Questions of equity

　　公平问题和股权问题

　　Sep 25th 2008

　　From The Economist print edition

　　Salary caps are a rotten idea; but the crisis also carries lessons for regulators and workers

　　薪酬限制是个极糟糕的主意;但是这场危机也给监管者和工作者都上了一课

　　IT IS easy to understand why many in Congress and beyond have demanded salary caps on bank executives as a condition of approving the Bush administration’s bail-out of the financial system. After all, many of the people who will be leading the effort to get the banks back on their feet were the very same masters of the universe whose greed and myopia brought the industry to its knees in the first place. Nonetheless the lawmakers’ apparent decision to impose some form of still unspecified wage limit, a demand reluctantly accepted by Hank Paulson and the Bush administration this week, is a mistake.

　　为何众多国会议员和广大群众都要求将银行高管的薪酬限制作为批准布什政府金融救援计划的一个条件呢?这个很好理解。毕竟，尽管是这些银行高管将要用他们的力量来帮这些银行摆脱困境，恢复原样。而正是由于这些曾是世界霸主的银行高管的贪婪和短视，首先将整个行业拖入泥淖。尽管如此，立法者这个强制限制薪酬–本周被保尔森和布什政府勉强接受–也是个错误的决定。

　　Just now, it is a struggle to keep a straight face when you read the words “talent” and “Wall Street” in the same sentence. And yet, precisely because it is in a mess, the financial system will need decent managers if it is to return to the health that benefits the rest of the economy. The sort of sums that would satisfy Congress as a cap may be far above the incomes of average Americans, but there is no surer way of driving finance offshore or into hedge funds where it is beyond the gaze of regulators. Besides, if ever there was a time when pay in banking and broking is likely to be depressed by the market, it is now. The bubble did not only inflate asset prices, it also inflated pay. Now the bubble has burst and hundreds of thousands of finance professionals want work.

　　刚才，当你在同一个句子里读到”人才”和”华尔街”这些词的时候，会努力控制自己不要笑出声来。可是，恰恰由于其正处困境，金融系统要想恢复健康进而使其余经济部分也从中获益，必须要有优秀的经理人。国会满意的薪酬上限应该比美国人平均收入要高的多，但是并不能保证那些金融资本不会转移到离岸金融公司或者对冲基金，在那里不必担心金融监管者的监视。此外，现在正是银行和经纪业由于市场疲软而薪酬低迷的时候。以前的泡沫不仅膨胀了资产的价格，同时也膨胀了薪酬。现在泡沫破裂了，成千上万的金融专业人士在寻找工作。

　　American politicians have a lamentable record of intervening in setting executive pay. In the early years of the Clinton administration, Congress imposed a salary cap of $1m, beyond which firms faced a tax penalty. Pay rose, as one set of executives, beneath the cap, realised that they were “underpaid” and another set gained from an outpouring of creativity, as consultants invented myriad option schemes, perks and pension benefits to get around the limit. This only made it harder for shareholders to know who was getting what.

　　美国政客在干预高管薪酬设定上曾经有段不愉快的历史。在克林顿政府早期，国会将高管薪酬强制定在100万美元，超过这个数字将会受到税收惩罚。于是，对于高管来说有就一套低于那个最高限制薪酬标准。薪酬提高了，一部分高管，意识到薪酬限制让他们受到”剥削”了，而另外一部分人通过创新方式，作为公司顾问发明出诸多的期权计划，补助，养老津贴等等来绕过薪酬限制。这么做的唯一结果就是让股东更难知道那些高管拿多少薪酬了。

　　If the foolishness of Congress setting corporate pay levels is an old lesson, the financial crisis is teaching some new ones to shareholders. First, forget the received wisdom that paying people in large amounts of shares in their own firm ensures they take sensible value-maximising decisions. In the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, the management did not just take reckless gambles with other people’s money. Dick Fuld and Jimmy Cayne took reckless gambles with their own-and still they failed to do the right things and ended up losing most of their fortunes. Outside shareholders should remember that loading up the people at the top with shares can be an aid to corporate governance, but not a substitute for it.

　　如果国会愚蠢地设定公司的薪酬是个老教训，那么这场金融危机正在给股东带来一个新的教训。首先，不要相信广为认可的论断–给那些经理人大量本公司的股份就能保证使他们做出利益最大化的决定。在雷曼和贝尔斯登倒台中我们可以看到，那些管理层不仅仅是拿着别人钱的在鲁莽赌徒。迪克福德和杰米凯恩还是拿着自己的钱来鲁莽地下赌注，但最终他们都未能做出正确的抉择从而失掉了其绝大部分的财产。处于管理层外的股东要牢记，给那些管理者以股票只能对其管理有帮助，但是并不能代替公司管理。

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