February 28, 2007
Best transit system

Hong Kong's MTR comes in number 10 (via Kottke)...

Having ridden seven of the eleven listed, I can tell you Hong Kong is closer to number 1 than 10. The Tube as number 1? Waht are your rankings?

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 18:50
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Happy Hong Kong

happyhk.jpg

This is the graphic at the government website today, announcing the income tax cuts for the seven people that pay it in this city. Despite weeks of newspaper leaks protesting there would be no tax cuts, Henry Tang has wound the clock back to 2002 in a giant up-yours to Singapore and allowing the Big Lychee's citizenry to enjoy a couple of crumbs of benefit from the property boom that is busy enriching developers at their expense. More importantly, he's also cut the city's punitively high grog tax. One waits with baited breath to see if Lan Kwai Fong's overpriced bars manage to pass on the cuts to their patrons.

Next year, Mr Tang might find a few savings by firing the graphic artists at the HK government website.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 14:02
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A yen for China

Stupidest assertion of the year award, contender number 1: MP fears Japan may become mainland province. Someone had a little too much soju last night.

On the other side of the fence, ESWN points to an article on how Chinese people misread the world, especially Japan.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 13:54
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February 27, 2007
Diversity by being the same

Hong Kong: not such a world city.

What the analysis hints at but misses is that ethnicity is not a great way to assess diversity. If more of Hong Kong's population are ethnic Chinese, what does that matter? Some will be American Chinese, English Chinese, Australian Chinese. Others will be mainlanders who come from a diverse array of places. That's not to excuse the undercurrent of racism that is very much alive in Hong Kong, especially for South and South East Asians, but it is to say that you can't judge a city's people by their faces.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 14:15
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February 26, 2007
Home and away defamation

Unsurprisingly the FEER lost a procedural decision in Sinagpore's courts...and in the midsts of a report on the matter comes this interesting paragraph:

whether the Lees intend to carry their threat outside the city-state because even if the courts ultimately award them damages, it is unlikely that they could recoup within the country itself. Firewalls erected between sister companies mean that Dow Jones Corporation, which owns the publication, would probably be protected from any defamation judgment as well.

The government could conceivably take advantage of a Commonwealth statute that allows for reciprocal enforcement of damages and ask the Hong Kong courts to order the Review to pay up. A Singaporean judgment would first have to be registered in Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance, where it would be enforced like a local judgment. The Review would have the right to raise objections and set out reasons that the judgment shouldn’t be honoured. But in his written judgment turning down the magazine's appeal, Menon wrote that it is clear that the Lees were limiting their claim for damages to Singapore and that legal papers had been served in an appropriate manner.

It seems that's unlikely the Singaporeans will come to Hong Kong, which is telling both on the merits of the case and the merits of Singapore's judiciary.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 13:46
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You are what you eat

From Reuters:

Children receive drips to cure indigestion at a hopital in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu province, February 23, 2007. A lot of children had to go to the hospital due to the inappropriate diet during the Chinese Spring Festival, China Daily reported.

soretummies.jpg

And you thought you ate badly over the past week.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:19
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February 23, 2007
Look and listen

While it's hard to get excited about an election that is already decided, the fact that there's actually two candidates in this year's Chief Executive election in Hong Kong is progress of sorts. But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty it seems the Big Lychee's officials are looking to the motherland for inspiration in how to conduct these things. The unlinkable SCMP reports:

The first contested election for chief executive may be a historic event, but journalists - who have an obvious role in keeping the public updated about the race - are finding the flow of information leaves much to be desired.

Sometimes, it seems that obstacles are being deliberately put in the media's way. For example, a host of election-related material, such as the candidates' nomination forms, advertisements, expenses and correspondence, is sitting in the Registration and Electoral Office in Wan Chai, open for inspection by the public.

It seems, however, to be up to officials to rule on how these "inspections" are carried out. It is OK to read the material, but you are first reminded that you cannot take notes or photocopies. Once the files land on a desk, you are monitored by a staff member who ensures nothing is written down. In the event that a couple of journalists are present, the staff member also ensures they do not read the same file at the same time, although it is hard to guess the rationale behind this.

The apparent tightening of restrictions has perplexed those who covered the last chief executive election less than two years ago - when reporters were allowed to copy such information freely. Yet a spokesman for the Registration and Electoral Office insists its practices have not changed and the information is only available for public inspection under the Chief Executive Ordinance and the Electoral Procedure (Chief Executive Election) Regulation.

