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I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs

高盛CEO—上帝代言人



Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. The men and women who arrive in the watery dawn sunshine, dressed in Wall Street black, clutching black briefcases and BlackBerrys, are very, very private. They walk quickly from their black Lincoln town cars to the lobby, past, well, nothing, really. There’s no name plate on the building, no sign on the front desk and the armed policeman stationed outside isn’t saying who works there. There’s a good reason for the secrecy. Number 85 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004, is where the money is. All of it.

一座铁灰色的大厦，低调、沉闷地矗立在曼哈顿下城布罗德大街85号的位置，没有人会停下来看它一眼，而这正是在那里工作的人们喜欢它的地方。男男女女们沐浴着黎明的阳光而来，穿着华尔街经典的黑色套装，背着公文包，手里抓着承载一切信息的黑莓手机。他们钻出林肯房车，快步走向大厅。大厦没有铭牌，大厅里也没有前台，荷枪实弹的保安更不会告诉你这是什么地方，一切都非常神秘。纽约曼哈顿布罗德大街85号，这里代表了金钱，所有这些都代表了金钱。

It’s the site of the best cash-making machine that global capitalism has ever produced, and, some say, a political force more powerful than governments. The people who work behind the brass-trim glass doors make more money than some countries do. They are the rainmakers’ rainmakers, the biggest swinging dicks in the financial jungle. Their assets total $1 trillion, their annual revenues run into the tens of billions, and their profits are in the billions, which they distribute liberally among themselves. Average pay this recessionary year for the 30,000 staff is expected to be a record $700,000. Top earners will get tens of millions, several hundred thousand times more than a cleaner at the firm. When they have finished getting "filthy rich by 40", as the company saying goes, these alpha dogs don’t put their feet up. They parachute into some of the most senior political posts in the US and beyond, prompting accusations that they "rule the world". Number 85 Broad Street is the home of Goldman Sachs.

这是全球资本主义创造的最好的造钱机器，也有人说它代表了比政府更加强大的政治力量。那些在黄铜装饰的玻璃门里工作的人们，所创造的金钱甚至超过了某些国家的国民总产出。他们是造物主的造物主，金融战场上的野兽。他们的总资产达到一万亿美金，他们的年收入达几百亿美金，利润几十亿，而他们得到了其中的大部分。在金融危机肆虐的2009年，他们的三万名员工平均收入将达到创纪录的70万美金。最高收入的员工能够拿到几千万，是大厦里一名清洁工的几千倍。这些早早踏入40岁富豪的家伙们，正像这家公司所说的，这些领头犬们从来没有停下他们的脚步。他们空降到美国或者其他国家的高级政府职位上，继续“掌控着世界”。布罗德大街85号，这里是高盛的总部。

The world’s most successful investment bank likes to hide behind the tidal wave of money that it generates and sends crashing over Manhattan, the City of London and most of the world’s other financial capitals. But now the dark knights of banking are being forced, blinking, into the cold light of day. The public, politicians and the press blame bankers’ reckless trading for the credit crunch and, as the most successful bank still standing, Goldman is their prime target. Here, politicians and commentators compete to denounce Goldman in ever more robust terms — "robber barons", "economic vandals", "vulture capitalists". Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, contrasts the bank’s recent record results — profits of $3.2 billion in the last quarter alone — and its planned bumper bonus payments with what has happened to ordinary people’s jobs and incomes in 2009.

这家世界上最成功的投资银行，一向隐身于金钱浪潮的背后，他们所制造的崩溃影响了曼哈顿、伦敦金融城和其他的全球金融中心。但是现在这位暗夜骑士却不得不走到台前，暴露在青天白日之下了。公众、政府和媒体将金融危机的根源归结于银行家的鲁莽行为，而作为唯一一家屹立不倒的超级银行，高盛，自然成为了众矢之的。政治家和评论家竞相用各种严苛的词汇来形容高盛──“强盗大亨”、“经济破坏者”、“秃鹫资本家”。民主党财政部发言人文斯·凯布（VinceCable）公布了该银行的最新数据──过去一个季度就盈利了32亿美金──并且打算在2009年的失业大环境下大幅提高奖金额度。

It’s even worse in the US. There, Rolling Stone magazine ran a story that described Goldman as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money". In his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore drives up to 85 Broad Street in an armoured Brinks money van, leaps out carrying a sack with a giant dollar sign on it, looks up at the building and yells: "We’re here to get the money back for the American people!"

而与此同时，美国的经济情况却更加糟糕。《滚石》杂志（Rolling Stonemagazine）将高盛比作“披着人皮的吸血章鱼，无情地将它的触手伸向世界的每个角落”。在最新的一部纪录片《资本主义：一个爱情故事》（Capitalism: A Love Story）中，迈克尔·摩尔（MichaelMoore）开着一辆装甲运钞车，高举一个画着美元符号的袋子，朝着楼上大喊：“我们来这里拿回属于美国人民的钱！”

Goldman’s reputation is suddenly as toxic as the credit default swaps and other inexplicably exotic financial instruments it used to buy with glee. That’s bad for the one thing it values more than anything else: business. Being the prime target for popular and political outrage could put Goldman first in line for draconian new regulation. So it has, reluctantly, decided that the time has come to speak out, to fight its corner. That’s how, on one of those bright autumnal New York mornings when anything seems possible — even an invitation to break bread with the masters of the universe — I find myself walking past the security guard who held up Michael Moore and into the building with no name.

由于信用的扩张和其他金融工具的使用，高盛的信誉遭到了严重的破坏。因为能够借这些行为而获得好处的只有一件事情：他们的生意。成为公众和当局愤怒的主要目标，迫使高盛成为了被监管的头号对象。高盛必须做出回应，虽然它并不情愿。这就是为什么在纽约那些清冷的秋日早晨，任何事情看起来都是可能的──甚至是与上帝共进早餐──我居然可以走进那座没有名字的大厦，而不是像迈克尔·摩尔那样被挡在外面。