房價節節攀高 社會陷入“分裂”效應大綱

Presenting his annual report to China’s National People’s Congress on Saturday, Wen Jiabao pledged to “firmly curb the excessively rapid rise in housing prices”。 It was a promise the prime minister has been making for much of the past year.
Indeed, it was at last year’s meeting of the political elite that the furore over rising house prices burst into the open. More than half of the proposals submitted by delegates were related to the cost of buying an apartment.
Weeks earlier, the authorities had shut down a popular soap opera that explored the lives of urban “wage slaves” struggling to pay their mortgage. “It has become the biggest political issue in China,” says Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
The sharp rise in house prices in many cities has started to create a cleft within the urban middle class, between a large group of winners who got on the property ladder early and have ridden the rising market and a smaller group of mostly younger people, especially recent university graduates, who feel shut out.
House prices have also become a lightning rod for anxiety about widening inequality. A researcher at a state think-tank produced a revealing report last year, which claimed that “grey income” not declared to the taxman is as high as Rmb9,300bn （$1,420bn）， equivalent to 30 per cent of gross domestic product – much of which is funnelled into property speculation.
“Once government power is united with capital, the free competition of the market economy begins to be replaced by a monopoly of crony capitalism, leading to disparity in income and property distribution,” wrote Wang Xiaolu at the National Economic Research Institute.
As well as trying to reduce bank credit for housing, Beijing is relying on two policies to control prices. Local governments are being encouraged to build large volumes of public housing that can be rented to low-income families. And a property tax is being tentatively introduced in Shanghai and Chongqing for larger houses.
The holders of all that “grey income” hate the idea of a property tax, but the idea has long been considered crucial by reformers, because it could both reduce speculation in real estate and provide an income stream for local governments, which rely too much on land sales. However, according to Tao Ran at Renmin University, the tax is only one part of the solution.
It should be accompanied, he says, by land reform that allows farmers to sell their land directly to property developers. At the moment, only local governments can take over their land and they also decide the level of compensation.
“If farmers can sell their land directly, cutting out the heavy fee that goes to local governments, you can reduce the need for forced demolitions and cut the price of new properties,” he says.

中國總理溫家寶在全國人大會議上作年度政府工作報告時，承諾“堅決抑制房價過快上漲勢頭”。他在過去一年中已多次作出這樣的承諾。
事實上，中國人對房價上漲的怒氣，正是在去年的這一政治精英會議上變得公開化的。當時，代表們的大半提案都與房價有關。
在舉行那次會議幾周前，官方還禁播了一部探討城市“房奴”生活的人氣肥皂劇。“住房問題已經成爲中國的第一大政治問題。”北京理工大學經濟學教授胡星斗表示。
在許多城市，房價的快速上漲已經開始導致城市中產階級出現分化：一邊是爲數衆多的贏家，他們早早就踏上“房產階梯”，藉着房價的節節上漲發財致富；另一邊則是一個規模較小的陣營，以年輕人、尤其是畢業不久的大學生爲主，他們感覺自己“出局”了。
房價也成爲擔心不平等加劇的人們抱怨的焦點。一位政府智庫的研究員去年發表了一份讓人深思的報告。報告稱，中國人未向稅務部門申報的“灰色收入”高達9.3萬億元人民幣（合1.4萬億美元）——相當於中國國內生產總值（GDP）的30%——其中大部分被拿來炒房。
“政府權力一旦與資本相結合，就將逐步取代自由競爭的市場經濟，演變爲壟斷性的權貴資本主義，導致越來越不公平的收入和財富分配。”國民經濟研究所副所長王小魯在報告中這麼寫道。
爲了抑制房價，中國政府除了竭力控制房貸以外，還實施了兩項政策：一是鼓勵地方政府大量建設可租給低收入家庭的廉租房和公租房；二是在上海和重慶進行試點，對超過一定面積的住房徵收房產稅。
“灰色收入”的所有者憎恨房產稅，但改革人士長期以來一直認爲，開徵房產稅是平抑房價的關鍵之舉，具有“一箭雙鵰”的效果，既可抑制投機活動，又可爲過於依賴售地收入的地方政府開闢一條收入來源。不過中國人民大學教授陶然認爲，僅靠房產稅平抑不了房價。
他認爲應該同時實施土地改革，允許農民向開發商直接賣地。目前，只有地方政府能夠徵收農民的土地，徵地補償金也由地方政府決定。
“如果農民能夠直接賣地，（開發商）就可以省掉向當地政府繳納的大筆費用，這樣就能減少強制拆遷，降低新建住房的價格。”