And this year’s finalists for the most deranged ways of chucking facilitating taxpayers’ money down the toilet are…
- HK$396mn (because HK$400mn would look greedy) to be ‘pumped into’ tourism industry
- Subsidies for bond issuers. (You read that right. Hey, Singapore does it…)
HK$20bn for trendy tech-innovation Lok Ma Chau Loop Hong Kong-Shenzhen Park-Zone-Hub- HK$10bn for trendy tech research clusters
- HK$10bn for trendy tech Science Park ‘incubatees’ and ‘Smart Campus in the Park’
- HK$10bn for assorted none-of-the-above trendy tech-innovation stuff
- HK$70mn for Cantonese Opera development
- Silver Bonds!!!
- HK$100mn for e-sports ‘node’ at Cyberport and ‘nurturing talented gamers’ (WHAAAT?)
- HK$310mn ‘injection’ for Ocean Park
- 10,000 free Ocean Park tickets for kids
- HK$500mn for ‘development of the [tiny, weak, struggling, penniless] financial services industry’
- Green Bonds!!!
- HK$2,600 Still-Not-Dead Bonus for 87-year-old Mr Wat in Tai Kok Tsui (you should have been a talented gamer we need to nurture)
- HK$170m to ‘regularize pilot scheme’ on ‘mainland cultural exchange’
- HK$250,000 bonus free-gift handout from taxpayers to each lucky buyer of a Tesla
Note the contrast with previous years’ budgets – this is a new vision for the future…
This is a perfect capitalist budget, keeping the poor poor, licking up to a few gangs and tycoons, and generally making the rich richer.
As a small-time capitalist, how can you object?
Stop trying to adjust capitalism. Try to subvert it instead. Liberals are just capitalists waiting to inherit. Get off it.
Government Fiscal Reserves 1,091,939 million
deduct Civil Service Pensions 919,197 million
available for Public use 172,742 million
HK$396m to be ‘pumped into’ tourism industry
+HK$70m for Cantonese Opera development
+HK$310m ‘injection’ for Ocean Park
+HK$345m annual “loss” at Disney
=
HK$1.12b on tourism, shurely?
Also good to see every Tesla buyer gets a cheeky quarter million from us to encourage their mighty eco-warrior effect™ of creating 20% more pollution than a normal car owners. That’ll help the environment no end.
Is that a glass of whisky on Mr. Wats dining table? Looks like he enjoys an early morning sharpener.
Ocean Park? Cyberport? E-sports? Looks like Chan is throwing a lot of money unnecessarily at [HK tycoon buddies in] the tourism and ICT sectors. Peter Lam and Richard Li will be happy. As for the Ocean Park tickets – that really addresses the concerns of the grass roots…
@LRE Are you seriously suggesting that Cantonese Opera is a tourist attraction? That we can expect to see Bavarian hausfraus caterwauling along with our local enthusiasts (including my taitai) in West Kowloon? Mein Gott!
And can someone please explain to me WTF e-sports are supposed to be??
@Din Gao
Well very few people would pay to see it twice, which is pretty much the definition of a tourist attraction, isn’t it?
eSports are video games played competitively (often in teams) whilst other people watch. To my mind, this scenario is a ridiculous and pointless waste of time — which makes them just like every other spectator sport.
eSports are currently far less “important” than the big four of football, basketball, cricket and tennis, with smaller audiences — so they’re still somewhat fringe — sort of like the olympic sports, but with a bigger fan base than those mostly obscure and unimportant sports.
Several football clubs (PSG, PSV Eindhoven, West Ham, Manchester City, Wolfsburg, Valencia) have already invested in e-Sports teams, so the feeling amongst the money is that there’s more of market for stand alone tournaments in e-Sports than the olympic sports. Then again, footballers are the paragon of the maxim “more money than sense”, so it’s a bit up in the air at the moment.
The HK Government are probably doing it mostly in a sad cringeworthy-dad way to be “hip and groovy,” so as to be “down with the kids, daddy-o”. Safari suits and sandals with socks on all round!
@Din Gao
E-sports = quite simply video games but on a grander scale with international teams competing. HK held one at MacPherson indoor stadium in Mongkok last year with the tourism board giving much hullubaloo.
Large stadiums aimed at this market are being built across China – basically, if the youth are zoned our playing video games that are projected onto huge screens for audiences to watch, there’s less chance of them taking to the streets, or simply questioning authority,
Yes, the future is dark, but these games require dark environments to experience the flash, bang, effects.