Friday 26th November 2010
Dear Reader,
NEW ARTICLE
Government criticises Stamp Duty proposal
In a case of
policy schizophrenia, the Government said a special stamp duty would be unfair,
cause additional hardship to those in financial difficulties, and amount to
double taxation. Then they proposed it anyway, based on a bunch of selective,
deceptive and alarmist statistics, which we dissect. Legislators should kill
this proposal or at least insert a sunset clause so that it expires with Donald
Tsang's office. Exceptional times do not call for irrational
measures. (26-Nov-2010)
RECENT ARTICLES
GOME chairman admits: we lied - UPDATED
Electrical retailer GOME,
having reached a truce with jailed founder and controlling shareholder Wong
Kwong Yu, now puts itself back in the spotlight by Chairman Chen Xiao's
confession that it lied to investors in Dec-2008 about the state of affairs of
the group. That's a criminal offence. We call on the SFC to
investigate. UPDATE: GOME has published a response, which we include with
comments. (22-Nov-2010)
Mucking Out the Jockey Club
We look at the structural
incentive for corruption in membership admission to HKJC, and its small-circle
voting system, highlighted by yesterday's arrest of 3 of the 200 Voting Members.
If private clubs wish to avoid the reputational risk of corruption, then they
should adopt tender-based admission systems to remove the incentive and capture
full value for their members. (18-Nov-2010)
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