伦敦金融城蚕食华尔街地位

“London is a real competitor to New York,” said Michael Bloomberg, the outgoing New York mayor, on Sunday – and not for the first time.

“伦敦是纽约的真正竞争对手，”即将卸任的纽约市长迈克尔?布隆伯格(Michael Bloomberg)最近表示。他已经不是第一次这么说了。

With his pro-Wall Street policies under threat from a more leftwing successor, Mr Bloomberg has been warning that the other capital of global finance could seize more ground from its US rival.

由于更为左翼的继任者将威胁到自己的亲华尔街政策，布隆伯格一直警告称，作为另一大全球金融中心的伦敦将进一步蚕食华尔街的地位。

“You’ve got to keep making your society open and you’ve got to keep providing opportunities,” he told CNN.

“必须保持社会开放，必须不断提供机会，”他对美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)表示。

Just last week, the UK embraced three US financial phenomena that are now regarded with scepticism on this side of the Atlantic: bad banks; mortgage guarantees; and closer ties to JPMorgan. Should New York be worried? Or should London?

就在两周前，英国对来自美国的三种金融现象敞开怀抱，但这些概念如今在美国受到质疑：坏账银行、抵押贷款担保和加强与摩根大通(JPMorgan)的关系。该担心的是纽约还是伦敦？

Of the three phenomena, the least controversial was the decision to create an internal “bad bank” at Royal Bank of Scotland to house the crisis-era assets that stymied its recovery.

三种现象中最无可非议的是苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)决定设立内部“坏账银行”，接纳阻碍其复苏的危机时期资产。

Citigroup did this more than four years ago – and has since sold down the portfolio so that it represents only 6 per cent of the balance sheet and is close to profitability. The question is why it took RBS so long. Citi went through the same financial crisis, suffered from a similar near-death experience and even owned some of the same toxic mortgage assets.

4年多前，花旗集团(Citigroup)曾经这样做过。之后它出售了部分危机时期的资产，余下部分现仅占集团资产负债表的6%，并且接近盈利。问题是，RBS为何花了这么久才建立坏账银行？花旗经历了同样的金融危机，遭遇了相似的“濒死”体验，甚至拥有相同类型的不良抵押贷款资产。

For all the endless hand-wringing that preceded the RBS decision, Citi has shown that the move is not life changing: there is no magic way of making the bad assets vanish. The only hope is that the process encourages the bank to get rid of the bad stuff faster, while fooling investors into concentrating on only the “good” part of the business.

尽管在RBS决定开设坏账银行之前，人们经历了无休无止的绝望，但花旗的经验表明，开设坏账银行并非扭转乾坤之举：没有什么灵丹妙药能让不良资产自己消失。唯一的希望是，在哄骗投资者只关注RBS“好”的一面的同时，此举能促进该行更快地甩掉不良资产。

It is difficult to see this tactic working in other contexts. Imagine walking into a branch of RBS or Citi seeking a loan, pointing out that you have shifted a mountain of your existing credit card debt to the “bad” part of your balance sheet and asking the manager to focus on the “good” bit. But it did help Citi underscore that there was a functioning business buried under the trash.

这种策略很难在其他情景下奏效。试想：你走进RBS或花旗的一家分行寻求贷款，言明你已经将堆成山的现有信用卡债务转移到了资产负债表的“不良”部分，要求信贷经理只关注“好”的部分。但在这种做法的帮助下，花旗确实强化了一种印象：在一团糟的局面下，还埋藏着一家正常运转的企业。

Second, the UK has introduced “Help to Buy” – a government mortgage guarantee scheme, used for the first time last week.

第二，英国推出了“购房援助计划”(Help to Buy)。这项政府抵押贷款担保计划两周前首次投入使用。

So, at the same time as RBS adopts Citi’s solution to the problem of bad mortgage securities, the UK is also adopting the US system that helped create the problem in the first place.

