Stick that in your ROI and smoke it…
“Hong Kong firms raise pay offers to attrack expats put off by pollution survey” – Forbes.com (btw if anyone from the FT is looking, I read it in your great paper first but since you insist on keeping your paywall, you don’t get a link.)
Some 52 pct of the 274 senior executives polled said they have had to enhance the benefits offered to expats to persuade them to move to Hong Kong, the survey said.
A third of the firms had to offer a ‘much higher’ salary package, while 16 pct gave bigger housing allowances, the survey found.
‘Many companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and to a lesser extent Japan are competing for the same expatriate talent,’ a spokesman for Hudson said.
‘If pollution is a hindrance in Hong Kong, this will amplify the talent shortage and will mean that Hong Kong is competing at a disadvantage,’ the spokesman said in a statement.
It is getting harder and harder to pretend that pollution and environmental degradation don’t have real costs to businesses and economies (or that those costs will be borne by others.)
It’s time to get rid of the commons – put a price on using and polluting air, earth and sea – tragedies of commons only happen when exploiting the commons is free. Markets can help us solve this problem, governments need to allow them to exist and work.
(Even markets you can trade in your bathrobe!)
