房价节节攀高 社会陷入“分裂”效应大纲

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.

中国总理温家宝在全国人大会议上作年度政府工作报告时，承诺“坚决抑制房价过快上涨势头”。他在过去一年中已多次作出这样的承诺。
事实上，中国人对房价上涨的怒气，正是在去年的这一政治精英会议上变得公开化的。当时，代表们的大半提案都与房价有关。
在举行那次会议几周前，官方还禁播了一部探讨城市“房奴”生活的人气肥皂剧。“住房问题已经成为中国的第一大政治问题。”北京理工大学经济学教授胡星斗表示。
在许多城市，房价的快速上涨已经开始导致城市中产阶级出现分化：一边是为数众多的赢家，他们早早就踏上“房产阶梯”，借着房价的节节上涨发财致富；另一边则是一个规模较小的阵营，以年轻人、尤其是毕业不久的大学生为主，他们感觉自己“出局”了。
房价也成为担心不平等加剧的人们抱怨的焦点。一位政府智库的研究员去年发表了一份让人深思的报告。报告称，中国人未向税务部门申报的“灰色收入”高达9.3万亿元人民币（合1.4万亿美元）——相当于中国国内生产总值（GDP）的30%——其中大部分被拿来炒房。
“政府权力一旦与资本相结合，就将逐步取代自由竞争的市场经济，演变为垄断性的权贵资本主义，导致越来越不公平的收入和财富分配。”国民经济研究所副所长王小鲁在报告中这么写道。
为了抑制房价，中国政府除了竭力控制房贷以外，还实施了两项政策：一是鼓励地方政府大量建设可租给低收入家庭的廉租房和公租房；二是在上海和重庆进行试点，对超过一定面积的住房征收房产税。
“灰色收入”的所有者憎恨房产税，但改革人士长期以来一直认为，开征房产税是平抑房价的关键之举，具有“一箭双雕”的效果，既可抑制投机活动，又可为过于依赖售地收入的地方政府开辟一条收入来源。不过中国人民大学教授陶然认为，仅靠房产税平抑不了房价。
他认为应该同时实施土地改革，允许农民向开发商直接卖地。目前，只有地方政府能够征收农民的土地，征地补偿金也由地方政府决定。
“如果农民能够直接卖地，（开发商）就可以省掉向当地政府缴纳的大笔费用，这样就能减少强制拆迁，降低新建住房的价格。”