Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • COVID-19
  • My Rifles
  • Concentrate on Dividend Record and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Freedom Force
  • Dick Young’s Safe America
  • Bank for International Settlements

Detroit: Hong Kong U.S.A.

January 13, 2014 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

If Detroit were given the tools it needs to re-build it could be the next Hong Kong. Here Senior Cato Fellow lays it out for you.

Detroit is beautiful—though you probably have to be a child of the industrial Midwest, like me, to see it. As you may have heard, the city is in trouble. At the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Detroit had a balance sheet with liabilities of $9.05 billion. The city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, estimates long-term debt at $18 billion.

But I know how to fix Detroit, because it reminds me of another favorite place, Hong Kong—two things so opposite that they evoke each other the way any Kardashian is a reminder that you love home and mother.

Hong Kong’s per capita GDP is among the highest in the world. But it was once a worse mess than Detroit. Devastated by Japanese occupation, the British colony’s population had declined from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 by 1945. Then, after the 1949 communist victory on the mainland, a million refugees arrived. Most of them were penniless. Britain’s Labor government was penniless, too. Maybe Hong Kong could have gone into Chapter 9. But who would have been the bankruptcy judge? Chairman Mao?

Instead Hong Kong had the good fortune to get John (later Sir John) Cowperthwaite, a young official sent out to push the colony’s economy toward recovery. “I did very little,” he once said. “All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it.”

Such as taxes. Even now, Hong Kong has no sales tax; no VAT; no taxes on capital gains, interest income or earnings outside Hong Kong; no import or export duties; and a top personal income-tax rate of 15%.

Related video:

Related Posts

  • Hong Kong #1
  • The Hong Kong of New England
  • Hong Kong of New England
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998.

E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention.

E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris.

Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com
Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)
  • Welcome to the Interest Rate Prediction Business, JACK! - February 26, 2021
  • Petrified Snow/Ice Fishing? How about a Boat? and More - February 25, 2021
  • How One Man and His Family Survived the Texas Deep Freeze - February 24, 2021

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Victor Davis Hanson: How to Bust DC’s Stronghold
  • 751 “No-Go” Zones in France
  • Your Life on Main Street will Never be the Same
  • Insurrection Was the Furthest Thing from Trump’s Mind
  • California’s Progressive Liberals Have Created a Monster
  • U.S. Survival AR-7
  • Robo-Advisors: When You Have a Lot More to Lose than Money
  • You Need to Seek Some Shelter for When Things Get Ugly
  • Concentrate on Dividend Record and Compounding
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Welcome to the Interest Rate Prediction Business, JACK!
  • Democrats Have a Plan: Don’t Get Too Attached to Your Capital Gains
  • Petrified Snow/Ice Fishing? How about a Boat? and More
  • Bubble in Tech Stocks Will Cause “Clean Out” in Markets
  • COVID Chaos: New York and California vs. Florida and South Dakota
  • Time for the Fed To Stop Babying the Bond Market
  • Richard Young Reports: 50+ Years with Fidelity and Wellington
  • Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
  • Herd Immunity by April?
  • Corporate Bond Yields: What You Can Earn Today

Neither Cancel Culture nor COVID Can Shut Down CPAC

The Political Downside of Stoking Fear

Welcome to the Interest Rate Prediction Business, JACK!

Has Bill Gates Been Injected Yet?

Fauci Doesn’t Own Your Face

Gov. Newsom Discovering the Power of the Pen

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives