Taiwan's richest man, his candle has extinguished

Discussion Open Forum
21

The problem is not so much saving the planet, but more that Wang didn’t pay for the enormous mess that he created. But that’s another argument.

As for the NT$200 story (repeated in today’s Taipei Times), the New Taiwan Dollar did not begin to circulate until 1949. The Taiwan Dollar was introduced in 1946. In the 1930s, when Wang’s dad loaned him money, the currency was Taiwan Bank bank notes. At the time, a teacher’s salary was 20-30 yuan a month. So if Wang’s dad lent him 200 yuan, it was the equivalent of 10 months of a teacher’s salary. So perhaps this was roughly equivalent to a loan on NT$400,000 (10 * 40K assuming a teacher makes NT$40K per month now). It’s still impressive what he did with that capital, but it wasn’t NT$200.

22

It’s another argument, but a fair one. I agree that somehow his company should be responsible for the past environmental damage that their factories have caused.

23

From what I see the Taiwanese will do nothing more than raise this man onto a pedestal and wail for his lost spirit. The cry will go out: The spiritual stay of Tawian has died!
Do not expect rationality and a period of positive change to grow out of his death. He made his money by running his companies using traditional Taiwanese business practices. I.E. No modern ideas, fuck over your employees, and pay the women minimal wages. And his companies have maintained those principles long after he removed himself from the organisational structure.

Nothing will change but the Taiwanese will have a good cry on the tv and take another sniff of their (our?!?) plastic filled air and another generation will learn nothing even though the wheel has turned once more.

24

RIP, I like how foreigners think they’re better than a 92 year old guy that worked all his life and lived frugally, not to mention the thousands of jobs he created.

25

…jobs for which they get practically no vacation, are ruled with a fist of steel, and do not get their taxes reported, for which they themselves must unload a hefty lump sum. May I also remind you about the incident of the cattle-prod and the Filipino workers?

The take all, give nothing in return mentality is intrinsic to business mentality here. A real hero would have risen above that. While we recognize his achievements, we also remain critical of the serious human rights omissions. Those not only tarnish his reputation but also leave a very undesirable legacy, as his “success” somehow legitimizes such actions.

26

[quote=“mike_rophonechecker”]
Do not expect rationality and a period of positive change to grow out of his death.[/quote]

Well said mixmaster mike. But I say yes and no.

My friend’s father taught me this about successful families:

  1. The true visionary creates the wealth.
  2. The 2nd generation helps maintain and sometimes expand the business.
  3. The 3rd generation fritters it all away.

It’s quite simplistic I agree, but there is some truth to that process. I’m originally from Detroit so the best example I can see is the Ford family. I’m not extremely well-versed in their operations, but from what I’ve seen is that Bill Ford Jr could really give 2 shakes of a cat’s tail about the company because he’s so far removed from the original creation. But the one thing he did help with is move the company to a greener image by building a pretty sweet factory in River Rouge.

So the point is, perhaps now the family members in charge of the wealth (10 kids, I can smell the infighting already) will do whatever they can to keep things at the status quo. Their kids and grandkids, however, are probably educated as we speak at some hoity toity liberal arts school in the States.

Can you imagine? A grandchild of Wang comes into the company at a young age, idealistic and intelligent, and realizes the plight that his grandfather’s empire has caused.

That’s the person to talk to about making change.

27

[quote=“Icon”]…jobs for which they get practically no vacation, are ruled with a fist of steel, and do not get their taxes reported, for which they themselves must unload a hefty lump sum. May I also remind you about the incident of the cattle-prod and the Filipino workers?

The take all, give nothing in return mentality is intrinsic to business mentality here. A real hero would have risen above that. While we recognize his achievements, we also remain critical of the serious human rights omissions. Those not only tarnish his reputation but also leave a very undesirable legacy, as his “success” somehow legitimizes such actions.[/quote]

Muy bueno :bravo: :notworthy: . Well said, and infintely more civilly than I would have.

28

I don’t know about the company’s HR issues, but they certainly have a bad environmental record.

[quote] In October 1990, [the US] EPA proposed an [US] $8.3 million fine against Formosa Plastics for alleged violations of hazardous waste laws including ethylene dichloride (EDC) spills and the emergency dumping of pure EDC into a wastewater treatment system.

