Hi Maurice, <<Do you like a lot of questions? Especially similar questions>>
Yes, because they give me an opportunity to paint for you an ever-gloomier picture that you apparently cannot see in New Zealand until it is too late. This piece of rant should be titled “Abandon Position”.
I will answer your questions in the order that you have posed them, to the extent that I do not know the answers:0)
<<Why on earth would people want such cars in Hong Kong where one can walk faster and more enjoyably than driving [more or less]?
It makes sense to me that such cars are cheap [in Hong Kong].>>
I do not know why Hong Kong has the highest density of Rollers, Porsches, Ferraris, BMWs and Mercedes. I also do not know why Hong Kong-ers sometimes have more watches than buttons, passports than residences, residences than passports, or mistresses than days in a week. It is simply a way some choose to play the game of life, not knowing about such finer treats as a slow summer’s day on a river bank, nugget of cheese and a bottle of wine, a gently swinging hammock tied to two coconut palms, a perfect 3-minute boiled egg, or an epic Internet-enabled battle fought amongst a bunch of semi-adults dispersed widely across the planet earth, death match style.
HK is just a rock with some folks living on it, with no particular loyalties, other than wealth, constraints, other than conscience, beliefs, other than having a good time. HK is too simple.
I know that it is indeed, at times, faster to walk than to drive and park, or even be chauffeured around by mobile phone equipped driver.
Cars, when new are about 2 times the price of same models in North America, and as folks frown upon pre-owned cars, the prices drop 50% immediately after the few months of ownership, even if the odometer displays only enough miles to qualify the car as a showroom display model. As mentioned earlier …
Message 16118306
“Car: I only drive from home to supermarket. I take the bus or taxi for every other excursion. I bought a Mazda 626 second hand from an ex-client company and friend. 12 months old car, aircon and power everything, basic blue, for USD 2,000. Seems fair for the ex-client company, reasonable for my driving habit, and generous of the friend.”
<<Within one political system [albeit two systems, one country], surely the normal sort of Chinese city will become much the same as others. So Hong Kong's pay rates will come to match those of Shanghai [and others].>>
I agree that the average Hong Kong pay rate will decrease and for some, quite sharply, for others, intolerably. For many, they will have to and are already finding a way on the mainland; embracing the motherland, so to speak, for dear life. This would have happened regardless of whether HK is a sovereign territory of China or Britain, as long as China had continued its reform and transformation program.
China has quite a bit of latitude to intervene in Hong Kong, to help it adjust, from allowing open border, common customs area, to more aggressive encouragement of mainland Chinese tourism, investment and even ceding Shenzhen to Hong Kong. The extent of the eventual intervention depends on political and economic advisability, and on Taiwan conditions. I do not know how. I am only guessing what might be.
Shanghai will compete ferociously, and successfully against Hong Kong, in so far as infrastructure, education, commerce, industry, finance, port logistics, and every other endeavor that matters, bar possibly one, at least for a while longer, law.
In law, there are two possible scenarios for HK/China and the outcome may depend on developments in Taiwan. China can gradually adopt the British Common Law that is used in HK, and HK can gradually transform at least Southern China to be in closer conformance with Hong Kong, or, China comes up with something recognizably new from what is in place in HK. I am guessing the former.
As usual, when the going gets tough, I exclude myself from the tough going, preferring to hide on a higher ledge, scoped rifle in hand, looking for value anomalies, easier ways, and MeDroogies. I am happy to altruistically shoo Maurice away from danger.
<<What do you think of Hu Jintao?>>
Hu Jintao is apparently a well-educated technocrat, acceptable to the spectrum of political factions, an un-megalomaniac, and is a prime driver and ‘owner’ of continued reforms and transformation. He is broadly supported. So I am told.
<<What do the next 10 years hold in store?>>
What hedge words I did not use in the previous long paragraph, I will use in this one. I am guessing. I guess many positive developments in China, although these developments may not be particularly conducive to my wealth preservation / enhancement program, or to my life style, and may in fact cause me to ultimately abandon position in Hong Kong, in due time, after full consideration, careful deliberation, and determined ‘decision-ing’.
I am not a man of strong convictions on most matters, unless the matters impact my family, self or friends. I willingly and mostly gladly abandon position, to survive, and fight another day.
The script being written and followed in China is simple, multi-faceted, cohesive, and straightforward, namely to decentralize and minimize government, and is thus enticing. To reduce governmental functions, and limit retained functions to law-making and enforcement, social security, foreign affairs, defense, and infrastructure construction. Many governmental functions relating to industry and commerce are being spun off to self-regulated industry associations. Bold (measured by tradition and by absolute world class scale) experimentations are being carried out.
Much of education and health services is being privatized, joining the already privatized state-owned enterprises, soon to be joined by more. The government is promoting, by making it all possible, property rights, labour mobility, immigration (to the largest extent that hundreds of thousands of educated and ambitious Diaspora of many generations want to return) and emigration (to the full extent that tens of millions will be accepted elsewhere).
All matters relating to transparency, level-field competition and law will be reformed per WTO requirement. The upper echelons of China are far more enthusiastic about WTO than all other countries believe. WTO will solve problems for China even if temporary pain is induced, I am told.
The scale of pending reform and transformation is awesome even when compared to what has already taken place in the past 20 years, and my guess is that political reform is both a necessary pre-requisite and a consequence of what happens in other spheres and sectors.
<<Does anyone grieve for Mao and the Long March, the great leap backwards, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?>>
No. Folks treat Mao as a major historic figure, did good and bad, all controversial, and then died. The ideal of each according to his ability and needs is in some ways more a Confucius gizmo than a Mao widget, or simply a failed western ideal, but is never the less still practiced somewhat within the context of extended family groupings.
… TBC |
