高专附中:有钱使得权推磨

问问国家能为你做什么

MUCH as some businesses whine about government intrusion, others do pretty well out of it. An index based on the amount of lobbying that American firms do has outperformed the broader market since its creation in 2008; data going back to 1998 show that it has done better over the longer term, too.

尽管一些行业对政府干涉满腹怨言，但有些人却在其中游刃有余。一个由美国公司用于政府游说的金额编制的指数，从2008年发布至今就一直强于大市；数据还回溯到1998年显示出该指数从长期来说优势更为明显。

The index is produced by Strategas, an investment-research firm. A first effort, to rank firms on the amount they spend on lobbying, was no use: it just corresponded with the largest firms. Strategas now looks at the intensity of lobbying—expenditure as a percentage of assets—to create an index of 50 firms that is revised quarterly.

这个指数由投资分析公司Strategas编制。刚开始，它根据各公司政府游说额评级，但用处不大，现在它只跟踪支出最大的大公司。Strategas根据游说强度来编制指数，所谓游说强度就是指游说支出占公司总额产的份额，入选公司名单每季度修正一次。

In aggregate the results have been stunning, comparable to the returns of the most blistering hedge fund. The index has outperformed the S&P500 by 11% a year since 2002 (see chart). There have been bumps along the way: the index fell sharply in 2008 and again this summer, when debt-ceiling brinkmanship raised the prospect of government austerity. But at other times, it seems remarkable that companies would do anything but lobby. A particularly vivid example was in 2004, when an aggressive corporate campaign prompted Congress to grant a one-off tax holiday for American companies to repatriate foreign earnings. The outright return on lobbying costs, according to one of the various studies that served as inspiration for the Strategas index, was $220 for each $1 spent.

总的来说，得出来曲线让人膛目结舌，与最受热捧的对冲基金收益曲线不相伯仲。从2002年来，这个指数年均跑赢标普500（S）指数11%（如图）。期间虽有波折，尤其是在2008年和今年第二季度，负债上限上的冒险政策使得政府紧缩预期上升，指数都出现大幅下滑。但在其余时间都表现得如此强劲以致让人觉得这些公司除了游说政府外无所事事。Strategas指数的灵感来自很多研究，而其中的一份研究显示，在政府游说上每支出1美元可以获得220美元的总收益。

Firms that qualify for the index tend to be under the government’s cosh. Tobacco companies are routinely threatened with every tax and sales restriction going, and are perennial fixtures on the list. So too are defence contractors. This year witnessed the entry into the index of several private-education providers, an area that has been under scrutiny by the administration of Barack Obama, as well as medical firms worried about the myriad loose ends to be tied up in Mr Obama’s health-care plan.

指数上榜的公司行业大多在政府制定政策中处于劣势。烟草公司一如既往地被威胁将增收税款和增加销售限制，于是长年累月榜上有名。国防合约商也是如此。奥巴马政府严控教育领域，而今年指数上就出现了几个私有教育集团。同样上榜的还有医药公司，奥巴马推行医疗改革，产生的大量充满未知的结果让他们忧心忡忡。

Banks do not make the list because their balance-sheets are so leveraged that lobbying expenditures are small as a percentage of assets. That omission probably flatters the index in recent years but harms it in earlier ones. Finance still makes an appearance, most recently through Federated Investors (a provider of money-market funds) and the two ratings agencies (Moody’s and McGraw-Hill, the parent of Standard & Poor’s). Other index members include Monster Worldwide, a jobs website; Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel’s whiskey; and CBS, a broadcaster.

银行业并没有出现在这个指数中，这是由于他们财务报表上的债务杠杆使得政府游说的支出在总资产中份额不足百分之一。略去银行使得最近几年的指数上升得有点和谐，以前银行业业一直是指数上升的主力。但金融企业依然可见，最近出现的就有联合投资公司（Federated Investors，货币基金发行者）和两个评级机构（穆迪和麦格劳·希尔，后者为标准普尔的母公司）。指数的其他成员还有：Monster Worldwide，人力资源网站；Brown-Forman，杰克丹尼威士忌的制造商；以及CBS电台。

Various laws have been proposed or enacted to curtail lobbying, with limited success. The most effective answer may be the most straightforward: cut government spending. Strategas has just developed an index for that unlikely eventuality, allowing investors to short firms that derive the greatest proportion of their sales from federal-government contracts.

各种限制政府游说的法律被提出或正在草拟，但真正出台的却不多。最直接的方法或许也是最有效的方法：限制政府开支。Strategas编制的指数可以防范这种不大可能发生的小概率事件，使得投资者能剔除那些绝大部分营业额来自联邦政府合约的公司。