贪婪 即喜欢金钱 不利于积累财富

Avarice, the love of Money, is one of the seven deadly sins.

贪婪，即喜欢金钱，是7宗罪之一。

Throughout world cultures, the belief is deep that avarice is an evil, to be avoided.

在世界各地的文化中，人们坚定地认为，贪婪是一种恶行，应避而远之。

But there is also a noble intellectual tradition that holds that it is good for the economy.

但传统上也有贵族知识分子认为，贪婪对经济有利。

For the Scottish enlightenment thinker David Hume, it was the spur of industry — which helped to drive the invisible hand of the market as discovered by his fellow countryman Adam Smith.

苏格兰启蒙思想家大卫•休谟(David Hume)认为，贪婪是工业的兴奋剂，它有助于推动其同胞亚当•斯密(Adam Smith)发现的、市场那只看不见的手。

More recently, and bluntly, Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, declared that greed is good.

更近一些时候，迈克尔•道格拉斯(Michael Douglas)在电影《华尔街》(Wall Street)中饰演的戈登•盖科(Gordon Gekko)明确宣称，贪婪是好事。

The opposing views of the priests, and of the founding fathers of free-market capitalism, are clear enough.

神父和自由市场资本主义创始者的观点显然彼此对立。

God and Mammon have often been in conflict.

上帝和财神往往不和。

But now, armed with the tools of behavioural finance, which applies behavioural psychology to finance, it is possible to choose between the two.

但是现在，凭借着将行为心理学运用于金融的行为金融学工具，人们有可能在两者之间做出选择。

And fresh international research, produced under the auspices of State Street’s centre for applied research, suggests that greed is not good after all.

在道富银行(State Street)应用研究中心帮助下进行的最新国际研究表明，贪婪归根结底是不好的。

In fact, avarice can be seriously bad for our wealth.

实际上，贪婪可能非常不利于我们积累财富。

Psychologists now have a clear definition for love of money.

心理学家现在对喜欢金钱有一个明确的定义。

It is not about any instrumental need for money to fulfil our other goals, which all of us have, but rather about a love or need of money for its own sake.

它与用钱实现我们其它目标的工具性需求无关——我们全都有其他目标——而是本身就喜欢或者需要金钱。

Using the Money Ethic Scale developed by Thomas Li-Ping Tang in 1992, State Street developed an Investor Love of Money Scale (ILOMS).

模仿汤立平(Thomas Li-Ping Tang)在1992年开发的金钱心理量表(Money Ethic Scale)，道富银行设计了投资者喜欢金钱量表(ILOMS)。

Researchers asked interviewees in 20 countries a series of questions designed to find out how important money was to their self-esteem.

研究人员向20个国家的受访者询问了一系列问题，旨在发现金钱对个人自尊有多重要。

They also tested how they would respond in a series of financial situations.

他们也测试了受访者在一系列财务状况下会如何回应。

For example, they would ask if money was a symbol of success, if they talked about it a lot, or if they wanted to be rich.

例如，受访者被问到，金钱是否是成功的象征，他们是否经常谈论金钱，或者是否想要变得有钱。

The results were clear.

结果非常清晰。

The more someone had an emotional attachment to money, the more likely they were to make mistakes with money.

人们在情感上对金钱看得越重，他们就越有可能在金钱上犯错。

A series of behavioural biases that lead investors into predictable mistakes have been diagnosed over the years.

多年来人们已经诊断出一系列行为偏好(behavioural bias)会导致投资者犯下可预测的错误。

Avarice exacerbates all those biases.

而贪婪会加重所有这些偏好。

The avaricious were more likely to buy at the top and sell at the bottom — which for investors is the cardinal sin, worse than all others.

贪婪的人更可能高买低卖——对投资者来说，这是大忌。

They also had shorter time horizons and were more inclined to hyperactive investing behaviour.

此外，他们持有投资的时间更短，更倾向于频繁交易。

Trade frequently and you are guaranteed to pay more in trading fees, but you are highly unlikely to produce any extra returns.

频繁交易肯定会支付更多交易费，但不太可能给你带来额外的回报。

Money lovers were also more likely to believe that they could wait until later in life to save — a belief which has grown even more wrong-headed as lower bond yields make it harder to buy a retirement income.

喜欢金钱的人也更可能相信，他们可以等到生命中更晚些时候再储蓄——随着债券收益下降让获得养老收入更加困难，这些人变得更加执迷不悟。

And in consequence they were less likely to contribute to any retirement plan and less likely to contribute even as much as 6 per cent of their income if they had one.

