[quote=“dan2006”]To be honest, if I wanted economic results and I was a government head, I would be contacting some of the thinkers in the Singaporean or Hong Kong government to come to Taiwan and get it into better economic shape.
[/quote]
Bad idea. First of all, Singapore and Hong Kong have very different economies. They are based on services while Taiwan is based on manufacturing. Also, what works in those places will not work in Taiwan because Taiwan does not have the same legal system that facilitates those service-based economies. Also, who wants to be like Hong Kong with its stunning inequality. And who wants to be like Singapore where the state controls most of the wealth. Plus both are not democracies.
I think that piece by The Economist was very weak. It criticized what Ma did without saying what he should have done, or at least laying out some credible suggestions and alternatives. It was just a Ma bashing piece, pure and simple.
[quote=“finley”][quote=“printlessfoot”]Free association lead me to two questions. Can anyone help?
Which single word can describe a person who is a both stupid and evil?[/quote]
George?[/quote]
from here, invented a few new words: georgy, gigy, eorgy, …
You just criticized The Economist without giving them some credible suggestions and alternatives.
By the way, what are your credible suggestions and alternatives for mini-Ma?
I agree. I get The Economist every week and I thought that was a very poorly-written article. It didn’t even contain any concrete criticism of exactly what they imagined he’d done wrong.
Can’t help wondering if they’d had a phone call from some Chinese official. Maybe Ma hasn’t been toeing the party line lately and needed a public reprimand.
They’re the journalists, Mr Foot; and it wasn’t BigJohn doing the president-bashing. They often do pieces like this, but they do at least lay out some proper arguments (usually).
You just criticized The Economist without giving them some credible suggestions and alternatives.
By the way, what are your credible suggestions and alternatives for mini-Ma?[/quote]
Well, first of all I am not a respected international publication calling the leader of a defacto sovereign state a bumbler. Obviously the burden of evidence and argument for such a thing should be greater than that of an semi-anonymous poster giving his opinion.
Second, it is implicit that my “credible suggestions and alternatives” for the Economist is for them to have offered suggestions and alternatives about Ma and his policies. What suggestions they would care to make would be up to them.
I do not have any sort of clear opinion on Taiwan’s economic policy at the moment. I hope to learn more on the topic. And I hope that the Economist does better in the future when covering it.
BTW, here’s a pretty detailed look at the article by Michael Turton.
Note that it is the most recent blog post as of Nov 18 at 15:35 but if someone clicks the link later they may get a different top post and have to scroll down to find the article.
[quote=“finley”]
Can’t help wondering if they’d had a phone call from some Chinese official. Maybe Ma hasn’t been toeing the party line lately and needed a public reprimand.[/quote]
Say what? The Economist is a stooge of the CCP? Is that what you are implying?
[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“dan2006”]To be honest, if I wanted economic results and I was a government head, I would be contacting some of the thinkers in the Singaporean or Hong Kong government to come to Taiwan and get it into better economic shape.
[/quote]
Bad idea. First of all, Singapore and Hong Kong have very different economies. They are based on services while Taiwan is based on manufacturing. Also, what works in those places will not work in Taiwan because Taiwan does not have the same legal system that facilitates those service-based economies. Also, who wants to be like Hong Kong with its stunning inequality. And who wants to be like Singapore where the state controls most of the wealth. Plus both are not democracies.
Give me Taiwan and its problems any day.[/quote]
You are right, Singapore and Hong Kong are based on services, where the money is at. Manufacturing is all leaving Taiwan due to the demands (rightfully so) of higher wages and cheap companies not wanting to pay it. Focusing on manufacturing is a losing battle, since all the companies that are off-shoring from US and Taiwan will never come back. Unless you are willing to accept $50nt an hour wage, they don’t want to produce here.
Again you are right, Taiwan doesn’t have the same legal system. Whose fault was that for not getting with the times? Taiwan had its chance to internationalize and didn’t do it. Now they are trying to come too late to the game and no one cares.
As far as inequality, Taiwan is a big offender. Canada has a nice comfortable middle class (shrinking unfortunately, due to the same forces affecting Taiwan), but Taiwan is mostly have and have nots. You either drive a crappy scooter or a BMW, not much in between. You either live in a hole, or have a nice apartment in New Taipei City. The inequality here is quite stunning IMHO.
Democracy is a funny joke in itself. You have the right to vote in a government that once in, couldn’t care less about you for the next 4 years and no recall ability. No wonder many people don’t care about voting anymore in many countries as it really is pointless and not worth the gas to drive out to vote nor the time spent.
