这7件事证明美国超级富豪的影响力日渐式微

亿万富翁唐纳德•特朗普目前在共和党初选中遥遥领先，让人觉得美国超级富豪们对公共生活的影响力似乎达到了新的高度。虽然特朗普自称是亿万富翁（到目前为止，他仍未公布自己的纳税记录），但他那些反建制派、反华尔街、反自由贸易的言论，却让他成为超级富豪阶层中的“背叛者”。

一个由超级富豪组成的松散联盟正在试图抑制特朗普的崛起，最近出头的是前共和党总统候选人米特•罗姆尼，但到目前为止，这些努力均以失败告终。

事实上，有许多迹象表明，超级富豪们正在失去对权力和影响力的掌控。收入不平等的情况确实在日益加剧。但许多净资产过10亿的富豪并没有获得他们习以为常的满足感。

或许，超级富豪们的影响力已经见顶。

这种现象在政治界最为明显。如今，私人企业的大佬们越来越难以左右大选走势。

With billionaire Donald Trump the Republican frontrunner, it may seem like the impact of the ultra-rich on our public life is reaching new heights.A self-proclaimed billionaire (Trump still hasn’treleased his tax records), Trump’s anti-establishment, anti-Wall Street, anti-free-trade rhetoric has him running as a traitor to his class, though. A loose affiliation of the super rich has been scheming to halt his rise — most recently, Mitt Romney –but so far, without any success.

In fact, there are plenty of signs that plutocrats are losing their grip on the levers of power and influence. Yes, income inequality continues to rage. But plenty of people with ten-figure net worths simply aren’t getting the satisfaction to which they have become accustomed.

We may have reached Peak Plutocrat.

The phenomenon can best be seen in politics, where the kings of private enterprise are having a tough time playing kingmaker this time around.

布隆伯格竞选总统

还记得这件事吗？你或许稍不注意便会错过这则消息。1月下旬，前纽约市市长迈克尔•布隆伯格短暂考虑过参加总统竞选。布隆伯格拥有一家以其名字命名的公司，其个人财富预计在360亿美元至480亿美元之间。哪怕美国历史上还没有出现过以无党派候选人身份角逐总统宝座的成功先例，哪怕布隆伯格的选民群体（居住在东西海岸，信奉自由派立场的富有阶层）早已投入希拉里•克林顿的阵营，他都不在乎。

然而，这位深受亿万富翁喜爱的亿万富翁候选人（对冲基金巨头比尔•阿克曼在《金融时报》上发表了一篇热情洋溢的评论文章，支持迈克尔•布隆伯格），最终选择放弃。

Bloomberg for President

Remember that? If you blinked, you missed it. In late January, the former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, proprietor of the eponymous company, whose fortune is estimated at $36 billion to $48 billion, briefly considered jumping into the race. Never mind that third-party candidacies don’t do well in the U.S., or that Bloomberg’s constituency (coastal rich people who are socially liberal) are generally in the Hillary Clinton camp already.

The candidacy of Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire candidate beloved by billionaires (hedge fund giant Bill Ackman wrote a passionate pro-Mike op-ed in the Financial Times), failed to launch.

还有杰布•布什！

在退选之前，前佛罗里达州州长杰布•布什已经花掉了建制派捐助的1亿美元竞选资金。

已退休的对冲基金亿万富翁斯坦利•德鲁肯米勒现在支持另一位共和党候选人约翰•卡西奇。

And then there was Jeb!

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush blew through$100 million of the establishment’s money before bowing out.

Stanley Druckenmiller, the retired hedge fund billionaire, is backing. . . . John Kasich.

阿德尔森的影响力今不如昔

2012年，拉斯维加斯博彩业巨头谢尔顿•阿德尔森在共和党党内预选和大选中，扮演了非常重要的角色。但到了2016年，他已不复当初的影响力。阿德尔森最近收购的《拉斯维加斯评论报》一直支持马克•卢比奥，但卢比奥截至目前只赢得了一个州的党团会议。阿德尔森尚未表明自己的态度。

The dealmakers from 2012

In 2012, Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate, played an immensely influential role in the Republican primary and general election. In 2016? Not so much. The Las Vegas Review Journal,the newspaper (!) Adelson recently purchased, has endorsed Marco Rubio, a victor in precisely one caucus. And Adelson has yet to put his card on the table.

科赫兄弟感觉“被剥夺了选举权”

科赫兄弟投入数十亿美元，建立了一个高效的政治运作机构，与共和党并行运作。但他们却感觉自己被剥夺了投票权。共和党并没有采纳科赫兄弟关于自由贸易或移民的主张，而是走上了完全相反的方向。查尔斯•科赫对《金融时报》抱怨称：“你或许认为我们应该有更大的影响力。”

3月3日，路透社报道称，科赫兄弟已经决定不动用其筹集的竞选资金来阻止特朗普。路透社指出：“科赫兄弟之所以做出这一决定，是因为他们担心拿出数以百万计的资金攻击特朗普，这笔钱最终可能打水漂，因为到目前为止，他们还没有看到任何针对特朗普的攻击奏效。”

The Koch brothers feel ‘disenfranchised’

For their part, the Koch brothers, who have used their billions to build a highly effective political operation that runs in parallel to the Republican party, are feeling disenfranchised. Far from adopting the Koch Brothers’ line on free trade, or immigration, the Republican field is running in the opposite direction. “You’d think we could have more influence,” Charles Koch groused to the Financial Times.

