Lessons from Monopoly
Many people know how to play Monopoly, a multiplayer board game based on real-estate transactions.
Each player starts with the same amount of money and rolls two dice to move around the board. As they move, players buy and trade properties, and develop them with houses and hotels. When players land on others’ properties, they have to pay the owners. Players aim to drive their opponents into bankruptcy.
I played Monopoly when I was a child. It never enlightened me or gave me a lesson in life — until now, with the presidential and legislative elections tomorrow.
Former legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒), who is seeking a legislative seat in Taichung with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), has 67 properties registered under his name. No wonder he was able to occupy and block roads for three days to aid his campaign activities.
He is indeed the “owner of the land.”
Moreover, when I learned that New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT’s presidential candidate, owns a 103-room building and collects rent from it, I realized that he has applied the lessons of Monopoly to real life.
The goal of the game is to “monopolize” the means of making money. Hou has apparently monopolized the rental market. His running mate, Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), even defended Hou by saying that if the rent is too high, people do not have to live there.
I am not hostile toward rich people, but is it necessary for them to occupy public property and build mansions on it?
For a rich person who can collect a massive amount of rent, would it be necessary for them to evade paying taxes? Would it be impossible for them to pay taxes as an honest person would?
Hou said that everything he has done was in accordance with the letter of the law. If so, this is pure exploitation of students and wanton pursuit of huge profit. Could a person like this, without integrity or morality, defend the country and do good for the public?
I have not made a lot of money, but I pay taxes every year as an honest Taiwanese. I despise those who talk about serving the people and the country, but do the opposite.
I would never cast my ballot for candidates with such low integrity.
Lin Chun-fa
Taichung
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS