[00:00:02] Trust and Individual Fair Dealing - 英语演讲
[00:00:08] Address by Alan Greenspan
[00:00:10] at University of Pennsylvania
[00:00:13] Dean Harker, members of the faculty,
[00:00:17] Wharton alumni, friends and families and,
[00:00:21] especially, members of the 2005 graduating class.
[00:00:25] I have more in common with you graduates
[00:00:29] than people might think.
[00:00:30] After all, before long, after my term
[00:00:33] at the Federal Reserve comes to an end,
[00:00:35] I too will be looking for a job.
[00:00:38] I am delighted to join in celebrating
[00:00:43] your achievements and promise.
[00:00:45] You are being bequeathed the tools
[00:00:48] for creating a material existence
[00:00:50] that neither my generation nor any
[00:00:53] that preceded it could have even
[00:00:56] remotely imagined as we began our life's work.
[00:01:00] What you must fashion for yourselves
[00:01:03] are those values that will enable you
[00:01:06] to contribute and thrive in a world
[00:01:08] that is becoming increasingly competitive and frenetic.
[00:01:12] The creative abilities of this graduating class
[00:01:19] and those of your contemporaries will determine
[00:01:22] the magnitude and extent of American prosperity
[00:01:25] in this century. And the ideas and values
[00:01:29] that you employ in these creative endeavors
[00:01:32] will shape the future state of our cultural,
[00:01:35] legal, and economic institutions.
[00:01:38] You will doubtless foster advances in science,
[00:01:42] engineering, and business management.
[00:01:48] But scientific proficiency will not be enough.
[00:01:50] Technology is a tool that, unless guided
[00:01:53] by a set of ethical principles, is of qualified value.
[00:01:58] The principles governing business behavior
[00:02:03] are an essential support to voluntary exchange,
[00:02:06] the defining characteristic of free markets.
[00:02:09] Voluntary exchange, in turn,
[00:02:13] implies trust in the word of those with
[00:02:16] whom we do business. To be sure,
[00:02:18] all market economies require a rule of law to function -
[00:02:23] laws of contracts, rights to property,
[00:02:26] and a general protection of citizens
[00:02:30] from arbitrary actions of the state.
[00:02:31] Yet, if even a small fraction of legally
[00:02:35] binding transactions required adjudication,
[00:02:38] our court systems would be swamped into immobility,
[00:02:43] and a rule of law would be unenforceable.
[00:02:47] Of necessity, therefore, in virtually
[00:02:52] all our transactions, whether with customers or with colleagues,
[00:02:56] with friends or with strangers,
[00:02:58] we rely on the word of those
[00:03:01] with whom we do business.
[00:03:02] If we could not do so, goods
[00:03:05] and services could not be exchanged efficiently.
[00:03:08] Trillions of dollars of assets are priced
[00:03:13] and traded daily in our financial markets.
[00:03:17] Before recent technologies enabled transactions
[00:03:20] to clear and settle virtually in real time,
[00:03:23] most of the vast volumes of trades
[00:03:26] were not legally binding for days.
[00:03:29] Their validity rested on trust.
[00:03:33] Even today, much of business is transacted
[00:03:36] on parties' undocumented verbal agreements.
[00:03:39] We take this for granted and rarely pause
[00:03:44] to ponder how unusual this practice is.
[00:03:47] Moreover, even when followed to the letter,
[00:03:52] laws guide only a few of the day-to-day
[00:03:56] decisions required of business and financial managers.
[00:03:59] The rest are governed by whatever personal code
[00:04:03] of values market participants bring to the table.
[00:04:07] Trust as the necessary condition for commerce
[00:04:12] was particularly evident in freewheeling nineteenth century America,
[00:04:17] where reputation became a valued asset.
[00:04:21] Throughout much of that century,
[00:04:23] laissez-faire reigned in the United States as elsewhere,
[00:04:28] and caveat emptor was the prevailing prescription
[00:04:32] for guarding against wide-open trading practices.
[00:04:36] In such an environment, a reputation for honest dealing,
[00:04:41] which many feared was in short supply,
[00:04:43] was particularly valued.
[00:04:46] Even those inclined to be less than scrupulous
[00:04:49] in their personal dealings had to adhere to
[00:04:53] a more ethical standard in their market transactions,
[00:04:57] or they risked being driven out of business.
[00:05:00] To be sure, the history of world business,
[00:05:05] then and now, is strewn with Fisks, Goulds,
[00:05:09] Ponzis and numerous others treading on,
[00:05:13] or over, the edge of legality.
[00:05:15] But, despite their prominence,
[00:05:18] they were a distinct minority.
[00:05:20] If the situation had been otherwise,
[00:05:23] late nineteenth and early twentieth century America
[00:05:26] would never have realized so high a standard of living.
[00:05:30] Indeed, we could not have achieved our current level
[00:05:34] of national productivity if ethical behavior
[00:05:37] had not been the norm or
[00:05:40] if corporate governance had been deeply flawed.
[00:05:43] Over the past half-century,
[00:05:47] societies have chosen to embrace the protections
[00:05:51] of myriad government financial regulations
[00:05:54] and implied certifications of integrity
[00:05:57] as a supplement to, if not a substitute for,
[00:06:01] business reputation.
[00:06:03] Most observers believe that the world
[00:06:07] is better off as a consequence of these governmental protections.
[00:06:11] Accordingly, the market value of trust,
[00:06:14] so prominent in the 1800s,
[00:06:17] seemed by the 1990s to have become less necessary.
[00:06:22] But recent corporate scandals in the United States
[00:06:28] and elsewhere have clearly shown
[00:06:30] that the plethora of laws and regulations
[00:06:33] of the past century have not eliminated
[00:06:37] the less-savory side of human behavior.
