Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Bidding Farewell to Laissze Faire in HK

In the HK Standard today:

" In an unprecedented move, the government announced Wednesday it will invest directly in movie productions to back Hong Kong's ailing film industry. Officials hope direct investment from the HK$300 million film development fund announced by Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen in his budget speech last week will bring about a revival to the industry that a senior official has described as "very important."..."

Rationale for the policy, according to Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Joseph Wong:

"First of all, the film industry, is a very important creative industry in Hong Kong and [its] revival will have a lot of spill-over effects." Secondly, he argued, there are also many examples of governments playing a "more active part" in supporting film industries in France, the United Kingdom, Singapore and South Korea."

Read more here.

Yo Joe, please name one industry which does not generate spillover effects, externalities, third-party effects...or whatever fancy name you can come up with?

Oh yeah, Joe, on your second point, would you please explain to me why whatever policies other countries have implemented must be a good thing? Could they all be wrong at the same time? They might not, but we, as taxpayers who pay for the final bill, deserve an explanation not an assertion. Wouldn't you agree?

And would you please also info us Joe, what criteria you would use when deciding which movie deserves government dole ? And who has the final say when picking a particular set of criteria for such purpose in the first place?

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