These days a government simply isn’t cool unless it launches an economic stimulus package of one sort or another.
It wasn’t long ago that the Macau government was arguing rather sniffily that private enterprise should pay for a new light rail system in the territory. Nowadays, with scores of factories in southern China put on short time and casino projects being delayed or mothballed, suddenly a light rail system looks like a good way of creating jobs and kick starting a sluggish economy.
The latest ‘economic stimulus’ initiative in Macau is a ‘wealth share’ scheme—basically cash handouts to permanent residents.
This may not be such a bad idea. A good number of voices in the US Congress suggested only half jokingly that President Barack Obama would have been better giving every family in America USD15,000 than sinking the money into banks to help them deal with their toxic assets.
Edmund Ho, Macau’s Chief Executive, said in his 2009 policy address delivered in November 2008, that all local residents will obtain the cash handout once again this year and that ‘in principle’ it would not be lower than last year’s.
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