史蒂芬姆欽 特朗普的理想財長
It would be a pity, for Steven Mnuchin, if his nomination for Treasury secretary were to come unstuck over 27 cents.
對史蒂芬.姆欽(Steven Mnuchin)而言，如果他的美國財長提名因27美分搞砸，那就太遺憾了。
Yet that is the sum for which OneWest, the bank he chaired, tried to foreclose on the house of Ossie Lofton two years ago.
然而，兩年前，正是爲了區區27美分，姆欽當時擔任董事長的OneWest銀行竟試圖要取消奧西.洛夫頓(Ossie Lofton)的房子的贖回權。
Ms Lofton, then 90, was sent a bill for $423.30: an insurance premium on credit secured against the equity in her home in Lakeland, Florida.
當時已90歲高齡的洛夫頓女士收到了一張423.30美元的賬單：她以位於佛羅里達萊克蘭(Lakeland)的房子爲抵押獲得貸款的相關保險費。
She sent back a cheque for $423.
她向銀行寄回一張423美元的支票。
OneWest asked for the 30 cents.
OneWest繼續索要剩餘30美分。
She wrote another cheque, mistakenly making it out for 3 cents.
她又寫了一張支票，但誤把數字寫成3美分。
Then the bank served a foreclosure notice.
隨後，銀行向老人發出了止贖通知。
To critics such as Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, this kind of thing should automatically disqualify Mr Mnuchin from high office.
在馬薩諸塞州民主黨參議員伊麗莎白.沃倫(Elizabeth Warren)等批評人士看來，發生這樣的事情應自動取消姆欽擔任政府高官的資格。
Within hours of his nomination this week by Donald Trump, the president-elect, Ms Warren put out a statement characterising the multimillionaire banker as the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis, caught up in all the worst practices on Wall Street during his career at Goldman Sachs, a hedge fund and at OneWest.
在姆欽上週被當選總統唐納德.特朗普(Donald Trump)提名幾小時內，沃倫發佈了一份聲明，將這位富豪銀行家形容爲金融危機中的阿甘(Forrest Gump)，在其任職高盛(Goldman Sachs)、一家對衝基金以及OneWest銀行期間沉溺於華爾街一切最糟糕的做法。
Lynn Drysdale, a lawyer for Ms Lofton, will not be drawn on whether she thinks Mr Mnuchin is fit for the job.
洛夫頓的律師林恩.德賴斯代爾(Lynn Drysdale)不願就姆欽是否適合這一職位發表自己的看法。
But she says that the big fuss over a quarter and two pennies, first reported by Politico, is part of an epidemic of similar cases affecting elderly people, many of them involving OneWest.
但她表示，這起最先由Politico報道的圍繞27美分大動干戈的事件是影響老年人的大量類似案件的一起，其中許多案件都涉及OneWest銀行。
The Pasadena-based bank, chaired by Mr Mnuchin between 2009 and 2015, when it was sold to CIT Group of New York, had one of the worst,
OneWest銀行總部位於帕薩迪納(Pasadena)，姆欽在2009年至2015年期間擔任銀行董事長，2015年將該行出售給了紐約CIT集團。
if not the worst records in kicking people out of their homes over that period, says Kevin Stein, deputy director of a credit advocacy group in California.
加州一家信貸法律顧問機構的副主管凱文.斯坦(Kevin Stein)表示，2009年至2015年期間，在將人們逐出自家住房方面，OneWest銀行創造了即使不是最糟糕、也是最糟糕之一的紀錄。
Nobody doubts that Mr Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary is a smart and determined man.
沒人懷疑特朗普挑選的財長頭腦精明、意志堅定。
Former colleagues and associates rave about the com¬posure he showed during the buyout of OneWest (then known as IndyMac), marshalling an all-star team of investors — George Soros and Michael Dell among them — during a particularly intense phase of the crisis.
他的前同事、合夥人都極力讚揚他在收購OneWest銀行（當時稱爲印地麥克銀行(IndyMac)）期間表現出的鎮定，他在金融危機特別嚴重的階段組建了一支全明星投資者團隊——其中包括喬治.索羅斯(George Soros)和邁克爾.戴爾(Michael Dell)。
Others admire the way he broke in to Hollywood as an executive producer, popping up on the credits of blockbusters like The Lego Movie and American Sniper.
有些人欽佩他以執行製片人身份闖入好萊塢，憑藉《樂高大電影》(The Lego Movie)、《美國的狙擊手》(American Sniper)等大片橫空出世。
One former colleague chuckles at the thought of Mr Mnuchin, twice married with three children, posing stiffly on red carpets with his glamorous fiancée, Louise Linton, a 35-year-old B-list actress from Edinburgh.
一位前同事一想到姆欽就暗暗發笑——他結過兩次婚，有三個孩子，與迷人的未婚妻、來自愛丁堡的35歲二線女演員路易絲.林頓(Louise Linton)在紅地毯上擺出僵硬的姿勢。
Still, some who know him seem worried by his latest turn.
儘管如此，一些瞭解他的人似乎擔心他的最新提名。
They fear he will receive a rough ride in nomination hearings if senators rake over cases such as Ms Lofton’s or query his stroke of fortune in pulling $3.2m out of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in 2005, three years before it fell apart.
他們擔心他將在提名聽證中遭遇困難，比如參議員痛批洛夫頓等案子，或者質問他爲何如此走運地在2005年從伯納德.馬多夫(Bernard Madoff)的龐氏騙局中抽回320萬美元——該騙局3年後破產。
A trustee later sued Mr Mnuchin to recoup losses, but dropped the case after a federal appeals court ruled that it was too late to claw back the cash.
