荣）, foreign firms rushed into the U.S. market, and now account for
about one in seven of the nearly 2,800 listed companies on the New York Stock Exchange（纽约证券交易所，纽交所）, including names like Sony and British Petroleum. To sell stock in America, they must abide by （遵循）Wall Street rules, which can influence everything from executive pay（高管薪酬） to executive punishment（行政处罚） for white-collar crimes. In recent months companies from Germany, Britain, the Netherlands（荷兰）, Russia and Japan have pressed for relief（迫切要求救援） from the coming reforms. Others have delayed plans to go public on Wall Street until the global impact of America’s rulemaking frenzy （美国立法热）becomes clear. Why, they asked, should we be held to strict new standards inspired by the sins of Enron（安然公司）, WorldCom（世界通讯公司） and Tyco（美国泰科）? The Americans ―want to export（输出，出口） their own standards, even though they aren’t the best,‖ complains Peter Wiesner, a Federation of German Industry（德国工业联合会） official in Brussels, capital of the new Europe. ―This is an expression of American arrogance（美国人的傲慢）.‖
这就是现在全球经济运行的方式。美国法律渐渐控制着全球各地的公司。在二十世纪九十年代的经济繁荣时期，外国企业大量涌入美国市场，如今占纽交所2,800家上市公司总数的七分之一，其中包括索尼公司和英国石油公司。为了在美国发行股票，他们必须
遵循华尔街规则，它能影响所有的事情，从高管的薪酬到白领阶层犯罪的行政处罚。最近几个月，来自德国、英国、荷兰、俄罗斯和日本的公司迫切要求在接下来的改革中得到救援。其他的公司则推迟在华尔街上市的计划，希望等到美国立法热的全球影响力变得明朗化。他们问道，为什么我们要遵循安然公司、世界通讯公司以及美国泰科指定的严格新标准？美国人“想输出自己的标准，即使他们的不是最好的。”彼得·威斯纳抱怨道，他是驻布鲁塞尔（新欧洲的首都）德国工业联合会的官员。“这是美国人傲慢的表现。”
The battles range（漫游，排列） beyond matters of a strictly business nature. During the past few months, as the SEC（美国证交会） took comments on the new rules, the Big Four accounting firms（四大会计师事务所） weighed in on behalf of foreign clients, saying it would be
absurd to make them adopt（采纳，接受） rules that contradict their own laws and culture. By holding individual CEOs responsible for the accuracy of their books, for example, the new U.S. rules would inadvertently（非故意地，无心地） undermine traditions of collective decision making in Europe and Asia. By demanding ―real time‖ reporting of financial information, the United States would be pressing its own obsession with short-term results（短期结果） on cultures that prefer to think long-term.
这场战役徘徊于严苛的商业本质事物之外。在过去的几个月里，美国证交会对新规作出评论，四大会计师事务所为外国客户进
行权衡，他们说想要让他们采纳与他们自己的法律和文化相抵触的规定显得很荒谬。例如，通过让首席执行官们单独对书本的准确性负责，美国的新法规将会无意地破坏欧洲和亚洲大众作出决定的传统。通过要求“实时”汇报金融信息，美国将会变得很急迫，他们过分专注获取文化的短期成果却又喜欢从长计议。
So far the general response overseas to the new SEC ruling has been qualified ―relief‖: it could have been worse. The European Commission（欧盟委员会） described the outcome as ―quite positive‖ for Europe. Tokyo business analyst Hideaki Tanaka says the Japanese business community（日本商界） is ―partially satisfied.‖ Still, companies abroad will need to pay close attention to the implications of the new regulations. Here’s a road map（指南） to some of the key changes:
迄今为止，海外对美国证交会新规的总体反映感到些许宽慰：本来会变得更糟的。欧盟委员会说这种结果对于欧洲来说算“十分乐观了”。东京业务分析师田中秀明说日本商界感到“部分满意”。同时，海外的公司需要密切的关注新规的实施。这里是一些重要变化的指南。
CEO cellmates（首席执行官狱友）: Foreign lobbyists（游说者，说客） failed to win an exemption（免除，豁免） to the ESC（经济与社会委员会） rule that worries them most — section 302（第302节）. It requires CEOs and CFOs（首席财务官） to sign off（签字） on company financial statements（财务报表） — and face up to $5
million in fines and 20 years in jail if the statements prove false. In August, Porsche（保时捷） CEO Wendelin Wiedeking suspended（推迟，暂停，延缓） plans to list on the NYSE（纽交所）, saying no CEO could vouch（保证，证明） with certainty for figures that a thousand people might have compiled. Six other German giants — Deutsche Bank（德意志银行）, Allianz（安联保险集团）, Infineon（英飞凌科技公司）, BASF（巴斯夫公司）, DaimlerChrysler（戴姆勒克莱斯勒） and Deutsche Telekom（德国电信公司） — asked the SEC（美国证交会） for exemptions. What bothers them most is that section 302 holds individuals to blame for what other nations see as a collective responsibility; the Netherlands and Germany, for example, hold all board members to account for financial statement. Perversely（倔强地）, many Europeans say, section 302 reinforces the cult of individuality（个人崇拜） that created American ―celebrity CEOs,‖ who are now widely blamed for inflating the bubble（造成经济泡沫）.
首席执行官狱友：外国说客没能让经济与社会委员会废除让他们最担心的第302条规定。它要求首席执行官和首席财务官们在公司财务报表上签字。如果报表出现差错，他们将面临高达五百万美元的罚款和二十年的监禁。八月，保时捷公司的首席执行官温德林·维德钦推迟了在纽交所上市的计划，他说没有哪一个首席执行官能够肯定的保证经过上千人编辑的数字。另外六个德国巨头—德意志银行、安联保险集团、英飞凌科技公司、巴斯夫公司、戴姆勒
克莱斯勒和德国电信公司要求美国证交会对其豁免。最让他们困扰的是第302条要个人为其他国家认为是集体责任的事负责；例如，荷兰和德国是让全体董事会对财务报表负责。欧洲人倔强的说第302条加强了个人崇拜，促进了“名人首席执行官”的产生，现在很多人都责备这是造成经济泡沫的原因。
Watchdogs（监督委员会）: Foreign firms did wriggle（扭动，蠕动，摆脱） free of rules meant to ensure that company boards are monitoring the numbers put out by their CEOs. U.S. companies can no longer place employees on the board audit committee（董事会审计委员会）, because these employees are usually top executives, often close to
and possibly in cahoots（合伙，共谋） with the CEO. In Germany, however, the employees who sit on company boards are often union members, a power-sharing arrangement designed to ease class tensions and ensure labor peace. By no means did the U.S. Congress（美国国会） set out to threaten this German social contract（社会契约）, but there it stands.
监督委员会：外国企业规避规则意味着公司董事会检测好首席执行官准备的数据。美国公司不能再把雇员送去董事会审计委员会去，因为这些雇员通常是高管经常亲近首席执行官或者有可能与其合谋。然而，在德国，公司董事会成员通常是工会成员，是为了缓和阶级矛盾和确保劳工和平。美国国会绝不会着手威胁德国的这种社会契约，而是会在旁观望。
2014年语言桥杯翻译大赛原文
When he was a child, Russell writes in his Autobiography, he was ―unusually prone to a sense of sin‖. When he was asked to name his favorite hymn（赞美诗）, he chose ―weary of earth and laden with my sin‖. A natural consequence of his secrecy was a troubled conscience, the feeling that his secrets were perpetually（永恒地、持久的） liable to be discovered. When, one morning during the family’s daily prayer meeting, Lady Russell read the parable（寓言） of the Prodigal Son, Bertie said to her: ―I know why you did that – because I broke my jug(水壶).‖ When she later repeated the story with great amusement, he felt still more humiliated (―Most of my vivid early memories are of humiliations‖). She did not realize, he wrote, ―that she was responsible for a morbidness（病态） which had produced tragic results in her own children.‖
拉塞尔在他的自传中写到，当他还是一个孩子的时候，他经常会有一种“罪恶感”。当他被问及他最喜欢的赞美诗是什么的时候，他选择了“满负罪恶且疲惫的地球”。他的秘密的自然结果是他有一颗不安的内心，永远担心他的秘密容易被发现。一天早上，在每日家庭祈祷会上，当拉塞尔夫人在读“回头的浪子”的寓言时，柏蒂对她说：“我知道你为什么这么做，因为我打破了我的水壶。”当她之后高兴地重复地说着这个故事的时候，他感到更加的羞愧。（“我早期最鲜活的记忆就是羞愧”）她并没有意识到这一
点，他写到，“她要对这种病态负责，是这种病态导致了她孩子的悲剧。”
When Bertie was seven, some relief from the oppressive atmosphere of Pembroke Lodge（小屋，旅馆） came when the Russells took a house in London for a few months and Bertie and Frank began for the first time to see something of their other grandmother, Lady Stanley of Alderley, and her remarkable family. Lady Stanley was an aristocrat（贵族） of a quite different stamp from Lady Russell. A few years older than Lady Russell, she had grown up in the atmosphere of robust rationalism that had prevailed in Britain before the succession（继承） of Victoria, and, Russell recalls, was ―contemptuous（轻蔑的，侮辱的） of Victorian goody-goody（装模作样的，假惺惺的，伪善的） priggery（自负，一本正经）‖.
