A chill in the boardroom

经济学人

chill in the boardroom会议室里的一股寒气Dec 10th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print editionBusiness lobbyists complain that a regulatory tsunami is on its way. But some firms are embracing the proposed reforms商业游说议员抱怨一场监管海啸正在到来。然而一些公司拥戴被提议的改革“WHEN people hear the word regulation, they feel stifled, delayed, and many times they believe that government is being intrusive,” said Hilda Solis, America’s labour secretary, on December 7th as she unveiled plans for 90 new regulatory initiatives to improve the lot of workers. If you doubt her word, try mentioning regulation to the boss of an American company. Then stand back and wait for the inevitable explosion.

经济学人

12 月7 日，当美国劳工部长希尔达 索利斯宣布90 条改善广大工人状况的监管倡议时，她说：“当人们听到监管这个词时，他们感觉令人窒息的，滞后的并且认为政府常 常很冒昧。”如果你怀疑她的话，试着向美国的一家公司老板提起监管，然后你就可以靠后站等待不可避免的爆炸了。Stifled, delayed and intruded upon are the least of the complaints you hear from America’s bosses these days. Their list of grouses includes ever-increasing regulation, stricter corporate-governance standards and the threat of higher taxes in response to the ballooning deficit. This week the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it considered carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant, raising the spectre of clumsy administrative measures to reduce emissions—a prospect even more terrifying to business than the cap-and-trade scheme currently under consideration in Congress. Meanwhile, hopes of business-friendly reforms to America’s convoluted corporate-tax regime, among other things, have fallen by the wayside.窒息的， 滞后的和冒昧的的评价是这几天你听到的来自美国老板的最少的抱怨。 他们的牢骚清单还包括不断增加的监管， 更加严格的公司监管标准以及高涨的赤字引发的更 高关税的威胁。 环境保护局本周宣称他们认为二氧化碳是一种危险的污染物， 增添了笨拙的减排管理措施的凶兆—一个对商业甚至比目前正在国会讨论中的限额交易计划更有威 胁的前景。同时，除了别的以外，对美国复杂的企业税机制的亲商改革的希望也已经落空。That said, bosses’ feelings about regulatory overkill are much more nuanced than excitable business lobbyists and outraged Republican politicians suggest. “The concern is pervasive but rather amorphous in the sense that different executives have very different worries,” says Joe Grundfest, a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who now runs a “boot camp” at Stanford University for corporate directors. “Some fret over tax policy. Others

经济学人

agonise over cap-and-trade, or health-care reform. Many worry about additional corporate-governance regulations. It’s a smorgasbord of corporate neuroses out there.”那就是说， 老板们对监管杀伤力的感觉大大地区别于易激动的商业游说议员和愤怒的共和党政客所提起的。 现在， 在斯坦福大学为董事们经营“海军营地”的前证劵交易委员会 成员Joe Grundfest 说：“从不同的主管有不同的担忧这种意义上说，担忧无处不在但是相当模糊。一些人担忧税收政策，其他一些人担忧限额交易证策或是卫生保健改革。很 多人担忧额外的公司监管规章。在这里，呈现出的是一个多脉系组合式的大杂烩。Corporate opinion on all these issues is pided. Ms Solis’s campaign on labour is a case in point. Her colleagues at the Department of Labour make it clear that they intend to be more active than their predecessors from the administration of George W. Bush, much as the Department of Justice has promised to be more aggressive in its enforcement of antitrust laws. This will surely increase the overall cost of employing people, undermining Barack Obama’s goal of creating lots of new jobs in the private sector. Yet as Ms Solis points out, the goal of her initiative is in large part to create a level playing field by obliging firms that flout the rules, thereby gaining an unfair advantage over their law-abiding peers, to shape up. Moreover, even at a time of high unemployment, plenty of bosses feel that a reduction in the number of jobs that endanger the health of those who do them would be no bad thing.市政当局对于所有这些问题的意见是有分歧的。索利斯小姐的劳工运动正好是个例证。她的劳工部同僚们解释到，他们计划比他们的乔治 沃克 布什政府领导下的前任们 起到更加积极的作用，尽管司法部已承诺更加严格地执行反托拉斯法。雇佣工人势必会增加总成本—这一观点渐渐侵蚀着巴拉克 奥巴马在私营部门创造更多新的工作的目标。

经济学人

然而正像索利斯小姐指出的， 她的倡议的目标主要是想通过迫使一些企业守法以创造一个公平的竞技场—这些企业轻视法规从而获得了他们遵纪守法的同行所没有的优势， 进而 顺利发展。再者，即使是在高失业的同时，大量的老板仍感到即使裁员对那些这样做的企业来说不是坏事，但是工作的减少仍危害了他们的健康。A more vigorous antitrust regime will create winners as well as losers. If done well—admittedly a big if—the result could be a more competitive economy that allows smaller, newer firms a fairer shout against sluggish monopolies. Likewise, although there have been plenty of shrill voices complaining that health-care reform will set America on the path to socialism, many business bigwigs, including Jeff Immelt of General Electric and Howard Schultz of Starbucks, have described the current health system as a drag on America’s competitiveness.一个更加有力的反垄断政治制度既创造出胜利者也创造出失败者。 如果做得好—如果是公认的大步提高， 结果将是一个更高充满竞争的经济体—允许更小的， 更新的公司与 迟钝的垄断体进行公平的竞争。同样地，虽然已经有大量的尖锐的抱怨声说卫生保健医疗改革将把美国引向社会主义道路，但是包括通用电气公司的Jeff Immelt 和星巴克的 Howard Schultz 在内的很多商界要人都把目前的医疗卫生体系看成是影响美国竞争力的累赘。Much the same is true of climate-change legislation, currently becalmed pending health-care reform. The United States Chamber of Commerce, the most venerable of corporate lobbies, had been fierce in its denunciation of proposed cap-and-trade laws. But it has somewhat moderated its rhetoric lately, after four prominent firms (Apple, …… 此处隐藏：7306字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……