A special report on global leaders
关于全球领袖的特别报道
The world's water-coolers
世界的开水间
Where the influential people meet and talk
在那权势人物开会的地方
100 Special report - The world_s water-coolers.mp3 (2.65 MB, 下载次数: 41)
Jan 20th 2011 | from the print edition
"YOU can do nothing against a conspiracy theory," sighs Etienne Davignon. He sits in a lofty office with a stupendous view over Brussels, puffing his pipe. He is an aristocrat, a former vice-president of the European Commission and a man who has sat on several corporate boards, but that is not why some people consider him too powerful. He presides over the Bilderberg group, an evil conspiracy bent on world domination. At least, that is what numerous websites allege; also that it has ties to al-Qaeda, is hiding the cure for cancer and wishes to merge the United States with Mexico.
"面对阴谋论，你根本无从辩驳。"达维格农（Etienne Davignon）坐在能够俯瞰布鲁塞尔全城的豪华办公室中，一边吸着烟斗一边说。贵族出身的达维格农是前欧盟委员会副主席，同时兼任着好几家公司的董事，但这并不是有人认为他炙手可热的原因。他主持着比尔德堡（Bilderberg），一个企图主宰世界的邪恶阴谋集团――至少很多网站是这样说的。网上还说，比尔德堡与基地组织有染，隐瞒治疗癌症的良方，还希望美国和墨西哥合并。
In reality, Bilderberg is an annual conference for a few dozen of the world's most influential people. Last year Bill Gates and Larry Summers hobnobbed with the chairman of Deutsche Bank, the boss of Shell, the head of the World Food Programme and the prime minister of Spain. One or two journalists are invited each year, on condition that they abstain from writing about it. (Full disclosure: the editor of The Economist sometimes attends.)
在现实中，比尔德堡是全世界最有影响力的人的年度聚会。去年，比尔•盖茨和拉里•萨默斯（Larry Summers）在这里与德意志银行主席、壳牌集团老板、世界粮食计划署首脑以及西班牙首相进行过密谈。每年都会有一两名记者被邀请到比德尔堡，但须以不对此进行报道为条件。（充分披露：《经济学人》编辑有时也会出席。）
Because the meetings are off the record, they are catnip to conspiracy theorists. But the attraction for participants is obvious. They can speak candidly, says Mr Davignon, without worrying how their words might play in tomorrow's headlines. So they find out what other influential people really think. Big ideas are debated frankly. Mr Davignon credits the meetings for helping to lay the groundwork for creating the euro. He recalls strong disagreement over Iraq: some participants favoured the invasion in 2003, some opposed it and some wanted it done differently. Last year the debate was about Europe's fiscal problems, and whether the euro would survive.
由于该聚会从未见诸报端，因此就成了阴谋论者的摇头丸。但它对与会者的吸引力是显而易见的。达维格农说，他们可以口无遮拦，不必担心言论会出现在第二天的新闻标题上。因此他们可以了解其他影响力卓著的人心里的真实想法。大势可以在这类聚会上无保留地争论，不用顾忌什么。达维格农认为比尔德堡曾经助过欧元诞生一臂之力，也记得比德尔堡在伊拉克问题上的严重分歧：一些与会者赞成2003年的入侵，一些人表示反对，还有一些人则希望用另一种形式实现。去年，比尔德堡争论的是欧洲的财政问题以及欧元是否能够继续生存下去的问题。
The world is a complicated place, with oceans of new information sloshing around. To run a multinational organisation, it helps if you have a rough idea of what is going on. It also helps to be on first-name terms with other globocrats. So the cosmopolitan elite―international financiers, bureaucrats, charity bosses and thinkers―constantly meet and talk. They flock to elite gatherings such as the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Trilateral Commission and the Boao meeting in China. They form clubs. Ethnic Indian entrepreneurs around the world join TiE (The Indus Enterprise). Movers and shakers in New York and Washington join the Council on Foreign Relations, where they can listen to the president of Turkey one week and the chief executive of Intel the next. The world's richest man, Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecoms tycoon, hosts an annual gathering of Latin American billionaires who cultivate each other while ostensibly discussing regional poverty.
