????即便政客嚴(yán)格遵照規(guī)則，但個(gè)別盲目信托的盲目性要更低一些。雖然參議院、眾議院和執(zhí)行機(jī)構(gòu)的章程在根本上沒有區(qū)別，但執(zhí)行起來卻有很大差異。到了各州，這種差異更大。羅姆尼的資金由一名波士頓律師管理，而如果他當(dāng)選美國總統(tǒng)，為了遵守聯(lián)邦法規(guī)，他必須重新辦理一個(gè)更嚴(yán)格的盲目信托。

????不過，除了法律和政治上的麻煩，讓大多數(shù)人對盲目信托望而卻步的最大因素則是財(cái)務(wù)要求。盲目信托只對少數(shù)政客有用。而且，必須是那些財(cái)力非常雄厚的政客。

????華盛頓特區(qū)富理達(dá)律師事務(wù)所（Foley & Lardner）的克里塔?米歇爾曾是里克?桑托勒姆的競選委員會(huì)委員，他說：“除非你在這類投資基金中投入了一筆巨款，需要進(jìn)行持續(xù)性管理。否則，管理費(fèi)可是不菲。”

????世達(dá)律所的格羅斯表示，通常，他會(huì)建議商界人士和其他富有的候選人考慮大眾型投資，比如共同基金或指數(shù)基金等。奧巴馬總統(tǒng)在經(jīng)歷過早期的爭議之后，便采取了這種措施。2007年，時(shí)任參議員的奧巴馬，因?yàn)槠湫磐性诰柚说墓就顿Y了數(shù)萬美元而遭到指責(zé)。他的辦公室稱，這次投資是當(dāng)時(shí)的顧問根據(jù)尚未敲定的盲目信托條款進(jìn)行的，但此事仍登上了《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》（The New York Times）的頭版。

????美國最有錢的政客們都避開了盲目信托。比如，2008年，希拉里參加總統(tǒng)競選時(shí)，克林頓夫婦便把他們的信托全部變現(xiàn)，來避免出現(xiàn)利益沖突的指責(zé)。其他幾位未設(shè)立盲目信托的富豪政客包括加州眾議員達(dá)雷爾?伊薩、馬薩諸塞州參議員約翰?克里和眾議員少數(shù)黨領(lǐng)袖南希?佩洛西，不過這三人的投資組合不夠低調(diào)，不時(shí)就會(huì)有媒體跳出來對此指摘一番。

????格羅斯稱，和擁有密切管理信托的候選人相比，進(jìn)行大眾投資的候選人“可以有同樣的表現(xiàn)，甚至表現(xiàn)更好”。如今，有各種各樣的指數(shù)基金可以提供更加激進(jìn)、風(fēng)險(xiǎn)更高的投資選擇。政客可以借此實(shí)現(xiàn)大幅度的投資增長，又無需擔(dān)心盲目信托帶來的煩惱（和巨額費(fèi)用）。

????不過，盲目信托確實(shí)有它存在的價(jià)值。對于資產(chǎn)不便變現(xiàn)的競選人來說，其他選擇少之又少。衛(wèi)理律所的沃克稱：“對于所持有投資組合極其復(fù)雜的人來說，這可能是唯一的應(yīng)對?！泵滋?羅姆尼的情況便是如此，他擁有很復(fù)雜的私募股權(quán)，還持有貝恩資本的股份，因此，他不可能把所有資金都用于購買美國長期國債，過早放棄投資所帶來的稅務(wù)影響就更不必說了。

????當(dāng)然，這并不意味著只有成熟老練的投資者才可以設(shè)立盲目信托。任何人都可以選擇這種投資方式。未來，盲目信托可能日益普遍。隨著《證券法》（Stock Act）的通過，進(jìn)一步加強(qiáng)了對財(cái)務(wù)披露的法律要求，并明確禁止內(nèi)幕交易，而盲目信托不僅得到了倫理學(xué)家的認(rèn)可，還具有保密性。因此，它未來可能會(huì)得到更多人的青睞。

????加州參議員芭芭拉?柏克瑟曾寫過一本名為《盲目信托》（Blind Trust）的驚悚小說。寫這本書的動(dòng)機(jī)是因?yàn)橐粋€(gè)不受她控制的信托進(jìn)行了不良金融交易，致使她受到了不公正的指責(zé)。柏克瑟自己就設(shè)立了盲目信托，但同時(shí)也是負(fù)責(zé)管理盲目信托的參議院道德委員會(huì)的主席。對于這本書的寓意，羅姆尼和奧巴馬肯定非常熟悉：對待盲目信托要小心謹(jǐn)慎。并非只有政客們自己能看清盲目信托的真實(shí)面目，群眾同樣心知肚明。

????翻譯：劉進(jìn)龍/汪皓

????Even when a politician follows the rules perfectly, some trusts are less blind than others. While the statutes are essentially the same for the Senate, the House and the Executive Branch, they're enforced differently. On the state level, there's even greater disparity. Romney's money is managed by a Boston attorney, and he would likely need to create a new, stricter blind trust in order to comply with federal regulations if elected.

????But besides the legal and political morass, perhaps the biggest deterrent is financial. Blind trusts are only really useful to a few politicians. And to be one of them, you must be really, really rich.

????"Unless you've got just a bajillion dollars in the kinds of investment funds that require constant management," says Cleta Mitchell of law firm Foley & Lardner in D.C., and former campaign council to Rick Santorum. "Then really the cost of managing that is a lot."

????Skadden Arps's Gross says that he typically advises businessmen and other wealthy candidates to consider plain vanilla investments like mutual funds or index funds. Notably, Obama went this route after his own early brushes with controversy. In 2007, the then-senator came under fire after his trust invested tens of thousands in donors' companies. His office said at the time that advisers had made the investments under the terms of a blind trust that had yet to be finalized, but the story still ran on the front page of The New York Times.

????Some of the country's wealthiest politicians have eschewed blind trusts altogether. Bill and Hillary Clinton liquidated theirs and left the holdings in cash to avoid perceptions of conflict of interest when Hilary ran for office in 2008. California Representative Darrell Issa, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are other examples of extremely well-endowed legislators without blind trusts, though none of the three have portfolios bland enough to avoid occasionally pointed question from the press.

????Candidates with vanilla holdings, says Gross, often "do just as well, and probably better," than those with closely managed trusts. Today's diversified index funds have more aggressive, riskier options, Gross says. That allows politicians to pursue serious investment growth without signing up for the hassle (and giant fees) that come with a blind trust.

????Blind trusts do serve a purpose, though. For some candidates with assets that can't be easily liquidated, there are few other options. "It may be the only response that someone who has extremely complicated holdings can take," Wiley Rein's Walker says. That might be true in Mitt Romney's case, where a complex bundle of private equity holdings and his stake in Bain Capital would make it extremely difficult for him to simply put everything in Treasury bonds -- to say nothing of the tax implications of prematurely bailing on his investments.

????That's not to say only a sophisticated investor can set up a blind trust. The option is open to anyone, and it's likely to become increasingly popular. With the passage of the Stock Act, which beefs up financial disclosure laws and explicitly bans insider trading, blind trusts may gain appeal for being both ethicist-approved and confidential.

????There's even a book about it: Blind Trust, a thriller written by California Senator Barbara Boxer, follows a protagonist unjustly blamed for untoward financial dealings in a trust she didn't control. Boxer, who has one of her own, is also the chair of the Senate ethics committee, which regulates them. The moral of the story is one both Romney and Obama are familiar with by now: Handle blind trusts with care. Not only can politicians often discern their contents, so can the public.