FT社评：金融业竞争太少

The Occupy movement has never wanted for celebrity backers, whether the actress Susan Sarandon or the academic Noam Chomsky. However, the protesters who camped in Wall Street and the City of London last year probably never envisaged a central banker offering support for their message.

“占领运动从来不缺名人支持者，比如女演员苏珊·萨兰登(Susan Sarandon)或学者诺姆·乔姆斯基(Noam Chomsky)。不过，去年在华尔街和伦敦金融城安营扎寨的抗议者可能从未想到，央行官员也会支持他们的主张。

Yet even this has now come to pass. In a speech on Monday, Andrew Haldane, a senior official at the Bank of England, expressed sympathy for Occupy’s claim that the global financial system was broken. He also praised the protesters for their analysis: at the root of the financial crisis, Mr Haldane agreed, lay problems of deep and rising inequality.

但现在真的就发生了这样的事。英国央行(BoE)高级官员安德鲁·霍尔丹(Andrew Haldane)周一表示，他支持“占领运动关于全球金融体系已混乱不堪的主张。他还称赞了抗议者的分析：本次金融危机的根源在于不平等现象严重且日益加剧。

There is something to be said for such a display of freethinking by a top BoE official. Whatever one thinks of the tactics or objectives of the Occupy movement, its critique of the pre-crunch system was at least in part spot on. The rewards offered by the financial sector were excessive and encouraged its overexpansion. This not only created an unstable system that ultimately had to be rescued by taxpayers; it also caused long- term economic damage by diverting talent and funding away from research-intensive sectors. Repairing this neglect will take years.

英国央行的高官能够展现出这样的自由思想，值得说道说道。不管人们对于“占领运动的策略或目标看法如何，这场运动对危机前金融体系提出的批评，至少在一定程度上是切中要害的。金融业提供的奖励过多，助长了该行业的过度扩张。这不仅催生出一套不稳定的体系、最终要由纳税人出手救援，还对经济造成了长期破坏，因为它分流走了研究密集型行业的人才和资金。弥补这个疏漏要花费多年时间。

Mr Haldane could perhaps have larded his praise with some criticism. Occupy was wrong to assert that inequality is an inevitable consequence of free-market capitalism, for instance. The too-big-to-fail institutions that populated pre-crisis banking were the opposite of what free markets should beget. But perhaps, as the movement’s guest, Mr Haldane felt it would be impolite to point this out.

霍尔丹的称赞之中或许夹杂着一些批评。比方说，“占领运动错误地断言，不平等是自由市场资本主义的必然结果。危机前银行业充斥的“大到不能倒机构，与自由市场应该产生的结果背道而驰。不过，作为“占领运动的“客人，霍尔丹或许觉得指出这一点有些失礼。

He did, however, enumerate ways in which policy makers are seeking to make the system work better, whether by tightening capital requirements, or ring fencing investment banking arms off from retail subsidiaries. Boldly, he even suggested that the repair of the system was an endeavour in which central bankers and Occupy were jointly engaged.

不过，他还是枚举了一些政策制定者用以改善金融体系的办法，例如收紧资本金要求，或把投资银行部门与零售银行部门隔离开来。他甚至大胆建议，要修复金融体系，央行官员与“占领运动应携手努力。

Whether the reforms announced to date will be sufficient is moot, as Mr Haldane admitted. Capital requirements may need to be higher, and separation of retail and investment banking more firmly enforced.

霍尔丹承认，迄今宣布的改革措施，力度是否到位尚无定论。可能有必要进一步提高资本金要求，更加坚定地隔离零售银行与投资银行业务。

Most importantly, too little has been done to increase competition. While there have been new entrants, these are too small. Without more competition, big banks will have little incentive to change their business model. Even Occupy would agree this is no salutary outcome.

最重要的是，为加强竞争而采取的行动少之又少。虽然不乏新入行者，但它们的规模实在太校如果不加大竞争，大银行就没有什么动力去转变商业模式。就连“占领运动也会认同这种结果没有好处。