The spokesman said the office had received legal advice that public inspection meant "examine closely" and nothing else - although he noted many journalists had "memorised" the information and reported it on many occasions.

It is as absurd with a hint of Big Brother. It's actually quite like the election itself.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 08:44
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February 21, 2007
Be polite...or else

Beijing's social engineering instincts are not always bad. In the lead up to next year's Olympics the government is trying to make its citizens more polite and the good news is its working:

Sha Lianxiang, sociology professor with the People's University of China, said that there has been a decline in the number of people littering, spitting and flaunting traffic rules...Sha said the "civic index" of Beijing residents scored 69.06 in2006, 3.85 points higher than 2005. The index takes into account the residents compliance with rules in public health and public order, their attitudes towards strangers, etiquette in watching sports events and willingness to contribute to the Olympic Games. The survey found that the occurrence rates of littering in public places has dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent in 2006; that of spitting has dropped by from 8.4 percent to 4.9 percent; queue-jumping dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.

However, Sha said the citizens' "civilized degree" still could not meet the demand of the 2008 Olympics. She expected the index to rise to 72 to 78 during the 2008 Olympic Games...

The city has also established the 11th day of every month as "voluntarily wait in line" day to rid the city of queue-jumping.

They have a "voluntary wait in line" day...and its only once a month? Sure there are Orwellian overtones in an academic measuring and targetting this index of manners. But why stop there? Surely happiness needs to be on the list. And why does this only apply to Beijing? Many visitors to the Olympics will also visit other Chinese cities and the countryside, so this should be a national campaign.

Most telling would be to get anecdotal evidence from people in Beijing. Certainly judging by the behaviour in the taxi queue at Causeway Bay yesterday, there's a long way to go in the spitting and queue jumping stakes. Could we have a "voluntary keep your spit inside you" day?

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:11
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February 20, 2007
Call Al Gore

There's a nasty situation in the Antartic, which begs the question where is global warming when you really need it?

Also try Al Gore is a greenhouse gasbag.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 14:40
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Switching

Kung Hei Faat Choi once again.

I don't often look at the letters/op-ed page of the SCMP as prolonged exposure has been known to lead to insanity and a spouting of the government line. But I've noticed that ex-Standard columnist Stephen Vines is now penning his pieces for the far better paid SCMP pages instead. Which means more wire service op-eds for The Standard...which is not necessarily a bad thing. While on things SCMP, Doug Crets sees hints that changes are afoot at the world's most uselss newspaper website.

Meanwhile our papers are telling us what a world-beating, magnificent fireworks display they had in Victoria Harbour last night. But could anyone see it through the fog?

OK, you can go back to follow Brittney's haircut now.

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[boomerang] Posted by Simon at 11:50
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February 12, 2007
The demographic time-bomb myth

In the middle an interesting series of pieces on the numerous flaws with Hong Kong's MPF retirement savings system, David Webb finds fears of a demographic time-bomb wanting:

Governments of developed economies around the world, and Hong Kong is no exception, wring their hands over a purported "demographic time bomb" or the "rising cost of old age social security". It makes for sensational headlines, but it is really a myth supported by the vested interests of financial institutions who push for legislative mandates or tax incentives to capture savings. Here are the realities:

  • For sure, people are living longer, and birth rates in the developed economies have fallen below replacement levels, but there is no shortage of young people from the developing world to make up for it - and migration will be incentivised by work opportunities. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2030, the world population is projected at 8.3bn, up from 6.5bn in 2006, and the percentage of working-age between 20 and 64 will be 57.1%, up from 55.6% at present.
  • As people live longer and stay fitter longer, they are able to work longer, helping to offset the increase in the retired/working ratio. In 2030, the global percentage over 65 will increase from 7.4% to 12.0%, but the percentage over 70 will be 8.0%. One option is to raise the retirement age for social security by 1 year every 5 years from now until 2027, which would keep the percentage of the population above that age static.
  • Technology over decades has produced, and continues to produce, productivity gains so that although the retired/working ratio has increased, the number of workers needed to support each retiree on welfare has reduced. We are no longer in a world of subsistence farming.
  • Those who are having fewer or no children will spend less of their lifetime income on child-rearing, increasing their ability to support themselves in retirement.
  • Finally, in the case of a recently-developed economy like Hong Kong, remember that people retiring today started work when Hong Kong was just a backward manufacturing economy with much lower real (inflation-adjusted) incomes than now. They did not have the lifetime earnings capacity that many people have today. The retirees of 2030 will, on average, be more prosperous than those of 2006, and fewer will need social welfare.
  • His analysis is entirely accurate but ignores the political dimension. Hong Kong is busy keeping people out, especially those from the Mainland coming here to have babies that may end up being the productive Hong Kongers of tomorrow. Webb's point that as society ages people can work longer is again true but the trend has pointed the other way: people are looking to retire earlier and earlier, even as they live (and live better) for longer. Eventually this will get taken care of as the pay of those close to retirement increases to entice them into working for longer, but this is likely to make income inequality worse. Ironically the old will get richer, not poorer, as they age.

