Taiwan, 'You’re the Luckiest People in the World'

choi

Thomas Friedman, Pass the Books. Hold the Oil; Yes, educated people really are a nation's most valuable resource. New York Times, Mar 11, 2012 (in the section This Week in Review).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/1 ... s-hold-the-oil.html
("I’ve always had the same answer: Taiwan. 'Taiwan? Why Taiwan?' people ask. Very simple: Because Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has to import sand and gravel from China for construction")

Excerpt in the window of print: Who's going to win in the 21st century? The nations invested in education.

My comment:
(a) The article says Taiwan has no "no forests." Taiwan has plenty--from rain forest, tropical, subtropical to temperate (thanks to high mountains).
(b)
(i) economic rent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent
(ii) resource rent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_rent
(c)
(i) Dutch Disease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
(The term was coined in 1977 by The Economist to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of a large natural gas field in 1959)
(ii) Netherland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
(One of the largest natural gas fields in the world is situated near Slochteren [a municipality]. Exploitation of this field resulted in a total revenue of €159 billion since the mid 1970s. With just over half of the reserves used up and an expected continued rise in oil prices, the revenues over the next few decades are expected to be at least that much)

(d) The report is based in part on
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

Notable in this web page are:
(i) Under "What's new" in the central column:
(A) Andreas Schleicher, Knowledge and Skills Are Infinite – Oil Is Not. OECD Global perspectives on education, Mar 9, 2012 (with a figure that Mr Friedman's article provides a link to).

* The German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Schleicher is "a nickname for a furtive or stealthy person, from an agent derivative of Middle High German slichen, German schleichen ‘to creep silently.’"

(B) Mr Friedman's above article.
(ii) In the left column, click "Participating countries/economies"
http://www.oecd.org/infobycountry/0,3380,en_2649_35845621_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
(In the four PISA tests (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009), Taiwan--under the title "Chinese Taipei" participated in 2006 and 2009, and Shanghai (PRC's only representative) in 2009), and "Hong Kong-China" in all four; neither Hong Kong nor Taiwan is a member of OECD)


(2) Anne Eisenberg, Automatic Recharging, From a Distance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/1 ... tronic-devices.html
("WiTricity has signed a technology transfer and licensing agreement with MediaTek, a semiconductor company in Taiwan, to collaborate on systems for wireless charging of mobile handsets, tablet computers, game controllers and other devices")

Note: Watertown, Massachusetts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watertown,_Massachusetts
(a city, neighbor of Cambridge)

(3) Dave Tacon, They're Dressed to Thrill But It's Betel Nut That Stimulates. Sydney Morning Herald, Mar 11, 2012.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/they ... 20120310-1urcf.html ‎

(4) Hsieh Wen-hua, Taiwan Draws Japanese Tourists. Taipei Times, Mar 12, 2012 (available now)http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/ ... 12/03/12/2003527600
("Over the past year, the number of Taiwanese tourists visiting Japan shrank by 17.5 percent compared with 2010, yet Japanese tourism to Taiwan rose by 19.9 percent, or about 210,000 visitors, to 1.29 million travelers, [Taiwan's] Tourism Bureau statistics showed")

(5) Amber Wang, Taiwanese Elderly Suffer as Family Values Change. AFP, Mar 11, 2012.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/ ... 12/03/12/2003527597