Vonnegut in Charge
Discussion Question:
From THE NATION:
If you were president [either of Taiwan or the US], what do you think would be the most important things to take care of, and how would you do it?
Ever concerned with raising the level of political discourse in this country, we asked novelist Kurt Vonnegut to compose an acceptance speech for Michael Dukakis. Of course, writers have contributed to presidential oratory in the past, but their efforts were lost in the revision-by-committee process. Here's the real thing, unfiltered and undiluted.
I am here to serve the people of the United States of America -- all of them, in all ways which are lawful.
I will not now speak of my humbleness. It has been said with some truth, I suppose, that almost anyone can grow up to be President. I have to add, ''But surely not an humble child.'' The Presidency is simultaneously a pinnacle of power and of vanity, and God help us all.
An aspect of my vanity, which seems to have found favor with a majority of those who chose to vote, is my belief that, with the help of the fourth branch of government mentioned in our Constitution, ''We the people,'' I can do a lot to help the United States of America become the United States of America--at last, at last.
The echo of Martin Luther King in my words is intentional when I say ''at last, at last.''
It will do us no harm today, as it has surely done no harm to other nations I need not name, to acknowledge a past soiled with atrocities, including, in our case, slavery and genocide, and the treatment of women of whatever race under law as though they were not citizens but property. Let us celebrate how far we have come from such bad old days in so short a time, and measure how far we have yet to go.
What better measurement might we use for progress made and progress yet to come than the health and happiness and wisdom and safety of all our people? And make no mistake about it: This nation is the most astonishing and admirable experiment in pluralistic democracy in history. Because of our wealth, the fairness of our Bill of Rights and the openness of our long borders, every conceivable sort of human being is now an American.
We are the world.
There is much in the recent past I would undo, if I could, especially our overwhelming national debt, whose undoing will be slow and painful. I will try to find out what good things, if any, we bought with all that money, borrowed mostly from foreigners. I will report back to you, whose children and grandchildren must pay it back with interest. I will be surprised, as I am sure most of you will be, too, if I find many purchases our descendants might thank us for.
With your encouragement, and with the cooperation of your elected representatives, I will attempt, after listening to the best-informed advisers I can find, to give future generations reasons to think well of us after all. There you have it, the principal mission of my administration: to create and bequeath to the future a decent habitat for all, free of poisons, free of hunger, free of ignorance, free of hate.
Too much, too much?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Those are the words of Robert Browning, of course. I can put it a lot less elegantly, if you like:
Company's coming! Let's clean up this mess.
Many of the poisons in the water and the air and the topsoil are new. One which can sicken our spirit is ancient, and only since World War II has this country begun to fight it with any seriousness: the idea that females and persons of color are second-class citizens. That poison would love to make a great big comeback, to take its lethal place alongside nerve gas and radioactive wastes and PCBs and crack, and DDT and Agent Orange and the AIDS virus, and on and on.
Not while I'm President. In the words of Patrick Henry:
If this be treason, make the most of it.
Am I proposing a redistribution of wealth? You bet, since the wealth is being redistributed in any case, and often most crazily, and against the national interest. Am I proposing that we tax and tax and spend and spend? Yes, I am. Virtually every transaction is being skimmed already, and some private persons have done this at such confiscatory rates as to become as rich as smaller sovereign nations in a few years' time. And they spend and spend. On what? On what?
Ah, me.
Am I proposing an enormous public works program? How else might we describe our military-industrial complex, so mistrusted by that great Republican, General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower, when he himself became our President? With your encouragement I want to take much of the money now going into that public works program, and invest it instead in the arts of peace, the noblest of which are public health and education.
Who says otherwise? And why?
Company's coming.
I thank you for your attention.
I am here to serve the people of the United States of America -- all of them, in all ways which are lawful.
I will not now speak of my humbleness. It has been said with some truth, I suppose, that almost anyone can grow up to be President. I have to add, ''But surely not an humble child.'' The Presidency is simultaneously a pinnacle of power and of vanity, and God help us all.
An aspect of my vanity, which seems to have found favor with a majority of those who chose to vote, is my belief that, with the help of the fourth branch of government mentioned in our Constitution, ''We the people,'' I can do a lot to help the United States of America become the United States of America--at last, at last.
The echo of Martin Luther King in my words is intentional when I say ''at last, at last.''
It will do us no harm today, as it has surely done no harm to other nations I need not name, to acknowledge a past soiled with atrocities, including, in our case, slavery and genocide, and the treatment of women of whatever race under law as though they were not citizens but property. Let us celebrate how far we have come from such bad old days in so short a time, and measure how far we have yet to go.
What better measurement might we use for progress made and progress yet to come than the health and happiness and wisdom and safety of all our people? And make no mistake about it: This nation is the most astonishing and admirable experiment in pluralistic democracy in history. Because of our wealth, the fairness of our Bill of Rights and the openness of our long borders, every conceivable sort of human being is now an American.
We are the world.
There is much in the recent past I would undo, if I could, especially our overwhelming national debt, whose undoing will be slow and painful. I will try to find out what good things, if any, we bought with all that money, borrowed mostly from foreigners. I will report back to you, whose children and grandchildren must pay it back with interest. I will be surprised, as I am sure most of you will be, too, if I find many purchases our descendants might thank us for.
With your encouragement, and with the cooperation of your elected representatives, I will attempt, after listening to the best-informed advisers I can find, to give future generations reasons to think well of us after all. There you have it, the principal mission of my administration: to create and bequeath to the future a decent habitat for all, free of poisons, free of hunger, free of ignorance, free of hate.
Too much, too much?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Those are the words of Robert Browning, of course. I can put it a lot less elegantly, if you like:
Company's coming! Let's clean up this mess.
Many of the poisons in the water and the air and the topsoil are new. One which can sicken our spirit is ancient, and only since World War II has this country begun to fight it with any seriousness: the idea that females and persons of color are second-class citizens. That poison would love to make a great big comeback, to take its lethal place alongside nerve gas and radioactive wastes and PCBs and crack, and DDT and Agent Orange and the AIDS virus, and on and on.
Not while I'm President. In the words of Patrick Henry:
If this be treason, make the most of it.
Am I proposing a redistribution of wealth? You bet, since the wealth is being redistributed in any case, and often most crazily, and against the national interest. Am I proposing that we tax and tax and spend and spend? Yes, I am. Virtually every transaction is being skimmed already, and some private persons have done this at such confiscatory rates as to become as rich as smaller sovereign nations in a few years' time. And they spend and spend. On what? On what?
Ah, me.
Am I proposing an enormous public works program? How else might we describe our military-industrial complex, so mistrusted by that great Republican, General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower, when he himself became our President? With your encouragement I want to take much of the money now going into that public works program, and invest it instead in the arts of peace, the noblest of which are public health and education.
Who says otherwise? And why?
Company's coming.
I thank you for your attention.
Taipei Discussion Transcript: Vonnegut
Participants: Maggie, Teresa, Fanny, Mary, Angela
If you were the president or the leader of Taiwan or the world or any territory or the universe or a solar system, or whatever, what do you think would be the most important things to take care of, and how would you do it? So: that’s a broad question, and it should engender some interesting answers, which I think in the form of an outline and some illuminating detail, might be a useful format.
Anyone? Anyone? … Bueller?
If I were a president in Taiwan, there are two things I would like to do first. The first one would be to establish public transport system around the whole Taiwan landscape. Because this policy can cause two helpful effects for Taiwan. The first one is to reduce the oil use, and the second one can develop the rural, the economy and rise the living standard of the small town in rural area. And my second policy is to improve our education. Focusing most on law and money education, among other things, to teach our children respecting themselves and others. I think education is the cornerstone of a country. That’s my policy if I were a president of Taiwan.
So how’s my—
Yeah, if you want , you can critique—
You say, you emphasize on education—
Yeah,
--especially on law?
Yes, in particular and respect children respect themselves a lot. In my opinion, most criminals in our society is because people don’t respect themselves and others. Don’t respect the value of their life.
Myself, I think that school is not going to do this as well as at home, but you have to start somewhere.
Fanny, why do you say law? Why law?
Because I think in Taiwan, Taiwan people seldom obey the law. And that cause a lot of criminals and problems. In addition, most people almost in the bottom of the society, they have no knowledge of law.
Of their rights, maybe?
Yes, and so they don’t know how to protect themselves. For instance when they have no idea in this case, they should or can do something to protect themselves. But rich people have money to hire lawyers, or people with higher levels of education have knowledge of laws, they often know how to protect themselves.
So you mean if you were president, then how would you do of the people, they obey the people—
How you would make people follow the laws?
You say, they don’t follow the law, so if you were president, what would you do to make this kind of people follow the law?
Massive adult education classes? Culture Class for all! About rights and responsibilities? Free? Compulsory? But you’d have to teach the teachers first.
Put heavy punishments.
Don’t we already have that?
No?
The death penalty? That’s not heavy? The problem is, it’s tricky—like you said, people don’t know their rights? Then what do the punishments mean?
Okay, right, so we have to educate people first, the reason why they should obey the rule. Then the third step, if people don’t follow the rules, they will be punished very heavily. Then people will know they should comply.
Okay, so are there any more questions for candidate Fanny?
Just one more question. —
Hee! You sound like a reporter!
—Why do you say ‘law and money’?
Because in recent years, there are so many issues related to complex financial products, and many people, they borrow much more than they have earned, eventually ending up in bankruptcy, and also cause a lot of social problems. They have no choice but ending their lives, their children have no money to finish their education. I think it’s a big problem.
Okay, so are their any more questions for candidate Fanny?
You know I’m very nervous, it’s like I’m a real candidate.
You would be good president!
Does someone else want to be the candidate now? It’s a little bit boring, just one candidate?
We can’t have an election with just one!
Yeah, Taiwan need more candidates.
Okay, if I was the president of Taiwan, I think I have similar. Like economic issues, that people can find a way to earn money for them. Like, or they can find, they can have some organization help them to develop their, like, ability to support themselves, even though they are adult, and that would be a good thing to do.
So job training? Or more than that?
