TE||Getting a handle on a scandal
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导读
《深海浩劫》的科学解读
（选自科普中国）
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音乐| 精读 | 翻译 | 词组
Getting a handle on a scandal
丑闻处理
本文英文部分选自经济学人Business版块熊彼特专栏
Corporate crises drive the media and politicians wild. But do they damage shareholder value?
企业危机使媒体和政客疯狂。但危机会损害股东利益吗？
扎克伯格能终结Facebook危机吗
http://world.xinhua08.com/a/20180402/1754854.shtml
A POPULAR riff doing the rounds in tech circles is that, if data are the new oil, then Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica fiasco is the equivalent of Deepwater Horizon. That was the name of an oil platform that exploded in April 2010, coating the Gulf of Mexico and the reputation of BP, the firm responsible, in a toxic slick.
2010年4月英国石油公司所属一个名为“深水地平线”（Deepwater Horizon）的石油钻井平台发生爆炸，给墨西哥湾及英国石油公司（BP）的声誉均蒙上有毒的浮油。这出人尽皆知的戏码正在科技行业重新上演，用户数据好比浮油，Facebook应对剑桥分析公司非法采集用户数据事件上的惨败，一如英国石油公司(BP)的“深海浩劫”。
注释：
1. Deepwater Horizon:“深水地平线”石油钻井平台泄漏：美国墨西哥湾，英国石油公司（BP）“深水地平线”石油钻井平台泄漏的原油已经漂流至美国密西西比河河口地区，引发了当地民众强烈担忧。墨西哥湾上的油污已经漂到路易斯安那州沿海湿地，科学家表示，由于部分漏油进入强劲的洋流区，可能会被带到佛罗里达州甚至更远的地方。
Yet just how damaging are “Deepwater” incidents for firms and their owners over time? Perhaps they cease to matter after the initial burst of media purgatory, grovelling by executives, celebratory cant from competitors and politicians’ grandstanding.
然而，随着时间的推移，“深水”之类事件对企业及其股东们到底造成了多大的损害？也许在媒体最初爆发的声讨后，高管们卑躬屈节的检讨后，竞争对手和政客们哗众取宠的庆祝活动之后，便并无大碍了。
To answer this, Schumpeter has looked at eight of the most notable corporate crises since 2010, including those at Uber and Wells Fargo. The evidence shows that these episodes were deeply injurious to the companies’ financial health, with the median firm losing 30% of its value since its crisis, when compared with a basket of its peers. Facebook should beware.
为了回答这个问题，熊彼特调查了2010年以来最著名的八例企业危机事件，包括优步（Uber）和富国银行(Wells Fargo)丑闻。 有证据表明，这些事件对公司的财务状况造成了很大的伤害，较同行其他公司，估值损失的中位数达30％。Facebook看来要小心了。
When a scandal first breaks, executives at the top of a firm and securities analysts outside it are often myopic, viewing it as a public-relations blip that will not alter a firm’s operations or its competitive position. In the case of Facebook, 44 of the 48 Wall Street analysts who cover it still rate it a “buy”, according to Bloomberg. Many have downplayed the scandal, even though Facebook’s shares have dropped by 18% since the news broke on March 17th.
当丑闻刚刚曝出的时候，公司高层和证券分析师们往往目光短浅（短视），认为其只不过是公共关系上的一次小波折，并不会改变公司的运作或其竞争力水平。根据彭博社的报道，在这次Facebook事件中，华尔街与此相关的48位分析师中有44位仍然将脸书股票评级为“买入”。即便Facebook的股价从3月17日危机爆发开始至今已经下跌了18个点，但许多分析师还是淡化了这个丑闻的影响力。
Of course, speculators and the media do frequently overreact to bad news. Credit Suisse, a bank, analysed 5,400 instances of American firms’ shares dropping by over 10% in one day, between 1990 and 2014. On average the shares regained two-thirds of the lost value within the subsequent 90 days. But big corporate scandals are in a different league. They capture the public imagination and lead to heat from politicians and regulators. Infrequent and idiosyncratic, they defy easy analysis.
