Hello Maurice, Here I am, situated in the eye of the SARS storm, having just seen off my wife, who is fashionably ensembled in medical mask and surgical gloves, only to browse the bookstores in town.
In sharp contrast, I am on the beach, dressed in non-descript laundry-day clothing, seated on the terrace of my neighborhood beach kiosk, waiting for my brunch of fried porkchops, sunny-side-up eggs, wheat toast, and Pocari sport drink.
Chung Hom Kok Bay is overcast today, cool, and dry.
The ocean is aqua-jade-green, and the water is very clear. The foliage along the cliff is vibrantly green, brightened by the polarized light filtered through the generous clouds and then reflected from the mirror-like ocean.
There is a wooden pleasure junk anchored out in the Bay, and there are 5 lifeguards busying themselves on sand with chitchat and equipment cleaning.
Today is a nice day, ending a relaxed week that saw the end of a war-anxiety and disease-worry filled month, and comforted by the reassuring (that the world still runs in accordance with logic) continuation of the recessionary decade.
I had always imagined that days of global war, planet-wide recession, and earth-enveloping disease to be quite relaxing compared to the hectic days and busy nights of money-grabbing boom times. I was right.
Some folks had commented that the times feel like retirement. The only missing ingredient is the always dreamt for 18% per annum interest rate.
This Chung Hom Kok Bay economy is a very strange one, where I sell put options on gold mining equities of properties located in far away places, to earn premiums from speculators throughout cyber universe, buy porkchop brunches from the beach kiosk, which then pays taxes that in turn is used to keep the beach clean and government employed lifeguards fed with instant noodles from the same kiosk.
Here in Hong Kong we no longer have a 'housing economy' because the capital value is dropping almost as fast rental price, but not as fast as confidence level and hope index.
We are also bidding goodbye to the service economy, because our factories relocated to other parts long time ago, and now, given the tepid financial engineering activity level and fast disappearing consumption urge, the demand for services has predictably dropped.
We are now coasting on the Chung Hom Kok beach bum economy, which in Silicon Valley would be called the Starbucks economy.
We in Hong Kong do not need the following types of cures, and yet we are trying them all:
(a) decreasing interest charge that also result in declining interest income
(b) chopping corporate head count that leads to aggregate income decrease and absolute consumption decline
(c) digging into savings to live which shrivels the funding pool for business investments that create jobs
(d) building non-productive public infrastructure through fiscal deficit spending, leading to higher societal burden and crowding out private initiatives
(e) supporting a false financial market that encourages misallocation of private wealth
(f) fighting a war in faraway deserts on behalf of Hong Kong's automobile owning population, requiring Hong Kong soldiers, financed through borrowings from non-Hong Kongers channeled through fiscal deficit spending, and augmented by our Hong Kong Monetary Authority printing press.
Oops, I got confused for a moment. (f) option is not possible in Hong Kong and (e) is not being tried yet;0)
As events went, as the Iraq campaign is winding down and the Iranian/Syrian campaign is not yet revved up, and the N.Korean situation is not yet clear, my YTD NAV Gain stands at 0.07% Message 18800766 , readying to retake its previously gained YTD NAV Gain height of 4.3%, or to continue to fall back, eventually slipping into negative abyss.
I want you to know that I am now ready for a good fight, with my command center desktop computer revived and rejuvenated. Both it and my new laptop are battle ready, with Windows XP in firm and all-encompassing big-brotherly control. BTW, the XP operating system is awsome, at least for now, for awhile. May the Force be with Microsoft.
Chugs, Jay |