因此，在RBS仿效花旗的做法解决不良抵押贷款证券问题时，英国也在采纳美国的机制，尽管正是这一机制当初在美国促成危机。

The US government has been helping people to buy houses for decades – through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, institutions that guarantee home loans against default. Their role in stoking the crisis by helping people with low deposits buy houses they could not afford is raw in the US. But the UK is adopting its scheme amid worries about a new housing bubble.

美国几十年来一直在帮助人们买房，房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)两家机构为住房贷款提供违约担保。“两房”帮助存款不足的人们购买他们承担不起的住房，在促成美国危机中所起的作用显而易见。但英国却在对新一轮房地产泡沫的担忧中实行类似计划。

Again, the timing looks odd – but then the US has been paralysed by how to replace Fannie and Freddie for five years, ever since they came close to collapse in the financial crisis.

还是那句话，英国对时机的选择令人费解。但“两房”在金融危机中几近倒闭，在之后5年里，如何替代它们的问题一直令美国无所适从。

Despite the anger – mainly from Republicans – at their vast government bailouts in 2008, there is still no firm proposal to close down Fannie and Freddie. It is easy to say the government should pull back from housing; but harder to do so when it still supports 90 per cent of the market during a fragile recovery.

尽管2008年政府对“两房”的大规模纾困引发愤怒（主要来自共和党人），但迄今仍没有关闭“两房”的切实提议。让政府撤出房地产说起来容易做起来难，因为在脆弱的复苏期间，它仍支撑着90%的市场。

And the third of the US phenomena to cross the Atlantic is embracing JPMorgan Chase. In the US, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the bank, is in negotiations with the Department of Justice to pay a record $13bn penalty to settle allegations it mis-sold mortgage securities. JPMorgan is the subject of multiple investigations by different law enforcement agencies, some of them criminal in nature.

第三个漂洋过海来到英国的现象是向摩根大通示好。摩根大通首席执行官杰米?戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)正与美国司法部(US Department of Justice)谈判，将支付创纪录的130亿美元罚金，了结关于抵押贷款证券不当销售的指控。摩根大通是多家执法机构调查的对象，其中一部分是刑事调查。

At a recent meeting of chief executives at the White House, participants said Mr Dimon was sensitive to the fact he was in the doghouse – abandoning his customary combativeness and sitting meekly in the corner.

近期多家公司的首席执行官在白宫会晤。与会者称戴蒙敏感地注意到他受到的冷遇——他没有了惯常的好斗本性，只是温和地坐在一角。

But, last week, Mr Dimon was feted by Prince Andrew at Buckingham Palace, by Boris Johnson, the London mayor, and by George Osborne, the UK chancellor.

但两周前，戴蒙却在白金汉宫受到安德鲁王子(Prince Andrew)的接见，并与伦敦市长鲍里斯?约翰逊(Boris Johnson)和英国财相乔治?奥斯本(George Osbourne)会晤。

His London hosts required no such bashfulness – despite the fact that JPMorgan’s troubles began with the “London whale” trading debacle and now range from allegations of manipulating commodities markets to investigations into hiring practices in Asia.

伦敦的东道主们可不需要戴蒙表现得这么局促，尽管摩根大通的麻烦始于“伦敦鲸”(London whale)交易丑闻，而目前已经扩大——摩根大通现在既面对操纵大宗商品市场的指控，又受到对它在亚洲招聘行为的调查。

“The US gave us JPMorgan, we gave you Piers Morgan, and the UK got the better deal,” Mr Johnson said at a dinner, according to Politico. Well, perhaps. The real threat to Wall Street is the same as it ever was: the potential that the City of London is more open, less judgmental, with a climate of sunny optimism. But that’s the risk for London, too.

据Politico网站消息，约翰逊在晚宴上称：“美国给了我们摩根大通，我们给了美国皮尔斯?摩根(Piers Morgan)，占便宜的是英国。”或许是这样。华尔街面临的真正威胁与过去并无不同：伦敦金融城(City of London)可能变得更加开放、较少指手画脚，同时洋溢着阳光乐观的气息。但这同样是伦敦的风险所在。