Actually help them to find what they are really good at. Education too. Not just focus on certain areas, but what they are interested in and can make money from. Give them more channel about things they can do, without worrying about ‘now’, not having a financial problem or something
So if you were president you would build a channel for everyone in Taiwan to do whatever they want to do, and without worrying financial problems.
Hopefully!
So, how would you do?
I don’t know.
Well speculate, throw out some ideas, you’re not really a candidate here.
Okay, how about internet. Lots of people don't know how to use the internet. So free lesson, or free education for something, the gvt covers classes they need. But I don’t know where the money comes from!
Well, the Republicans in the US don’t seem to worry much about that either, so I don’t see why that’s a problem.
I just have one suggestion, you can establish a platform, a sharing platform, where people who want to learn certain skills can swap their own skills to others.
That is brilliant!
For instance, I’m good at analysis, you’re good at cooking, we can swap in the platform without paying fees. Because if you provide a totally free channel, that would increase the, that would need more tax, and tax coming from people, and that would be a big burden of the whole country.
But it’s better than paying for weapons?
Okay, are there any other questions for Candidate Mary?
How about a third candidate, Teresa?
I think the most important would be to let my people to have a healthy life, and health and happiness and safety life. Then how do I help them to get to the end? My action, my purpose, the first is, I will invite the other countries, the other foreigner private company to come to Taiwan to invest in Taiwan. The invested item is no, no…
No limit?
No…every industry is okay, if they want to invest in Taiwan. If they want to invest, then they will hire our people. When they hire the Taiwanese, then we can get more salary. If the people get more salary, then they can have a good life than before. Then the gvt has the…can get some tax. So the circle is the …the first things will let our people have a good life.
And the second action is, I will reduce the foreign labor come to Taiwan.
Restrict.
Yes, restrict the foreign laborers, like the southeastern countries, like the Philippine, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia. These kind of countries people, they come to Taiwan to work. I know their salary is cheaper than our people, but they will rob our people ‘s job. I know why the company, they like to hire the foreign laborers. But if we can restrict the foreign laborers, then maybe our peoples can get more job than before. This is if I were a president, these are the first two actions I would take. I wish I were the president right now. But it’s difficult, especially restrict the foreign laborers.
But how about security? You mentioned you want to develop a healthy and happy and …
Safety…yes…security? I’m not sure.
What do you mean by security? You mean int’l security or do you mean reduce the crime rates?
Um, maybe when I invited the private company to invest to Taiwan, maybe there has some security problem. But I think I can control it, because what’s kind of industry come to Taiwan, we can evaluate it before, so if it is a good industry for Taiwan, then I will let them come to here. If it is violate the environment, or pollute our air or water, then I will not let them come to Taiwan to invest, even it can give my people has a good life and get more job. But it will hurt people’s life, so I think the gvt will not let it come. For the security, as you just said, I think after the gvt gets the tax, then we have enough money to hire people to come to be a policeman or they would like to be army, to protect our society. So, and the other action is, security, we need to teach our people, just like you say, give them more education, but I know right now, most Taiwanese people, we have a good level of education. But why some people, they violate the law, because our, we can’t enforce the law. If we can do it like Singapore, I think most of the people, they will follow the law. They will not disobey it. I saw some of Taiwanese people, they go to America. They follow the traffic rule. They know how to drive. Even though no person cross the street, they follow the traffic rule. But in Taiwan they cross the street where they like. But compared to Taiwan and America, they have different rules to follow. Because the American criminal system quickly to punish the people. But in Taiwan, sometimes we didn’t do it.
But America also has more than 1 percent of their population in jail, too, so I’m not certain that’s the best solution.
I think I prefer the Singapore system. Because I think Taiwan’s law is not very strict, so I think maybe we could create more hard and more heavy law to apply.
You know, everyone in Taiwan talks about it, but they don’t really want it. Would you personally want to live in Singapore?
No, it’s too heavy.
See? You don’t want it!
Yeah, but it’s effective!
But it’s important to take the law to important things. Even they see someone violating the law, someone in Taiwan will not say anything about it.
But that’s what’s nice about Taiwan, it’s live and let live, it’s what’s makes here such a nice place to live. Nobody interferes with what you want to do. Let me give you an example. I don’t know if I read this story on the internet, or if someone told me, but this is the story. A guy moved to Singapore, and got an apartment. He put plants on the walkway outside his front door, as you do, and put dishes under each plant to catch the water so that it wouldn’t run all over the place when he watered them, as you do, right? Okay, so a few days later, he gets a knock on the door. It’s a policeman, who told him its illegal in Singapore to put dishes under your plants, or to have any standing water, because it potentially breeds mosquitos. So he got a notice from the police, or maybe even a fine, I don’t remember. The notice or the fine is not really the point. The guy was really pissed off, and why? He was pissed off because he was like, his apartment was on like the 5th or 6th floor. The police wouldn’t have known about his plants without one of the neighbors telling him about it. He was pissed, because he was like, “Why didn’t my neighbors just come to me directly, or put a polite note on my door to let me know the situation? Why did they instead call the police? That’s so unfriendly!” What he felt betrayed about, I think, is that ‘authority’ was brought in to deal with a situation that just needed a little communication. It was like killing a mosquito with a brick, so to speak. It was un-neighborly and unfriendly, and left him angry with all the people who lived near him. That’s not the way to build community, but it is the way you build ruthless dictatorship—break people into vertical relationships with authority, instead of the horizontal relationships of community.
So there’s a lot that’s nice about Taiwan. I’m not saying that it’s always good, but everything good comes with some bad things, and some bad things come with good. But you have to be careful not to lose the important things. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Angela, what would you do?
Well, I totally support the Vonnegut platform, and I would incorporate a lot of the fanny platform and some of the Mary. I really love the idea of educating everybody at once, including all the adults, into understanding, thinking about and applying their rights and responsibilities as citizens. I don’t support the Singapore platform at all, I’m sorry.
If you were the president or the leader of Taiwan or the world or any territory or the universe or a solar system, or whatever, what do you think would be the most important things to take care of, and how would you do it? So: that’s a broad question, and it should engender some interesting answers, which I think in the form of an outline and some illuminating detail, might be a useful format.
Anyone? Anyone? … Bueller?
If I were a president in Taiwan, there are two things I would like to do first. The first one would be to establish public transport system around the whole Taiwan landscape. Because this policy can cause two helpful effects for Taiwan. The first one is to reduce the oil use, and the second one can develop the rural, the economy and rise the living standard of the small town in rural area. And my second policy is to improve our education. Focusing most on law and money education, among other things, to teach our children respecting themselves and others. I think education is the cornerstone of a country. That’s my policy if I were a president of Taiwan.
So how’s my—
Yeah, if you want , you can critique—
You say, you emphasize on education—
Yeah,
--especially on law?
Yes, in particular and respect children respect themselves a lot. In my opinion, most criminals in our society is because people don’t respect themselves and others. Don’t respect the value of their life.
Myself, I think that school is not going to do this as well as at home, but you have to start somewhere.
Fanny, why do you say law? Why law?
Because I think in Taiwan, Taiwan people seldom obey the law. And that cause a lot of criminals and problems. In addition, most people almost in the bottom of the society, they have no knowledge of law.
Of their rights, maybe?
Yes, and so they don’t know how to protect themselves. For instance when they have no idea in this case, they should or can do something to protect themselves. But rich people have money to hire lawyers, or people with higher levels of education have knowledge of laws, they often know how to protect themselves.
So you mean if you were president, then how would you do of the people, they obey the people—
How you would make people follow the laws?
You say, they don’t follow the law, so if you were president, what would you do to make this kind of people follow the law?
Massive adult education classes? Culture Class for all! About rights and responsibilities? Free? Compulsory? But you’d have to teach the teachers first.
Put heavy punishments.
Don’t we already have that?
No?
The death penalty? That’s not heavy? The problem is, it’s tricky—like you said, people don’t know their rights? Then what do the punishments mean?
Okay, right, so we have to educate people first, the reason why they should obey the rule. Then the third step, if people don’t follow the rules, they will be punished very heavily. Then people will know they should comply.
Okay, so are there any more questions for candidate Fanny?
Just one more question. —
Hee! You sound like a reporter!
—Why do you say ‘law and money’?
Because in recent years, there are so many issues related to complex financial products, and many people, they borrow much more than they have earned, eventually ending up in bankruptcy, and also cause a lot of social problems. They have no choice but ending their lives, their children have no money to finish their education. I think it’s a big problem.
Okay, so are their any more questions for candidate Fanny?
You know I’m very nervous, it’s like I’m a real candidate.
You would be good president!
Does someone else want to be the candidate now? It’s a little bit boring, just one candidate?
We can’t have an election with just one!
Yeah, Taiwan need more candidates.
Okay, if I was the president of Taiwan, I think I have similar. Like economic issues, that people can find a way to earn money for them. Like, or they can find, they can have some organization help them to develop their, like, ability to support themselves, even though they are adult, and that would be a good thing to do.
So job training? Or more than that?
Actually help them to find what they are really good at. Education too. Not just focus on certain areas, but what they are interested in and can make money from. Give them more channel about things they can do, without worrying about ‘now’, not having a financial problem or something
So if you were president you would build a channel for everyone in Taiwan to do whatever they want to do, and without worrying financial problems.
Hopefully!
So, how would you do?
I don’t know.
Well speculate, throw out some ideas, you’re not really a candidate here.
Okay, how about internet. Lots of people don't know how to use the internet. So free lesson, or free education for something, the gvt covers classes they need. But I don’t know where the money comes from!
Well, the Republicans in the US don’t seem to worry much about that either, so I don’t see why that’s a problem.
I just have one suggestion, you can establish a platform, a sharing platform, where people who want to learn certain skills can swap their own skills to others.
That is brilliant!
For instance, I’m good at analysis, you’re good at cooking, we can swap in the platform without paying fees. Because if you provide a totally free channel, that would increase the, that would need more tax, and tax coming from people, and that would be a big burden of the whole country.
But it’s better than paying for weapons?
