• 1996年年度股东大会
  • 上午会议
    • 1. 欢迎致辞
• 1996 Annual Meeting
  • Morning Session
    • 1. Welcome
    • 2. 选举董事
    • 2. Election of directors
    • 3. 为何创建B类股
    • 3. Why Class B shares were created
    • 4. B类股IPO价格对所有人相同
    • 4. Class B IPO price is the same for everyone
    • 5. 伯克希尔单位信托的弊端
    • 5. Downside of Berkshire unit trusts
    • 6. 无B类股二次发行计划
    • 6. No plans for Class B secondary offering
    • 7. 我们不认为伯克希尔股票被“低估”
    • 7. We don’t think Berkshire shares are “undervalued”
    • 8. 无B股收益的具体计划
    • 8. No plans for the Class B proceeds
    • 9. 劝阻期望不切实际的买家
    • 9. Discouraging buyers with unreasonable expectations
    • 10. 几乎像直接从伯克希尔购买
    • 10. Almost like buying direct from Berkshire
    • 11. 为退休计划设立全伯克希尔共同基金？
    • 16. 伯克希尔无法再复制过去的收益
    • 17. 不预期B类股成交量飙升
    • 18. 巴菲特的知名度和安全问题
    • 19. A类股可“永远”转换为B类股
    • 20. 如何将A类股转换为B类股
    • 21. B类股定价旨在避免不合理预期
    • 22. B类股将增加账面价值，但不会增加内在价值
    • 23. “我们的所作所为都是公开的”
    • 24. 股东批准B类股发行
    • 25. 伯克希尔的价值高于其分拆价值
    • 26. 在看似高股价时回购
    • 27. B类股不会稀释A类股的价值
    • 28. 富国银行没有“秘密配方”
    • 29. 盖可保险受益于完全归伯克希尔所有
    • 30. 伯克希尔的企业价值高于账面价值
    • 31. 不预期B类股影响A类股价格
    • 32. 世界图书百科全书业务不会出售
    • 33. 保护公众体现了“巨大的诚信”
    • 34. “越公平越好”对伯克希尔的股价而言
    • 35. 保险浮存金：“首要的是，获得廉价的浮存金”
    • 35. Insurance float: “Above all, get it cheap”
    • 36. 内在价值并不高于当前股价
    • 36. Intrinsic value isn’t above current stock price
    • 37. “名义持有人”股东带来的复杂性
    • 37. Complications from “street name” shareholders
    • 38. 年度报告中未提及“透视盈余”
    • 38. No “look-through earnings” in annual report
    • 39. 估算内在价值的折现率
    • 39. Discount rate for estimating intrinsic value
    • 40. 喜诗糖果短期内不会推出无脂产品
    • 40. See’s Candies not going fat-free anytime soon
    • 41. GEICO的价格：“我们咽了几口唾沫，然后付了钱。”
    • 41. GEICO’s price: “We gulped a few times and paid it.”
    • 42. 报业依然是好生意，但不如从前
    • 42. Newspaper business is still good, but not as good
    • 43. 年报中的“外部信息”
    • 43. “Outside information” in annual reports
    • 44. “伯克希尔不是一个人的独角戏”
    • 44. “Berkshire is not a one-man show”
    • 45. 巴菲特不回复个人信件
    • 45. Buffett doesn’t answer individual letters
  • 下午场
    • 1. 与“两个最有钱的人”一起投资
  • Afternoon Session
    • 1. Investing with “the two wealthiest guys”
    • 2. 美国运通在信用卡领域已经“落后了”
    • 2. American Express has “slipped” in credit cards
    • 1996年年度会议
    • 第四部分（共六部分）
    • 5. 有时需要裁员来纠正过去的过度招聘
    • 6. 保险业务因为业务量减少不会裁员
    • 7. GEICO的国际化扩张是危险的分散精力
    • 8. 股东们推动了波仙珠宝的销售
    • 9. USAir投资已改善，但仍是个错误
    • 10. 报业可能会演变，但不会完全消失
    • 11. 为什么70亿美元的保险浮存金比70亿美元的现金更好
    • 12. 持有更多抵押贷款使房利美的风险“略微”增加
    • 13. 不要等待低迷期才买入伟大公司
    • 14. “变化很可能对我们不利”
    • 15. 我们只会在必要范围内披露持股情况
    • 16. 巴菲特不担心Y2K计算机问题
    • 17. 伯克希尔的业务“预测起来容易得多”
    • 18. 艾斯纳是迪士尼成功的“最重要因素”
    • 19. 为什么华尔街的业务“很难”管理
    • 20. 如果部分市场“有点不正常”，并不重要
    • 21. 企业本身比它位于哪里更重要
    • 22. 我们从不“为了多赚八分之一个百分点”
    • 23. 所罗门公司的盈利波动是可以预期的
    • 24. 伯克希尔子公司之间几乎没有互动
    • 25. 劳合社的声誉问题帮助了伯克希尔
    • 26. “我们假设我们会永远经营下去”
    • 27. 薪酬计划必须包括资本成本
    • 28. 与许多电影公司不同，迪士尼为股东赚钱
    • 29. 书籍推荐
    • 30. 我们会在保险领域做更多，但我们不知道是什么
    • 31. 被资本主义奖励的人需要帮助那些没有被奖励的人
    • 32. 经营银行“没什么魔法”——只要不做“蠢事”
    • 33. 我们“只做有意义的事”
    • 34. 盖可的卢·辛普森现在有了更多投资选择
    • 35. “永久持股”即使被市场高估也可能不会出售
    • 36. 巴菲特预计盖茨不会加入伯克希尔董事会
    • 37. 并非所有“浮存金”生意都具有吸引力
    • 38. 预计A类股市场会比B类股“更好”
    • 39. 企业净资产收益率可能会下降
    • 40. 巴菲特的投资并不反映任何房地产见解
    • 41. 伯克希尔过去的增长不是新投资的标尺

Title: 1996 Annual Meeting

Part 1/6

1996 Annual Meeting

Morning Session

1. Welcome

WARREN BUFFETT: Just a little early, but I think everyone’s had a chance to take their seats. I must say, this is the first time I’ve seen this program. They told me they’d surprise me, and they certainly did. (Laughter) Marc Hamburg, our chief financial officer, who is now known around the office as CB, was in charge of putting all this together. And we — I want you to know, we have no multimedia (inaudible). (Applause) This entire meeting is handled by a regular staff. We have no public relations department, or investor relations, or multimedia department, or anything of the sort. So, everybody just pitches in. And Marc will, forevermore, be in charge of the pregame ceremonies. (Laughter) We have a very large crowd today. I hope everybody has found a seat, either in this main room or in the three overflow rooms. I think we can handle around 5,400. And historically, 62 percent or just about exactly 62 percent, every year, of the people who request tickets have come to the meeting. And if that percentage holds true today, we have just filled the rooms.

And we will have a problem in the future, which we haven’t figured out the answer to yet. But we’ve got another year. The way we’ll run the meeting is that we’ll get the business out of way — out of the way — at the start. And we’ll talk about the Class B issuance, then, too. So, it’ll take a little longer than historically has been the case. And, then, we’ll have Q & A for — until about noon. We’ll have a short break at noon. There’ll be sandwiches outside, which you can buy. (Laughter) And Charlie and I will have a couple of sandwiches up here at the podium. And, then, we will stay around until about 3 o’clock to answer more questions. And at that time, after noon, I’m sure everybody in the overflow rooms will be able to find a seat here in the main room. But people have come from great distances to attend this meeting. So, we really want to get a — give everyone a chance to get their questions asked.

And Charlie and I are delighted to — but we’ll have to break it up at three, no matter what. But we’ll be delighted to stick around. You can leave anytime, obviously. As I’ve explained in the past, it’s much better form to leave while Charlie is talking. (Laughter) But the — feel free to do that. And then at noon you’ll get a chance to do it en masse. We have buses available to take you to — if you have any money left at all after yesterday — to take you to other business establishments of Berkshire, locally. So that will be the plan. I hope everyone does get their questions answered. We’ve got a system where we break this room into six zones. And we have a couple of zones in other rooms. And then this afternoon, everybody will be able to be here in the main room. So, that is the procedure. I’m sure you recognize Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who also had not seen that movie before. (Laughs) And showed — we were — I think Marc was afraid to show it to us.

But in any event — (laughter) — we will go on. I thought you might be interested. This is a list of people that came in for tickets. And we had, in addition to 99 from Canada and, of course, the U.S., we had Australia, the Channel Islands, England, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland. I’m not sure all of those people are with us today. But they did send for tickets. And I’ve met a number that did come in from a distance.

2. Election of directors

WARREN BUFFETT: So, with that introduction, I will call the meeting to order. I’m Warren Buffett, chairman of the board of the directors. And I do welcome you to this meeting. I hope everybody has a good time this weekend. And I’d like to introduce the directors, in addition to myself and to Charlie. Now, you don’t get quite your money’s worth this year from our directors. They’ve — collectively, they’ve lost 100 pounds since last — our last meeting. I think they’ve been trying to live on the director’s fees. (Laughter) We have with us Howard Buffett — let’s stand. (Applause) Susan T. Buffett. (Applause) Malcolm G. Chace III. (Applause) And Walter Scott Jr. (Applause) Along with us today are partners in the firm of Deloitte & Touche, our auditors, Mr. Ron Burgess and Mr. Craig Christiansen (PH). They’re available to respond to appropriate questions you might have concerning their firm’s audit of the accounts of Berkshire. Mr.

Forrest Krutter is secretary of Berkshire. He will make a written record of the proceedings. Mr. Robert M. Fitzsimmons has been appointed inspector of elections at this meeting. He will certify to the count of votes cast in the election for directors. The named proxy holders for this meeting are Walter Scott Jr. and Marc D. Hamburg. Proxy cards have been returned through last Friday representing, it says “number to come.” (Laughter)

VOICE: There’s another script.

WARREN BUFFETT: Ah, OK, there’s another — oh, yeah. Here’s the script on that one: 1,041,567 Berkshire shares to be voted by the proxy holders, as indicated on the cards. That number of shares represents a quorum. And we will therefore proceed — directly proceed — with the meeting. We will conduct the business of the meeting, then adjourn the formal meeting. After that, we will entertain questions that you may have. First order of business will be a reading of the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders. I recognize Mr. Walter Scott Jr. who will place a motion before the meeting. WALTER SCOTT JR.: I move that the reading of the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders be dispensed with.

WARREN BUFFETT: Do I hear a second?

VOICE: I second the motion.

WARREN BUFFETT: The motion has been moved and seconded. Are there any comments or questions? We will vote on this motion by voice vote. All those in favor say, “Aye.”

VOICES: Aye.

WARREN BUFFETT: Opposed? Motion’s carried. Does the secretary have a report of the number of Berkshire shares outstanding, entitled to vote, and represented at the meeting? ROBERT M.

FITZSIMMONS: Yes. I do. As indicated in the proxy statement that accompanied the notice of this meeting that was sent by first-class mail to all shareholders of record on March 8, 1996, being the record date for this meeting, there were 1,193,512 shares of Berkshire Hathaway common stock outstanding with each share entitled to one vote on motions considered at the meeting. Of that number, 1,041,567 shares are represented at this meeting by proxies returned through last Friday.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you. If a shareholder is present who wishes to withdraw a proxy previously sent in and vote in person on the two items of business provided for in the proxy statement, he or she may do so. Also, if any shareholder that’s present has not turned in a proxy and desires a ballot in order to vote in person on those two items, you may do so. If you wish to do this, please identify yourself to meeting officials in the aisles who will furnish two ballots to you, one for each item. Will those persons desiring ballots please identify themselves, so that we may distribute them? First item of business at this meeting is to elect directors. And I’ll recognize Mr. Walter Scott Jr. to place a motion before the meeting, with respect to election of directors. WALTER SCOTT JR.: I move that Warren E. Buffett, Susan T. Buffett, Howard G. Buffett, Malcolm G. Chace III, Charles T. Munger, and Walter Scott Jr. be elected as directors.

WARREN BUFFETT: Is there a second?

VOICE: I second the motion.

WARREN BUFFETT: Are there any other nominations? Is there any discussion? I learned a lot in China. We did so — (Laughter) The nominations are ready to be acted upon. If there are any shareholders voting in person, they should now mark their ballots on the election of directors and allow the ballots to be delivered to the inspector of elections. Will the proxy holders please also submit to the inspector of elections a ballot on the election of directors, voting the proxies in accordance with the instructions they have received? Mr. Fitzsimmons, when you’re ready, you may give your report. ROBERT M.

FITZSIMMONS: My report is ready. The ballot of the proxy holders received through last Friday cast not less than 1,040,667 votes for each nominee. That number far exceeds the majority of the number of all shares outstanding. The certification required by Delaware law regarding the precise count of the votes, including the votes cast in person at this meeting, will be given to the secretary to be placed in the minutes of this meeting.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you, Mr. Fitzsimmons. Warren E. Buffett, Susan T. Buffett, Howard G. Buffett, Malcom G. Chace III, Charles T. Munger, and Walter Scott Jr. have been elected as directors.

3. Why Class B shares were created

WARREN BUFFETT: The second item of business of this meeting is to consider the recommendation of the board of directors to amend the company’s restated certificate of incorporation. The proposed amendment would add a provision to the restated certificate of incorporation authorizing the board of directors to issue up to 50 million shares of a new Class B common stock, with each Class B share having economic rights equivalent to 1/30th of a share of the current common stock, and with 1/200th of the vote, and to re-designate the company’s current common stock as Class A common stock and to make each share of Class A common stock convertible into 30 shares of the new Class B stock at the option of the holder. I think, before we get into moving that motion — I think this would be a good time to have discussion and take your questions regarding the issuance of the Class B. And I should give you a little background. I think many of you know the background on this. But over the years, we’ve had probably half a dozen people, one time or another, propose that the creation of an all-Berkshire investment company or unit trust.

In other words, an entity that would hold nothing but Berkshire stock, and then would parcel out its own shares in smaller denomination pieces to the public. And we have generally discouraged that because we felt that there was considerable potential for abuse in such an arrangement. And our discouragement has been successful up until last fall, when there was one — there were two proposals — that went as far as submission to the SEC for clearance, that involved unit trusts. And these unit trusts would’ve owned nothing but Berkshire shares and, then, been sold to the public in small denominations, probably with a minimum investment of around a thousand dollars or so. And holders of those trusts would’ve bought into an entity that had a defined life, but that had considerable, in the way of costs and some tax consequences, that they might not anticipate when they came in.

And Charlie and I were worried that a combination of Berkshire’s past record — which cannot be repeated — and high sales commissions, and a low denomination, and a lot of publicity about Berkshire and myself, which, as you’ve seen this morning, we attempt to discourage (Laughter) — The — that the — a great many people would end up buying these unit trust holdings without any idea, really, of what they were buying, and with unrealistic expectations as to the future. And that that would, in turn, create a considerable demand — because these unit trusts would go out and buy Berkshire shares — that would create a considerable demand against a fixed supply, much of which is almost unavailable because people have a low tax basis and are reluctant to sell, and I hope they’re reluctant to sell for other reasons. And that the very action of the creation of these, and that push on the demand, would — might very well create some speculative spurt in the stock, which in turn, would induce people who had been approached about the trust to feel they were missing even more of a good thing by rushing in. Rising prices in certain kinds of markets create their own kind of demand. It’s not a sustained demand.

And it’s a demand that the reversal of which, later on, when people become disillusioned, can cause a lot of problems. But that potential was there with a flood of buyers with unrealistic expectations, high commissions, and a fixed supply. So, we attempted to dissuade both of the promoters. One backed away and then came out a few months later with something that was a combination of Berkshire and some other securities, which were at least thought to be in our portfolio. And we started hearing from people that it was clear had no understanding of what they were buying, or the costs involved, or the potential tax implications, or anything of the sort. So, at that time, we faced — we had to make a decision, and we had to make it rather quickly, as to what would be the best solution to this problem that, in turn, wouldn’t create the same sort of thing that we felt had potential harm when being done by these promoters. Obviously, we considered a split of the stock.

But we were worried that a split would send out signals to all kinds of people who want to believe in things that may not be too believable about future performance and that they would look at it as some grand chance to buy in at a lower price. Of course, it wouldn’t really be a lower price in relation to value. But it would be a lower denomination. And that, again, against a fixed supply, might very well have created the same kind of problem, maybe even a greater problem, than would occur with the unit trusts. So, we came upon the idea of the Class B shares, which would create a supply that would match the demand for, in effect, split shares, and that would be offered in a way that did not create special inducements, or to create false inducements to people thinking of buying. And one of the things we did was we stuck a commission on it, on the issuance of the Class B shares, that was about as low as any I’ve ever seen in many years in Wall Street, because we did not want salespeople to have a great inducement — we — to go out and sell the shares.

We wanted anyone that was interested to read the prospectus, and think about it, and make their own decisions. And we did another thing, which is quite counter to the normal commercial approach, which is that we said we would issue as many shares as people wanted to buy. And, you know, you do much better in this world if you’re selling something, to say “only one to a customer,” and “you have to get in early,” or “you have to know somebody in order to get shares.” And many new issues are sold that way, and it’s very effective. I mean, you know, it’s like those old stories in Russia where there’d be lines, and people would get in them without knowing what they were going to buy when they got to the front of the line. And that’s a very effective selling tool. And it’s one that Wall Street is not unfamiliar with.

But we decided that, to reduce any of that feeling that you have to get in early, or only the big guy’s going to get it, or something of the sort, that we would announce loud and clearly that we would have shares available for everyone that wanted. So, there was no reason to assume that — it couldn’t be a hot stock, in effect. And we’ve done various other things. So, I — our hope is that the Class B shareholders that we attract are of the same quality as the people in this room, that they have an investment attitude where they feel they are buying into part of a business, that they expect to stay with it for the indefinite future, maybe the rest of their lives. And they do not think of it as a little piece of paper that may be hot because it’s a new issue or something of the sort. It lets the people who are happy with the present shares stay in exactly the same position, which is what I’m going to do, what Charlie will do. We have made the B very slightly disadvantageous, in two respects, to the A. It has a lower vote, and it will not participate in the shareholder contributions programs.

There were reasons for both of those, but in addition to the — the explicit reasons, there also is the desire that the B not be made fully — it’s just a slight bit inferior —but it’s not fully as attractive as the A, because we did not want to do anything that pushed everybody into converting into the B. If that started in a big way, the B would then enjoy the better market, and it would create its own dynamic where it made sense for everybody to do it. So we have left it so there’s no reason for you, if you own the A, to convert to the B, unless you wish to sell or give away some portion of your holding that would be less than a full A share. And it will be convenient for that reason. But beyond that, there should be no incentive. If the B should trade slightly above 1/30th of the price of the A, there will be arbitrage activity that will keep that from being anything other than a negligible amount. It, of course, could trade well below 1/30th because the B is not convertible into the A. Charlie, would you like to add anything before we start taking questions on this? And I —

CHARLIE MUNGER: No. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: — I encourage everyone to ask. Charlie, as you will note during the meeting, does not get paid by the word. (Laughter) But we — I encourage every — anyone to ask any question. There are no bad questions about this. I mean, it — last year, we talked about a preferred issue. And people had very valid questions. I might take those two points of difference between the A and B, just to start with, on the shareholder-designated contributions program, which was $12 a share last year. In addition to wanting the A to have a very small edge over the B, which would be a reason for not having the B participate, it also would get very impractical, in terms of taking $12, and dividing it by 30, and soliciting the names of charities and to designate contributions. We can handle the present program fairly efficiently. But we would not want to be sending out checks for a dollar or two, and it would get very inefficient. So, we have told prospective B holders that that’s not going to happen. And so, they’re fully informed coming in.

