華爾街為何毫無(wú)愧意？

During a trip to Tokyo last week, I made a little pilgrimage to the city’s Tama cemetery to pay my respects to an old acquaintance who died recently.

最近去東京時(shí)，我順便拜謁了該市的多磨陵園(Tama cemetery)，去看望不久前去世的一位故人之墓。

Outside Japanese financial circles, the name Katsunobu Onogi is barely known. Among the Tokyo elite, however, “Onogi” evokes considerable emotion; he was the last president of Long-Term Credit Bank (LTCB), an institution which, until it collapsed ignominiously in 1998, symbolised the postwar might of Japan.

在日本金融圈以外，大野木克信(Katsunobu Onogi)的名字沒(méi)多少人知道。但在東京精英圈子當(dāng)中，許多人卻無(wú)法對(duì)他的名字無(wú)動(dòng)于衷;他是長(zhǎng)期信用銀行(LTCB)的最后一任總裁，直到1998年不光彩地破產(chǎn)之前，這家機(jī)構(gòu)一直是戰(zhàn)后日本國(guó)力的象征。

These days, Onogi’s story has become a thought-provoking and humbling one, not just for Japan but for Wall Street as well. Indeed, I would venture that Onogi’s tale should be mandatory reading for western bankers, particularly on the 10-year ­anniversary of the great America subprime shock.

如今，大野木的故事已成為一個(gè)發(fā)人深省并且令人羞愧的故事，不僅對(duì)日本而言，對(duì)華爾街而言也是如此。實(shí)際上，我敢說(shuō)，大野木的故事應(yīng)當(dāng)成為西方銀行家的必讀故事，尤其是在美國(guó)重大次貸危機(jī)爆發(fā)10周年之際。

Why? First, some history. I initially encountered Onogi in 1997, when he was 61. I was working for the FT in Tokyo at the time. He struck me as charming and erudite: he had lived in London early in his career, when Japan was booming, and the experience had left him with an elegant command of English, a passion for its literature and an unusual openness to foreign ideas. So much so that when the Japanese banks started to sink under their bubble-era bad loans during the Asian financial crisis of that period, Onogi took the pioneering step of asking UBS, a Swiss group, to create a joint venture with LTCB, in a desperate bid to save his beloved bank.

為何?首先，來(lái)看一段歷史。我最早于1997年遇上大野木，那時(shí)他61歲，我在英國(guó)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》東京分社工作。他給我的印象是魅力十足、知識(shí)淵博：他在職業(yè)生涯早期曾在倫敦生活過(guò)，當(dāng)時(shí)的日本正蒸蒸日上，那段經(jīng)歷讓他精通英語(yǔ)，愛(ài)上了英語(yǔ)文學(xué)，并對(duì)外來(lái)思想產(chǎn)生了不同尋常的開(kāi)放態(tài)度。結(jié)果是，在亞洲金融危機(jī)時(shí)期，當(dāng)日本的銀行開(kāi)始在泡沫時(shí)積累的壞賬拖累下沉沒(méi)時(shí)，大野木采取了開(kāi)創(chuàng)性的舉措，主動(dòng)要求瑞銀(UBS)跟長(zhǎng)期信用銀行成立一家合資企業(yè)，那是他為了拯救自己深?lèi)?ài)的銀行而采取的險(xiǎn)著。

It did not work. In 1998, LTCB fell spectacularly, and calamity followed: Onogi was briefly thrown into prison, accused of concealing the scale of LTCB’s bad loans (an accusation overturned by a Tokyo court 10 years later). His deputy and protégé committed suicide from shame. Senior managers lost their pensions. Then LTCB was sold to sharp-toothed American private-equity players, who renamed it Shinsei.

此舉沒(méi)有奏效。1998年，長(zhǎng)期信用銀行轟然倒塌，災(zāi)難接踵而來(lái)：大野木短暫入獄，罪名是隱瞞長(zhǎng)期信用銀行的壞賬規(guī)模(10年后一家東京法院推翻了該指控)。他一手提拔的副手愧而自殺。高層經(jīng)理們失去了養(yǎng)老金。接著，長(zhǎng)期信用銀行被賣(mài)給了兇悍的美國(guó)私募銀行家，他們將其改名為“新生銀行”(Shinsei)。

The saga was such a shocking symbol of Japan’s postwar rise and post-bubble fall that I later wrote a book about it, spending hours talking both with the US financiers and the Japanese bankers. My conversations with the latter were painful. These men had devoted their lives to the bank with utter loyalty, thinking that they were rebuilding the glory of Japan; in so far as they had concealed bad loans, they had done it to protect their colleagues, not to make themselves personally rich. Now their reputations and personal finances were shattered. During my interviews, some of these normally impassive middle-aged men would lay their head on the desk, sobbing silently.

