Of course end-users should be the ones who pay for things

However, the suggestion that a levy will be raised to pay for the [airport] project has proved controversial. The imposition of the levy could lead to higher air fares and this could put off some business people from overseas investing in Hong Kong. The potentially harmful effects of such a levy cannot be taken lightly.

Letter to the editor, April 2

Why can't they be taken lightly? I take them lightly. In fact I don't think these harmful effects exist. The opposite is actually true. The alternative to the User Pay principle for financing a third runway is Loser Pay. The burden will fall on the poor again.

Let's dispense with one misleading notion immediately. There is a commonly-held view in this town, obviously shared by this letter writer, that we are crucially dependent on investment from foreign business people.

Once again the opposite is actually true. We invest far more abroad than others invest in Hong Kong and this has been true for as long as records go back. As a result, our net international investment position - a ballpark estimate of what we own abroad less what outsiders own in Hong Kong - came last year to HK$5.5 trillion, three times the size of our gross domestic product.

There is no danger that foreigners can pull the plug on us. We have more water to pour into this tub than they can drain out of it. Let them try to pull the plug. They will only pull it on themselves.

I suspect another misleading notion here as well. It is a reverence of almost religious proportions for business as if business were the purpose of life. What's good for General Motors is good for America, they used to say in the United States.