In connection with the vote, the issuance of the B does create more votes outstanding. So, absent any change in the situation, through the issuance of shares which we are not particularly eager to issue, the vote — my vote — will be diluted, somewhat, by this. And, frankly, I had no desire to create a lot more shares which would dilute the vote of the Buffett family. It will be diluted, somewhat, by this action because we will have all the present votes outstanding, plus some votes from the B. If there is a lot of conversion to the B, it is true that our holding will go up, percentage-wise. But I see no reason why people really should convert. So, I don’t think that’s likely. I think, in the end, it’ll stay very much the same. And as I mentioned earlier, we want there to be a slight disadvantage to the B. In all other respects, we will treat the B just as the A. We have a problem with numbers at this annual meeting. We’re going to have to do something next year. And we haven’t figured it out yet, either.

But the suggestion was made by someone that maybe the B would get second-class seating or something. We’re not going to have any of that. (Laughter) But from this point forward, with the point — with the exception of two things we put in the prospectus, the B shares will be treated, in every way, as equivalent to A. There — So, with that, and with Charlie’s reluctance to elaborate, we have a six-zone system in here. And then we have another two zones in the overflow rooms. So, if there are any questions in zone 1, somebody — just raise your hand and somebody will bring a microphone. Zone 1 is over there. Two is back in the corner. Three, four, five, and six. So it just goes right around clockwise. Just raise your hand and somebody will bring a microphone to you.

4. Class B IPO price is the same for everyone

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve got a question, I think, in zone 1.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. I’m Marshall Patton (PH) from Bandera, Texas. And when the price is struck on the Class B shares, those of us who buy our shares through computer programs, do we have assurance that, whoever we buy from, that that will be the price that we pay for these shares?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, the — well, the price — there’ll be a price established, probably, Wednesday night or thereabouts of this week. And everybody will pay the same price. And a very high percentage of that price, incidentally, will come to Berkshire. I mean, there is a very, very low underwriting spread, compared to any other offering. Now, once the initial offering is — everybody will pay the same price: large institutions, the buyer of one share will pay the same price. Subsequently, the stock will, we expect, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, probably, Thursday morning. And we have the world’s greatest specialist here, I believe, Jimmy Maguire, who handles the trading, now, of the common and will handle the trading of both the A and B. Jimmy, are you here? Do you want to stand up? Just so — there he is. The world’s greatest specialist, Jimmy Maguire. (Applause) I think he leads the singing of “Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie,” too, annually.

You can see him on CNBC occasionally, and the Nightly Business Report. I want to give equal time here. The — But Jimmy will be trading both classes of stock starting Thursday. As I say — as I said, the — it will be impossible, after the first few days, it would be impossible for the B to sell much above 1/30th of the A, because people would buy the A and sell the B if more than a very small — with even the smallest of arbitrage differentials. But there will be markets in two shares and — in two classes. They will both trade in 10-share lots. That will be the round lot — so-called round lot. Usually the round lot on the New York Stock Exchange is 100 shares. But in the case of both Berkshire shares, the round lot will be ten shares. Now, I read one or two press accounts that said, therefore, the minimum purchase is ten shares. That’s not true. The minimum purchase of each stock — each class of stock — is one share. I mean, you can buy one share or two shares. Or you can sell one share or two shares.

And you have an odd lot differential, just as you would if you were working with less than 100 shares of a company whose stock traded in 100 share round lots. But there’s no minimum size in the case of either share. And you will see, when they get mechanics straightened out, and they may have a little bit trouble with it, but you will see Berkshire A and Berkshire B in — quoted in the papers. And I think that you’re — that it’ll be quite clear after Thursday what is going on, on that. I don’t know about the computer purchases. But I don’t that — certainly, in terms of the initial offering, that will be through one of, I think, 137 people — or brokers — in the selling group. And it’s the same, no matter who you deal with.

5. Downside of Berkshire unit trusts

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 2?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is David Hendel (PH). I’m from Boca Raton, Florida. To your knowledge, will this program effectively discourage the unit trusts?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it’s certainly designed to. And I think the answer to that is yes, because I see no way that a unit trust — either in connection with the initial offering or with the subsequent trading — I see no way that the unit trust could offer people as an efficient and inexpensive way of participating in Berkshire as direct purchase of the B. Bear in mind, if a unit trust were established, it would have to buy Berkshire shares in the market. So, it would have the costs that people have in buying shares. And, then, on top of it, it would superimpose these other costs. And in addition to the initial commission, they even had a valuation fee. That was a job I wanted to have because every — (laughter) — three months or however often, maybe every day, somebody, their job was to evaluate this trust value which involved the great skill of being able to locate it alphabetically — (laughter) — in the newspaper. The figure was left blank as to what the evaluator’s fee would be. But I had a feeling that it was one of the more cushy jobs available. (Laughter) There was an added problem, too.

I mean, if these unit trusts started and did not get off the ground very far, they could’ve become something in the way of orphans. And they certainly would’ve become expensive to operate. And, then, with Berkshire paying nothing in the way of dividends, but with the trust incurring expenses, including this evaluator’s fee, among others — but with the trust incurring expenses, they would have to sell small amounts periodically to pay the expenses. And that would create tax consequences for every unit trust holder. I mean, people would not know what — we felt they would not know what they were getting into. The more serious problem is that somebody would flash our past record in front of them or show them some chart on Berkshire’s stock price and say, “You know, this is your chance to do the same thing.” And it, obviously, isn’t — wouldn’t have been. And — but based on what we have seen, right now, we anticipate the offering being 350,000 shares. But the extent to which the number of tickets involved, that even seeking out informed purchasers only, there’s very substantial demand.

So I think if you widen that circle to include uninformed, it might have been quite an experience. I think the answer is that we will not have a problem with the unit trusts in the future.

6. No plans for Class B secondary offering

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 3?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Adam Ingle (PH) from Boulder, Colorado. In terms of the number of shares that you’re going to issue, B shares, do you plan to just look at the book on Wednesday and issue enough to totally satisfy the demand? And do you have any plans to do a secondary if it starts becoming a hot number?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I think what we plan is to tailor the size of the offering to fit the demand that appears Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, or whenever the exact moment will be on that. But the offering will be designed to do that. Like most offerings, I would anticipate that the underwriter will — and this is a supposition at the moment — but I — it’s frequently done — would sell some more shares than the initial offering with the intention of creating some short position in the security. And, then, they have an option to take — from the company — for 30 days up to 15 percent of whatever we initially sell, which protects them on their short position. But the short position also helps in terms of having an orderly market in the stock, subsequently. But we will, essentially, tailor the size of the issue to the demand as it appears to us midweek. We have no plans for any secondary offering. I think this has been sufficiently publicized. There’s a large network of selling group members. So that people that are interested, but wanted to buy in a smaller denomination, will have had their chance.

I think there will be a — well, present indications, there’d be 350,000 shares out. There would be a fairly large — a large — number of holders based on what we’re seeing. So, the market should, starting Thursday morning on the exchange, there should be, in my opinion, a reasonable market based on that kind of quantity and the number of people buying. And so, I anticipate nothing subsequently.

7. We don’t think Berkshire shares are “undervalued”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 4?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can you hear me?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yep.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name’s Tom Conrad (PH). I’m from McLean, Virginia, and I (inaudible) to this meeting and tell all my friends and family members to buy it last week. But I’ve been reading in some publications that you said that you would not advise your friends and family members to buy it at its current pricing. And I’m just concerned, if I go out and run and tell them why you’re saying — what your feeling would be, should I go tell my friends and family members? — (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: I think I’ll leave that one up to you. What I said — (laughter) — I said, at present prices, Charlie and I do not think Berkshire stock is undervalued. And that, now that is not what’s gotten reported sometimes. I mean, sometimes people have said we thought it was overvalued. We did not — if you look at the prospectus or if you look at the — if you look at the prospectus, you will see that what we said was we do not think it’s undervalued. Now, I find it somewhat entertaining that people regard that as kind of an amazing statement by somebody making a public offering. But if you think about it a bit, can you imagine a management that goes out and says to the world, “We are selling you something — in a new stock — and it’s way undervalued.” What do you say to your present shareholders if you go out and say to the public, “We’re selling you something that’s worth a dollar, and we’re going to sell it to you for 80 cents?” Now, that would leave me very unhappy.

So, I feel that any management that is talking about selling their stock and they say it’s very undervalued, either doesn’t know what’s good for their present shareholders or they may have their tongue in cheek. We would not be selling — we would not sell a part of your interest in Berkshire at a price which we did not feel was adequate for the present shareholders. It’s that simple. If we sell 1 percent of the company, and 350,000 shares is close to that figure of B, we are selling 1 percent of your ownership in See’s Candy. We’re selling 1 percent of your ownership in GEICO. We’re selling 1 percent of your ownership in The Buffalo News. Those are all valuable assets. We have no intention of selling 1 percent, or 10 percent, or the hundred percent of any of those entities at a price that is not fair to present shareholders. That doesn’t mean it’s unfair to new shareholders, but we’re not going to — we would not be selling the stock if we thought it was undervalued.

I’m not sure what we would’ve done if we’d had that position when the unit trust came along. But we have — and put in the prospectus — but we are not selling any of our shares. Frequently, on a new offering you see present holders. But, you know, I have very close to 100 percent of my net worth in Berkshire and it leaves me quite happy. I’ve got a trust I run set up in 1964. I’m the sole trustee. I can do anything in that trust I want. And I’m freed by the person who set up the trust of responsibility for a concentration of investments. And I have some members of my family who are beneficiaries of that trust. That trust owns nothing but Berkshire Hathaway stock. That doesn’t bother me at all. That — I’m not recommending purchase. But I’m perfectly happy owning Berkshire. But we do not want — (applause) — we do not want people to think, when they buy into Berkshire, that they’re buying something that’s undervalued, because it’s not.

And we say in that fourth caveat on the prospectus that we want people to buy it only if they expect to be holders for a very long time. Charlie and I expect to be holders for a very long time. And, in fact, you may see us up here sometime where we don’t know who the guy next to us is. (Laughter) But we’ll put on an act, though. (Laughter) The — we — You know, that is our attitude toward Berkshire. We do not want people to come in who think it’s going to be a hot stock or selling for more a year from now, because we don’t have the faintest idea whether it’s going to be selling for more or less a year from now. Never have had. We do think that to the extent that Berkshire attracts a special class of shareholder that really looks at themselves as owning a part interest in a business, like they’d own a part of a farm or part of an apartment house, and they expect to hold it, really, for the rest of their lives, we think that it’s a perfectly sensible thing to do because we’re doing it ourselves.

But we don’t want to go beyond that.

8. No plans for the Class B proceeds

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m not sure whether we got zone 4. Can we go back there?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Gordon Shepherd (PH) from Montreal. I wondered whether you had any plans for what to do with the money? (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the answer to that is in the prospectus, but the — we have no immediate plans for the money. But we’ve faced that situation a number of times. I mean, the money — the inflow of money and outflow of money should not be, in our view, attempted to be matched too carefully in this world, because you get investment and business opportunities at times that differ from the times that funds come in. And one of the most important disciplines in running a business or managing investments is that — is to not get your — not to try to coordinate your actions simply with the availability of cash. Over time, we found a way to use money. It’s much tougher for us to run 17 billion than it was when we had 20 million in the business. There’s no question about that. And we pointed that out many times. And it’ll get tougher still if we get larger, which I hope we do. But the fact that, if 400 million comes in on this offering or whatever, that’s really no different than 400 million coming in in some other manner. And when our float grows, we take in more money.

When our earnings are retained, we take in more money. When we have — I forget what the check would’ve been on the Cap Cities transaction, but it was certainly well over a billion dollars that came in on a single day. So, money’s fungible, and we have to keep looking for bigger and bigger things as we go along. And that’s what we do focus on. But it doesn’t bother me to take it. It wouldn’t bother me if we weren’t taking it. It wouldn’t bother me if we took in three times as much. It doesn’t make a lot of difference. And we will have — we — the constant challenge for Charlie and me is to allocate capital is we go along. And it’s a nice challenge. (Laughter)

9. Discouraging buyers with unreasonable expectations

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi there. Lee Debroff (PH), long-time shareholder, I think, going back a number of years now to when it was a little more intimate affair. Not quite sure whether I should look at you in the TV here or in real life, on stage. But anyway, I’m on the very right of you. And I see all the guards around you, and I see all the security and that sort of thing. And then, I see this offering of the Class B. And I sort of wonder whether, from your perspective, you feel you might be in the same boat that the pope and the president are? And I mean this absolutely sincerely, because I don’t think that you have, perhaps, as good a handle as some of us do on the renown that you carry outside of Omaha, Nebraska. People who have no idea what investments are about are fully aware of who you are. And when they see this offering, I think you may find that there are substantially more people who are interested in just having a piece of you for the sake of saying they have a piece of you than having absolutely any idea what they’re doing.

And I notice that on — I try to read the fine print here — on page 14, first paragraph, second line, that you indicate some 50 million shares of Class B common stock may be offered. And so, I’d like you to comment on this situation that you find yourself in, where you may be, perhaps, out of touch with the popularity that you have.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, my first reaction: maybe I should tell my barber we could save the clippings and sell them. (Laughter) The — I don’t think it’s quite as extreme as you say. But, you know, I — in relation to the 50 million first, we have to authorize enough shares, because we are going to allow every share of class A — or present common stock — but the class A, to convert to B. So we have to have the shares authorized to take care of 30 times the present one point almost two million shares. So, 36 million shares, in effect, are reserved for the present common stock. And, as long as we were authorizing it — Well, we need that much, or we wouldn’t have the shares actually available if everybody came around to convert. That’s not going to happen. But we still have to be prepared for it. We have no plans to issue a lot of shares. The — but the point you mention, which I think you stressed a little more than I would’ve, but the — that is what we were worried about, in terms of the unit trusts.

There are people that think that it can all happen again from this kind of a base which, you know, is mathematically a joke. And Charlie and I would settle for one whole lot less, you know, right today. And we have done everything we can — I mean, if we hadn’t done this, the unit trusts would’ve moved forward. And I think they would’ve cashed in on that phenomenon you suggested. And in a few years, you know, it would not — I would’ve been in a somewhat different position because people can get very disillusioned if they have hopes that aren’t realized. And we have done everything possible, I think, to filter out those who might have an unrealistic belief. And everyone should read a prospectus before they buy shares, and — I think we have tailored — we’ve designed what we’re doing about as well as we can to moderate that phenomenon you’re talking about. There may be a few come in but not too many. Charlie, do you have any thoughts on that?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, if we only issue the amount we’re now talking about, it’s sort of a nonevent around Berkshire. It’d be 1 percent —

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It’s 1 percent.

CHARLIE MUNGER: — or something like that of the — It solves the problem of these disreputable followers — (laughter) — and 1 percent, what does it matter? (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Wait, you heard that remark, referring to Charlie earlier, about all I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. (Laughter) Well, we think about that, in terms — we believe in reverse engineering. And how do we keep people from buying it, who really are going to be unhappy, you know, a few years later? You know, it’s a little like singing country songs. You all — you should sing them backwards. That way, you get your home back and your auto back and — (laughter) — your wife back, and —

10. Almost like buying direct from Berkshire

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 6? Have we got —?

VOICE: There was a hand over here, wasn’t there? Here. Right here.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. I’m Rena Lowie (PH) from Chicago, proud to be here. At mic —

WARREN BUFFETT: Where are we? Oh, over here. OK.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a question that’s been asked me, and I really don’t know. Several people wanted to know if they could buy directly from the company.

WARREN BUFFETT: The answer to that is no. But Salomon Brothers is the underwriter of the issue. They have a hundred and, I think, 37-or-something broker-dealers, all — virtually all — the major ones in the country, in the selling group. The cost to the company of doing this are really very, very low compared to any issue I’ve seen. When AT&T had their spinoff — or sale of Lucent — which was close to a $3 billion deal — you know, their percentage costs were more than double what our costs will be, for example, on this offering of Berkshire. So, it’s almost as if you’re buying it — a Class B holder — is buying it from us, in terms of the, what I would call the frictional costs involved of getting the issue done. In fact, if we handled it ourselves, it might cost more. But the company, itself, is not a broker-dealer. And it’s — it would require a whole group of different hoops to jump through in order to have a direct issue. It will be sold only through broker-dealers.

35. Insurance float: “Above all, get it cheap”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 3?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Maurus Spence. And I have a serious question and, then, a less serious question first. The less serious: you said that you and Charlie had lost, between you, a hundred pounds. I was curious who had lost more?

WARREN BUFFETT: No, no. I said the board had lost a hundred pounds. (Laughter) I have some members of the board who would take umbrage of the fact that they weren’t included in that total. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: OK, Who lost —?

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie and I, we’re pretty close at the moment, aren’t we? Modesty prevents — (Laughs)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I must say you’re both looking very good, anyway.

WARREN BUFFETT: We’re feeling good.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was wondering who lost the most and what your diet secrets were. (Laughter) And, then, the more serious question was about float. You touched on this a little bit earlier. But you’ve often said that your insurance business is probably the most important business that you own. On page 12 of the annual report, you said, “We have benefitted greatly to a degree that has not been generally understood, because our liabilities have cost us very little.” I was wondering if you could describe this a little bit better so we can understand it.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, the — Charlie and I have lost about the same amount, at about 20 pounds each. The insurance business provides us with float. And float is money that we hold that doesn’t belong to us. It’s like a bank having deposits. A bank has deposits. The money doesn’t belong to it. But it holds the money. Now, when a bank holds deposits, on everything except demand deposits, there’s an explicit cost, an interest rate attached to it. And, then, there are the costs of running the system and gathering the money which is — also must be attributed both to demand and time deposit. So there’s a cost to getting what they would call deposits and we could call float. In the insurance business, a similar phenomenon takes place in that policy holders give us their money at the start of the policy period. And therefore, we get the money paid in advance for the product. And secondly, it takes time to settle losses, particularly in the liability area.

If you bang up a fender on your car, you — it’s going to get settled very quickly, so there’s — but if there’s a complicated injury or something, it may take some years to settle. And during that period, we hold the money. So, we have, in effect, something that is tantamount to the deposits of a bank. But whereas the deposits of a bank, it’s quite easy to calculate the approximate cost, in the case of the float that the insurance company has, you don’t really know what the cost of that float is until all your policies and losses — policies have expired and your losses have all been settled. Well, that’s forever, in some cases. So, you’re only making an estimate, as you go along, of what that float is costing. To date with Berkshire, in the 29 years we’ve been in the business, it appears — never certain, because you don’t know for sure what’s going to happen — but it appears that our float has not cost us anything, in — on average.

