美国是如何在现实中迷失的

Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Still, everyone should try─if only once─to start a business. After all, it is small and medium enterprises that are the key to job creation. There is also something uniquely educational about sitting at the desk where the buck stops, in a dreary office you've just rented, working day and night with a handful of employees just to break even.
并不是所有人都能成为企业家。然而，每个人都应该尝试──至少一次──创建一家公司。毕竟，中小型企业才是创造就业的主要动力。与此同时，创建企业能令你收获独一无二的体验，想象一下在一个刚刚租来的乏味的办公室里，你坐在老板桌前，为了实现收支平衡，和为数不多的几位雇员夜以继日工作的场景吧。

As an academic, I'm just an amateur capitalist. Still, over the past 15 years I've started small ventures in both the U.S. and the U.K. In the process I've learned something surprising: It's much easier to do in the U.K. There seemed to be much more regulation in the U.S., not least the headache of sorting out health insurance for my few employees. And there were certainly more billable hours from lawyers.
作为学者，我只是一名业余企业家。不过，在过去15年时间里，我在美国和英国都创办过小型公司。在创业的过程中，我发现了一个奇怪的现象：在英国，经商要容易得多。美国似乎有多得多的规章，尤其让我头痛的是给我那几名员工处理健康保险的事情。此外，在美国，律师寄来的按小时计费的账单肯定要贵得多。

This set me thinking. We are assured by vociferous economists that economic growth would be higher in the U.S. and unemployment lower if only the government would run even bigger deficits and/or the Fed would print even more money. But what if the difficulty lies elsewhere, in problems that no amount of fiscal or monetary stimulus can overcome?
这让我陷入了思考。口若悬河的经济学家们信誓旦旦地告诉我们，只要政府继续扩大赤字，并且/或者美国联邦储备委员会（Fed）继续印刷更多的钞票，美国的经济增速就会提高，失业率也会下降。但是，要是问题的症结并不在这儿，而是无论多大规模的财政和货币刺激措施都无法克服的问题怎么办？

Nearly all development economists agree that good institutions─legislatures, courts, administrative agencies─are crucial. When poor countries improve their institutions, economic growth soon accelerates. But what about rich countries? If poor countries can get rich by improving their institutions, is it not possible that rich countries can get poor by allowing their institutions to degenerate? I want to suggest that it is.
几乎所有的发展经济学家都同意，优秀的机构──立法机构、法院和行政机关──至关重要。当贫穷的国家改善机构运作的时候，该国的经济增长就会很快获得提振。但对于富裕的国家来讲呢？如果贫穷的国家可以通过改善机构运作而致富，那么富裕的国家难道不会因为容忍本国机构的退化而变穷吗？我想要说的是，这是完全有可能的。

Consider the evidence from the annual 'Doing Business' reports from the World Bank and International Finance Corporation. Since 2006 the report has published data for most of the world's countries on the total number of days it takes to start a business, get a construction permit, register a property, pay taxes, get an export or import license and enforce a contract. If one simply adds together the total number of days it would take to carry out all seven of these procedures sequentially, it is possible to construct a simple measure of how slowly─or fast─a country's bureaucracy moves.
让我们看看世界银行(World Bank)和国际金融公司(International Finance Corporation)发布的年度《全球营商环境报告》(Doing Business)显示出的证据吧。从2006年起，《全球营商环境报告》便开始发布在全球大多数国家开办企业、获得建筑许可、注册资产、缴纳税款、获得进口和出口许可证以及执行合同分别所需花费的天数数据。如果我们把完成上述七项程序分别所需的天数简单相加，那么我们就能够构建出一种简单的、衡量一国行政速度快慢的工具。

Seven years of data suggest that most of the world's countries are successfully making it easier to do business: The total number of days it takes to carry out the seven procedures has come down, in some cases very substantially. In only around 20 countries has the total duration of dealing with 'red tape' gone up. The sixth-worst case is none other than the U.S., where the total number of days has increased by 18% to 433. Other members of the bottom 10, using this metric, are Zimbabwe, Burundi and Yemen (though their absolute numbers are of course much higher).
七年以来的数据显示出，全球大多数国家都成功地简化了营商流程：在这些国家，完成上述七项程序所需的总天数有所减少，并且在其中一些国家，总天数减少的幅度相当地大。只有大约20个国家处理这些繁文缛节的总时长有所增加。居于倒数第六位的国家竟然是美国，在美国完成这七项程序所需的总天数增加了18%，达到了433天。按照这一衡量方法，其他排在倒数10位中的国家还有津巴布韦、布隆迪和也门（不过，这些国家所需的绝对天数当然比美国多得多）。

Why is it getting harder to do business in America? Part of the answer is excessively complex legislation. A prime example is the 848-page Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of July 2010 (otherwise known as the Dodd-Frank Act), which, among other things, required that regulators create 243 rules, conduct 67 studies and issue 22 periodic reports. Comparable in its complexity is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (906 pages), which is also in the process of spawning thousands of pages of regulation. You don't have to be opposed to tighter financial regulation or universal health care to recognize that something is wrong with laws so elaborate that almost no one affected has the time or the will to read them.
为什么在美国经商越来越难了呢？有一部分责任要归咎于过分复杂的法律体系。最好的例证当属于2010年7月生效的长达848页的《华尔街改革和消费者保护法案》(Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, 也被称为多德??弗兰克法案(Dodd-Frank Act))。这项法案要求的内容包括，监管机构需要制定243条法规制度，开展67项研究，并发布22种周期性报告。复杂程度能与多德??弗兰克法案媲美的是长达906页《患者保护与平价医疗法案》(Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)。目前，这两项法案都处于制定与之配套的数千页的监管规则的阶段。即便不反对加强金融监管或全民医疗保健制度的人士也会认同，如此繁琐的法律规定存在一定的问题，以至于当事人完全不具备通读相关法案的时间和意愿。