這段經(jīng)歷是日本戰(zhàn)后崛起及泡沫后衰敗的一個(gè)震撼人心的象征，我后來(lái)與美國(guó)金融家和日本銀行家分別交談了幾小時(shí)，在此基礎(chǔ)上寫(xiě)了一本書(shū)。與日本銀行家的談話(huà)令人難受。這些人極度忠誠(chéng)地把自己一生奉獻(xiàn)給了該銀行，以為他們正在重建日本的榮光;至于說(shuō)他們隱瞞了壞賬，那是為了保護(hù)同事，而不是為了自己發(fā)財(cái)。如今，他們的名聲和個(gè)人財(cái)富都煙消云散。采訪過(guò)程中，在這些通常喜怒不形諸于色的中年人當(dāng)中，有些人把頭伏到桌上，默默地哭泣了起來(lái)。

Onogi himself was always courteous, gracious and humble. By 1999 he was no longer part of the elite that could afford to play (wildly overpriced) golf. But he played tennis. He voraciously read history books (he particularly loved accounts of the South Sea Bubble). And then, as his finances withered, he did something unimaginable to many elite Japanese men: he started collecting his grandchildren from school each day, while his daughters worked. All this left him increasingly philosophical about what had occurred. “I know my grandchildren,” he observed, citing this as an unexpected “blessing”. They adored him.

大野木本人總是彬彬有禮、和藹可親、為人謙遜。到1999年，他不再是那個(gè)打得起(價(jià)格高得離譜的)高爾夫球的精英群體的一員。但他打網(wǎng)球。他如饑似渴地閱讀歷史書(shū)(他尤其喜歡有關(guān)南海泡沫(South Sea Bubble)的書(shū))。接著，在他的財(cái)富不斷減少之際，他做了在許多日本精英人士看來(lái)無(wú)法想象的事情：他開(kāi)始每天去學(xué)校接孫兒們，而他的女兒們?cè)诠ぷ?。所有這一切讓他越來(lái)越能從哲學(xué)角度看待曾經(jīng)發(fā)生的事情。“我了解我的孫兒們，”他說(shuō)道。他把這稱(chēng)為一種意外之“福”。他們崇拜他。

Then in 2008 there came a new, unexpected twist as the American financial crisis exploded and Lehman Brothers collapsed. Initially, Onogi and other Japanese bankers were fascinated by the parallels they saw with their own lives, and the senior managers who were being tossed out of their jobs. But then their stories diverged: in sharp contrast to their Japanese counterparts, the US bankers did not lose their pensions, or “voluntarily” decide to hand over their wealth. Nobody senior on Wall Street went to prison. Instead, they mostly kept their vast wealth intact, having run their banks to protect this. Many took on new jobs.

2008年時(shí)，隨著美國(guó)金融危機(jī)爆發(fā)和雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破產(chǎn)，故事有了新的、預(yù)料之外的轉(zhuǎn)折。一開(kāi)始，大野木等日本銀行家被那些與自己經(jīng)歷相似的故事、那些丟掉工作的高層經(jīng)理們的遭遇吸引了目光。但接著，故事朝著不同方向發(fā)展：跟日本同行構(gòu)成鮮明對(duì)比的是，美國(guó)銀行家沒(méi)有失去養(yǎng)老金或者“自愿地”決定交出他們的財(cái)富。華爾街沒(méi)有一個(gè)高層人士鋃鐺入獄。相反，他們基本保全了自己的巨大財(cái)富，通過(guò)管理他們的銀行保住了財(cái)富。許多人得到了新工作。

My Japanese banker friends could scarcely believe this. They did not think they had acted in a criminal way when LTCB (or other banks) collapsed. But they had never denied a sense of responsibility for the Japanese financial crisis. They were decent men and knew they were part of a system that had failed so shamefully. So why, they asked me, didn’t the US bankers feel any similar embarrassment? Why didn’t the Wall Street titans feel that they should give back some of their wealth?

我的日本銀行家朋友們幾乎不能相信這些。他們認(rèn)為，在長(zhǎng)期信用銀行(或其他銀行)倒閉時(shí)，他們的做法不算犯罪。但是，他們從不否認(rèn)自己對(duì)日本金融危機(jī)抱有責(zé)任感。作為正派人，他們知道自己是可恥地一敗涂地的日本銀行體系中的一分子。所以，他們問(wèn)我，為何美國(guó)銀行家沒(méi)有絲毫類(lèi)似的難堪之情?為何華爾街巨頭們不認(rèn)為他們應(yīng)當(dāng)歸還自己的部分財(cái)富?

I didn’t know what to tell them. Like them, I was dismayed that the American bankers had mostly escaped censure. But I was also dismayed by how brutally the Japanese system had treated the decent Onogi and his colleagues, given that what happened at LTCB — covering up bad loans and putting a flattering spin on the accounts — was standard practice in Japan at the time. Both systems, in other words, seemed deeply “unfair”, albeit in opposing ways, and I was unsure which was worse.

我不知道跟他們說(shuō)什么。像他們一樣，我也對(duì)美國(guó)銀行家們基本沒(méi)受到什么責(zé)難感到沮喪。但我也對(duì)日本體系那么無(wú)情地對(duì)待正直的大野木和他的同事感到失望，因?yàn)榘l(fā)生在長(zhǎng)期信用銀行的事情——掩蓋壞賬，粉飾賬目讓它更好看——在當(dāng)時(shí)的日本是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)做法。換言之，兩個(gè)體系看來(lái)都極度地“不公平”——盡管做法截然相反——我不確定哪種情況更糟糕。

Either way, as I laid my flowers on Onogi’s grave last week, I just wished that more American bankers knew his tale.

不管是哪種情況，當(dāng)我在大野木墓前獻(xiàn)花時(shí)，我只是希望有更多的美國(guó)銀行家知道他的故事。

Illustration by Shonagh Rae

插圖/肖納格•雷(Shonagh Rae)