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銀行是企業家與投資人在貨幣市場，與長期資本市場上的傳統溝通橋梁，他們透過銀行以達成金融發展的目的 (Schumpeter)。傳統上，我們將錢存入「令人信賴」且受到良好管制的全球型銀行，賺取穩定且有保障的利息。或者我們可能因為希望得到比存款利息更好的報酬，所以投資它們發行的風險較高之證券。銀行會根據理性的評估，貸款給那些會乖乖付利息並償還本金的人。投資銀行則專門從事輸送資金給企業家的工作，然而這些投資銀行已經成功地變成不太受管制的機構，即使它們像一般公司一樣都還是有進行外部稽核。有些投資銀行在具有下列特性的全球經濟市場發行「避險或高報酬」的投資方案，運用槓桿將他們的資本提高至40甚至更多倍以上：(1) 因中央銀行的低利率所導致的高流動性；(2) 誤解套利 ；(3) 缺乏由國家管理機構與負責貨幣及金融穩定性的國際組織，像是在巴賽爾的國際清算銀行，所提供的外部控制 ( 監控與規範 )。
Banks are traditional intermediaries between entrepreneurs and investors in short-term money markets and long-term capital markets to finance development (Schumpeter). We deposit savings traditionally in “trusted” and regulated universal banks to earn assured or guaranteed interest or we invest them in “securities” with the expectation of higher returns than guaranteed bank interest, but at greater risk. The banks give credit rationally only to those who are expected to pay for the interest and to repay the capital. – Invest-ment banks are specialized in channeling capital to entrepreneurs, but they have managed to be or become largely unregulated although they are still externally audited as public companies. Some have leveraged their own capital up to 40 and more times to spread the risks by issuing “hedged or high-return” investments in a global economy characterized by (1) high liquidity due to low interest rates charged by central banks; (2) misunder-standing arbitrage1; and (3) a general lack of external control (monitoring and regulation) both by national regulatory agencies and international institutions responsible for monetary and financial stability such as the Bank of International Settlements in Basel.
「創新的」金融工具，像是債務抵押債券 ( CDO )；「標準的」金融工具，像是由資產支撐的債券與貸款；或是「人工包裝的」金融工具，像是信用衍生性商品，包含選擇權跟遠期合約。它們的目的很明顯地是為了使金融部門「全球化」，然後貸款給全世界最具生產力的企業家。然而，很多金融機構忽略重要的經濟上、認識論上、與道德上的原則，因此它們會：(1) 發行房貸給那些連利息都付不起人，更枉論要他們償還本金了，這些金融機構於是將之變成「擔保房貸憑證」( CMO ) 發行；(2) 創造一些「創新」的非透明、衍生性金融商品基礎的證券，並由一些偽獨立的仲介商為這些證券評等、估價。然而，這些仲介商根本就沒有評估風險的能力；(3) 用模糊的手法誤導天真無知的投資人，以便行銷這些證券；(4) 根據貨幣市場的交易量而不是長期資本市場的成敗，訂定荒謬的紅利跟獎金，並以之做為經紀人銷售這些證券的獎賞；(5) 將這些銷售投保至不能夠或不願意忠其本分的機構，或是因為太大所以社會不允許輕易破產的機構，像是AIG。
“Innovative” financial instruments such as collateralized debt obligations (CDO) - “standard” ones backed by assets such as bonds and loans, or “synthetic” ones backed by credit derivatives including options and forward contracts - were ostensibly meant to “globalize” the financial sector and to give credit only to the world’s most productive entrepreneurs. - However, numerous financial institutions ignored important economic, epistemological and ethical principles by: (1) financing mortgages for people unable to even pay interest and repay capital and then bundling them as “CMO-securities;” (2) creating other “innovative” non-transparent, derivative-based securities to be “rated” by pseudo-independent agencies without the ability to assess their risks; (3) marketing them ambiguously at best and misleadingly at worst and selling them to mislead or naïve other investors; (4) rewarding market agents for such sales with absurd bonuses and premiums based on short-term money-market transaction volume rather than long-term capital-market success, and (5) insuring these sales with institutions unable or unwilling to honor their obligations or too big to be allowed to go bankrupt such as AIG.
