A real Taiwanese hero
In a recent front page article, it was reported that Dharma Master Cheng Yen (證嚴法師), founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, had been named as one of this year’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine (“Tzu Chi founder among 100 ‘most influential’: ‘Time’ April 23, page 1).
Readers of this newspaper might be unaware that due to a congenital heart problem, the 73-year-old nun has long been told by her doctors not to fly in airplanes. As a result, she never travels overseas to visit disaster areas or meet with people in such places and she travels only by car, bus or train in Taiwan.
However, Cheng’s love for the world reaches the four corners of the globe through the hands of millions of Tzu Chi volunteers. Although she will not be able to fly to New York to attend the Time 100 Gala for this year’s honorees next month, her spirit will be there for sure.
ARRON BECK
Pingtung
Tell the financial truth
While front-page items in the Taipei Times, China Post and Chinese-language newspapers concentrate on judicial rulings, defense issues, the proposed petrochemical plant in Changhua County and, of course, the ongoing political soap opera within the Democratic Progressive Party in the run up to next year’s election, there is a scarcely noticed, but nonetheless important shadow issue, which, if it is reported on at all, tends to appear only in the pages of the business section and just once in my letter published three years ago (Letters, Feb. 23, 2009, page 8).
That issue is the fragility of Taiwan’s monetary system.
A recent business article (“Reform alliance says MOF’s Debt Clock inaccurate,” April 16, page 12) reported on the claim by the Alliance for Fair Tax Reform that, contrary to the Ministry of Finance’s published figure of NT$4.85 trillion (US$168 billion), total government debt is in fact more than four times that at approximately NT$15.7 trillion — or just under NT$1 million man, woman and child in the nation.
If that figure is correct, then the potential implications for long-term interest rates and consequently the stability of the NT dollar ought to be apparent. The government is effectively bankrupt and with similar situations existing in both the US and China (not to mention Europe) — there is no one to turn to for help.
The next administration — whichever party wins the presidential election — will face a simple choice: Either begin to actively deal with this problem or keep trying to put it off until financial meltdown arrives.
It is in the long-term interest of the nation and a healthy economy that both political parties admit now that this problem exists and stop pretending that economic growth and public spending can be “stimulated” indefinitely.
Any strategy for dealing with this problem must include two broad areas of reform: One is reform of the monetary system with a return to commodity-based currencies of inelastic supply; the other is a systemic policy of privatization to encompass education, healthcare and other social services which, together with administration costs, currently account for more than 60 percent of annual expenditure (or more than NT$1 trillion a year).
Neither of these policies would avert entirely the serious economic consequences Taiwan faces in the future, but they may help to break the fall somewhat, making it easier for the 23 million Taiwanese to cope with the fallout.
MICHAEL FAGAN
Tainan
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