世界是一个复杂的地方，被浩瀚的信息海洋所包围。要运作一个多国组织，能有一个关于世界大势的粗略看法将是大有裨益的。和其他全球大佬打成一片也很有帮助。因此，世界主义精英――国际银行家、官僚、慈善机构老板和思想家――总是不断地聚会和对话。他们参加达沃斯世界经济论坛、三边委员会（the Trilateral Commission）和博鳌论坛等精英聚会。他们也组建俱乐部。全球印度裔企业家都加入TiE（The Indus Enterprise）。纽约和华盛顿的大佬们都参加外交关系委员会，这周听土耳其总统发言，下周与英特尔首席执行官见面。世界首富、墨西哥电信大亨卡洛斯•史林（Carlos Slim）也主持着一个拉美亿万富翁年会，在该会议上，富豪们打着讨论地区贫困问题的幌子寻求彼此合作。
Davos is perhaps the glitziest of these globocratic gatherings. Hundreds of big wheels descend on the Swiss ski resort each year. The lectures are interesting, but the big draw is the chance to talk to other powerful people in the corridors. Such chats sometimes yield results. In 1988 the prime ministers of Turkey and Greece met at Davos and signed a declaration that may have averted a war. In 1994 Shimon Peres, then Israel's foreign minister, and Yasser Arafat struck a deal over Gaza and Jericho. In 2003 Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, had an informal meeting in his hotel suite with the president of Iran, a country with which Britain had no diplomatic ties. But Davos is hardly a secretive institution: it is crawling with journalists. The other globocratic shindigs are opening up, too. Even Bilderberg has recently started publishing lists of participants on its website.
达沃斯也许是这类全球大佬聚会中最引人瞩目的一个。每年，数百名全世界最有影响力的人物都会聚集在这个瑞士滑雪胜地。论坛的演讲很有意思，但更大的吸引力来自和其他权势人物在同一个屋檐下对话。闲谈绝不总是无用功。1998年，土耳其和希腊总理在达沃斯会面并签署了一份可能避免了一场战争的宣言。1994年，以色列外长佩雷斯（Shimon Peres）和阿拉法特就加沙和杰里科（Jericho）问题达成了一致。2003年，英国外交大臣斯特劳（Jack Straw）在其下榻的宾馆套间内于伊朗总统进行了非正式会面，当时布莱尔政府和伊朗尚无外交关系。但达沃斯绝非秘密机构：每年的论坛都会招来大量记者。其他全球大佬聚会也在变得越来越开放。即使是比尔德堡，最近也开始在网站上公布与会者名单了。
Some American organisations, such as foreign-policy think-tanks, are also well placed to exert global influence. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for example, has established itself as one of the most globally trusted talking-shops, with offices in Beijing, Beirut, Brussels and Moscow, as well as Washington―though it has yet to fulfil the vision of its founder, Andrew Carnegie, who wanted it to abolish war. The key to wielding influence, says Jessica Mathews, Carnegie's president, is "very simple. You hire the best people."
一些美国机构，比如外交政策智库，也被巧妙地用来发挥全球影响力。比如，卡耐基国际和平基金会就把自己打造为全球最受信任的清谈俱乐部，除了华盛顿总部以外，在北京、贝鲁特、布鲁塞尔和莫斯科都设有办事处。不过该组织距离其创始人安德鲁•卡耐基（Andrew Carnegie）的愿景――消灭战争还有一些距离。基金会主席马修斯（Jessica Mathews）说，行使影响力的关键"很简单，就是找对人。"
In countries where think-tanks are subservient to the state, such as China and Russia, foreign outfits such as Carnegie enjoy a reputation for independence. If they can back this up with useful knowledge, they can sway policy. For example, Carnegie scholars advised the authors of Russia's post-Soviet constitution. And when relations between American and Russia grew frosty under President George W. Bush, Carnegie's Moscow office helped keep a line of communication open between the two governments.
在智库为国家所豢养的国家，比如中国和俄罗斯，卡耐基基金会这样的外国组织享有独立的盛名。若再辅之以有用的知识，它们就能左右政策。比如，卡耐基基金会的学者就曾担任过俄罗斯后苏维埃时代宪法起草者的顾问。而当美俄关系在小布什总统时期逐渐冷淡时，卡耐基莫斯科办事处还成了两国政府沟通的一个桥梁。
Such meetings are "an important part of the story of the superclass", says Mr Rothkopf, the author of the eponymous book. What they offer is access to "some of the world's most sequestered and elusive leaders". As such, they are one of "the informal mechanisms of [global] power".
这类聚会是"超级阶级的一大重要组成部分"，同名著作作者罗斯科普夫（Rothkopf）说。这类聚会能提供"这个世界上最隐秘的领导人圈子"的准入证。这类聚会是"（全球）权力的非正式机制"之一。
Some globocrats think the importance of forums like Davos is overstated. Howard Stringer, the boss of Sony, is the kind of person you would expect to relish such gatherings. Welsh by birth, American by citizenship, he took over Japan's most admired company in 2005, when it was in serious trouble, and turned it around in the face of immense cultural obstacles. He says he has enjoyed trips to Davos in the past but will not attend this year. He can learn more, he says, by listening to his 167,000 employees.
一些全球大佬认为达沃斯论坛之流的重要性被高估了。索尼公司老板斯金格（Howard Stringer）肯定属于你眼中热衷于此类聚会的人。这位威尔士出生的美国公民从2005年开始执掌最受敬仰的日本公司，克服了巨大的文化障碍，成功将索尼带出重重困境。他声称自己过去很享受达沃斯之旅，但今年不会再出席了。他说，听听手下16万7千名员工的话足以让他获得更多的信息。
On the face of it there seems much to be said for the world's shakers and movers meeting and talking frequently. Yet for all their tireless information-swapping, globocrats were caught napping by the financial crisis. Their networks of contacts did throw up a few warnings, but not enough to prompt timely action.
从表面上看，这个世界的大佬们频繁聚会和对话，肯定有说不完的话题。然而尽管他们如此热衷于交换消息，还是被金融危机搞得焦头烂额。他们的关系网的确给出了一些警告信号，但并不足以使他们曲突徙薪。
The limits of jaw-jaw
清谈的局限
Jim Chanos, a hedge-fund manager who made his first fortune betting that Enron was overvalued, warned the G8 finance ministers in April 2007 that banks and insurance firms were heading for trouble. He made another fortune when bank shares crashed, but is still furious that his warnings were politely ignored. He thinks it an outrage that several senior regulators from that period are still in positions of power. And he accuses some bankers of "a wholesale looting of the system" by paying themselves bonuses based on what they must have known were phantom profits. He thinks they should be prosecuted.
吉姆•查诺斯（Jim Chanos）是一位对冲基金经理，当年凭借赌安然价值被高估攫得了第一桶金。2007年4月的时候他警告G8财政部长说银行和保险公司正在迈向不测之渊。后来银行股果然崩盘，他也再一次赚了个盆满钵满，但对自己的警告受到婉拒一直耿耿于怀。他认为，那时的某些监管高官至今仍尸位素餐，真是是可忍孰不可忍。他指责某些银行家以明知是虚幻的利润为依据给自己发放奖金，这是在"对金融体系的明火执仗"。他认为这批人应该被送上审判台。
Globocrats failed to avert the crisis, but they rallied once it struck. Rich-country governments acted in concert to prop up banks with taxpayers' money. In America the response was led by a well-connected trio: Hank Paulson, George Bush junior's treasury secretary and a former boss of Goldman Sachs; Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's treasury secretary and a former boss of the New York Federal Reserve, as well as a veteran of the IMF, the Council on Foreign Relations and Kissinger Associates; and Ben Bernanke, of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton and the Bush White House, who is now chairman of the Federal Reserve. The bail-outs were unpopular everywhere, but may have prevented the world's banking system from imploding.