Okay, are there any other questions for Candidate Mary?
How about a third candidate, Teresa?
I think the most important would be to let my people to have a healthy life, and health and happiness and safety life. Then how do I help them to get to the end? My action, my purpose, the first is, I will invite the other countries, the other foreigner private company to come to Taiwan to invest in Taiwan. The invested item is no, no…
No limit?
No…every industry is okay, if they want to invest in Taiwan. If they want to invest, then they will hire our people. When they hire the Taiwanese, then we can get more salary. If the people get more salary, then they can have a good life than before. Then the gvt has the…can get some tax. So the circle is the …the first things will let our people have a good life.
And the second action is, I will reduce the foreign labor come to Taiwan.
Restrict.
Yes, restrict the foreign laborers, like the southeastern countries, like the Philippine, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia. These kind of countries people, they come to Taiwan to work. I know their salary is cheaper than our people, but they will rob our people ‘s job. I know why the company, they like to hire the foreign laborers. But if we can restrict the foreign laborers, then maybe our peoples can get more job than before. This is if I were a president, these are the first two actions I would take. I wish I were the president right now. But it’s difficult, especially restrict the foreign laborers.
But how about security? You mentioned you want to develop a healthy and happy and …
Safety…yes…security? I’m not sure.
What do you mean by security? You mean int’l security or do you mean reduce the crime rates?
Um, maybe when I invited the private company to invest to Taiwan, maybe there has some security problem. But I think I can control it, because what’s kind of industry come to Taiwan, we can evaluate it before, so if it is a good industry for Taiwan, then I will let them come to here. If it is violate the environment, or pollute our air or water, then I will not let them come to Taiwan to invest, even it can give my people has a good life and get more job. But it will hurt people’s life, so I think the gvt will not let it come. For the security, as you just said, I think after the gvt gets the tax, then we have enough money to hire people to come to be a policeman or they would like to be army, to protect our society. So, and the other action is, security, we need to teach our people, just like you say, give them more education, but I know right now, most Taiwanese people, we have a good level of education. But why some people, they violate the law, because our, we can’t enforce the law. If we can do it like Singapore, I think most of the people, they will follow the law. They will not disobey it. I saw some of Taiwanese people, they go to America. They follow the traffic rule. They know how to drive. Even though no person cross the street, they follow the traffic rule. But in Taiwan they cross the street where they like. But compared to Taiwan and America, they have different rules to follow. Because the American criminal system quickly to punish the people. But in Taiwan, sometimes we didn’t do it.
But America also has more than 1 percent of their population in jail, too, so I’m not certain that’s the best solution.
I think I prefer the Singapore system. Because I think Taiwan’s law is not very strict, so I think maybe we could create more hard and more heavy law to apply.
You know, everyone in Taiwan talks about it, but they don’t really want it. Would you personally want to live in Singapore?
No, it’s too heavy.
See? You don’t want it!
Yeah, but it’s effective!
But it’s important to take the law to important things. Even they see someone violating the law, someone in Taiwan will not say anything about it.
But that’s what’s nice about Taiwan, it’s live and let live, it’s what’s makes here such a nice place to live. Nobody interferes with what you want to do. Let me give you an example. I don’t know if I read this story on the internet, or if someone told me, but this is the story. A guy moved to Singapore, and got an apartment. He put plants on the walkway outside his front door, as you do, and put dishes under each plant to catch the water so that it wouldn’t run all over the place when he watered them, as you do, right? Okay, so a few days later, he gets a knock on the door. It’s a policeman, who told him its illegal in Singapore to put dishes under your plants, or to have any standing water, because it potentially breeds mosquitos. So he got a notice from the police, or maybe even a fine, I don’t remember. The notice or the fine is not really the point. The guy was really pissed off, and why? He was pissed off because he was like, his apartment was on like the 5th or 6th floor. The police wouldn’t have known about his plants without one of the neighbors telling him about it. He was pissed, because he was like, “Why didn’t my neighbors just come to me directly, or put a polite note on my door to let me know the situation? Why did they instead call the police? That’s so unfriendly!” What he felt betrayed about, I think, is that ‘authority’ was brought in to deal with a situation that just needed a little communication. It was like killing a mosquito with a brick, so to speak. It was un-neighborly and unfriendly, and left him angry with all the people who lived near him. That’s not the way to build community, but it is the way you build ruthless dictatorship—break people into vertical relationships with authority, instead of the horizontal relationships of community.
So there’s a lot that’s nice about Taiwan. I’m not saying that it’s always good, but everything good comes with some bad things, and some bad things come with good. But you have to be careful not to lose the important things. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Angela, what would you do?
Well, I totally support the Vonnegut platform, and I would incorporate a lot of the fanny platform and some of the Mary. I really love the idea of educating everybody at once, including all the adults, into understanding, thinking about and applying their rights and responsibilities as citizens. I don’t support the Singapore platform at all, I’m sorry.
Hsinchu Discussion Transcript: Farming
Participants: Kevin, Peter W, Wilson, Vina, Regina, Angela
The original discussion question is here.
The point is, it’s not so serious. If it’s the metal mine or the oil, yes, it’s limited. But the plants, we plant some seed, let’s say in Taiwan, talking about rice, normally in the south of Taiwan we can have three harvests one year, and in the north, 2 times. So it’s not that serious.
Okay, no, what you don’t know is Taiwan’s soil is incredibly rich, because, just like the US, less than 200 years ago it was all forest. Also, Taiwanese farmers use ancient Chinese farming methods, which according to the author of this book, actually conserve the nutrition of the soil really well. It’s why the Chinese have used the same land for 1000 years and it’s basically okay.
But listen, let me show you a link, this is something that happened in Uzbekistan. The Soviet gvt took a fragile ecosystem, pumped it with water from the Ural sea—permanently reducing the sea by half, by the way, and killing the fishing industries and all the towns around the edges—and got 50 years of cotton out of it. But now, the land is completely dead. It’s not even a desert. It’s completely dead. Look at this picture.
Okay, but listen, until I read this book, I totally thought exactly what you did, that it’s industry and chemicals and plastics and carbon we have to worry about. But now, I see that this is a whole new area that’s got to be considered. The world is changing so fast, you know? The Taiwanese gvt is working on a 10 year old paradigm. They’re not remotely thinking about food yet, but I really think they should be.
The reason haven’t seen that scenario in Taiwan because we let the land take a rest after one season. Even though we use the chemical fertilizer to the soil, it’s because we let it rest, so we don’t harm.
Well, actually it does, it’s that it’s not as clearly harmful, because of the resting.
You know, population is like bacteria in a Petri dish. If you feed it a limited amount of food, the population of bacteriums doesn’t grow. But if you give it a surplus, the population grows, the more surplus the more growth, but the problem is, what happens when the food runs out?
Maybe in Taiwan we don’t have a lot of farming fields.
We do have! So the gvt policy is to rest.
But we don’t have fields on the scale of the US.
But the US is largely for-profit agriculture.
But I’m saying is, we don’t have the kind of field where we plant the same kind of food for miles. So we don’t have to exploit the forest. We can keep the forest.
No I don’t agree, because in the past we had to follow Japan’s rules. If as you say, we keep the forest, and have very good farming development, and the cities, and keep it as the original situation. But these few years, people are very worried about Taiwan’s future. So now we have the politicians ask those farmers to leave things fallow, because they’re afraid that too many…so they ask them to rest. But now they have changed the laws that allow them to build houses, and they can change restrictions to build houses, so the situation, that you say we lack farmland, will come to happen, will happen, because we’ve started to build on our farmland.
Do you know these two years, the agriculture is a quite popular issues, because of the growing of the emerging market, and the great population, and imagine if china, everyone ate one more piece of bread, what a shortage of wheat would be. So the land shortage has made agriculture prices go up. And in fact Taiwan has the great advantage. We have great dirt, and good soil, we could make money from it, but instead we have been developing industry. Not agriculture.
Okay, let me give you an example from my sister in law, she’s a farmer in Miaoli. The gvt wants her to have her land fallow. The gvt doesn’t approve her to plant. The gvt want to control the quantity of food, so it won’t depress prices. But maybe this year, the world lack of food, so the gvt approve she can plant in his land every year. So it’s a policy, it’s a gvt policy. It doesn’t mention any soil exploitation, the gvt want to control the price.
But there is another problem for Taiwanese farmer. They subsidy they get is only a little money, so they need to find a way for other money. So the gvt tell my sister in law to change her farming style, so need to do something, to change from pure forming to a recreation business. So need to change their farming style. And the gvt teach them how to change their style.
But I’m thinking, just for considering the future, just feed ourselves is fine. But in the future, we’re too reliant on imported foods. We don’t have much problems because we can feed ourselves. But if you think about in America, now they already suffers from this problems, because they don’ t have enough good enough farmland for corn, and basically their main food is corn, and the corn price. Because the corn is meant for biofuel, and this cause a great influence on them. And if our food type is rice, it’s fine. But if we too rely on the wheat, maybe we will have some problems. We will have to pay more, and still more. And farmers will to change those, will maximize their profits, so they will change there, for example, if corn is more profitable, they will change over to corn, and it’s not really good for the ecosystem.
So it's interesting, paragraph 32, they say it’s not necessary to say that every national agriculture is completely self contained, this would be a great pity. So Taiwan has enough food, we don’t need to import too much food, just some flour.
It’s interesting to think about Africa. They lack food so they want to increase their population.
Huh?
They want more labor to plant plants.
Wow. But if they would stop fighting, they would have the population.
So, about question number one, its strange to link, to say the population is proportional to the agriculture. So I don’t think it’s a real situation. I think the population, there are many factors that affect the population growth.
Yeah, medicine is one.
Even Africa, their economic situation is very bad, and agriculture unit output is not so….but their population is very huge.
Like in china.
So I don’t think the agricultural development is the major factor for the double triple of population in Europe in the 18th century. In my understand, the European empire, the Spanish and the British robbed the agricultural treasure from south east Asia and mainland china, is the reason for the economic growth.
How?
Their economic position improved.
So allow them to do what?
