How rich is Taiwan?

[Jasonong335933]

Living in taiwan are so comfortable and it seems people dont care what they are wearing even slippers and its hard to know if they are poor or rich coz most people here seems rich and in the philippines you know what peoples wear and there skin color you know if whats there life is

[CTaitung]

@Jasonong335933

Living in taiwan are so comfortable and it seems people dont care what they are wearing even slippers and its hard to know if they are poor or rich coz most people here seems rich and in the philippines you know what peoples wear and there skin color you know if whats there life is

so rich, that they pick their noses in public and scrutinize their findings for a brief moment in time

[tango42]

Social class

Two social classes. Those who ride old scooters, and those who ride new scooters. And 6 billionaires.

[bluejasn]

@Jasonong335933

most people here seems rich

How much money do you consider “rich”?

[Gain]

@CTaitung

so rich, that they pick their noses in public and scrutinize their findings for a brief moment in time

[tango42]

Compared to most people in Philippines, most people here are more rich. It’s very hard to know how rich by looking at a person. Most people live a basic life, working for enough money to survive, pay for rent or house, scooter, maybe a car. Then others have nicer lives. But hard to know by looking. Even millionaires can look and appear the same as everyone else. Most people don’t really dress and show off their money. But some do.

One way to know someone’s status is to watch how other people interact with that person. Successful people tend to get more attention. But that could also be due to age or some other reason.

[the_bear]

@Jasonong335933

you know if whats there life is

Buddha give me strength.

[pablo_the_wise]

It depends how you define rich.

Cost of living is low and financial ambitions are not high in Taiwan. So most people are rich in the sense that they live pretty carefree and, for lack of a better word, basic.

Edit: financially I would not say Taiwan is rich.

[Whatevah]

@pablo_the_wise

Edit: financially I would not say Taiwan is rich.

Wrong. Taiwan is rich no matter how you look at it.

List of countries by financial assets per capita

Depending on what you care about it may be 3rd richest or 35th but its certainly rich.

[nz]

I just had a discussion about this with a Taiwanese friend. When I was back in the states, my grandparents insisted on taking me to a steak house. US$50+ per person sort of place. Outside the restaurant was a sign that said “no sleeveless tops, no shorts, no sandals. Men must wear jackets”.
Recently someone posted something from some “fine dining” in Austin that prohibited surgical masks, with an explanation that “if you’re sick, you shouldn’t be out and if you’re not sick, you shouldn’t be impacting others’ ability to enjoy their meal” (or something)

My friend said this sort of thing wouldn’t fly in Taiwan. They would be sued. I tried to think of all the fanciest places I’ve ever been to in Taiwan. You get every type in every place. The same restaurant will serve a guy in ratty shorts and broken blue flip flops and people dressed up in ways you rarely see these days.

Have you ever been to a wedding here? Tailored suits and people in sweats. No one seems to think anything of it.

I have had governemnt officials show up to my school (usually drunk) midday looking and smelling like they hadn’t showered in a week, matted hair and stretched out collars on their ratted T-shirts. In the US, you’d be in the press for looking like a slob and it’d be too easy to run against them and win. Here it’s just whatever.

Also, you really can’t tell people’s wealth from anything. I know too many people making NT32,000/month, yet somehow pretend to afford a three bedroom luxury apartment in New Taipei with insanely expensive espresso machines and other gadgets, have a new car (and parking space), at least one gogoro, have Gucci, etc key chains (men)/luxury handbags (women) and take vacations abroad at least twice a year.
At the same time, I know people who make millions yet live in modest walk ups, who made the interior of their apartment look nice but not fancy, who send their kids to the local public school and expect them to take public transit cuz cars are a pain the ass unless you live far from the city. They take vacations to visit family but don’t boast on social media. Their kids say they’re poor but you know they’re lying to themselves.

In some ways I almost think Taiwan is more “equal” or “classless” than most places, but I don’t know about financial wealth.
As they say “wealth is a state of mind”

[pablo_the_wise]

You’re using the wrong metric.

Taiwan has very high income inequality so that number is being skewed by the large concentration of wealth in the elite class. Rather, a more relevant marker would be median income. In developed Asian countries, Taiwan’s is extremely low at only 1,500 per month.

