There’s been a lot of negative talk recently about bubbles. Most of it is based on the fact that we as a city appear to be nestled on a nice cushy property bubble that’s presently throbbing to bursting point. But by now, you would think we would be used to navigating bubbles, and we’d be taking this in stride.
After all, we’ve been through this before. 1997, then in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2008... And that’s just the last 20 years (we haven’t even gotten into that whole feathered-hair-and-acid-washed-jeans bubble of the 80s). In fact, Hong Kong was practically formed in an opium bubble. So lets take a moment to appreciate bubbles on balance.
The Hong Kong government knows how to exploit a good bubble. Take the Truth Bubble, for instance, which the government is presently inflating in relation to the most expensive train in the world.
In the warm, cozy world of this bubble, the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone is called “marginalization.” No one knows really what it means, but damned if you would you want that to happen to you—or to your CHILDREN? In the Truth Bubble, the only way to fight against evil marginalization is to basically burn through $50 billion of taxpayer money to build an unwanted bullet train. At the same time, this will also “save the environment,” as the government explained in a recent advertisement, because once the train is built people will then stop using planes for some reason. You can see how thinly this bubble has been stretched already.
But when you are in it, right before it bursts, when everything is right with the world, and your bank account is swollen, and the property developers are taking you out for shark’s fin, and the rivers are running with tiger-penis juice... Boy, there is nothing more delicious.
That’s the appeal of a juicy bubble. The trouble is all these property bubbles, spurred on by cash-flush mainlanders drunk on that aforementioned tiger-penis juice, give the whole concept a bad name. If there was just some way to kick the HK spin machine into high gear and... Wait a minute—we’ve got it. Hong Kong, Asia’s Bubble Hub! Problem solved.