全球大佬没能防止危机，但危机一出现，他们就碰头了。发达国家不约而同地使用纳税人的钱来提振银行。在美国，整个反应过程的主导者是一个无所不能三人组：小布什的财政部长、高盛前老板保尔森（Hank Paulson）；奥巴马的财政部长、纽约联邦储备银行前老板、IMF、外交关系委员会和基辛格同仁公司（Kissinger Associates）老成员盖特纳；以及曾在哈佛、MIT、斯坦福、普林斯顿执教并在布什政府任职的美联储主席伯南克。救援计划在哪里都不受待见，但确实可能防止了世界银行体系的崩盘。
Governments are now trying to craft rules to prevent a recurrence. Lots of people have offered advice. Among the weightier contributions was a report from the Group of Thirty (G30), an informal collection of past and present central-bank governors. The Volcker Report, advocating a central clearing mechanism for derivatives trading and curbs on proprietary trading by banks, helped shape America's Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill. The G30 is influential because it consists of people with experience of putting policies into practice, says Stuart Mackintosh, its director. So when it makes recommendations, they can be turned into action, he adds.
各国政府如今正在制定规则以防止危机再现。许多人都给出了意见，其中30人集团（G30，由现任和前任央行行长组成的非正式团体）的报告分量尤重。沃克尔（Volcker）报告提出建立一个衍生品的中央清算机制并限制银行的自营交易，助了美国的多德-弗兰克（Dodd-Frank）金融改革法案一臂之力。G30主席麦金托什（Stuart Mackintosh）说，之所以有影响力，是因为它由拥有丰富政策实践经验的人士组成。因此，他又加了一句，当它提出建议时，通常会成为行动。
from the print edition | Special reports
关于全球领袖的特别报道
The world's water-coolers
世界的开水间
Where the influential people meet and talk
在那权势人物开会的地方
100 Special report - The world_s water-coolers.mp3 (2.65 MB, 下载次数: 41) Jan 20th 2011 | from the print edition
"YOU can do nothing against a conspiracy theory," sighs Etienne Davignon. He sits in a lofty office with a stupendous view over Brussels, puffing his pipe. He is an aristocrat, a former vice-president of the European Commission and a man who has sat on several corporate boards, but that is not why some people consider him too powerful. He presides over the Bilderberg group, an evil conspiracy bent on world domination. At least, that is what numerous websites allege; also that it has ties to al-Qaeda, is hiding the cure for cancer and wishes to merge the United States with Mexico.
"面对阴谋论，你根本无从辩驳。"达维格农（Etienne Davignon）坐在能够俯瞰布鲁塞尔全城的豪华办公室中，一边吸着烟斗一边说。贵族出身的达维格农是前欧盟委员会副主席，同时兼任着好几家公司的董事，但这并不是有人认为他炙手可热的原因。他主持着比尔德堡（Bilderberg），一个企图主宰世界的邪恶阴谋集团――至少很多网站是这样说的。网上还说，比尔德堡与基地组织有染，隐瞒治疗癌症的良方，还希望美国和墨西哥合并。
In reality, Bilderberg is an annual conference for a few dozen of the world's most influential people. Last year Bill Gates and Larry Summers hobnobbed with the chairman of Deutsche Bank, the boss of Shell, the head of the World Food Programme and the prime minister of Spain. One or two journalists are invited each year, on condition that they abstain from writing about it. (Full disclosure: the editor of The Economist sometimes attends.)