In 1991, Formosa was fined $3.7 million by the EPA for hazardous waste violations related to the discovery of contaminated groundwater under the Point Comfort facility.

In addition to the fall 2005 explosion, which injured 11, the Point Comfort complex saw an explosion in 1998 that injured 25.

In April 2005, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fined Formosa $150,000 for violations of air pollution laws that included releases of vinyl chloride.

Under a consent decree, the company pledged to pay $450,000 in fines and reduce emissions at its Delaware facility. [/quote]
siteselection.com/ssinsider/ … 060202.htm

[quote]Tons of Waste Stir Panic in a Cambodian Town

Frightened throngs packed into buses, taxis and a train today, fleeing this Cambodian seaport town near the site where a vast mound of possibly toxic waste was discovered.

As many as 1,000 people poured out of Sihanoukville, and several accidents occurred along a bumpy, narrow road north, leaving at least 4 dead and 13 injured, the police said.

About 3,000 tons of waste from a Taiwan plastics company were deposited a few miles from the town two weeks ago, and Environment Ministry investigators found the site a week later.

. . . a $3 million bribe had been paid to officials to allow the waste into Cambodia from Taiwan.

The waste was dumped in white garbage bags in an open area. Villagers went through the waste, scavenging some of the plastic bags to store rice and exposing the waste, which resembles blocks of cement and dirt.

Those who rummaged through the garbage have complained of suffering from exhaustion and diarrhea. . .

Tensions reached the boiling point after the death of a port worker who reportedly cleaned the hold of the ship that brought the waste from Taiwan. . .

protesters took to the streets on Saturday and threw rocks at an office at the port. . . demonstrators ransacked a hotel they believed was owned by a company linked to the waste. About 60 demonstrators marched today on the district offices that oversee the dumping of waste. . .

The company, the Formosa Plastics Corporation, has said the waste had been certified in Taiwan as safe for landfill disposal, but has conceded that it contains traces of mercury, which can be poisonous[/quote]
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h … A96E958260

29

Yeah, and if they operate like that in the US, imagine how they operate down in Yunlin where they have all the politico/gangsters feeding out of their trough.

30

I have two Taiwanese friends who work there. I am used to the Taiwanese working environment, and still, it shocks me the way this company treats its employees as SOP. Of course, I also have some horror stories from other biggies that would make your hair stand…

31

For all those stories, I’m sure you could also find stories of people that have been very well rewarded for their hard work. In other words, it’s like being hired by any private-sector company or government entity. Some people will rise to the top and be rewarded. Other people with stagnate and will not be offered new challenges or responsibilities. In my opinion, some of the biggest companies in Taiwan know the human resource constraints and challenges they face in the globalized world, and they treat their white and blue collar employees quite well indeed.

You know, I find it quite entertaining indeed that there are a number of foreign critics on here, particularly the environmentalist granola crunching types. :laughing: You know these types? The decadent western-beourgeoisie suburban socialists from North America and Europe that come to Taiwan to teach English and make decent money have benefited tremendously from Taiwan’s economic development. Any middle and upper middle class Taiwanese family that has enough money to afford buxiban classes for their kids, a nice BMW, and a few trips overseas each year or two, owes a debt of gratitude to the strategic foresight of Taiwan’s top families. Same with the working class people that have a roof over their head, socialized medicine, and a disposable income. Same with any foreigner uni grad that comes to Taiwan to work or sing for a few hours each day or to open a small business. If it weren’t for these titans and generous US Aid, Taiwan could be similar to the Philippines or Laos. And that would mean these foreigners would have to look for another stage. Word. :beatnik:

32

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That’s so funny. I mean it is really funny. Are you really thinking straight?

