Jake's View | Financial secretary in character as miser of the city’s cash hoard
I would bet any reader a bottle of Scotch that the final outcome of the city’s fiscal balance will not look anything like that red line; it will be much better.
“It has also been suggested that the fiscal reserves of over HK$900 billion is just too much...”
-- Financial secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, Budget speech
It must be a heart-warming experience for a financial secretary to launch a maiden budget speech from the position of a near record fiscal surplus, and absolute record fiscal savings. You can do favours for everyone.
And when people then suggest that fiscal reserves of more than HK$900 billion are just too much, you can say, “You’re right. Let’s make some fundamental changes here to keep our accounts in better balance. It’s not good always to stuff money away into a miser’s hoard.”
But there is something about the job that every time again turns ordinary people into exactly such misers when they are appointed to it.
