Huge Anti Ma Ying Jeou Demo in Taipei

[headhonchoII]

People got used to low prices and very minor price changes. When Ma tried to put them up in one go, it was a shock to the system. Now they have divided it up somewhat, a smarter move on their part. It's like the way many suppliers add 3% to their price list every year.
Or some governments add a few cents onto excise duty for cigarettes or alcohol every year.
You have to train the monkeys.
No candidate would have got voted in if they said I am going to make you pay the real price for fuel and electricity. So Ma just had to follow political realities.

Seriously it's a good move to prevent inefficiencies and national debt rising, but it should be backed by real efforts at tax and welfare reform instead of the usual limp-wristed stuff that gets shot down by the legislators and friends in big business.

[cfimages]

Utilities and energy prices have been artificially low for a long time now. Even if Tsai won the election, she'd have had to do the same thing and raise them.

[Mawvellous]

Well, as you know, you can only vote at the borough where you have household registration. Yeah, try asking all the Southerners working in the North (Taipei area mostly) to take HSR back to Kaohsiung area TWICE (once for the election and another one for CNY...all within consecutive weekends).

Super interesting, I didn't about the aggregate effect of voting according to household registration. Even the Taiwanese living in the US have to fly back to vote in elections (which the really politically inclined ones do).

That's so wierd that Taiwan doesn't have absentee voting. It's a wierd structural impediment that, combined with most jobs being in the north, probably results in the KMT getting more votes than they should. I wonder if there's ever been an attempt to institute absentee voting in Taiwan.

Doubtful.

One word to sum up why: fraud.

Yes, absentee voting (不在籍投票) is government policy and should be in place in the next few years (although you won't be able to vote abroad).
However, as this article shows, it has met with DPP opposition.
http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2011/new ... ay-fo1.htm
One of the reasons given is that Taiwanese businessmen on the mainland will be easily able to travel to Jinmen or Mazu to vote. It will also be easier for the military to vote.

[tommy525]

Then they shouldn't have voted for him with a clear majority. All these stupid protests do is make ut even more difficult for anything to do doe. But they are meaningless. Ma would win the election again tomorrow.

Agree. Watching the green party TV stations, it's the same old. " Old" as in a 95% or more representation by a retired TW generation whom still thinks independence will provide their grand children a better future.

Not really, more like they are anti KMT to the core, to their dying second.

[Icon]

The economy doesn't mean anything to the average salary man/woman. They just feel income vs expenses.

Exactly. And as inflation goes, the cost of living rises, and average Joe has to feed a family of 4 with a 20 thousand nt salary that is not set in stone, as the bosses are making a killing in real estate/stocks/etc. and hence are not interested in mafan -dealing with employees. Then the average Joe blames the G'ment because he sees them in collusion with big interests, helping them make more money at his expense -meaning everything from housing to food to medical care is more expensive while/because the rich are getting richer and there is nothing left for him.

There is a precise term in economics for this but I baptized it "the blanket war economics". Like newlyweds pulling the blanket, if you pull one side, the other is left uncovered. The blanket is a certain size, and when you pull it, you do not create more blanket, you just move assets from one side to another.

[Icon]

Then they shouldn't have voted for him with a clear majority. All these stupid protests do is make ut even more difficult for anything to do doe. But they are meaningless. Ma would win the election again tomorrow.

Agree. Watching the green party TV stations, it's the same old. " Old" as in a 95% or more representation by a retired TW generation whom still thinks independence will provide their grand children a better future.

Not really, more like they are anti KMT to the core, to their dying second.

From my window perch, I saw a lot of youngsters. There is a core old geezer league, true, but I also saw a lot of families. I wondered why anyone would get children into that. Oh, and the doggies.

[cfimages]

Then they shouldn't have voted for him with a clear majority. All these stupid protests do is make ut even more difficult for anything to do doe. But they are meaningless. Ma would win the election again tomorrow.

Agree. Watching the green party TV stations, it's the same old. " Old" as in a 95% or more representation by a retired TW generation whom still thinks independence will provide their grand children a better future.

Not really, more like they are anti KMT to the core, to their dying second.

From my window perch, I saw a lot of youngsters. There is a core old geezer league, true, but I also saw a lot of families. I wondered why anyone would get children into that. Oh, and the doggies.

Yes, the doggies with stickers and tape stuck to their fur.

[PigBloodCake]

It all went mostly harmless nothing to film really.
Like always, when there is an anti government demo in Taiwan, it rains. Cloud seeding instead of sticks and tear-gas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3XsHqVJ7Ts

Compared with Europe and ME demonstrations (not to mention the possibilities of car bombs in ME), don't you just love Taiwan's?

We should file this under the "Things I love about the 'wan" section

[PigBloodCake]

People are pissed because...of what? They have to pay more for fuel and electricity? If so then that is not Ma's fault. They should be pissed at their crummy legislators.

I don't think that it is the fact that prices go up. It is the fact that Ma said they wouldn't go up for some time, and then they wen't up straight after the election.

I think so too.
It's the fact that he had the power to keep them down till after the election.

Well, imagine running on a platform of "things we take for granted will go up in price if I win a 2nd term." (mike029 would probably cry in his bed if Ma was really that dumb ).

[PigBloodCake]

Then they shouldn't have voted for him with a clear majority. All these stupid protests do is make ut even more difficult for anything to do doe. But they are meaningless. Ma would win the election again tomorrow.

Agree. Watching the green party TV stations, it's the same old. " Old" as in a 95% or more representation by a retired TW generation whom still thinks independence will provide their grand children a better future.

Not really, more like they are anti KMT to the core, to their dying second.

Well, imagine you're a Jew still living under Nazi rule Germany but without the Hitler mantra/ideals.

Perhaps the sentence above is somewhat of an extreme comparison but, trust me, ask any older gen folks of what they think about the generalissimo and the comparisons to Hitler would be quite close from their perspectives.