President Ma Ying-jeou said Thursday that after the conclusion of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with China, his administration will form a global economic strategy team under his own leadership to map out plans for what he terms a 'golden decade.' The president's efforts deserve admiration. But what the country lacks is neither economic strategy nor financial capital but trust among people, or what is known as social capital. Economists have discovered from history that prosperity is created first and foremost by people's trust in one another. Capital alone is not enough to create prosperity, and its dynamic will be brought into full play only in a society in which people trust each other. The most important ingredient of social capital is integrity, especially the integrity of government workers. The history of Taiwan's economic development has borne out how it was senior government officials with integrity who led the country on a path toward rapid development. However, this political integrity has been drained because of the frequent changes of Cabinet members and the worsening ethics of senior officials that has rubbed off on the public and eroded the trust between people. Bitter struggles among the different political parties have also exacerbated the draining of Taiwan's social capital, and the political wounds get reopened whenever there is an election. Trust is more easily lost than gained, but without it, no economic strategy will work effectively. 