You get a choice to vote between one shitty government and the other, by attempting to figure out the lesser of two evils. Good system
You won’t believe this but Ma justnow ordered Taipei’s Representative Official in London to have words with the editorial of the Economist. He really wishes ‘Ma: the Bumbler’ to spread to world news. And eventuall become a bumper sticker :loco:
Of course not. Just seems odd, is all. The general standard of the articles in The Economist is fairly high; that one was completely content- and fact-free. And why bother bashing the president of a country most people have still never heard of? It’s hardly newsworthy. It’s not even election time. The Economist mentions Taiwan maybe twice a year.
The CCP think it’s perfectly normal to directly control the media within their borders (and pretty much anything else they think important) including foreign-run companies. The Economist has a fairly complex structure of ownership and it’s entirely possible that some of their shareholders are vulnerable to being pressurized. You’re not one of those people who believes we have a free and fair media, are you?
Hmm. Bad move. Would have been better to simply to write a letter, IMO. Letters from heads of state or their representatives usually get published.
Of course not. Just seems odd, is all. The general standard of the articles in The Economist is fairly high; that one was completely content- and fact-free. And why bother bashing the president of a country most people have still never heard of? It’s hardly newsworthy. It’s not even election time. The Economist mentions Taiwan maybe twice a year.
The CCP think it’s perfectly normal to directly control the media within their borders (and pretty much anything else they think important) including foreign-run companies. The Economist has a fairly complex structure of ownership and it’s entirely possible that some of their shareholders are vulnerable to being pressurized. You’re not one of those people who believes we have a free and fair media, are you?
Hmm. Bad move. Would have been better to simply to write a letter, IMO. Letters from heads of state or their representatives usually get published.[/quote]
The Economist is owned by Pearson’s. The owners of Penguin Books and the Financial Times. Like most education publishers they make much of their money selling kids English learning materials. Perhaps they are interested in penetrating the Chinese market farther.
Laugh you may, but the education unit of Pearson’s makes most of the company’s money. Most education companies like Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press would not exist without their most profitable and growing units – kids English education. There is no money in university text books and how to manuals for teachers but there is a stack load in 50USD per unit 30-kid a class, six-unit series.
[quote=“Fox”]
The Economist is owned by Pearsons. The owners of Penguin Books. Like most education publishers they make most of their money selling kids English learning materials. Perhaps they are interested in penetrating the Chinese market farther.[/quote]
It is still wild speculation that this has anything to do with the Ma piece. And to be frank, that is a very restrained and courteous term in this case.
[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Fox”]
The Economist is owned by Pearsons. The owners of Penguin Books. Like most education publishers they make most of their money selling kids English learning materials. Perhaps they are interested in penetrating the Chinese market farther.[/quote]
It is still wild speculation that this has anything to do with the Ma piece. And to be frank, that is a very restrained and courteous term in this case.[/quote]
Outrageous! Ma didn’t need any help to have that article written about him.
It is still wild speculation that this has anything to do with the Ma piece. And to be frank, that is a very restrained and courteous term in this case.[/quote]
Given that they routinely criticize Chinese politics far more strongly than they criticized Ma in this week’s piece, I don’t think they’re basing their editorial decisions too much on the Chinese market.
I generally enjoy The Economist, but they do have a habit of occasionally lapsing into whatever the local rhetoric is, without examining that rhetoric too closely - for example, they seem to have completely accepted the Republican line that Obama hates businesspeople. There’s lots to criticize about Obama’s economic policy, but “he hasn’t said enough nice things about businesspeople” isn’t a worthwhile critique.
How dare you sir. I prefer “conspiracy theory”, if you wouldn’t mind.
I wasn’t stating it as fact. It’s just a possibility. It might have been a first effort from a Chinese intern (or a DPP supporter). Magazines can and do sell column-inches to anyone with the cash and the connections, not just as advertising space or advertorials. This is no secret, and neither is it illegal. It’s cheaper and easier to re-print an article submitted by a third party than to generate copy by themselves.
Wikipedia says:
“The Economist Group is an associate and not a subsidiary of Pearson PLC. The Financial Times Limited, which is a Pearson subsidiary, owns 50% of the share capital of The Economist Group but does not have a controlling interest. The bulk of the remaining shares are held by individual shareholders including the Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder, Agnelli and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders. The Economist Group operates as a separate and independent business.”
Personally I’ve noticed they’ve got a lot less strident lately, more along the lines of “we respectfully hope that the new Chinese leadership will XYZ”. Their article on the new grand high poobah (Xi Jinping) was almost fawning.
Yes - I’ve noticed this too. More generally, they’ve started to regurgitate received wisdom as fact (“renewable sources are decades away from contributing to our energy needs”, or words to that effect, springs to mind). I guess you just can’t get the staff these days.
How will criticizing Ma gain any entry into the Chinese children’s book market??? The CCP doesn’t want to see Ma’s image tarnished, unless they are prepared to prevent Taiwan from having another election in 2016.
Ma is the one who will push China’s agenda for them, including systematically destroying Taiwan’s news media.