在现实中，比尔德堡是全世界最有影响力的人的年度聚会。去年，比尔•盖茨和拉里•萨默斯（Larry Summers）在这里与德意志银行主席、壳牌集团老板、世界粮食计划署首脑以及西班牙首相进行过密谈。每年都会有一两名记者被邀请到比德尔堡，但须以不对此进行报道为条件。（充分披露：《经济学人》编辑有时也会出席。）
Because the meetings are off the record, they are catnip to conspiracy theorists. But the attraction for participants is obvious. They can speak candidly, says Mr Davignon, without worrying how their words might play in tomorrow's headlines. So they find out what other influential people really think. Big ideas are debated frankly. Mr Davignon credits the meetings for helping to lay the groundwork for creating the euro. He recalls strong disagreement over Iraq: some participants favoured the invasion in 2003, some opposed it and some wanted it done differently. Last year the debate was about Europe's fiscal problems, and whether the euro would survive.
由于该聚会从未见诸报端，因此就成了阴谋论者的摇头丸。但它对与会者的吸引力是显而易见的。达维格农说，他们可以口无遮拦，不必担心言论会出现在第二天的新闻标题上。因此他们可以了解其他影响力卓著的人心里的真实想法。大势可以在这类聚会上无保留地争论，不用顾忌什么。达维格农认为比尔德堡曾经助过欧元诞生一臂之力，也记得比德尔堡在伊拉克问题上的严重分歧：一些与会者赞成2003年的入侵，一些人表示反对，还有一些人则希望用另一种形式实现。去年，比尔德堡争论的是欧洲的财政问题以及欧元是否能够继续生存下去的问题。
The world is a complicated place, with oceans of new information sloshing around. To run a multinational organisation, it helps if you have a rough idea of what is going on. It also helps to be on first-name terms with other globocrats. So the cosmopolitan elite―international financiers, bureaucrats, charity bosses and thinkers―constantly meet and talk. They flock to elite gatherings such as the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Trilateral Commission and the Boao meeting in China. They form clubs. Ethnic Indian entrepreneurs around the world join TiE (The Indus Enterprise). Movers and shakers in New York and Washington join the Council on Foreign Relations, where they can listen to the president of Turkey one week and the chief executive of Intel the next. The world's richest man, Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecoms tycoon, hosts an annual gathering of Latin American billionaires who cultivate each other while ostensibly discussing regional poverty.
世界是一个复杂的地方，被浩瀚的信息海洋所包围。要运作一个多国组织，能有一个关于世界大势的粗略看法将是大有裨益的。和其他全球大佬打成一片也很有帮助。因此，世界主义精英――国际银行家、官僚、慈善机构老板和思想家――总是不断地聚会和对话。他们参加达沃斯世界经济论坛、三边委员会（the Trilateral Commission）和博鳌论坛等精英聚会。他们也组建俱乐部。全球印度裔企业家都加入TiE（The Indus Enterprise）。纽约和华盛顿的大佬们都参加外交关系委员会，这周听土耳其总统发言，下周与英特尔首席执行官见面。世界首富、墨西哥电信大亨卡洛斯•史林（Carlos Slim）也主持着一个拉美亿万富翁年会，在该会议上，富豪们打着讨论地区贫困问题的幌子寻求彼此合作。
Davos is perhaps the glitziest of these globocratic gatherings. Hundreds of big wheels descend on the Swiss ski resort each year. The lectures are interesting, but the big draw is the chance to talk to other powerful people in the corridors. Such chats sometimes yield results. In 1988 the prime ministers of Turkey and Greece met at Davos and signed a declaration that may have averted a war. In 1994 Shimon Peres, then Israel's foreign minister, and Yasser Arafat struck a deal over Gaza and Jericho. In 2003 Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, had an informal meeting in his hotel suite with the president of Iran, a country with which Britain had no diplomatic ties. But Davos is hardly a secretive institution: it is crawling with journalists. The other globocratic shindigs are opening up, too. Even Bilderberg has recently started publishing lists of participants on its website.