Consider a 70 hour week for 30,000 nt per month. Just consider it. Thats a good starter salary for a Taiwnese female graduate with a masters in business from Brown working at a major Taiwanese multinational corp. Then add in the knowledge that if you thought that sucked and wanted to quit your best option would be to work for someone else in a new start up company who would offer you 20,000nt for the same package and with no perceived bonus. Them multi-national taiwanese companies love to string you along with a shit bonus system. (You work for us for 18 months then in 28 months time we will pay you a percentage of what your department earned in June 2 years ago. But you have to still be working for us in 28 months time or we won’t pay you. And even then that will be performance related and punctuality graded over the 2 years and your attitude to challenges will be considered and as you are female you’d also better not be pregnant or in a relationship with a higher graded employee.) And no you aint getting no holiday. Unless its for one hour at 4pm on a Tuesday to go to the market. Just consider imagining it. And then remember that you have a masters degree from Brown. And then consider that you are on the top of the pile and that other people in the same company work for only 12,000 nt per month. And that at best by the time you are 45 (if not married to some guy who turns you into a house whore) you will maybe earn 50,000nt per month. Less than some fat piece of shit expat 21 yr old earns for turning up and teaching kids the alphabet. And that you would leave this culture if only you werent grafted into it from birth.

It’s a Taiwan wide thing, these tradionally run multi-national companies are a blight on the nation. They treat everyone like scum. Period. And they are only one step above the rest.

33

[quote=“mike_rophonechecker”]

Consider a 70 hour week for 30,000 nt per month. Just consider it. Thats a good starter salary for a Taiwnese female graduate with a masters in business from Brown working at a major Taiwanese multinational corp. [/quote]

Most start at least 35,000 or 40,000, and even higher if they had a real degree from Brown (provided it wasn’t from the Kho San Road campus :smiling_imp: ). Then again, you have to show your real value. Some of the most educated people I’ve met haven’t necessarily been the most productive employees. In some cases, they’ve been too set in their ways.

My wife never worked for any of the titans, but she did work for a Taiwanese-run SME startup. She had no university degree and mainly did secretarial work. Started at 35,000 month, 9 month bonus, other holiday bonuses, 6 hour a day work schedule, and they gave her a Mount Blanc pen and a number of Hermes ties (she gave to me :bravo: ) when she quit. If you counted up these benefits, she made more than most foreigner teachers here with degrees and arrogant attitudes. Traditional Taiwanese companies demand hard work and value loyalty and humbleness. You ain’t going to get a stellar package until you show your drive. Furthermore, the consensus non-confrontational style of management is something Europe and North America can and should learn from.

Again, I disagree. Some people get them in the first year. It depends on what value you bring to the table. And, frankly, that’s the way it should be IMHO. If you don’t value meritocracy, join a union :smiley:

Bullshit. In Taiwan, you won’t get any holidays the first year. However, the private sector holiday schemes are much more generous than Taiwan’s public sector schemes in terms of flexibility. After two years, you get 10 days holidays (equates to two weeks of holidays). You’re also allotted over 100 hours of time you can take off for errands. So basically, that’s three week of holidays. Sick days paid at half pay. Can take longer unpaid leave if you need it. Not bad at all. The private health care coverage offered by most big companies in Taiwan is really good. These are pretty good benefits from a North American perspective. Maybe not as generous as some of the continental European countries (e.g France and Germany), but is that what the private sector wants to use as its inspiration in terms of HR policies? If anything, continental countries have been looking at becoming more like Britain and the US in terms of their HR policies and social programs This is a good thing, because as anyone familiar with birth rates and demographics will attest to, the state surely can’t afford to pay these benefits in Europe with the aging population.

[quote=“mike_rophonechecker”]

It’s a Taiwan wide thing, these tradionally run multi-national companies are a blight on the nation. They treat everyone like scum. Period. And they are only one step above the rest.[/quote]

Have you ever worked for one of them? :laughing: Or have you been reading Chomsky after recess again?
:smiling_imp:

34

Maybe you never left Taipei.

Chomsky reads me.

35

[quote=“mike_rophonechecker”]Maybe you never left Taipei.

Chomsky reads me.[/quote]

He reads Archie and Jughead comics while on the shitter?

36

[quote=“Chewycorns”]For all those stories, I’m sure you could also find stories of people that have been very well rewarded for their hard work. In other words, it’s like being hired by any private-sector company or government entity. Some people will rise to the top and be rewarded. Other people with stagnate and will not be offered new challenges or responsibilities. In my opinion, some of the biggest companies in Taiwan know the human resource constraints and challenges they face in the globalized world, and they treat their white and blue collar employees quite well indeed.

