经济学人下载:企业丑闻新时代(3)

Take regulation first. The system is a strange blend: there are pockets of laissez-faire attitudes here,
先说说法规。该体系是一个奇怪的混合：这里是零星的自由放任态度

thickets of rules there and lobbying everywhere. It is variously prone to laxity, capture and incompetence.
那里是错综复杂规则并且到处充斥着游说。它在很多方面都倾向于松弛、占有和无能力。

The Federal Drug Administration allowed opioids to be sold to the masses.
联邦药品管理局允许向大众出售类鸦片药物。

The Federal Aviation Administration delegated part of its inspection process to Boeing employees.
联邦航空管理局将其部分检验过程委托给了波音的员工。

The Federal Trade Commission has struggled to police Facebook. The fines imposed by some regulators can be small relative to market values of giant firms.
联邦贸易委员会努力地监管Facebook。一些监管者实施的罚款相对小于这些巨头公司的市场价值。

Second, litigation may no longer be quite the deterrent it once was.
第二，诉讼可能不再像从前一样具有相当的威慑力。

Criminal cases leading to jail terms for top executives are as rare as socialists at Goldman Sachs. And civil law has lost its bite.
刑事案件导致高管坐牢的情况和高盛投资公司中社会主义者一样稀有。民法已经失去了它的利齿。

America has long used class-action suits to punish firms and compensate consumers.
美国长期以来都用集体诉讼案惩罚公司并补偿消费者。

Tort costs born by firms are equivalent to about 2% of GDP a year, higher than in other countries. Nonetheless, life has got easier for firms.
公司的侵权成本相当于一年GDP的约2%，高于其他国家。但公司的日子越来越容易了。

Arbitration clauses, in which customers and staff forfeit the right to pursue class actions, have become more common.
关于顾客和员工因失权而寻求集体诉讼的仲裁条款已经变得更加普遍。

Firms are more likely to extend cases to appeal, which can take up to a decade.
公司更有可能将个案扩展至上诉，上诉时间可以高达10年之久。

One veteran class-action lawyer says that financial penalties have shrunk relative to the value of many firms,
一名经验丰富的集体诉讼律师表示相对于很多公司的市值而言，罚款的金额已经缩水了，

which in turn have risen as a result of a takeover wave.
反过来，由于收购浪潮，这些公司市值还增加了。

She complains that for the top 50 firms, the threat of a multi-billion-dollar legal settlement "doesn't move the needle any more".
她抱怨称对前50家公司而言，几十亿美元诉讼和解的威胁“根本不值一提”。

The final constraint is competition. It can drive firms to cut corners
最后一个约束是竞争。这可以促使公司抄近路

but in the long run should act to discipline careless or badly behaved firms, because customers shun them.
但从长期来看，应该行动起来处罚粗心或行为不良的公司，因为客户有意回避它们。

Kraft and Heinz boomed in the 20th century, thanks in part to a reputation for safety. Japanese car firms forced Detroit to raise its game in the 1980s.
卡夫和亨氏在20世纪迅速发展的部分原因是安全性的名声。20世纪80年代，日本汽车公司迫使底特律提高了其竞争力。

And today Netflix trounces the traditional cable TV firms which love to bamboozle customers.
如今Netflix斥责那些喜欢欺诈客户的传统有线电视。

But across the economy incumbent firms have got more powerful over the past 20 years, making it harder for customers to switch.
但是在整个经济中，在位企业在过去20多年中获得了更多的权力，这使得客户更加难以转变。

There is one alternative to Boeing, Airbus, but it lacks spare capacity. Users find it hard to leave Facebook.
波音还可以替换成空客，但后者缺乏闲置生产力。用户们发现很难离开Facebook。

Pesticides and herbicides, credit-checking, drug distribution and drug retailing have grown more concentrated, too.
农药和除草剂、信贷调查、药品分销和药品零售也越来越集中。

Perhaps the rash of crises will prompt corporate soul-searching. If not, public confidence in capitalism may suffer another blow.
或许危机的大量涌现将促使企业自我反省。如若不反省，那么资本主义的公信力或许会遭遇另一场冲击。