Thursday, March 05, 2015

Sit on the money?

The Hong Kong government has collected so much money from us that it does not know how to spend it.  What does it do with the surplus?  It puts the money away, for a raining day, which, it predicts, will come in 10 years. 

My mother can do that.  My mother can be the finance minister!

How about investing it in education?  We all know the problems.  We do not have enough good teachers, well-trained teachers.  Many of the teachers of English are not trained to teach English.  We have no teachers trained to teach Liberal Studies.  The classes are too large.  The Science lessons are too theoretical and boring, there are not enough experiments and projects. There are not enough room for the students to be creative.  There is not even enough space for the students to exercise and have fun.  There are not enough places in the universities.  Many can help to solve many of these problems. 

It is well known that better education raises productivity of the work force.  Higher productivity will compensate for a smaller workforce, which is the anticipated “rainy day”.   If productivity is raised high enough, it can increase wealth accumulation beyond compensating for a shrinking work force.  It has already been done in many countries in Europe. 

What don’t we try it?  Rather than sitting on the money like old ladies? 










4 comments:

Anonymous said...

what I wrong with old ladies/ or your mother...?!

Anonymous said...

Your suggestions are spot on. I would add investment in health care as well, it is well known that our heath care staff are over worked, we can train more of them as well.

StephenC said...

Yes, health care, education, environment, ... There are many things that we can and should invest in.

StephenC said...

I should probably apologise to my mother and all ladies for comparing them with the finance minister. There is, of course, nothing wrong with them. I have tremendous respect for my mother, who is most patient, hard working, and have the highest EQ. Everyone around her love her and give her most respect.

Regarding our finance minister and the government officials, however, we demand much much more, having paid them such tremendously high salaries with our own taxes.