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ck2

So:

1. don't be unemployed or under-employed (he clearly says it is your fault if so)

2. don't get sick, not mentioned anywhere what happens then, does HK have universal healthcare?

This sounds a bit like McDonald's financial advice to their employees

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/mcdonalds-f...

btw, this guy made his money by buying cheap real-estate and got lucky when prices went up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ka-shing#Real_estate

In reality, Li went to school for a couple of years and then started working for a wealthy uncle (from the family that owns Hong Kong's Chung Nam Watch Co.). Subsequently he became part of an important subcategory of tycoons who got ahead, in part, by marrying the boss's daughter.

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"Gentlemen, when I first started Reynholm Industries I had two things in my posession: A dream and six million pounds."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVivkXUfdU&t=15

For all the valid criticism you have pointed out, this doesnt make his advise invalid. In fact that seems to be at the core of his advise... the key take away is the majority of your efforts should go to investing in increasing your social circle, and making use of this social circle to advance yourself...

like it or lump it or even find it distasteful but it is consistent and rational advise... and it worked for him... he shmoozed his rich uncle into giving him a foot in the door, and then married into a successful family to get further ahead

It's never what you know. It's always who you know.

I actually first saw this article on reddit, and someone posted the following

http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1y6xqr/hong_ko...

>Li Ka-shing is an impressive man, and he drops some good wisdom here. I certainly don't want to knock it. But here's how you become Li Ka-shing: show up in the middle of a war zone with a little cash, a lot of ambition and no scruples. Smuggle supplies for both sides, at a major premium, of course, and use your profits to slip your sticky fingers deep down into the underbelly of your city (that's where the buying lunch for more knowledgable people comes in). Then you use your newfound influence to quash the competition, and any dreams of a free market in your chosen territory. Buy up all the prime land, take over the port, and stand there at the door with a shit-eating grin on your face when the Chinese roll in with their tanks, because they're happy to make you even richer as long as you do what they say.

> You want to set up a department store chain to compete with Li Ka-shing's? Well you're shit out of luck, because he owns the shopping mall where you set up, and for some reason, security won't let your delivery trucks in, and they happen to be fixing the sidewalk right in front of your door. Want to compete with his shipping business? Sorry, things are really backed up at Li's port, what with the sudden unscheduled maintenance on that crane near your berth.

> Sorry for the rant. A lot of people think that Hong Kong is some bastion of the free market. It's actually a really dirty oligopoly, run by Li and a handful of other people like him. It just happens that if you're another Asian billionaire, or a major bank, you can park your money there basically free of charge, with no questions asked. Just don't try to bootstrap your way from Chunking Mansion to the private jet-set. Not on his watch.

> Having said that, Li Ka-shing did start from next to nothing, and he did pull himself up by his bootstraps to become one of the richest men in Asia. He's certainly a highly capable guy, but he has made many very questionable decisions along the way. Being rich isn't everything. I'm just hoping I can work my way to a comfortable retirement, and at least be able to sleep at night when I look back over my choices in life.

I claim to have done no fact checking, but the user seemed at least someone in touch with HK politics, way more so than myself :)

This is true, I live in Hong Kong. It's easy to find yourself in an apartment, internet/phone, electricity provided by LKS. Then you go downstairs to the shopping centre that's part of your apartment and the food store, the pharmacy and the shopping centre itself are also owned by LKS.

Hong Kong, is owned by a bunch of families, it's as far from a free market and is more like a capitalist aristocracy.

"I'm just hoping I can work my way to a comfortable retirement, and at least be able to sleep at night when I look back over my choices in life."

---

I feel the same way. I have ethics and morals. Humans are not merely pawns to be manipulated by me as I climb to the top. I try to live each day without regret. Anyone can get rich. The question is can they live with themselves afterward.

HK has one of the best public healthcare systems in the world (modelled after the NHS before handover, and benefiting from HK's prosperity after), and as a result does extremely well in infant mortality and life expectancy metrics.

This is actually great to hear. Now why doesn't the US, sigh.