…Any middle and upper middle class Taiwanese family that has enough money to afford buxiban classes for their kids, a nice BMW, and a few trips overseas each year or two, owes a debt of gratitude to the strategic foresight of Taiwan’s top families. Same with the working class people that have a roof over their head, socialized medicine, and a disposable income. Same with any foreigner uni grad that comes to Taiwan to work or sing for a few hours each day or opens a small business. If it weren’t for these titans and generous US Aid, Taiwan could be similar to the Philippines or Laos. And that would mean these foreigners would have to look for another stage. Word. :beatnik:[/quote]

Are you paid to write this stuff? To quote my signature, spare us the glories of capitalism speech.

There are many reasons to be critical of the “good” business families in Taiwan and yes many of those reasons are environmental. Now you propably think I am going to talk about lost trees and flowers and you will say big deal. But in fact a greater concern is the loss of fertile agricultural land.

In the late 90s the EPA tested all farmland across Taiwan and was forced to close down thousands of hectares of land (mostly in the west) because they discovered it had been contaminated. The culprit of course was unregulated factory waste. Though it is pretty rare now, the sight of factories beside rice fields was quite common a decade ago.

Now the repercussions of the insane shortsightedness of the families you laud is not only that we all ate mercury laced rice for years, but that we now have thousands of other families who have lost the value in their land (ie, they can’t farm it or sell it) and must rely on government subsidies. Oh dear, welfare cases. Why don’t they just get a job. Well, they had one, but the Wang’s of the world took it away. I can imagine how pissed you would be if your ability to work and support your family was hindered by the actions of someone else. Actually I don’t need to imagine it: we heard nothing but this topic from you for 5 years.

As we are entering an era of higher food costs, agricultural development becomes a national security issue. It’s not really too much of an exageration to say that the behavior that resulted in making thousands of hectares infertile is close to treasonous. It is in any case inexcusable. We see nothing comparable in the development of South Korea.

37

[quote=“Mucha Man”]

I can imagine how pissed you would be if your ability to work and support your family was hindered by the actions of someone else. Actually I don’t need to imagine it: we heard nothing but this topic from you for 5 years. [/quote]

You are comparing apples with oranges here. :laughing: I was pissed off by the hypocrisy of the politicians and their inner circle. Yes, I was screwed over, but I landed back on my feet within one week. :smiling_imp: Of course, it pissed me off for years though, as well it should, because of the stress it caused my wife. I expected so much more from these people but realized the shortcomings within large sections of the party (not everyone though–a DPP internationalist minister still wrote a very nice reference letter for me recently). That some of these supposedly human-rights oriented, reform-minded DPP political appointments, who trumped human rights issues on the international stage, were, in fact, close-minded Hoklo chauvinists that advocated little more than ethnic-based tribalism that could easily destroy all of Taiwan’s economic gains and rip apart the social fabric of the nation, not to mention paint it as a corrupt Banana Republic on the world stage. People expected reform, didn’t get it, and with the corruption and laundering issues, have finally seen the true nature of Chen and his Justice Alliance faction.

Business, on the other hand, is so much cleaner and simpler IMHO. Its purpose is to make money for its shareholders or owners. Do you think farmers, industrialists, teachers, and pointy-headed academics were even remotely interested or aware of environmental matters in the early days of Taiwan’s economic development?

While I think most Taiwanese will readily admit in retrospection that their country’s early development came at a large environmental cost, what was their alternative? Poverty? It’s like what Lee Kuan Yew has said on numerous occassions. Human rights are great, but they don’t mean much when people don’t have a roof over their head. I don’t normally agree with this type of thinking, but it has some validity when you look at Singapore in the 1960s or Taiwan prior to democratization. You can judge this through the normal Western lense, but with no natural resources and huge security concerns in the early years, environmental protection in Taiwan was not a huge priority. The priority was to keep out the communists and raise the living standards of the people by rapid industrialization.

