KaoShiong is where the bulk of industrial manufacturing occurs
Taiwan is a Japan trend follower
On strategy
When macro economic environment is not conducive for continued operations, stop operations to conserve resources for future opportunities.
Decision to close wooden frame manufacturing factory
Europe became more environmentally conscious
Malaysia reduced the yearly quota of timber to be harvested
These two trends reduced demand for wooden frame and increased cost of raw wooden material
On personal growth
Adversity in youth provides an opportunity to build character and gain experience.
restricting the amount of resources your offspring has access to might be a good thing but it breeds resentment
Good things come from seemingly bad experience too
on DDP policy in KaoShiong
Too radical in their actions and lacks calibration in their policies. Really good at manipulating the press
Stance
Anti China
Pro resource less young
Pro taxing businesses for social welfare
Pro reducing pension to retired
Equally corrupt as the KMT but too aggressive in their policies leaving nothing for the business to continue operations
manufacturing businesses has been negatively affected with over regulation and rising administrative cost
Worker protection makes overtime illegal severely restricting the throughput volume businesses are allowed in their operations
Workers not making enough from their day job due to such restrictions are forced to take on a second job on top of their main one
30,000 to 40,000 businesses have failed within the KaoShiong area over the past 12 months at the point of writing with more set to fail if policy should persist
While GDP growth rate has been reported at 2% in 2019, shipping volume through KaoShiong has continued to drop
On KMT
A more mature party with measured policies which lost leadership due to lackluster performance
Stance
Pro-China
Pro-business
Pro-protecting pension of the retired
Social security system and the aging population
Social security system is in a state of flux. Employers are required to contribute to two systems. The contribution for the old system is 5X the new system and was too much overheads for the employers.
Retirees are concerned their pension will get cut while the young are concerned their contribution to the social security system is to heavy a burden
On China
China has imposed restrictions on independent Chinese tourist to Taiwan
Chinese tourist are easy customers who engage in indiscriminate spending
Night markets looked empty
Quite a few restaurants have closed down along the main street due to the lack of tourist spending
The bulk of Taiwan’s export has been to China it makes economic sense for both territories to become unified
noteworthy to observe Joe’s shift to a pro Chinese stance the on Chinese Taiwan relationship as compared to the high school days.
Observation of Taiwan style politics in contrast to Chinese style politics leads me to have reservation about how these two systems can be resolved.
the Taiwanese have no reservation with injecting outrageous humor into the legal framework afforded to them by their political system with candidates as outlandish as Mr Crazy Friday and Mr Fortune God
China’s one country two system need to become more robust for this undertaking
Recent HongKong riots has caused concern for Taiwanese and has lead to increased support for the DDP whose leader English Tsai is known to be a strong negotiator
On Korean Japan trade war
Huge influx of Korean tourist observed during this period of tension (Sept 2019)
Korean tourist are more discriminate in their spending, hence a lower per capita spending as compared to the Chinese tourist.
