The Impact of the "70 Year Lease" on China's Economy

[Randy W]

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The "land sales" are what is also referred to as "70 year leases" in the Western press

 

Hard Landing Ahead for China’s Local Governments?

 

from the Wall Street Journal

“It’s getting so bad that if (local governments) don’t sell land, they can’t even pay salaries,” . . .

 

“How long can this ‘land fiscal policy’ last? Another five years?” he moaned in front of an audience at a financial forum.

Local governments generally rely on land sales — and taxes on property transactions — for a hefty chunk of their revenues. That often makes them a reliable friend of property developers and makes them more than a little eager to eager to sell off land.

 

. . .

 

Economists have called for broad reforms of China’s fiscal policies by giving local governments more authority in setting taxes, and allowing them to expand trial projects setting annual taxes on property values, rather than just property sales.

 

Maybe on to the next revenue stream, traffic tickets.

[Randy W]

 

The constant push for more land sales ensures lots of development projects – some of them of questionable economic value. It supports an economic growth model that relies on investment for economic growth, and has been widely criticized as one that won’t be sustainable over the longer term. And it often leads to forced evictions of farmers or urban residents to make way for development projects, at times endangering social stability.

[tsap seui]

Yeah baby, more traffic tickets like some counties in Virginia have along route 29. Heck they support themselves just with traffic tickets there. Then they could charge real estate taxes and school taxes for property owners each year. Enforce jaywalking, my Gawd, with a billion plus people most of whom jaywalk....why, jes look at the revenue stream.

 

Even before I went to Chinatucky I always had this goofy idea in my hed that they would look at our mistakes and not make them all over again.....big whoop, their leaders are as dumb as ours. It's like monkey see, monkey do.

 

I reckon this begs the question....Is there something inherently built in to capitalism that makes people in power do stupid things?

 

And yeah, get rid of all them farmers and tillable land...that'll surely fix everything....well, at least it will trade off today's problem for another one tomorrow.

 

Well boyz, have a happy Sequester Day....throw another log on the ol' campfire and sing along with me.......happy days are here to stay. We ought to make today a national holiday and give everybody an annual day off.....er....ha....wait a minute on that thought, lots of fed workers will already have the day off.. Silly me.

 

tsap seui

Edited March 1, 2013 by tsap seui (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

Taking another page from the west, anual property taxes based on assesed value. And of course who determines what the value is?