Two Typical Associations in M County, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province

For a long time, the hidden operation details of the guild were not known to ordinary people. This paper reveals this gray veil through the investigation of two typical trade associations in M County, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. According to a recent meeting list of a town in M county, the starting time of the meeting is March 2004 10, and the recess time is September 2006 10. Its specific name is "Bang".

This "gang" is a typical fixed interest association, and the members who make money in the current period need to pay the fixed interest agreed in advance. The receiving sequence number and cycle of each member are determined according to the lottery and negotiation procedures. * * * There are 1 meeting leaders and 15 members. Conventionally, the person in charge of the meeting does not participate in the queue, that is, it does not appear under "serial number/duration".

Each member pays RMB 2,000 per installment and once every two months, and each member pays fixed interest of RMB 65,438+050 to those who earn the principal and interest of the current period from the next installment after their income. In the end, 1 members don't have to pay the fixed interest of 150 yuan because they have no home afterwards. Only 2,000 yuan is required for each installment, and no fixed interest is required 150 yuan.

Although the person in charge of the meeting "gets the water first, then gets the water" without paying interest, he must bear the corresponding responsibilities:

First of all, in each period, the head of the delegation must arrange to collect the club money on time and deliver the principal and interest of the club money to the members who should receive the club money in that period.

Second, once a member defaults (for whatever reason) and fails to pay the club money on time, the club leader must pay the club money in time, so that there will be a creditor-debtor relationship between the club leader and the defaulting member, not the relationship between the current member who should pay the club money and the defaulting member. The person in charge of the meeting shall bear unlimited responsibility for prepaid meeting fees.

Generally speaking, the leaders of the meeting are people who enjoy a good reputation in the local area or people with better family economic conditions. Under normal circumstances, the leaders and members of the association generally know each other and have close popularity, geography and blood ties. Trust is the foundation of establishing cooperative alliance. If the person in charge of the meeting, Guo Ye, is the proprietress of a private enterprise, the family has a good reputation in the local area and belongs to a "trustworthy" family. Members are also neighbors, relatives and friends in the same town or employees in the same unit.

In this case, most members use the club money they receive for production and business purposes, a few members join the club for consumer needs, such as children's education, building a house and getting married, and some members just earn interest through savings.

The more people come at the end of the collection period, the more interest they get, but the longer they take the risk of possible changes. People in front of the queue are generally in urgent need of money, so they are willing to get the money from the club as soon as possible and pay the fixed interest of 150 yuan to the members of the current club in each subsequent period.

For example, the14th member didn't receive the membership fee principal of RMB 30,000 until September 10, 2006. At that time, the chairman and other 14 members will each pay her a principal of RMB 2,000 (that is, RMB 30,000 = 15 *2000). In addition, all the last members except the club leaders (the technical term in Taiwan Province Province is "dead club" members, that is, members who have already received membership fees) have to pay them fixed interest of 150 yuan, with a total interest of 2 100 yuan (15 people * 150 yuan).

Another example is the second member, who received money from the club on July 10, 2004 to repay the seawall farming loan for her husband. Although she got a total of 30,000 yuan from the club director and other 14 members, she could only get the interest payment of 150 yuan from the last member. The price is that she must pay the principal of 2,000 yuan and interest 150 yuan in each subsequent installment.

Is this connection usury? Through calculation, we can find that the one-year interest rate is 2.4%, which is far lower than the legal bank loan interest rate of 5.3 1% stipulated by the central bank in the current period. This is a standard bidding meeting-"mutual aid meeting". The rules of this bidding meeting are: from September 25th, 2000 to May 25th, 2002, ***2 1 person. Dong Gen, who attends the meeting for the first time, pays RMB 1 000 per person per month, and the payment time is set at 25th of each month. The bid opening time is set at 3:00 pm on the 25th of each month. The highest bidder wins the bid, and the overtime will be at his own risk.

After winning the bid each time, the person in charge of the first meeting (meeting) will write the winning interest into the meeting list, and the winning bidder will sign to indicate the principal amount obtained and agree to pay the winning interest for each subsequent period. The winning bidder only needs to pay 1000 yuan as the principal every month before winning the bid.

The leaders and members of the "Mutual Aid Association" initiated and joined for the purpose of productive financing. The meeting leaders and members are all relatives and friends. Among them, the first niece of the meeting 1 joined the hexapod meeting. The highest actual winning interest is 178 yuan, which occurs in the 8th period (except the first meeting), and the lowest is 0 yuan, which occurs in the 9th and 20th periods (see Table 2).

From the practical point of view, the highest winning interest is 178 yuan, and the lowest is 0. The annual simple net rate of return varies greatly among members. For example, the annual simple net rate of return of the eighth bid winner is -2.94%, which means that the simple net annual interest rate paid to members is 2.94%. However, the annual simple net return rate of the winning bidder 19 and the 20th is 48%, indicating that the net interest is positive, and the annual simple net interest rate is 8.48%, which is higher than the legal ordinary bank deposit interest rate and the legal ordinary bank loan interest rate in China, but lower than the illegal lending interest rate ("usury") stipulated in the Supreme People's Court.