民智高低

中國人一向都自大，五千年文化，春秋戰國百家爭鳴的確了不起。先秦哲賢, 萬世留芳。如果你是春秋的人當然可以自大。但戰國以後，哲學、文化都乏善足陳。原因很簡單 – 大一統中央集權， 說孔孟，行韓非。思想自由沒了，還有甚麼文化，還說甚麼哲學，還談甚麼治世？ 藝術還可以。人文科學外強中乾。碰到西方Enlightenment西人學希臘先哲說 'Man, the measure of all things.' 立時比了下去。到了明清實已糜爛不堪。到了清高宗（乾隆）中國五千年的福給他享盡了。之後的事不用饒舌矣。還自大甚麼？香港人嗎？更弱，自以為亞洲先進, 中不成西不就。以前有大英「射住」都學不到丁點兒經國之術。現在在中共強勢之下，短視無知懦弱更見一班。看中產階級整天談國際視野，要子女讀甚麼國際學校，話題離不開紅酒美食，犬儒無知傲慢，生活實像豬一般。草根的像是民智未開，不思進取，貪心自私，因循苟且，成事不足。香港的服務業尤其反智。一天在小巴上那司機吭聲跟友人在電話上說這小巴沒有收音機，工作時很悶。司機聲浪之大，已達嘈音境界。還說無收音機聽？莫非請你來聽歌煲粥乎？不要跟我說香港是先進地區了。說這裡是發展中地區也許侮辱了泰國。日本的士司機的「任務」是把乘客「舒適地送到目的地」。日本的計程車, 一塵不染, 車長帶白手套整齊製服, 彬彬有禮。香港的，一個字 -- 臭。國人都說失落了的古都長安從日本的京都裡尋回。所謂禮失求諸野。誰禮誰野，如魚飲水，冷暖自知吧。

Suddenly with almost US$770 billion worth of US treasuries on hand, Japan came back to be the top foreign creditor of the United States, rather reluctantly I guess. The Japanese felt ecstatic when this burden was passed on to its large neighbour 2 years ago and was quite pleased to be the first runner-up. With an extremely large defence budget of close to US$ 50 billion a year, Japan has the world's most advanced military system. However, it is not independent - the self-defence forces are very much connected to the US defence strategy. As such it has little to say when coming to buying US treasuries and does not bear the power that a normal creditor has. But China is quite an independent nation which can exercise what a creditor should, for example, offloading a little bit of its holding if it is worried about the debtor's repayment ability.

Having said that, I do not believe China will truly offload its holding to the extent that it will devalue the US. First, devalued US dollar affects China as much as the US. Secondly, a majority of the national debt of the US is owned by its own institutions. Foreign holding, totally about US$ 3.6 trillion constitutes about 30% of total debt outstanding (over US$ 12 billion). 50% is held by the Federal Reserve and intragovernmental holdings. China and Japan combined hold about 12%. While US$ 700 billion is not a small figure, and any large scale offloading shakes the market, percentage-wise it won't kill this large debtor........

It is a cold winter of the properties market in the PRC. However, when winter has come, as the saying goes, would spring be far away? Well, I am not sure when the spring will come but we know that during winter time, there are a lot of bargains. Please beware that it is going to be a Darwinian world just before spring. I suggest we do a bit of research before buying. My favourites are still 1224 CC Land; and 272 Shui On Land. Also, I want to add a few more: 016 Sun Hung Kai Properties; 390 China Railway (as I said before this is also a properties developer) and 337 SPG Land.

Some background - The central government's measures to suppress the properties market indicate that it is a market too important to be let burst or get killed. Figures speak themselves: in 2009, sale of land gave the treasury CNY 1,500 billion or 44% of annual GDP or 22% of total national revenues (CNY 6,800 billion). Sale of land contributed to 41% of Shanghai's budget - excluding the peripheral business directly benefited by the land sale and properties development. Therefore, while in the near future, we see the properties market out of favour, I am very confident that we should start accumulating some of the strongest participants who can acquire others in order to strengthen themselves in this year.

I shall start with 272 Shui On Land. This stock is always underrated, for whatever reasons. I believe it is probably because Mr. Vincent Lo lacks excitement but that's exactly what I like about this stock. No matter how you see it, we should buy it in small lots. As a prudent man, I shall look at its financials first.