结果是，他们不太可能交钱参与任何养老计划，即便他们有养老计划，也不太可能占到收入的6%。

Hence, they ironically appear to be on course for becoming a burden on their more prudent peers.

因此，具有讽刺意味的是，他们似乎正在成为更谨慎的投资者的负担。

Those who cared less about money were more likely to adopt a far better strategy and pay regular amounts into diversified retirement plans with constant allocations.

那些不那么看重金钱的人更可能采取更好的策略，将收入中一定比例的款项定期缴纳给多元化的退休计划。

Such plans effectively require taking some profits at the top and buying when securities are cheap.

此类计划实际上需要逢高卖出和逢低买进。

To use other psychological terms, they showed greater self-control or emotional intelligence.

用其他心理学术语来说，他们展现出更强的自我控制能力或情商。

If there is any clear message from the research, it is that governments need to prod everyone ever more clearly in that direction; giving people the choice not to save, or to trade too heavily, is a recipe for disaster.

如果该研究得出什么明确教训的话，那就是各国政府需要更明确地敦促所有人向这个方向努力；让人们可以选择不储蓄、或者可以选择频繁交易都是后患无穷的。

Avarice is universal, but it plainly differs according to economic development.

贪婪无处不在，但各国经济发展状况不同，对金钱的态度也千差万别。

Prosperous nations, where people have less need to worry about money, are also the least covetous of it.

在繁荣国家，人们不太需要担心金钱，同时也是最不垂涎金钱的。

Switzerland and the Netherlands had the lowest ILOM scores, with the British — unsurprisingly given national embarrassment at talking about money — not far behind.

瑞士和荷兰在ILOMS上的得分最低，英国与它们相差不大——鉴于英国人羞于谈论金钱，这并不令人意外。

The top of the list is dominated by the growing economies of the emerging world — China, India and Brazil.

排在前几名的以蓬勃发展的新兴世界经济体为主，包括中国、印度和巴西。

There is, however, one big outlier.

然而，这里有一个明显异常的国家。

Despite its wealth, and despite its deep religiousness, the US is near the top of the avarice league.

尽管美国拥有庞大的财富，而且宗教信仰浓厚，但它排名靠前。

This result is striking but not surprising.

这种结果引人注目，但并不令人意外。

Money matters to people far more in the US.

在美国，金钱对人们来说要重要得多。

Look no further than the presidential campaign.

只需看看总统大选就知道了。

One of the few things that unites two deeply disliked candidates is an Achilles heel when it comes to money.

两位极不受欢迎的候选人只有少数几个共同之处，其中之一是，金钱都是他们的软肋。

Donald Trump is plainly desperate for everyone to believe that he is rich; and Hillary Clinton often makes obvious and baffling political mistakes — such as taking a fat speaking fee from Goldman Sachs as she prepared her candidacy — because she seems to want and desire money.

唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)显然渴望让所有人相信他非常有钱；而希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)经常在政治上犯一些明显而令人困惑的错误——比如在准备竞选期间向高盛(Goldman Sachs)收取高额演讲费——因为她似乎渴望金钱。

Nevertheless, America built the most successful capitalist economy.

然而，美国创建了最为成功的资本主义经济。

So maybe David Hume was right all along.

因此大卫•休谟或许自始至终都是正确的。

But look at the success of Wall Street.

但我们来看一下华尔街是怎么成功的。

State Street’s survey suggests that to profit from people’s avarice, you should give them ample opportunity to trade too heavily and convince them they can make an easy buck.

道富银行的研究表明，要从人们的贪婪中获利，你应该让他们有大量的机会频繁交易，并让他们相信可以一夜暴富。

Wall Street has been built on doing just that.

华尔街就建立在这么做的基础之上。

Those who paint the world’s biggest financial centre as profiting from greed have a point.

那些将全球最大金融中心描述为从贪婪中盈利的人有一定道理。

Avarice, indeed, is the vital ingredient for any financial industry.

实际上，贪婪是任何金融行业的关键元素。

The market often behaves as though it is efficient.

市场往往表现得似乎是有效的。

It is through irrational behaviour, indulged in by many, that the possibility of making money is created.

正是通过许多人沉溺其中的非理性行为，才有了赚钱的可能性。

Those who love money not wisely but too well have created the opportunity for great investors, in control of their own emotions and less in love with money, to build their fortunes.

那些不理智但过于喜欢金钱的人，为那些能够控制自己情绪、不那么看重金钱的伟大投资者创造了积累财富的机遇。