There’s been years when we’ve had an underwriting loss when there’s a cost. There’s been years when we had an underwriting profit. And so, we had a reverse cost. So we have obtained that float on very advantageous terms over the years. Far more than — fully as important as that— it’s important to get it at a low cost, in our case, no cost. But the other important thing is that we’ve grown it dramatically. And so, we’ve gotten more and more money without having any cost attached to it. And if we still had our 16 — or 17 million, I guess — of float that we had in 1967 and it was no cost, it would be very nice. But 17 million of free money is worth something, but it’s not worth a ton. Having seven billion, if we can achieve that as free money, it’s worth a lot of money. And that growth has not, probably, generally, been appreciated fully in connection with Berkshire nor has the interplay of how having zero-cost money, in terms of affecting our gain in value over time.

People have looked at — always looked at our asset side, but they haven’t paid as much attention to the liability side. Charlie and I pay a lot of attention to that. And, I mean, this — it’s not entirely an accident that the business has developed in this manner. And we have intentions of trying to make it continue to develop in this manner, and in that manner, in the future. But we’ve got competitors out there, too. Float, per se, is not a blessing. We can show you many insurance companies that thought it was wonderful to generate float. And they have lost so much money in underwriting that they’d be better off if they’d never heard of the insurance business. But, you know, the job is to get it, get it in increasing quantities, but above all, get it cheap. And that’s what we work at. And you do that in the business through having some kind of competitive advantages. You won’t do it just by having an ordinary insurance company. The ordinary insurance company is not a good business. We have it, in certain respects, because of our attitude toward the business.

We have it because of our financial strength gives us certain competitive advantages, and we have it in the case of GEICO, because of a very low-cost operation. And it’s us — up to us — to try and figure out ways to maximize each one of those competitive advantages over time. We’ve built those advantages. I mean, in 1967, we were not looked at that way in the insurance business. We were — we’ve built a position of competitive strengths. And in the case of GEICO, they had it without us. But we have bought into it over time. It’s a very important asset. And you ought to pay a lot of attention over the years as to what is happening in — with that asset as to both growth and costs. And that will aid you in calculating intrinsic value. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.

WARREN BUFFETT: OK.

36. Intrinsic value isn’t above current stock price

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 4 is the next.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Henry Neuhoff (PH), shareholder, Dallas, Texas. My guess is that you consider the intrinsic value of the shares to be more than that represented by the price.

WARREN BUFFETT: By more than represented by what?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: More than represented by the current price of the shares. If that be the case, what would be your thoughts about Berkshire repurchasing its own shares?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, no. We have said we do not consider Berkshire undervalued at this price. We didn’t say we thought it was overvalued. But we said we did not consider it undervalued. So, a repurchase based on our estimate would not be in the interests of shareholders. It’s conceivable it could be at some time, but we do not think that’s the case. We think intrinsic value far exceeds book value, but we do not think it exceeds present price. We’re not selling any shares, though, either. (Laughter) (Break in tape)

37. Complications from “street name” shareholders

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 6?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Carlos Lucera (PH). I’m from Idaho. And my question relates to street names. Our stock at Berkshire Hathaway is in a family limited partnership. And in addition to that, it’s in a street name. Now, what is the reason, and the rationale behind the reason, for street name shares not being able to participate in the charitable contributions by Berkshire Hathaway?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We submitted a request for ruling to the IRS — I don’t know, 15 or so years ago, in connection with the shareholder-designated contribution program. And the ruling we received specifies record holders and not street name holders. Now, that doesn’t mean that a different ruling might not be obtained. But frankly, when we get into the multitude of indirect holdings and the problems we have with those indirect holdings in other respects, I think it would be a bit of a nightmare for us to attempt to get that program extended through — into street name holders. I think the costs would far exceed the benefits. And I think that it is the situation, and anybody with it in street name can move it into their own name if they want to. So I think, with very small amount of effort on the part of an individual shareholder, it would offset an enormous set of problems that we would encounter at Berkshire. We can handle the present system. We’ve got 12 people there. And they run the annual meeting. They make movies. They do all kinds of things.

(Laughter) And it would be — it would be very tough and — you know, if an extra 10,000 shares participated, it’d be $120,000 of contributions. I just don’t think it would be worthwhile. Our ruling doesn’t presently cover the subject, in any event. It’s something we’ve thought about. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. I think even if they changed the ruling, we wouldn’t change the policy. It would be, administratively, very difficult.

WARREN BUFFETT: We run into other problems, in terms of people getting their material — just the material on the annual meeting. And we’ve heard from a number of shareholders that they can’t get it from their broker, and they’re — they don’t know what the B is all about because they didn’t get their proxies. And it just — street name posed more problems. Although, we have a — now we have — probably have more than — forget about the B. We have more than twice as many, I believe, holders in street name as in direct ownership. Although, the number of shares is far, far — I mean it’s — it’d be less than 20 percent of the shares. But it’s probably double the number of holders.

38. No “look-through earnings” in annual report

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 7?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. My name is Bill Guerra (PH). I’m from the San Francisco Bay area. I’ve owned your shares for many years and appreciate the good job you’ve done. However, in this year’s chairman’s letter — you developed a concept a few years ago called look-through earnings.

WARREN BUFFETT: Right.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And I failed to see that this year. And I’m wondering if that no longer is a valid concept or why you refrained from showing the data?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. That’s a good question. I should have actually covered that in the annual report, in terms of mentioning — because I’ve talked about it, and we’ll talk about it in the future. And we do have a goal on look-through earnings of $2 billion in the year 2000. And that’s going to be adjusted upward to allow for the fact there are more shares outstanding. It’ll be the same basic goal. But there were two reasons that it was skipped this year. And like I said, I should’ve mentioned it. One was it was the longest letter we’ve ever had. And having that section in there would’ve elongated it even a bit more. And that, coupled with the fact — and this is the important part of it — we had major changes in our — the composition of the company — immediately after the end of the year. So, our Capital City stock disappeared. At the time it disappeared, we didn’t know whether it was going into cash, or all Disney stock, or a combination.

We had the acquisition of the other half of GEICO where, even now, the accounting treatment isn’t clear. And I felt that — The look-through earnings last year were fine. But I felt that, by the time I got through explaining all of the adjustments you would have to make for the transactions then pending, that adding it to the — to already the longest letter I’ve written, would’ve slowed things down a lot and not been particularly helpful. It will be back in this year, this upcoming report, and future reports, because it’s a very important concept. And it’s something that we’re focused on. It’s just that last year’s number — it would’ve been a mess by the time I got through trying to explain it. You know, I normally — the accounting stuff, I know, puts a lot of you to sleep. But believe me, it isn’t so much fun writing it either. (Laughter) So, I skipped it this year. We’ll have it next year. And the number would’ve been OK last year, but there would’ve been a lot of asterisks attached.

39. Discount rate for estimating intrinsic value

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 8, please.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. Mr. Buffett, good morning. My name’s Ed Walzak (PH) from New York. I’m a student and an admirer of your investment philosophy. I have a question. In determining a company’s intrinsic value, you seem to write or indicate that you project out a company’s owner earnings for a number of years, and then discount that back by prevailing rates. My question is, how much of a premium, if any, to prevailing risk-free rates do you demand when you discount back the owner earnings of a company? Or stated differently, for example, today, with loan rates at about 7 percent, if you did the same exercise with Coca-Cola, at what rate of interest would you discount back their owner earnings?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We get asked that question a lot. And we’ve answered it to some extent in past annual reports about what discount rate to use. We basically think in terms of the long-term government rate. And there may be times, when in a very — because we don’t think we’re any good at predicting interest rates, but probably in times of very — what would seem like very low rates — we might use a little higher rate. But we don’t put the risk factor in, per se, because essentially, the purity of the idea is that you’re discounting future cash. And it doesn’t make any difference whether cash comes from a risky business or a safe business — so-called safe business. So, the value of the cash delivered by a water company, which is going to be around for a hundred years, is not different than the value of the cash derived from some high-tech company, if any, that — (laughter) — you might be looking at. It may be harder for you to make the estimate. And you may, therefore, want a bigger discount when you get all through with the calculation.

But up to the point where you decide what you’re willing to pay — you may decide you can’t estimate it at all. I mean, that’s what happens with us with most companies. But we believe in using a government bond-type interest rate. We believe in trying to stick with businesses where we think we can see the future reasonably well — you never see it perfectly, obviously — but where we think we have a reasonable handle on it. And we would differentiate to some extent. We don’t want to go below a certain threshold of understanding. So, we want to stick with businesses we think we understand quite well, and not try to have the whole panoply with all different kinds of risk rates, because, frankly, we think that’d just be playing games with numbers. I mean, we — I don’t think you can stick something — numbers on a highly speculative business, where the whole industry’s going to change in five years, and have it mean anything when you get through. If you say I’m going to stick an extra 6 percent in on the interest rate to allow for the fact — I tend to think that’s kind of nonsense.

I mean, it may look mathematical. But it’s mathematical gibberish in my view. You better just stick with businesses that you can understand, use the government bond rate. And when you can buy them — something you understand well — at a significant discount, then, you should start getting excited. Charlie? (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. The discounts were once greater than we now see.

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s all you’re going to get, folks. (Laughter)

40. See’s Candies not going fat-free anytime soon

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 1?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. Warren, it’s Peter Newman, Nick and Racky’s son. You can’t see me because I’m on your hard left over here. And by the way, Racky says to send her love to you —

WARREN BUFFETT: Great.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — and Susie. I’m going to take a cue from something that the guy who asked the questions about the World Book — I know you’re loathe to, normally, interfere in the running of your individual corporations, because they do so well on their own. And I am particularly fond of See’s Candy and their products. And you may or may not know that we have a chocoholic in our family, as you do in yours.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Makes good chocolate syrup, too. (Laughs)

AUDIENC MEMBER: Yeah, I won’t mention who. However, when I was in there this Christmas buying some gifts, I noted that, with the exception of the little candy canes, there’s nothing in that store that is fat-free. And we are facing a trend — (laughter) — in the world, especially in dessert items and ice cream and candy items, of fat-freeness. And I just thought that, perhaps, it would be a word — worth a word to management to consider expanding the hard candy line.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we look at a lot of things. One of the problems, as you probably know, for example, in using aspartame is it doesn’t interact well with heat. And so that’s been sort of tough. Now, Charlie and I have kept getting our regular boxes of candy during this weight lossprogram. And we’ve — (laughter) — devoured them. And candy, you know, it may be, on average, a hundred and — depends on whether it’s a sugar product or not. But, take the lollipop, it’d be about 110 calories per ounce. But there’s — that’s one and a half, or one and a quarter lollipops, or something like that. Most things are, you know, in that hundred per ounce to 150 per ounce range. So, candy is not a specific no-no. If we can find something that the customer likes, that makes them think they’re getting skinnier by eating it — (laughter) — you know, that will be a breakthrough. And we look forward — and we test everything that comes along.

I can assure you. (Laughter) In fact, Charlie and I may be the main testers. Chuck Huggins is here today — and if you’ve got any ideas on it — who runs See’s. Done a terrific job of running See’s ever since we took over in 1972. He’d appreciate ideas. But we are looking for things that appeal to the consumer that taste good and that they’ll go for. I mean, just as is, you know, the Coca-Cola Company, in terms of carbonated soft drinks. So, it’s a constant subject. And, you know, there were high hopes on aspartame originally. But it just hasn’t panned out in terms of candy. And I’ve read a few articles about the fat-free stuff. Well, it should be the fat substitute, which didn’t get me too excited about trying it. But I’m not sure whether some of you read those articles or not. We’ll keep looking, Peter, I appreciate it.

41. GEICO’s price: “We gulped a few times and paid it.”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. As an aspiring shareholder, I’m very happy and proud to be here. Maybe I can encourage Mr. Munger to respond to my question this morning. In regards to your purchase of the other half of GEICO, would you comment on your reasoning behind paying the premium above market value and why you, instead, did not purchase shares in the open market?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, we couldn’t have purchased very many shares in the open market at the quoted price. And the price we paid, with the large number of shares we got, we thought was a very satisfactory price.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We — what Charlie said is a hundred percent right. We also had a restriction that we agreed to many, many years ago — almost 20 years ago — as to the number of shares we would own without the consent — of the directors and, I believe, the Insurance Department. So, we actually had some special restrictions on us in the case of GEICO. But if we hadn’t have had those restrictions, we’d have behaved in exactly the same manner. And we didn’t think we could buy it any cheaper than that price. And we gulped a few times and paid it. And I think we will be happy that we did, as it’s turning out. GEICO is doing very well. It — I mean, I knew it would do well. But I feel very good about it.

42. Newspaper business is still good, but not as good

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, my name is David Lowe (PH) from Ventura, California. My first Berkshire meeting, and I want to mention that I’m very intrigued at the influence you have over the shareholders here. I note that the first beverage they ran out of in the lobby was Cherry Coke. (Laughter) My question is about The Buffalo News. You say, in the letter for the ‘95 report, that the newspaper industry has lost another notch in its economic attractiveness. Can you elaborate on that?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The — what you are seeing in newspapers is a circulation trend that has been prevalent for a long time, in terms of newspapers per household. But that has been declining, and that — daily newspapers — and that I would say the trends of the last couple years are somewhat worse, in that respect. I would say that the ability to price, both at the circulation and advertising level, is — has weakened a bit in recent years — not dramatically, but it’s weakened a bit. At one time, newspapers really — daily newspapers in single-newspaper towns were probably as attractive, economically, as any business you could find. I mean, it — a large percentage of advertisers had very little choice, in terms of using them as an advertising medium. People had less options, in the way of learning what was going on around them other than the daily newspaper. So, the — they started from a position of extraordinary strength. They still have a very strong position. And I’ve tried to emphasize that in the report. I mean, they’re a bargain at the price they sell for. They give you all kinds of information with very low price.

And they’re a magnificent way for most merchants to reach their customers. But they are not — they do not have the exclusive advantages, in many cases, that they had 15 or 20 years ago. Third-class mail has become more of an option. People have more ways of obtaining information. As we talked earlier, information can be processed electronically and delivered at far lower cost than people dreamt of 20 years ago. So, all of those things eat away a little bit. It’s still a very fine business. But those — I don’t see anything that will reverse those trends. I don’t think that they will necessarily accelerate. But I think that, if the only thing you owned in life was a daily newspaper in a single-newspaper town 20 years ago, you would feel slightly less secure today than you did at that time. But you’d still be a lot better off than owning virtually any other business. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.

43. “Outside information” in annual reports

WARREN BUFFETT: How about zone 4?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, my name is Hutch Vernon. I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. I know that you read lots and lots of annual reports. And I’m curious what you are reading for, if you would share that with us. But I’m more curious — because I think I know what you’re reading for — if there are any disclosures — any further disclosures — that you would like to see companies make in their financial reporting, or that the SEC require in financial reporting or proxies or other communications with their shareholders? And that would be for both you and for Mr. Munger.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The main thing that they can’t mandate in annual reports: I really like to have — I like to know as much as I can about the person that’s running it and how they think about the business and what’s really going on in the business. In other words, I would like to have a report that would be identical to what — if I owned half of a company but was away for a year, and I had a partner who owned the other half — when I came back, that he would tell me about what had taken place during the past year and what he foresaw coming up and all of that. I — that is what I think the purpose of the report is. Now, the SEC mandates a lot of information, and —

VOICE: — side on?

WARREN BUFFETT: — some of that is helpful. But there’s an intent behind the report. I mean, if it’s a sales document I’m, you know, I’m less interested. I’m — and — I don’t see any way to mandate what I’m talking about. But that’s the kind of report I’m looking for. What I’m trying to do as I read reports, A, I like to understand just generally what’s going on in all kinds of businesses. If we own stock in a company and in an industry, and there are eight other companies that are in the same industry, I want to own or be on the mailing list for the reports for the other eight, because I can’t understand how my company is doing unless I understand what the other eight are doing.

I want to have the perspective of, in terms of market share, what’s going on in the business or their margins or the trend of margins, all kinds of things that I can’t get unless I know — I can’t be an intelligent owner of a business unless I know what all the other businesses in that industry are doing. And so, I try to get that information out of a report. If I’m thinking about investing in a specific company, I try to size up their business and the people that are running it. And over the years, I have found reading a lot of reports to be quite useful in terms of making business decisions at Berkshire. If we own all of a business, I want to own shares in all of the competitors just to keep track of what’s going on. And I want to be able to intelligently evaluate how our managers are doing that. And I can’t do that unless I know the industry backdrop against which they’re working. It’s amazing, you know, what — how well you can do in investing, really, with what I would call outside information. I find inside information — I’m not sure how useful that is.

But outside information — there’s all kinds of information around, as to businesses. And you don’t have to understand all of them. You just have to understand the ones that you’re thinking about getting in. And you can do it, if you just — nobody will do it for you. You can’t read — in my view — you can’t read Wall Street reports and get anything out of them. You have to do it yourself and get your arms around it. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten an idea, you know, in 40 years from a Wall Street report. But we’ve gotten a lot of ideas from annual reports. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: What I find is that it takes a long time to read the annual report even if it’s a comparatively simple business, because if you really are trying to understand it, it’s not a bit easy.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I would say that, on average, in a business we’re really interested in, even though we know what to skip, to some extent, and what to read, I mean, it’s going to be 45 minutes or an hour on a report. And if there are six or eight companies in the industry, that’s going to be six or eight hours, perhaps, and then their quarterlies and a lot of other — I mean, it — the way you learn about businesses is by absorbing information about them, thinking, deciding what counts and what doesn’t count, relating one thing to another. And, you know, that’s the job. And you can’t get that by looking at a bunch of little numbers on a chart bobbing up and down about a — or reading, you know, market commentary and periodicals or anything of the sort. That just won’t do it. You’ve got to understand the businesses. That’s where it all begins and ends.

44. “Berkshire is not a one-man show”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, my name is Hank Strickland (PH). I’m from Fairfax, Virginia, which, if it were a city, would be the tenth largest in the United States. I’m here as a stockholder. And my daughter, who’s also my broker, is here with me. We were also out there Friday night when we watched you warming up for the beginning of the ballgame. And we noted that you didn’t drop the ball. You seemed to be able to get it to the guy that was warming you up. We noticed your first pitch, which I had difficulty characterizing as either being a passed ball or a wild pitch.