Allow them to have more babies, more land, and improve their living environment. So this can explain the high growth rate of their population.
Okay, back to the agriculture in Taiwan, after Wilson was say that it’s not a big problem. I’m not so optimistic about the agriculture here. I don’t think the soil is fertilized enough. For example, a few months ago, the worldwide fertilizer price rise very sharp, so many farmers couldn’t get enough, so without enough fertilizer, they can’t plant enough, and can’t get good harvest, so it means our soil also lack, like the Europe and America, it’s worse than before. But where we are strong is our agriculture scientist, our capability.
Yeah, don’t have lost talent.
Yes, is very advanced. And 20 or 30 years ago, they can dispatch the teams to help the African countries, or the middle east countries. So I think the soil crisis I think is global issue. And why our gvt decide to fallow many lands, partially is because just like Vina says, part of eating habit is changed to western, like McDonald, so we don’t need too many the rice to supply our internal demand.
But we can export it!
Rice, some surplus rice.
Just like Thailand.
What countries are importing our rice?
Lots of countries import Thai rice.
Number one in the world.
So I say, who buys Taiwan rice?
We haven’t developed the market.
China will need it.
I don’t think so
Yes! They will.
I’m supporting Peter. In the past, we have a lot of talented experts, like our previous president, Lee Tunghue. In that generation, some talented people liked to go into agriculture so we have many professionals who could make a good agriculture policy. But now we’re better at technology, so in education system, I don’t think many young talented people will go into agriculture, because it’s without money, without future. So in future, we’ll lack this professional area,. Everyone wants to go to TSMC.
No, that’s ten years ago.
Okay, IC design.
Sure, and it’s hard for farmers to make money. And it mentioned that their business model is not right. And I’ll say that the price of food is always low. It’s a worldwide problem. Because people need it every day. so if the price increases, it causes a lot of pressure to the country’s economy. And maybe, I’ll say it’s a problem, but it’s not a solvable problem. It’s very complicated.
But the profit, the farmers, they don’t get a considerable profit. Most of the profit is taken by the middle man, who takes advantage of the farmer, and of the consumer. So we actually pay a lot for food, but the farmer makes no money.
So if you can pay less money to buy the stuff, would you pay more for it? For me, I would choose to pay less money. It’s very straightforward.
But it’s talking about the true cost of making that thing. What if you say that this should cost 5, but you’re selling it for 2, I won’t buy it, because it’s too cheap.
Like in mainland china, all the fake foods.
Like okay, if a shop is going out of business, you can buy for cheap.
Or what about the reuses. Like someone steal the clothes put out for recycling, and wash it and sell for a cheap price, but it’s really not new.
So less than the true cost!
So that’s one problem of the social system, not the trading system.
But on the scale of mainland china? All the fake goods do affect!
But it’s also ethics!
But think about in Hsinchu, why do we have the low price policy, we try to do the lower cost. So what is the true cost?
So for low cost notebook, what do they do, to lower the margin, they can’t cut out materials so they cut out labor. So what do they do, they go to china.
But if you don’t have any margin, then you reduce the material cost!
But in Europe, some, they are against those company they build the factories in mainland china that use the very cheap laborers, because it’s children and overworked people. They say that even though we can get the cheaper price, we are against it. For example Nike, they didn’t know their manufacturer employed children, overworked with no rest. Or maybe you can get the cheaper price, they’ll say background, exporting costs, but it’s bullshit. So I’m against for buying.
This hiring children, this is a problem for the reputation of the company, for the image. So if Nike reduced cost by hiring children, so we can be against their product, we don’t use less money to buy their products. So maybe it’s like in example question. But I challenge the words, ‘true cost’ who can tell me what is the true cost?
Everything you buy you have a price in your mind.
It’s market price, but two high, or too low, everyone uses their sense, it’s market sense. You just know!
I don’t agree.
Give me an example, I’ll show you.
So you’re saying this cup should be 5 dollars.
But I agree that the true cost depends on people.
I'll give you an example of cars. Say a Lexus or BMW. Same car, same design, but Lexus is cheaper, because of customers loyalty.
But the price is rising now, because people will like it, so the price is rising.
But so it’s over the true cost, it’s the brand loyalty.
Sure, brand loyalty is why luxury goods still profitable.
Okay, but if someone wants to sell you a new BMW, one million [=NT, about 30,000USD], everyone else pays 2 million, then you know something’s wrong
Stolen car!
Sure, but why is IBM so much more expensive computer?
That’s what they price it.
So if you can buy it cheap, something is wrong.
But Lenovo laptop is the same, but it’s cheaper.
So I don’t buy IBM, I buy Lenovo!
Sure, but you see my point.
Okay, but if the price is so much lower, then you know it’s fake goods, or sacrifice some benefit to the supplier. And it’s not good for the consumer to pursue this behavior. For example my husband’s company, the purchasing manager, tried to cut costs of suppliers, to a very low price, and one year the supplier’s bankrupt, so they still have to find other, which cost them in a different way. So the best way is everyone can make money. Not big money, but you have to keep the supplier alive. You still have to thinking about others. So the lower price, I think that maybe really means that only you are benefit. It’s a short term benefit, but not more.
The key point is ethics. I know it’s judgmental but you know what’s right or wrong. You use your feelings. You buy the more expensive thing, but you get something in return. You buy low quality, you lose.
How about your opinion, Regina?
Okay, I think in example B, sometimes it’s not depends on our intention, sometimes it depends on market price. For example, in Africa, they plant coffee beans, because our developed country need it. The develop countries don’t really need it. And the price, maybe it’s under the cost, because our wealth is stronger, so we can control them. Maybe we would like to pay more, but the market is like this, so we don’t have the power to control this.
I remember I read one article that we talk about children in Africa, they have to collect those beans, and a lot of boxes, and not more than one dollar, and the price at Starbucks is 3 or 4 dollars, and it’s really the margins of it is only made by—
The middle man, like Kevin was saying.
—Right. They can manipulate the price.
Yeah, and if we can use the internet, we can organized this for itself.
Yeah, but talking about Starbucks, the environmentalists said that Starbucks was manipulating the markets, and they fought back, saying that they showed what price they sold what country’s coffee, and they’re saying they hope—
Yeah, using another way to explain.
Sure, but who is lying. It’s not Starbucks. It’s not the environmentalists are not lying. The information is distorted. The point is the complete money is not involved here.
Most of the money goes to third-party organizations.
So they are talking different target, but it’s the same issue.
Because the consumer wants cheaper, so the company wants to cut costs, so the suppliers can’t earn money.
And I think the key issue is the example b. Want to highlight for the true cost. It try, okay, to point out the most of the manufacturing costs is underestimate, then it’s true. Normally, we over consume the resources on the earth, and also, some resource is export form other countries, by some, you know, inhuman way. So I think its purpose is to remind us, that when you pay one dollar to buy some product, so what’s the real, invisible, some heightened cost behind the cost showing the finance report.
Okay, another issue I want to, I think the price, the transaction price in the market is determined by buyer and seller. I think its very simple, but we can say, I don’t think it’s guilty or illegal for business man or company owner to try decide this production site to supply cheaper to the market, it’s not about guilt or illegality. If the market is free enough, so the consumer has the right to decide to purchase a product at the lowest cost, under the condition the quality is equal. So that’s why china has become the world’s factory. Of course, a lot of people refuse to buy products made in china—
[laughter]
—but for rational consumer, there’s no reason not to buy, because it’s cheaper. So…I don’t think the transfer wealth, from one countries to another underdeveloped country is wrong, because we all know the businessman’s money, always he will invest in an area, in most efficient way.
Oh?
So what we have to do is try to improve our distribution.
You mean channel.
Yes, because most of industry in Taiwan, the smile curve, we discussed a few weeks ago. The margin of the manufacturing is very very low. So most of Taiwanese companies try to invest more in the marketing, and in the development. So these two sides are the most value added in the supply chain of any products.
But I can understand what Peter said, and I also agree, but, also this article, like Kevin said, the ethics of transferring wealth. We talk about b, but we didn’t talk about a, which is more about American style.
Sorry—
No, go ahead, I bash the US all the time, it doesn’t offend me when others do it!
I think that when people talk about climate change, about bigger issues, but in America, there is the most irresponsibility, the most throwing away of resources—
100 percent agree!
—and they can just buy others’, like mainland china, Africa. But if you agree, that I can pay for it, and also make those countries rich. But the truth is that most of the irresponsible behaviour, the result is suffered by the whole people, because of the climate change, the revolutions, even in mainland china, and the revolution and the waste is caused by ourselves. Sure I can pay for it, I can get the cheaper price, I can pay for others’ resources. But it’s not a good way of thinking. For example in Japan and Europe, they’re really devoted to lower, minimize the waste of resource. Just like the Kyoto protocol only two people didn’t sign, just America and Australia. But now only America. So maybe after Bush—
Depends if McCain or not.
But the point is what this article is talking about, it’s not just about marketing and brands.
You mention about responsibility to society.
Yes, because this article is talking about this.
It’s very ideal, and practically, we can talk about as peter said, value added, why low product are for gaining more money, so you add value. So the lowest cost is manufacturing, because it’s just to compose some component. But for the branding, they can put more value, but that’s depend on you need or you trust. If you can rely on the brand, you don’t care about paying more, because they add on the brand. So it depends on, so I’m saying, how do you really figure out the true costs? If you rely on your logic, you might be paying more.
So I’m saying this article is too idealistic. The practical economy is not evil, they can get the balance. Challenging the trading system as an evil thing against the agriculture system.. I’m saying he’s a scientist, he’s not an engineer.
So from paragraph 28: “Modern opinion is now set against all forms of exploitation. The limitation of money dividends, the disciplining of capital investments have begun. Undertaken originally only from the point of view of economic order, then continued for political and national motives, these measures bear in themselves further possibilities; it would be easy to give them wide moral significance. [Quite possibly this was true in 1930, I highly doubt it’s true now. –Angela]”
You wrote that note, Angela, what are you saying by that?
