The charm of the Taipei City mayor: he gets around with BMW. His BMW is Bike-Mass transit-Walk and he has been doing it for years as a well-to-do surgeon before becoming mayor.
To boost the economy Taiwan government recently announced a couple of thousands USD equivalent of subsidy for car owners to replace their old cars with new ones. Those who can afford cars are usually better off financially, do they need to be subsidized? Despite deflation according to official figures, food inflation ranges from a few percent to double digits from typhoons or who knows what. Workers are squeezed between no salary increase and rising food costs for years. The rich had been getting richer from investments and then mass money exodus with unreasonable tax policies on properties and stocks. They revoked the tax on stocks yesterday and hope the rich’s money will come back.
With the world climate summit coming up at the end of the month, shouldn’t the mayor’s BMW or even the electric battery operated scooters be promoted instead of car subsidy?
It was reported in the news that a young worker bought a Tesla class scooter with a loan a month ago and it was smashed and totaled when he and the vehicle fell flat on the road from dodging a car. He was furious and scorned the manufacturer (who was reported as the rising star innovator-entrepreneur in Forbes and Huffington Post), “Is it made of glass or paper?”
As in all things, there are two sides to everything. In Taipei, riding a bike can be dangerous competing with cars, motorcycles, pedestrians on narrow streets as well as crowded pavements parallel-parked with trucks unloading goods. There were incidences of random knife slashing of passengers by some crazy youths on the metro or seniors and children run over by a bus or truck at crosswalks with green lights. (Unlike US or other countries, vehicles can legally turn right or left even on red lights in Taiwan.)
C’est la vie! Living Charm for the day :”Know the inevitable, be at peace as destiny. That is highest integrity. ” (Chuang Tzu).
Daily Living Charm 