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[Send money. Depth] A Perspective on the High and Low of "Paying Money" in Hong Kong, Macau and Xingzhou

2020-02-26T11:30:24.857Z


The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, announced today (February 26) a new Budget, in which it plans to spend 71 billion yuan to send a cash deposit of 10,000 yuan to each Hong Kong permanent resident over 18 years old to encourage local


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Written by: Wu Dongwei

2020-02-26 19:24

Last updated: 2020-02-26 19:24

The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, announced today (February 26) a new Budget, which plans to spend 71 billion yuan to send a cash deposit of 10,000 yuan to each Hong Kong permanent resident over 18 years old to encourage local consumption. Relieve economic pressure. Faced with the double blow of the anti-revision case and the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, it is really helpless to send money to the entire population. Recently, Singapore and Macau have also introduced cash distribution measures. However, the "Payment of Money" schemes in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macao are not the same. The former and the latter have been based on the principle of "all the people are rich" for many years, and they have actively solved the people's livelihood through social security at different levels. On the other hand, Hong Kong has been ignoring deep-seated contradictions. Whenever public grievances have erupted, it is "forced to do nothing" to spread money to appease the people.

Chen Maobo said that the Hong Kong economy has been severely hit by social events and new pneumonia outbreaks in the past few months, and he believes that in times of economic downturn and heavy social atmosphere, "the government should do more even in the face of fiscal deficits." Therefore, it is decided to grant 10,000 yuan to permanent residents aged 18 or above, which is expected to benefit 7 million people and involve a total of about 71 billion yuan. Everyone has money, and everyone is happy. However, this "rain and dew all touch" approach has failed to achieve "precision poverty alleviation" and "precision relief" like Singapore.

The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, announced today (February 26) a new "Budget" in which it plans to spend 71 billion yuan to send 10,000 yuan in cash to each Hong Kong permanent resident over 18 years old. (Photo by Zhang Haowei)

Singapore sends money to pay attention to `` wealth for all ''

Social welfare accounts for half of total government expenditure

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Wang Ruijie, announced the Budget as early as Wednesday (February 19). In response to the economic slowdown and the impact of the new pneumonia epidemic, S $ 1.6 billion (approximately HK $ 8.9 billion) was released to relieve the plight of the people. , Including the cash subsidy of S $ 100 to 300 (approximately HK $ 558 to 1674) to nationals who have reached the age of 21, the amount depends on the annual salary. The more the poor, the less the rich-the annual salary is less than 28,000 slopes The highest salary is S $ 300, the annual salary is between S $ 28,000 and S $ 100,000, and S $ 200 is received. The annual salary is above S $ 100,000, and S $ 100 is received.

This set of money distribution measures, "the more the poor, the less the rich," can be traced back to 2001. At that time, the Singaporean government announced that it would use S $ 2.7 billion to distribute "New Singapore Stocks" to 3.2 million people, sharing the economic development dividend with the entire population. Until 2006, Singapore changed out a portion of its cash from its fiscal surplus instead of issuing stocks. In 2008, 2011, 2018, and 2019, similar schemes were implemented to classify the distribution of money according to national income. For example, the "Singapore Shared Growth Bonus Plan" for the past two years is also limited to an annual salary of S $ 28,000.

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Wang Ruijie, announced the Budget as early as Wednesday (February 19). In response to the economic slowdown and the impact of the new pneumonia epidemic, S $ 1.6 billion (approximately HK $ 8.9 billion) was released to relieve the plight of the people. . (Xinhua News Agency)

Regardless of the economic environment, Singapore always adheres to the basic principle of "wealth for all" for government financial management. The so-called "community for all" is explained by Wu Muzhen, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. The reason why the local money distribution policy is linked to poverty alleviation is to consider whether future generations of the poor will encounter difficulties such as class consolidation and economic development. The opportunities are different, so we are committed to let people more vulnerable to economic changes, get more extra care to implement the authorities' financial concept-"to make people think they are growing up with Singapore." In addition to sending cash to share economic results with the people, and to achieve “precision poverty alleviation” and “precision relief” by income level, Singapore is also focusing on the allocation of resources in education, medical care, housing, and welfare, and try its best to Reduce the cost of living of residents, thereby improving the disparity between the rich and the poor and class divisions.

Macau sends money every year to give birth to "Panda mentality"

Ignore long-term industrial structure contradictions

As for Macao, which was hailed as "the prophet and the forerunner" in this epidemic, it has again "earned an opportunity" a few days ago, and took the lead in Hong Kong. 10,000 patacas to all permanent residents and 6,000 patacas to non-permanent residents.

