where the money gone

Two news items developed overnight that caught my eyes. I was
wondering the same things and sure enough....

First thing. With all the lands being auctioned off by the city here,
how much is the deposit each real estate developer must put down in
the gov't bank account before participating. And if a participant not
successfully bid for a piece of the auctioned land, will he receive
the original sum plus interest earned from that "gov't bank account"?
Ha, I got the answer. Fro the first half of the year, this "interest"
amount sitting in the "gov't controlled" bank account has accumulated
over RMB 2,000 million. The city officials were mum as to what to do
with this amount. "Do we need to connect the dot or draw pictures
where this amount" could potentially be "used"? I caught this news
article from official sanctioned online newspaper. It indicates a
signal that "someone is watching you".

Second, Grosvenor have sold all the apartments they owned since 2007
during the height of the real estate market. At that time, they were
buying parking spaces and apartments for about 60,000RMB per sq
meter. Last year, that price dropped to about 40,000RMB per sq
meter. Now, they were sold for close to 100,000RMB per sq meter. 25
units and 25 parking spaces. http://www.lakevilleregency.com.cn/en/index.htm
. And the buyers were all mainland Chinese. "Suckers"? Or there is
that much $. I suspect the market was driven up by the big players
and then dump at high price and leave. Now, who's holding the bags?
Can't see the apartments at a lower price in the future because the
apartments were bought at six digits per sq meter. Chinese do not
like to sell things at a loss. So they will hold them and then try to
rent them out. If rent out, how much to charge to make the mortgage?
Not everyone can buy with cash. Ummm.... So buy high by the Chinese
and buy higher... A Japanese-style 90's problem? Morgan Stanley has
sold off all of its holding in Shanghai this year with a fat profit.
These big companies screwed the market up, pocket fat profits and
leave town. Sounds like a WWW here. I don't see the market will go
down in the next year. I see a severe inflation coming the "economic
progress" is not in check.

In two years, the same restaurant we ate at, the price went up by 20%
but the portion of the dishes has shrunk by about 15%. Normally, we
could have 3 dishes for RMB 70 or so two years ago, now RMB 105 to
125; that is after member discount.