Would forcing CY to step down be a victory for the people of HK? Only in the same way that CY winning the CE "election" over Henry Tang was a victory for public opinion and the people of HK. Ya know, it's amazing to me that some people can actually believe that part about CY beating Tang with a straight face and not admit it was just one faction using the people to beat another faction and that the people's best interests had zero consideration and zero impact on the outcome.

There is no doubt that this mess isn't just negligence on CY's part. CY is a man whose address represents the pinnacle of colonial privilege with a guard house for a public security detail. He is a professional and been the ExCo convenor for a decade and a half. He was the Chair of the Basic Law Drafting Committee. Yet we are to believe that he was satisfied with providing an ignorant answer in ExCo to the Chief Executive and to the people of HK during a televised CE debate? Maybe if I get dragged in to court I can claim ignorance to the judge and jury and get let off with a few crocodile tears.

CY had no problems hiring men to come in and remove his illegal structures, but he was unwilling to hire someone to come in and cure his ignorance of whether he had any illegal structures. And when asked by Bowtie whether he had illegal structures at home, he did not give the answer of ignorance: "I don't know. Let me check." CY affirmed the negative: "I know I don't have any. I know the facts."

So why risk it all by stating that you know when you don't? I'd guess almost all HKers with illegal structures know they are illegal. The Kuk isn't fighting tooth-and-nail on illegal structure removal because they aren't sure if the law might negatively impact them. Even CY's biggest defenders like the Big Lychee know if their dwelling has illegal structures. Why doesn't he do something to have it removed? For the same reason CY didn't bother to say anything about his guardhouse and trellis. "The structures are there in plain sight and no one has ever said anything about them, so no one will ever say anything about them and if someone does say something, I'll deal with it then. Until then I've got more important things to deal with." And given Henry's refusal to deal with his illegal structure, it meant that even if the story escaped the spike during the campaign, CY could show he was more responsible by dealing with his problems.

But the sad truth is that it doesn't matter. Hong Kong is a colony and the Governor General sits in Sheung Wan. Even if the uproar over CY grows too loud, the Governor General will just appoint another puppet and the game will go on until 2047, when the colonial power can drop the whole charade and assume their preferred direct and absolute control.

The story features sub-divided flats and hawker stalls in a part of the city that wasn't featured in the CE's Chinese New Year's portrait of Hong Kong.

A remarkably well-done story by HK Magazine on the reaction of the HK SAR Government towards the hawkers. One thing it doesn't mention is the rationale for the long-term antagonism towards hawkers. Hawkers pay less rent and create competition in the retail space. This creates less profits for commercial landlords and retail outlets. Thankfully in HK the dominant commercial landlords ofter are also the owners of the dominant retail outlets. They also run the government. So much like the hostile takeover that resulted in The Link REIT, the attack on the hawkers is an attack on HK's lower-end residents displaying the Lion Rock spirit in favour of the rich, who are desperate to get richer.

On the other end of the problem are the sub-divided flats across Kowloon. These provide shelter for folks who are too cash poor to afford the larger up-front rents of the typical flat in a neighborhood with jobs for these folks.

This situation is the result of a couple of long-standing HK Government policies. First is a development policy which focuses almost exclusively on that zone displayed in the official CNY portrait of the territory: north-central HK island and the TST waterfront. This means that jobs in those areas of the territory with more affordable rents don't exist. And as the SCMP expose on Tin Shui Wai showed, this lack of development was not an accident but the official undisclosed policy deal made with the tycoons.

The next goes to the development of affordable housing in those areas that do provide jobs. This issue goes all of the way back to the creation of public housing in Hong Kong. Fine books on the time period that provide a great history and an antidote to the cotton candy historical narrative the HK Government likes to sell to its residents.

Three things to remember about the 50s squatter clearances: squatters paid higher rents per square foot than standard residents, the squatters land was of huge prospective value to developers, and the squatters were to be relocated to places far away from their jobs. All three of these are being repeated 60 years later very close to where those squatter fires broke out.

Today, the residents of sub-divided flats pay a smaller total rent per month, but they pay a higher rent per square foot than most in HK do. This higher rent per square foot though means that the price required by the major developers to buy out these flats is way beyond what they will pay once the flats have been cleared by the government. Thus the statement by the HK SAR government that partitioned flats hamper redevelopment.

Of course once these buildings have been redeveloped for the private profit of the tycoons, the current residents won't be able to afford to live in the neighborhood. And all current plans to move any qualifying members of the current residents to public housing will see them move far, far away from their current social situation, like jobs, friends, neighborhood hangouts, etc.

UPDATE: Forgot to combine two stories that have lingered in a blog editor on another computer.

In case you thought I was exaggerating the government's intentions, read the following SCMP article. HK SAR government says partitioned flats hamper renewal

The problem of subdivided flats is slowing down the redevelopment of urban Hong Kong, according to the organisation in charge of revamping the city.

...

When dealing with tenants of partition flats, the authority offers them either cash compensation or places in public housing estates. But there was a shortage of public housing in urban areas, Law said. "Tenants prefer to stay in the urban districts where they live. However, the supply of public housing in areas like Sham Shui Po is very limited. Thus it takes us much more time to settle with displaced tenants," he said.

The release of a LegCo report on the Lehman Brothers "minibond" debacle has drawn criticism from the usual "anything goes" business leaders.

The responses have ranged from "we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddlesome kids" of former HKMA head Joseph Yam to the "you bought them, so it's your fault you believed us" of Philip "one-finger" Wong.

Joseph Yam said it was the financial disaster that was to blame not him. What caused the financial meltdown? A misrepresentation of risky investments (CDOs aka minibonds in HK) backed by farcical unregulated "insurance" with insufficient financial backing (credit default swaps). So what was Joseph Yam's job? To insure the financial market in HK was providing risk information to investors. What's the circular argument provided by Joseph Yam? If the financial disaster hadn't happened due to improper representations of risk to investors, people wouldn't be unhappy with me for not ensuring proper representations of risk to investors. Idiot!

As for folks like David Li and Philip Wong, criminals never want the police to arrest them for their crimes. The only difference is when little people try to rob David Li's bank, they will go jail. But when David Li's bank is robbing little people via deception, they will never see jail and get to keep 30% of the loot for being the right sort of people. Institutionalised corruption is the norm and those that want to root out corruption are "vaguely liberal" and are the "idealist faction". This is the true meaning of the "anti-regulation" crowd. Don't read their lips, watch their hands as they steal your money and your health with impunity.