，通過這個顯而易見的鍍金廢話，他實際上是在承認現任政府在阻擋 Covid 於境外方面，做得非常出色。

我也喜歡他辛勤工作的幕僚，花時間為我們計算出4是5的80％這件事。Captain Obvious 說，「我們統計了一下臺北市在過去7天確診案例是5個，不明感染源是4個，算起來不明感染源佔比是80%。」

呼，他的知識份子團隊花幾個小時，用他們的計算機為我們解決這個問題也不錯。如果沒有這些人來指導我們了解複雜的高級數學題，我們恐怕會茫然失措。

也難怪這位才智黯淡的醫生和他那不聰明又可悲團隊，在民意調查中總是落後。

 Tinkerty Tonk。。。掰掰