当然，投机者和媒体则往往对坏消息反应过度。瑞士信贷银行（Credit Suisse）分析了1990年至2014年期间5400起美国企业危机的案例，在这些案例中，公司的股价均在一天内跌幅超过10%，但在接下来的九十天内，股价平均又涨回了之前下降幅度的三分之二。但大公司丑闻造成的后果则有所不同，这些公司既吸引大众的注意力，又受到来自官员和监管机构的压力，由于此类案例较少，并且比较特殊，所以很难简单地加以分析。
Consider two infamies from the 1980s. In 1982 Johnson & Johnson had to withdraw 31m bottles of the painkiller Tylenol from shops after seven people were poisoned in Chicago. Seven years later, the Exxon Valdez, a ship run by Exxon, struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and spilled 11m gallons of oil. Yet both firms’ share prices recovered within a few weeks, and today they remain among the world’s most valuable companies.
上世纪八十年代有两起声名狼藉的企业危机。1982年强生公司(Johnson & Johnson)不得不召回了3100万瓶泰诺止痛药，原因是芝加哥有七人因使用该药后中毒。七年之后，埃克森公司旗下的埃克森·瓦尔迪兹号(Exxon Valdez)油船在阿拉斯加的威廉王子湾触礁，造成了1100万加仑原油的泄漏。但两家公司的股价在随后几周内便恢复正常，直至今日，它们仍然是世界上市值最高的公司之一。
1.1982年强生泰诺中毒事件
https://wenku.baidu.com/view/3ee57c74e45c3b3567ec8bcc.html
2. Tylenol泰诺（酚麻美敏混悬液），适应症为本品用于小儿，可减轻普通感冒或流行性感冒引起的发热、头痛、四肢酸痛、喷嚏、流涕、鼻塞、咳嗽、咽痛等症状。
3.“埃克森·瓦尔迪兹”号油轮漏油事故
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill
Since the 2008-09 financial crisis, plenty has changed. Social media mean that news of scandals spreads faster than ever and often in an exaggerated fashion. But consolidation has muted competition in many industries and made firms bigger and more resilient. Western governments may be willing to protect or bail out big firms, not just banks, because they worry about job losses.
自2008-09年金融危机以来，情况发生了很大变化。社交媒体意味着丑闻的传播速度变得前所未有之快，而且往往快得难以想象。但合并减弱了许多行业内竞争，并使企业更加壮大，恢复能力更强。除银行外，西方政府也愿意保护或帮助企业摆脱危机，因为危机可能会影响失业率。
The eight firms in the sample have all been seared by scandal. All were large before their calamity, with a market value of at least $15bn. Their problems were different, but all led to a media scrum and prompted politicians and regulators to intervene. In all but one case, the firm’s boss left as a result. The figures measure returns in dollars, including dividends (for Uber, reports of private market valuations are used).
样例中的八家企业都因丑闻受到重创。灾难发生之前它们都是大企业，市值至少150亿美金。尽管丑闻不尽相同，但都引发了媒体争议，促使政客和监管机构干涉。所有案例中只有一例是以老板离职收场。以上数据均以美元计算回报，包括股息（优步估值数据来自纳斯达克私人股票交易市场）
As well as BP, the infamous eight include another energy firm, Petrobras, a Brazilian giant at the centre of the “car-wash” corruption scandal that erupted in 2014. Two firms beginning with “V” are included for their antics in 2015: Volkswagen, which admitted fiddling emissions tests, and Valeant, a drugs firm accused of price gouging and publishing inaccurate accounts. Wells Fargo is included for a mis-selling scandal that blew up in 2016, as is Uber, where the wheels came off in 2017. The last two firms are Equifax, a credit bureau which last year said hackers had gained access to data on 143m clients, and United Airlines, which set new lows for airline conduct when it asked security staff to remove a passenger from an overbooked flight, who was injured in the process.