WARREN BUFFETT: It was a premature sinker, actually. (Laughter) Very hard to hit, I might add. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And, then, you moved spritely into the stands, did a lot of picture taking, photo opportunities, signed autographs, vaulted over a rail or two. And we noted, with great enthusiasm, your fitness. Now that all having been said, many people would characterize Berkshire as a one-man company, with all due respect to Charlie. And many of this audience here, I’m sure, are retired or semi-retired. It’s not unthinkable that, perhaps, you might want to retire, or for good — God’s sakes —

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s unthinkable. I don’t want that one to go by. (Applause)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Or for something — something worse could happen. And for those of us —

WARREN BUFFETT: That would be the worst, I think — (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well I —

WARREN BUFFETT: I think death would be second. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I could think of some things some of us might want to do to protect our sizeable investments, say, having owned Berkshire since Blue Shamp — Blue Chip Stamp days. But anyway, we could put in a stop order, might take out an insurance policy. We might ask Charlie to masquerade as Warren after you’ve moved on. Those don’t seem like very attractive options. So, I’m very serious now. How would you respond to the question of a stockholder that’s really concerned about Berkshire being a one-man show?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, Berkshire is not a one-man show. It’s a two-man show, in terms of capital allocation. There’s no question about that, at present. But it’s run by many managers that are doing an outstanding job and that don’t need any guidance from Charlie or me as they go along. But I might say that, you know, I will die with all of my Berkshire stock, essentially. And that will — stock will be held, either in the family or in a foundation, depending on the order of death, for a long time thereafter. So, there’s no one that’s more concerned about the subsequent management issue than I. I mean, this is not something that ends, at all, on my death. And it doesn’t end for the Buffett family or The Buffett Foundation. So, it’s a subject that Charlie and I have both thought about.

The most likely situation — you got to get away from the idea that it’s a one-man show because, right now, we’ve got 33,000 people working for Berkshire out there, you know, as we speak. And I’m sitting around, you know, watching movies about myself or something. I mean, you can see how vital I am to the place. (Laughter) So the — but the question — And the other thing we do, besides allocate capital, is we do identify these managers. And hopefully, we make it attractive for them to stay and work for Berkshire. But that — you know, that doesn’t require 150 IQ or anything to do that. It does require a certain sensitivity to why people want to get up in the morning and do what they do. And when I’m not around, the logical, at some point — it depends on exactly when it happens, again. But Charlie’s a little older than I am. And it’s likely that it will be broken into a two-person function again, but not exactly the way Charlie and I function. And that is that there will be someone in charge of investments and capital allocation.

I mentioned Lou Simpson’s position, because he is younger than I am, in the annual report, and then someone in charge of operations. And we have that person in the organization now. Now, I don’t know what the situation will be when I die, because it could be in 20 minutes or it could be in 20 years. And when that — so, I can’t specifically name the individuals. We have the individuals now for both those functions. We’ll have the individuals for the same functions 20 years from now. I don’t know whether they’ll be the same people. But it’s quite a logical way to run the business. GEICO was run that way and still is run that way and has been for some years. It’s always struck me as terribly illogical, the way property-casualty insurance companies are run, because they’ve been dominated by the underwriting side of the business. And here they have this important investment side, but it’s always been — virtually every company’s been subservient to the underwriting.

And GEICO, very logically, set up a co-CEO arrangement some years back where — originally Bill Snyder before that — but Tony Nicely ran the underwriting end of the business and Lou Simpson ran the investment side. And those are two very different functions. Same person, logically, doesn’t fit both functions in most cases. I mean, it’s a rarity when the same person happens to hit for both functions. So GEICO worked very well that way. Still works that way. Lou runs investments. Tony runs underwriting. And Berkshire — slightly different — it’s a variant on it. But, essentially, at Berkshire headquarters, you need someone overseeing and not meddling in them too much, but making sure you’ve got the right manager and you’re treating him fairly. You need someone on the operating side. You need someone on the investment/capital allocation side. We’ve got those people now. And we’ll have them, you know, whenever it happens, too. That’s the — that is the structure. And we’ve got some very good businesses.

And, you know, nobody’s buying See’s Candy because they think I’m sitting in some office in Omaha. And no one’s buying a GEICO insurance policy because, you know, my name is there as chairman or CEO. The businesses are marvelous businesses. They’ll continue very well. And there will be a capital allocation problem then just like there is now. And there will be the problem of keeping good managers in place and treating them fairly. And that’s a solvable problem. So, that’s the future as seen from Kiewit Plaza. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. If you just run your mind through all the assets, I think you will quickly decide that there are large momentums in place that would do very well without us. I mean, is Coca-Cola going to suddenly stop selling because some manager’s dead at Berkshire Hathaway? You know, are the people going to stop using Gillette razor blades? Is GEICO suddenly going to stop being intelligently run? Are — is the Nebraska Furniture Mart going to try any less hard? So, the existing assets, you can argue, have been lovingly put together, so as not to require continuing intelligence at headquarters. (Laughter) And what — there would be a disadvantage in that I think it would be unreasonable to expect that a successor would be as good at making new investments as Warren has been in the past. Well, that’s just too damn bad. (Laughter and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: The sympathetic ear over here. (Laughter)

45. Buffett doesn’t answer individual letters

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s see, where are we? Zone 6 now?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, I’m indebted to Walter Schloss for introducing me to you some 40 years ago. And finally in the early ’80s, I became a stockholder. My question is, now that you’ve expanded headquarters 9 percent from 11 people to 12 people — (laughter) — do you now more frequently answer letters from stockholders? As a specific, had you looked at my letter from January 1986? (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: We haven’t gotten to January yet. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Relating to Cap Cities/ABC and talk radio, the problem that occurred last month at cape — Cap Cities might have been prevented.

WARREN BUFFETT: You should get a form letter from us. But the — we do not — A, we do not get into the activities of our investee companies. I mean, it — if people are unhappy about Coca-Cola or Gillette, and they shouldn’t be — (laughs) — but if they happen to be, they should talk to the companies themselves. I don’t interject myself into the management or operations of the investee companies. In terms of questions about Berkshire — I put in the annual report a few years back — just running Berkshire takes up a fair amount of time, in terms of keeping track of a lot of businesses. And it doesn’t need to take up as much time as it does with me. But I enjoy it. But the — I feel that the annual report, the annual meeting, are the time to take up everything on shareholder’s minds. And so, I don’t answer one-on-one questions. I get all kinds of letters. They want career guidance. They want advice on their business. I mean, there’s a million letters that come in.

And it would really be — it would take a significant amount of time, that otherwise would be spent on Berkshire, to reply to that sort of thing. I may note them, in terms of what I address in subsequent annual reports. But the annual meeting and the annual report, I feel, are the best ways to communicate with shareholders. And I really don’t do it the rest of the year, although you will get some form reply or you should get some form reply on it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thanks. It’s noon now. And I’d like to give everybody a chance to visit our other stores and everything. But we will be back here at 12:15.

Afternoon Session

1. Investing with “the two wealthiest guys”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, if we’ve got a monitor over in zone 1, we’re ready to start.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. Thank you very much. My name is Maria Nicholas Kelly (PH). I’m from Tacoma, Washington. And my husband and I have rather different investment approaches. And in 1988, he bought me one share of Berkshire, so that I could learn something about investing. We both started about that same time. And he has chosen to invest in, let’s say, about 40 different stocks and buying and selling, and doing rather well for us, frankly. My approach is more simple. And basically, I finally figured out last year that I should invest in the companies of the two wealthiest men in the world. So — (laughter) — I decided we should buy, monthly, more Berkshire and Microsoft. So, then this year — and so, we’ve been able to do that. This year, we read in your report that Berkshire is selling “at a price at which Charlie and I would not consider buying it,” so my husband has challenged my investment strategy. (Laughter) I know that you are an honest man.

And while you may not — (laughter) — you may not recommend to “my partner, Charlie,” to buy more Berkshire at this time, do you recommend that I continue — (Buffett laughs) — my rather automatic investment buying of Berkshire? And I wanted — I think I know the answer. But I wanted my husband to hear it from the horse’s mouth. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: I think you’re using me here. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: But —

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I — we don’t recommend selling it, but we don’t recommend buying it, either. We are neutral on that subject. And I hope you continue to be in with the two wealthiest guys. I like the other fellow, too. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

2. American Express has “slipped” in credit cards

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 2?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, I am Harriet Morton from the Emerald City [Seattle], the same area, the land of Microsoft. And I have a couple small questions. The first one is, recognizing your lack of interest in technology or sense of familiarity with it, I’m wondering if you’d give a few comments on Bill Gates as a manager. But the second one, dealing with a business that you’re familiar with, has to do with American Express. Would you comment on American Express’ strategy to deal with their declining market share in the credit card industry and the rising importance of debit cards? Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m not sure I got that entirely, Charlie. Did you? I mean, I got the part about American —

CHARLIE MUNGER: She wanted you to comment on Gates as a manager and American Express as — with the problems in declining in market share.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the first part is very easy. You know, Bill Gates is, you know, one of the great managers of all time and is an exceptional business talent who loves his business. And when you get that combination and a high energy level and, now, an heir to leave it to, I don’t think you do much better than that. American Express has, you know — has slipped over from where they were 20 years ago, obviously, in the credit card business. And I think they may have taken their customer a little bit for granted for a while. I think [CEO] Harvey Golub is very focused on correcting that and has made some progress. But the credit card business is a very different competitive struggle now than it was 20 or 25

1996年年度会议

第四部分（共六部分）

如果这三家公司是我们仅有的资产，并且我把所有钱都投在伯克希尔，我会非常开心。实际上，我很喜欢我们能找到更多这样的公司，并且不断添加。但在这个世界上，拥有三家优秀的企业就足以让你过得非常好了。普通人根本遇不到那么多。我的意思是，看看这个国家的财富是如何积累起来的——它们不是靠持有50家公司的投资组合积累的，而是靠识别出一家优秀企业并牢牢抓住。可口可乐就是一个绝佳例子，许多财富都建立在这家公司之上。而世界上没有50家可口可乐，你知道，连20家都没有。如果有20家，那倒好办，我们都可以在这一组公司里疯狂分散投资，最终获得与持有真正优秀公司相当的结果。但你找不到那么多。而事实是，你也不需要那么多。如果你拥有一家真正优秀的企业，它在时间的长河中能很好地抵御经济变迁和竞争冲击。

我的意思是，我们谈论的是那些能够有效抵御竞争的企业。拥有三家这样的企业，比拥有一百家平庸的企业要好。顺便说一句，它们也更安全。持有三家易于识别的优秀企业的风险，低于持有五十家知名大企业的风险。多年来，金融课堂上讲授的内容在这方面真是令人惊叹。但我可以向你们保证，如果我必须为家族未来三十年的财富押注，而这财富取决于一组特定企业的收入，我会宁愿从我们拥有的企业中挑选三家，而不是持有一个五十家企业的多元化组合。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，他的意思是，现代公司金融课程中讲授的大部分内容都是胡扯。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：你想详细说明一下吗，查理？（笑声）

查理·芒格：你无法相信这些东西。我是说，现代投资组合理论，嗯，它就是——

沃伦·巴菲特：它毫无用处。但是，你知道，它会教你如何做到平均水平。不过，我认为任何人上五年级时都能想出如何做到平均水平。我的意思是，这并不难，而且——它很复杂。你知道，里面有很多小希腊字母和各种东西，让你觉得自己进入了高级阶段。但它——（笑声）——没有增加任何价值。（笑）

查理·芒格：我对它感到非常困难，因为我在某种程度上是痴呆症的研究者——（笑声）——而且我——

沃伦·巴菲特：我们经常在一起。（笑声）

查理·芒格：我通常会被归类为某种理论或模型结构下的痴呆症。但现代投资组合理论，它涉及一种我甚至无法分类的痴呆症。（笑声）有些事情非常奇怪。（巴菲特笑）

沃伦·巴菲特：如果你一生中能找到三家优秀的企业，你会变得非常富有。如果你理解它们——坏事不会发生在它们身上。我的意思是，那是它们的特征。

查理·芒格：顺便说一句，也许这就是为什么有那么多痴呆症的原因。如果你相信沃伦所说的，你可以在大约一周内教完整门课程。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是啊，神职人员们就不会比普通人有什么优势了。这从来都不好卖。（笑声）

查理·芒格：对。

5. 有时需要裁员来纠正过去的过度招聘

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，区域——哪个，5号，是在那边吗？

观众：下午好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生，董事会成员。我想问，展望未来，您是否看到大规模外包、离岸化、裁员、劳动力可替代化、精简瘦身、公司忠诚度降低、更注重短期和快速赚钱的底线，这些趋势与您对长期投资的承诺，会如何影响您的投资可能性和决策过程？您是否想过自己创办新公司？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为你谈到的这些趋势，以及人们对它们的关注，可能会产生一些影响，尤其是在公众和国会对商业的看法方面。历史上，每个行业在任何时候都希望裁员或变得更高效。如果行业在增长，你可以通过用同样的人做更多的工作或生产更多的产出来实现效率。但是，如果你回到150年前，看看农业人口的比例，农业从占美国劳动力的很大比例缩减到了很小的比例。本质上，这释放了人们去做其他事情。所以，用尽可能少的劳动力投入获得尽可能多的产出，符合社会的利益。但对于涉及的个人来说，这是非常艰难的。你知道，当拖拉机出现时，做一匹马可不好玩，当汽车出现时，做铁匠也不好。但是——所以，我不反对这些行为。

我有时反对的是做事的方式。我确实认为，在某些情况下，这样做时缺乏一定程度的同理心或敏感性。你应该努力让你的企业更有效率。我们希望我们不会处在需要随时间推移而裁员的行业，因为我们希望实物产出增长，我们变得更高效，可以用同样数量的人获得更大的产出。Dexter鞋业在这方面多年来做得很好。他们变得越来越高效。但他们卖出了更多的鞋，而不是卖出同样数量的鞋然后让人离开。但有时，行业趋势——我的意思是，在世界图书公司，我们的人手比一两年前少了。我们对此没有什么办法。随着时间的推移，我们退出了纺织业务。我希望我们不必这么做。但我们不知道如何在纽约英格兰地区经营一家纺织公司并有效竞争。就像我说的，我喜欢避开这些业务。只要可能，我们就会这么做。

我的意思是，GEICO会随着时间的推移增加人手。而且我认为伯克希尔·哈撒韦随着时间的推移也会增加人手。但我不能——然而，更有效地做事情是符合社会利益的。在我看来，以某种方式照顾受此影响的人们，也符合社会的利益。要么——在某些情况下，可能是再培训。但在其他情况下，你知道，如果你55岁，一辈子都在纺织厂工作，然后突然老板发现卖你的产品赚不到钱，这就不那么好办了。我的意思是，这不是那个在纺织厂工作了30年的人的错。所以，这需要平衡。我认为最近出现的关注，在某种程度上，是基于几家公司的几个特别戏剧性的案例的媒体炒作。

我不认为现在每年因重组工作而发生的劳动力置换比例，比10年前更高。但最近它得到了很多关注。这可能会引起反弹，体现在公司税率或许多事情上。我们可能会在这方面感受到影响。在伯克希尔，我们希望尽一切可能高效。其中很大一部分，就是不要雇佣很多我们不需要的人。现在正在纠正的许多错误，都是因为过去企业变得非常臃肿。他们的业务变得非常肥胖，雇佣了各种他们不需要的人。我们在很多我们接触到的业务中看到了这一点。只要他们非常繁荣，真的，没人会做什么。然后时机一到，他们突然发现可以获得更多的产出。石油公司就是一个典型的例子。你知道，实际上可能需要的从事石油生产、炼制和销售的人员数量，变化并不大。

但是，如果你看看相对于生产、炼制和销售的桶数而言的就业人数，它比20年前大幅下降了。对我来说，这只是意味着他们20年前经营得并不那么好。而且这种情况一开始就不应该发生。我们不想在我们的任何业务中雇佣超出需要的人，因为我们也不想解雇人。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，如果反过来想，你说一个因为过度裁员而毁掉的企业。我想不出一个。但是，如果你让我说出被臃肿毁掉或半毁掉的企业，我可以一个接一个地列出来。现在流行认为裁员是错误的。嗯，让企业变得如此臃肿以至于最终不得不裁员，这也许本身就是错误的。但是，如果你的企业里有远远超出需要的人，我看不出让那些人半就业或失业对社会有什么好处。

沃伦·巴菲特：你很可能在某个时候会遇到一个竞争对手，他的企业里也没有多余的人。但这改变不了什么。对于所涉及的人来说，他们面临着真正的问题，而且——

查理·芒格：沃伦，你能说出一个因为过度裁员而毁掉的企业吗？肯定有一个吧，但是——

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这就像艾森豪威尔谈到尼克松时说的。给我一周时间，我就能想出点什么。（笑声）

6. 保险业务因为业务量减少不会裁员

沃伦·巴菲特：6号区域怎么样？

观众：巴菲特先生，芒格先生，我是纽约市的Walter Kaye。

沃伦·巴菲特：很高兴你在这里，Walter。

观众：什么？

沃伦·巴菲特：我们很高兴你在这里。Walter一直是我们的一位好朋友。

观众：非常非常感激。您这样说让我更觉得自己像个自我膨胀的人了，一个谦卑的自我膨胀者。我不知道芒格先生的妻子和巴菲特太太是否在场，但在我的家乡纽约东部，人们说，“当男人成功时，那是他妻子的功劳。但如果他们失败了，那是因为他们懒惰。”（笑声）不管怎样，我只想再次非常感谢您。您为我们的家庭做了太多伟大的事情。这绝对令人难以置信。对于不了解这两位绅士的人来说，除了是金融天才——而且你们都了解巴菲特先生，也一定程度上了解芒格先生——他们也是你们能遇到的最好的人。我是说，仅仅他们解释这个裁员问题的方式，就是我听过的最明智的话。最终，这些人会找到工作的。

他们需要再教育等等。但我想请教您一个业务问题，如果您不介意的话。我一直注意到有大量的新资本涌入再保险公司。我想知道您是否能对此发表一些看法，您认为这会影响再保险业务——对保险业整体有何影响吗？因为，正如您比我更清楚，我们仍然处在一个非常疲软的市场。每个月我都能听到一些新的再保险公司成立，无论是在百慕大、伦敦还是其他地方。谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。Walter比我更了解保险。不过，我还是会对此发表评论。确实有相当多的资本涌入。我估计，大约三年前，有一股热潮涌入再保险业务。但资本确实进来了，这对我们的业务是不利的。我的意思是，任何进入的资本，基本上都会被使用起来。在伯克希尔，我们愿意——我们也确实这么做——我们愿意在再保险业务中持观望态度。我们会提供报价。但是，如果有人——如果他们有大量资本并且想保持忙碌，他们会大幅降低那些价格。如果你在这个行业里有大量资本，或者如果你吸引了很多资本，你会做点什么的。你可能想做一些聪明的事，但如果需要，你也会做一些蠢事。你会将其合理化，让你觉得那是聪明的。但你会去做。

你不会只是坐在那里，在年底给股东写信说，你知道，“去年我们向你们要了3亿美元。我们想报告说，它安全地存放在花旗银行的账户里。”事情不是这样运作的。所以他们会出去做点什么。人们不喜欢整天无所事事。这意味着在某些情况下价格会被压低。而这些情况——现在正在发生。在伯克希尔，我们确实有一条关于这方面的裁员规定。我们向所有保险业务的人承诺过，我们绝不会因为业务量下降而裁员。我们不希望负责我们保险业务的人觉得他们必须完成一定数额的保费才能留住所有人。我们能承受一点因为产能未充分利用而花费一些钱的间接费用，因为相对于我们保险业务的规模来说，那不算多。我们承受不起的是，人们感到一种内部压力，为了保住工作而必须不断承揽业务。

