核能与金融
【转载】 why the e ro went n clear (by gillian tett) will 2012 be the year of financial "meltdown" in e rope？ co ld bad policy decisions create a "chain reaction" as investors panic abo t banks "toxic assets"？ if so, will e rope s banks t rn "radioactive", spreading "fallo t" across global markets？ or will the problem be "contained" as "explosions" are "def sed"？ these q estions are weighing on investors minds right now. b t amid all the arg ments abo t economics, it is worth thinking not j st abo t the raw n mbers - b t also the lang age being sed. after months of rolling crises, i (like most people) have become almost in red to the words being bandied abo t； in the wake of 2011, disaster headlines have lost their shock appeal. i recently attended an interdisciplinary conference to disc ss systemic risk in different fields of 21st-cent ry life. i chatted with some engineers and n clear physicists, they pointed o t to me - with a wry ch ckle - that it is fascinating to see the degree to which finance is now being disc ssed sing phrases drawn from the n clear world and the science of atoms. "it s like nobody can talk abo t finance any more witho t borrowing words (from the n clear ind stry)," one physics professor la ghed, admitting that he was ns re abo t whether to feel flattered or dismayed by this ling istic twist. if yo check on the factiva database of press so rces, for example, yo will see that the words "meltdown" and "fallo t" have been sed more than 2,000 times in relation to articles abo t the e rozone. "toxic" has cropped p as m ch in articles abo t banks, and phrases s ch as "chain reaction", "explosion", "overheating" and "radioactive" also come p reg larly. this dwarfs most analogies from the nat ral world or other branches of science (s ch as medicine)； the only other phrase which is comparably pop lar is "storm". why？ one explanation might simply be that jo rnalists - or traders and politicians - are trying to be dramatic. after all, it is rarely easy to constr ct a p nchy story abo t money: finance now operates in cyberspace, with n mbers and concepts that are often achingly esoteric. little s rprise, then, that people h nt for images from science or the nat ral world to comm nicate financial ideas: witho t these - ironically - finance does not feel "real". b t in the case of the n clear imports, i cannot help wondering if there is not something more s btle going on. after all - as the scientists at that risk conference observed - the two, seemingly disparate, worlds of finance and n clear energy are linked by some fascinating echoes today. think abo t it. in its most basic form, finance - like the n clear ind stry - is basically a tility. as cash or energy moves aro nd the economy, it enables economic activity to occ r. b t in both sectors, the q antity of power that can be generated by this tility has increased exponentially in recent years. so has the complexity of the technical details. and that has a cr cial conseq ence: tho gh the "power" of credit or electricity generation has increased dramatically, the ability of ordinary mortals to nderstand these processes has not. on the contrary, finance and n clear science are now controlled by a