You are talking about the early 1990s. Times have changed. HK's economy is tied to its political fate. If PRC's economy is bad, HK cannot be symptom-free. The last straw is the high interest rate. The only buffer is the relatively large piggy bank that HK has saved throughout the good old days pre-1997. We all know what happened during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, right up to SARS in 2003, and the subsequent upheavals in housing price.