HK survived a six months period of just-about complete shut down n shut-in during the SARS crisis, where few went to office to work, hardly any ate restaurant food, many financial workers de-camped to Thailand, Australia, and points further away, the rest did not travel as no one would take face-to-face appointment.
Banks had to give grace on loan payments, landlords dropped rent on current lease by 50+ %, and employees did not get paid wages. Govt subsidized utilities, and forgot about collecting property tax.
A small group of us at the time bought a small building on Nathan road (busiest street in HK) on 1:1leverage n started renovating same, and were rewarded for our diligence and situation awareness with a 7x return w/i 18 months.
Very few societies in the world could have pulled through as well.
The secret ingredients, IMO, were:
Savings, savings, savings
Thrift, thrift, thrift
Past surplus
Education
Family values
Friendships
Societal cohesion
Societal understanding
Enlightened leadership
Many if not most shall fall, few would rise unless pulled down.
In such context, wars, civil wars, revolutions are almost for sure, as no one not understanding and not capable of understanding would willingly undergo big red button hardware power plug pull zero state reset without blaming someone else or justifying doing nasties premised on emergency imperative.
What do you think? |
