At the land auction yesterday, the Hong Kong government raised HK$1.63 billion it has no use for so Chinachem property group can build HK$22,000 per-square-foot apartments for sale to gullible Mainlanders with funny-smelling money. (This assumes this racket is still going on by the time the project is completed. The scam whereby such buyers get a free Hong Kong ID Card thrown in might be scrapped by then, interest rate hikes might have pulled the plug on the bubble, Beijing might have clamped down on money laundering, an asteroid could vaporize Kowloon Tong, and so on. Chinachem is one of those second-ranking, me-too developers that jump on bandwagons too late.) The government even made a nice TV news-style video on it.
Highlight of the auction, though not mentioned in the Information Services Department’s output, was ‘Long Hair’ Leung Kwok-hung, who crashed the proceedings to demand affordable homes for the downtrodden masses. Which bring us rather neatly to this…
“The steady growth of the Colony’s population and the limited area for residential purposes on the northern slope of the Island has rendered the question of the suitable housing of the middle classes in Hong Kong one of the serious problems of the time. The recent large influx of Chinese into the Colony has accelerated the urgency of the problem, the solution of which demands prompt and earnest consideration.”
Hong Kong Daily Press, January 29, 1912
Fast-forward 98 years, and this still hasn’t been fixed. On top of that, we also now have a serious poverty problem set to undermine social stability, a health-threatening air pollution problem caused largely by a crippling traffic problem, plus lots, lots more – the solution of which demands prompt and earnest consideration. (The Edwardians were lousy at thinking up snappy slogans like ‘I’ll get the job done’.)
The good news: Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s annual Policy Address is today.
Click to hear and see ‘Bedazzled’ by Drimble Wedge & The Vegetations!
Your thoughts and wishes are welcome at Sir Bow-Tie’s very own Facebook account – here, for example. (And yes, ISD has a story on that too.)
UPDATE (11.25am): Sir Bow-Tie announces temporary exclusion of property from eligible asset classes under the ID cards-for-investments scam. Chinachem screwed already, depending on how temporary ‘temporary’ is.
“….an asteroid could vaporize Kowloon Tong….”. I do hope so.
The sign behind the Donald says ” Strong Governance for the people” ? How about adding “by the people”….says it all really.
And about time too. Let’s hope ‘temporary’ becomes permanent. Let’s see how many of our upstanding ‘business man’ mainland brothers are eager to pump 6 million into say something like, oh I don’t know, a business here perhaps? That employs people? I’m not holding my breath.
Although sadly, I am not so naive as to think that the funny smelling money from our ‘business man’ mainland brothers won’t be washed and rinsed repeatedly here and put to the same use anyway, at the same ever growing rate, that is, buying crappy little flats we can’t afford at absurd prices.
Our mainland ‘executives’ and ‘mangers’ and ‘CEOs’ just lose the bonus ID card that’s all… we’ll need to open a VIP line in the visitors queue at the airport. That should keep everyone happy.
Wish you had an edit function….managers that is, sorry
The recent intense, highly-positive publicity associated with the Chilean mine rescue cannot have been missed by the Mainland authorities. To this end, I wonder how long will it be before they stage a similar “disaster” (perhaps involving a unit of crack PLA solidier-actors), and then set about trying to garner the world’s attention by pulling off an even more audacious “we too can get our boys out of the ground” escape programme.
The Chinese has already done that many a time, Chlamydia. The Shanxi Wanjialing mine rescue is widely believed to have been staged. Goofs include the rescued miners’ clean hands and clothes.
Flashback –
5 million people in HK: “But if we give people ID cards if they buy a flat here it will drive up housing prices and make them unaffordable for locals.”
Smart arse government spokesclone (smiling patronisingly): “No it won’t.”
5 million people in HK: “Oh. Ok.”