Perhaps her unofficial status gave her the courage to tell the truth, or perhaps the social concern for the real estate industry made her famous today. People call Wang a "folk scholar".
But she said, "I prefer' learning' and progressive tense, and I will continue' learning' all my life." Wang's first article on real estate is 1998. That year, the article she wrote was presented to the then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. It was this article that made her "lectured" by the relevant departments in Shanghai at that time, and also made her feel for the first time that the interests of the government and real estate developers are closely related.
"I was called to the city real estate department, and a leader said to me:' Speak responsibly, and the conclusion of profiteering cannot be casually made. Real estate developers are already suffering. After listening to these words, I think how can the government speak from the standpoint of real estate developers? This is my intuition. "
"1998 One day, the director of the Shanghai Construction Committee asked me to talk to the Shanghai Municipal People's Government. He told me that the superior leaders and the Shanghai Municipal Committee attached great importance to the problems I reflected. He told me frankly that he had never heard that the land acquisition price per mu in Pudong was 1994. What he heard was the land acquisition price of 500,000 yuan per mu, and the resettlement cost of the landless farmers was too far from the 70,000 yuan he heard. He decided to send people to investigate on the spot and contact farmers directly. He also said that the city leaders hope that the data I provided is correct. If so, the relevant houses in Shanghai will be changed. "
"I was very pleased at the time." Wang said to him.
In 2002, house prices began to soar again. Wang thinks that the problem of the real estate industry is no longer a problem of a certain department of the real estate industry. She decided to analyze the real estate problem in China from the perspective of national economic accounting.
"When I saw the thick data of China's fifth population census from Shanghai, my blood suddenly surged-I knew there was detailed information about Shanghai residents' housing I needed, which was the basic data of my research, but I dare not expect to get it. Now, I found it by accident. " Later, Wang wrote a series of influential articles in the industry: Shanghai Real Estate Market and Hope and Crisis, Shanghai Real Estate Market and Real Estate Industry in National Economic Accounting, Real Estate Developers Trying to Pay Less Taxes and the Government Not Trying to Collect Taxes, Housing Reform: Is Most People Benefiting or Most People Suffering, and Logical Errors of China Scholars and Officials on Real Estate Issues ... These articles are all about the real estate reform in China.
Wang wants to prove with figures: the interests of real estate developers in obtaining land, the thorny issues involved in the government's approval of land, and how low-and middle-income people were exploited in the real estate reform. Wang said: "I hope everyone can share my thoughts, especially the lower classes." Due to various objective factors, it is impossible for people at the bottom of society to engage in research and achieve remarkable results like me. Although they feel that they are' losing out', they can only express their feelings with abuse because they can't express what they want to say fluently. And my article can tell you where the' loss' is, and what we should do is rational and can achieve our goals. My article is to provide methods for the people to supervise the government and provide methods for the government. " In the early 1970s, Wang read through Selected Works of Marx and Engels and Selected Works of Lenin. And her sensitivity to politics and current affairs began to accumulate from then on. But her bumpy life experience and social environment at that time made her unable to play.
One night, when she faced the moonlight like water alone and looked at herself in the mirror, it was such a beautiful face, but society gave her such unfair treatment. She cried, not only because of her experience, but also because she was so lonely that her talents, ambitions and ambitions were not heard and understood.
"Suicide, then you can die 100 times. Fortunately, there are books, and I have been sublimated in reading. I always thought I wouldn't live like this all my life. For so many years, I have been looking for the return of my value. "
1988, Wang, who has been a worker for 20 years, took up the post of engineering budget officer. It only took her three months to get familiar with the professional and technical work of engineering budget. At the end of the year, the chief of the infrastructure department who received her gave her a toast and said, "Wang, I never propose a toast!" " "Later, due to the lack of funds in the shipyard, the infrastructure was slowly abandoned. Wang felt the crisis. In the early 1990s, when job-hopping was almost impossible, she resolutely resigned from the shipyard. At that time, although she undertook the engineering budget work of civil engineering, installation, hydraulic engineering, landscape architecture, municipal administration and other majors, she was also a "pen" for the audit of the whole factory, but when she left her job, her title was just an ordinary technician. However, her firm confidence in herself and super working ability enabled her to find a job smoothly.
