To celebrate the second anniversary of the fall of Lehman, the mountain of Basel has laboured mightily and brought forth a mouse. Needless to say, the banking industry will insist the mouse is a tiger about to gobble up the world economy. Such special pleading – of which this pampered industry is a master – should be ignored: withdrawing incentives for reckless behaviour is not a cost to society; it is costly to the beneficiaries. The latter must not be confused with the former. The world needs a smaller and safer banking industry. The defect of the new rules is that they will fail to deliver this.
为庆祝雷曼(Lehman)破产两周年，巴塞尔(Basel)这座大山竭尽全力地分娩了一只老鼠。不消说，银行业将坚称，这不是一只老鼠，而是一只将吞噬manbetx app苹果 manbetx20客户端下载 的猛虎。对于被惯坏了的银行业所擅长的这种诡辩，我们不应理睬：撤销对鲁莽行为的激励不会让社会付出代价；付出代价的是受益者。两者不应混淆。manbetx app苹果 需要一个规模更小、更安全的银行业。巴塞尔新规定的缺憾在于，它将无法实现这一目标。