You lose. The tycoons win, again. No surprises there. The tycoons always win. Billions are again pouring into their pockets as home prices resurge, breaking records. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's cooling measures have turned out to be a dud. Homes are becoming even less affordable. Leung's dud briefly cooled demand, but prices did not drop. Our property tycoons know how to play the people. That's why they're the only Hongkongers rich enough to be on the list of the world's super wealthy. They circled like sharks as the property curbs wore off. They now smell blood, and gullible Hongkongers are letting them come in for the kill. That happened recently when thousands scrambled to buy flats barely bigger than a prison cell for HK$2 million. The tycoons love it when they bait, hook and reel in the gullible. It now takes ordinary people 14 years of saving, without spending a cent on necessities, to afford a 400 sq ft flat. You save for 14 years without food or a roof over your head so the tycoons can stay on the rich list. The only people who can possibly change that are our so-called pan-democrats. But they're too busy fighting a losing battle for what they call true democracy. They're shaving their heads, prompting students to join class boycotts and planning civil disobedience campaigns. When was the last time you saw them organise a mass protest against tycoons ripping off the people? Why aren't they throwing bananas at officials to vent anger over tycoons demanding HK$2 million for 177 sq ft flats that buyers aren't even allowed to see beforehand? If the pan-democrats unite and say enough is enough, that the tycoons have squeezed the people for too long now, that they will paralyse the legislature unless the rules are changed, it may force Leung to bring in real cooling measures. But they prefer paralysing Central, hurting the very Hongkongers who slave for the tycoons to save 14 years of wages, which they then give back to the tycoons for a shoebox flat.

Executive councillor Professor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, a former education secretary, doesn't ever mince words. And he didn't on Monday. He said even self-immolation by Tibetan monks seeking independence did not make Beijing blink, so how could the milder protests in Hong Kong do it. Public Eye has said nothing will make Beijing blink, not pan-democrats shaving their heads, not students boycotting classes, and not Occupy Central. These are certainly tame tactics compared with self-immolation. Perhaps the pan-democrats should up their game. How about hara-kiri? Instead of Occupy Central, let's have Hara-Kiri Central. Just kidding, of course. The point is that instead of fighting a lost battle, let's snatch whatever we can from the jaws of defeat.