On March 3, Reuters reported the Koch brothers had decided not to use any of their war chest to fight Trump’s candidacy. As Reuters notes, “the brothers made the decision because they were concerned that spending millions of dollars attacking Trump wouldbe money wasted, since they had not yet seen any attack on Trump stick.”

比尔•阿克曼收入缩水

在股市上，亿万富翁们也风光不再。潘兴广场基金的老板比尔•阿克曼，在2013年和2014年获得傲人业绩；阿克曼富有激情的维权主义作风，以及愿意在高知名度股票下重注的投资态度，令他的基金收益颇丰。但去年，扣除收益后，他的主要基金下跌了20.5%，2016年到目前为止，其基金再次下跌15%。哇哦！对冲基金经理约翰•鲍尔森因为做空房地产市场而取得骄人业绩，他也因此一度被封为投资大师，但该公司的资产如今已缩水近一半。

亿万富豪们依赖和喜爱的市场正在陷入低迷，如股市、垃圾债券、科技初创公司、自然资源等，他们的消费能力和公共影响力也随之开始下降。（但他们自负的性格却没有改变。）

房地产价值缩水

伦敦的高端房地产一直被全球超级富豪们视为安全的“保险箱”，如今这些房产的价值正在下跌。去年，曼哈顿价值超过1000万美元的独户公寓签约数量下降了16%，从270套减少到227套。

所以，向超级富豪销售名贵物品的行业，境况恐怕不容乐观。佳士得拍卖行报告称，2015年，艺术品销售额下降了11%，而苏富比拍卖行表示，本季度到目前为止，其销售额下降了33%。

No longer minting money, either

Billionaires are not doing so hot in the stock market, either. Bill Ackman, the proprietor of Pershing Square, shot the lights out in 2013 and 2014; Ackman’s brand of dramatic activism and willingness to go all-in on high-profile stocks gave his fund a impressive returns. But last year, his main fund was off 20.5 percent, net of returns; it’s off more than 15 percent so far in 2016. Whoops! John Paulson, the hedge fund manger who shot to prominence on the backs of bearish bets on the housing market and was thus elevated into the market sage, is literally half the asset manager he used to be.

As air comes out of the markets that Plutocrats rely on and love — the stock market, yes, but also junk bonds, tech start-ups, natural resources — their spending power and public influence are starting to deflate. (The egos, not so much.)

Real estate values wane

High-end real estate in London, which has functioned as a sort of safety deposit box for the globe’s ultra wealthy, is starting to fall. In Manhattan last year, the number of contracts signed on condos worth more than $10 million fell 16 percent, from 270 to 227.

So if you’re in the business of selling trophy properties to ultra-rich people, you may be struggling. Christie’s reported that its sales of fine art were down 11 percent in 2015 and Sotheby’s said that so far this quarter, sales are off 33 percent.

电视，滞后指标

别误会我的意思。尽管有各种迹象表明，富豪们对我们的文化和经济的影响力正在下降，但我们身边永远都会有超级富豪和穷人存在。他们的存在通常是不可避免的事实。今年的电视季，Showtime电视台推出了一部不错的新剧《亿万》，由达米安•里维斯饰演一位类似史蒂夫•科恩的人物——对冲基金经理鲍比•阿克塞尔罗德。《亿万》已经续订了第二季。

然而，即使这样一部以人性化和戏剧化的方式描绘超级富豪的电视剧，也证明这一群体的影响力已经见顶。在预测商业趋势方面，电视剧一直都是非常滞后的指标。2000年秋天，一部讲述牛市的美剧《欲望华尔街》的首映预示着即将到来的市场崩溃。2005年，ABC电视台播出了一部由索菲亚•范盖拉主演的情景喜剧《地产娇娃》，它展现了加州一群房地产经纪人的生活。次年，房地产市场便陷入崩溃。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

TV, the lagging indicator

Don’t get me wrong. While signs are everywhere that their influence on our culture and economy are declining, the Plutocrats — like the poor — will always be with us. And they will often be unavoidable. One of the better new shows to debut this TV season is Showtime’s Billions, featuring Damian Lewis as Bobby Axelrod, a Steve Cohen-esque hedge fund manager. Billions has been picked up for a second season.

But even a show that humanizes and dramatizes plutocrats is a sign of their peak. When it comes to business trends, television shows are always an extremely lagging indicator. In the fall of 2000, the debut of a show about the bull market, The$treet, presaged the impending market crash. In October 2005, ABC aired Hot Properties, a sitcom starring Sofia Vergara about a group of realtors in California. The housing market began to crash the following year.