翻译Bank：Capital punishment

Bank: Capital punishment
The latest global capital rules to make banks safer are sensible. Much else that regulators are doing is not.最新国际上保障银行安全的资金规制是合乎情理的，而往往许多监管人员的举措却并不如愿。

GIVEN how many things went wrong at banks during the financial crisis, it is not surprising that regulators have come up with several new rules to set them to rights. 想想金融危机时期多少银行出过差错，监管人员采取相应新规，对症下药，便也不足为奇。

On November 10th the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body charged with avoiding future crises, unveiled yet another test banks will have to pass—the fifth so far. 11月10日，国际防控金融危机组织——金融稳定局，揭示了另一项银行必须通过的测验，是目前为止的第五项测验。

At the same time Mark Carney, the head of the FSB and governor of the Bank of England, declared that these measures, if taken together and implement ed properly, would “substantially complete the job ”of “fixing the fault lines” that led to the crash. 与此同时，金融稳定局首领兼英格兰银行总裁马克·坎尼称，如果同时合理执行这些措施，或许可以修复导致金融体系崩溃的这一失误。

Broadly speaking, he is right. The alphabet soup of rules devised in recent years makes it much harder for banks to be run in the risky manner that was all too common before 2007. 广义上而言，他是对的。

近些年来修订的按字母顺序排列的众多条条框框使得银行运营难度、风险加大，这种冒险的行为，在2007年之前是很常见的。

New liquidity requirements prevent them from borrowing money on fickle overnight markets while lending it on for 30 years, the practice that felled Northern Rock, the first British bank to fail during the crisis. 新的资金变现要求规定，杜绝银行向变化莫测的夜间市场借贷，除非持续借出30年，这项措施导致了英国首家银行——北岩银行在金融危机期间的倒闭。

New rules on capital, including the one unveiled by Mr Carney this week, will force banks to have a decent safety buffer so that tiny changes in the value of their assets do not cast them automatically into the arms of the state. 这些关乎资金运转的新规定，包括坎尼先生本周推出的那一条，有为银行提供一个安全的良性缓冲，以便资产总价上轻微的变动不至于自动的将他们纳入国家的保御体制当中。

Better yet, the latest measure ensures that if a bank's shareholders are wiped out there will in future be an additional tier of investors standing between failure and a taxpayer-funded bail-out. 然而更好的是，这项最新的措施可以保证将来一个银行股东的垮台足以提供契机，吸引那些要么失败、要么领取政府财政援助的投资者。

“Total loss-absorbing capacity”, in the regulatory argot, will soon include not just the money invested by shareholders, but also that lent by bondholders, most of whom avoided any losses during the crisis thanks to government bail-outs. “总体资金亏损恢复力”，用监管人员的行话来说，将很快涵盖不光是股份持有者的资金，而且包括债券持有者的借贷资金，多亏了政府的紧急财政救援，让大部分人在金融危机时期避免亏损。

It is the centre piece of the FSB's efforts to make sure that no bank is “too big to fail” (see article). 这也是金融稳定局的工作重心，确保了银行间的势均力敌，没有一家银行能够力挽狂澜。

This extra capital is all-important. Before 2007, some banks had such a thin loss-absorbing cushion that a 2% fall in the value of their assets put them out of business. 这笔额外的资金是十分重要的。

在2007年以前，一些银行只有很浅薄的亏损恢复能力，资产总价下跌了2%便足以将他们逐出金融市场。

Imposing losses on their creditors involved long and uncertain lawsuits, and so was seldom attempted during moments of crisis. Instead, to stop the panic spreading, governments resorted to bail-outs. 若把亏损转移到债权人身上，又会牵扯进时间冗长、胜算难定的法律诉讼，因此金融危机时很少有人这样尝试。

Under the new dispensation, however, “systemically important” banks should be able to endure a 20% fall in the value of their assets before placing panicky calls to the central bank. 然而这项新的补偿政策足以先让“核心系统型级别”的银行承受住20%的资产总价亏损，届时再请求中央银行提供紧急援助。

The need to hold more capital makes banks less profitable—but that is no bad thing: the mammoth profits they made in the boom years were predicated on the subsidy they were receiving in the form of implicit government backing. 掌握更多资金的需求使得银行更难收益，但这也未尝是件坏事：很多银行在鼎盛时期的巨额收益很大程度上取决于得到了政府隐性的资金援助。

It may also make them shrink, since one way to raise capital relative to assets is to hold fewer assets. That, too, is for the best, as long as people and businesses can find other ways to borrow. Relying more on stock- and bond-issuance would enable the economy to be financed at much less risk to the taxpayer. 这种补助也会让他们资产回缩，因为增加资产的方法之一就是持有更少的资产。

那样也会尽善尽美，只要人们和企业找到各自借贷的其余方式。

更多地依赖股票或债券会降低纳税人投资金融市场的风险。