This time I worked in a real estate company, which was the only real estate company in her working history, but it was this company that let her know the operation of the real estate industry to a certain extent. It was also during this period that she conducted in-depth investigation and research on some projects of Shanghai real estate.
"1998, the unit price of commercial housing in Shanghai was already 3,000-3,500 yuan, and a house with two rooms and one living room cost more than 200,000 yuan, which was beyond the average person's affordability. At that time, the media repeatedly encouraged everyone to buy a house. I think this is very abnormal. "
From a shipyard to a real estate company, it is a great change to outsiders, but it is "very ordinary" to Wang. "Because knowledge is acquired by analogy. I was just a 67-year-old junior high school student, equivalent to the second grade of junior high school. But I began to study history, literature, philosophy, aesthetics and political economy in the early 1970s, and I also taught myself high school mathematics, advanced mathematics and mathematical statistics. I was the first person in the whole industry to pass the self-study examination of higher education. In the 1990s, I taught myself modern management theory and modern economic theory because of my work needs. I think it is the accumulation of knowledge for many years, which enables me to quickly enter a new industry and make rapid achievements. " Wang said to him. Wang studied real estate and wrote many articles criticizing the "development" of the real estate industry. She said: "I am not qualified to speak for anything. I only represent myself, an ordinary citizen. " "But I am a citizen." From beginning to end, Wang's "citizenship" has been emphasized.
"I have seen many articles written by real estate experts and economists, but they can't fundamentally dispel my doubts. So I started my own research. The starting point of my research on this issue is because experts can't give me doubts. "
The information in her home computer is huge; She spends more than 8 hours every day counting all kinds of data, collecting all kinds of information and analyzing the data. Her article was praised by the director of China Finance and Economics Research Center of HKU, but met with a cold shoulder in the domestic media. "Now the situation has changed a lot, and many newspapers and magazines have come to draft, indicating that the times are progressing."
She learned to use the computer at 1995, and later learned to post articles and start a blog online. Her articles published on the Internet attracted many people's attention and posts, and people began to guess her identity. "The author can't be tested." "Wang Lilian may not exist at all, and no one dares to criticize the collusion between the government and real estate." "Wang may be a member of the Construction Committee."
Wang's home was a public house built in the 1980s. Her friends are ordinary workers, and her contact with Wang is only a courtesy communication in life. None of these people know that she has been doing economic research-her research fields are far more than real estate, industrial economy, tertiary industry economy, national income and so on. These research articles are published in high-level internal references and university journals; She also appeared in the international economic forum and published a paper on the reform of state-owned enterprises. "If they know that I do economic research, they will be shocked." She smiled and said that even her family hardly knew that she had aroused such great social concern. She is modest in life, and only when she talks about her own research, her own past and her own ideas does she become sharp and emotional.
She was one of the first people in Shanghai to point out that real estate is a "profiteering" industry; It is the first person who publicly pointed out that the real estate industry and the government have interests involving official data; He is the first person to make a detailed accounting of all aspects of the real estate industry from land acquisition, construction and sales from the perspective of real estate project budget.
More and more people began to pay attention to her, and her articles began to spread overseas. Lianhe Zaobao and World Journal both commented and reported on her. Someone said, "I am ashamed of her truth-telling sentiment, but I have to pay tribute."
The folk voice of our time has never weakened, but Wang's voice is full of emotion but not too much.
Economic Observer: What kind of opportunities make you pay attention to the real estate industry?
Wang: Actually, in the 1970s, I was already very concerned about current social affairs, but I didn't pay special attention to the real estate industry at that time. My experience, the books I have read and the work I have done have given me a vision and ability to study new industries. I used to budget for infrastructure projects, so I am familiar with real estate. Later, I came to work in a real estate company, heard many phenomena and rumors in the industry, and had a good understanding of the upstream and downstream operation of the real estate industry. I am a little confused and don't understand these things, and the so-called experts in society can't give me reasonable answers, so I decided to study them myself.
Economic Observer: What kind of situation do you think Shanghai real estate is in at present?
