Sounds a lot like HK folks are trying to survive during the shift of economies into mainland China. 
I’m very bearish on HK economies. Too much income inequality has traditionally led to staggering state. It’ll stay as expensive area, without much economic growth (e.g. New York, Vancouver, etc. )
Hong Kong’s GDP will soon be overtaken by Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This Chinese Bay Area has pretty big GDP and still growing fast. Well, except Hong Kong.
I share the bearish view on Hong Kong. The young people speak bad English and Mandarin. They build a wall around themselves to keep China out but in the end just box themselves in. It will become something like Monaco, a playground for the mainland rich and the locals will just be servants.
Forget about economy, is Hong Kong a really desirable place to live? Will China’s rich people continue to buy second home in Hong Kong after Hong Kong is fully integrated into China? At certain point, the legal and political system will converge and the difference will disappear. Without a legal and political difference, what’s the reason for mainland rich to stay in Hong Kong?
Hong Kong has no real economic power other than finance and tourism. Finance will probably continue to weaken since many listings are mainland companies. Will tourism stay strong?
But if Shenzhen becomes a super power, Hong Kong can probably share some of the boom.
The question would be what Hong Kong can offer after the eventual full integration. If it’s smart, it can use the time to build up its advantage in finance, tourism and some kind of services. But a stagnant economy may spell political issues which could worsen the economy
What a sad way to put HK… But is Monaco really that bad? Both its GDP per cap and HDI are higher than France
SF bay area GDP is less than $800b…Pretty impressive. …The Chinese Greater BA has a GDP similar to NYC $1.5t
Can’t compare like that. SFBA has a population of 7 million only. That’s the population of HK. HK has GDP of 3 billion compared to SFBA’s 8 billion.
I know but I was there in 1989…What a transformation… .Guangzhou had bicycles mainly…The buildings were all dilapidated people were making $100/year…pretty amazing transformation in 28 years…
Tell me about it. My family left Guangzhou in 1984 to “escape poverty”. Little did we know it was actually the best place to generate wealth for the next 30 years.
That was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. My entire family plus all my neighbors in the building we were living in have immigrated overseas to either HK, America, or Australia.
Can it be true, once you leave ANY Bay Area you can’t come back???
More data on the Chinese Bay Area
Shenzhen and Guangzhou have tons of people: 14M and 12M. Most articles I read about the Chinese Bay Area compare itself with Tokyo, NY and SF:
It still has a lot of catching up to do. It has the largest area and most people, and it’s growing the fastest. NYC is the one to beat. Only 8M people but 1.7T GDP.
I get the feeling that the data for NYC is wrong. I don’t think the per capita income of NYC is more than twice that of SFBA. I think the 1.7M might be referring to the entire CSA region of 20+ million people, not just the 5 boroughs of NYC.
That makes sense. So you are saying we are still better than NYC?
Absolutely.
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)
GDP: 235,222
Population: 1,978,816
GDP per cap: $119,000
San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)
GDP: 431,704
Population: 4,679,166
GDP per cap: $92,500
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)
GDP: 1,602,705
Population: 20,153,634
GDP per cap: $80,000
Tokyo Metro
GDP per cap: $41,000
Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong
GDP per cap: $19,500
The rest of Bay Area (North Bay):
Vallejo-Fairfield, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area
GDP: 19,646
Population: 440,207
GDP per cap: $44,700
Santa Rosa, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area
GDP: 26,052
Population: 503,070
GDP per cap: $51,800
Napa, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area
GDP: 9,363
Population: 142,166
GDP per cap: $66,000
NYC GDP was 1.33T in 2012. It’s much higher than BA. The tricky part is to figure out how many NJ/PA people live on the NYC job
I dont watch TV news anymore…I get my news from forums like this or Facebook…It is like being on permanent vacation. .Besides the only TV news in Tahoe is from Reno or Sacramento, totally irrelevant. . .Don’t watch TV news and your stress level will go way down…Besides who cares what happens in NYC or anywhere else…Nothing you can do about it, anyway…My mother-in-law watches TV in Moscow. .Everytime there is a disaster anywhere near California she calls in a panic…We should pull the plug…TV news is bad for your pysche…Just designed to shock and make you miserable…Russian news programs are even worse than the fake news crap in America…Pure propaganda. …Terrorism on a state level…All news is becoming sensationalist crap…Truth is being sacrificed for ratings and profit
NYC’s GDP is twice BA’s number but it has 2.5x as many people. So BA inhabitants are about 20% better off than NYC from a per capita standpoint.