The Libertines Pub's list of missing people and other matters in our High-tech Village

I want to start off this post by giving you a list of missing people. We took almost a week off from here and I am sure you've missed us. The Pub misses some people, too.

1. We are still waiting for a reply from that Lingnan University cultural studies master student for the guest post on the Pub's $64,000 question.
2. Somebody from the Youth Union wrote a personal message to me in Facebook and asked the Pub to collaborate with them against drug test in schools. They came up with this campaign where everyone writes an article on the issue, and they will have them sent for publication. We have this sick lust for fame and the chance might be the only one ever for us to get published. We naturally said yes. After a few rounds of messages, we played professional and asked for the editorial details, and what their media pitching plan was. Since then, that guy never came back again. The deadline for article submission has long pasted, and I wondered what has happened. There're 50 guests confirmed, and there should have been at least five articles in the papers, but where?
3. Somebody from Lion Rock Institute also contacted us sometime ago. They're a very famous and important think tank in Hong Kong advocating economic and market freedom. That staff member of Lion Rock asked us to cover some of their views; and that they will give us some materials to write on. We waited for weeks, but that Lion Rock staff vanished entirely.

Of course, we from the Libertines Pub are nobody. And it's up to the three missing people above to decide if they want to work with us or not. But it's funny how these social activists could suddenly think up an idea to work with somebody and then drop, or forget about, it after a while. Issues change in this High-tech Village and they have to change their minds quick enough; it's only the Pub who acted too slowly to catch up with them.

Anyway, we're looking for these people, write me if you have a clue.

Will the real Lion please stand up

I am against minimum wage. The reasons are very simple and straightforward:

1. I do not fall into the category of people who will be benefit from or protected by such a legislation;
2. Having our bosses to pay more means earning less for them. That at the same time means less year-end bonus for us.

I will become an old hack one day and be in need of a minimum wage protection, but screw it for now, I can always go after that later. Now I can only think of the sharing of my bosses' profit by bonus and hope that they earn as much as possible. Why I should allow those with lower skills and fewer responsibilities to take my share at the end of the year because of the minimum wage law? That sounded socialist to me.

Some might argue that bosses are always asses, they could share no shit with you at year-end. That's ok, I could always say "fuck it" and leave for a better place and they will learn.

Above are the honest reasons. Free market advocates in Hong Kong like Lion Rock can never admit those boldly. They argued that the minimum wage will only harm those people with lower skills by forcing them out of the job market. Wong Yuk Man said it right here, they're only hypocritical. Admit it, we who are against minimum wage speak for our own benefit. When you're working in McDonald's for $15 an hour, you cannot really buy that a minimum wage law will harm you.

And I am hoping that there will be some serious researches by our important free market think tank apart from a few Op-Ed articles. There're a list of questions to be answered for the minimum wage issue alone if you want to argue. It's pretty amazing that people and corporations would still fund Lion Rock with no substantial research output. I asked that Lion Rock staff in person implicitly on why they got funding without works. She gave me an very intelligent answer. She said people in the western countries would give away money to think tanks just like giving away money to charities. Since then, I started thinking about rebranding ourselves as a think tank.

Do we need better moral or etiquette?

The Hong Kong Youth Association said in SCMP today that we thought "morals are eroded by public figures". I told you (did I?) Hong Kong people just love the drama; only 27% of them think that "a star's contract should be terminated" if they do some shits. They want them to stay for the drama!

I agree that we need better public figures, but let's start with the basic etiquette. Ask our stars to show us how to move our asses inside the train compartment first.

I learned to check the background of the organisation working on a public opinion research, so did I. I had a hard time finding the youth in the Hong Kong Youth Association. And now I understand why...

High-tech Village

So we mentioned this word in the title without explanation. Our readers are so smart, you must know it's referring to Hong Kong. Eric came up with this term that sounded very "cultural studies". So we decided that we'll be using it in the Pub from now on.

So long, village people!