Or, if you want to take a more practical approach - just look around and see what people value. Taiwanese value money over time - hence the ridiculous lines for free things. A very telling characteristic of financially wealthy people is how much they value time over money, and sorry to say, but in Taiwan - time comes cheap.

Edit: wasn’t there just a thread with 90% of taiwanese making less than the equivalent of 2k usd per month?

[Gain]

@pablo_the_wise

Taiwan has very high income inequality so that number is being skewed by the large concentration of wealth in the elite class.

The median wealth is very high too.

Median wealth per adult in USD (2019)
19. Norway - 72,198
20. Taiwan - 70,191
22. United States - 65,904

Net financial assets per capita in EUR (2018)

1. USA
2. Switzerland
3. Singapore
4. Taiwan
5. The Netherlands

Median financial assets per capita in EUR (2018)

1. Switzerland
2. Japan
3. The Netherlands
4. Belgium
5. Taiwan

Human Development Index (2019 report)
19. Japan - 0.915
20. Austria - 0.914
-. Taiwan - 0.911
21. Luxembourg - 0.909
22. Israel - 0.906
22. South Korea - 0.906
26. France - 0.891
29. Italy - 0.883

Basically I think people in general have a better sense of financial responsibility. It’s considered a must to save some money every month, and most people hate renting because they think it’s a waste of money even if it only accounts for an acceptable percentage of their salary. This applies to those who don’t make a lot of money and rich people alike.

@pablo_the_wise

Edit: wasn’t there just a thread with 90% of taiwanese making less than the equivalent of 2k usd per month?

Yeah. Fake news thread.

[tando]

Here I tried to make some comparison between taiwan and Philippines.

31% of Taiwanese earn less than NT$30,000; 10% earn over NT$61,000 per month

not regional, but some national stats are here, and we can make some guess on stats for Manila. https://psa.gov.ph/content/2016-occupational-wages-survey-ows uncommon is a subjective word, but this claim can be true, depending on what you mean by “uncommon”. National median wage for workers in Philippines was ~7.5k NTD, but more than 12% of workers got more than 15k NTD in 2016, and mean wages of some kinds of occupations are close to or above 30k NTD. So, more than 30k NTD in Manila is n…

[tango42]

[quote=“Gain, post:12, topic:188762, full:true”]

@pablo_the_wise

@pablo_the_wise

Edit: wasn’t there just a thread with 90% of taiwanese making less than the equivalent of 2k usd per month?

Yeah. Fake news thread.

Median wealth and monthly income are obviously two different things.

[pablo_the_wise]

Median wealth != median income.

Median income in Taiwan ~15k USD per year +/- 3k depending on the article you read. Take from that what you will. For some people that will be rich - for others not.

I don’t think there is an objective answer as, again, rich is a subjective matter.

[tango42]

I think median wealth is similar to net worth. Not based purely on income.

[bluejasn]

A lot of the money comes from the Boomer Generation not from work income. A lot of money was made in land and manufacturing back then and is held in real estate and some stocks.

[bluejasn]

@pablo_the_wise

Median wealth != median income.

Median Wealth is not Median Income. Wealth = Net Worth. A lot of their money did not come from income and is not in the hands of Millenials but in the Boomers and Older Gen. Like my Grandpa for example sold land in Taichung for 20 million USD. Most of the wealth is concentrated in the older generations hence Taiwan per capita has a high median net worth but low income. Yes some of their kids will inherit multimillion dollar USD homes or assets in Taipei or other places yet they have jobs that pay 30k-50kntd like my cousins.

Some people generated wealth from Stocks also in the previous Generation… Also some people who work/worked for TSMC made good money on stock options… Were talking about hundreds of thousands of USD. Today TSMC is generous still but less so. For example 2020 Bonus for average employee at TSMC was 30,000 USD

[pablo_the_wise]

Yeah I know … “!=“ means does not equal.

Edit: oops - thought you were replying to me lol.

[pablo_the_wise]

Yes exactly my point.

A lot of wealth will be inherited, but without constant value creation (eg income) then there’s nowhere to go but down. To inflate numbers to include these assets and assume Taiwan is rich (in terms of financial ambition and opportunity) is misleading to say the least. Especially if one is assuming that the bulk of taiwanese are like this.

Edit: you sound smart. Let’s be friends.