柏蒂七岁的时候，从彭布罗克旅馆压抑的氛围中生出一丝宽慰，那就是拉塞尔一家在伦敦租上了一间房子住上几个月，柏蒂和弗兰克第一次有机会去见识一下他们的祖母，艾德礼区的斯坦利夫人和她了不起的家族。斯坦利夫人与拉塞尔夫人最大的不同就是她出身贵族。她比拉塞尔夫人年长几岁，她生长于浓厚的理性主义氛围，而在维多利亚继承王位之前，理性主义在英国十分盛行。拉塞尔回忆到，斯坦利夫人瞧不起维多利亚时期那装模作样的自负。
As might be expected, she took a great liking to Frank and a corresponding dislike to Bertie, whom she dismissed（不予理会，不予考虑） as ―just like his father‖. She had a large family of four sons and four daughters, most of them talented, all of them argumentative, and none of them shy. They terrified Bertie and enchanted Frank. Of the sons, Henry was a Muslim, Lyulph an atheist and Algernon a Roman Catholic priest. On Sunday they would all gather for lunch and engage each other in vigorous and unrestrained（天马行空的，无限制的） debate, each contradicting the other and shouting at the top of their voices. ―I used to go to those luncheons（午宴，正式午餐） in fear and trembling,‖ Bertie remembered, ―since I never knew but what the whole pack would turn on me.‖ Frank, on the other hand, felt perfectly at home: ―It was full of instruction, entertainment and pleasure… I heard matters freely discussed; I was allowed to speak for myself… I loved it.‖
你可以预想到，斯坦利夫人十分喜欢弗兰克，相应的也就不喜欢柏蒂，她认为柏蒂“跟他父亲一个样”而对他不理不睬。她有一个四儿四女的大家庭，她的孩子大多数都有才华，好争辩，没有一个害羞的孩子。孩子们害怕柏蒂，都喜欢弗兰克。她的儿子中，亨利是一个穆斯林，卢弗是个无神论者，阿尔杰农则是一个天主教的牧师。周日时，他们会一起享用午餐，沉浸到那充满激情、天马行空的辩论中去，如果一个人与另一人观点相冲，他们就会高声大喊。“我曾参加过这样的午宴，让人感到害怕和颤抖。”柏蒂回忆到，
“我从来不知道这一家人都攻击我。”而另一方面，弗兰克感觉非常轻松自在：“宴会充满启迪，十分欢愉??我听人们自由谈论着，我被允许自由说话??我爱极了。”
Frank came to love the Stanleys as warmly as he hated the Russells, and Lady Stanley’s house at 40 Dove Street became for him a second home, a welcome break from Pembroke Lodge. Bertie remained – to all outward appearances at least – a loyal and devoted Russell. When he looked back on the two families in his old age, however, he found that his sympathies had changed: ―I owe to the Russells shyness, sensitiveness, and metaphysics（玄学，形而上学）; to the Stanleys vigour, good health, and good spirits. On the whole, the latter seems a better inheritance than the former.‖
弗兰克渐渐非常喜爱斯坦利一家，十分厌恶拉塞尔一家，斯坦利女士在鸽子街40号的房子成为了弗兰克的第二个家， 与彭布罗克旅馆决裂是受欢迎的。至少对于所有外向的面孔而言，柏蒂仍保持着拉塞尔家族的衷心虔诚。然而，当他年老时去回顾这两个家庭，他的同情之心有所改变：“我把害羞、敏感和形而上学归功于拉塞尔家族；把活力、强健和精神饱满归功于斯坦利家族。总的来说，后者与前者相比看起来是更好的继承。 ”
Living by Uncle Sam’s Rules
By Michael Hastings
The United States is in the grip of（陷入，受?控制） a reform fever not seen since the Roosevelt era（罗斯福时代）, seven decades ago. This January the Securities and Exchange Commission（美国证券交易委员会，证交会） issued more new rules than in any month since it was created in 1934 to clean up Wall Street, still devastated by the great crash of ’29（1929年的经济大崩溃）. Now, as real losses in the market hit more than $4 trillion（万亿）, even worse than ’29, the vengeful winds of reform（复仇的改革之风） are back. Congressional lawmakers（立法者）, prosecutors（检察官） and regulators（监管者） are out to restrain every profession that conspired（合谋，协同） in the excesses of the Internet bubble: the CEO who falsified profits, the accountants who designed their shell games, the lawyers who winked at their tricks and the bankers who knew the score but told investors to buy anyway. And while the new wave of American reformers never intended this, focused as they are on the myriad（无数的，五花八门的） corporate scandals（公司丑闻） in their own backyard, the rules they are crafting（精巧的制作） will reshape the business landscape for companies around the world, sometimes with perverse effects（负面影响）.
