Kong-Kow Beat | 港九呼聲 - Laissez Faire | 無為而治 (Gwen McCrae - All This Love That I'm Giving) [US, 1979] скачать в хорошем качестве

Kong-Kow Beat | 港九呼聲 - Laissez Faire | 無為而治 (Gwen McCrae - All This Love That I'm Giving) [US, 1979]

Sir John Henry Bremridge was Chairman of Swire and Cathay Pacific in 1973-80 and a business heavyweight figure. He was Financial Secretary in 1981-86 and became an ardent advocate of “laissez-faire” and “minimum interventionism”. He decided to ignore the difficulties Hong Kong’s industries faced in its upward structural transition, and refused the recommendations of the 1979 Report of the Advisory Committee on Diversification and various views advanced in the Legislative Council from the 1960s on the need for government-led economic planning and the use of public funds to promote high-end industry. Bremridge, in his interview published in the September 1983 General Chamber of Commerce Bulletin, even said that “Hong Kong is awash with liquidity” and that if specific electronics manufacturers found it hard to secure lines of credit, “it is conceivable that there are good reasons for this”. To most of the questions advanced by the interviewer, Bremridge either said that existing policies only needed to be continued, or shifted the blame elsewhere. He also emphasised that HK’s winning formula was the low tax rate which meant it could not afford expenditure in research and development, or massive social investment. As such Bremridge is responsible for forty lost years in Hong Kong’s transition to become a high-tech industrial hub with government investment at its core, due to his choice of an easy way out, which was for Hong Kong to become a financial hub for speculative activity. During that same year the Hong Kong Dollar exchange rate plummeted as a result of Sino-British negotiations, from 5 dollars to the USD to 10. Bremridge announced the “pegged exchange rate” at 7.8HKD to 1USD, which stemmed the bleeding, but amounted to abandoning HK’s fiscal autonomy overnight, with negative consequences up to this day. 彭勵治爵士 (Sir John Henry Bremridge)，1973-80年為太古及國泰航空主席，是商界重量級人物，1981-86年出任財政司，任內強力推動「經濟自由放任」及「最低干預」政策。彭勵治決定漠視香港工業結構轉型升級困難，抵制政府在1979年推出的 《經濟多元化諮詢委員會報告》及六十年代初以來立法局辯論中，有關政府進行經濟規劃，並以政府資金推動向高端產業發展的意見。彭勵治甚至在1983年9月的《工商月刊》中表示，香港滿街熱錢，個別電子廠商借不了錢，是他們自己的問題，對於記者有關政策的提問，一律表示既有政策不變即可，或加以推搪。彭勵治並強調香港的優勝之處是低稅率，因此不能支撐政府大量投資或福利開支。 彭勵治選擇了香港成為國際金融和投機活動中心的這條簡易出路，意味著香港在向高端科技產業轉型上，將會被誤四十多年的時間。同年，因中英會談，港元匯率暴跌，從五港元兌一美金下降到十元，彭勵治決定推出聯繫匯率，綁定一美金為七點八港元，雖能馬上止血，但香港因此失去貨幣政策自主權，遺害至今。 Lyrics - Ernest Leung Vocals - Rachael Ho, Warren Chong Drums - Tim Ng Guitar - Wes Wong Bass - Lenky Samuels Sax - Curly Yue Keys - Jake O'Hanlon Photography - Gary Editing - Gary, Ernest Leung News Footage Courtesy of TVB 新聞資料片段由電視廣播有限公司提供