达沃斯也许是这类全球大佬聚会中最引人瞩目的一个。每年，数百名全世界最有影响力的人物都会聚集在这个瑞士滑雪胜地。论坛的演讲很有意思，但更大的吸引力来自和其他权势人物在同一个屋檐下对话。闲谈绝不总是无用功。1998年，土耳其和希腊总理在达沃斯会面并签署了一份可能避免了一场战争的宣言。1994年，以色列外长佩雷斯（Shimon Peres）和阿拉法特就加沙和杰里科（Jericho）问题达成了一致。2003年，英国外交大臣斯特劳（Jack Straw）在其下榻的宾馆套间内于伊朗总统进行了非正式会面，当时布莱尔政府和伊朗尚无外交关系。但达沃斯绝非秘密机构：每年的论坛都会招来大量记者。其他全球大佬聚会也在变得越来越开放。即使是比尔德堡，最近也开始在网站上公布与会者名单了。
Some American organisations, such as foreign-policy think-tanks, are also well placed to exert global influence. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for example, has established itself as one of the most globally trusted talking-shops, with offices in Beijing, Beirut, Brussels and Moscow, as well as Washington―though it has yet to fulfil the vision of its founder, Andrew Carnegie, who wanted it to abolish war. The key to wielding influence, says Jessica Mathews, Carnegie's president, is "very simple. You hire the best people."
一些美国机构，比如外交政策智库，也被巧妙地用来发挥全球影响力。比如，卡耐基国际和平基金会就把自己打造为全球最受信任的清谈俱乐部，除了华盛顿总部以外，在北京、贝鲁特、布鲁塞尔和莫斯科都设有办事处。不过该组织距离其创始人安德鲁•卡耐基（Andrew Carnegie）的愿景――消灭战争还有一些距离。基金会主席马修斯（Jessica Mathews）说，行使影响力的关键"很简单，就是找对人。"
In countries where think-tanks are subservient to the state, such as China and Russia, foreign outfits such as Carnegie enjoy a reputation for independence. If they can back this up with useful knowledge, they can sway policy. For example, Carnegie scholars advised the authors of Russia's post-Soviet constitution. And when relations between American and Russia grew frosty under President George W. Bush, Carnegie's Moscow office helped keep a line of communication open between the two governments.
在智库为国家所豢养的国家，比如中国和俄罗斯，卡耐基基金会这样的外国组织享有独立的盛名。若再辅之以有用的知识，它们就能左右政策。比如，卡耐基基金会的学者就曾担任过俄罗斯后苏维埃时代宪法起草者的顾问。而当美俄关系在小布什总统时期逐渐冷淡时，卡耐基莫斯科办事处还成了两国政府沟通的一个桥梁。
Such meetings are "an important part of the story of the superclass", says Mr Rothkopf, the author of the eponymous book. What they offer is access to "some of the world's most sequestered and elusive leaders". As such, they are one of "the informal mechanisms of [global] power".
这类聚会是"超级阶级的一大重要组成部分"，同名著作作者罗斯科普夫（Rothkopf）说。这类聚会能提供"这个世界上最隐秘的领导人圈子"的准入证。这类聚会是"（全球）权力的非正式机制"之一。
Some globocrats think the importance of forums like Davos is overstated. Howard Stringer, the boss of Sony, is the kind of person you would expect to relish such gatherings. Welsh by birth, American by citizenship, he took over Japan's most admired company in 2005, when it was in serious trouble, and turned it around in the face of immense cultural obstacles. He says he has enjoyed trips to Davos in the past but will not attend this year. He can learn more, he says, by listening to his 167,000 employees.
一些全球大佬认为达沃斯论坛之流的重要性被高估了。索尼公司老板斯金格（Howard Stringer）肯定属于你眼中热衷于此类聚会的人。这位威尔士出生的美国公民从2005年开始执掌最受敬仰的日本公司，克服了巨大的文化障碍，成功将索尼带出重重困境。他声称自己过去很享受达沃斯之旅，但今年不会再出席了。他说，听听手下16万7千名员工的话足以让他获得更多的信息。
On the face of it there seems much to be said for the world's shakers and movers meeting and talking frequently. Yet for all their tireless information-swapping, globocrats were caught napping by the financial crisis. Their networks of contacts did throw up a few warnings, but not enough to prompt timely action.