This is how the global economy works now. American law has come to govern companies from all nations. During the 1990s boom（经济繁
Informants（情报人）: The fight is still on over a rule that would have required attorneys to blow the whistle on（告发，揭发） their own clients. The International Bar Association（国际律师协会） and its American counterpart（同行） fought the call for ―noisy withdrawal,‖ which would require lawyers to drop a client if they see ―evidence of a material violation‖ －basically fraud（诈骗） — and report them to the SEC（美国证交会）. That provision（规定，条款） has now been tabled for a further 60 days of debate, and the law that stands requires lawyer to report wrongdoing（违法行为，不道德的行为） only to the CEO or CFO（首席财务官）. But according to American Bar Association president Alfred P. Carlton Jr., European lawyers are particularly outraged by noisy rule because in Europe attorney-client privilege is ―absolute,‖ not subject to exceptions（免责条款） as in the United States.
情报人: 有关新规的争论仍在进行，它要求律师告发自己的客户。国际律师协会与其美国同行呼吁“嘈杂的撤销”，这将要求律师甩掉那个客户，如果他们发现“实质违规的证据”—基本的诈骗—并将他们送到美国证交会。那项条款已被提交，还需60天的讨论，已有法律要求律师只能对首席执行官和首席财务官汇报违法行为。但是根据美国律师协会董事长阿尔弗雷德·P·小卡尔顿，欧洲的律师对着恼人的规则感到尤其愤怒，因为在欧洲，当事人保密特权是“绝对的”，不是像美国一样受制于免责条款。
Insider loans（内部贷款）: Foreign firms are concerned as well by the prohibition on company loans to insiders, designed to（旨在） stop executives like CEO Bernie Ebbers, who allegedly（据称，据说） borrowed an unseemly（不适宜的） $408 million from WorldCom（世界通讯公司） at sweetheart（私下达成的） rates. A blanket ban（一律禁止） on company loans would have a very different impact in welfare states（福利国家） like the Netherlands, where even regular workers can get mortgages from their employers. At the same time, the SEC has already given U.S. banks an exemption from this rule, on the grounds that it is natural for banks to loan money to their employees. So far, foreign banks are not exempt, putting them at a disadvantage. Internet lawyers are still trying to figure out how to get around the rule.
内部贷款：外国企业 也担心禁止公司内部贷款，旨在防止像伯尼·埃伯斯一样的首席执行官，据称他从世界通讯公司以私下达成的汇率不合时宜地贷了4.08亿美元。一律禁止公司内部贷款将会对像荷兰这样的福利国家产生重大影响，在那里甚至是普通员工都可以向他们的雇主获得按揭贷款。到目前为止，外国银行没有获得免除，把他们至于了不利地位。互联网律师仍然在想办法去应对这项规定。
Bean counters（会计，精打细算的人）: In the case of Enron（安然公司） and other recent scandals, accountants from the Big Four firms were accused of approving cooked books（做假账） in part to
protect lucrative consulting contracts.（咨询合同） The U.S. reforms attack this conflict of interest（利益冲突） by requiring accountants to drop consulting services, but other nations argue that this fix（补救办法？） makes no sense for them. In Germany, the accounting industry is
not dominated by giants, as in the United States, and the backbone of the economy is 3 million midsize firms known as the Mittelstand（中小企业）, which cannot afford to hire separate firms for audits and consulting.
