Update on Hong Kong
Just how free is the freest economy in the whole world? See my answer at NRO today.
Health Care Policy and Reform Insights | NCPA
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Recognition and Awards
Just how free is the freest economy in the whole world? See my answer at NRO today.
Depressing. I need to go watch some “24” reruns to get in a better frome of mind.
I’m an American who has been living in Hong Kong since November 2008. There are other good and bad signs for Hong Kong that were left out of the article.
The relative size of the welfare state is not that surprising given the size of the government and the fact that Hong Kong does have to pay for its military protection from China.
You also left out that there are no sales taxes on most goods. This helps personal income go farther. The low taxes and simple tax code reduce the cost of compliance. For 16%, people don’t even cheat!
I witnessed the shortcomings of the public health system and the ease finding a private doctor here. The public clinic was full for the day at noon. I found a private doctor who charged me about $50 for the visit and the antibiotics, which were dispensed on the premises.
One reason that public schools can have trouble attracting enough students is that there is a low birth rate per woman. On the plus side, public schools here have competitive admissions and are classified into achievement bands, so the best and the brightest get pushed from an early age.
Hong Kong’s immigration policies heavily favor educated foreigners who have come here to make money. The domestic helpers in Hong Kong are generally women from Indonesia and the Philippines who are on non-immigrant work visas. They live with their employers, so if they are fired, they immediately go home. This is in contrast to the United States, where our immigration policies exclude the talented and our non-enforcement allows manual laborers from leftist countries to squat, agitate, and wait for amnesty so that they can vote themselves a share of the treasury.
Lastly, the best hope for Hong Kong remaining capitalist is its small size, which allows for local governance. The government here has to live with the consequences of its decisions, and their close proximity to the problems helps them devise better solutions. For Hong Kong’s legislature to perform as poorly at resource allocation as the United States Congress, it would have to have about 12 members so that its per capita representation would be the same. No one is so much smarter than everyone else that they can effectively manage approximately 30% of the income of 600,000 people, which is precisely why the U.S. Congress is incapable of making intelligent decisions. Bad decisions cause failed programs, which then request ever more resources. Due to its small size, Hong Kong is unlikely to fall victim to the forces of congressional megalomania that have eroded the Federalist system of government in the United States and set us on a course for socialism.
I think, in some respects, you’re barking up the wrong tree. The biggest threat to Hong Kong’s status as capitalist economy par excellence is the tycoon class. When the British were in control, there was a clear separation between the economic elite and the political elite. Since 1997, Beijing has handed power to the tycoons, who are intent on funneling government money to their pet projects like Cyberport and Disneyland. Additionally, the lack of a competition law is a far more worrying issue than a minimum wage in a city where the poor are becoming poorer in real terms.