从表面上看，这个世界的大佬们频繁聚会和对话，肯定有说不完的话题。然而尽管他们如此热衷于交换消息，还是被金融危机搞得焦头烂额。他们的关系网的确给出了一些警告信号，但并不足以使他们曲突徙薪。
The limits of jaw-jaw
清谈的局限
Jim Chanos, a hedge-fund manager who made his first fortune betting that Enron was overvalued, warned the G8 finance ministers in April 2007 that banks and insurance firms were heading for trouble. He made another fortune when bank shares crashed, but is still furious that his warnings were politely ignored. He thinks it an outrage that several senior regulators from that period are still in positions of power. And he accuses some bankers of "a wholesale looting of the system" by paying themselves bonuses based on what they must have known were phantom profits. He thinks they should be prosecuted.
吉姆•查诺斯（Jim Chanos）是一位对冲基金经理，当年凭借赌安然价值被高估攫得了第一桶金。2007年4月的时候他警告G8财政部长说银行和保险公司正在迈向不测之渊。后来银行股果然崩盘，他也再一次赚了个盆满钵满，但对自己的警告受到婉拒一直耿耿于怀。他认为，那时的某些监管高官至今仍尸位素餐，真是是可忍孰不可忍。他指责某些银行家以明知是虚幻的利润为依据给自己发放奖金，这是在"对金融体系的明火执仗"。他认为这批人应该被送上审判台。
Globocrats failed to avert the crisis, but they rallied once it struck. Rich-country governments acted in concert to prop up banks with taxpayers' money. In America the response was led by a well-connected trio: Hank Paulson, George Bush junior's treasury secretary and a former boss of Goldman Sachs; Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's treasury secretary and a former boss of the New York Federal Reserve, as well as a veteran of the IMF, the Council on Foreign Relations and Kissinger Associates; and Ben Bernanke, of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton and the Bush White House, who is now chairman of the Federal Reserve. The bail-outs were unpopular everywhere, but may have prevented the world's banking system from imploding.
全球大佬没能防止危机，但危机一出现，他们就碰头了。发达国家不约而同地使用纳税人的钱来提振银行。在美国，整个反应过程的主导者是一个无所不能三人组：小布什的财政部长、高盛前老板保尔森（Hank Paulson）；奥巴马的财政部长、纽约联邦储备银行前老板、IMF、外交关系委员会和基辛格同仁公司（Kissinger Associates）老成员盖特纳；以及曾在哈佛、MIT、斯坦福、普林斯顿执教并在布什政府任职的美联储主席伯南克。救援计划在哪里都不受待见，但确实可能防止了世界银行体系的崩盘。
Governments are now trying to craft rules to prevent a recurrence. Lots of people have offered advice. Among the weightier contributions was a report from the Group of Thirty (G30), an informal collection of past and present central-bank governors. The Volcker Report, advocating a central clearing mechanism for derivatives trading and curbs on proprietary trading by banks, helped shape America's Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill. The G30 is influential because it consists of people with experience of putting policies into practice, says Stuart Mackintosh, its director. So when it makes recommendations, they can be turned into action, he adds.
各国政府如今正在制定规则以防止危机再现。许多人都给出了意见，其中30人集团（G30，由现任和前任央行行长组成的非正式团体）的报告分量尤重。沃克尔（Volcker）报告提出建立一个衍生品的中央清算机制并限制银行的自营交易，助了美国的多德-弗兰克（Dodd-Frank）金融改革法案一臂之力。G30主席麦金托什（Stuart Mackintosh）说，之所以有影响力，是因为它由拥有丰富政策实践经验的人士组成。因此，他又加了一句，当它提出建议时，通常会成为行动。
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