[00:06:39] We should not be surprised then to see
[00:06:43] a re-emergence of the value placed by markets
[00:06:46] on trust and personal reputation in business practice.
[00:06:50] After the revelations of recent corporate malfeasance,
[00:06:55] the market punished the stock
[00:06:58] and bond prices of those corporations
[00:07:00] whose behaviors had cast doubt on the reliability
[00:07:04] of their reputations.
[00:07:06] There may be no better antidote for business
[00:07:09] and financial transgression.
[00:07:11] But in the wake of the scandals,
[00:07:13] the Congress clearly signaled that more was needed.
[00:07:18] The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 appropriately places
[00:07:25] the explicit responsibility for certification
[00:07:28] of the soundness of accounting and disclosure procedures
[00:07:32] on the chief executive officer,
[00:07:35] who holds most of the decision making power
[00:07:38] in the modern corporation.
[00:07:40] Merely certifying that generally
[00:07:43] accepted accounting principles
[00:07:44] were being followed is no longer enough.
[00:07:47] Even full adherence to those principles,
[00:07:51] given some of the imaginative accounting of recent years,
[00:07:55] has proved inadequate.
[00:07:57] I am surprised that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,
[00:08:01] so rapidly developed and enacted,
[00:08:04] has functioned as well as it has.
[00:08:06] It will doubtless be fine-tuned
[00:08:10] as experience with the act's details points the way.
[00:08:14] But the act importantly reinforced the principle
[00:08:19] that shareholders own our corporations
[00:08:22] and that corporate managers should be
[00:08:25] working on behalf of shareholders to
[00:08:27] allocate business resources to their optimum use.
[00:08:32] But as our economy has grown,
[00:08:35] and our business units have become ever larger,
[00:08:38] de facto shareholder control has diminished.
[00:08:42] Ownership has become more dispersed
[00:08:45] and few shareholders have sufficient stakes
[00:08:48] to individually influence the choice of boards
[00:08:51] of directors or chief executive officers.
[00:08:55] The vast majority of corporate share ownership is,
[00:08:59] of course, for investment,
[00:09:01] not to achieve operating control of a company.
[00:09:04] Thus, it has increasingly fallen to corporate officers,
[00:09:10] especially the chief executive officer,
[00:09:13] to guide the business, one hopes by
[00:09:17] what is perceived to be in the best interest of shareholders.
[00:09:20] To be sure, senior officers in today's corporations
[00:09:25] no longer have the dominance
[00:09:27] that they were able to achieve prior to
[00:09:29] the revolution in information technology.
[00:09:32] A decade ago, senior officers of a corporation
[00:09:36] could tightly control, if they chose,
[00:09:39] access to key information systems.
[00:09:42] Those senior officers could have far
[00:09:45] greater knowledge of the workings of their business
[00:09:47] than others and, as a consequence,
[00:09:50] were less subject to challenge
[00:09:53] when making day-by-day tactical and strategic decisions.
[00:09:57] Arguably, with information systems now accessible
[00:10:03] to broader ranges of managers and other employees,
[00:10:07] the monopoly power that proprietary information
[00:10:11] affords has been significantly reduced.
[00:10:14] Moreover, the availability of vital information
[00:10:18] now often extends beyond the borders of the company
[00:10:22] to suppliers and customers as well.
[00:10:24] A generation ago, for example,
[00:10:27] a purchasing manager rarely divulged to
[00:10:31] a supplier the state of the company's inventory position.
[00:10:34] It was presumed that such information
[00:10:38] in the hands of suppliers would undermine
[00:10:40] the bargaining position of the purchasing manager.
[00:10:43] Today such information is broadly
[00:10:47] and routinely shared to facilitate
[00:10:49] just-in-time supply systems.
[00:10:52] In general, technologies may be in the process
[00:10:56] of facilitating a much broader access to information,
[00:11:00] with the consequence that CEOs
[00:11:03] could increasingly face more careful monitoring.
[00:11:06] It seems clear that, if the CEO chooses,
[00:11:12] he or she can, by example and through oversight,
[00:11:16] induce corporate colleagues and outside auditors
[00:11:19] to behave ethically. Companies run by people
[00:11:24] with high ethical standards arguably do not
[00:11:28] need detailed rules on how to act in the long-run
[00:11:32] interest of shareholders and, presumably, themselves.
[00:11:36] But, regrettably, human beings come as we are -
[00:11:40] some with enviable standards,
[00:11:43] and others who continually seek to cut corners.
[00:11:46] Rules exist to govern behavior,
[00:11:51] but rules cannot substitute for character.
[00:11:54] In the years going forward,
[00:11:57] it will be your reputation -
[00:11:59] for integrity, judgment,
[00:12:02] and other qualities of character -
[00:12:03] that will determine your success in life
[00:12:06] and in business. A generation from now,
[00:12:10] as you watch your children graduate,
[00:12:13] you will want to be able to say
[00:12:16] that whatever success you achieved
[00:12:18] was the result of honest and productive work,
[00:12:21] and that you dealt with people
[00:12:23] the way you would want them to deal with you.
[00:12:26] I presume that I could offer all kinds of
[00:12:32] advice to today's graduates from my nearly
[00:12:35] six decades in private business and government.
[00:12:39] I could urge you all to work hard, save, and prosper.
[00:12:44] And I do. But transcending all else
[00:12:48] is being principled in how you go
[00:12:51] about doing those things.
[00:12:53] It is decidedly not true that "nice guys finish last,"
[00:12:58] as that highly original American baseball philosopher Leo Durocher
[00:13:03] was once alleged to have said.
[00:13:06] I do not deny that many appear to
[00:13:10] have succeeded in a material way
[00:13:12] by cutting corners and manipulating associates,
404
404，您请求的文件不存在!