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Winding down failing banks
隨風而逝的破產銀行
Armageddon delayed
延遲的末日決戰
Throwing sand into the gears of the financial doomsday machine
將沙子混入金融末日的齒輪之中
“WE WILL not kick you when you are down, at least not for a couple of days”: that is the gist of a putative deal struck by 18 global banks this week, which agreed not to pull abruptly out of contracts with each other if one of them hits the buffers. As modest as that may sound, regulators see it as the foundation of a firewall to halt the spread of future financial crises.
“當你快掛了的時候我們是不會欺負你的，至少最近不會”：這是處理本周十八家罷工銀行所奉行的要旨即雙方默認不要唐突的撕毀合同當一方的腳已經踏入緩沖區時。監管者將其視為阻止即將入境金融風暴的防火墻之根基。
The agreement concerns derivatives, contracts whose value “derives” from the performance of an underlying asset such as a share, currency or bond. Banks use them to hedge themselves or speculate, to the chagrin of regulators who dislike how hard they are to value and how easily they can entangle financial institutions in a web of interdependency.
這項協議主要把注意力放在金融衍生品以及那些那些價值取決于諸如股份、貨幣以及債券之類的指定資產之表現的合同上面。銀行利用他們來對沖或者投機，而令監管機構懊惱的是銀行不管多困難都會進行評估價值并且在相互依存的網絡非常容易的就讓金融機構陷入混亂。
If a bank will benefit from invoking its right to demand early settlement of such contracts when a counterparty runs into trouble, it tends to do so, naturally enough. Lehman Brothers discovered this in 2008; bankruptcy lawyers are still untangling the mess. If everyone cuts and runs at once, however, the stricken party has to hand over cash when it can least afford it, deepening the crisis.
如果銀行能在合同方陷入困境有權要求對方提前結款而有所收益的話問題就能迎刃而解，并且這似乎也并非難事。雷曼兄弟在2008年發現了此種方法；但破產律師們仍在為理清這混亂局面而作努力。其實如果每個人都能做到快刀斬亂麻即陷入困境的一方在還負擔的起之時就付款結算，反而會帶來更沉重的危機。
By contrast, a brief stay might give regulators time to right a listing bank, by forcing it to sell off still-healthy units, say. America and Europe have instituted such moratoriums since the crisis, but these do not apply to cross-border deals. Global rules which extend the principle to asset managers and others are in the pipeline.
相比之下，一個簡短的緩沖或許能夠給監管者留出時間來通過強制他們（銀行）賣出依舊完善的那部分挽救上市銀行。自危機以來美國以及歐洲已經創立了延期償付的方案，但這些并不適用于跨境交易。不過全球規則已經逐漸擴展到資產管理人以及其他人之中。
Banks hope their voluntary fix will assuage regulators’ concerns that many of them are still “too big to fail”. Officials are increasingly anxious to find a way to close ailing financial firms without sparking a global panic. American regulators recently sent back for revision all 11 “living wills” they have received from banks, which explain how they might be wound down in a crisis. But at least one element of such a resolution is now clearer.
銀行希望他們的自愿修復能夠緩和監管者關于他們“百足之蟲死而不僵”的擔憂。官員們越來越焦慮希望能找到一種方法在不引起全球恐慌的情況下來關閉境況不佳的金融機構。美國監管機構最近重新修訂了他們從銀行收到的全部的十一個“生前遺囑”，即用來解釋他們將如何在危機中走向死亡。但是至少這個決議中有一個元素變得更加清晰了。譯者:王若凡
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