Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Food for Thought - The Irony of Capitalism

In this article, Frank Lin tells us about the lack of compassion of America’s middle class and wealthy for those left to destitution in the stratum of abject poverty.

Self interest and profit motive, the cornerstone of capitalism, while responsible for showering enviable wealth upon the American people in the last century, has not only brought about an unbridgeable chasm between the rich and the poor, but has also hardened the hearts of the more privileged.

Capitalism has always condoned merciless competition and survival of the fittest, and people embracing this conceptual system of economic organization have always been well aware of the inevitable outcome of inequalities under such a system. But even the staunchest of supporters would admit that whoever wins under this system does so because of a confluence of good skill, hard work and good luck. Men are hardly equal at birth, much less the shares of luck that they are destined to enjoy after birth.

The irony of capitalism is that while it rewards those hard-working risk-takers on the grounds that an individual is the rightful owner of the fruits of his labor (and a good deal of luck), it also abets inequalities in incomes and hence social stratification of individuals, which defeats the ideal of individual liberty that it promises.

Lin’s article reminds me of this observation by Paul Bowles, author of a new book titled “Capitalism”:-

“It is true that in responding to consumers’ material wants, wherever they come from, for the majority of the population in most countries, the capitalist system performs this function reasonably well, and particularly well for wealthy individuals with trivial desires. However, it fails miserably to fill the needs of those who have no demand because they have no income. The rise of homelessness on the streets of every Western city in the past 30 years and the permanence of food banks demonstrate that capitalism is failing to meet many people’s daily wants even in relatively rich societies.”

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

A Poem by Mr. Xin, a Metal Worker

One of the metal workers who went on strike in the last couple of weeks handed a Local Action member three poems, which have been posted by Chu Hoi Dick on the InmediaHK website.

The first one of the three poems is reconstructed from a famous lyrical poem called Man Jiang Hong (滿 江 紅) written by Yue Fei (岳 飛), who was a patriotic general of the Southern Song Dynasty, when he was 30 years old. The other two poems are also reconstructions of classical poems by famous poets. I find the first one to be the best of the three and have translated it below. Beneath my translation is a translation found on Wikipedia of the original poem for easy comparison.

My Translation of Mr. Xin’s Poem:

“My wrath is on government-business collusion,
As we laborers toil through sweltering heat and fierce rainstorms.
Our deeds are done on dusty sites and we often work right into the night.
Vile businessmen don’t have a conscience; they are beasts whose aim is to exploit.
Our humiliation of a decade is still not vindicated.
The pain of laborers will never be soothed.
Let us keep up the strike until we have our way.
Despite hunger and insult, we swear we will make businessmen pay.
Let us begin anew to recover our dignity, before we bundle rods.”

Wikipedia Translation of the Original Poem:

“My wrath bristles through my helmet, the rain stops as I stand by the rail.
I look up towards the sky and let loose a passionate roar.
At age thirty my deeds are nothing but dust, my journey has taken me over eight thousand li (里 – about ½ a kilometer).
So do not sit by idly, for young men will grow old in regret.
The humiliation of Jing Kang still lingers.
When will the pain of his subjects ever end?
Let us ride our chariots through the Helan Pass.
There we shall feast and drink barbarian flesh and blood.
Let us begin anew to recover our old empire, before paying tribute to the Emperor.”

Friday, August 24, 2007

Development and the Environment

In Ordinary Gweilo’s post “Out through the Window”, he says: “In Hong Kong (and large parts of China) that means designing buildings that can be kept cool in the summer without excessive use of air-conditioning. It's not happening, is it? Developers prefer to throw up apartments with thin walls and hardly any insulation. Even if you are sceptical about global warming, surely it has to be a good thing to be cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter without having to pay a small fortune to CLP or HK Electric?”

Another blogger Daai Tou Laam has a post “Government Listens to Elite, Masses Can Suck on a Tailpipe” where he delivers a news release about the Town Planning Board’s rejection of an application by the environmental group, Green Sense, to reduce the density of a West Kowloon site and to include a 10-meter wind corridor in the proposed development. The rejection apparently came through because of objections from the developer and owner of the site, Sun Hung Kai Properties, on grounds that the application infringes on their private property right and could threaten investor confidence.

Then there was Li Ka Shing’s comment on TV that if the density of a development site were reduced, it would adversely impact government’s treasury as well as citizens’ income.

Here are some observations:

Thin walls without any insulation means less quantities of concrete and would be a plus on cost-savings for developers. Air-conditioning charges would be the homeowners’ or tenants’ liability once the built apartments are sold, and thus are not the developers’ concern.

Lower density eats right into developers’ profits and is and must remain a taboo. Developers would naturally not want to comply with any of the environmentalists’ requests that would cost them more money, especially if market conditions do not allow them to pass on the additional cost to consumers.

Li was not wrong in pointing out that government would also stand to lose in terms of land revenue as lower density on sites would mean lower land premium receipts for government.

Can it be any clearer that from the developers’ standpoint, cost and profit concerns always trump environment concerns?

On the other hand, if there are no specific environmental regulations either in the building code or in the lease conditions, then a developer does not have any legal responsibility to comply. By the same token, based on the concept of the rule of law, government is also contractually obliged to let a developer build to whatever density ratio that is written in the Conditions of Sale (i.e. lease conditions) of a site and under current building and planning regulations once that site is sold (as in the above case).

All in all, the above situation and incidence suggest there is an urgent need for a revamp, with public input, of existing land development policy, building and planning regulations in light of the growing social demand for greater efforts on environmental protection and more livable neighborhoods. It may also be time for government to review the sustainability of a land revenue-reliant fiscal structure.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Hong Kong Mental Health Volunteer Group

I've almost forgotten all about a request from one of my readers, Benita Chick, to help promote her website which was set up to help mental health patients and their family members and friends.

Here is a link to that website: http://hkmentalhealthsupport.org/

I hope this would help a little. Benita, keep up the good work!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Why Did Financial Markets Crumble?

Last week, we saw a panicky meltdown of global stock markets (with the exception of those in China) with the U.S. Federal Reserve, European and Japanese Central banks all scrambling to pour money into their respective financial systems in an attempt to avert potential credit crunches. What on earth is happening?

Philip Bowring in his Asia Sentinel article tries to identify the proximate causes, which lie with the structuring and shady operation of the global financial markets, while Max Wolff at The Huffington Post helps us understand in his blogpost the ultimate causes, which emanated from the United States’ build-up of the housing bubble along with unmanageable sub-prime debt.