Taoyuan Nights

Take a look at this report in the Taipei Times today.
To summarise:

Basic unemployment has risen to the highest level ever recorded in Taiwan: 5.6%.
If you factor in the ‘fake jobs’ recently added to hide unemployment, the level is 6.1%.
If you factor in the people who’ve simply given up looking for a job, [...]

The year-on-year figures are flattening out, month-by-month. Instead of ‘50% down year-on-year’ as was the case in January, Taiwan’s exports are now only appearing to be only 20-30% down in recent months, which would point towards a shallower drop in GDP of only 10-15% rather than the gob-smacking 30%+ drop I referred to in earlier [...]

The Register reports a slight improvement in the situation for Taiwanese tech businesses:
“According to a series of reports from Taiwanese industry-watcher DigiTimes, orders are piling up at some tech companies, and forecasts of future sales are looking far rosier than during the hideous last three months of 2008.
Semiconductor designers, for example, are feeling downright perky. [...]

Economic news
“Kilbinder Dosanjh, a senior economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), said Taiwan’s unemployment rate would surge to 10 percent by the end of the year, the Central News Agency reported on Feb. 21. ” (Taipei Times)
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2009/03/09/2003437986

“if Taiwan were to employ the US calculation method, its economic growth rate for the last quarter of [...]

A nice article today in the Taipei Times…
“If the US were to employ Taiwan’s calculation method, its economy would be reported as having contracted only 0.82 percent year-on-year in the last quarter of last year, which fails to represent the seriousness of the situation.
Such a slight contraction could hardly reflect the serious decline that actually [...]

I keep telling people that Taiwan may be due for one of the biggest economic shocks of its history – indeed, perhaps one of the biggest economic shocks in world history – and that the idea of a little 3% drop in GDP over the year is not merely laughable, but insanely absurd.
But few [...]

For those of you who don’t know, “GDP” is a number that measures the size of an economy. Bloomberg reports that:

Taiwan has now already had a record drop in estimated GDP (compared with the last 60 years).
The rate of decline in GDP is getting faster and faster.
The Taiwan stockmarket is still [...]

So…
- the government is handing out free money to almost everyone
- the government is planning on handing out free education vouchers
- the government is planning to employ 100000’s of people in huge infrastructure projects
- the government is providing money to bail out local banks
- the government is providing money to bail out the technology sector
- [...]

Hello everyone! Xin Nian Kuai Le!
I saw a great deal of optimism at new year with people suggesting that maybe things would be OK. Well, I say optimism. What I mean is, ‘insane denial’. Allow me to be blunt: Taiwan is in deep, deep, deep trouble. Read these links, for starters:
January exports down 57% [...]

I was asked on another blog, why am I such a pessimist about the housing market?
Here is my reply.

I’m not a pessimist. I’m an optimist! I’m looking forward to a world (including Taiwan) where people don’t obsess about their worth in terms of how a pile of bricks is valued; where a family can choose [...]