因此，我们对此有强硬的策略。如果由于价格原因业务量下降，我们就不会去做业务。但当情况逆转时，我们会准备好大干一场。1985年左右，意外险业务曾一度逆转，我们做了大量的业务。四五年前，巨灾再保险业务逆转，我们变得非常活跃，并且——在保险业务上，我们会有对我们非常有利的时期。这很像投资。如果你觉得必须每天都投资，你会犯很多错误。它不只是——它不是那种业务。你必须等到那个最好的机会。在保险业也是如此。你不需要——如果我们的保险公司有保费收入预算，那将是我们能做的最愚蠢的事情，因为他们会想方设法完成预算。他们可以完成我设定的任何预算。

我可以告诉某个去年做了1亿美元业务的部门今年做5亿美元，他们会完成的，你知道，而我将在未来几十年里为此买单，所以——试图规划每年8%或10%的增长是非常不合逻辑的。现在，GEICO是一个不同的故事，因为GEICO是低成本运营商，可以吸引一个巨大池子里的业务，我认为仅仅通过让人们知道有什么可用的，就能实现非常高的增长率。所以，这是一个我预计几乎在任何情况下都会增长的业务。但是，我们的再保险业务，其业务量会根据竞争对手的行为而剧烈波动。而竞争对手的行为，在很大程度上取决于他们口袋里有多少钱在发烫。现在，趋势正在向一个方向发展。但它会改变的，我的意思是，就像投资市场会改变一样。我已经经历过至少六次人们认为他们永远没有机会以合理价格购买证券的时期。

而且它总是会改变的。在保险行业，错误定价保单的人将会付出代价。世界仍然需要保险。而我们仍然会在那里。

7. GEICO的国际化扩张是危险的分散精力

沃伦·巴菲特：7号区域？哦，我们没有。我想现在所有人都在这里了，所以我们回到1号区域。

观众：巴菲特先生，来自葡萄牙的问候。我来自葡萄牙。我叫Herculano Fortado（音）。自从贵公司在纳斯达克交易以来，我一直是你们的股东。我一直持有股票，并且年复一年地在有资金可用时不断增持。现在，简单说一下我的经历。我是学生，来自印度。我出生在印度，父母是印度人。我的父母非常朴素，负担不起我接受高等教育。我开始上学——

沃伦·巴菲特：我想你最好还是直接切入问题，好吗？

观众：是的。然后我开始为一家公司撰写保险，人寿保险，这家公司是美国人寿的子公司。我的问题现在是这样。我现在住在葡萄牙，我看到欧洲市场正在发展，而伯克希尔·哈撒韦在保险投资中占有很大份额。但他们似乎没有在正在崛起的欧洲市场以及像印度或太平洋地区等世界上三分之二人口居住的地区开展业务。伯克希尔·哈撒韦是否有政策或计划，使其保险业务多元化和国际化？这是我唯一的问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。伯克希尔·哈撒韦的再保险业务完全是国际性的。我的意思是，我们处理世界各地的风险。我们与全球的公司打交道。这是再保险业务的普遍性质，尽管有些可能更专注于美国，但是——我们非常愿意承担世界各地的风险，尽管这些风险必须伴随着高额保费。我的意思是，这就是我们再保险业务的本质。我们不从事零售端业务。但我们在全球范围内这样做。我们将继续在全球范围内这样做，因为世界各地的主要保险公司都面临着巨大的风险。他们需要有人来分担这些风险。现在，他们是否愿意支付合适的价格是另一个问题。在一些司法管辖区做生意可能比在其他地方稍微困难一些。但那是一项国际业务。GEICO拥有美国汽车市场略高于2%的份额。我们有大约250万保单持有人。而国内有超过1亿的潜在客户。

而且这里的机会如此巨大，以至于让GEICO进入其他国家会分散精力。英国有一家非常成功的公司，大约10年前引入了类似GEICO的运营模式。他们做得非常好。他们现在遇到了更多竞争。他们的业绩有些下滑，但是——GEICO在美国有巨大的潜力。我不想让GEICO的管理层现在去其他方向，因为这里还有这么多事情要做。我的意思是，比如，我们的增长率每提高三个百分点，就会增加大约7500万美元的业务量。而且这还将随着时间复利增长。嗯，在我们在全球建立一些初创业务之前，这里有太多事情要做。实际上，在许多司法管辖区，要运营类似GEICO的业务都存在各种问题——虽然我不会说这无处不在。我的意思是，可能存在机会。但在这个国家的机会是巨大的。GEICO的管理层非常专注。我喜欢专注的管理层。

如果你阅读可口可乐的年报，你不会觉得Roberto Goizueta正在考虑可口可乐以外的很多事情。我一次又一次地看到这种专注奏效。当他们失去这种专注时——就像可口可乐和吉列确实都曾在20到30年前的某个时候经历过一样——它就会显现出来。我的意思是，两个伟大的组织在20年前都没有发挥出它们的潜力。然后它们重新变得专注。这带来了多大的不同啊。它在市值方面造成了数百亿美元的差异。GEICO实际上——他们在80年代初期开始在一些事情上折腾，并为此付出了代价。他们付出了非常沉重的代价。他们直接付出了代价，因为那些事情几乎都以糟糕的结果告终。然后他们还由于失去了对主营业务的专注而付出了额外的代价。现在的管理层不会发生这种情况。Tony Nicely除了向那些尚未成为保单持有人的人传达GEICO的信息之外，什么都不想。

随着时间的推移，这对我们来说会非常有效。查理？

查理·芒格：我们通过可口可乐和吉列间接参与了所有这些新兴市场。所以，说我们完全缺席是不对的。

沃伦·巴菲特：不，嗯，可口可乐的国际市场占其利润的80%——实际上，还要多一点。吉列，我认为大约是70%左右。所以，我们喜欢可口可乐或吉列业务的国际层面。这是一个非常重要的吸引力。但是这些公司的管理层专注于那个领域。他们在做——他们有分销系统，有品牌认知度，在那里有很多有利条件。但美妙之处在于，他们正在最大化利用他们已有的优势，这在20年前并非如此。他们当时只是有点放任自流，开始在各种多元化上折腾。你知道，基本上，这并没有那么有效。所以，我们喜欢专注。我们热爱专注。

查理·芒格：是的，而且像我们这样间接地做，有人可能会争辩说，我们因此做得更好了。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我们不打算探讨这其中的含义。（笑声）

8. 股东们推动了波仙珠宝的销售

沃伦·巴菲特：2号区域？

观众：我是George Olson（音），来自佐治亚州亚特兰大。我有几个简短的问题。首先，我想听听您对USAir优先股拖欠了好几个季度股息的看法。其次，我想知道昨天波仙珠宝的报告。您通常会评论一下。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，经营波仙珠宝的Susan Jacques今早给我打了电话。她的声音嘶哑但很开心，并且——（笑）波仙珠宝——去年同一天是全年业务量最大的一天。今年大约增长了60%，所以——你们已经尽了你们的本分。（掌声）

查理·芒格：我们正在伯克希尔·哈撒韦的年度股东大会上开始一项新传统。一位股东走过来，要我给他那张来自波仙珠宝的销售收据签名——（笑声）——那是一块54000美元的手表。现在，那是我们喜欢给予的那种签名。（笑声和掌声）所以我们给你们的讯息是，“你们也去那样做吧。”（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：顺便说一下，那不是查理家人干的。（笑声）

9. USAir投资已改善，但仍是个错误

沃伦·巴菲特：关于USAir优先股，正如我在年报中提到的，它看起来比大约18个月前好多了。但他们根本性的问题——Steve Wolf说过这个——USAir的新CEO——根本性的问题仍然存在。他们要么解决并纠正这些根本问题，要么这些问题会解决并纠正他们。（笑声）而且，你知道，他们的成本过高。他们的成本是受监管、受保护环境的遗留产物。但他们现在不在一个受监管、受保护的环境中。到目前为止，他们在纠正这种情况方面没有取得什么巨大的成功。了解Wolf先生，我相信他，你知道，完全专注于改变这一点。他需要改变这一点。他——他在这方面的记录相当成功。所以，我们持有的USAir优先股比18个月前好多了，但这仍然是我犯的一个错误。如果我只是像查理说的那样，那天晚上去酒吧喝一杯，我们的情况会好得多。

（笑声）你有什么评论吗，查理，关于USAir？他不想评论。这可能听起来像是他的主意。（笑声）

查理·芒格：显然，它比去年值钱多了。（笑声）

10. 报业可能会演变，但不会完全消失

沃伦·巴菲特：说到这里，我们转到3号区域。（笑声）

观众：嗨，David Winters，来自新泽西山湖镇。在不破坏我的兴致的情况下，您能否给我一些提示，告诉我应该如何思考计算保险业务的内在价值？——（巴菲特笑）——其次，我想知道，虽然您二位不能预知未来，但对于报纸，是否担心它会走上《世界百科全书》和蓝筹印花的老路？

沃伦·巴菲特：它有可能——我认为非常——我先回答第二部分。我认为报纸走上蓝筹印花老路的可能性非常、非常小，你知道，概率只有几个百分点。《世界百科全书》是另一回事。《世界百科全书》有着——他们有合理的机会拥有一个体面的未来。但这并非自动如此。但报纸，它的形态可能会有些不同。其收入来自发行和广告的比例可能会发生变化。我的意思是，可能会有一些渐进式的变化。但它仍然是一笔划算的买卖。对于那些关心自己社区的人来说，它仍然是一笔划算的买卖。对于许多广告商来说，它仍然是一笔划算的买卖。我们在各种业务中花很多钱在报纸上做广告。我们觉得钱花得值，显然是这样。而且这也有效。但它已经不像过去那样对业务有绝对的控制力了。

11. 为什么70亿美元的保险浮存金比70亿美元的现金更好

沃伦·巴菲特：现在，另一个问题是什么？你想重复一下第一个问题吗？

观众：（听不清）

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，是的，关于保险业务的问题，内在价值。我会这样说。我们有——我不会给你一个精确答案，但我会告诉你这个。我们目前有70亿美元的浮存金。那是我们持有的、属于别人但我们有使用权的资金。现在，如果有人问我，我是否愿意用这笔浮存金换取70亿美元现金，并且不必为我这样做的收益纳税，但我必须永远退出保险业务——完全、永久的各类保险业务非竞争条款——我会接受吗？答案是否定的。这不是说比起70亿美元免费资金的净收益，我更喜欢70亿美元的浮存金。而是因为我预期这70亿美元浮存金会增长。

如果我在27年前做了这个交易——我现在假设的交易——并说，“你愿意拿1700万美元换取你现有的浮存金，无需纳税，而这笔浮存金你当初只花了870万就随着收购公司得到了，并退出保险业务，” 我那些日子也许会说同意，但那将会——

查理·芒格：哦，你会吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。（笑声）对。

查理·芒格：不，他一直在学习。这是他的一招。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：在这种情况下可能确实如此。我不确定其他情况。但那会是一个可怕的错误。如果在10或12年前用3亿美元这样做，那也会是个错误。对我们来说，永远放弃伯克希尔·哈撒韦的保险业务，其价值并不值70亿美元。即使那是免税利润，我们得到完整的70亿美元，纯粹的股本增加——我们也不会接受。我们甚至不会考虑太久。所以正如查理所说，这不是我们早些时候会给出的答案。但这是一个非常有价值的业务。它必须被正确经营。我的意思是，GEICO必须正确经营。再保险业务必须正确经营，国民赔偿公司，主州保险公司也是如此。它们都必须正确经营。这并非自动如此。但它们拥有合适的人、分销结构、声誉、资本实力和竞争优势。这些都已就位。

如果精心培育，随着时间的推移，它们会变得更有价值。

12. 持有更多抵押贷款使房利美的风险“略微”增加

沃伦·巴菲特：4号区域？

观众：是的。我想问一下董事长和芒格先生关于房利美的问题。几年前，我认为他们的大部分收入来自担保费和浮存金。现在，他们拥有巨大的资产负债表和大量的短期负债。您认为现在的业务风险更高了吗？有没有可能在某个不太可预见的事件中，利差会消失？

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，我觉得他是冲你来的。（笑声）

查理·芒格：风险可能稍微高了一点，但我认为他们没有承担可怕的风险。它仍然是一个非常好的业务。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，他问题中指的是，以前，房利美通常只强调信贷担保，然后将所有利率风险转移给市场。现在，他们为其投资组合保留了更大比例的经由他们处理的抵押贷款。我认为他们在负债结构方面做得相当聪明，以处理他们在投资界所谓的“凸性风险”，但——即借款人可以选择明天终止交易或保留30年。如果你借钱出去，这是一个非常不利的合同。他们通过可赎回债券和各种方式，在应对这个问题上做得相当聪明。但你无法完全解决这样的问题。没有办法建立某种模型来满足所有风险。他们做得很好。但正如查理所说，投资组合越大，相比于担保费——因为你仍然要承担投资组合的信用风险，而且在极端情况下又增加了一点利率风险。

这不会让我们夜不能寐，但它确实比过去略微冒险一点。

13. 不要等待低迷期才买入伟大公司

沃伦·巴菲特：5号区域？

观众：（听不清）——我就是去年那个提问的人，关于我的家人——（听不清）——我妈妈。这家伙说没问题，所以我——（听不清）——（笑声）。我知道您说过做你想做的事。我只是想让你知道——

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你做了你想做的事。我的意思是，你听从了我的建议。（笑声）我成功率100%。我们看看你明年的成功率。（笑声）

观众：我有一个简短的问题——（听不清）——您说过，如果你有三家伟大的公司，优秀的企业，它们可以让你受益一生。我有一件事让我触动——（听不清）——伟大的企业会被压低。然后你在它们身上下重注，比如美国运通和迪士尼曾经那样。我的问题是，我有资本可以投资，但还没有投出去。我挑选了三家伟大的公司：可口可乐、吉列和麦当劳。我的问题是，如果我还有一辈子要活，我打算持有这些投资超过20或30年，那么是等一两年看看其中一家会不会跌倒更好，还是现在就买入并长期持有？

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我不会对你说的那三家公司发表评论。但一般而言，除非你发现一家伟大公司的价格实在令人反感，否则如果你觉得自己已经识别出它——根据定义，一家伟大的公司是那种在未来30年仍将保持伟大的公司。如果它只在三年内伟大，你知道，那它就不是一家伟大的公司。我的意思是——（笑声）所以，你真正想要与之相伴的想法是，如果你要去旅行20年，把资金留在这里，不给你的经纪人任何指示或授权，你就直接去旅行。你知道你回来时，它将是一家极其强大的公司。我认为直接持有它们更好。我的意思是，我们可以尝试买卖一些我们持有的、我们认为是不错的企业。但它们太难找了。

我的意思是，我们在1972年找到了喜诗糖果，或者我们这里那里地找机会做一些事。但它们太难找了。所以，坐等希望在某种恐慌中买入它们，你知道，就像采取殡仪馆从业人员的态度，等着流感流行或别的什么，我的意思是——（笑声）——我不确定那会是一个伟大的技术。我的意思是，如果你继承遗产，那可能很棒。你知道，保罗·盖蒂在1932年市场低谷时继承了资金。我的意思是，不完全是继承。他说服他母亲给了他。但是——（笑声）——这是真的，实际上。

查理·芒格：差不多。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，差不多，对吧？但他受益于在19——30年代初期——有一大笔现金，而在20年代末他没有。所以，你会遇到像那样的偶发事件。但那很难指望。你知道，如果你从道琼斯指数的X点开始，你认为它太高了，当它跌到X点的90%时，你会买吗？嗯，如果它跌了，并且跌到了X点的50%，那么就——你知道，你永远不会从那种极端行情中受益，除非你碰巧在某个时间获得了一笔意外之财。所以，我认为主要的事情是找到优秀的企业。Phil Carret在这里吗？这里有位投资界的英雄。Phil，你能站起来吗？Phil 99岁了。他在1924年写了一本投资的书[《购买债券》]。

（掌声）Phil做得非常好，他找到了他喜欢的公司，并坚持持有，不太担心它们每天的波动。会有——我认为《华尔街日报》在5月28日会有一篇关于Phil的文章，我建议你们都去读一读。你可能会比参加这次会议学到更多东西，但是——那就是购买企业的方法——我的意思是，假设没有股票市场。你家乡最好的企业的老板来找你说，“你看，我哥哥刚去世，他拥有20%的股份。我想找个人和我一起买下那20%。”价格可能看起来有点高，但这是我认为我能得到的价格。你知道，你想入股吗？

你知道，我想，如果你喜欢这个生意，你喜欢来找你的人，价格听起来合理，而且你真正了解这个生意，我认为，可能，该做的就是接受它，不要担心报价如何。明天、下周或下个月都不会有报价。你知道，我认为如果股票大约每年报价一次，人们的投资会更明智。但情况不会那样，所以——如果你碰巧在发生戏剧性事件时有额外的钱——我的意思是，我们1964年做得不错，因为美国运通遇到了一个骗子。你知道，我们1976年做得不错，因为GEICO的管理层和审计师在前几年不知道他们的损失准备金应该是多少。所以，我们经历过我们份额内的流行病。但你不要把你的生活——（笑）——花在等待它们上面。

14. “变化很可能对我们不利”

沃伦·巴菲特：6号区域。

观众：我是伦敦来的Joe Condon（音）。巴菲特先生和芒格先生在年报和之前的会议上都已经回答过我的问题。这是我第一次来。问题涉及投资少数伟大的高科技股票。我知道您的回答一直是，如果你不理解它——在看过这场表现后，我真的无法相信你们两位都不理解大多数高科技问题。但我想到的不仅是微软，还有比如辉瑞和强生。这三家公司都已经证明，不仅拥有伟大的产品、经过15年验证的管理层、以及不容易进入的巨大市场份额。坦率地说，我看不出它们的市盈率与例如可口可乐，或者强生或辉瑞（这些非常强大的公司）的市盈率有多大区别。我想知道是否其中一位或两位能再次谈论一下这个问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，你为什么不说？（笑声）

查理·芒格：如果你有自己认为理解且觉得非常有吸引力的东西，我们认为做你理解的事情是聪明的。如果——我们一直未能找到适合我们有限才华的公司。我们很可能本可以投资辉瑞、微软等公司。但我们从来不必求助于此。我们不鄙视它。其他更有才华的人已经发现这是一个绝妙的行动方案。