tiny coterie of technical experts, on whom everyone else depends. most of the time, voters do not worry abo t this. b t whenever accidents occ r, ordinary mortals are reminded afresh of their loss of control - and their v lnerability to s dden shocks, if those technical experts get it wrong. disasters in finance, after all, are mostly man-made, not heaven sent； j st as they s ally are in n clear power. of co rse, it is also worth pointing o t that there is at least one cr cial difference. in the n clear ind stry, the scientists who design and r n power plants are generally not paid bon ses on the basis of how m ch energy they prod ce. finance, by contrast, creates incentives to maximise o tp t, in the form of deal-making and trading, irrespective of whether anyone needs that monetary "energy" (aka credit), or whether safety codes are being breached. it is no s rprise, then, that banking accidents are so common. if n clear power stations had ever been r n with a wall street-style bon s scheme, there probably wo ld have been far more n clear scandals in recent decades (and, indeed, some n clear scientists tell me that certain scandinavian government officials did flirt with the idea of introd cing bon s pay at n clear power plants, b t dropped it when they saw safety standards slip). or, to p t it another way, if we wanted to b ild a safer finance system, we might do well to take a hard look at the world of engineering and n clear power for tips abo t how to operate a more efficient reward system and better safety checks. for the moment, there is still little sign of this occ rring. while the lang age of n clear physics might have moved across into finance, the incentive str ct res have - sadly - not. and i s spect that the world will need to see an even bigger conv lsion before that c lt ral shift occ rs； or a really enormo s finance "meltdown", if yo like. 【评论】 两点补充:一是关于核能与金融另一相似点,二是关于控制核泄漏的几道安全措施与金融监管系统的笔记。 首先,核裂变产生核能的自足(self-s staining)、连锁的能量释放过程与金融行业中"钱生钱"的杠杆效应有相似处。核能的来源目前还是核裂变。(核聚变反应也能产生巨大能量,但反应过程尚不可控,科学家们正在努力探索中。因此核聚变可以称作新能源,而目前的核能来自较为成熟可控的核裂变反应,不算新能源。)在核裂变反应中,较重的原子遭到较轻中子的轰击,进一步释放出较轻的中子和巨大能量,这些中子又参与到对另一原子的轰击过程中,从而引发连锁反应(chain reaction)。而金融领域的"杠杆化"也有相似的连锁撬动的力量,一小部分的投资被放大数倍。举个人理财为例,投资一处房产,再将这个房子的空余房间出租,随着时间推移逐步地将增值的房产转贷款,进而腾出新的结余资金来做其他操作,这样房产投资就可以不断滚大,从而享受租金回报、资产增值和税收优惠等好处。(我发现百度的"杠杆化"词条照搬了wiki的leverage (finance)词条...挺通顺的。) 其次,原文中也提到了金融行业要学习核工业在安全监察方面所做的努力。目前中国核反应堆主要有以下几重保护措施:首先是外部混凝土防爆安全壳,安全壳里面有防辐射金属材料。第二是内部钢安全壳。第三,反应堆顶部设有一个数千吨的硼酸水箱(硼通常制成控制棒,用来吸收中子以降低核裂变反应速度,降低核反应堆温度,防止核反应炉融毁。),备用电源失效的紧急情况下硼酸水箱倾泻下来的水足以浸没核燃料棒,停止核反应。此外,根据去年10月国务院发布的关于加强环境保护重点工作的意见,核安全工作还包括推进老旧核设施退役和放射性废物治理,核材料、放射性物品生产、运输、贮存等环节的安全管理和辐射防护,以及核与辐射安全审评、辐射环境监测监督等。核事故尚可部分归咎于海啸之凶猛、自然之无情及人类生存空间之局促,金融危机可以说大部分是人祸了。因为杠杆化在扩大收益预期的同时也放大了风险,贪婪的金融工具使用者们如不加节制,很容易放纵自己逐利的本性,任由风险积聚,事态也往消极方向逐渐滑落了。目前金融监管体系改革进展如何,国际金融监管新趋势为何？做了一些功课,发觉归纳不来,不写了。 活在信息时代当中,有时真会感觉大事件应接不暇。其实不止是口译员应当每天跟踪新闻,学习各领域的基础知识,作为一个现代社会的公民也要常看新闻。诸如去年上半年的福岛核电站事故,在媒体报道中就能了解到核安全常识、核反应堆运作原理等知识。虽说核电、金融的出现为我们的生活免去了很多烦恼,却不曾想到如此强大的核电与金融市场说垮就垮。原来日常省下来的那些小烦恼只是小恩小惠,只是暂时性地赋予我们懒惰的权利。人们不能久居麻痹的港湾,在设计出舒适产品的同时,也得附上相应的保障措施和应急方案,并且隔一段时间要进行更新、升级,加强保障措施,操练应急方案。没有什么事情是一劳永逸。就好比衣服的换洗,指甲头发的修剪一样；电脑病毒得常常查杀,知识库得不断加入新鲜活水。电脑中毒崩溃、个人财务混乱、知识老旧脱节,这些新时代的烦恼,最终也会成为洗衣、修指甲一般的生活习惯。要养成这些好习惯,杀死懒惰虫！