Given their starring role in the subprime mortgage crisis, which turned into the global financial crisis, and before that the Asia financial crisis, it is a mystery as to why anyone takes the rating agencies seriously, or even why they are still in business. When did they ever make a big call which had people thinking 'Hmmm - that was a turning point' or 'Perhaps we shouldn't do this?' When the music is playing they are dancing along with the rest of the party and get caught just like everyone else when it stops.

We shouldn't forget that the Hong Kong government pays to be rated by these agencies. So for the government to puff out its chest with pride at a higher rating is like the rabbits getting a rise out of a good rating from the lettuce growers.

Politicised risk analysis

Hong Kong continues to maintain the black warning for the Philippines, which means 'severe threat' and 'avoid all travel' to the country.

The next level of warning is red, which is a 'significant threat', and people should 'avoid non-essential travel'. There are no red alerts at present. The third and last level of alert is yellow. This indicates 'signs of threat' and urges people to 'exercise caution'. Here, we find a number of countries. They include India, Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand. This list is supposed to advise people of the relative dangers of going to these different places.

Are we seriously supposed to believe that travelling to Pakistan is less dangerous than going to Manila?

Would you feel more comfortable about going to Iran than the Philippines? Our eagle-eyed government so good at detecting danger in the Philippines does not even put South Korea on the yellow list. It does, however, warn against going to the northeastern islands in that country where North Korea launched an artillery attack last month. However, it seems to feel the danger there is over.

We have every sympathy with the families and relatives of those who were killed or otherwise caught up with the fatal tourist bus shooting in Manila in August. This was clearly the work of a man with a grievance, which was made worse by the woeful handling of the incident by the Philippine authorities.

The incident attracted intense anger from Hongkongers towards the Philippines. Instead of exercising some leadership and putting the incident in its proper context, the government has simply pandered to these feelings with its black travel advisory warning.

As a result, the purpose of the travel advisory system has been undermined in that it's no longer an attempt to assess the risks of travelling to a country but is loaded with what the government thinks is politically acceptable to recommend. The system is worse than useless.

If we look at the Australian government website, which takes travel risk more seriously, we can see that it has Thailand, India and Iran at the same level of risk as the Philippines. But Pakistan is rated to be more dangerous than both these countries. People looking for a serious assessment of the risks of travelling to a country should take a look at the Australian government website and ignore the Hong Kong government's site.

City One pick of the bunch

A response to yesterday's piece on the relative merits of opening a noodle shop in Tsim Sha Tsui or City One Shatin retail centre plaza.

We reported the experience of one operator who pulled in HK$30,000 on average a day from his noodle store in the iSquare shopping mall in Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, but attracted HK$55,000 to HK$85,000 a day in revenue from his store in Sha Tin despite paying 20 per cent less rent.

Christine writes from her iPhone: 'That location [City One] is the most profitable. All local F&B people know that. McDonald's most profitable store in HK is the one in City One. It is like the flower market at CNY, even on week days. We snooty people avoid that place because of this!'

Jolly fine strategy

Our thanks to SPRG (Strategic Public Relations Group) for their Christmas card. It's a rather nifty card which when activated comprises exploding Christmas decorative balls to show pictures of their team in various forms of exultation with accompanying music. One of the best things they have done all year. On reflection, it's probably the best thing they have done.

Gone in a snap

We notice the apparent ease with which Russian bank VTB placed the first-ever Russian yuan eurobond. The one billion yuan three-year eurobond, with a yield set at 2.95 per cent, underlines efforts by the two economies to reduce their reliance on the US dollar.