    Webb's series on the MPF also notes compulsary savings schemes are all the rage for governments these days (expect medical savings accounts soon) because they are effectively a stealth tax. They are also highly regressive - the poorest are hurt the worst, especially because these schemes typically have a cap so that high income earners actually pay a far smaller percentage of income than someone earning below the cap. While saving for retirement is important, the working poor will have far greater utility from having that extra bit of cash to spend now. Furthermore the amounts being saved are tiny and, as Webb describes, get eaten up by fees and charges. These accounts will not do much to relieve the costs of supporting poorer retirees in future.

    By dressing it up as saving for the future, stealth taxes and curbs on individual liberty are easy to impose on an unsuspecting public. That's why you can expect to see more of this kind of thing.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 16:07
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    SCMP still doesn't get it

    Doug Crets looks at how Asian newspapers are dealing with threats to their business model from the internet and free papers. An excellent read, he discusses in part the SCMP:

    In Hong Kong, where broadband penetration is among the highest in Asia (73 percent), if there was a threat of a bloodletting, the dominant English language paper seems unfazed. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) is not turning towards the acquisition of online classifieds sites and management says they haven’t been threatened by the free dailies which dealt blows to the Chinese daily industry...Meanwhile, SCMP’s own online platform, which is subscription-based and offers no free content is likely to undergo a revamp as management looks to target higher monetization. SCMP.com saw revenue contract by 10 percent during 1H 2006 due to a 21 percent drop in content syndication fees and the postponement of a number of advertising campaigns. The site’s paid user base remains flat at around 20,000.
    It makes a marked contrast with the various other papers discussed in the article, or sites such as Asia Sentinel which also has a piece on Li Ka-shing you wouldn't find in the SCMP.

    Meanwhile on the press, the SCMP reports on China's newest efforts to clamp down even while it pretends to be opening up ahead of the Olympics and Austin Ramzy at Time discusses increasing self-censorship in Hong Kong's media.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 11:27
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    The not-so-golden pig

    As Chinese New Year approaches there are a growing number of articles highlighting an expected jump in births in China because it is a particularly auspicious year - year of the golden pig. While no one is denying it is year of the pig, it seems that just like Valentine's Day and Christmas it could well be that Chinese superstitions are being superceded by commercialism....the SCMP:

    If you think the next lunar year is going to be an incredibly lucky one, think again; you may have fallen victim to commercial hype. It will not be the year of the golden pig, fortune tellers say. Rather, it is the fire pig which will rule our destinies in the coming 12 months.

    So mothers who want their children born under a sign that supposedly brings wealth and good fortune will have to wait until 2031 for golden pig offspring. Veteran fung shui master Peter So Man-fung said the popular misconception that 2007 is a golden pig year may have come about because restaurants and shops often advertise each year as a "golden" one to help their business.

    "This year is definitely the ding hai, the fire pig. The people who run restaurants like to say it's a golden year. Last year they said it was the golden dog, in 2005 they said it was the golden rooster," Mr So said.

    But he said the Hospital Authority, whose director of professional services and operations, Allen Cheung Wai-lun, has also called 2007 a golden pig year, may not be entirely wrong in predicting 11 per cent more babies will be born in the next lunar year. "Last year was very lucky for marriage and there were a lot of weddings, so it's normal that the following year, there will be a lot of babies," Mr So said.

    Another fung shui expert, Raymond Lo, agreed that commercial interests had likely been responsible for the year being mistaken for a golden pig year. And astrologer Jin Peh said: "I guess it sounds more attractive to say it's the golden pig. People are happier with the vision of the golden pig and it's certainly easier to sell a golden pig than a fire pig."

    Mr Lo said: "The Chinese element for the year is the fire pig. It's fire over a water element, but I think probably because all Chinese usually use gold as something auspicious - it's a commercial thing. Shops like jewellery stores want to sell gold. "The last year of the golden pig was in 1971, and in 1911 before that, as it falls every 60 years," he said.

