奥巴马限薪不明智

　　The Obama administration has finally crossed the executive-pay Rubicon and declared war on Wall Street. A few months ago, President Barack Obama sent mixed signals, initially blasting groups such as AIG that were receiving government aid for paying large bonuses, and later pointing out the need for productive people at these companies to be paid competitive salaries and bonuses, since they could leave for brighter pastures. This, he argued, would not be in the interest of the assisted institutions, the economy or the companies' stockholders (including US taxpayers).
　　奥巴马政府终于在高管薪资问题上破釜沉舟，向华尔街宣战。几个月前，美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)发出了让人喜忧参半的信号，先是抨击接受政府援助的美国国际集团(AIG)等公司支付高额奖金，后来又指出，需要为这些公司中有能力的人支付有竞争力的薪资和奖金，因为他们有可能跳槽。他辩称，这不符合受援机构、美国经济乃至公司股东（包括美国纳税人）的利益。

　　As Robert Lucas, a Nobel Laureate, once famously informed his dean at the University of Chicago: “You don't get to decide my salary, you only get to decide who pays my salary.”
　　正如诺贝尔奖得主罗伯特•卢卡斯(Robert Lucas)曾经对他所在的芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)校长说的名言：“你用不着决定我的薪资，你只需要决定谁给我发工资。”

　　But now the administration has taken a different tack. Mr Obama will cut compensation for the highest-paid 25 employees in the seven companies still receiving government aid (AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial, General Motors, and GMAC) by about 50 per cent and cut cash compensation by 90 per cent.
　　但如今，奥巴马政府选择了一条不同的道路。奥巴马将把仍在接受政府援助的7家公司薪资最高的25名雇员的薪酬减少一半左右，并将其现金薪酬削减90%。这7家公司是美国国际集团、美国银行(Bank of America)、花旗集团(Citigroup)、克莱斯勒(Chrysler)、克莱斯勒金融公司(Chrysler Financial)、通用汽车(General Motors)以及通用汽车金融服务公司(GMAC)。

　　Kenneth Feinberg, the “pay tsar”, will also micromanage the structure of stock bonuses and eliminate perks that he regards as excessive. He has also decided that retention bonuses for other employees at AIG need to be scaled back “to avoid another public uproar over pay packages at the bailed-out company”.
　　此外，被称为“薪酬沙皇”的肯尼斯•费恩伯格(Kenneth Feinberg)将对股票奖金的结构进行微观管理，并取消他认为过分的福利。他还决定，需要减少美国国际集团其他员工的留任奖金，“已避免公众对受援公司薪酬的另一轮怒火”。

　　Just a couple of weeks ago, there were reports the tsar gave his blessing to a pay package worth up to $10.5m (£6.4m, €7m) for Robert Benmosche, AIG's new chief executive. Now it seems he will be exempted from the new pay policies, but almost everyone else at AIG will not. Many people at Bank of America who thought they had a deal just a few weeks ago are finding it has changed. All the pay decisions were made on a case-by-case basis by the tsar, with no explanation or transparency.
　　就在数周前，有报道称，费恩伯格批准了AIG新任首席执行官罗伯特•本默切(Robert Benmosche)高达1050万美元的薪酬方案。目前看起来，本默切将不受新的薪酬政策限制，但其他所有人几乎都将受限。就在几周前，美国银行(Bank of America)的许多员工还认为自己已达成了协议，但现在他们发现情况已然改变。费恩伯格将就所有的薪酬方案逐一做出决定——不做任何解释，也没有透明度。

　　What is driving the timing of this amazing policy change? It is important to differentiate the switch in White House policy from the pay oversight policy announced by the Federal Reserve. Changing the structure of pay to ensure incentives are aligned with risk management makes sense. Compensation is an integral part of risk management and its structure should be subject to regulatory oversight.
　　推动这种惊人政策改变时机的因素是什么？将白宫政策转变与美联储(Fed)宣布的薪酬监督政策区别开来，这一点十分重要。改变薪酬结构，以确保激励与风险管理保持一致的做法很有意义。薪酬是风险管理的一个组成部分，其结构应该接受监管审查。

　　But that has nothing to do with this shift to cut executive pay at the assisted companies. There are two obvious explanations. Polls show Mr Obama's popularity is sliding – he needs to shore up his base and find an issue with broad populist appeal. Executive pay is the most obvious candidate. Many Americans hate big banks and take pleasure in seeing them attacked. Second, the Obama administration appears to be engaging in political payback to silence critics of its financial reform proposals.
　　但这与削减受援公司高管薪酬没有关系。这方面有两个明显的理由。民调显示，奥巴马的支持率正在下降——他需要巩固基础，找出一个具有广泛民粹主义魅力的话题。高管薪酬是最明显不过的选择。许多美国人痛恨大银行，喜欢看到它们遭受攻击。其次，奥巴马政府似乎在进行政治交易，以此让金融改革提议的批评者们噤声。

　　For the record, I support many of the administration's financial reform initiatives, although I think even the good ideas need to be polished and that they have not proposed meaningful reforms for two of the key contributors to the crisis: government housing finance policies that subsidised extreme mortgage risk-taking at the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and the failure by prudential regulators to measure bank risk adequately owing to their reliance on banks' risk models and rating agency opinions.
　　我在此郑重声明，支持政府的许多金融改革举措，尽管我认为即使是好的想法也需要润色。而且对于导致危机的两个关键因素，他们没有提出有意义的改革措施：一是为美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)、房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)极端抵押贷款冒险行为提供补贴的政府住房金融政策；二是由于信赖银行的风险模型和评级机构意见，审慎的监管机构未能充分衡量银行的风险。

　　Whatever the merits of the administration's proposals, we live in a democracy, where lobbying by special interests is how voices are heard and balanced against one another by officials. Lobbyists are not criminals deserving of punishment through the use of the pay-setting executive powers of the president. Indeed, citizens of democracies should be uneasy about appointing “tsars” to decide who gets paid what, and all the more so when those decisions reflect power politics.
　　无论政府的提议多么有益，我们生活在一个民主社会里，特殊利益集团的游说，是官员们听取呼声和加以权衡的方式。游说者不是应该通过动用总统制定薪酬的行政权力而受到惩罚的罪犯。实际上，民主政体的民众应该对任命“沙皇”决定谁获得多少薪酬感到不安——当这些决定反映权力政治时更是如此。

　　We can ill afford to cripple these companies at this key juncture, when managerial skill is so crucial to their getting back on their feet.
　　在这个关键时刻，当管理技巧对于这些公司的稳定如此重要，我们承担不起令这些公司瘫痪的代价。

　　The attack on Wall Street may be smart politics for an embattled administration losing ground with voters and losing support for its financial reform agenda, but it is bad economics. It is also a worrying precedent for our democracy. More than the specific fallout from this bad policy decision, I worry about what it implies about the administration's decision-making more generally as it faces other important economic policy decisions.
　　美国政府目前陷于困境，正丧失选民的支持，其金融改革日程也正失去支持，对它来说，攻击华尔街可能是政治上的明智之举，但从经济上而言十分糟糕。它还为我们的民主开启了一个令人不安的先例。相对于这种糟糕的政策决定所导致的特定后果，我更担心的是，当政府面临其它重要的经济决策时，这对于更广泛意义上的政府决策将意味着什么。

　　The writer is Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School
　　本文作者为哥伦比亚商学院金融学院(Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School)亨利•考夫曼(Henry Kaufman)教授

　　译者/何黎