CY shares Obama policy objectives

US President Barack Obama has delivered his State of the Union address.迷你倉 It's effectively a policy address, outlining what he plans to do in the coming year. As expected, this one was wide ranging, from the Afghanistan war and Iran's nuclear program in foreign affairs, to health care and social inequality issues at home. Eyebrows were surely raised over his remarks that America - not China - remains the world's best place for investment. But it's safe to say the public's main focus was on Obama's pledge to raise the nationwide minimum wage that is currently US$7.25 (HK$56.55) an hour. In the face of strong opposition in Congress, Obama said he would use executive powers whenever possible. To start with, he will order the minimum wage for federal contract workers be hiked to US$10.10 an hour. Obama's address brought a sense of deja vu in Hong Kong. For example, confronted by dropping popularity ratings at home, he highlighted social inequality and mobility, declaring the first has widened and the second has stalled. These are pressing issues facing America's poor. Obama pledged to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunities. But he didn't say how. In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying increased regular assistance for the poor by at least HK$10 billion a year - raising expectations he is doing 自存倉ore to let the poor move up the social ladder. If there's anything similar in Obama and Leung's actions, it must be that both resorted to welfarism, even though they refuse to call it that. Perhaps they couldn't admit it openly, as both America and Hong Kong are bastions of capitalism. But in reality, it seems inevitable for them to lean toward welfarism of some kind to extract themselves from the political quagmire. Social inequality is a long-standing issue in the United States. In 2011, a group of activists initiated the Occupy Wall Street protest. Among other things, the demonstrators protested the widening wealth gap. However, Obama was lucky because the US media - though usually critical - was rather patriotic. While the Occupy movement sparked similar actions overseas, including occupation of the space under HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters, the campaign failed to achieve its objectives in the United States. It doesn't really matter whether you call Obama's speech the State of the Union address, or simply the policy address. As wealth disparities worsen, it's always tempting for politicians to tackle it with welfare - even though they ought to know welfarism alone can't solve all problems. The ultimate solution is to create an environment in which people can generate and accumulate wealth for themselves, in order to move up the ladder. 迷你倉新蒲崗