    Mr Lo said women who fell pregnant thinking their children would be born in an auspicious year should not be disappointed. Their children may not be destined for great wealth, but under their astrological sign they will be protected by a nobleman who will help them through troubled times.

    "All through their lives, they'll have someone to help and guide them through danger," he said, and noted that US President George W. Bush and thriller writer Steven King are both fire pigs.

    Actually I quite like the idea of fire pigs...I can see them flying out of cannons with their tails aflame. Perhaps Chinese match makers (not matchmakers) need to increase their marketing budgets.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:12
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    February 08, 2007
    Freedom of information, SCMP edition

    I wonder if the SCMP will get around to reporting on the SCMP?

    Today's (unlinkable as ever) SCMP prints a good piece by Bjorn Lomborg on climate change titled "Hysteria clouds the global warming debate", reproduced below the jump, which points out the odd priorities of those concerned about climate change. Segueing nicely, Tim Blair catches out another common China journo cliche...the "per capita comparison".

    You would have had to be stuck in deepest Mongolia to avoid hearing that the UN's climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued a new report last week. From the dire stories penned about it by journalists, you would have thought global warming was worse than we had imagined. You would have been misinformed. The IPCC has produced a good report - an attempt to summarise what the world's scientists know about global warming. The IPCC squarely tells us that mankind is largely responsible for the planet's recent warming. It refrains from scaremongering, unlike former US vice-president Al Gore, who has travelled the world warning that our cities might soon be under the oceans.


    Lost among the hype is the unexciting fact that this report is actually no more dire than the IPCC's previous one, issued in 2001. The new report reflected the fact that, since 2001, scientists have become more certain that humans are responsible for a large part of global warming. Otherwise, its estimates of temperature increases, heat waves and cold waves are all nearly identical to those produced six years ago.

    The report did, however, contain two surprising facts. First, the world's scientists have rejigged their estimates about how much sea levels will rise. In the 1980s, the US Environmental Protection Agency expected oceans to rise by several metres by 2100. In the 1990s, the IPCC was expecting a 67-centimetre rise, and it dropped the estimate to 48.5 centimetres six years ago. This year, the estimated rise is 38.5 centimetres on average.

    This is especially interesting since it fundamentally rejects one of the most harrowing scenes from Mr Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The movie demonstrates how a 7-metre rise in the sea level would inundate much of Florida, Shanghai and the Netherlands. The IPCC report makes it clear that exaggerations of this magnitude have no basis in science.

    The report also revealed the improbability of another Gore scenario: that global warming could make the Gulf Stream shut down, turning Europe into a new Siberia. The IPCC simply and tersely says this scenario is considered "very unlikely".

    So why have we been left with a very different impression of the climate panel's report? The IPCC is by statute "politically neutral": it is supposed to tell us just the facts and leave the rest to politicians and the people who elect them.

    But scientists and journalists - acting as intermediaries between the report and the public - have engaged in greenhouse activism. The IPCC's director has called elsewhere for immediate and substantial cuts in carbon emissions, and even declared that he hoped the report would "shock people, governments into taking more serious action". It is inappropriate for somebody in such an important and apolitical role to engage in blatant activism.

    Climate change is a real and serious issue. But the problem with the recent media frenzy is that some seem to believe no new report or development is enough if it doesn't reveal more serious consequences and more terrifying calamities than before.

    This media frenzy has little or no scientific backing. One of Britain's foremost climatologists, Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, points out that green militancy and megaphone journalism use "catastrophe and chaos as unguided weapons with which forlornly to threaten society into behavioural change". In his words, "we need to take a deep breath and pause". A 38.5-centimetre rise in the ocean's levels is a problem, but it won't bring down civilisation. Last century, sea levels rose by half that amount without most of us even noticing.

    The UN tells us that there is virtually nothing we can do that would affect climate change before 2030. So we have to ask the hard question of whether we could do better by focusing on other issues first.

    In a recent project called the Copenhagen Consensus, Nobel laureate economists weighed up how to achieve the most good for the world. They found that focusing on HIV/Aids, malaria, malnutrition and trade barriers should all be tackled long before we commit to any dramatic action on climate change.

    With the world in a fury about cutting greenhouse gases, it is easy to forget that there are other and better ways to do some good for the planet. Good decisions come from careful consideration: the IPCC report provides that. But the cacophony of screaming that has accompanied it does not help.