―For the big companies, it’s no problem,‖ says Jan Wulfatange of the Federation of German Industry（德国工业联合会）. ―But for small companies, it means additional costs. It’s a real problem for the Mittelstand.‖
会计：就安然公司和最近的其他流言来说，有人指控来自四大律师事务所的会计同意做部分假账从而保护咨询公司有利可图。美国的改革通过要求会计放弃咨询服务来积极处理这种利益冲突，但是其他国家认为这种补救办法对他们来说没有任何意义。在德国，会计行业没有被经济巨头给控制，就跟美国一样，经济的主干力量就是三百万家中型企业，即我们所知道的中小企业。他们负担不起单独聘请公司来负责审计和咨询的费用。“对大公司来说，这不是问题”德国工业联合会的简·五尔方泰说，“但是对于小公司来说，这意味着额外的成本，而这对于小企业来说是一个真正的难题。”
Rule books（规则书）: Europe sees America as a nation of lawyers, obsessed with rules, and is trying to convince the United States that its voluminous（大量的，长篇的） accounting standards only multiply（使大量增加） loophole（漏洞，枪眼） opportunities for crafty（狡猾的） accountants. As London Stock Exchange（伦敦证券交易所） chairman Don Cruickshank put it recently, ―Hard rules are hard-wired into the U.S. way of doing things.‖ The U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles（公认会计原则） fill a couple of thousand pages, compared with a couple of hundred for international standard. Lately U.S. authorities（美国当局） have pledged to（承诺） work toward ―global convergence,‖（全球趋同） implying a tilt（倾斜） toward the international approach（国际共识）. And William Donaldson, the incoming （即将就任） SEC chief（美国证交会主席）, has a record of supporting special exemptions for foreign firms.
规则书：欧洲把美国看做一个律师大国，痴迷于规则，它试图说服美国：对于狡猾的会计来说，大量的会计准则只会大大增加漏洞机会。正如伦敦证券交易所主席唐·克鲁克香克最近所说的，“硬规则被强行融入成为美国人做事的方式。”与几百页的国际标准相比，美国的公认会计原则有上千页。最近，美国当局承诺致力于“全球趋同”，暗示对国际共识有一个倾斜。即将就任的美国证交会主席威廉·唐纳森对外国公司有一系列的特殊豁免。
Few assume anymore that New York is the world’s most open, honest market, which is one reason investors are now looking closely at London, Frankfurt（法兰克福） and Tokyo. The LSE（伦敦证券交易所） now sells itself as a market with ―world-class regulation‖（世界级的监管） but without the taint（污点，感染） of scandal or the upheaval of reform（剧烈的变革）. Since the NYSE makes about 30 percent of its revenue from listing fees（上市费）, and foreign companies were its fastest-growing source of new listings（新上市的公司）, it can ill afford to lose this market.
少数人认为纽约不再是世界上最开放、最诚信的市场了，这也是投资者现在密切关注伦敦、法兰克福和东京的原因之一。伦敦正确交易所目前努力把自己打造成一个没有丑闻污点或剧烈变革的“世界级监管”市场。自从纽交所所得利润的30%来自上市费，外国企业就是其新上市公司增长最快的资源，它不能失去这个市场。
Already, it can cost foreign firms $3 million to $4 million just to re-craft their books to meet Wall Street rules. Now the onrush of reform is sending the cost of CEO-malpractice insurance skyward（向上的，向着天空的）, too. Yet American critics say the real problem is that the reforms aren’t tough enough. Lynn Turner, former SEC chief accountant now at Colorado State University（科罗拉多州立大学）, warns investors that ―If a foreign company is asking for an exemption, run as fast as you can.‖ It probably means their numbers can’t be trusted.
早先，对于外国企业来说，光是重新修改上市书来满足华尔街规则的费用就要三到四百万美元。现在，迅猛的变革也抬高了首席执行官玩忽职守的保险费。然而，美国评论家说真正的问题在于改革的力度还不够。美国证交会前首席会计师林·特纳，目前在科罗拉多州立大学，她警告投资者们“如果一家外国公司请求豁免，尽可能的跑远一点。”这很有可能意味着他们的数字不能被信任。