He was writing this at the end of World War II. He was saying that modern people understand how wrong capitalism could go, because of the war? And so people would thinking differently. But he’s wrong, obviously. I’m saying, if we were truly against exploitation, it wouldn’t exist now, because we would have got rid of it already. If we truly were against it.
So it’s saying capitalism = democracy? That if our economic system is capitalism, then our society would be democratic?
Wait, you’re not saying capitalism is democracy, are you?
[Laughter]
So if capitalism does not equal democracy, then what does, socialism? Communism?
Wow, I’m not sure whether you question is in the right vein.
If our society is free or democratic, you have a right to play your business on your own, but you need to obey the law. And we also discus some, we have disciplines, because we have social responsibility, so we have to constrain our freedom to run our business. So I just say, does it violate the democratic spirit?
Wow, what do you think?
Well I don’t know what democracy is…
Democracy means free, or free democracy.
I think democracy is free plus responsibilty, so I don’t think that it violates….
But Wilson, you’re mixing up the systems. Anarchy is emphasis the full freedom for emphasizing everyone’s right. But democracy, the basic rule, is the minority has to follow the majority.
Wow.
I so agree.
Exactly right.
But the majority have to respect the minority.
Yes.
Yes.
But the minority has to follow the majority.
Sure, after the decision has already been taken…
The majority has to respect the minority’s right or benefit, so that’s the base of what democratic society exists on. If the basis of the rule is broken, the democratic society cannot sustain.
For example if the, for nuclear waste. All Taiwan’s people decide to put the waste in Lanyu [=Orchid Island, about a two hour plane flight away, inhabited by an aboriginal tribe], of course the majority would!
Majority violence!
But you still have to respect the minority voice.
Even the decision is to locate the waste in Lanyu, also all the protection or compensation should be taken by the government, for the nearby people.
But it’s interesting that if we decided to put the waste in their neighborhood, and we give them money, would they really want it?
Sure, they want it, but they want more money.
So the key point is the price.
So you need to give me enough money!
So it means democracy can be solved my money.
As long as you’re rich it’s okay!
The original discussion question is here.
The point is, it’s not so serious. If it’s the metal mine or the oil, yes, it’s limited. But the plants, we plant some seed, let’s say in Taiwan, talking about rice, normally in the south of Taiwan we can have three harvests one year, and in the north, 2 times. So it’s not that serious.
Okay, no, what you don’t know is Taiwan’s soil is incredibly rich, because, just like the US, less than 200 years ago it was all forest. Also, Taiwanese farmers use ancient Chinese farming methods, which according to the author of this book, actually conserve the nutrition of the soil really well. It’s why the Chinese have used the same land for 1000 years and it’s basically okay.
But listen, let me show you a link, this is something that happened in Uzbekistan. The Soviet gvt took a fragile ecosystem, pumped it with water from the Ural sea—permanently reducing the sea by half, by the way, and killing the fishing industries and all the towns around the edges—and got 50 years of cotton out of it. But now, the land is completely dead. It’s not even a desert. It’s completely dead. Look at this picture.
Okay, but listen, until I read this book, I totally thought exactly what you did, that it’s industry and chemicals and plastics and carbon we have to worry about. But now, I see that this is a whole new area that’s got to be considered. The world is changing so fast, you know? The Taiwanese gvt is working on a 10 year old paradigm. They’re not remotely thinking about food yet, but I really think they should be.
The reason haven’t seen that scenario in Taiwan because we let the land take a rest after one season. Even though we use the chemical fertilizer to the soil, it’s because we let it rest, so we don’t harm.
Well, actually it does, it’s that it’s not as clearly harmful, because of the resting.
You know, population is like bacteria in a Petri dish. If you feed it a limited amount of food, the population of bacteriums doesn’t grow. But if you give it a surplus, the population grows, the more surplus the more growth, but the problem is, what happens when the food runs out?
Maybe in Taiwan we don’t have a lot of farming fields.
We do have! So the gvt policy is to rest.
But we don’t have fields on the scale of the US.
But the US is largely for-profit agriculture.
But I’m saying is, we don’t have the kind of field where we plant the same kind of food for miles. So we don’t have to exploit the forest. We can keep the forest.
No I don’t agree, because in the past we had to follow Japan’s rules. If as you say, we keep the forest, and have very good farming development, and the cities, and keep it as the original situation. But these few years, people are very worried about Taiwan’s future. So now we have the politicians ask those farmers to leave things fallow, because they’re afraid that too many…so they ask them to rest. But now they have changed the laws that allow them to build houses, and they can change restrictions to build houses, so the situation, that you say we lack farmland, will come to happen, will happen, because we’ve started to build on our farmland.
Do you know these two years, the agriculture is a quite popular issues, because of the growing of the emerging market, and the great population, and imagine if china, everyone ate one more piece of bread, what a shortage of wheat would be. So the land shortage has made agriculture prices go up. And in fact Taiwan has the great advantage. We have great dirt, and good soil, we could make money from it, but instead we have been developing industry. Not agriculture.
Okay, let me give you an example from my sister in law, she’s a farmer in Miaoli. The gvt wants her to have her land fallow. The gvt doesn’t approve her to plant. The gvt want to control the quantity of food, so it won’t depress prices. But maybe this year, the world lack of food, so the gvt approve she can plant in his land every year. So it’s a policy, it’s a gvt policy. It doesn’t mention any soil exploitation, the gvt want to control the price.
But there is another problem for Taiwanese farmer. They subsidy they get is only a little money, so they need to find a way for other money. So the gvt tell my sister in law to change her farming style, so need to do something, to change from pure forming to a recreation business. So need to change their farming style. And the gvt teach them how to change their style.
But I’m thinking, just for considering the future, just feed ourselves is fine. But in the future, we’re too reliant on imported foods. We don’t have much problems because we can feed ourselves. But if you think about in America, now they already suffers from this problems, because they don’ t have enough good enough farmland for corn, and basically their main food is corn, and the corn price. Because the corn is meant for biofuel, and this cause a great influence on them. And if our food type is rice, it’s fine. But if we too rely on the wheat, maybe we will have some problems. We will have to pay more, and still more. And farmers will to change those, will maximize their profits, so they will change there, for example, if corn is more profitable, they will change over to corn, and it’s not really good for the ecosystem.
So it's interesting, paragraph 32, they say it’s not necessary to say that every national agriculture is completely self contained, this would be a great pity. So Taiwan has enough food, we don’t need to import too much food, just some flour.
It’s interesting to think about Africa. They lack food so they want to increase their population.
Huh?
They want more labor to plant plants.
Wow. But if they would stop fighting, they would have the population.
So, about question number one, its strange to link, to say the population is proportional to the agriculture. So I don’t think it’s a real situation. I think the population, there are many factors that affect the population growth.
Yeah, medicine is one.
Even Africa, their economic situation is very bad, and agriculture unit output is not so….but their population is very huge.
Like in china.
So I don’t think the agricultural development is the major factor for the double triple of population in Europe in the 18th century. In my understand, the European empire, the Spanish and the British robbed the agricultural treasure from south east Asia and mainland china, is the reason for the economic growth.
How?
Their economic position improved.
So allow them to do what?
Allow them to have more babies, more land, and improve their living environment. So this can explain the high growth rate of their population.
Okay, back to the agriculture in Taiwan, after Wilson was say that it’s not a big problem. I’m not so optimistic about the agriculture here. I don’t think the soil is fertilized enough. For example, a few months ago, the worldwide fertilizer price rise very sharp, so many farmers couldn’t get enough, so without enough fertilizer, they can’t plant enough, and can’t get good harvest, so it means our soil also lack, like the Europe and America, it’s worse than before. But where we are strong is our agriculture scientist, our capability.
Yeah, don’t have lost talent.
Yes, is very advanced. And 20 or 30 years ago, they can dispatch the teams to help the African countries, or the middle east countries. So I think the soil crisis I think is global issue. And why our gvt decide to fallow many lands, partially is because just like Vina says, part of eating habit is changed to western, like McDonald, so we don’t need too many the rice to supply our internal demand.
But we can export it!
Rice, some surplus rice.
Just like Thailand.
What countries are importing our rice?
Lots of countries import Thai rice.
Number one in the world.
So I say, who buys Taiwan rice?
We haven’t developed the market.
China will need it.
I don’t think so
Yes! They will.
I’m supporting Peter. In the past, we have a lot of talented experts, like our previous president, Lee Tunghue. In that generation, some talented people liked to go into agriculture so we have many professionals who could make a good agriculture policy. But now we’re better at technology, so in education system, I don’t think many young talented people will go into agriculture, because it’s without money, without future. So in future, we’ll lack this professional area,. Everyone wants to go to TSMC.
No, that’s ten years ago.
Okay, IC design.
Sure, and it’s hard for farmers to make money. And it mentioned that their business model is not right. And I’ll say that the price of food is always low. It’s a worldwide problem. Because people need it every day. so if the price increases, it causes a lot of pressure to the country’s economy. And maybe, I’ll say it’s a problem, but it’s not a solvable problem. It’s very complicated.
But the profit, the farmers, they don’t get a considerable profit. Most of the profit is taken by the middle man, who takes advantage of the farmer, and of the consumer. So we actually pay a lot for food, but the farmer makes no money.
So if you can pay less money to buy the stuff, would you pay more for it? For me, I would choose to pay less money. It’s very straightforward.
But it’s talking about the true cost of making that thing. What if you say that this should cost 5, but you’re selling it for 2, I won’t buy it, because it’s too cheap.
Like in mainland china, all the fake foods.
Like okay, if a shop is going out of business, you can buy for cheap.
Or what about the reuses. Like someone steal the clothes put out for recycling, and wash it and sell for a cheap price, but it’s really not new.
So less than the true cost!
So that’s one problem of the social system, not the trading system.
But on the scale of mainland china? All the fake goods do affect!
But it’s also ethics!
But think about in Hsinchu, why do we have the low price policy, we try to do the lower cost. So what is the true cost?
So for low cost notebook, what do they do, to lower the margin, they can’t cut out materials so they cut out labor. So what do they do, they go to china.
But if you don’t have any margin, then you reduce the material cost!