如果我們在投資的時候可以得知該資產的真實經濟價值，其即為合理的投資者確保，而非投機者確保。短期收購與銷售「人工包裝的」貨幣性資產，一有機會時立刻「轉賣」給天真無知的投資人是非常危險、投機、而且很明顯地，沒有人可以保證這個行為，行為本身也無法提供任何人任何保證。然而，投資者確保僅能代表，我所取得或擁有的資產價值，可以真正對應至該資產「經認證的真實市場價值」，而非對應至歷史價值、也不是對應至引誘投機本能而使真實情況被蒙蔽的「轉賣值」。
Rational investor assurance can only be differentiated from speculator assurance if it is possible to refer to an investment as an acquisition of realistic economic value. Short-term acquisitions and sales of “synthetic” monetary assets to be “flipped” at the earliest possible opportunity and sold to naïve investors are highly risky, speculative and by definition un-assured and un-assuring. Investor assurance can only mean that the value of an asset to be acquired or owned corresponds truly to something of “certified real market value” as opposed to a historical value or some expected “flip value” for which hardly any non-deceptive evidence and only “speculative instinct” exists.
在於這個紊亂無章且太過複雜，以至於無法從外部控制的世界中，藉由將四種類型的真理測試 ( 請見前一篇文章 ) 運用至傳統外部稽核，我們能獲得一些關於現今投資人確保的結論：
By applying the four types of truth tests (see previous blog) to traditional external auditing in a world that is unregulated and too complex to be externally controllable, we can come only to some rather un-assuring conclusions about investor assurance today:
(1) 週期性的財務報告 ( 相對於財務紀錄，從前的稱呼為「簿記」) 是建立於真理的實用論上。當會計師為了決定週期性的損益，針對交易記錄做了些調整 ( 彙總試算表 ) 時，實務上他們總是會聲稱自己已經取得具有保障的聲明。這些週期性的會計調整 ( 通常會與應計項目與遞延項目有關 ) 應該要能夠合理地被解釋，且應該清楚地解釋其來龍去脈。我們參考一般公認會計原則 ( GAAP ) 或國際會計準則 ( IAS )，戰戰競競地編製這些財務報告，但如果沒有恰當的解釋，就代表這種財務報告並沒有受到良好保證，因此它可能就不是實用真理。只要擔保人或稽核人員接受他們所服務的會計師或專業經理人發表之任何會計主張或聲明，他們就很難透過批判性與關鍵問題檢驗手中資料，進而向任何人在任何投資範圍內提供合理確保。最後，可能連稽核報告都缺乏實用真理。
(1) Periodic financial reporting (as opposed to financial recording, formerly called “bookkeeping”) is based on the pragmatic theory of truth. Accountants can practically always claim to have made warranted assertions when they make adjustments to the transaction records (as summarized in trial balances) for periodic income determination (as reported in financial statements). These periodic accounting adjustments (commonly referred to as accruals and deferrals) ought to be rationally explainable and explained in specific contexts. - To apply them legalistically with reference to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or international accounting standards (IAS), but without proper explanations means that such financial reports are insufficiently warranted and may therefore not even be pragmatically true. As long as assurors or auditors accept any accounting assertions or claims by accountants, or managements they serve, uncritically and without serious questions, they themselves can hardly be rationally assuring to anyone in any investment context. Then even audit reports are devoid of pragmatic truth.
(2) 有些人也許會想要爭辯說，傳統的稽核意見是建立於：依據GAAP或IAS ( 其為一種以揭露資訊為目的的規則 ) 所編製之各種財報間的一致性所提供的真理。很可能，這些重要聲明會「相互聲援」並符合法規遵循的要求，因為這些聲明中的數字必然要「平衡」。然而，這僅是一種句法上的計算 ( 與人工簿記 ) 需求，既非社會責任的語意真理條件，亦非社會責任的實用必要性。帳本中數字要平衡的這件事，並不一定對所有人都具有意義 ( 語意上的真實 )，此外即使相信它們皆為語意上的真實，也無法令它們自動變得對每位接受者來說，都是非要不可、充分、且有用的 ( 實用上的真實 )。當「擬制性」的財務報表 ( 根據選擇的財務會計資料和資訊，而非所有財務會計資料和資訊 ) 也同樣公開或偷偷地被包含在相同的財務報表集合與全面性的稽核意見中時，那麼即使是巧妙的複式簿記工具也可能會被懷疑。
(2) One may want to argue that the traditional audit opinion is based on truth as coherence between the various financial statements based on GAAP or IAS as rules for disclosure purposes. Presumably, such important announcements “hang together” epistemologically and meet compliance requirements since their numbers must “balance.” However, this is merely a syntactic computational (and manual bookkeeping) requirement and neither a semantic truth condition nor a pragmatic necessity for accountability. The observation that the books are in balance does not guarantee that they are meaningful to all recipients (semantically true), and the belief that they are semantically true does not make them automatically necessary, sufficient or useful for any recipients (pragmatically true). - When “pro-forma” financial statements (based on selective rather than comprehensive financial accounting data and information) are also either explicitly or implicitly covered in the same set of financial statements and in a comprehensive audit opinion, then even the coherence of the ingenious double-entry bookkeeping instrument (Pacioli 1492) may have been compromised.