沃伦·巴菲特：我们通常看待企业——我们觉得变化很可能对我们不利。我们不具备伟大的能力——我们不认为我们有能力预测变化将导向何方。我们认为我们有一些能力找到那些我们觉得变化不会很重要的企业。现在，对于吉列，产品在10年后会比现在更好，或者20年后比10年后更好。你看到那些早先的广告，追溯到蓝吉列等等。蓝吉列在当时看起来很伟大。但他们不断——剃须技术变得越来越好。但你知道吉列——尽管他们在60年代初与威金森有过一次小小的经历——但你知道吉列基本上会投入比任何其他公司多很多倍的资金来开发比现有更好的剃须系统。你知道，他们有分销系统。他们有可信度。如果他们推出一个产品，并说，“这是男性应该看看的”，男性就会去看。

几年前他们发现，当他们告诉女性在剃须领域看看时，同样的事情发生了。他们在其他地方不会有同样的可信度。但在剃须领域，他们拥有它。这些是难以建立的东西。它们也很难被摧毁。所以变化——我们认为我们大致知道软饮料行业、剃须行业或糖果行业在10年或20年后会是什么样子。我们认为微软是一家由最好经理人运营的轰动性的公司。但我们不知道那个世界在10年或20年后会是什么样子。如果你要押注于一个能看到我们做不到的事情的人，我宁愿押注于比尔·盖茨而不是其他任何人。但那是——我不想押注其他任何人。我的意思是，最终，我们希望自己理解，我们认为一个业务会走向何方。

如果有人告诉我们一个业务将发生很大变化，在华尔街，他们喜欢告诉你那是巨大的机会。顺便说一句，当华尔街本身将要发生很大变化时，他们不认为那是巨大的机会。（笑声）但——你知道，他们说这是一个巨大的机会。我们根本不认为那是机会。我的意思是，它——它把我们吓坏了。因为我们不知道事情会如何变化。我们在寻找，你知道——当人们嚼口香糖时，我们很清楚他们20年前怎么嚼，20年后还会怎么嚼。我们真的没看到有很多技术投入到嚼的艺术中，你知道吗？（笑声）所以，只要我们不必做那些其他决定，我们为什么非得做呢？我的意思是，如果我们——有各种各样的事情我们不知道。

所以，当我们可以押注于简单的事情时，为什么要到处尝试押注于我们不知道的事情呢？1号区域？（掌声）我能看到股东们喜欢我们坚持简单的东西。他们理解我们，是的。

15. 我们只会在必要范围内披露持股情况

观众：下午好，沃伦。Jerry Zucker（音），来自加州洛杉矶。在年报中，第二大的未担保证券持有被标记为“其他”。您能详细说明一下那里的一些持股吗？比如，我们还持有PNC吗？我们是不是应该像媒体报道的那样购买巨无霸？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，嗯，实际上，“其他”是一个非常描述性的标题。（笑声）我们这样做有几个原因。但其中一个原因是，我们没有兴趣让人们为了给自己寻找投资灵感而购买伯克希尔的股票，或者阅读伯克希尔的报告或其他任何东西。有些人可能会这样做，但我们不干这事。伯克希尔·哈撒韦的股东不会因此得到报酬。这对公司的所有者没有任何好处。所以，对于我们的证券持仓，我们不会披露超出我们认为为了公平披露可能对公司重要的事项。而且我们当然没有兴趣向那些本质上想利用这些信息来试图找出我们后续购买力可能在哪里的人披露信息。所以，我们会不断提高披露的阈值。你可能会看到越来越多的东西被归入“其他”。我会这样说。媒体对我们所做的事情有很多猜测，我想说一半准确，一半不准确。

同样，我们将判断哪一半是正确的乐趣留给你们。（笑声）是的，我们希望你们购买伯克希尔股票能物有所值。但我们不想扮演投资咨询服务机构的角色。

16. 巴菲特不担心Y2K计算机问题

沃伦·巴菲特：2号区域？

观众：David Coles，来自威斯康星州阿普尔顿。早些时候，您提到过时间的变迁。伯克希尔拥有权益的所有公司和计算机系统，有何计划确保它们在2000年1月1日及之后的日期下能正确运行？您将如何向股东保证，我们不会因为计算机系统对这些日期的错误处理而遭受严重的业务损失或失败？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，实际上，我有一个朋友非常深入地参与——（笑声）——关于——不，我是认真的——计算机的2000年问题。但那不是我会担心的事情。我的意思是，我会让经营业务的人去处理这个问题。我会专注于资本配置。我有一种感觉，不管怎样，我们会挺过去的。但是，就像我说的，我们有——在伯克希尔，很多事情我们都不会——（掌声）——在总部，我们不会花大量时间处理那些其他公司有成套部门处理的许多事情。我们的经理们没有让我们失望过。我的意思是，我必须说，我们在一家又一家的企业中拥有一支团队。他们专注于自己的业务。他们把资金寄给我们奥马哈。我们都很开心。（笑声）查理？

查理·芒格：我感觉我们的人在保持计算机系统正常运作和备份方面会做得相当好。我也感觉，很少有公司能比我们更好地应对大型计算机故障。我感觉可口可乐的股票会在那里。吉列的股票会在那里。内布拉斯加家具城会堆满家具并认识客户。我认为一次计算机崩溃不会要了我们的命。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。不过，你说得对，这对计算机世界来说是一个问题。但正如查理所说，它对其他人的打击会比对我们严重得多。大多数事情——我们努力待在那些相当简单并且不会搞得一团糟的行业里。总的来说，我认为我们拥有一个不寻常的投资组合。当涉及到我们的被投资公司时，他们会自己担心那些问题。我们真正担心的是在伯克希尔内部配置资金，并让合适的管理层就位。如果我们能做好这两件事，其他一切都会自行解决。

17. 伯克希尔的业务“预测起来容易得多”

沃伦·巴菲特：3号区域？

观众：我叫Peter Bevelin，来自瑞典。您说过您喜欢特许经营公司，那些有城堡环绕护城河的公司，那些可以预测未来五年、十年发展的公司。但是像喜诗糖果、家具业务、珠宝业务、鞋业这样的公司，难道不是很难预测未来五年、十年的发展吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：最后一部分是什么？

查理·芒格：这些业务难道不是很难预测五年或十年后的发展吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我认为——

查理·芒格：像鞋业和——

沃伦·巴菲特：我认为它们比大多数业务容易预测得多。我几乎所有我们拥有的业务，都能更接近地告诉你它们的未来——不仅仅是因为我们拥有它们——我的意思是，如果它们属于别人——比如果我拿出道琼斯30指数（不包括我们拥有的）或者，你知道，纽约证券交易所按字母顺序排名前100的公司。我认为我们的业务预测起来容易得多。它们有相当的——它们往往是基础业务，相当简单。变化速度不快，所以我觉得相当舒服。我认为，当你五年后看伯克希尔时，我们现在拥有的业务届时将表现得基本符合我们现在的预期。我希望会有一些新的业务，我希望它们是大的。但我认为我们当前的业务不会有太多意外。我猜我们会遇到一个意外。我不知道它会是什么。但我的意思是，你知道，生活中这种事会发生。但它不会是一连串的意外。

然而，如果我们——如果我们购买——如果我们拥有一家基础金属业务或许多我能想到的零售业务，或一家汽车业务，我不确定我是否知道我们五年或十年后在竞争阶梯中的位置。例如，我不会想试图进入并取代喜诗糖果在其所在业务中的地位，或家具城。那不是一件容易的工作。所以，我认为你不会在伯克希尔当前的业务中遇到很多意外，但关键在于发展更多的业务。

18. 艾斯纳是迪士尼成功的“最重要因素”

沃伦·巴菲特：4号区域？

观众：我叫Stafford Ordahl。来自纽约州莫里斯。我只是想知道，那个意外会不会来自迪士尼。因为在我看来，直到最近，他们一直在依赖一个已不在公司的人的成果，[杰弗里]卡岑伯格，他是一个罕见的奇才，就像[电影制作人史蒂文]斯皮尔伯格一样，能把握住美国人的脉搏。而这样的人才并不是每天都有的，即使在好莱坞也是如此。现在他所有的成果，可以说，都已退出管道，他们可能成了一家非常不同的公司。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。你说完了吗，还是——？

观众：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我——卡岑伯格是一个真正的人才。我认为，到目前为止，我的意思是，毫无疑问，过去12年或无论多长时间里，迪士尼最重要的人是[CEO]迈克尔·艾斯纳。我的意思是，如果你认识他并了解他在业务中所做的事情，没有其他人——[前总裁兼首席运营官]弗兰克·威尔斯与艾斯纳合作得非常出色。但艾斯纳实际上是他任期内的“沃尔特·迪士尼”。他了解这个业务。他热爱这个业务。你知道，他吃、活、呼吸都与业务相关。在我看来，他一直是迪士尼成功的最重要因素。现在，他们面临着竞争。钱都在——你知道，大钱都在动画电影以及与之相关的一切中，因为你从电影走到公园，再走到角色商品化，然后循环回来。我的意思是，这是一个自我强化、循环往复的事情。这方面将会有大量的竞争。

我的意思是，你知道，你已经看到MCA和环球影城在佛罗里达的公园要做什么。你知道梦工厂在动画方面要做什么。现在，动画领域有了新技术，你知道，通过[皮克斯CEO史蒂夫·乔布斯]。在那个领域有很多事情发生。所以问题是，10年后，在脑海中占据什么位置——因为这关乎心智份额。你知道，他们称之为市场份额，但它始于心智份额——迪士尼本身，以及他们的角色，相对于其他组织和角色拥有的份额，在全球数十亿儿童及其父母的心中占据什么位置？这是一个充满竞争的世界，所以会有人为此而战。但我宁愿从一开始就拿着迪士尼的牌，而不是其他人的，而且差距不小。我宁愿一开始就让迈克尔·艾斯纳来管理这个地方，而不是其他人，而且差距不小。这并不意味着它不会变成一个竞争更激烈的业务。

因为人们看到《狮子王》的视频发行就垂涎欲滴。你知道，某个东西卖出了3000万份拷贝，每份售价16或17美元，你可以算出制造成本。你知道，这引起了你的注意。也会引起你竞争对手的注意。但是，回过头来说，如果我必须——如果我认为全世界的孩子们在10年或20年后仍然想要被娱乐，并且我可以选择押注谁将在那些孩子和他们的父母心中占据一个特殊的位置（如果有人能占据特殊位置的话），我想我可能会更倾向于押注迪士尼。如果未来主持大局的人正是像艾斯纳这些年所做的那样的人，我会对押注他们感到特别有信心。查理？

标题：1996年年度会议

第5/6部分

查理·芒格：嗯，我觉得做点简单的算术很有帮助。假设20年后有10亿中低收入的孩子。再假设你每个孩子每年能从你的头寸中赚到10美元，税后。那就会变成非常大的数字。而且——（笑声）——我不知道你的孩子和孙子孙女们怎么样，但我的孩子想看迪士尼。而且他们想看——（掌声）——一遍又一遍，没完没了。他们可不想看卡森伯格。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我——

查理·芒格：我是说，从品牌的角度来看。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：这是一个相当不错的品牌。我的意思是，当你想遍世界上的品牌，很有意思的是，你知道，可口可乐这个名字很难被超越。但迪士尼也有一个非常、非常大的品牌。查理的意思是，他们想一遍又一遍地看，而能够每七八年重新放映一次《白雪公主》是件好事。你面对的是不同的观众。而且——（笑声）——这有点像拥有一个油田，你知道，你把所有的油都抽出来卖掉。然后过了七八年，油又都渗回来了。（笑声）

19. 为什么华尔街的业务“很难”管理

沃伦·巴菲特：第五区？

观众：我是兰德尔·贝洛斯（音），来自芝加哥。谢谢你们提供这次马拉松式的问答环节。

沃伦·巴菲特：我们也很享受。谢谢。

观众：谢谢。我的问题是关于证券行业，总的来说是华尔街的公司，具体来说，你现在对所罗门公司有什么看法？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们对证券行业的了解比10年前多了。（笑声）而且，你知道，这是一个很难管理的行业。这个行业能赚很多钱，然后——我是说整个华尔街。你知道，有非常巨额的资金被赚到。然后问题是，这些钱如何在机构和个人之间分配？你就遇到了这个问题——我经常用一个类比，你知道，如果你是一个投资者，你有机会买下梅奥诊所，你知道，那是一种投资。如果你有机会买下当地的脑外科医生，那是另一种投资。你花几百万美元买下当地脑外科医生和他的诊所。然后第二天，你知道，你拥有了什么？

如果你买的是当地脑外科医生，你不会支付任何真正意义上的盈利倍数，因为几天后他会意识到，真正创造盈利的是他，而不是你手里拿着那张小小的股票凭证。那是他的声誉。他不在乎。你能想象伯克希尔·哈撒韦打广告做脑外科手术吗，你知道，我们能做多少业务？所以——（笑声）——他拥有这个业务，尽管你拿着股票凭证。现在，如果你去梅奥诊所，没有人能说出梅奥诊所任何一个人的名字，除非你住在明尼苏达州罗切斯特市10英里范围内。在那里，机构拥有权力。现在，它必须保持质量，做机构必须做的一切事情。但无论谁拥有梅奥诊所，都拥有一项资产，这项资产独立于那里任何一个人第二天的态度。华尔街是这两者的混合体。有些业务更——价值更多存在于机构中。有些业务价值更多存在于个人身上。

我们有所罗门公司几个非常出色的负责人。他们在经营过程中一直与这个问题作斗争。而且他们现在似乎比大约一年前要成功得多。但这并不是一个容易经营的行业。而且也不容易预测，除非你有一个非常机构化的业务，而华尔街这样的业务并不多。

20. 如果部分市场“有点不正常”，并不重要

沃伦·巴菲特：第六区？抱歉，麦克风在这边。

查理·芒格：（听不清）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。请举手，工作人员会把麦克风递给你。

观众：谢谢。我是霍华德·温斯顿（音），来自俄亥俄州辛辛那提。有一个问题。你是否担心纳斯达克市场估值不断上升，那里一些公司的交易价格是收入的倍数，而不是盈利的倍数？

沃伦·巴菲特：你说什么价值上升？

观众：纳斯达克市场——

沃伦·巴菲特：哦。

观众：——那里一些公司的交易价格是收入的10倍或更多，30倍收入，而不是10倍盈利？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。嗯，我们不太关注这个。因为在查理和我从事投资的整个职业生涯中，总有成百上千，甚至成千上万的情况，有些东西的定价荒谬之极，还有虚假的股票推广，轻信的人被引导相信那些根本不可能实现的事情。这种事情一直都在发生。以后也总会发生。这对我们没什么影响。我的意思是，我们并不是在试图预测市场。我们从来不会去预测市场。我们试图寻找出色的企业。而市场的一部分有点不正常，你知道，这对我们来说并不重要。在我们年轻无知的时候，我们曾尝试过几次做空一些这类东西。即使对那些明显的骗局，做空赚钱也非常困难。确实有一些明显的骗局。真的——找到明显的骗局并不太难，而且长期来看正确判断也并不难。

但通过做空它们赚钱非常困难，尽管我们很久以前尝试过几次。我们——我们不看股票的整体指标，或者市盈率、市销率，或者其他股票的表现。我们真的只专注于企业。我们不在乎股市是否存在。我的意思是，如果我们拥有可口可乐8%的股份，或者吉列11%的股份，他们会不会说，“我们打算摘牌，并且——你知道，20年内不会再上市？”那对我们来说也没问题，你知道。如果消息出来后股价下跌，我们会买更多。所以我们关心的是企业的表现。是的。

21. 企业本身比它位于哪里更重要

沃伦·巴菲特：诺顿，你——为什么不把麦克风给他？

观众：谢谢你，沃伦，让我插队——（巴菲特笑）——

沃伦·巴菲特：很高兴你在这里。诺顿【道奇】代表一个在1950年——

观众：六年。

沃伦·巴菲特：六年！是的，那一年加入合伙公司，并一直与我们在一起。（掌声）

观众：一个非常非常幸运的联系。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：双向的，诺顿，双向的。

观众：而且——

查理·芒格：小心点，诺顿。我们可不想让你出去时被围住。（笑声）

观众：但我可以说，这一切始于我的父亲【霍默·道奇】发现——多亏了俄克拉荷马大学的一位金融学教授——本·格雷厄姆，早在1940年。后来，当本·格雷厄姆即将退休时，我们试图找到他的门徒。很明显，那就是沃伦。所以他属于那个悠久的传统。但我想问的问题是，你提到了伯克希尔拥有的一些非常强大的公司，它们实际上是国际性公司，比如可口可乐和吉列。但你是否考虑过，或者有没有想过考虑那些被低估的外国公司？或者出于某种原因，你没有将它们纳入考虑范围？

沃伦·巴菲特：我们看过一些设在其他国家的公司。而且我们一直会继续看设在其他国家的公司。我们不会——你知道，我们很高兴可口可乐总部设在亚特兰大，也为美国感到高兴。但如果它碰巧设在英国，我们就会放弃吗？不，我们也会喜欢它的，如果它设在英国的话。而且我们认为重要的是企业本身，而不是注册地。尽管——第一，总体而言，我们对设在这里的本土公司更熟悉，尽管它们的利润可能来自国际业务。而且我们在理解税务、政治、股东治理等方面的细微差别时，会感到稍微更舒服一点，只是稍微，因为这些是我们每天阅读和思考的东西，而不像在其他地方我们经验稍少一些。

但我们很乐意在世界上大约30个左右的国家里找到出色的企业。我们会看看。但我们没有像看本土公司那样努力。我们对它们没那么熟悉。但我读过几百份世界各地公司的年报。我们也拥有过一些，就几家。它们通常规模没那么大，所以在很多情况下，投入大笔资金本身就是一个问题。但有些公司规模很大。而且我们并没有太多好的想法，以至于可以忽视任何可能性。如果我们能找到市值大概至少50亿美元或更大的公司，觉得它具有我们看重的特质，而且价格合适，一切条件都符合，我们就会买。

22. 我们从不“为了多赚八分之一个百分点”

沃伦·巴菲特：第一区？

观众：下午好，巴菲特先生。我是尼尔森·科伯恩（音），来自马里兰州银泉。我有一个问题，之前还没人问过。流入伯克希尔的资金，比如股息和其他收入，在你等待投资到别处时，这些钱放在哪里？是放在某个能产生利润的地方？还是就那么放着，落灰？（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们只接受大约四五家商业票据发行方。我们在资金投放上非常挑剔——所有的钱都投资出去了。我们没有钱放在保险箱或其他地方。所以一切都是投资状态。但在短期资金投放上，我们丝毫不会冒险。所以我们只有，就像我说的，大概四五家经过我批准的商业票据发行方。我的意思是，如果在这方面出任何问题，都是我的错。现在，我们可能有十几亿美元左右投资于相对短期的国债。我们可能还有一些额外的商业票据。但你永远不会看到我们为了短期收益率多赚八分之一个百分点而去冒险。你们有些人可能还记得宾州中央运输公司在商业票据市场上的惨败。宾州中央大约在1970年左右，我记得它支付的利率比其他商业票据发行方高四分之一个百分点。

