Here and There

• A trip to grocery store, $68.
  A cup of Spanish Latte, $3.80.
  Keeping the marriage between men and women? $75 million.
• If politicians like an average voter can not be trusted to lead, can you trust voters to pick the right person?
• Taiwan, violence broke out upon Chinese official's visit to negotiate direct trade deals. A CCTV female reporter was also attacked during the "siege". Taiwan may think of itself as a vibrant democracy, it has much to learn from the relative tranquility on American streets where close to half of the people don't agree with the person elected.
  
  If the government should be "by the people, for the people", what if "people" are unruly and violent, happy to take cheap shots, being exploited by politicians in the process?
  
  I'm not sure what exactly people on the Taipei streets wanted to achieve, it seemed like a whole a lot for nothing, but here are some perspectives from the top, take your pick:
  Ma Ying-jeou:"Tsai(DDP Chairwoman) was responsible for (instigating) the clashes."
  Tsai:"The government that forces people to go into the streets should be held responsible." Hmmm, I'm disappointed in Cornell (where Tsai got JS.)
  
• One way to weather the storm in an economic downterm is to take money from haves to have-nots. Then the economic wheel can keep turning. Fiscal stimulus may be one politically acceptable way to do that. By fiscal expansion, government debt would be later financed by increased taxes, which would be shouldered of larger proportion by high-earners, or if not sufficiently financed, would cause inflation, which would bring savers' real wealth down. Large inflation is as ugly as a recession, so is to be avoided. Therefore, the tax burden is to be shared one way or the other.
  
  While the U.S. congress is contemplating a second stimulus, Chinese government unveils a large stimulus package, featuring mostly State-driven investment project. The success of it depends on who it really benefits - it should be the poor - and how it will be financed later.

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