Tyler Cowen's Musings on Taiwan

choi

Tyler Cowen, Taiwan’s Politics of Pained Prosperity. Many blessings. One big curse. Running for president in interesting times. B;ppmberg, July 9, 2019.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinio ... diced-eyes-on-china

Note:
(a) Clicking the writer's name leads you to: "Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University * * * "
(i) Born and raised in New Jersey; BS in economics from George Mason University in 1983; PhD in economics, Harvard 1987: en.wikpeedia.org
(ii) Department of economics of George Mason University
https://economics.gmu.edu/people/tcowen
says his specialities in economics are: "monetary theory, financial economics, and welfare economics."
(b) "Chiang Kai-shek [1887 – 1975], the first leader of the island, was part of a generation of Asian visionary leaders which is perhaps without parallel. It includes Lee Kuan Yew [1923 – 2015; prime minister 1959-1990] of Singapore, Park Chung-Hee [1917 – 1979; successful coup in 1961] in South Korea, Mao Zedong [1893 – 1976] and Deng Xiaoping [1904 – 1997] in China, and Ho Chi Minh [1890 – 1969] in Vietnam."

I wonder whether they belong to the same generation.
(c) "Taiwan moved quickly from poverty to first-world living standards, now with a per capita income 15th in the International Monetary Fund's rankings, above Germany and Australia."

The link is to
list of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
, whose data is divided into three (3) columns: IMF (2018), World Bank (2017) and CIA World Factbook.
(i) The reference for IMF (2018) is "World Economic Outlook Database [published by IMF] April 2019" -- which appears in the upper right corner if the new Web page. Further, though the Wiki page in the IMF column refers to "Taiwan," The cited IMF report actually used "Taiwan Province of China."

International dollar (in the IMF report) is same in value as -- and an euphemism for -- American dollar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_United_States_dollar
(ii) The Work Bank column (in the Wiki page)  does not include Taiwan.
(iii) As of today, The CIA World Factbook indicates for per capita GDP (PPP): Germany $50,800 (2017 est.) and Taiwan $50,500 (2017 est.). For about 1 ½ decades, Factbook always has Germany and Taiwan similar in that benchmark. So I am surprised that IMF put Taiwan a bit ahead of Germany.

(d) "While the world has its share of basket-case nations, it is hard to imagine a successful polity that has so many problems all at once."
(i) basket case (n)
(A) https://www.etymonline.com/word/basket%20case
(B) https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/basketcase.html
(ii)
(A) polity (n):  "political organization"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polity
(B)  polity (n): "a state as a political entity <the period in which West Germany was a distinct polity>"
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/polity