A handout lottery with such poor odds - and such a big PR effort

'I will issue $5 billion to $10 billion worth of Hong Kong-dollar iBond under the Government Bond Programme. This will provide our citizens with another investment option for coping with inflation while promoting the development of the local retail bond market.'

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah 2011 budget speech

I feel lazy today. I don't really feel like doing any work. They tell me anyway that a picture is worth a thousand words and, as my column usually runs to only 800 words, I think I'll just do the picture instead. It tells the whole story.

Well, maybe a few words. That picture is the first chart below. It is a very simple one. The red bar on its left shows you the total amount of all Hong Kong dollar deposits held with financial institutions in Hong Kong. The latest figure is HK$3.62 trillion.

That's only what we hold in Hong Kong dollar deposits. It doesn't include cash, it doesn't include foreign-currency deposits we may hold, it doesn't include bonds or other fixed-income instruments and it doesn't include holdings on the stock market.

The green bar on its right represents the maximum of HK$10 billion that Little Tsang (as opposed to Boss Tsang Bow-tie) says he will provide in the way of inflation-linked bonds to help us cope with inflation.