当然，尽管当时它的净资产是正数，我记得大概有15亿美元，他们有一天说，他们有很多净资产，但没有现金。结果证明现金更重要。所以他们违约了。有趣的是，如果你为了多赚四分之一个百分点，而你乘“五月花号”来到美国，然后你说，“好吧，我要致力于在短期资金上多赚四分之一个百分点，”并且一直没犯错误，直到遇到宾州中央，那么——除了复利效应之外——到那时你反而落后了。我不喜欢一个业务，你可以做对300年，然后犯一个错误就——（笑声）——落后了。所以我们对短期票据非常挑剔。但所有的钱都投资了。当金额很大时，很可能放在国债里。我们也会接受少数几家公司的商业票据。

23. 所罗门公司的盈利波动是可以预期的

沃伦·巴菲特：第二区，请？

观众：我叫乔治·戈蒂（音），来自瑞士苏黎世。我有一个关于所罗门公司的问题。所罗门公司在过去几年经历了相当大的盈利甚至收入波动。你对未来盈利和收入的波动性将如何发展有什么看法？

沃伦·巴菲特：我没完全听清，查理。你要——？

查理·芒格：嗯，好吧——

沃伦·巴菲特：我看他能听到。我们真是绝佳组合。（笑声）

查理·芒格：嗯，你可以看到我们在这里没浪费什么。（笑声）所罗门公司的盈利一直是有波动的，至少从我待在那里的时间开始就是这样。我不认为这种波动性——可能会消失。尽管如此，我们非常喜欢所罗门公司的人。多年来，他们以多种不同的身份与伯克希尔做了大量业务。而且他们做得非常好。所以我们作为客户非常看好这家公司。我们喜欢的公司，作为客户，我们认为，也许其他人也会喜欢作为客户。总的来说，我们喜欢它，不管波动与否。

沃伦·巴菲特：如果——在所罗门公司，以及其他类似的公司，它们按市值计价证券。所以这些市值的变化每天都会通过盈利体现出来，但实际上你是在季度报告中看到它们。有趣的是，如果你拿伯克希尔过去30年的情况，按市值计价，就像我们现在为资产负债表所做的那样，但不是为了利润表，因为规则不同——如果你这样做，你会看到伯克希尔的季度数据出现巨大的波动。你——我不认为你一定会看到亏损的年份。但你会看到几个百分点的波动，也许达到50%左右。如果你看季度数据，你会看到好几个季度的亏损。你也会看到一些巨大的上升。如果所有这些都通过利润表来反映，波动会非常剧烈。但会计准则不要求伯克希尔这样做。而对于所罗门公司，则是这样要求的。但它们的业务本质就是盈利波动。

大多数华尔街业务的本质都是盈利波动。有些可能会采取某些政策，让波动看起来比实际小一些。真正重要的是两件事。我的意思是，经营时要确保波动永远不会以任何方式让你陷入绝境，第二是要长期获得不错的股本回报率。我认为所罗门公司的高层非常专注于这一点。

查理·芒格：我认为信用评级机构因为盈利波动而大幅下调所罗门公司的评级是不合逻辑的。但这是他们的风格，他们的游戏。

24. 伯克希尔子公司之间几乎没有互动

沃伦·巴菲特：第几区了？现在是第三区吧？是的，第三区。

观众：是的。我有三个简短的问题。你们有没有任何正式或非正式的方式，让管理层——我知道你们不干涉持股公司的管理层——但他们之间可以相互交流想法，比如，通过GEICO渠道销售《世界百科全书》之类的？

沃伦·巴菲特：我现在就回答你。这种交流非常、非常、非常少，我——你知道，也许两三年一次，可能会有一个想法让我觉得值得传递一下。但我觉得——他们各自经营自己的业务已经很好了。在伯克希尔内部，我们也不这么做。他们真是各走各的路。他们知道我们有哪些业务。所以他们总是可以直接去找别人。但他们不需要我来沟通。

25. 劳合社的声誉问题帮助了伯克希尔

沃伦·巴菲特：第四区？

观众：我叫迈克·梅西（音），来自内华达州拉斯维加斯。我的问题是这样的。最近有一些关于劳合社问题的新闻报道。你认为劳合社的问题对伯克希尔的保险或再保险业务增长有什么影响，如果有的话？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为，公平地说，劳合社的问题可能帮助了我们，因为劳合社曾经有极好的声誉。在20年前，它是各种不寻常风险和大型风险的第一站，通常也是最后一站。而在此期间它们失去了一些光彩，这反而帮了我们。你知道，我们没做任何事去促成它，但当一个行业内的顶级参与者出现问题时，我们作为竞争对手显然会受益。所以，伯克希尔拥有的资本可能比整个劳合社加起来还多，并且已经建立了一个声誉，即愿意非常快速地对非常大的风险进行报价，并且说到做到。很可能，在很多情况下，我们现在会先于他们接到电话。所以我们从他们的问题中获益了，而且可能获益相当大。现在他们比10年前更难打进我们的市场。

我们有一个——我不想说得太过分——但在某些真正大规模再保险领域，我们确实拥有一个卓越的地位，其他人很难复制。现在，他们可能不喜欢我们的价格。我们能够提供的某些东西可能没有需求。但如果有需求，我们很可能会从这个地位获得一些非常重要的业务。我们在最近几年已经看到了一些。未来还会看到更多。

26. “我们假设我们会永远经营下去”

沃伦·巴菲特：第五区？

观众：迈克·阿赛尔（音），来自纽约市，有一个问题问查理，关于我们脑子里应该有的那大约100种模型——

沃伦·巴菲特：来了。

观众：——在那次精彩的“世俗智慧”演讲结尾提到的。我想知道关于行业整合、产品扩展、垂直整合的最有用的模型，以及任何能够解释在哪些特殊情况下投资零售股是有意义的模型。如果沃伦有什么要补充或删除的，我很乐意听。非常感谢。

查理·芒格：嗯，我很乐意回答这样一个谦虚的问题。（笑声）我说过脑子里要有100种模型。但那些都是非常大、具有相当普遍性的模型，可以反复使用。现在，当你进入非常复杂的子模型，比如针对行业整合、零售业等会发生什么而设立单独的模型时，我并没有掌握所有这些子模型。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：事实是，你知道，我们掌握了一些。但我们应用通用模型，你知道，把它们套进去。有时灯会亮。有时不会。但如果亮了，它们可能非常有用。如果你专注，你确实会看到某些商业模式和商业行为会重复出现。顺便说一句，华尔街倾向于忽视这些。我的意思是，华尔街似乎真的不会从商业教训中学到太久。也许学到这些对他们没好处。查理很可能会——这很可能正好符合查理的模型。这是——

查理·芒格：当然。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。如果你是在销售未来，忘记过去可能更好，如果你是靠销售来获得报酬，而不是以某种方式把自己的身家押在上面。伯克希尔有一个情况确实与许多公司有些不同：我们假设——不幸的是，这可能是错误的——但我们假设我们会永远经营下去。所以当我们——在我们的保险业务中，我们假设我们会一直在这里支付每一笔索赔。我们不会在65岁退休，然后把事情交给别人。在会计上玩任何游戏都没有意义，因为以后会找上我们。而在许多企业中，我不认为它们有完全相同的视野。可口可乐会有，吉列会有。但很多公司都在想——恐怕比你想的更多——它们在想接下来四个季度左右能画出什么样的美好图景。这很容易做到。

但我们的问题是我们认为我们会比四个季度存在得更久，所以那不是一个我们可以选择的选项。我们必须——我们真的像在2050年或什么时候，有人会回头看，说，“结果是怎样的？”那样来经营。

27. 薪酬计划必须包括资本成本

沃伦·巴菲特：第几区了，5还是6？麦克风在哪里。第五区，那边有麦克风吗？可能是——第六区！好吧，我们去第六区。

观众：你在你的信中说——

沃伦·巴菲特：能靠近麦克风吗？或者我们这边有——是的。能把麦克风递给他吗？特别是对于你后面的人，有点困难。

观众：格伦·罗林斯（音），来自佐治亚州亚特兰大。你在给股东的信中说，对于你全资拥有的公司，当他们把资本返还给你时，你会以更高的比率奖励他们。同样，当他们需要资本时，你也会向他们收取更高的费率。能详细说明一下吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们——我们的一些业务根本不需要资本，或者需要得很少，以至于没有必要把它纳入一个公式。所以我们有一些业务，顺便说一句，那些是最好的业务，它们基本上不需要资本，因为这意味着，如果你把业务规模扩大一倍，你不需要任何额外的资本。这些真的是很棒的生意。我们有一些这样的业务。但是，当我们的业务确实能产生资本时，我们可以有各种复杂的系统，在总部设立资本预算小组，做各种各样的事情。但我们只是觉得，更简单的做法是向人们收取一个合理的资金费用，然后让他们自己决定，你知道，他们是否真的想买一台新的分切机，或者其他什么。这有点不同。根据我们进入时的历史情况有所不同。也根据利率不同——但我们在制定资本相关的薪酬安排时，通常会收取大约15%的费用。

现在，税前15%，考虑到州所得税，税后只有9%到9.5%。所以你可以说这甚至不够多，但我们发现15%能引起他们的注意。它应该引起注意，但它不应该是高到让我们想做的事情做不成的门槛。我们的经理们期望长期经营他们的业务。所以我们不担心他们会做一些只对自己接下来一两年有利而对五年后不利的事情，或者——你知道，他们不做长期规划，因为他们把自己看作企业的部分所有者。但我们希望他们成为附带资本成本的所有者。坦率地说，我认为企业完全不顾资本成本来奖励高管的方式很糟糕。我的意思是，一个固定行权价的10年期期权——你知道，想象一下给某人一笔10年的无息贷款。你不会这么做。

如果一家公司保留了很大一部分盈利，并且你发放了一个固定行权价的10年期期权，你知道，他们什么都不用做，只是把钱存到储蓄账户里，就能从中赚一些钱。所以我们喜欢在资本上附加成本。如果我和查理在伯克希尔有期权，这不会——不会发生，但也不是不合逻辑。我们负责整个公司。你可以设计某种与整个企业表现挂钩的薪酬安排，这对我们两个人来说是有意义的。对我们其他的经理来说就没意义了，因为他们负责特定的部门。你应该有适用于这些部门的薪酬安排。但假设你为我们两个人设计了——我向你们保证，我们不会这么做——但我们会说，公平的做法是设置一个不低于当前内在价值的期权行权价。忘记市场价格吧。

因为，相信我，你的市场价格越低，你的期权行权价就越好——这个想法毫无意义。所以我们会把它定在不低于内在价值。然后，每年根据某种与资本成本相关的东西向上调整。因为我们会说，“为什么我们应该免费使用股东的资本？”我们可以制定一个公平的股票期权。那会是完全合适的。我们不会这么做，但这是一个完全合适的方式，让我们获得与发行相关的薪酬，然后是一个不低于内在价值的初始价格，并包含持有成本。然后我们仍然会处于一个与股东不完全类似的位置，因为我们没有你们那样的下行风险，但我们至少会有你们那样的持有成本。我们将这一点融入我们的部门薪酬计划中，通过设定一个资本成本，像我说的，大约在15%左右。如果人们能把钱给我们，我们应该能够找到比税前15%更好的用途。

那也是我们工作的一部分。所以我们愿意为返还给我们资金的人支付报酬。

查理·芒格：嗯，我们实际上发明了一个更极端的系统。那就是高管们可以用现金在市场上购买伯克希尔·哈撒韦的股票。这是一个——（笑声）——非常老式的系统，但大多数人都这样做——不需要任何律师，或薪酬顾问，而且——大部分人都这么做了。而且大部分人通过这个做得非常好。我不知道为什么它没有更广泛地传播。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：人们说他们希望管理层像股东一样思考。管理层，你知道，他们在给他们付薪酬。我们要让他们像股东一样思考。像股东一样思考很容易。成为一个股东，你知道？（笑声）然后你就会完全像股东一样思考。

查理·芒格：对，对。

沃伦·巴菲特：这不是一个巨大的——如果你真的开支票的话，这并不是一个需要克服的巨大心理障碍。（笑声）

28. 与许多电影公司不同，迪士尼为股东赚钱

沃伦·巴菲特：第一区？

观众：约翰·利希特（音），来自科罗拉多州博尔德。你能推荐一些有价值的书吗？其次，关于艾斯纳和迪士尼，你如何定义迈克尔·艾斯纳的能力圈？你是否担心他可能会走出这个圈子？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我会说他已经证明了自己非常擅长理解迪士尼到底是怎么回事。你可以回顾一下从沃尔特到艾斯纳之间的前任管理层。他们并没有真正在这方面做太多事情，如果你看看那些年的话。迪士尼的特别之处是什么？你如何让它变得更特别？你如何让它对更多人变得更特别？我的意思是，这些是你想——当你处理像迪士尼这样的东西时，你有很好的素材可以利用。我的意思是，它——你知道，其中一个优势——我们刚才在谈论梅奥诊所和脑外科医生。这只老鼠的好处是，它没有经纪人，你知道。我的意思是，这只老鼠是你的。（笑）它不会每隔一周或每个月都来重新谈判，说，你知道——（笑声）——“看看我在中国变得多出名了，”或者别的什么。（笑声）所以如果你拥有这只老鼠，你就拥有这只老鼠。

艾斯纳非常清楚这一切。我会说他在思考这个问题方面非常巧妙。我担心任何管理者。这与迈克尔·艾斯纳无关。但查理和我担心自己会走出能力圈。我们确实做过。这非常有诱惑力。这可能是人性的部分，由于傲慢或其他什么，如果你——正如查理会说的，如果你——你知道，如果你是一只浮在池塘里的鸭子，一直在下雨，你在世界上不断上升，过了一段时间，你会认为这是你自己的功劳，而不是雨。你知道，你认为你是只了不起的鸭子。（笑声）但是——

查理·芒格：对，对。

沃伦·巴菲特：我们都有一点屈服于此。但我认为迪士尼、可口可乐、吉列——我认为这些公司非常专注。我认为我们的运营部门非常专注。我认为这给了我们巨大的优势，相对于那些有点厌倦、决定最好摆弄这个或那个来展示他们到底有多有才华的管理者。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。艾斯纳相当有创造力。而且他也不信任预测。在电影行业，这是一个很好的组合。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，查理以前是20世纪福克斯的律师，对吧——

查理·芒格：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：——在以前的日子？是的，他见过一点好莱坞的运作方式。这让我们大约30年没买任何电影股票。每次我接近一家，他就给我讲一些过去的故事。所以在这个行业里，人们可以用其他人的钱来换取自己世界里的重要性。这是一个危险的组合，因为如果我能用你的钱换取我世界里的重要性，你知道，谁也说不准我会做什么。（笑声）

查理·芒格：这个行业的一部分让我想起加州的一家石油公司。它由一个人控制。人们过去常说，“如果他们真的找到石油，那老头会偷走它。”（笑声）电影行业里，只有大约一半的公司有正常的商业道德。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不是特指迪士尼。

查理·芒格：不。

沃伦·巴菲特：迪士尼真的——迪士尼为股东做了非凡的工作。他们从电影中真正赚到了钱。大多数电影公司——它们为所有相关的人赚钱，但没多少落到股东手里。第二区？

观众：我——

29. 书籍推荐

沃伦·巴菲特：什么？哦，书！查理，你最近在读什么？（笑）

查理·芒格：嗯，我几乎有点不好意思说，因为我回过头去捡起了生物学那部分内容，那是我本来应该早10年或15年就开始学的。如果你们中谁还没这么做，那真是个奇妙的世界，过去二三十年他们在生物学领域发现的东西。而且我——如果你拿【进化生物学家理查德】·道金斯，《自私的基因》和《盲眼钟表匠》，我是说，这些都是奇妙的书。这些书里的词汇正在进入英语语言，并将出现在下一版《牛津词典》里。我的意思是，这些都是有力的书。而且读起来非常有趣。我不得不把《自私的基因》读了两遍才完全理解。有些东西我信了一辈子，但原来并非如此，我认为有这种经历真是太棒了。我们总是说，“学东西并不难。难的是忘掉旧东西。”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我犯了个错误，12月带查理去了微软。他和【首席技术官】内森·梅尔沃德成了朋友。他们正在越来越狂热和热情地交流关于裸鼹鼠的事情。他们把这些通信都抄送给我。所以我能看到这些关于裸鼹鼠习性的往来交流。我真的还没找到办法把它应用到伯克希尔。但我确信查理——（笑）——正在这方面研究点什么。他最近对生物学非常感兴趣。我喜欢——你知道，我一直喜欢读传记，但自从——电脑改变了我的生活。我现在发现自己每周在电脑上打桥牌大约10个小时。不幸的是，我不想放弃睡眠、吃饭或伯克希尔。所以阅读变得比较轻松了。

关于投资书籍，如果你问这个的话，我会推荐菲尔·费舍在1960年左右写的前两本书，《普通股与不普通的利润》和第二本《通往财富之路》。它们是非常好的书。你知道，我首先推荐【本杰明·格雷厄姆的】《聪明的投资者》，第八章和第二十章是你真正应该读的。两篇——嗯，实际上，所有重要的投资思想都在那本书里，因为只有大约三个思想。其中两个在这些章节中被强调。实际上，我认为约翰·特雷恩的《金融大师》是一本有趣的书。我不知道。查理，你能想到别的我们要推荐的吗？（笑）

查理·芒格：我不知道。我们在伯克希尔·哈撒韦的风格就是手指加脚趾算账。（笑声）所以你基本上数着来。

沃伦·巴菲特：这三个——

查理·芒格：我从来没见过——你知道，沃伦谈论这些现金流折现。我从没见过他算一次。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

查理·芒格：如果——

沃伦·巴菲特：有些事情你只在私下做，查理。（笑声）

查理·芒格：如果它不是非常明显，能算出来会结果很好，他倾向于转向下一个主意。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，基本上是这样。如果你真的需要用纸笔去算，那说明它太接近了，不值得考虑。我的意思是，它应该基本上是在对你大喊，你有这个巨大的安全边际。我提到了三个思想。我应该详细说明一下这三个思想。第一是——把自己看作——把投资看作拥有企业，而不是购买一个价格会波动的东西。第二个是你的态度，与之相关，对市场的态度，这在第八章中有所涵盖。如果你对市场变动有正确的态度，这对证券投资会有巨大帮助。最后一章是关于安全边际，这意味着，不要试图驾驶一辆9800磅的卡车通过一座写着“承重：10000磅”的桥。而是沿着路走一点，找一座写着“承重：15000磅”的桥。

30. 我们会在保险领域做更多，但我们不知道是什么

沃伦·巴菲特：第二区？

观众：是的，奇普·塔克（音），明尼阿波利斯。巴菲特先生和芒格先生，伯克希尔在超级巨灾保险业务中的市场份额是多少？你对这个业务的市场增长以及伯克希尔潜在市场份额增长的看法是什么？你之前回答了一个关于GEICO汽车保险机会的相关问题。还有其他值得扩展的保险业务吗？还是你们把重点放在超级巨灾和汽车保险的机会上就足够了？