除了英国石油公司，声名狼藉的八家企业还包括另一家能源企业---巴西国家石油(Petrobras)，该巨头在2014年爆出的“洗车”腐败丑闻。两家以V开头的企业陷于2015年的滑稽剧中：一家是承认在尾气排放测试中造假的大众汽车(Vokswagen)，另一家是被指控哄抬价格并发布虚假账目的医药企业瓦兰特(Valeant)。美国富国银行则卷入2016年爆发的违规销售丑闻中，而优步，2017年丑闻缠身，CEO引咎辞职。最后两家企业，一家是征信机构艾克飞（Equifax），去年该公司曾表示黑客盗取了1亿4300万个客户数据，另一家是刷新了航空公司行为底限的美国联合航空公司(United Airlines)，该公司安保人员将一名乘客从超载的班机上强行驱逐时，该乘客在此过程中受伤。
After their crises struck all these firms suffered an absolute drop in their share prices. At the lowest point the median share price was down by 33%, although it took anywhere from two weeks to two years for different firms to reach this nadir. In most cases the companies have clawed back the absolute losses they suffered. However, what matters is their relative performance compared with a basket of industry peers over the same time period. On this basis the median firm is worth 30% less today than it would have been had the scandals not happened. For the eight the total forfeited value is a chunky $300bn.
危机发生后，这些企业的股价全都遭到重创。在最低点时，股价中值下跌了33%，尽管不同的企业在两周到两年的时间里都达到了最低点。一般来说，这些公司已经弥补了他们所遭受的巨大损失。然而，与同一时期的许多业内同行相比，他们相应的业绩表现才是最重要的。在此基础上，中值公司市值比丑闻未发生前降低了30%。这八家企业全部丧失的总市值多达3000亿美元。
Fines and legal costs explain only a small part of this. A big scandal distracts management, leads to other kinds of painful regulatory scrutiny and, if a firm has a stretched balance-sheet, forces it to shrink. BP has spent years trimming its budgets while its longtime rival, Shell, stole a march on it by buying BG, a gas firm. Wells Fargo faces a cap on its size imposed by the Federal Reserve. Equifax may become more heavily regulated. Uber has lost market share to a reinvigorated domestic competitor, Lyft.
罚款和诉讼费用仅占其中的一小部分。一桩大丑闻分散了管理层的注意力，导致了其他令人不快的监管审查，如果一家公司的资产负债表规模扩大，就会迫使其收缩。多年来，英国石油公司一直在削减预算，而其长期竞争对手壳牌（Shell）则通过收购天然气集团BG 抢占市场。富国银行（Wells Fargo）面临美国联储（the Federal Reserve）设定的资产规模上限（美联储确认富国银行提交的整改计划之前,这家银行不得扩充资产规模）。艾克飞（Equifax）可能会受到更严苛的监管。优步（Uber）的市场份额已经被重新振作的国内竞争对手Lyft抢走了。
Two firms out of the eight come out relatively well. For Petrobras, the explanation is that its share price had already sunk before the car-wash affair began in earnest, reflecting cost overruns that were an augury of the epic mismanagement that the scandal revealed. Volkswagen is the only standout. It got hit by a huge $30bn bill for fines, product recalls and legal costs for “dieselgate”, but reacted to its crisis by putting in place an efficiency drive and a big bet on new car models. Even so, it and the other six listed firms in the sample are valued on low multiples of profits compared with their peers, suggesting that investors remain nervous.
