So, you think the new poverty commission will finally rid Hong Kong of its shame - a society where tycoons blow millions on weddings while bent old women scavenge to survive? Stop dreaming. That's because Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is heading the commission.
What does a bureaucrat know about poverty? She's highly paid, lives in a government mansion, rides in a chauffeured car and owns overseas properties. How can she understand subdivided slum flats, caged homes, poor elderly people who live on handouts, and families struggling to survive on a minimum wage of HK$6,000 a month?
She recently said she sleeps well. She even gave her own work performance 10 out of 10. So if she's already doing a perfect job, what more can she do to help the 1.15 million poor?
The 22-member commission has four bureaucrats, and even a property tycoon. Ask yourself why tycoons are allowed to control everything from property and supermarkets to pharmacies and mobile phone services. A poverty commission headed by a bureaucrat with an iron rice bowl will insist on bureaucratic solutions. We've already seen where that took us with the last poverty commission headed by Lam's predecessor, Henry Tang Ying-yen. Mix a property tycoon with that, and God help the poor.
Housing chief Anthony Cheung Bing-leung says the latest measures to cool the property market are working. Don't believe him. Sales have dropped, but prices have budged only a bit. Owners are refusing to make big price cuts. Buyers are refusing to buy unless they get much more than the 3 per cent to 5 per cent cut on offer.