Five years after the onset of the global financial crisis, one big lingering question is this: Have we done enough to reduce the risk that the next financial crisis -- and there will be one -- will do so much damage?
       我們是否做了足夠的工作，使得下一場金融危機（肯定會有）的風險被降低？

        The short answer is no -- though we've made some headway. Here are a few fifth-anniversary observations:
        這個問題的簡要回答是，並非如此──不過我們也取得了一些進展。

        American banks are stronger.

        Banks, it is now evident, didn't have enough capital before the crisis. That's another way of saying they relied way too much on borrowing, particularly short-term borrowing. When that dried up, their existence was threatened.
        銀行在危機之前沒有足夠的資本。換言之，它們過於依賴借貸，尤其是短期借貸。

        U.S. banks have been pushed -- in some cases, forced -- to raise more capital. By one widely used measure, the 18 biggest banks had high-quality capital equal to 5.8% of assets at the end of 2008; at the end of last year, they had 11.3%. This gives them bigger cushions to absorb another blow and probably makes them a bit more wary about taking big risks, for better or worse.
        美國的銀行已經被推動（在有些情況下是被強迫）籌集更多資本。這讓它們有了更大的緩衝餘地，可以承受又一次衝擊，同時可能讓它們不管怎樣都對承擔重大風險更謹慎了一些。

        The initial capital rules negotiated globally in Basel, Switzerland, where such things are done, are extraordinarily complicated and rely on banks' assessment of their own risks. The revival of the 'leverage ratio,' a more straightforward measure, and the regulators' repeated 'stress tests' (to gauge how well a bank will weather a storm) will discourage game playing. Limiting banks' reliance on wholesale short-term borrowing, though, remains on the to-do list.
        恢復“杠杆率”這一更為直接的標準以及監管機構一再進行的壓力測試（用以衡量銀行承受危機的情況）將阻止銀行方面的博弈。然而，限制銀行對於大規模短期借貸的依賴仍然有待實現。

        The 'too big to fail' problem hasn't been licked.

        The biggest banks are actually bigger, and -- though one can get a good debate going over this -- still appear to be treated by investors as if the government will stand behind them if they run into trouble. One remaining vulnerability is banks' reliance on wholesale short-term borrowing.

        But new capital rules and stiffer regulatory scrutiny may prove to be such a tax on size that banks won't get much bigger, and might even shrink, unless there truly are substantial business advantages in scale, not just the perceived government backstop.
        新資本規則和更嚴厲的監管審查最終可能成為銀行增大規模的負擔，讓銀行不會變得太大，甚至還有可能縮減規模，除非規模真正能夠帶來實際的經營優勢，而不僅僅是想當然的政府支持。

        Congress gave regulators authority they didn't have in 2008 to take over and wind down a big financial institution. That's a plus. But we won't know until it's tested if the new setup can manage the collapse of a big bank that's intertwined with the rest of the world.

        There is more regulation. Whether it's better is another question.

        'Bankers,' said Wayne Byres, secretary-general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the other day, 'are somewhat despondent, lamenting gaps and inconsistencies while regulators are focusing on the good and steady progress that has been made.'
        銀行業人士有點失望，他們在感歎差距和不一致的情形，而監管機構目前關注的是已經取得的良好且穩定的進展。

        Judging the quality of current regulation depends on one's goals. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) recently talked fondly about the good old days when 'we made banks boring and put real cops on Wall Street.' She'd like to move back in that direction.
        如何評判目前的監管取決於你的目的。

        Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, fears the U.S. has already gone too far down that road. He says banks increasingly resemble public utilities 'trying to serve the wants of their government and their supervisors,' and that the resulting reluctance to make loans and innovate hurts the economy.
       銀行越來越像是努力服侍政府和上級的公用事業公司，由此造成的不願發放貸款和不願創新的態度會傷害美國經濟。

        One unquestioned shortcoming of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law is that it didn't shrink the number of regulatory agencies, so the pace of rule-writing is excruciatingly slow, frustrating banks, consumers and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who is trying to move things along.
        一個毋庸置疑的缺點是，沒有縮減監管機構的數量，所以規則制定的步伐慢得令人難以忍受。銀行、消費者和正努力推動這一進程的美國財長 Jack Lew 對此感到相當沮喪。

        Housing is the biggest item on the to-do list.

        With the bursting of the housing bubble and all that followed, the government basically took over the mortgage business. No matter who makes the loans, most of them end up at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration.

        That's OK for now, especially if you're buying a house. But it puts taxpayers at risk (again) if anything goes awry and prevents the normal functioning of the market in a huge sector of the U.S. economy. But if writing the rules for Dodd-Frank has been frustratingly slow, re-privatizing the mortgage market and redefining Fannie and Freddie has been excruciatingly so.
        但這會（再次）將納稅人置於危險境地，如果任何一個地方出了岔子，阻止了房地產市場在美國經濟中正常運轉的話。但若制定《Dodd-Frank》規則一直慢得令人沮喪，那麼抵押貸款市場的再私有化與 Fannie 和 Freddie 的再定義也會極其緩慢。

        The wheels do seem to be turning a bit, but there is congressional gridlock on nearly everything these days.

        And then there's the economy.

        It's easy to imagine how the seeds of tomorrow's crisis are being planted today.

        Today's low interest rates -- a byproduct of a still-weak economy -- encourage investors, big and small, to take more risk to get a little more return, not always understanding the risks they're taking.
        如今的低利率（經濟仍然疲弱的副產品）會鼓勵投資者（無論大小）為獲得稍多一點的回報承擔更多風險，而且他們並不一定瞭解自己承擔了什麼風險。

        There would be less temptation to do that if interest rates were closer to normal, but that will happen only if the prospects for the U.S. economy get better. The uneasiness about the outlook for the economy, as well as for fiscal and monetary policy, and the inability of Washington to agree on anything approaching a strategy for national economic growth prompt the foolish to take too much risk and the cautious to take too little.
        人們對美國經濟前景、財政政策和貨幣政策的不安，再加上華盛頓無力就國民經濟增長戰略達成一致，所有這些會促使蠢人承擔太多風險，而小心謹慎的人又不敢承擔風險。