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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 14:15
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    Projecting Chinese power

    Two articles stand out in the latest China Brief from the Jamestown Foundation.

    1. Beijing's great leap outward: power projection with Chinese characteristics. Willy Lam looks at what he calls "stunning" changes in China's foreign policy and concludes:

    There may also be overwhelming domestic calculations behind Hu’s policies. With Chinese society becoming more fragmented due to the growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots, Beijing increasingly relies upon overarching ideals, such as patriotism and nationalism, to bind the disparate nation together. Spectacular demonstrations of the country’s own military capabilities and diplomatic triumphs in Africa and Latin America make it easier for Hu and his PLA colleagues to justify even greater increases in the army’s budget. And in the months leading up to the 17th Party Congress, Hu needs the support of the PLA generals in order to fully consolidate his stature in the CCP political hierarchy and legacy. All of these factors seem to impel the Fourth Generation leadership toward a much bolder—if not riskier—approach to the Middle Kingdom’s centuries-old quest for fuguo qiangbing or “wealthy country, strong army.”
    Worth reading the whole article.

    2. China's struggle for energy conservation and diversification. China would love to find new energy sources and doesn't care if it is green, black or any other colour.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 10:13
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    February 07, 2007
    Journo cliche alert

    As we approach Chinese New Year it is time for Western journalists in China to dust off their cliches. This time of year it's the world's greatest migration, with lots of mentions of several hundred million people moving about, photos of crowded train stations and so on.

    We could establish a competition: what is the most common China journo cliche?

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:13
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    February 06, 2007
    The not-so-Basic Law

    Just back from a lovely weekend visiting sunny, albeit cold, Harbin. The snow and ice festival is an absolute must see. Just avoid Helen the tour guide.

    On the plane back I had the opportunity to read the China Daily, and in particular an editorial by former HK justice secretary Elsie Leung, explaining it is time for Hong Kongers to learn the Basic Law. After lamenting that many Hong Kongers don't understand the Basic Law, perhaps because it isn't so basic, it turns out it's all very simple:

    A paradigm shift is required for Hongkongers to accept China's sovereignty over Hong Kong. Under the British rule, they were governed by the sovereign of a nation to which they did not belong. There was the subconscious repulsion toward the sovereignty. Since nationalism was not encouraged under colonial rule, Hong Kong people would have to find their new identity as Chinese citizens after reunification. Many of them do not understand what sovereignty entails.

    Some people mistake "a high degree of autonomy" to mean that apart from defense and foreign affairs, Hong Kong should have the final say in every matter. The fact is, if you look at the Basic Law, it is clear that the central government, as the sovereign from whom all administrative, legislative and judicial powers are derived and delegated to Hong Kong by the National People's Congress (NPC), has a role in Hong Kong's affairs...

    The duty to record carries with it the right to examine the validity of the law and the proposal respectively. This means the Standing Committee has the power not to record if the law is not in conformity with the Basic Law. The powers of interpretation and amendment of the Basic Law are vested in the Standing Committee of the NPC and the NPC respectively. These provisions are to ensure the implementation of the Basic Law in accordance with the basic policies of the PRC toward Hong Kong.

    In other words there's no need for those pesky courts or believing what's written on the piece of paper, because at the end of the day the good folks in Beijing can clarify for us misguided, stupid Hong Kongers what means what and when. This is why Beijing can "re-interpret" at will. Taken to its logical conclusion, there is in fact no reason for an SAR to exist at all.

    And you wonder why 85% of Hong Kongers don't understand the Basic Law.

    The same paper also explains why those mainlanders planning to have their one baby should be considerate and not have babies during the forthcoming Year of the Pig.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 12:04
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    February 01, 2007
    Scenes from a bubble, China edition #95,395

    The Standard tells of the "plunge" (who uses that word except financial journalists?) in China stocks because of fears of a bubble...and the dramatic steps being taken to reign in the speculative excess:

    Shares across the border plunged Wednesday, dragging Hong Kong stocks lower, after a top legislator warned that a bubble is forming in the mainland market and securities houses took steps to curb speculation.

    Mainland media reported that some securities houses have started to check the identity of investors when they open new trading accounts and are taking photos of new account holders for their records....It is estimated that on average about 90,000 new trading accounts are opened in the mainland every day.
    Checking the ID of investors opening new accounts...what a novel idea.

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    [boomerang] Posted by Simon at 09:25
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