(3) 傳統財務報表與稽核意見都非真正的聲明。它們分別參考GAAP、IAS或GAAS，而且反而可能提到「公平表達」。這個強而有力的確保格式是建立於真理對應論，它可能出現在傳統財務紀錄 ( 簿記 )，而非傳統財務報告 ( 會計 ) 的內文中。一份真實記錄所有具體交易紀錄的試算表，會符合可被人觀察的資產及收益、負債及支出、還有業主權益等之經濟現實，因此提供了真實交易資料，反應出所有相關的可被人觀察之事件或狀態。然而，經過大量調整的財務報表並不必然符合任何「事實」，除非所有的調整都能合理的解釋，而非僅是「圖個方便地」從GAAP或IAS選項池中撈幾個解釋出來。
(3) Neither traditional financial statements nor traditional audit opinions are true assert-ions by correspondence. They refer to GAAP or IAS and GAAS, respectively, and may mention “fair representation” instead. The strong form of assurance based on the corre-spondence theory of truth is not possible in the context of traditional financial reporting (accounting) as opposed to traditional financial recording (bookkeeping). - A trial balance that represents all recorded actual transactions truthfully corresponds to the financial reality of observable assets and revenues, observable liabilities and expenditures, and the remaining owners’ equity, provided the transaction data truly reflect all relevant observ-able events or states. However, the financial statements with their various adjustments do not necessarily correspond to anything “real” unless all adjustments are rationally explained rather than “conveniently chosen” from a pool of legal GAAP or IAS options.
(4) 真理語意論的意思是，財務報告中的每個句子 ( 目標語言 ) 僅在被精確地翻譯為後設語言 ( 像是稽核語言 ) 也為真時，句子本身才會是真的。如果這類目標語言的表示 ( 像是CDO ) 或是報表 ( 像是財務報告 ) 無法恰當地被翻譯為後設語言 ( 或以後設語言表示 )，並在翻譯後同樣也為真，則我們就不能接受它。然而，上述情況僅在使用可擔負責任的文意 ( 後設會計 ) 來表達翻譯時才有意義。如果真的有人需要，或是有法律上的有要求獨立地評估目標語言陳述之真實性，那我們就可以以之作為 ( 一部份 ) 有意義的投資人確保 ( 後設報告 ) 相關證據。
(4) The semantic theory of truth means that a sentence in a financial report (as the object language) will be true only if it is also the case that its accurate translation into a meta-language such as auditese is true. It would have to be rejected if such object language expressions as CDOs or statements as financial reports cannot be properly translated into (or represented by) equivalent true sentences in a meta-language. - However, it makes only sense to attempt such translations in an accountability context (as meta-accounting), if an independent assessment of the truth of object language statements is actually desired or legally required as (part of) meaningful investor assurance (meta-reporting).
總而言之，投資人確保 ( 總體經濟上的認知 ) 是建立在跟貨幣與資本市場行為的合理解釋相關之充分的相關證據：任何關於關鍵事件、物件、系統狀態或目標 ( 建立在正式的資料、資訊、與市場參與者所提出的合理懷疑之上 ) 的假設，都必須被解釋的令人信服與滿意。因此，擔保人，像是外部稽核人員、管制機關、評等機構等，都要能夠協助我們減少不確定性；要能夠監控已知的風險；使用嚴格的審查並對訪問與回顧持懷疑態度，以建立可稽核的後設語言，提供陷入疑惑中的「客戶」保障。否則，他們應該要隨時準備好承認並解釋他們為何沒辦法做到該做的事情，而非參考人稱「效率市場假說」 ( 請見我關於EMH的文章 ) 的學說，然後反而讓自己陷入疑惑與困擾。
In summary, investor assurance (macro-economically understood) is based on sufficient relevant evidence for acceptable explanations of money and capital market behavior: Any proper hypothesis about critical events, objects, system states or subjects based on formal data and information and any reasonable doubt expressed by market participants ought to be convincingly and satisfactorily explainable. Thus, assurors such as external auditors, regulatory agencies and rating agents need to be able to reduce uncertainty; to monitor known risks; and to assure their respective clients in doubtful situations by means of an auditable meta-language based on critical inspections and skeptical interviews and reviews. Otherwise they ought to be prepared to admit and explain their inability to do so rather than confuse the issues by reference to the so-called “Efficient Market Hypothesis” (see my blog on the EMH).
© Copyright 2009 by Hart J. Will
翻譯：中正會資所 汪修平 |
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