????由于固定收益業務占用了華爾街公司用于資本市場活動的總資本的約60%，欣茨認為，收入和利潤的下降將使金融公司舉步維艱，甚至難以賺回資本成本。“屆時，就必須進行一些改革，開支削減和資產負債表萎縮，”他說，“考慮到50%的凈交易收入都作為雇員薪酬派發了出去，我們都知道哪項開支會被削減得最厲害。”他還強調，降低薪酬還不夠，那怎樣做才行？把“庫存”降低20-25%。那將意味著美國公司債市場的流動性下降，公司債發行人的買賣價差更大，許多企業將寧愿到海外市場去發行債券——因為這些市場并未被過于亢奮的監管者束縛。

????換句話說，洛克法則對所有人來說都是壞消息，事實上……恐怕并不是所有人。欣茨指出，美國政府“便利地豁免了”國庫券，使其不受新規提案中自營交易禁令的限制。政府這么做有什么奇怪的嗎？如果你本身就是制定規則的人，通常你肯定不會讓自己深受其害。

????不過，這一套末世預言大可不必全信。多數需要融資的公司仍可通過其他市場完成，難道銀行貸款市場不能分擔一些責任嗎？對沖基金的借款不行嗎？新股發行有何不可？“沒錯，可這讓我想起了‘握緊一個氣球，里面的空氣自然會被擠壓到其他地方’的比喻，”欣茨表示，“可是，資本市場的各個參與者并非在任何市場都同樣嫻熟，因此總體融資成本將會上升，進而影響到經濟增長。”

????如同資本市場的其他許多東西，欣茨和戴蒙提出的觀點至少在理論上說得通。歸根結底，市場流動性越好，其運行也就應該越順暢。可實際情況如何呢？

????“魔鬼顯然存在于細節，”標準人壽投資（Standard Life Investments）全球戰略主管安德魯?米利甘稱，“一方面，大多數發行公司債的企業也可以在其他任何市場進行融資。沃爾瑪（Wal-Mart）可以籌集英鎊或日元資產，然后將其換成美元；另一方面，如果新規則確實有影響投行充當做市商積極性的效果——這似乎正是新規制定者的意圖，那我們就損失了一個沖擊緩沖器。監管者希望減少‘大’波動——比如2008年那種——其代價卻是短期內市場波動可能加劇。我們只是在長期波動和短期波動之間做選擇題。”

????有些人則認為，欣茨只不過是在大敲警鐘——沃爾克規則將禁止所謂的“流交易”（flow trading）——而這根本就是危言聳聽。“只要一提出新的監管政策，金融行業就會大聲疾呼，宣稱將會帶來一場衰退，它們哪次不是這樣？”經濟學家西蒙?約翰遜向《華爾街日報》（The Wall Street Journal）表示。

????如果你接受欣茨的第一個假設，那他的一套算法或許有些道理。如果你不信，那他得出的災難性結論就根本不足為慮。限制證券經紀人的行為在短期內是否會對金融市場造成負面影響，并因此提高融資成本？沒錯，有可能。可是，改革總有代價，而且這并不是世界末日。就算是布拉德?欣茨本人其實也明白這個道理。

????譯者：小宇

????Because fixed income uses about 60% of the capital committed to Wall Street capital markets activities, Hintz concludes that the decline in revenues and margins will challenge firms to even earn their cost of capital. "The changes then necessary will be expense reductions and balance sheet shrinkage," he says. "And with 50% of net trading revenues being paid out in compensation, we know which expense line will be cut!" Even so, he argues, that won't be enough. What will? A reduction in "inventory" of 20% to 25%, the result of which will be a less liquid U.S. corporate bond market, wider bid-offer spreads for corporate borrowers, and a migration of issuance to offshore markets not crimped by overzealous regulators.

????In other words, it's bad news for all of us. Actually…not quite all of us. Hintz points out that the U.S. government "conveniently exempted" Treasury bonds from the ban of proprietary trading in the new proposed rules. And why not? When you're the one making the rules, you don't normally screw yourself in the process.

????But don't believe all the doomsaying. Most companies in need of financing can just tap another market. Couldn't the bank loan market pick up the slack? Or lending by hedge funds? Or even equity issuance? "Sure, the analogy of a balloon being squeezed comes to mind," says Hintz. "But not every player in the capital markets is equally good in every market. So the overall cost of financing could be driven up. And that could hurt economic growth."

????Like many things in the capital markets, the argument put forth by Hintz and Dimon makes sense, at least on paper. The more liquid a market, after all, the more smoothly it should function. But what about in practice?

????"The Devil is obviously in the details," says Andrew Milligan, Head of Global Strategy for Standard Life Investments. "On the one hand, the majority of companies issuing corporate debt could do it in any market they want to. Wal-Mart can raise money in sterling or yen, and then swap it back into dollars. On the other hand, if the rules do have what appears to be the desired effect of discouraging investment banks from being market makers, then we lose a shock absorber. Regulators are looking to reduce 'big' volatility—like that of 2008—at the expense of what might be increased volatility in the short-term. We're trading long-term volatility for higher short-term volatility."

????There are others who think Hintz is merely sounding an alarm—that the Volcker Rule will prevent so-called "flow trading"—that has no business being sounded at all. "When is [the] last time the financial industry didn't see a regulation that they [said] was going to cause a recession?" economist Simon Johnson asked The Wall Street Journal.

????If you accept Hintz's first premise, then his numbers might make sense. If you don't, then his catastrophic conclusions are irrelevant. Could constraining the behavior of dealers in the short-term have a negative impact on financial markets and therefore financing costs? Sure, it could. But reform isn't free, and it's not the end of the world. Even Brad Hintz knows that.