Back to the origin of the "cash sharing plan" was proposed by former Macau Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah after the financial tsunami in 2008. At that time, it was mainly to combat inflation, so additional economic benefits were shared with the public by means of cash distribution. However, after the economic crisis, even if Macau's development is stable, the authorities still send money every year. It has not been interrupted for more than 10 years, and the amount has gradually increased from the current 5,000 patacas and 3,000 patacas to the current 10,000 patacas and 6,000 patacas. Therefore, from time to time, there have been voices questioning that sending money directly contributed to a part of inflation, which runs counter to the original policy intention.

In the past, there have been questions from time to time that the Macau government sent money directly to generate some inflation, which runs counter to the original policy intention. (Profile picture)

The Macao Economics Association has written reports analyzing the pros and cons of Macau's annual money distribution. The Institute pointed out that although the policy helped to quickly alleviate the hardships of the people, promote middle-class consumption, establish government prestige, and maintain social stability, it also gave birth to Macau's over-reliance on the government's "panda mentality", which led to social unthinking. Zhuang Tailiang, an associate professor of the Department of Economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has also written a report on "Analysis of the Disadvantages and Countermeasures of Macau's" Cash Sharing Plan ". The "sharing plan" will affect its financial soundness, and is not conducive to long-term planning such as future public resources investment and large-scale basic recommendations.

Another area where the "Macao Plan" is criticized is that the status of residents rather than income is crossed to make the rich and the poor even, and to a certain extent, justice for distribution cannot be achieved. Zhuang Tailiang also means that from the perspective of social welfare distribution, the most ideal resource allocation is to the most needy people, but the cash sharing in Macao is based on the average benefit of everyone. Although everyone has a share and looks like It is fair to share, but it seems that it has failed to do its duty of secondary distribution.

Hong Kong sent money twice to make jokes

Delusion to cover up structural problems by sending money

In contrast, after the return of Hong Kong three times, it did not follow the basic principle of "community for all", nor could it be modeled on Singapore's "targeted poverty alleviation" and "targeted relief". More importantly, the SAR government has also failed to uphold the justice to reverse the distribution structure in public finances, leading to the deep-seated contradictions that have been derived from the Hong Kong and British eras, which has continued to ferment the public's anxiety and anxiety about life. A big political incident broke out. And every time, the authorities waited until the people's grievances were out of hand, and then "forced to helplessly" to throw out money to appease the people.

In the economic downturn, "paying money" can solve the urgent needs of citizens. However, the SAR government cannot use this to paralyze the pain of unjust wealth distribution in society, and it is necessary to proceed with structural changes. (Photo by Zhang Haowei)

The first time was in 2011 after the financial tsunami. The economy stabilized but inflation was severe. The then Financial Secretary Zeng Junhua announced the injection of 6,000 yuan into the MPF accounts of eligible people, but it caused a national rebound. Democrats even launched more than 100,000. People participated in the march, he eventually turned into a one-time payment of 6,000 yuan to Hong Kong permanent residents who turned 18, benefiting 6.1 million Hong Kong people. It is not difficult to see that the money allocation was based on political considerations more than actual needs. Although the government succeeded in regaining popular hope, it did not improve the people's livelihood problems such as high property prices, high prices, and insufficient medical resources.

The second time in February 2018 was the first move by Chen Maobo since he took over as Financial Secretary. At that time, the government recorded a record-breaking surplus of 138 billion yuan, and fiscal reserves exceeded one trillion yuan. Many citizens and political parties have suggested that the authorities remain wealthy, but Chen Maobo did not live up to expectations, which caused uproar. He then used the "Caring and Sharing" plan to make up for the problem and distributed $ 4,000 to 2.8 million lower-income citizens. Although the beneficiaries of this money distribution were relatively poor, the authorities lacked a system that can quickly identify those in need as in Singapore and required qualified citizens to apply for and provide relevant certifications themselves, so the procedures were extremely complicated, and the amount was until mid last year. It was distributed to the citizens one after another. During the period, more than 300 million yuan of administrative costs were consumed, and the existing deep-seated contradictions remain unsolved.

"Hong Kong 01" has stated many times that blindly "paying money" without restructuring the distribution structure will not help solve the dilemma of people's livelihood. The reason why the current society is full of people's grievances stems from the “government and business co-governance” pattern that has been formed in the Hong Kong-England era and has continued to this day. . For example, in the first distribution, there was no establishment of a distribution system according to work to ensure that the working class can enjoy a more reasonable income; in the second distribution, it failed to actively adjust the supply of social resources through the active intervention of government policies. Provide quality of life for all classes.

In the economic downturn, "spending money" can indeed solve the urgent needs of citizens. However, the SAR government must not use this to paralyze the pain of unjust wealth distribution in society. It is also necessary to initiate structural changes to achieve the fruits of economic sharing for all In addition, it can accurately help the most needy groups.

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Source: hk1

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