Cost of Living, Taiwan Vs. 'Murica!

So, recently I’ve been taking a look at some jobs back in the US. To determine the feasibility of an eventual return. While it looks I could probably make a living there, I’d be living off of much less. Let’s do some of the math here…

There was an ad for a public school teacher in Phoenix, AZ at $38,000 a year. Of course, numbers are deceiving seeing as how nearly 9,000 of that is going to go to federal and state tax and social security. 

By comparison, a foreign teacher in Taiwan can make about 28,000 a year, more or less, but only 1400 of that will go to tax. 

Adding it up, so far it’s $26,400 in Taiwan vs. $29,000 in the US

Now lets factor in health insurance. In the US, it's going to cost you about 1,200 a year if you're enrolled in the company plan...if not, could cost you $5,000. The Arizona gig is a public teacher job, so lets call it company sponsored. In Taiwan, national health insurance is free, besides negligible deductibles...let's call it $400

After that, we’re at $26,000 in Taiwan vs. $27,800 in the US…

Now look at rent:

In Phoenix, the average rent is about $800 per month. In Taipei, it's about $450. 

Taking rent out of the pile, now it’s only  $20,600 in Taiwan and $18,200 in US leftover for everything else.

Now public transit is up to the individual. But, it is true that there are many more jobs that you need a car for in the states than in Taiwan. Here, you can just ride a scooter, which you can buy for about a grand and which takes very little gas. Or, you could just take the very timely and convenient public transportation here, which is world class. I’ll take my car payments for example when I was living in the US. All told, I paid about $500 a month for financing, insurance and gas. To be fair, I did have to replace a bunch of things on the scooter. Amounted to about a grand US…hopefully the thing will be tip top for some time to come now though. Gas doesn’t cost anymore than like 10 dollars a month.

So…

In Taiwan with a scooter (including cost of purchase): 18,500 …In America with a Car: $12,200.


Of course, that’s not all! The cost of eating must be taken into account! Now, for eating out in the US, we're talking like between 7 and 30 dollars usually (if my memory serves). In Taiwan, it's usually between 3 and 15. I mean, you can get nice lunches here for 4-5 dollars and nice dinners for 9-12 dollars. In the states, anything marginally nice costs like at least $20.

So, I’m not going to do the math for that part, but I think you get the point! Taiwan is tough to beat for cost of living and expenses. America really needs to get its act together though and start giving average Americans a bigger slice of the pie. Good, I'm sure now that I've said something about it, our senators will have a good think and get right on it! Only in my dreams....

Ko Wen Jie Vs. Taipei Traffic ROUND 1!

So Taipei has gotten this new Mayo Ko Wen Je (柯文哲) This guy is the ultra coolness. The now Mayor of Taipei City, has had very little political ambition from his job as a doctor before. Politicians went after his team at his hospital, provoking his augur and ultimately leading to his bid for Taipei City Mayor's office. A bid which he won in a landslide election as an Independent.

This guy does not give a hoot for ceremony or any kind of bullshit. He cuts straight though the crap. He halted construction on the Taipei Arena after finding all kinds of problems and corruption with it. He just shut it down. Things in Taipei are getting better with this new nonsense mayor. He already made new rules to improve parking issues and the like. In this article, he proposes cameras to do the job. 

Academics criticize Ko parking camera plan

Several law experts from National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday joined a district court judge who criticized Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je's (柯文哲) idea of using surveillance cameras to arrest individuals who...

CHINAPOST.COM.TW

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 Let me just give you a taste of the kind of crap I deal with on a daily basis with these fools on the Taipei roads. People stop their cars wherever and whenever they please. They don't care if it's at a red or yellow line. I have seen people park right around the corner or a busy intersection right turn lane, in the actual turn lane itself, or just straight up double park right in the middle of the street, effectively cutting off a whole line of traffic. Or, on a major arterial like Xinyi during rushhour, they will just park their little fucking luxury cars right on the side of the road because they can't be bothered to go find appropriate parking so they can run in and get whatever it is they want to get while the entire city suffers because of the reduced traffic flow on that major roadway. 
It doesn't even end there. People back up on the middle of the road like it's no big deal. They will swipe in front of you coming out of an alley and then just stop and "park" in the middle of the road, as this has now become somewhat acceptable.

So I say if he wants to cut that shit out...more power to him! I'm tired of these jackasses as much as the next guy. If we didn't have people who so flagrantly needed to break the laws, we wouldn't have a need for enforcement. Already, we see police ticketing people for coming too close to pedestrians in the crosswalk. So far since then, I have noticed significantly more respectful drivers in the crosswalk. 1984 my eye...Let's hear the alternative solution: 

"An increase in police manpower and the use of surveillance cameras are not solutions to the problem, the judge said.

He suggested Ko should investigate why illegal parking is so common and seek ways to increase parking spaces for motorists in Taipei."(Taoyuan District Court Judge Chien Chien-jung (錢建榮))
Bump that yo. These fools are mad out of control and this whole governmental laissez faire attitude is exactly the kind of policy that makes it OK for people to do as they please. Maybe we need to design better parking areas, or maybe, just maybe...people need to exercising a modicum of common sense and stop parking their shit where it is obviously dangerous to do so, like in the afore mentioned places. All it's going to take is for one guy to whip around a turn lane on a green light to be met by the back end of a car that's not supposed to be there in that lane and *!whack!* Honestly, the amount of times I avoid scooter wrecks per day not because of traffic laws, but in spite of them is simply amazing. You just always have to expect people to be doing shit here that is completely ridiculous. But what's nice, is apparently, others think it's ridiculous too. So more power to you, Ko-Wen-Je. Keep on doing what you're doing. 1984 my arse! It's more like Mad Max with people scooting around on bikes in a lawless post-apocalyptic landscape!