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Finance & economics
财经板块
Banking: Stick to Manhattan
银行业：坚守曼哈顿
Goldman Sachs’s disastrous Main Street gamble
高盛损失惨重的主街赌博
How hard can it be?
这能有多难呢？
Goldman Sachs is supposed to employ the sharpest minds in finance.
高盛集团的员工理应是金融界最聪明的人才。
Traders on the other side of a deal shake in fear; bosses flock to its bankers for advice; investors hang on to its analysts’ every word.
与其交手的商人都瑟瑟发抖；老板们纷纷向其银行家寻求建议；投资者把身家都寄托在其分析师的每一句话上。
In 2016, when Goldman launched its consumer business, it seemed only a matter of time before these masters of the universe mastered the pedestrian business of making loans to ordinary people.
2016年，当高盛推出消费者业务时，这些金权世界的大师掌控向普通人放贷的平凡业务只是时间问题。
But it is clear now—after the third reshuffle in almost as many years was announced on October 18th—that Goldman should have stuck to Wall Street.
但是，在10月18日，高盛宣布了近三年来的第三次重组后，结论显而易见——高盛本应该留在华尔街的。
Profits are falling across the big banks as the economic cycle turns.
随着经济周期的转变，各大银行的利润都在下降。
High interest rates are killing lucrative investment-bank revenues and putting pressure on consumers.
高利率迫使投资银行与丰厚收入说拜拜，还给消费者带来了压力。
In the third quarter, compared with a year ago, net income fell by 17% at JPMorgan Chase, 25% at Citi, 29% at Morgan Stanley—and by a whopping 43% at Goldman.
第三季度，与去年同期相比，摩根大通的净利润下降了17%，花旗下降了25%，摩根士丹利下降了29%，而高盛，足足下降了43%。
This partly reflects its dominance of businesses that have slowed sharply, like investment banking.
这在一定程度上是因为它在投资银行等已经大幅放缓的业务上占据主导地位。
But it is also because, without those vast profits in trading and investment banking to distract shareholders, the turn in the credit cycle is revealing just how terrible Goldman is when it comes to consumer lending.
但还有一个原因是，如果没有交易和投资银行业务的巨额利润分散股东的注意力，信贷周期的转折恰恰暴露出高盛在消费贷款方面有多么糟糕。
Its consumer bank was launched in 2016 by Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s previous boss, with a savings account called Marcus, which was named after the firm’s founder.
高盛的消费者银行部门于2016年由高盛前老板劳尔德·贝兰克梵创立，他还创建了一个储蓄账户，名为马库斯，以该公司创始人的名字命名。
A more aggressive move into consumer lending then followed—led by David Solomon, the firm’s current boss—with a credit card offered in partnership with Apple.
随后，在该公司现任老板大卫·所罗门的带领下，该公司更积极地进军消费贷款领域，与苹果合作推出了一款信用卡。
A comparison with JPMorgan’s lending business shows just how behind Goldman is.
与摩根大通的贷款业务进行比较，就能看出高盛落后了多少。
Goldman’s loan book is a sixth of the size of its rival’s; its consumer loan book is a ninth as big.
高盛的贷款规模是其竞争对手的六分之一；其消费贷款规模是竞争对手的九分之一。
And the firm is setting aside relatively more for credit losses in the third quarter.
此外，高盛在第三季度为信贷损失拨备的准备金也相对较多。
Goldman anticipates losing 13% of its consumer credit-card and instalment loans.
高盛预计将损失13%的消费信用卡和分期贷款。
JPMorgan expects to lose just 6%.
摩根大通预计损失仅为6%。
The reshuffle will split up Goldman’s consumer bank, bundling its consumer savings and wealth products into the asset-management arm, and sticking the lending ones into a new “platforms” business, where they will sit alongside wholesale and business banking.
此次重组将拆分高盛的消费者银行部门，将其消费者储蓄和理财产品并入资产管理部门，并将贷款业务并入一个新的“平台”业务，与批发和商业银行业务并立。
This might help to disguise some of the consumer bank’s thorniest problems.
这可能有助于掩盖其消费者银行部门中最棘手的一些问题。
The reshuffle will also wrap together the firm’s trading and investment-bank businesses, which should make it easier for shareholders to compare Goldman’s performance in its Wall Street businesses with those of its rivals, like Morgan Stanley or JPMorgan, who organise themselves this way.
此次重组还将把高盛的交易和投资银行业务整合在一起，这应该会让股东更容易将高盛在华尔街业务中的表现与摩根士丹利或摩根大通等竞争对手进行比较，后者也是这样组织自己的。
Yet even a broader comparison does Goldman few favours nowadays.
然而，即使是在更广泛的比较中，高盛如今也没有什么优势。
Since 2019, as Goldman has focused on its consumer bank, Morgan Stanley has doubled down on its asset-management offering.
自2019年以来，高盛一直专注于其消费者银行业务，摩根士丹利则在其资产管理产品上加倍投资。
It has acquired Eaton Vance, an asset manager, and E*TRADE, a retail broker.
它已经收购了资产管理公司伊顿万斯和零售经济商E*TRADE。
A quick look at market capitalisations is all it takes to discern which strategy is preferred by investors.
只需快速浏览一下市值，就能辨别出投资者更喜欢哪种策略。
In 2019 Harit Talwar, then boss of Goldman’s consumer effort, is supposed to have “thanked” Julian Salisbury, one of the investment bank’s top earners, for “making all the money we’re spending”.
2019年，时任高盛消费者部门主管的哈里特·塔尔瓦理应“感谢”该投行赚钱最多一位员工——朱利安·索尔兹伯里，因为他“赚到了我们花掉的所有钱”。
The joke was hardly a rib-tickler at the time, and it is rather less funny now.
这个笑话在当时并不好笑，现在也更加无趣了。
But at least Goldman’s rivals are laughing.
但至少高盛的竞争对手们笑了。