But in Europe, some, they are against those company they build the factories in mainland china that use the very cheap laborers, because it’s children and overworked people. They say that even though we can get the cheaper price, we are against it. For example Nike, they didn’t know their manufacturer employed children, overworked with no rest. Or maybe you can get the cheaper price, they’ll say background, exporting costs, but it’s bullshit. So I’m against for buying.
This hiring children, this is a problem for the reputation of the company, for the image. So if Nike reduced cost by hiring children, so we can be against their product, we don’t use less money to buy their products. So maybe it’s like in example question. But I challenge the words, ‘true cost’ who can tell me what is the true cost?
Everything you buy you have a price in your mind.
It’s market price, but two high, or too low, everyone uses their sense, it’s market sense. You just know!
I don’t agree.
Give me an example, I’ll show you.
So you’re saying this cup should be 5 dollars.
But I agree that the true cost depends on people.
I'll give you an example of cars. Say a Lexus or BMW. Same car, same design, but Lexus is cheaper, because of customers loyalty.
But the price is rising now, because people will like it, so the price is rising.
But so it’s over the true cost, it’s the brand loyalty.
Sure, brand loyalty is why luxury goods still profitable.
Okay, but if someone wants to sell you a new BMW, one million [=NT, about 30,000USD], everyone else pays 2 million, then you know something’s wrong
Stolen car!
Sure, but why is IBM so much more expensive computer?
That’s what they price it.
So if you can buy it cheap, something is wrong.
But Lenovo laptop is the same, but it’s cheaper.
So I don’t buy IBM, I buy Lenovo!
Sure, but you see my point.
Okay, but if the price is so much lower, then you know it’s fake goods, or sacrifice some benefit to the supplier. And it’s not good for the consumer to pursue this behavior. For example my husband’s company, the purchasing manager, tried to cut costs of suppliers, to a very low price, and one year the supplier’s bankrupt, so they still have to find other, which cost them in a different way. So the best way is everyone can make money. Not big money, but you have to keep the supplier alive. You still have to thinking about others. So the lower price, I think that maybe really means that only you are benefit. It’s a short term benefit, but not more.
The key point is ethics. I know it’s judgmental but you know what’s right or wrong. You use your feelings. You buy the more expensive thing, but you get something in return. You buy low quality, you lose.
How about your opinion, Regina?
Okay, I think in example B, sometimes it’s not depends on our intention, sometimes it depends on market price. For example, in Africa, they plant coffee beans, because our developed country need it. The develop countries don’t really need it. And the price, maybe it’s under the cost, because our wealth is stronger, so we can control them. Maybe we would like to pay more, but the market is like this, so we don’t have the power to control this.
I remember I read one article that we talk about children in Africa, they have to collect those beans, and a lot of boxes, and not more than one dollar, and the price at Starbucks is 3 or 4 dollars, and it’s really the margins of it is only made by—
The middle man, like Kevin was saying.
—Right. They can manipulate the price.
Yeah, and if we can use the internet, we can organized this for itself.
Yeah, but talking about Starbucks, the environmentalists said that Starbucks was manipulating the markets, and they fought back, saying that they showed what price they sold what country’s coffee, and they’re saying they hope—
Yeah, using another way to explain.
Sure, but who is lying. It’s not Starbucks. It’s not the environmentalists are not lying. The information is distorted. The point is the complete money is not involved here.
Most of the money goes to third-party organizations.
So they are talking different target, but it’s the same issue.
Because the consumer wants cheaper, so the company wants to cut costs, so the suppliers can’t earn money.
And I think the key issue is the example b. Want to highlight for the true cost. It try, okay, to point out the most of the manufacturing costs is underestimate, then it’s true. Normally, we over consume the resources on the earth, and also, some resource is export form other countries, by some, you know, inhuman way. So I think its purpose is to remind us, that when you pay one dollar to buy some product, so what’s the real, invisible, some heightened cost behind the cost showing the finance report.
Okay, another issue I want to, I think the price, the transaction price in the market is determined by buyer and seller. I think its very simple, but we can say, I don’t think it’s guilty or illegal for business man or company owner to try decide this production site to supply cheaper to the market, it’s not about guilt or illegality. If the market is free enough, so the consumer has the right to decide to purchase a product at the lowest cost, under the condition the quality is equal. So that’s why china has become the world’s factory. Of course, a lot of people refuse to buy products made in china—
[laughter]
—but for rational consumer, there’s no reason not to buy, because it’s cheaper. So…I don’t think the transfer wealth, from one countries to another underdeveloped country is wrong, because we all know the businessman’s money, always he will invest in an area, in most efficient way.
Oh?
So what we have to do is try to improve our distribution.
You mean channel.
Yes, because most of industry in Taiwan, the smile curve, we discussed a few weeks ago. The margin of the manufacturing is very very low. So most of Taiwanese companies try to invest more in the marketing, and in the development. So these two sides are the most value added in the supply chain of any products.
But I can understand what Peter said, and I also agree, but, also this article, like Kevin said, the ethics of transferring wealth. We talk about b, but we didn’t talk about a, which is more about American style.
Sorry—
No, go ahead, I bash the US all the time, it doesn’t offend me when others do it!
I think that when people talk about climate change, about bigger issues, but in America, there is the most irresponsibility, the most throwing away of resources—
100 percent agree!
—and they can just buy others’, like mainland china, Africa. But if you agree, that I can pay for it, and also make those countries rich. But the truth is that most of the irresponsible behaviour, the result is suffered by the whole people, because of the climate change, the revolutions, even in mainland china, and the revolution and the waste is caused by ourselves. Sure I can pay for it, I can get the cheaper price, I can pay for others’ resources. But it’s not a good way of thinking. For example in Japan and Europe, they’re really devoted to lower, minimize the waste of resource. Just like the Kyoto protocol only two people didn’t sign, just America and Australia. But now only America. So maybe after Bush—
Depends if McCain or not.
But the point is what this article is talking about, it’s not just about marketing and brands.
You mention about responsibility to society.
Yes, because this article is talking about this.
It’s very ideal, and practically, we can talk about as peter said, value added, why low product are for gaining more money, so you add value. So the lowest cost is manufacturing, because it’s just to compose some component. But for the branding, they can put more value, but that’s depend on you need or you trust. If you can rely on the brand, you don’t care about paying more, because they add on the brand. So it depends on, so I’m saying, how do you really figure out the true costs? If you rely on your logic, you might be paying more.
So I’m saying this article is too idealistic. The practical economy is not evil, they can get the balance. Challenging the trading system as an evil thing against the agriculture system.. I’m saying he’s a scientist, he’s not an engineer.
So from paragraph 28: “Modern opinion is now set against all forms of exploitation. The limitation of money dividends, the disciplining of capital investments have begun. Undertaken originally only from the point of view of economic order, then continued for political and national motives, these measures bear in themselves further possibilities; it would be easy to give them wide moral significance. [Quite possibly this was true in 1930, I highly doubt it’s true now. –Angela]”
You wrote that note, Angela, what are you saying by that?
He was writing this at the end of World War II. He was saying that modern people understand how wrong capitalism could go, because of the war? And so people would thinking differently. But he’s wrong, obviously. I’m saying, if we were truly against exploitation, it wouldn’t exist now, because we would have got rid of it already. If we truly were against it.
So it’s saying capitalism = democracy? That if our economic system is capitalism, then our society would be democratic?
Wait, you’re not saying capitalism is democracy, are you?
[Laughter]
So if capitalism does not equal democracy, then what does, socialism? Communism?
Wow, I’m not sure whether you question is in the right vein.
If our society is free or democratic, you have a right to play your business on your own, but you need to obey the law. And we also discus some, we have disciplines, because we have social responsibility, so we have to constrain our freedom to run our business. So I just say, does it violate the democratic spirit?
Wow, what do you think?
Well I don’t know what democracy is…
Democracy means free, or free democracy.
I think democracy is free plus responsibilty, so I don’t think that it violates….
But Wilson, you’re mixing up the systems. Anarchy is emphasis the full freedom for emphasizing everyone’s right. But democracy, the basic rule, is the minority has to follow the majority.
Wow.
I so agree.
Exactly right.
But the majority have to respect the minority.
Yes.
Yes.
But the minority has to follow the majority.
Sure, after the decision has already been taken…
The majority has to respect the minority’s right or benefit, so that’s the base of what democratic society exists on. If the basis of the rule is broken, the democratic society cannot sustain.
For example if the, for nuclear waste. All Taiwan’s people decide to put the waste in Lanyu [=Orchid Island, about a two hour plane flight away, inhabited by an aboriginal tribe], of course the majority would!
Majority violence!
But you still have to respect the minority voice.
Even the decision is to locate the waste in Lanyu, also all the protection or compensation should be taken by the government, for the nearby people.
But it’s interesting that if we decided to put the waste in their neighborhood, and we give them money, would they really want it?
Sure, they want it, but they want more money.
So the key point is the price.
So you need to give me enough money!
So it means democracy can be solved my money.
As long as you’re rich it’s okay!
The Road Farming Has Travelled
Questions to Ponder:
1. Is profit a sustainable practice??
2. Could it be that in fact we have been living on the riches stored up for 1000 years, and have blown it all in a century?
3. If this is true, we’re like 3rd generation of a rich family. The first two generations have successfully built up a business and turned it into an empire, the third generation bankrupts the company before his life is over and dies in penury.
4. It points out that the American farmer built up huge farmholdings without really gaining any great wealth. Which makes you doubly wonder why they did it. Most American farmers are deeply in debt to banks, machinery companies and especially seed companies. Was the American farmer sacrificed for others’ profit?
5. Sometimes it seems that modern people think that things can just be made out of nothing. That there’s no source. It just appears like ‘voila!’ in the store and is available to buy.
