Let see who's right?

After the Forbe magazine's reviewed yesterday of the HK billionaire ranking, Stanley H who lost 90% of his holding value predicts that HKSI will be at 25,000 level by this October. Right. And another billionaire thinks HK will recover faster; only the export side will be very weak. Right. The HK office for the China Trade group said export oversea will not recover for HK soon; so exporters should "focus" on export to the mainland. Right. Sounded like the Canadian export relies on US market. I think that would be a suicide.

The Chinese policy is "保八“ (bao ba). This means to maintain a GDP of 8% this year. Whether it is achievable, we shall see.

Another one bit the dust. More corruptions and arrests are happening. The latest is the China Insurance corp for export. The amount involved in one instant was total US$200Million. He was helping a Shanghai-based technology firm to pay off bank loans. This technological firm CEO has been arrested. How many more? Expect to have lots of this type of arrests happening as the economy cooling down, have to keep the citizens cool from rebelling.

Another effect of economic downturn. After Chinese New Year, there are lots of white collar workers in this city changing apartments. Why? Company subsidy on rent has dropped by 30%. So everyone is switching out the bigger houses with a smaller and cheaper one. Wow. I did not know that companies here have been giving rental subsidy. Income for those companies must be good before. Or they really don't make anything.

A new sale promotion for new residential development. The 15th day of the new lunar year is another festival here. So... A developer is excluding maintenance fees, cables, etc valued at RMB10,000 if purchase a new apartment; but the size of the apartment is about 90 sq meters. Also, the new owner can have a chance to have further discount between RMB 5,000 to RMB 8,888 with an instant draw. Man...

China Eastern. A flight landed late in Haikou, Hainan Island slept on the plane overnight. Reason: The crew decided to sleep on the plane after the airline could not book discounted hotel room for them. It was Haikou's tourist season; the cheapest room was about RMB2,400 per night. With 8 people, almost RMB 20,000 just for one night. To save cost, the crew decided to sleep on the plane instead.

After the Party Secretary for Shanghai made a speech about "real estate price cannot be high, cannot go up anymore", the central gov't along with all other first line cities are not providing anymore subsidies to keep the speculation going. They are planning to make the pricing more "reasonable" for consumers. The policy is to make sure people have a house to own and a roof to live under. A contrast from several years ago.

A Shanghainese reporter has caught one of the big bath houses in the city using industrial treated water as bath water for customers. Yikes! That was totally against the Heath and Safety standard. Right.... As the economy goes south, less spending from customers, I am sure bathhouse owners are looking for a way to cut cost. Expect more of 'cutting corners' around. Hopefully, not. Otherwise, more incidents like the milk powder will come to fruition this year.

More dead birds are found along the shoreline in remote areas of Hong Kong. Some do carry the bird flu virus. People living around those areas and experts believe that the mainland farmers are throwing dead birds into the sea to rid of the "evidence". With the sea current, the Hong Kong has become the first "port of call". First it was the pollution from the factories across the border, now dead birds... What's next? Anything good?