Don’t Let the Over One Trillion Dollar Gift Package Become a Frog in Boiling Water

Don’t Let the Over One Trillion Dollar Gift Package Become a Frog in Boiling Water

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 9, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

The government bail-out policy, from the initial NT$60 billion, jumped to a "NT$1.5 trillion Taiwan protection action" program. Throwing down the NT$1.5 trillion big money, would at best make the recession or unemployment figures look a little better. In a worse case, it could become a frog in boiling water, giving a comfortable society in pretense no time to deal with the post-pandemic changes.

The amount of 1.5 trillion sounds stupendous, but the lion’s share belongs to the bailout credit extension measures to be carried out by state-run banks. Although it amounts to as high as NT$700 billion, it could probably be "padded" or a phenomenon of "something to be seen but never touched". What is being questioned is whether the "NT$1.5 trillion Taiwan protection action" rolled out by the government could truly help those who really need it. The Labor Ministry declares that the number of furloughed laborers in Taiwan currently is approaching 9,000, and will probably exceed 10,000 in the future. In reality, if we include small and medium-sized enterprises and vendor stalls that could no longer survive, as well as temporary employees, we don’t know how many more have lost their jobs amid this epidemic situation.

Based on the latest statistics in Taipei City, the number of the unemployed jumped to 45.7% year-on-year, and those who applied for unemployment certification climbed to 56.2%. If even the situation in Taipei City is like this, will the situation in other cities and counties be better? Could the figure of 9,000 furloughed employees made public by the Labor Ministry be true? We hope that the big gift package of NT$1.5 trillion rolled out by the Tsai government will not be just "doing what is humanly possible", or just paying dividends to "buy people's hearts". With the pandemic before us, the limited resources of the state must be used where they are most needed!

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