I don’t know then. My electric bill in the winter is still around 2000, so I don’t know what’s using all the electricity. Do you have electric water heater? Maybe that makes a difference
Gas water heater and gas stove top. So that could make thing cheaper. We do have an electric dyer that’s 110v. We run it for like 4 hours every other day. I think I’ve had it for almost two years now and there was a slight increase in my bill, but nothing major. My average bill in non summer months is around 1400 ntd.
Then argue for the right policy change. Min wage hike in Taiwan is very reasonable and easy to argue for. Subsidies should be as limited as possible. Mainly for national security purposes or to defend against market shocks.
If the power and fuel costs were not subsidized in Taiwan we’d be paying 3x what we are today.
We be paying 2x or 3x what we are paying for healthcare.
2 Likes
Wages hasn’t caught up all over the world for the last 50 years. Back in the day one mans wage was enough to provide for a family, buy a house, car, all without crippling debt. This is no longer possible and wealth has been concentrated more than ever. In fact we are probably returning to the days of old where there was a small number of extremely rich people and a huge number of lower class. Middle class living is simply out of reach for the majority.
Yep many basic services are heavily subsidised here. Where does the money come from, not too sure! And they still have loads of money left over.
1 Like
Yeah yeah yeah wages, in the US are great for most professionals and tradespeople. Same in many countries. Even in Taiwan can make very comfortable living.
1 Like
Lot’s of belt tightening on the way.
18+% drop yoy in export orders. Drop is expected to be 20+% in the next report.
So it might as well be 10x? And I doubt it’s subsidized at 66% rn. Do you have any stats on this?
Taiwan is subsidizing fuel, electricity, Gogoro and a lot of other stuff.
1 Like
And taxes paid on the concentrated wealth went down, in contrast to taxes paid by the middleclass that increased.
It’s all Republican’s Regan idea of “trickle down economics”. Basically tax cut for the rich. Both parties in the US believe in tax cuts for the rich and giving the rich money. And Taiwan basically copies everything the US does.
+1. the cheap price coupled with the rampant levels of just pure no fu is given level of wastage, frankly it should of been triple the price 30 years ago. of.course it cant because Taiwan is an exporting nation. but the waste issue is no joke.
3 Likes
I’m just ballparking. You can see the huge losses the state run oil, electric, and healthcare run up each year. They hand out huge bonuses but if we all paid market rates they would still be getting bonuses yet probably larger.
The investments in these renewables are extremely wasteful. The more renewables we add to the mix the larger the losses will be and the higher the rates will be that we will all pay.
We can get nitpicky about wastage starting with the recent latern festival or the brightly lit 101. All of those powerful lights were/are fueled mostly by fossil fuels and to a much lesser extent - nuclear. Not 1 solar panel powered those lights and with the energy loss by the transmission of whatever wind was producing power out of windmills I guess the a very small, maybe a fraction of a percent came from wind to power the lights.
Like I said, nitpicking but if people were serious about conservation they’d never use ac or have latern festivals powered by diesel generators
You can’t live in Taiwan without AC, it’s too fucking hot here.
I think everyone world over doesn’t really care enough about renewable energy, it’s a massive scam to get government subsidies. If they were serious they’d use more nuclear.
Taiwan is simply doing what the West wants them to do.
1 Like
o’ really?
That’s federal. Now add state taxes.
“Suppose that once a week, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
And the tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every week and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until, one day, the owner caused them a little problem. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your weekly beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free but what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33 but if they subtracted that from everybody’s share then not only would the first four men still be drinking for free but the fifth and sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fairer to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage. They decided to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (a 100% saving).
The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 (a 33% saving).
The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 (a 28% saving).
The eighth man now paid $9 instead of $12 (a 25% saving).
The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 (a 22% saving).
And the tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 (a 16% saving).
Each of the last six was better off than before with the first four continuing to drink for free.
But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got $1 out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!“
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a $1 too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I only got $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next week the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important – they didn’t have enough money between all of them to pay for even half of the bill!
And that is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just might not show up anymore. In the fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier."
1 Like
this isnt nitpicking. it is reality. modern day factories are essentially the model of efficiency. I realise many ar enot in Taiwan, they need updating. that would be good but the world hates the "rich"and so subsidies for.such endeavours are lost and they need to go the corrupt grant or third party style which wastes everyone’s time and money. probably intentionally (corruption).
but never under estimate the individual. we, the person, pay for products make any given way. we the person open a shop and run string ac with open doors onto the street. we the person drive trucks to grab groceries. we the person keep our vehicle running while running into the store. we the person…million more examples.
quite frankly I think we should charge way more for electricity and have actual (non corrupt and actually intelligently educated) inspectors checking companies and giving them a discount for efficiency. not on quantity used, but on efficiency. this is probably beyond the current Taiwan capability. so I can see a fair base load per household then jack the shit out of excessive power households. similar to what they do but incorporate how many people as well as make the upper tiers WAY higher.
places like 711 should pay 30nt/kwh the way they waste shit. shoe and clothing stores open to the streets should pay 100nt per kwh. fuck those leeches on our society. they have their margins, be better!
1 Like
As someone that uses too much electricity, I support it wholeheartedly. Why should min wage workers pay for my luxuries?
1 Like
I don’t even know where to begin in picking apart just how incredibly incorrect everything about this story is, should you want to apply it to taxes.
Especially when you talk about the US. Every time there’s a “leak” about which mass of rich people are hiding their money someplace to avoid taxes, very few Americans show up. Why? Because there are sufficient loopholes in the US tax code that you can be ultra mega rich and pay NOTHING in taxes, totally legally. Meanwhile, the IRS keeps going after low-income earners over a few hundred bucks because they gotta go after someone and the rich have too many lawyers.
I can name a few revolutions that started because the rich didn’t want to pay taxes, so they kept increasing the taxes on the poor, who had virtually no money to start with, and magically the whole country fell into ruin, cuz when you demand a poor person turn over 200% of what they earn, that money doesn’t go nearly as far as taxing a rich person, well, in the case of the US, that would be AT ALL.
It’s energy policy to get away from fossil fuels, which I know you strongly support. For many of us, Taiwan to the contrary is moving too slowly.
Guy