It's the rising inequality, stupid

Post date: Dec 08, 2015 6:3:34 PM

Throughout history world leaders have come up with memorable quotes to describe the political environment of their time.

A couple of lines seem to apply to Hong Kong's current situation. Winston Churchill's "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life" and "It's the economy, stupid", which derived from a strategy focus message during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential election campaign.

Both echo the sentiment of the current social disobedience movement. The latter, with a Hong Kong twist, could become, "It's inequality, Mr Big Government."

According to official figures published by the Hong Kong government's Information Services Department, the territory's fiscal reserves stood at HK$735.8 billion as of June 30, 2014. A significant surplus has been piling up in the city for a good many years.

Few countries in the world could beat Hong Kong in the money game, both publicly and privately. With a public purse this size, Hong Kong should be a place where opportunity abounds and where poverty is nonexistent.

But the reality is somewhat different - some 1.3 million Hong Kong residents live below the poverty line; Hong Kong has a high Gini coefficient, which means that wealth distribution in the city is among the most unequal in the world; about 30 per cent of the population live in public housing, some in deplorable conditions; and young couples with university educations can slave away for more than 10 years and still not be able to buy a shoe box flat measuring 300 sq ft. These are the quintessential Hong Kong stories, and there are many more.

With ever increasing fiscal reserves, shouldn't our administration be in a position to tackle inequality and provide new opportunities for our young men and women?

Philip S. K. Leung, Pok Fu Lam

2 November, 2014

http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1629994/letters-editor-november-2-2014