Quote: (02-24-2014 12:08 PM)samsamsam Wrote:
Quote: (02-24-2014 06:44 AM)Feisbook Control Wrote:
Well hell then, if we're talking about where we live...
I'm already either in the top 1% or close to it. I can't remember exactly, but I think I was on track to be in the top 1% of wealthy people in Taiwan within a few years the last time I looked. There are some insanely loaded people here, but the average household supposedly had a net worth of only a few thousand USD. If you have over 100,000 USD, you're already in the top 10% or something like that here.
I might also be not that far off the top 1% of looks given that the average dude here is 5'7", either weighs 130lbs or resembles a steamed bun, has some pretty funky teeth, and has shocking acne and a girly haircut.
This is what's so mad about the developing world. Just by stepping off the plane from North America/Western Europe/Australia, if you're not a complete klutz you can probably hit the 1% in a short while. All the more reason why the average English teacher in Asia is a complete tool with no clue.
Wow - not to take this thread sideways a bit - but I imagined Taiwan to be a pretty wealthy country. Given that it had the manufacturing boom decades ago, just imagined that the wealth would be much more spread out. Plus, its heavy emphasis on education.
But I guess like you are saying it is concentrated.
I've written a lot, but I could have written a lot more. Essentially, they've squandered it. From what I've heard from guys who were here pre-2000, there were literally dollar bills lying around in the streets back then and as a white face, you'd step off the plane and someone would come and hand you a big bag of money for any random job (not just teaching English).
The average person's wages have stagnated for the past decade and a half. There are one million Taiwanese (out of 23 million) living/working in China. There are simply more opportunities/profit over there, particularly if you have a manufacturing business.
Taiwan is caught in a middle income trap of sorts. Its citizens are caught in the equivalent in terms of opportunities and skills too. Yes, on paper, they have one of the best secondary school systems in the world, but what does that translate into? Their best university is still only about number 100 in the world. The average employee brings nothing to the table. He has to have his hand held through every step of the process because he has neither initiative nor critical thinking skills, turns up to put in an appearance (think Japan where there's lots of looking busy until it's time for the boss to go home), and screws around on social media all day. It's ten hours of zero value adding every day. Then they wonder why the average office schmuck gets $6/hour. Seriously, you can't look at official GDP per capita stats as they're grossly distorted by the really wealthy people. The median salary is $1,000-1,300/month (that's accounting for older people at the peak of their careers -- most people are lucky to break $1,000 in their 20s). Yet if I had to employ these guys, I wouldn't pay them anything more than that either because most are bloody useless. The quality of a lot of the work is absolutely piss poor too. I know a few guys here who work for western manufacturing/engineering firms and they are constantly frustrated and/or increasingly buy parts elsewhere.
Then the government has all sorts of stakeholder groups that it buys off. The KMT is supposedly the world's richest political party and has insane amounts of wealth that it has squirreled away and that only a few can get their hands on. In any other country, the teachers and civil servants would probably lean left. Here they lean right. Why? Well, until recently, they didn't pay any tax, and they had guaranteed retirement investment rates at 18% p.a., yes 18%!!! Good luck seeing how the government funds that in about 20 years (or less). No wonder everyone wants a government job. Yet the government is closing schools left and right, there are 4,000 education graduates per year, and 100 places.
Yet despite all of this, people have latched onto consumerism in a massive way. You have people making $20,000 p.a. here driving $50,000 cars, buying the latest mePhone. having $30,000 weddings with honeymoons to Venice or Vienna and all that other nonsense. Usually, they're being funded by their parents because they're not earning it themselves. Once that generation's wealth is gone, everyone else is screwed.
Taipei has one of the world's biggest property bubbles (that's where a lot of this wealth is supposedly tied up). People are buying apartments for 20x their annual income at 3% interest rates. Five years or so from now, the blood is going to be knee deep in the streets from that bust. Others are renting and dropping 50%+ of their pay on a dog box in Taipei. Rent is quite reasonable outside Taipei, but where are the jobs? Catch-22.
No wonder young Taiwanese are heading abroad in droves to do working holidays in Australia and so on. I've known several Taiwanese who have done that and saved in one year picking fruit what they would have earnt in three or four in Taiwan in a "career".
Then there's education, which I touched on a little. Every man and his dog here has done a Master's degree at Nowhere State in the U.S. or even an undergraduate degree in "business" from said institutions. Their parents have dropped tens of thousands so that their kids could come back and earn a whopping $300/month more. If they'd decided to become plumbers and invested those tens of thousands they still be better off by 65. I've done the sums.
If you come here with a few tens of thousands in passive income and/or can earn a reasonable clip (even average or below average by first world standards), you can live like a king. That's definitely more third world than first world, even if they do have the world's second tallest building here. One added benefit is that unlike a lot of the developing world, you're never going to get held up with a knife here. Taiwan is in kind of a sweet spot where you don't have full on feminism and the government sticking its grubby mitt in your pocket to give it out to welfare mothers or Somali refugees at one end, but you don't have guys shitting in the street or stealing your kidneys at the other. It probably isn't so great for the average Taiwanese office schmuck, however. Yet I'm not the average Taiwanese office schmuck, so frankly, I couldn't give a proverbial rodent's earlobe.
tl;dr People always say Chinese are good with money, but they're just as bloody stupid as everyone else and love a good bubble as much as the next guy, they've adopted all the worst elements (and none of the good) of the working cultures of Japan and the U.S., and their education system is only good on paper.
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