Target of Envy

According to today’s SCMP Dr. Walton Li Wai Tat is facing possible disciplinary action for letting people in want of Lasik surgery know about his enviable track record in performing this procedure. Apparantly the Hong Kong Sanatoriam and Hospital has carried out over 33,000 corrective procedures. Something he should be praised for, not villified for.

Indeed it could be his “enviable” track record that makes him envied by other doctors, who now wish to have such disciplinary action against him. The charges include allegations that he claimed that he offered better services than his peers.

Isn’t this what free competition is all about. I am all in favour of private doctors and have supported their arguments against the public hospital system. However they should also realize that:

• Being a doctor does not give them a right to restrict fellow doctors from advertising their services
• That restrictions on overseas doctors should be lifted (From what I remember they were brought in a year after Donald Tsang’s son graduated from his overseas medical faculty – at the special request of Mr. Tsang)

In the end a free market means a free market for both patients and doctors. You can’t have a free market if you restrict supply or free access to information about that supply.

MPF – Replace It With A Voluntary Scheme

Since I believe they published my article on the MPF today, specifically calling for it to be made voluntary, I thought I would open up my blog here for comments etc.

For anyone with an SCMP online subscription, the article can be read at http://focus.scmp.com/focusnews/ZZZSTYI2ECE.html .

Upate:

The original article can now be accessed here.

Transport Department Dummies

Can they get any more bureaucratic at the Transport Department? Sadly probably yes.

Anyway a friend of mine got her first learner’s permit FOUR years ago and they gave her a blue sheet to take for her driver’s test. She didn’t go forward with the test and her permit expired after about 6-12 months.

Fast forward four years later and she goes to the transport department to reapply for her learner’s permit and to arrange another test. “NOT SO FAST”, said the transportation king of bureacracy, (or words to that effect) – “where is your blue slip from 4 years ago?” The bottom line was no blue slip, go to Cheung Sha Wan to fix a new test, despite the blue form being issued in Admiralty the first time.

That’s not the only example. I remember going to the TD to get my license. I thought it would be a simple matter – take my British license (which I had exchanged for an Australian license) and get it renewed. “No sir ree”, said the transportation king of bureaucracy (or again words to that effect.) “You need to go through the entire process again.” Do the written test (after about three months) and then do the driver’s test – 5 months after my initial application.

Apparently the only time I could do this was either morning or afternoon as one large driving school block books the other half of the day, so their candidates can get a booking. (Is this worth an investigation by the ombusman? – especially if those candidates get priority for taking the written or road test.)

I remember doing my written test in Whyalla, South Australia at age 16 booking about a week in advance and then doing the road test about 2 months later. (Some kids who learnt to drive on farms would do the written test on their 16th birthday and then sit the driving test one day later.)

Anyway, any Transportation Department mirth and merriment with regard to vehicle or personal licensing can be shared in the comments section below. Just keep it clean.

Religion Versus Spirituality

I have another article appearing, this time in the United States called Religion versus Spirituality. The staff at The Undercurrent made some big contributions and really helped to add to the original article that I sent them. (most of them are American undergraduates or graduate students who are also students on the Ayn Rand Institute’s 4 year Undergraduate Philosophy of Ayn Rand course – a course I am proud to say that I am just completing myself).

Anyway issue three of this publication (including yours truly) is out and can also be viewed in tabloid form at http://www.the-undercurrent.com/current_issue_spreads.pdf I will of course see what I can do to bring copies of The Undercurrent to Hong Kong.

On a personal note, out of all the articles that I have written, this one so far is my favourite as it opens up a whole new topic and seeks to take spirituality back from religion and ground the whole idea firmly in this world (especially relevant for those who hold that this is this world and only this world). I expect a lot more debate about this topic, now that the first step has been taken.

Confusing Times For Christine Loh?

Oh Dear! It seems to be confusing times indeed for Christine Loh in her latest column in the SCMP. Whilst most people support accountable government, it is not the same as letting the public make decisions about the West Kowloon project or other private developments. As Ms Loh notes, “How is the public to assess any modified financing and management proposals?”

What is the source of this apparant confusion? – I believe that is the idea that the public must be consulted on such projects, when this is better left to private developers. A much more moral and simpler (capitalist) solution would be to torpedo Donald Tsang’s silly canopy idea and just auction of the entire site to the highest bidder or bidders and then let them decide what to do with it. After all, from a capitalist standpoint, the government has no role in the market, which means it should be left to the owner not the rowdy rabble to decide the fate of West Kowloon. Of course developers would need to keep one eye on market forces which is usually a pretty good indicator of real public opinion rather than the same said rowdy rabble that can be counted on from time to time to make a lot of empty rhetoric.