US has reasonably good system IMHO just a little bit expensive.

A system that you can't afford to use is never very good for you. Healthcare systems should be judged on how they serve the overall population, not just those who can afford to use them.

There should be more properties by which system is valued. Free system can be inefficient, corrupt and slow like it is partially in my country. Still results surprisingly are quite similar to US looking at statistics.

A little bit?

There are many millions without insurance in the USA.

I was quoted $80 for an antibiotic I needed last week.

That's not fair. What antibiotic and how much of it? Not all antibiotics are equal.

You are right, the prices in our system are out of control but your example does not sufficiently demonstrate the problem.

Wow. That looks outrageous. Unless it is some new antibiotics. Still in my case if I get sick I get some free services but I usually should pay myself for my medicine.

So only good if you are not too poor. Sounds perfect to me...

You make assumption that free health systems in Europe are accessible to poor as well. I can't speak about Western Europe but in Eastern Europe free has cost as well. While it is not as expensive as USA. Unless you get some rare illness that only USA doctors know how to treat.

Been free (paid for though taxes of course) in both the UK and Spain. I hear Germany (and I think France) has a mixed model, but I am sure it is not as daft as the American system.

A little bit?! I had an accident a few years ago which ended with me falling into water and getting hypothermia, although I was fortunate not to have any injuries apart from a few scrapes and bruises. I was taken by ambulance to hospital and spnt 12 hours in the ICU. I got a bill for >25k, though I was able to negotiate this down to $15 and had the resources to pay it.

That's about $2000 per hour. I was seen by 6 different doctors, none of whom bothered to read each others' notes. I was charged $1000 to get (painfully) fitted with a catheter when I would have been fine with a bedpan. The discharge nurse released me with someone else's paperwork and prescriptions. The only part of it that was good value was the CAT scan.

There are no cost controls in American healthcare and it's wildly inefficient (not basing this solely on the experience above).

I was sarcastic about "a little bit" part. While it was expensive you got service and some attention. Still I agree that it is unreasonably expensive.

I choose to believe that you are a master of sarcasm.

Partially and I guess I have not managed to express that in English (as it is not my native language). Overall you could get better health services, just look at health related statistics in various parts of the world and while it is not perfect but it is not the worst. I'm from country that has more or less the same level as USA if we speak about general health related problems. I sometimes have to pay extra to get better service. What's worse than in USA? Overall knowledge level of doctors is lower than in USA and if I will get some rare illness most probably I will need to pay for doctors from USA if I can afford them.

Don't worry, our government want to sell it off and try and model it on the US system....

There are both pros and cons. HK healthcare system is quite affordable but has long lines. They optimize for the cheapest effective medication rather than the best healthcare you can offer.

Don't forget TOM.COM.

His nickname in Hong Kong is "Superman" so everybody trusted him. During the first dot.com he jumped on board the IPO wagon resulting in mom and pop investors getting absolutely fleeced. I think after that episode people began to see him truly for what he is: just another rich guy playing the politicians to extend his empire, built mostly on property.

Another tidbit. His younger son, Richard Lee, promoted himself as a tech guru having graduated from Stanford studying computer science (it said so on the IPO prospectus). Journalists later discover that in fact he had attended but dropped out of Stanford, and instead went to Canada to work at his dad's financial firm, before returning to Hong Kong to help run the family business.

You got to love all these baby boomer aged investors giving advice on how to get rich. Most my age never got the chance to buy property ridiculously cheap, and are now having to rent it from the boomers.

Not sure how old you are, but did you consider property in Florida or Detroit during the global financial crisis? Planet Money had the story of a girl who bought a house for $12,000 and rents it at $700/month:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/03/09/148218539/this-14-...

I'm not saying it's easy (hey, I didn't do it myself). But there have been opportunities. You've got to put the effort into finding the opportunities & be brave enough to jump in & take the risk.

Nope, from Scotland, where the government seem happy to trash the economy to keep house prices high.

Also it helps when you're able to build a huge monopoly in hong kong http://www.economist.com/node/413357

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