Please stop all the moaning and groaning - I'm sick of hearing nothing but bad news these past few weeks! Can't we arrange, say, a dragon dance festival along Nathan Road, a happy carnival in Victoria Park or some other form of mass entertainment to lift the gloomy atmosphere that seems to have settled over Hong Kong?

Lately it's been nothing but one piece of bad news after another. So far as I'm concerned the biggest blow came a few days ago when a poll of 10 Asian regions showed that 54 percent of Hong Kong adults aged under 40 are not happy with their lives. Results indicate that we are the third-most discontented place in Asia, trailing closely behind the saddest country in this gloomy contest, Malaysia, and the second most miserable territory, maudlin Macao.

Altogether 1,101 Asians were polled over four months by the Ocean Junior Chamber of Hong Kong's Junior Chamber International, lifting the lid on the grouches of mature students and under 40s.

Hong Kong's unhappy respondents attributed their woes to financial burdens (15 percent), arguments (13 percent), unstable or falling income (10 percent), and long-term pressure in the workplace or related to their studies. Furthermore, an eye-opening 38 percent of our respondents did not have clear life goals or direction and were worried about the future.

Most interestingly, the happiest people revealed in the poll were in Taiwan and the Ningxia Hui autonomous region. Japan and Singapore were both third; Australia came in fifth ahead of Thailand, with the mainland city of Zhongshan seventh, followed by Hong Kong, Macao and Malaysia.

The categories that put respondents in Taiwan and Ningxia in a happier frame of mind were "getting along with their families" (21 percent) followed by "remaining healthy" (13 percent) and "getting a pay rise" (12 percent). Another positive among the contented was being able to take part in social and other activities in their home districts.

This gloomy poll was the tip of a frigid iceberg concerning various domestic developments in Hong Kong. Pointing to slower growth and a slight rise in unemployment, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah jolted investors by suggesting that our economy could soon face a "perfect storm". Monetary Authority chief Norman Chan Tak-lam then jumped on the gloom bandwagon to warn that our financial system could come under pressure when the US raises its interest rates.

The specter of the Ebola outbreak somehow reaching Hong Kong from Africa also worried observers like Terence Chong Tai-leung, associate professor of economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who fears it would create a crisis like the deadly SARS outbreak of 2003.

Moving still farther down the slippery slope, the latest Census and Statistics Department retail sales survey shows a severe drop in retail business. But it seems this isn't really a worry since - inexplicably - the survey was restricted to 31 percent of retail sales across Hong Kong. So why are the number-crunchers so doggedly set in their ways when it comes to upgrading their demographic studies? You figure...

Wouldn't it be interesting to put a figure on the harm done by the drip-feed of negativity spread across our city by Jimmy Lai Chee-ying's claque of sour-apple stooges in recent years?

The author is a veteran current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 08/21/2014 page9)