Given the massive amounts of profits that Ms Loh seems to think that any developer can make from this land setting, the price they will be willing to pay would be high indeed. Although the cost to potential home owners would be less if we adopted the concrete Lamma and Lantau policy I alluded to earlier. (Maybe drain the mosquito-landen swamplands in Mai Po too). That way more land would be available – and individual developers would be free to add in more trees if they wish, – if that will help them sell more flats too.

Public opinion is important, but it shouldn’t be used to override rationality, especially when it appears that false arguments are raised to stoke and flame such irrationality.

At the same time, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of some of the property developers here, some of whom seem to want the government to give them special favours. I have a related article about one developer on the capitalist solutions website, which may be of interest.

Hong Kong’s Six Million Dollar Man

We have the techonology to rebuild him – or at least keep in hospital for six years at tax payer expense. (If we figure a daily cost of $3113, then the approximate bill for one year in hospital is just over $HK 1 million, including free medical treatment, three meals a day and a hospital bed.)

Indeed, reports in the SCMP yesterday show that instead of going home after they recover, 1-2% of admitted patients into Hong Kong public hospitals are treating hospitals like 5 star hotels staying there for periods of 6 months or more – according to doctors, one patient has been there for at least 6 years – because their families won’t come to pick them up.

I have no idea on the actual numbers making such abuse but if we take there figure of 100 admissions per day (as reported by the SCMP), at an average of one year per patient stay, the amount of tax money being spent is around $HK365 million for 365 patients blatantly abusing the system. (How many more are overstaying from 7 days to 6 months – I don’t know yet). Add in the mainland mothers coming to Hong Kong to give birth and then racking off before they have paid, there is some major abuse going on.

There are other examples too. Old people coming back from China and then calling an ambulance at the Lo Wu border to take them home because they can’t be bothered taking public transport. The ruse is they call they ambulance and want to be taken to a hospital close to where they live. The ambulance drivers do it because they don’t want to deal with complaints that they abused the user, when in fact the user is blatantly abusing the system.

Peter Jennings Dead at 67

This came as a shock that the former ABC news anchor passing away at 67. I don’t know his politics, but he I found his style and manner professional and easy going.

Some tributes can be found at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050808/ap_on_en_tv/jennings_quote_box_1

The original story is at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050808/ap_on_en_tv/obit_jennings

Thank you Peter Jennings for making 7:30am an interesting part of my Hong Kong day.

Update: ABC News did a wonderful tribute to Peter Jennings today. I am sure they have more on their website at www.abcnews.com

Allowing for Comments on a Post

Some have critisized my decision not to allow comments on this blog.

I am in two minds about allowing comments here. The pro side is that it allows more discussion of a particular idea and for rational debate. It also is a vehicle for commenters to maybe discover that their initial premises were wrong (or maybe something I wrote was wrong as well).

On the other side, it also lets anyone post and from my “ice-red” experience there are plenty of nutters out there (or rather otherwise sane people who hide behind an alias to post drivel.) Also, more comments means a lot more blog work too. At the same time, I am trying to keep the discussion slightly intellectual.

Anyway I will probably need to come up with some “guidelines for posting” sometimes as despite what people might think, this blogging thing is a new experience to me. As an experiment, I will start to open up some posts for commentary including this one but reserve the right to delete them if they are:

a. abusive
b. tediously boring
c. very boadly spelt

Also to save endless polemics, I am probably going to reach a point where the discussion will be closed because it is getting repetitive or I just can’t be bothered making repetitive posts. However if it gets continually interesting, who knows I might keep it open for a long time.

This for me is still an experiment in cyberspace, so comments are welcome on this post

Environmentalism’s Contempt for Human Life

They really went too far this time (actually they go too far everytime.) Environmentalists complaining about turtle eggs being damaged while a volunteer group is searching desperately for clues in a missing teen case.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBPIXDOZBE.html

Let’s Not Turn Victoria Park Over to the WTO Rabble

The South Korean farmers latest request to camp out at Victoria Park for a week should be roundly rejected by the government. Like most of the WTO protesters they have shown themselves to make trouble to put their point across. Indeed the farmers have a a particularly violent track record with one farmer killing himself. (Obviously HE won’t be attending any more WTO protests.)

We really don’t need to make it easy for the slash and trash squad to come Hong Kong and maybe there needs to be a mechanism in place so that any protesters that spend time in Victoria prison are charged appropriately for their “room and board” as well.

For more see my previous post on the WTO Nihilists.