後來，一位受託人曾起訴姆欽要追回損失，但在聯邦上訴法院裁定追回這筆資金爲時已晚之後撤銷了起訴。
For others, the real problem is Mr Mnuchin’s lack of experience on the really big stage.
對其他人而言，真正的問題在於姆欽缺少在真正的大舞臺上的經驗。
If confirmed as America’s 77th Treasury secretary, the 53-year-old would follow in the footsteps of Robert Rubin (1995-1999) and Hank Paulson (2006-2009),
如果他被確認爲美國第77任財政部長，現年53歲的姆欽將追隨羅伯特.魯賓（Robert Rubin，1995-1999年擔任美國財長）和漢克.保爾森（Hank Paulson，2006-2009年擔任美國財長）的腳步。
both of whom ran Goldman Sachs (as co-chair and chief executive respectively) before leaving for government.
魯賓和保爾森在進入政府任職前，都曾執掌過高盛，分別擔任過聯席董事長和首席執行官。
Rubin is a one-in-a-million guy and Paulson did a very good job in a difficult situation, says one former colleague at the Wall Street bank.
魯賓是人中翹楚，保爾森在艱難的環境下完成了非常出色的工作，一名曾在這家華爾街銀行工作的前員工稱，
Steve is a second-stringer behind those guys.
史蒂芬不如他們，只能算替補。
His upbringing, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was comfortable.
他在曼哈頓上東區(Upper East Side)衣食無憂的環境中長大。
His father, Robert, was a partner in the equities department at Goldman Sachs, credited with pioneering the art of trading big blocks of stock.
他的父親羅伯特(Robert)是高盛股票部門的合夥人，被認爲是大宗股票交易的先驅。
Robert now runs an art gallery, known for dealing in abstract expressionists like Pollock, de Kooning and Rothko.
羅伯特如今經營着一家藝術畫廊，以交易波洛克(Jackson Pollock)、德.庫寧(Willem De Kooning)和羅斯科(Rothko)等抽象表現派藝術家的作品而聞名。
One of five children, Steven was sent to New York’s elite Riverdale Country School and then to Yale.
身爲姆欽家的5個孩子之一，史蒂芬曾就讀於紐約精英學校河谷學校(Riverdale Country School)，之後進入耶魯大學(Yale)。
At Goldman he did well in trading mortgage bonds.
在高盛時，他在交易抵押債券方面表現不俗。
He entered the partnership in 1994, the year his father retired, rising to chief information officer before leaving in 2002.
他於1994年成爲合夥人（同年他父親退休），在2002年離開高盛前他已晉升至首席信息官一職。
It was an era of partners splitting off from Goldman to run their own funds, normally seeded with tens of millions from their former colleagues’ personal accounts.
在那個時代，合夥人紛紛離開高盛，經營自己的基金，通常帶着來自前同事個人賬戶的上千萬美元作爲啓動資金。
At Dune Capital Management, Mr Mnuchin did a little better than the average; better than Christopher Flowers at JC Flowers; better than Mike Novogratz at Fortress, says one former Goldmanite.
他的一位前高盛同事稱，在資本管理公司Dune Capital Management，姆欽的表現比平均水平略高一點；強於JC Flowers的克里斯托弗.弗勞爾斯(Christopher Flowers)和峯堡(Fortress)的邁克.諾沃格拉茨(Mike Novogratz)。
OneWest was the deal that made Mr Mnuchin mega-rich.
出售OneWest使姆欽成爲了鉅富。
The bank was sold for $3.4bn, a little over the book value of its assets; but the purchase price was so low that the consortium more than tripled its money, when including dividends paid along the way.
該銀行以34億美元的價格出售，略高於其資產的賬面價值；但是由於之前的收購價非常低，讓當年的收購財團賺了兩倍以上（包括持有該銀行期間分得的股息）。
The president-elect’s choice for the commerce secretary — Wilbur Ross, a 79-year-old private-equity baron — did similarly well out of BankUnited, a Florida-based bank that hit the skids not long after IndyMac.
當選總統的商務部長人選——79歲的私募股權大亨威爾伯.羅斯(Wilbur Ross)——在BankUnited銀行身上也同樣大賺了一筆。BankUnited是一家位於佛羅里達州的銀行，在印地麥克銀行之後不久遭的噩運。
Mr Mnuchin and Mr Ross are sharpies, says Todd Baker, a former banker and now a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.
曾經的銀行從業人士、如今在哈佛大學肯尼迪學院(Harvard Kennedy School)擔任高級研究員的託德.貝克(Todd Baker)稱，姆欽和羅斯都很狡猾。
They cut great deals because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which had taken control of dozens of banks during the crisis, was desperate to get the big ones off its hands.
聯邦存款保險公司(FDIC)在金融危機期間控制了數十家銀行，由於其急於將控制的大型銀行脫手，姆欽和羅斯得以敲定非常划算的交易。
The [FDIC] got their heads handed to them, he says.
（FDIC）把它們的命運交給了他們，貝克表示。
Mr Trump this week celebrated the very professional job Mr Mnuchin did at OneWest, and the billions of dollars he made for his investors.
特朗普上週讚揚姆欽在OneWest完成非常專業的工作以及爲投資者賺得數十億美元。
That’s the kind of people I want in my administration, he said, representing our country.
這正是我的團隊想要的人，特朗普表示，來代表我們的國家。