Wang: A series of recent events in Shanghai will have different degrees of influence on Shanghai and even the whole East China. The most sensitive thing for ordinary people now is housing prices. The people have gone into a misunderstanding and desperately want to lower the house price. In fact, the real estate problem in China is not housing price.
Central 1998 23 stipulates that low-income people use low-rent housing; Affordable housing for low-and middle-income people; High-income earners are people who buy commercial housing. I think this spirit is correct and should be adhered to.
However, this spirit was not carried out later, because the real estate industry infiltrated the interests of too many officials, officials at all levels, large and small. Because the government can only participate in the business of buying and selling land. Because land resources are scarce and non-renewable, if you put all low-and middle-income people on the market, these people will definitely have no way to buy a house, because commercial housing follows market rules.
So I think the government needs to take responsibility to solve the housing problem of low-and middle-income people. For example, in Singapore, low-income people are exempted from land prices and then given a 20% discount; Another example is the United States, a highly market-oriented country, which dare not push the housing of low-and middle-income people to the market on a large scale.
1945 The private housing ownership rate in the United States exceeded 40%, and it only reached 63% in 1965, and it took another 25 years to reach 65%.
Economic Observer: Recently, some media requested to publish the housing cost in Shanghai. How to treat this phenomenon?
Wang: We don't need a real estate agent to announce house prices. The cost of building a house is similar. For example, in Shanghai, it is probably 1.400 yuan. There is not much difference. What matters is the difference in land prices. In the first economic census in 2004, Shanghai's profits accounted for 34% of the whole country, Guangzhou's was 19%, and the two cities accounted for more than 50% of the whole country. Therefore, Shanghai land value-added tax will not be collected at all, because there can be many black-box operations. Moreover, it is unrealistic to publish all the costs, and it is meaningless to publish some costs. In 2005, some new sites in Luwan District were 1.3 million per square meter, but now they are more than 30,000, up by 1.7 million. You can make a profit from it.
Economic Observer: Why do you think the real estate industry is closely related to government interests?
Wang: After I published that article on 1998, I was called by the Shanghai Construction Committee for questioning. At that time, the people in the Construction Committee told me, "The conclusion of profiteering can't be made casually. Real estate developers are already suffering. " I thought at that time, why are people in government departments so protective of real estate developers? Later, I studied this problem from the perspective of tax payment, and wrote the article "Real estate developers who try to pay less taxes and governments who don't try to collect taxes".
People often think that these taxes should be paid by real estate according to the words property tax, urban land use tax and land value-added tax. Actually, this is a misunderstanding. In the property tax, the real estate industry only accounts for less than 10%, and the rest is paid by the owners who operate houses in cities, counties, towns and industrial and mining areas; Among the urban land use tax, the part paid by the real estate industry accounts for less, only about 4%; Only the land value-added tax, the real estate industry accounted for about 70%. From 200/kloc-0 to 2005, property tax, urban land use tax and land value-added tax only accounted for 2.2% of the total national tax revenue, and the real estate industry only paid about 3.5‰.
From 200 1 to 2005, the urban land use tax was collected at 478 1 100 million, including 5 1% in 2004 and 2005. Of the 47865438+ billion, only about 4% belongs to the real estate industry, which is about 2 billion, with an average of 400 million per year. If the urban land use tax is tripled and 400 million tripled, it will be1200 million, and the real estate developers with annual sales of10.8 trillion won't care about paying this extra 800 million every year. This shows that the government's inaction.
Economic Observer: Do you think the current control policies are useful for stabilizing housing prices?
Wang: At least, the people have seen hope, and they still set their eyes on housing prices. What house should low-income people live in? There is no such concept. Shanghainese think I have no face if I don't buy a house. Now the concept is like this. Many people died for their houses, and now most of them are only children. Some families have bought houses with all their money. I think this concept of consumption is abnormal. After the central control policy came out, many people asked to check out, and the wait-and-see atmosphere was also obvious. My point is that housing can be a commodity, but the consumption of this commodity must be hierarchical. The housing of low-and middle-income families cannot be fully marketized, so it is the unshirkable responsibility of the people's government to solve the housing problem of low-and middle-income families.
Source: Economic Observer Network