这八家企业中有两家表现相对较好。对巴西国家石油公司（Petrobras）来说，主要原因是，在“洗车行动”正式开始前，其股价已经下跌，反映出成本超支，这又是丑闻暴露出的严重管理不当的预兆。大众（Volkswagen）是唯一的佼佼者。它受到三重打击：一项高达300亿美元的罚款、产品召回以及“柴油门”的法律费用，但它应对危机的方式是恰当的效率驱动和适时押宝新车型。即便如此，该企业和其他六家上市公司的估值还是低于同行的其他公司，这表明投资者仍感到不安。
Messing up, then fessing up
先搞砸，再坦率的承认
The aftermath of a scandal is unpredictable. In Facebook’s case the absence of established laws and regulations covering social media make it even harder than normal to predict how harsh the backlash will be. Its biggest advantage is its strong balance-sheet, which has $42bn of net cash. Its weakness is a management team that seems keen to downplay the severity of what has just happened. Recent experience suggests that is a mistake.
丑闻的后果是不可预测的。在Facebook的案例中，现行法律法规没有覆盖社交媒体，因此更难预测人们强烈反应的程度。Facebook最大的优势是其强大的资产负债表，拥有420亿美元的净现金。它的弱点是管理团队似乎热衷于淡化刚发生事情的严重性。最近的经验表明，这种应对方式是错误的。
翻译组：
Ema, 女，外贸民工，经济学人粉丝
Grace，女，建筑民工，经济学人粉丝
VeRy，男，电气设计，经济学人爱好者
Button，男，自由职业，经济学人爱好者
Roxanne，女，媒体行业，经济学人爱好者
校核组：
Li Xia, 女， HR, 经济学人发烧友
Emily，女，金融民工，经济学人爱好者
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观点 |评论|思考
本次观点为Button独家奉献
Button，男，自由职业，经济学人爱好者
小编是个“墙里人”原住民，很少有机会关注“墙外人”的生活状态。但这次Facebook被曝光的数据丑闻闹得沸沸扬扬，加之原因又是不止一次提起的数据泄露，经济学人又再花篇幅在此次事件上小编不禁心里些许感慨，绕了半天墙里墙外都一样啊。
这次的事件，来源于两个方面。一是，人们对自己的个人隐私信息在毫不知情的情况下被他人得到利用；二是，16年总统大选，选民们对自己做出的投票被人为影响。
针对第一点，透露出Facebook本身的业务模式的困境。目前网站主要收入来自广告，而社交网络又可以天生拥有海量用户数据，再加上算法，能够帮助广告商进行精准广告投放。然而，当用户们的个人数据被拿去赚钱之后，自然而然他们会感到不爽情绪。因为现在身处于数据信息大爆炸的时代，我们每天在互联网阅读的，听到的，买到的内容都来自个人数据，而这些数据究竟哪些应该被使用，哪些不被使用，尚没有完整的界定答案。
针对第二点，则充分表明民众对自我选择自我判断的权利被侵犯感到非常不满，那可是总统的选举啊。简直就是赤裸裸地打自己脸，被人卖了还要称赞别人，小编就不再展开下去了，想想就心酸。
小扎先是在事情发生之后的几天内，发布回应，列出今后的整改措施。可惜，几乎所有主流声音都对这份回应不满，因为你小扎没有赔礼道歉啊（最基本的礼貌- -），更不用说回应的内容没有从跟不上解决用户个人信息的安全问题。于是，（小编猜想）小扎在和公关智囊团讨论之后，终于在全美各大报纸上刊登广告表示道歉：“我们有责任保护你们的信息。如果做不到这一点，就不配得到(你们的信任)。”
其实，小编自己可是小扎粉，当初那部《社交网络》看得如痴如醉。毕竟，保护20亿用户资料的费用开销太大，而且即使提高数据安全门槛，来自外部的“乾坤大挪移”技术也会不断推陈出新。整个行业都还没有制定出有效的针对措施，太阳底下无新鲜事，脸书作为最大的互联网企业之一，迟早都会出现类似的状况，只是时间问题而已。
联想到墙内，各大网络平台利用大数据杀熟的现象比比皆是。那对于普通用户的我们，该如何是好呢？小编窃以为，我们也不用为此烦恼。如果真的因为担心自己的信息被泄密，大可一键删除；如果你没有办法做到这么坚决（某APP深度患者），坦然面对即可。毕竟，错不在我们。
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