The West has no better track record in environmentalism considering that the industrial revolution happened in the 1700s, and environmentalism only started as a movement in the 1970s. When did Taiwan industrialize? A hell of a lot later. Again, I don’t normally trump the “Asian values” argument as most people know, but in this case, it just makes common sense. Yes, perhaps some farmers were hurt along the way, but it’s not like they’ve ever put environmentalism at the top of their agenda list. Some farmers in Taiwan have even poisoned their own farmland in order to force the government to reclassify their land so they can sell it for residential, commercial and/or industrial use. If farmers failed to upgrade their skills and adapt to the new realities of the global economy, even with the government spending large sums of money to promote this, it’s their fault. Same as it is for autoworkers in Windsor, Ontario, who may think that a union job means a job for life. Have you ever lectured betel-nut farmers about top-soil erosion? People seem to single out the business leaders without looking at the larger picture and context.

And since you’ve been a cheerleader for Chen Shui-bian for a long time, I thought you would like to read this comparision of Wang to Chen. The author at the Straits Times correctly calls Wang the real “Son of Taiwan.” I expect that most Taiwanese these days would agree. :bravo: But not expat cheerleaders for a certain political party I’m sure. :laughing: :wink:

I live on a 20 dollars a week allowance (primarly for working-class greasy snacks) and the wife still complains about it. :laughing: If this is decadent western-beourgeoisie socialism, then I’m Long Dong Silver. :laughing: Rebel against Fabian Society impulses? Not sure what you mean here. The Fabians were a bunch of arrogant upper-class Brits that lived in Bloomsbury, vacationed in Moscow, and talked reform while all time complaining about the hired help.

38

good post chewy, although I do understand how YC Wang’s contributions can be hard to understand for the foreigners.

39

Industrialists? Obviously not, and the criticism is that they still don’t, which is why they have all moved to China.

Others? Yes. The “green oyster” incident happened in 1986. Kate Rogers in her book The Swallow Returns talks about environmental efforts to save bird species by locals in the 1970s. People were very aware how polluted their country was getting in the early days. Some didn’t care, and most who did were silenced.

China is in the early decades of development, so does this mean no one there is alert to the environmental damage? No one there knows melanmine is bad for you? What a bizzarre proposition.

Better planning. There was no need to put factories by rice fields. No need to allow people to live next door to high tech plants, when in the west 1000m is the standard. No need to suppresss the information that people needed to make rational choices about where they live. That was just corruption and idiocy at work and people new it was wrong and you know it was wrong. You’re simply making excuses for atrocious practices beause you believe in the abstract that business is good. In large part I agree. But when it is clearly evil in some of its concrete practises, then it is cowardly to turn away blindly from this and resort to platitudes.

But the real issue is this: why is Taiwan cleaner today that 15 years ago? The answer in large part is that the big polluting industries went to China were they can foul up the environment with the same impunity they did for 40 years in Taiwan. In other words, there’s been no change of consciousness in the good families of Taiwan. Were they not able to locate to China we would still have the factories and they would still be polluting with impunity. Which of course they still do in areas like Mailiao, Chungli, and Linyuan.

So what is there to laud? Yes, it is miraculous Taiwan went from having one of the highest standards of living in Asia under the Japanese to it having one of the lowest standards of living (at least among the tigers) under the KMT. :wink:

And this lower standard is a direct result of the business practises of the past 40 years, practises that I say continue apace but fortunately for us largely continue far enough away from where we live.

In 1980 I could see someone saying “Wow, this is amazing, my father was a sharecropper and I am now on my way to law school. I have an apartment with running water, I’m getting fat I can eat so much, and soon I will have a car.” In 1998, people said “This is crap. The air is so foul where we live my children all have asthma, we have to buy water to drink, and pay for expensive organic vegetables cause you can’t trust the regular stuff. My city looks like shit, and the rivers I used to play in literally are shit because there’s no sewage. I just lost my job cause the plastics factory doesn’t want to comply with new environmental regulations and is going to China. What a miserable place.”

In 2008, things are much better. But again, not because the families you laud have changed their tune. If the best you can say is Wang and family were frugal, well so am I and so is mine.

BTW, I deleted the Fabian stuff last night after posting as I thought it was an unneccesary thing to say. So how did it end up in your post? You saved it didn’t you? :roflmao:

40

How about development without environmental damage?

Why not have both?

Seems there’s a fallacy of binary thinking going on here: it’s as if people believe you can only have one if you don’t have the other.