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?

全球金融危机爆发五年后，一个挥之不去的重大问题是：我们是否做了足够多的工作，使得下一场金融危机（肯定会有的）造成如此大损害的风险被降低？

The short answer is no -- though we've made some headway. Here are a few fifth-anniversary observations:

这个问题的简要回答是，并非如此──不过我们也取得了一些进展。以下是金融危机五周年之际的一些观察结果：

American banks are stronger.

美国各家银行更加强壮。

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.

现在我们清楚地知道，银行在危机之前没有足够的资本。换言之，它们过于依赖借贷，尤其是短期借贷。当信贷干涸时，银行的生存就受到威胁。

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.

美国的银行已经被推动（在有些情况下是被强迫）筹集更多资本。按照一个广泛使用的衡量标准，18家最大银行在2008年底时核心资本充足率为5.8%；到去年年底时为11.3%。这让它们有了更大的缓冲余地，可以承受又一次冲击，同时可能让它们不管怎样都对承担重大风险更谨慎了一些。

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.

最初在瑞士巴塞尔协商的全球资本规则极为复杂，而且依赖银行对自身风险的评估。这类协商通常都在巴塞尔进行。恢复“杠杆率”这一更为直接的标准以及监管机构一再进行的压力测试（用以衡量银行承受危机的情况）将阻止银行方面的博弈。然而，限制银行对于大规模短期借贷的依赖仍然有待实现。

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

“太大而不能倒”的问题尚未得到解决。

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.

规模最大的银行实际上变得更大了，而且投资者似乎仍然认为，如果它们遇到问题，政府将会支持它们（就这个问题可以好好辩论一场）。依然存在的一个弱点是，银行对于大规模短期借贷的依赖。

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.

但新资本规则和更严厉的监管审查最终可能成为银行增大规模的负担，让银行不会变得太大，甚至还有可能缩减规模，除非规模真正能够带来实际的经营优势，而不仅仅是想当然的政府支持。

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.

美国国会授予监管机构接管并缩减大型金融机构的权力。这是一大好处。2008年时监管机构还不具备这种权力。但除非经过检验，否则我们不会知道，在一家与全球其他领域错综交织的大型银行倒闭时，新的安排能否应对这样的情况。

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

监管加强了。其效果是否更好则是另一个问题。

'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.'

大事记：震动美国金融系统的事件巴塞尔银行监管委员会(Basel Committee on Banking Supervision)秘书长比雷斯(Wayne Byres)说，银行业人士有点失望，他们在感叹差距和不一致的情形，而监管机构目前关注的是已经取得的良好且稳定的进展。

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.

如何评判目前的监管取决于你的目的。美国马萨诸塞州民主党参议员沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)前不久深情地谈起了美好的旧日时光，说那时“我们让银行感觉乏味无聊，对华尔街实施真正的监管”。她希望能重新回到那个方向。

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.

美联储前理事沃什(Kevin Warsh)担心，美国在那条路上已经走得太远。他说，银行越来越像是努力服侍政府和上级的公用事业公司，由此造成的不愿发放贷款和不愿创新的态度会伤害美国经济。

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.

2010年《多德-弗兰克法案》一个毋庸置疑的缺点是，没有缩减监管机构的数量，所以规则制定的步伐慢得令人难以忍受，银行、消费者和正努力推动这一进程的美国财长卢(Jack Lew)对此感到相当沮丧。

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

房地产市场是任务清单上的最大一项。

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.

随着房地产泡沫的破裂以及之后种种问题的发生，美国政府基本上算是接管了住房抵押贷款业务。无论是谁发放的贷款，最终这些贷款的大多数都“落到”了房利美(Fannie Mae)、房地美(Freddie Mac)或美国联邦住房管理局(Federal Housing Administration)的头上。

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.

现在看这样是没问题的，特别是如果你正打算买房的话。但这会（再次）将纳税人置于危险境地，如果任何一个地方出了岔子，阻止了房地产市场在美国经济中正常运转的话。但若制定《多德-弗兰克法案》规则一直慢得令人沮丧，那么抵押贷款市场的再私有化与房利美和房地美的再定义也会极其缓慢。

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

图解：一场重塑美国经济的风暴车轮似乎的确转动了一点，但美国国会最近几乎在一切问题上都陷入了僵局。

And then there's the economy.

还有，就是美国经济。

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

很容易想象，明日危机的种子如何在今日播下。

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（经济仍然疲弱的副产品）会鼓励投资者（无论大小）为获得稍多一点的回报承担更多风险，而且他们并不一定了解自己承担了什么风险。

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.

如果利率接近正常水平，这么做的诱惑就会减少，但只有在美国经济前景转好的时候，利率才会接近正常水平。人们对美国经济前景、财政政策和货币政策的不安，再加上华盛顿无力就国民经济增长战略达成一致，所有这些会促使蠢人承担太多风险，而小心谨慎的人又不敢承担风险。