6. Our cult of the artificial: everything can be made from nothing, for almost no cost.
7. Why do empires only last for awhile?
8. Why did the Ancient Greek civilization die out in the 2nd or 3rd century?
9. Why did the Roman Empire come to an end?
10. Why did the Chinese empire last for so long?
11. Why did the Ching dynasty finally fail?
12. What are the ethics of transferring the wealth of the land into endless manufactured goods?
13. Or how about the ethics of transferring the wealth of for instance, indigenous forests in South America in the form of natural fertilizers like guano to the land in England so it can continue to be unsustainably farmed?
14. Do we have a responsibility to take care of the land?
15. What about in terms of wider self-interest?
Discussion Question:
What are the ethics of transferring wealth?
Example A:
If I have behaved irresponsibly and thrown away the resources of myself and my group, is it okay for me to get a part of others’ resources, if I have the money to pay for it?
Example B:
If I can pay less for something, possibly even less than the true cost of making that something, is it okay to buy it?
Article:
Journey to Forever Online LibraryTaipei Discussion Transcript: Farming
Participants: Maggie, Fanny, Mary, Angela
I can’t choose a team, because I don’t really understand this question, really. It's hard to understand, ‘transferring wealth’.
Yeah, this time, it’s really an undigested question. I’ve been sitting on this article for weeks, because it’s all so new to me too, and finally, I finally figured out what I wanted to ask about it, but I couldn’t figure out what really kinds of positions you could take on it, so I though, I would just sort of prevail on you guys to work this idea through with me. I thought maybe we could think this through together.
Yeah, cuz there’s a lot of different questions that could be asked about this article, there’s a lot of material here.
Exactly.
I was thinking of the story of stuff, when I wrote example b. You know, the cost of the 5 dollar radio in no way reflects the whole production arc, from oil shipped to refinery shipped to plastics factory shipped to assembly factory shipped to warehouse shipped to store, and sold for only 5 dollars? How is that possible?
Coke for instance, it’s sugar water and flavoring, and the container, or packaging, is I think, just 3NT dollars, but it cost me 20NT.
That’s not the point I’m making. The whole process of making the can…. I know repetitive units make the money, but how could that can only cost 3NT?
But I think the profit on coca cola is 50% of the can, though.
But I think because nowadays, we produce those products by machines, and so-called automaticalized systems, so we can produce so large and amount of products, that in theory could reduce the cost. So maybe that’s why we can pay only a little money to buy those products. But for nowadays, oil and so many raw materials, their price go up, that makes, because in past time we can use low-labor from Vietnam or south Asia, and use low cost of raw material from south Africa or east Europe. But nowadays, oil prices, commodity prices…
What are commodities?
Oils, ores, or coal, is the definition we use at my job.
Okay.
So the commodities from those countries is more expensive, because transportation cost higher than before.
See, I wish I had a better grasp of economics, I can feel that it’s right, arghh, so I’m no better than Stephen Colbert’s ‘gut’. The Story of Stuff woman showed it but didn’t prove it.
Yeah, but it’s hard to get the exact numbers. But I do wonder how we can pay 10NT dollars for watermelon
Only 10?
Or whatever, we pay so little for watermelon, or other foods in Taiwan, but I can’t prove my thinking. I just feel …
I think it’s the balance between supply and demand.
Yeah, but that’s not the true cost of it, it’s just what you can get for it.
It’s like, how can I sit in this air-conditioned room and make so much more money than the Indonesian guy over there building buildings? He’s working much harder than me, but it’s what the market will bear. But how is my mental labor so much more expensive than his physical labor?
Yeah, that’s the market for you. We think the free market will set realistic value. In theory, something costs 100NT dollars, if you sell it to me, and I don’t want to buy it, so you slash it to 80 dollars, but you still don’t want it, then it goes to 50, so then you finally buy it. That’s the equivalent of the price. That’s how the market works. That’s how some guy like singer or artist, those guy in movies in movies or TV shows earn so much.
Actually they’re paying those guys for their availability. They’re paying for the year before and the year after the movie, so that you’re available to do their movie.
Only for movies?
I’m not sure. Another example is a painter. The actual cost of canvas and paints is negligible. But the reason they can charge so much is all the time and money they spent training, practicing, developing their skill and their talent, their unusual ideas, there’s a lot goes into a painting. This is true for musicians, too. You’re not just buying the object, you’re buying a kind of value, and you’re retroactively supporting all the work they put into getting to the point where they could paint that painting.
So when we pay for the cd, we’re paying not just for the materials, we’re paying for the talent,
For the machines…
For them taking the risk to do the music in the first place!
Exactly.
Question 8 to ten, it’s really a group of questions, and I wonder, what is really the answer of these question, because I think, these are really good questions, I want to know why?
Why did the Ancient Greek civilization die out in the 2nd or 3rd century?
Well, because of roman?
No, because they’re before the first century.
We need Lynn!
Yes, Lynn, where is you?!?
But I know the reason why roman empire came to an end. Because they were too big,
Just because the separation?
Yeah, the separation. And they failed to handle the different culture. Yeah. Do you remember?
Yeah, but the western roman empire, the east?
West!
Maybe, but…
It might also have been a food problem. The guy who wrote the book we sampled, in another part of the book he argues that the food quality of the Romans declined as they expanded and population expanded, and the fields were used for too long, so since the quality of food went down, the quality of intelligence also went down among the population.
So should we learn how to grow the vegetable or rice?
But the more important is to learn how to maintain the fertility. Sure, we have to learn how to grow vegetables or rice, but if the land dies…
In thirteenth century Europe, they separate their land to three part, and this year, the grow the two part of the land, and the third part
They let it lie fallow.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, that’s a Saxon practice. Before the Saxons became the Anglo Saxons in England, when they were still only in Germany, that was their habit.
So, does it possible to use this kind of system nowadays?
No, we use the chemical substance to increase the fertility.
Yeah, but it’s like drinking coffee. Does coffee actually give you energy? No, it just releases the energy from the body that’s already there. It’ doesn’t increase anything
I think, because we want to keep the price in certain range, so it’s hard to use the fallow policy.
Yes, right.
How does that affect it, can you explain?
Because if you use fallow policy…
The whole land of the farm, can produce, say for example, 1000 pounds rice, but if you use fallow policy, then you use only 2/3 of it, 60 or 70 percent, then it’s only 600 or 700.
But what if, as you use up the fertility of the land, then…fallow looks like a pretty good idea, stable 700, instead of decreasing yields
Yes, but how do you use this to talk the farmer, and say ‘oh, you can save the fertility of the land’
Well, you can tell them they can save the money from the fertilizer.
Population = nutrition = more people, so… we cant afford more population. So on one hand, do we really want to increase the land’s fertility? On the other hand, you can’t go around killing people off because they’re inconvenient, so what do you do?
Well, so the gods do it for us, that’s why there have been so many terrible typhoon and earthquake in recent years. I think that’s the penalty.
Well, global warming, if the scenarios are true, lots of people might die, but that’s us wiping ourselves out, right?
I read in the Chinese newspaper today that a guy is setting up solar systems and encourage us to use less oil energy. When I read this I was so happy to see someone has the same ideas about our future. But we need someone in gvt can, I just think maybe we can, is it possible to contact this guy, and discuss with him or her?
Sure, do you know his name?
No, because they will not show the real name.
Why not?
I have no idea, but maybe we can call the newspaper, to ask them the real name, who wrote this essay.
You can leave your information and ask them to give it to him to have him call.
Okay, so let’s maybe look at example a.
But, what is transferring wealth, actually?
See this is what I could barely get a toehold on, this is what I wanted to talk with you about, he gave this example, of farmers in England in the 1940s, their land didn’t produce quality enough feed for their cattle so they imported ‘oil cakes’ from somewhere in the 3rd world, and so the nutrition of the soil of wherever they got the cakes from was transferred to feed English cows, so the nutritional ‘wealth’ was transferred. Money was transferred back, of course, but the real wealth, the unreplaceable nutrition, was transferred away permanently.
Just like, now due to globalization, we absorb resources from developing countries, and the sell back products to them to earn money, and I think this is another kind of transferring wealth.
And in paragraph nine, he’s saying those European people took in resources from America and Asia and New Zealand and Australia, that made them so there was still so many resources to use, and then they over used the resources and overproduce, like the society nowadays.
Well, that’s not like that was then and this is now, this is still happening.
Right, if we only used local resources to produce, then when we aware the shortage of resource, then we will reduce the production, however, if we can import resources from other countries, then we will keep producing, and then on and on.
But also, the market end of things, Americans have too much stuff, now, they’ve no place to put it, and now they don’t have any money anymore. My friend Johnny was saying that if we didn’t have India and China as new markets, capitalism would have died by now, it needs new people to buy things. Capitalism is fucked, basically, you know what I mean? It’s a really off balance system.
Who create capitalism, anyways?
Who knows, I think we’re all sucked into being a part of the system.
Okay, but let’s look at example a. If I’ve thrown away all my resources, is it okay that I pay to get someone else’s? Is that ethical?
Its evil.
Why do you think it’s evil?
I don’t know, it just wrong.
What do you think, Miss Mary?
I just don’t know the answer.
Yeah.
Do you think it’s evil?
Well, I was trained by capitalism, and trained by economic courses, so I just think, if I have money, why can’t I use it? The teacher always teach us that’s the right way, if somebody grow rice, and somebody build house, and somebody sew clothes, and you just pay money for that. So I never think it might be evil to behave in like this way. But, …
I think capitalism is convenient for most of people, but it’s still evil.
But you like, it, right? That’s what you’re conflicted about, because you like buying things.
Well, yeah.
See, the question I’ve had for a long time, is buying and trading things capitalism? Is capitalism like trading things ‘on steroids’?
What I mean is, for instance, Nantou is really good for growing tea, but not much good for growing rice or anything else. Taichung is really good for growing rice, and other veggies. So Nantou and Taichung trade for what they need. So is that just trade, or is it capitalism?
No, that’s a classic trading system. The case of Taipei and Nantou, that’s capitalism, because Taipei doesn’t grow anything.
Taipei grows money!
Ha!
Taipei provides a place to trade everything and grow profit.
So the relationship between product and product is trade. And the relation between product and money is capitalism.
I like the way you think!
So the stock market, it’s only for money, it’s totally capitalism.
