Taoyuan Nights

Taiwan’s media seem to be implausibly gullible in their discussion of these ’shopping coupons’. Let’s have some clear thinking about this supposed free money coupon that’s being ‘handed out’ by the Taiwanese Government.

• Firstly: This is not an ‘economic stimulus’ - it is a voter bribe. If it were an economic stimulus it would be handed out to all consumers. This taxpayer money is being redistributed only to voting families. Why do you think that is?

  Furthermore, do you think the government would be encouraging you to “buy gold” with it, if this was about saving small businesses or saving the economy?

  “Chen Tain-jy, chairman of Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) told the press… ‘Of course, you can even buy gold as an investment.’”

  That quote is taken from the article “Anything can be bought with vouchers“. Though perhaps a better title would be ‘Anyone can be bought with vouchers’.

• Secondly: This is a voter distraction. With free money filling up the columns, journalists have less room to draw attention to the government’s recent amazingly low standing in the opinion polls, breaking of election promises, protests against police actions, imprisonment of opposition politicians, and kowtowing to Taiwan’s big friendly neighbour.

• Thirdly: These coupons are not a gift from the government. You think the politicians are dipping into their own wallets? This ‘gift’ is your own money! The government is going to take $4200 from you in tax over the next few years, waste $300 on administration and re-printing costs, waste $300 on interest costs, and give you $3600 back today.

• Fourthly: This is not going to save the economy. For goodness sake, it’s $3600. What will it buy? A single bottle of whiskey to drown your housing sorrows? 1/4 of a small digital camera?

  The average income is, (from GDP/PPP), around 900,000 NTD per year. Divide 3600/900000, and you get 0.004 of your annual income. Wow. 0.004 of one year’s income. And supposedly, this kind of huge spending is really going to avert disaster for small businesses… That’s how big a difference this is going to make. And don’t forget, that ‘0.004′ (+ another 0.001) will be taken back off you again in the next few years.

• Fifthly: If I re-frame this ‘gift’, perhaps you can see better what it really is.

  Effectively, you are being forced to take out a personal loan from the bank, whether you want it or not. Laws are being passed to force you to spend this personal loan, so that it must be spent on useless junk during the month of January. If you don’t spend all the loan, your money will be confiscated! And you can only spend it at places that are registered as taxpaying businesses, increasing the government tax income that month.

  Additionally, a new law will mean you are going to be forced to pay the government a small charge as a thankyou for imposing these new laws and forced borrowings on you, perhaps $600 or some similar fraction of the money borrowed, in administrative costs, printing costs, interest etc. Finally, another law will force you to repay the bank loan over the next few years, along with all the other crippling debt that is weighing you down just now.

  If the government tried to introduce such new laws as described this way, forcing people to take out unwanted debt and spend it on junk, confiscating people’s money if they didn’t go out and spend it where and when the government chooses, there would be riots in the streets! But this is what they are actually doing, and people are delighted! What the heck? What’s wrong with people?

  As I begin to see Taiwanese people talking about what they will spend the money on, I ask myself: Doesn’t anyone here realise who’s really paying for this ‘gift’? Don’t they realise the government is passing laws to force them to spend money they don’t have, on rubbish they don’t need - and that it will be forcing them to pay that money back with interest in the next year or two to come? And that the whole ‘gifting’ is simply marketing - a public relations attempt to gain favour with voters?
  

For what it’s worth. Taiwan is not the only country playing these silly games. Look at the USA, and George Bush’s pre-election rebate ’stimulus’ bonanza. Look at Britain, and the ‘poor elderly (voting) person’ handout we see in every single general election…