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Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

14 Oct

Part of Taiwan's culture is characterized by exploitative behavior, and while it is by no means as bad as many countries, it is possibly one of the worst among advanced countries. Bosses exploit workers (Taiwan's profit share is among the highest in advanced countries), ...

... the rich exploit the poor (Taiwan's wealth inequality is among the highest), professors exploit researchers, trucks bully cars, cars bully motorcyclists, motorcyclists bully pedestrians. And such exploitation oriented toward profit and self-interest means ...

... there has been little impetus to fundamentally question the need for structural change. Taiwan's low-cost business approach is unquestioned, the poor traffic infrastructure is unquestioned, and the neoliberal approach is unquestioned. This has led to stagnation in Taiwan's...

Read 19 tweets

Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

12 Oct

Need to look more at the method of this study, but if I'm not wrong, Taiwan's roads are possibly the only one in the world to continue to use a two-stage left turn rule for scooters? This study is limited in that it only compares accidents caused ...

taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ar…

... vis-a-vis roads in Taiwan with two-stage left turn, and those without. But it does not question the fundamental reasons for traffic behavior in Taiwan - poor traffic infrastructure, poor enforcement lack of logical traffic planning and poor public transportation development.

To therefore conclude that two-stage left turns causes less severe accidents (even as it actually causes more accidents) does not adequately account for the systemic factors that cause accidents. Didn't a Taoyuan study found otherwise, that two-stage left turn are more dangerous?

Read 4 tweets

Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

12 Oct

Taiwan is facing a triple whammy in why birth rates continue to be low: (1) Taiwan's pro-business neoliberal capitalistic agenda necessarily contradicts with fertility goals, since (2) the intent of businesses to depress wages in order to profit highly,

taipeitimes.com/News/editorial…

... necessarily impedes workers from having the financial capital to start families, and (3) the channeling of profits into real estate instead of productive investments increases property prices which impedes on the ability of families from buying new homes for their stability.

@iingwen

While Taiwan has been increasing childcare subsidies, unless @iingwen's government can increase subsidies to the extend that it makes up for the loss wages and high property prices, wanting workers to be willing to give birth is a tall order because they don't have the means.

Read 11 tweets

Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

9 Aug

Was having a conversation with a Taiwanese friend. Taiwan actually has many good products that are half the price of global brands, even simple things such as fans, hair dryers, water purifiers, etc. But they don't sell beyond Taiwan because my friend said ...

... Taiwanese businesses aren't confident. We spoke about how Taiwan has the capability to go global because Taiwan has been able to galvanize SMEs to work together during #COVID19 to produce masks, test kits and drugs. So, the expertise is there ...

... Yet, Taiwan's local brands haven't been able to go global, one reason of which my friend said is Taiwanese have been taught to be humble, or in other words to underestimate themselves. She also said that there's too much of an overreliance on China's market, ...

Read 25 tweets

Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

29 Feb

https://twitter.com/skramerteaches/status/1233329612437934081

Taiwan has developed an amazing face mask strategy during this #coronavirus outbreak. I remember Taiwan's government said it learnt from SARS that ensuring adequate masks is important to allay people's worries over the virus. But it's also important for several reasons: 1/13

https://twitter.com/skramerteaches/status/1233329612437934081

(1) It bought time for the government. Ensuring available masks for all residents in Taiwan prevented panic and gave the government the time and space to manage the #coronavirus and save the resources which it would otherwise need to spend dealing with a panic situation. 2/13

(2) Ensuring available masks for all became part of an effective strategy to contain the #coronavirus in Taiwan, as the masks helped to prevent people infected from spreading to others and therefore helped keep the #COVID19 cases in Taiwan relatively low. 3/13

Read 14 tweets

Roy Ngerng

@royngerng

5 May 19

It seems China is using fake news to try to install Han Kuo-yu/Terry Guo as Taiwan's next president, so that KMT can sign a so-called 'peace agreement' with China akin to the Sino-British Joint Declaration for Hong Kong, so that Taiwan can be handed over to China.

The overthrow of Taiwan's government engineered by China via its puppet KMT would be one of the largest coup d'état and espionage in modern times by a foreign government, using high-tech, if it goes through. It would also be a test of the quality of Taiwan's democracy.

The debate over Hong Kong's extradition law which could threaten Taiwanese in Hong Kong, might be moot if China achieves its aim of using Han Kuo-yu/Terry Guo to take over Taiwan and KMT would become complicit traitors to the de facto independent state of Taiwan.

Read 13 tweets

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