Yeah, when you get to futures and derivatives and all that crap, it’s like it really hasn’t got much to do with the actual products being exchanged.
So food for food is not evil, but maybe money for food…is money for food evil, question mark?
I think it’s a question of degree and emphasis, as the author said, because money is a very convenient medium of exchange.
Yes, that’s what I’ve learned during these five to ten years, money is the most convenient medium for exchange system.
Yes, ‘a question of degree and emphasis’.
I can’t choose a team, because I don’t really understand this question, really. It's hard to understand, ‘transferring wealth’.
Yeah, this time, it’s really an undigested question. I’ve been sitting on this article for weeks, because it’s all so new to me too, and finally, I finally figured out what I wanted to ask about it, but I couldn’t figure out what really kinds of positions you could take on it, so I though, I would just sort of prevail on you guys to work this idea through with me. I thought maybe we could think this through together.
Yeah, cuz there’s a lot of different questions that could be asked about this article, there’s a lot of material here.
Exactly.
I was thinking of the story of stuff, when I wrote example b. You know, the cost of the 5 dollar radio in no way reflects the whole production arc, from oil shipped to refinery shipped to plastics factory shipped to assembly factory shipped to warehouse shipped to store, and sold for only 5 dollars? How is that possible?
Coke for instance, it’s sugar water and flavoring, and the container, or packaging, is I think, just 3NT dollars, but it cost me 20NT.
That’s not the point I’m making. The whole process of making the can…. I know repetitive units make the money, but how could that can only cost 3NT?
But I think the profit on coca cola is 50% of the can, though.
But I think because nowadays, we produce those products by machines, and so-called automaticalized systems, so we can produce so large and amount of products, that in theory could reduce the cost. So maybe that’s why we can pay only a little money to buy those products. But for nowadays, oil and so many raw materials, their price go up, that makes, because in past time we can use low-labor from Vietnam or south Asia, and use low cost of raw material from south Africa or east Europe. But nowadays, oil prices, commodity prices…
What are commodities?
Oils, ores, or coal, is the definition we use at my job.
Okay.
So the commodities from those countries is more expensive, because transportation cost higher than before.
See, I wish I had a better grasp of economics, I can feel that it’s right, arghh, so I’m no better than Stephen Colbert’s ‘gut’. The Story of Stuff woman showed it but didn’t prove it.
Yeah, but it’s hard to get the exact numbers. But I do wonder how we can pay 10NT dollars for watermelon
Only 10?
Or whatever, we pay so little for watermelon, or other foods in Taiwan, but I can’t prove my thinking. I just feel …
I think it’s the balance between supply and demand.
Yeah, but that’s not the true cost of it, it’s just what you can get for it.
It’s like, how can I sit in this air-conditioned room and make so much more money than the Indonesian guy over there building buildings? He’s working much harder than me, but it’s what the market will bear. But how is my mental labor so much more expensive than his physical labor?
Yeah, that’s the market for you. We think the free market will set realistic value. In theory, something costs 100NT dollars, if you sell it to me, and I don’t want to buy it, so you slash it to 80 dollars, but you still don’t want it, then it goes to 50, so then you finally buy it. That’s the equivalent of the price. That’s how the market works. That’s how some guy like singer or artist, those guy in movies in movies or TV shows earn so much.
Actually they’re paying those guys for their availability. They’re paying for the year before and the year after the movie, so that you’re available to do their movie.
Only for movies?
I’m not sure. Another example is a painter. The actual cost of canvas and paints is negligible. But the reason they can charge so much is all the time and money they spent training, practicing, developing their skill and their talent, their unusual ideas, there’s a lot goes into a painting. This is true for musicians, too. You’re not just buying the object, you’re buying a kind of value, and you’re retroactively supporting all the work they put into getting to the point where they could paint that painting.
So when we pay for the cd, we’re paying not just for the materials, we’re paying for the talent,
For the machines…
For them taking the risk to do the music in the first place!
Exactly.
Question 8 to ten, it’s really a group of questions, and I wonder, what is really the answer of these question, because I think, these are really good questions, I want to know why?
Why did the Ancient Greek civilization die out in the 2nd or 3rd century?
Well, because of roman?
No, because they’re before the first century.
We need Lynn!
Yes, Lynn, where is you?!?
But I know the reason why roman empire came to an end. Because they were too big,
Just because the separation?
Yeah, the separation. And they failed to handle the different culture. Yeah. Do you remember?
Yeah, but the western roman empire, the east?
West!
Maybe, but…
It might also have been a food problem. The guy who wrote the book we sampled, in another part of the book he argues that the food quality of the Romans declined as they expanded and population expanded, and the fields were used for too long, so since the quality of food went down, the quality of intelligence also went down among the population.
So should we learn how to grow the vegetable or rice?
But the more important is to learn how to maintain the fertility. Sure, we have to learn how to grow vegetables or rice, but if the land dies…
In thirteenth century Europe, they separate their land to three part, and this year, the grow the two part of the land, and the third part
They let it lie fallow.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, that’s a Saxon practice. Before the Saxons became the Anglo Saxons in England, when they were still only in Germany, that was their habit.
So, does it possible to use this kind of system nowadays?
No, we use the chemical substance to increase the fertility.
Yeah, but it’s like drinking coffee. Does coffee actually give you energy? No, it just releases the energy from the body that’s already there. It’ doesn’t increase anything
I think, because we want to keep the price in certain range, so it’s hard to use the fallow policy.
Yes, right.
How does that affect it, can you explain?
Because if you use fallow policy…
The whole land of the farm, can produce, say for example, 1000 pounds rice, but if you use fallow policy, then you use only 2/3 of it, 60 or 70 percent, then it’s only 600 or 700.
But what if, as you use up the fertility of the land, then…fallow looks like a pretty good idea, stable 700, instead of decreasing yields
Yes, but how do you use this to talk the farmer, and say ‘oh, you can save the fertility of the land’
Well, you can tell them they can save the money from the fertilizer.
Population = nutrition = more people, so… we cant afford more population. So on one hand, do we really want to increase the land’s fertility? On the other hand, you can’t go around killing people off because they’re inconvenient, so what do you do?
Well, so the gods do it for us, that’s why there have been so many terrible typhoon and earthquake in recent years. I think that’s the penalty.
Well, global warming, if the scenarios are true, lots of people might die, but that’s us wiping ourselves out, right?
I read in the Chinese newspaper today that a guy is setting up solar systems and encourage us to use less oil energy. When I read this I was so happy to see someone has the same ideas about our future. But we need someone in gvt can, I just think maybe we can, is it possible to contact this guy, and discuss with him or her?
Sure, do you know his name?
No, because they will not show the real name.
Why not?
I have no idea, but maybe we can call the newspaper, to ask them the real name, who wrote this essay.
You can leave your information and ask them to give it to him to have him call.
Okay, so let’s maybe look at example a.
But, what is transferring wealth, actually?
See this is what I could barely get a toehold on, this is what I wanted to talk with you about, he gave this example, of farmers in England in the 1940s, their land didn’t produce quality enough feed for their cattle so they imported ‘oil cakes’ from somewhere in the 3rd world, and so the nutrition of the soil of wherever they got the cakes from was transferred to feed English cows, so the nutritional ‘wealth’ was transferred. Money was transferred back, of course, but the real wealth, the unreplaceable nutrition, was transferred away permanently.
Just like, now due to globalization, we absorb resources from developing countries, and the sell back products to them to earn money, and I think this is another kind of transferring wealth.
And in paragraph nine, he’s saying those European people took in resources from America and Asia and New Zealand and Australia, that made them so there was still so many resources to use, and then they over used the resources and overproduce, like the society nowadays.
Well, that’s not like that was then and this is now, this is still happening.
Right, if we only used local resources to produce, then when we aware the shortage of resource, then we will reduce the production, however, if we can import resources from other countries, then we will keep producing, and then on and on.
But also, the market end of things, Americans have too much stuff, now, they’ve no place to put it, and now they don’t have any money anymore. My friend Johnny was saying that if we didn’t have India and China as new markets, capitalism would have died by now, it needs new people to buy things. Capitalism is fucked, basically, you know what I mean? It’s a really off balance system.
Who create capitalism, anyways?
Who knows, I think we’re all sucked into being a part of the system.
Okay, but let’s look at example a. If I’ve thrown away all my resources, is it okay that I pay to get someone else’s? Is that ethical?
Its evil.
Why do you think it’s evil?
I don’t know, it just wrong.
What do you think, Miss Mary?
I just don’t know the answer.
Yeah.
Do you think it’s evil?
Well, I was trained by capitalism, and trained by economic courses, so I just think, if I have money, why can’t I use it? The teacher always teach us that’s the right way, if somebody grow rice, and somebody build house, and somebody sew clothes, and you just pay money for that. So I never think it might be evil to behave in like this way. But, …
I think capitalism is convenient for most of people, but it’s still evil.
But you like, it, right? That’s what you’re conflicted about, because you like buying things.
Well, yeah.
See, the question I’ve had for a long time, is buying and trading things capitalism? Is capitalism like trading things ‘on steroids’?
What I mean is, for instance, Nantou is really good for growing tea, but not much good for growing rice or anything else. Taichung is really good for growing rice, and other veggies. So Nantou and Taichung trade for what they need. So is that just trade, or is it capitalism?
No, that’s a classic trading system. The case of Taipei and Nantou, that’s capitalism, because Taipei doesn’t grow anything.
Taipei grows money!
Ha!
Taipei provides a place to trade everything and grow profit.
So the relationship between product and product is trade. And the relation between product and money is capitalism.
I like the way you think!
So the stock market, it’s only for money, it’s totally capitalism.
Yeah, when you get to futures and derivatives and all that crap, it’s like it really hasn’t got much to do with the actual products being exchanged.
So food for food is not evil, but maybe money for food…is money for food evil, question mark?
I think it’s a question of degree and emphasis, as the author said, because money is a very convenient medium of exchange.
Yes, that’s what I’ve learned during these five to ten years, money is the most convenient medium for exchange system.
Yes, ‘a question of degree and emphasis’.
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