Taiwan solved tax evasion in 1951 with a trick so cheap it should embarrass every tax authority on the planet.
The problem was an all-cash economy full of small shops. A merchant pockets the cash, skips the receipt, and the sale never existed. Auditors can't catch what was never recorded, and hiring enough of them to watch every noodle stand costs more than the missing tax.
So finance chief Ren Xianqun flipped the incentive. Print a lottery number on every receipt. Draw winners every two months on live TV. Top prize today: NT$10 million, about $310K.
Suddenly the customer and the shopkeeper want opposite things. The merchant wants the sale off the books. The customer wants the ticket. And there are millions more customers than merchants. Every transaction now carries a built-in witness demanding the paper trail.
Year one, reported tax revenue jumped 75%, from NT$29 million to NT$51 million. Seventy-five years later, roughly 70% of Taiwanese still play. Convenience stores redeem the smallest NT$200 prizes at the register, so even a coffee receipt feels like a scratch card.
The elegant part is what the audit force costs. The prize pool runs about NT$7 billion a year, roughly $20 million. In exchange, the government gets 23 million unpaid auditors working every checkout line in the country, forever. No inspector general on earth delivers that coverage at that price.
Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Slovakia all copied it. The most effective compliance tool ever built looks like a game, and that's exactly why it works.
要了解美国建国时期的政教关系、基督教在不同历史时段的作用,推荐一本通俗易懂但相当专业的书:Jon Meacham的《American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation》。作者是专门研究美国总统的历史学家,也是非虚构写作的大家。中文世界 一些群体中流行“美国是基督教国家”,这种说法主要是源自教会一些宣传品,比如Jerry Newcombe牧师的《圣经造就美国》(The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation)。
一般历史���多多少少有些传奇成分,但Jerry Newcombe的书是多多少少有点历史成分的宗教传奇,正确的归类应该是神学,不是历史。Jerry Newcombe写了很多书,但基本是在福音派教会中内循环。
这几十年在美国靠编造历史忽悠“基督教国家”发财的还有一个叫David Barton的德克萨斯数学老师,他出过一本书《The Jefferson Lies》。Barton把杰佛逊和其他美国的国父描述成神学家的形象,说美国是按基督教原则建立的。
因为胡编乱造太厉害,拿虚构当历史讲,被学者找出来一堆,在历史上根本不存在。出版社撤回了出版,并发声明道歉。但Barton在原教旨教会继续宣扬他编造的东西,走政治-宗教路线,成立基金弄了大笔捐��,现在是这个行当的富翁。
在美国,“基督教国家”是一笔生意,不是学术。一些中国人皈依基督教,作为个人信仰,这本来无可厚非,但有些人的“初心者狂热”有点强烈,专门走旁门左道,捡些宗教垃圾信。
I'm an American and I just spent the last two weeks in China.
I am sorry to tell you that the United States is now far behind China in all aspects.
Even though individuals in China have 1/3 the spending power of those in the USA and 1/6th of the per capita GDP, they are far better off because of China's superior socialist system.
For example, I was able to order takeout and it arrived at my door in under 10 minutes. I don't know much about the work conditions of the person who delivered it, nor do I understand the food supply chain enough to comment on its quality and safety. But it tasted good and I got it real fast.
Everywhere I went, people were eager to show me, a White American, how awesome and developed China is. I was invited to dinners at expensive restaurants at the tops of the very tallest buildings. I was a little flattered by the VIP treatment I got there, but that's just what life in China feels like to the average person, I guess.
I was particularly impressed by the technology. There were robots cleaning floors and serving drinks. Doors opened automatically. There were LED lights everywhere. Payments were made by mobile phone. And everybody had a mobile phone. Mobile phones are so advanced there that many people don't even own a personal computer.
I didn't suffer any illness requiring me to visit the local hospital, so I can't say much about that, but I will tell you that the shopping centers are incredibly fancy. In this one mall I went to, there's a guy standing outside of the bathroom to hand you a towel. The toilet sprays aerosol deodorant every time it detects a deposit of 25 grams or more in the bowl. Smoking is banned in all indoor spaces, although for some reason I could smell a hint of cigarette smoke in nearly every indoor space.
Most of this is because China's leaders are very wise and see extra far into the future. That's probably because they are highly educated, with doctorates in the sciences. This is in contrast to American lawmakers, who are most often experts in law. Unlike our country, with its short-sighted electoral cycle, China operates on a 10-year political plan. That means the leaders of China are thinking 10 years into the future. I wish I could ask them where I will be in 10 years, I bet they'd know.
I wish I could tell you more about what it's like to work in a Chinese company, or to marry into a Chinese family, but I haven't had those experiences yet. I also really wish I could read Chinese so I could tell you what the Internet is like in China. To be honest, I don't know, I just used VPN so I could access all of the websites I normally use.
Anyways, Chinese people seemed really nice and China is pretty advanced and modern. America is cooked!
@CNN Please watch this video to understand how the assassination of Lumumba destroyed the Congo, and how Lumumbists continued the fight after his death.
https://t.co/8ovbFL4H1m
El ingeniero que creó claude code acaba de soltar un video de 28 minutos donde te enseña a escribir prompts que realmente funcionan.
He visto cursos de 300 dólares que no llegan ni a la mitad de lo que explica en los primeros 10 minutos.
Archivos CLAUDE.md, atajos de memoria, sesiones paralelas y patrones de prompting que cambian el juego.
Todo en un solo video y completamente gratis.
Da igual si eres desarrollador, principiante o ya llevas meses usando Claude. Esto te va a volar la cabeza.
🇨🇳 Who lives in China? Foreign residents by nationality 2025
🇰🇷 South Korea ~18%
🇺🇸 United States ~12%
🇯🇵 Japan ~10%
🇲🇲 Myanmar ~8%
🇻🇳 Vietnam ~7%
🇷🇺 Russia ~6%
🇮🇳 India ~5%
🇵🇰 Pakistan ~4%
🇫🇷 France ~3%
🇩🇪 Germany ~3%
🇬🇧 United Kingdom ~2%
🇨🇦 Canada ~2%
🇦🇺 Australia ~1%
🌍 Other countries ~19%
Foreign residents make up <1% of China’s total population, with major communities concentrated in cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou & Shenzhen.
Sources: China National Bureau of Statistics, UN migration data, OECD migration estimates