Be careful not to be deceived by the press  千万别被媒体欺骗

The other day two pieces of conspicuous news appeared in newspapers and the internet. One of them was that the Development and Reform Committee was considering turning the housing market loose. The committee immediately rebuked the press for making the rumor. The next day another rumor was made up and came onto the stage. It said that the center bank informed the commercial banks urgently urging them to loan money to the first house-buyers with thirty percent off interest rate. In fact, it was not what new news at all. The center bank has been urging the commercial banks to do so but the banks disregarded the order. Then the center bank asserted that its notice didn’t have any relationship with the property control.

During the property control war there are two sides. One is the center government and those house-buyers-to-be who want to buy houses at lower price. The other is the local governments and developers and speculators in the housing market. We may call the center government as the right party and the local governments the wrong party.

Every time it is the wrong party that makes trouble and waves to probe tentatively the bottom-line of the right party. It is really infighting between the center government and the local governments. There is no unanimous opinion at all. The center government expounds that the overpriced housing may endanger the economy. The local governments don’t listen to the center government on the quiet. They always play dirty tricks.

We don’t know why the center government dare not do up those disobedient local governments arbitrarily and purposefully. Maybe the center government feels dilemma. Sometimes it is as mute as a fish when some local governments rant to allay or even repel the property control. It coerces my mind into thinking of that the center government is kidnapped by the local governments. Of course, the center government is usually in the driver’s seat. When it is indignant at the local governments, the latter’s heads droops forward otherwise their ass may be broken.

However, the local governments’ undermining is implacable. As long as they have a chance they endorse the developers. When they dare not defy the center government openly, they make use of the press to spread rumors. Recently there were many coot house-buyers who were deceived by the press and believed that the property control had been loosed.

Although China’s economy has encountered a knotty and ticklish hitch because of the property control, the center government dare not bail out the developers as they are like tigers in the cages. China’s economic engine must be changed from the real estate to emerging industries otherwise the economy will go into a blind alley. If we let the house price go on rising, the housing bubble will be as large as it can. The bubble must rupture sooner or later and it must be a calamity to China’s economy. If we connive at those developers, it is just as if we have drunk poisonous wine to quench thirst.

The press is generally audacious and brazens it out uttering bosh or bullshit. The reporters’ aim is to arrest the public attention at all costs. They always start with a lie and then replace it with another lie.