查理·芒格：你知道，沃伦比我更擅长回答这个问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：我——我们没有——在超级巨灾这样的领域不会有好的市场份额数据。我们知道，在几年里，我认为去年也是，我们在保费量上必须是最大的。我们只是承保的量比任何其他人都多得多。我们在大型风险上接到电话，你知道，这里4亿美元之类的。我们最近在新马德里断层上报价了10亿美元。没有其他人会这么做。所以我们通过愿意做大量业务，通过人们知道我们随后会赔付，获得了市场份额，但我们不——虽然我们知道我们是最大的，但我们无法给你任何精确的数字。我们也知道我们现在在那里有所退步，但这对我们没什么影响。我们只关心是否在有利可图的市场中退步。查理，问题的第二部分是什么？

观众：还有哪些其他机会——

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，保险业务中的其他机会？就在今年，我们买了一家非常非常小的公司【堪萨斯银行家担保】，其经理们在这里，一家非常好的保险公司。它有一个小利基。它——我的意思是，它永远不会变得很大，但它是我们能理解的那种业务。我们喜欢经营它的人。我们喜欢他们在市场上取得的地位。所以我们很高兴能进入这个领域。我们愿意考虑保险业务中各种各样的机会。但我们发现，大部分机会都没有意义。我们在未来10年或15年内会在保险领域做其他事情。这是必然的，但我不能告诉你具体是什么。不过，在价值方面，我们做的最大的一件事情，可能是发展GEICO。但我们还会做其他事情。谁知道那会是什么呢？

我们在一两年前谈到过结构化结算业务——这是一个小业务——已经有所扩展。我们是结构化结算的首选供应商。那些本质上是一种年金，支付给通常是严重事故的受害者。他们是严重受伤的人，伤害可能会持续一生。所以我们会向那些无法谋生、可能产生巨额医疗费用的人支付款项，持续很多年，有时是50或60年。这些年金由我们的公司提供给其他保险公司和这些受伤的人，通常是经过受伤者律师同意的。当受伤者的顾问们思考，“50年后谁会在这里付钱给这个残废的人？”时，他们经常，我们认为合理，会想到伯克希尔。所以在过去几年里，我们在那方面变得更加知名。这不是一个大业务。也不会成为大业务。但这是一个相当不错的业务。

这是一个我们长期拥有竞争优势的领域。我们不是通过价格获得竞争优势。我们是通过受伤一方从知道50年后支票仍会寄到而获得的安心感来获得竞争优势。这是我们拥有一些优势的那类业务。随着时间的推移，我们会找到其他事情做，但不能——我不能——这不像我们在看某个特定领域，然后说，“我们专注于这个。”我们大致了解保险行业正在发生什么。我们随时准备在时机到来时采取行动，以便我们能做一些明智的事情。

31. 被资本主义奖励的人需要帮助那些没有被奖励的人

沃伦·巴菲特：第三区？

观众：巴菲特先生和芒格先生，我的家族自1968年以来一直与伯克希尔有关联。所以我带着极大的尊重来问这个问题，尊重你们的正直和智慧。我是一所市中心学校的老师，那里有一种日益弥漫的绝望感。当我问我的学生，“什么会让你快乐？”他们最主要的回答是，“一百万美元。”作为世界上最富有的一些人，我想知道你对他们的回答会是什么。作为这个问题的第二部分，资本主义的哲学基础在很大程度上忽视了一个系统性的视角，涉及持续消耗有限的全球资源以维持市场经济的问题，非常富有和极度贫困之间不断扩大的差距，以及国际视野中美国被视为一个主要价值观是贪婪和帝国主义的国家。当我们进入21世纪时，你是否认为有必要重新构想资本主义的前提，回归民主、正义和人道主义关怀的原始理念？

沃伦·巴菲特：我没完全听清。

查理·芒格：嗯——（笑声）——我会这样说。我对现有社会秩序的评价比你高。（掌声）——任何社会秩序总有不足之处。当然，我们的社会有些地方比以前更破碎了。我不认为沃伦和我对世界上所有问题都有什么奇妙的解决方案。但期望一百万美元，而不是一些更具体的短期步骤，是错误的心态。那不是我们赚到一百万美元的方式。

沃伦·巴菲特：但我不——（掌声）

查理·芒格：顺便说一句，沃伦可能会给出不同的答案。他是一个——

沃伦·巴菲特：不，我同意——我，你知道——期望一份工作对我来说很有意义，然后想办法得到它，然后从那里开始。但它——存在并且一直存在——那并不意味着它应该永远如此——但存在巨大的不平等。你不想要的是机会的不平等。能力会有很多不平等。像我们这样的市场体系，生产人们想要的东西。如果他们想看一场重量级拳击赛，想看迈克·泰森，他们会付给他2500万美元，让他在拳击场上待几分钟。它生产人们喜欢的东西。并且大量生产。在生产方面做得非常好。现在在这个国家处于最底层的20%，比50年前好多了。而且在这个国家处于最底层的20%比在任何其他国家都好。但仍然是相当不令人满意的。

市场体系不会奖励——它不会奖励老师，不会奖励护士——我的意思是，它不会以任何可以与奖励艺人、或者能够评估企业价值的人、或者运动员之类的方式相比，来奖励做各种有用事情的各种人。市场体系为能娱乐大众的东西支付非常高的报酬。人们一天中很多时间想被娱乐。它付给能娱乐的人比能教育的人更多。我不认为——我不想修补市场体系。我不认为我应该告诉人们他们应该想在生活中做什么。但我确实认为，在这个体系下做得非常好的人，有责任通过纳税的方式，合理地照顾任何不适应这个体系，但在其他所有方面都是完全正派的公民。这是——你知道，我不想在税收方面开始谈论可比价值。

但我确实认为，像我这样的人，恰好完美适应这个体系，但在孟加拉或其他地方可能一文不值，你知道，因为我拥有的东西在那里不会带来回报——他们的体系不会奖励这个。我认为我们从社会得到——社会为我提供了——这个社会为我提供了——巨大的回报，因为我带入了游戏的东西。它对迈克·泰森也这样。它也对某个腺样体适合唱歌或其他什么的家伙也这样。我不想干涉这个。但我确实认为那些从社会获得各种支票的人——我认为应该有一个体系，让不适应那个体系、但在其他所有方面都是完全正派的公民，不会真的，你知道，从中掉落。我认为在过去50年在这方面取得了进步。但我认为在这方面我们离一个完美的社会还很远。我希望，你知道，在未来50年能取得更多进步。

不过我不认为期望一百万美元——你知道，事情不是那样的。我认为——但如果你足够幸运拥有市场体系奖励的东西，你在这里会做得非常好。如果你不幸拥有市场体系不奖励的东西，你现在比30或40年前会好一些。而且你比其他国家的状况要好。但我能理解，看着别人只是拥有稍微不同的才能组合，就能以某种方式获得支票，让他们以及他们的后五代家人都处于不必做太多事情的境地，这看起来非常不公平。

查理·芒格：我会说，我喜欢一定量的社会干预，来消除资本主义结果中的一些不平等。但我非常讨厌奖励任何容易被伪造的东西。因为我认为那样人们就会说谎，如果说谎有效，说谎就会蔓延。我认为整个文明都会退化。如果我来管理世界，工伤赔偿中因压力产生的赔偿金将是零，不是因为不存在真正的压力。而是因为如果你奖励压力，就无法阻止造假。

沃伦·巴菲特：有一篇很棒的文章，这也适用于——（掌声）——之前的一个问题。大约一期前的《福布斯》有一篇非常好的文章，展示了美国在不同时间点（追溯到1900年）的职业构成。你仅仅通过看那个构成就能看到的一个问题是，如果你假设底层20%——最底层的20%——无论你如何衡量，就就业能力而言——无论是通过智商、工作兴趣、精力水平还是其他什么——这些人在100年前，非常符合大多数可用的工作。换句话说，你可以做大多数工作，其中有很多，只需要相对不那么出色的心智能力。随着工作发生了变化，人的构成却没有改变。所以有更多人最终处于不利地位。好处是，社会生产出多得多的产品，能够以这样或那样的方式照顾这些人。

现在，诀窍在于照顾他们，并使他们不仅感到，而且能够变得有生产力，成为其中的一部分，并且——我们有足够的产品来做到这一点。但这个国家产出的产品比50年或100年前多得多。我们没有——我们在如何让底层20%或30%的能力适应新的、变化的工作构成方面并非完美。我真的建议你看看那本《福布斯》杂志。因为如果你思考那些图表的含义，我认为你会看到哪些社会问题必须解决。

32. 经营银行“没什么魔法”——只要不做“蠢事”

沃伦·巴菲特：第四区？

观众：爱德华·巴尔，来自肯塔基州列克星敦。早些时候，你引导我们讨论了迪士尼的竞争地位。你也讨论了股票回购。我想知道你是否也可以引导我们讨论一下富国银行的竞争地位，因为他们刚刚完成了如此大规模的合并【与第一州际银行】，也许再讨论一下他们的股票回购，这在百分比上，可能是我目前能想到的任何公司中最大的。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，如果富国银行觉得他们是在低于内在商业价值的价格回购股票，那他们就应该回购。这是他们做的计算。你应该问他们，他们的计算是什么。这将决定股票回购计划是否合理。市场内合并的好处可能很显著。有时，它只是促使银行做它们本来就应该做的事情。我的意思是，我并不总是那么确定——这些经济效应完全是通过规模实现的，不如说是通过仔细审视它们如何经营业务实现的。我们今天可能在场——他之前在这里——花岗岩银行的首席执行官，该行位于北卡罗来纳州花岗岩市。那家银行最近的季度年化资产收益率是2.58%，效率比率是33%。现在，那家银行有4亿或5亿美元的资产。

你知道，它不需要达到50亿才能变得更高效或什么的。它——它比任何那些必须通过合并才能达到这些比率的大型银行要高效得多，这让你有点怀疑其背后的理由。但我确信，经营那家银行的约翰·福莱恩斯先生，只是专注于——而且他已经专注了很多年——日复一日地做正确的事情。不需要任何市场内合并或其他什么东西来促使他这样做。我建议你们中任何在银行业的人去看看他的报告，因为北卡罗来纳州花岗岩社区并没有什么魔法。他也不在与其他银行家截然不同的法律下工作。他只是取得了一个记录——实现了一个记录——让所有其他记录看起来都很可笑。我们在伊利诺伊州罗克福德有个人，我们在70年代拥有一家银行，吉恩·阿贝格，他的兄弟即将104岁。

这里有一位来自罗克福德的先生，让我给埃德·阿贝格签了个字条，他即将104岁了。我真希望吉恩能活到104岁。但吉恩在罗克福德经营一家银行，当银行——最好的银行资产收益率是1%时，他的资产收益率是2%。而且他用的杠杆远低于其他人，贷款损失更低，投资组合很大。这里没什么魔法。他只是不做任何没有意义的事情。无论有没有合并，银行业都有很大的改进空间。但我会说，富国银行，从记录来看，与其他大型银行相比，在经营方面做得异常出色。而且我会说，这两家业务合并在一起，将比第一州际银行独立经营时要高效得多。这是一个可以做得非常好的业务，只要经营得当，正如花岗岩银行或罗克福德的伊利诺伊国民银行所证明的那样。没什么魔法。你只需要避免做愚蠢的事情。这有点像投资。

33. 我们“只做有意义的事”

您看，您不需要做什么特别聪明的事。您只需要避免做那些，一年后回头看，会显得极其愚蠢的事——比如航空公司之类的。（笑声）您知道，诀窍就在这里。这不是什么神奇的水晶球游戏，需要您洞察未来，看到别人看不到的东西。我的意思是，可口可乐、吉列或富国银行，这些公司有什么复杂的呢？我们喜欢银行业这样的生意——前提是我们有合适的人来管理它。我们有一个——我不知道鲍勃·威尔默斯今天在不在这里。他管理第一帝国银行，我们在那有相当大的一笔投资。鲍勃就是能把银行管好，您知道吗？我从不担心鲍勃或者第一帝国会出什么意外。他会做正确的事——如果能增长，而且合乎逻辑，他就会增长。如果做某事不合逻辑，他就会放弃。他没有那种自我驱动的冲动，非要去做些什么。他经营着一家出色的银行。查理？

34. 盖可的卢·辛普森现在有了更多投资选择

好的。第5区。

多萝西·克雷格来自西雅图。我注意到，在年度报告中，你们最近的收购使伯克希尔·哈撒韦的收入翻了一番。这让我感到震惊。我想知道这是怎么做到的。

嗯，一方面，我们是从一个较小的基数开始的。但是——我们——盖可的收购，你知道，增加了大约30亿美元的收入，实际上比这还多一点，但多不了多少。而RC Willey和Helzberg在今年可能增加了大约6亿美元的收入。由于我们原来的基数大约是35亿美元，这三项收购确实使收入翻了一番。我们不会有太多年份发生这种情况。我们的目标并不是让收入翻番，甚至增长20%也不是。我们只是——我们试着做任何有意义的事。如果某一年有大量有意义的事情出现，我们就会做很多。如果没有有意义的事，我们就什么都不做。所以这里面有很多偶然因素。但去年，确实发生了不少事。我希望明年也能发生很多事。但我们目前还不知道。查理？

查理·芒格：没什么要说的。

35. “永久持股”即使被市场高估也可能不会出售

第6区。

是我吗？是的，我叫维克多·拉普马，来自维京群岛。我的问题是关于盖可的资产方面。伯克希尔的一个独特之处在于股权资产相对于固定收益资产的比例很高。而盖可，在年底时看起来像一家典型的保险公司，其固定收益资产是股权资产的四倍。我的问题是，随着时间的推移，它们在资产配置上会和伯克希尔趋同吗？这个问题的第二部分是，在并购之后，盖可的资产配置决策与并购前相比是如何做出的？

盖可的决策——如你所说，它拥有大约50亿美元的有价证券——过去是、现在是、将来也会由卢·辛普森做出。卢自1979年左右以来，在管理盖可的投资方面做得非常出色。我们很幸运能有他。在我能控制的公司里，能让我放心交钱去投资的人寥寥无几。但我们很高兴卢能做到。我的意思是，他是千里挑一的人才。卢做得非常出色，以后也会继续做好。我们能为他提供的一点是，他现在可以对这些资产做任何他想做的事。在盖可成为伯克希尔一部分之前，他没有这个能力。因为那时，有一些必要的比例要求，这些要求是可以理解的，也是合理的。盖可作为独立实体，拥有15亿或20亿美元的净资产，并做着30亿美元的业务，让他超出某个限度去持有不同的股权结构是不合适的。所以他受到其所在行业性质和资本状况的约束。这种约束不再存在了。所以，有了这50亿美元，他可以做任何他想做的事。现在，如果他做某些事情，我们需要为盖可提供支持，以确保在最不利的情况下，其投保人也能得到保护。但这对我们来说不是问题。我们可以通过比例再保险来实现。我们可以做很多事情。我们甚至可以直接担保他们的义务。我们有能力做到这一点。我们还没有这样做，因为目前还没有必要。但如果这样做有意义——如果卢想把50亿美元全投在股票上，而且这很有意义——我们就会进行安排，以确保盖可的投保人能得到与最保守的投资组合下同等程度的安全保障。所以卢现在又多了一件可以使用的工具。也许将来会有用上它的时候。他在旧体制下一直很出色。在新体制下，他可能会做得更好。

查理·芒格：这是一个非常敏锐的问题。你值得表扬。

沃伦·巴菲特：这意味着我们之前也考虑过这个问题——（笑）——但你确实值得表扬，对吧。

36. 巴菲特预计盖茨不会加入伯克希尔董事会

让我们看看。第1区？

尼尔·麦克马洪，纽约市。伯克希尔拥有几家公司的股票，被称为永久持股。在70年代初，我们有一个两级市场，一次决策股票，高市盈率——50、60倍市盈率。如果这种情况再次出现，伯克希尔持有的这些公司还会是“永久”的吗？还是说，一切皆有价？

嗯，有些东西我们认为是无价的。我们有时也经受过考验，但没有卖掉它们，但是——你知道，我的朋友比尔·盖茨说，在某个点上，这肯定是不合逻辑的。数字——在某个价格上，你必须愿意出售一些有价证券，控制性企业另当别论。但我怀疑我们是否会在那个类别上受到考验——只有少数几只股票属于那一类。实际上，你知道——我就不对此发表评论了。（笑）我们真的非常不愿意出售那些我们既喜欢其业务也喜欢其管理人员的公司。所以我认为你不会看到我们卖出多少。但如果你哪天来参加这里的会议，而市盈率达到了60、70倍，记得留意我。（笑）查理？

查理·芒格：所谓的“两级市场”造成了困难，我想，主要是因为很多公司或人被称为“第一级”，但实际上他们并不是。他们只是在某个时候曾是“第一级”。如果你对公司的判断是正确的，那么你可以在相当高的价位上持有它们。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，如果你确实找到了，你真的可以在非常高的价位上持有它们——因为要找到它们太难了。你不会再找到同样好的企业了。所以你必须问自己：“我是否会有机会以低得多的价格买回同样的企业？或者我是否能用更低的价格买到几乎一样好的东西？”我们觉得自己不太擅长做这种事。我们宁愿只是坐着持有这家企业，假装股票市场不存在。实际上，这种做法对我们的效果，比20年前我预想的要好得多。我的意思是，这种心态——或者说25年前——这种心态——从中产生了相当多的好运，这真是我始料未及的。

查理·芒格：不过，你又在展示你的诀窍了，对吗？还在学呢。很多人认为这是作弊。（笑声）

37. 并非所有“浮存金”生意都具有吸引力

第2区。

艾伦·兰克，宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡。考虑到你对科技的厌恶，但你和比尔·盖茨、微软关系密切，你是否曾考虑过邀请他加入伯克希尔的董事会，或者参与解决世界百科全书的一些问题，使其走向新技术并拓展业务？另一方面，你也喜欢保险和浮存金。你是否考虑过其他具有类似性质的业务，比如墓地、殡仪馆，它们有预售需求和高额现金储备？

比尔和我几年前讨论过百科全书业务。但实际上，在我认识他之前，他已经在Encarta上投入了相当多的精力，走得相当远了。所以，我的猜测是，如果我们更早认识，也许在这方面会有所发展。但他已经在Encarta上下了很大的赌注，并且做得很好。所以，和他合作世界百科全书真的不是一个现实的选择。比尔也非常专注于自己的业务。我相信他在某家生物科技公司担任董事，他在那家公司有大量投资。但至少我不认为你会在美国公司的董事会上看到他——我想，如果你看看美国西北太平洋地区的董事会，他在那里有很多朋友，熟悉那些公司，也许和其中一些人一起长大。但我认为你不会看到他出现在那些对他 intellectually（在智力上）没有吸引力的公司里。我确实认为有一家生物科技公司是以那种方式吸引他参与的。你知道，他会是一个非常宝贵的资产。但他真正专注于微软。据我所知，他的董事会会议在周六举行，会持续一整天。然后他就是这样处理业务的。我认为他不会对加入银行或保险公司的董事会感兴趣，因为他觉得自己有更重要的事情要做。我想他可能是对的。（笑）

第3区？哦，问题是关于其他类型的业务。我们对各种类型的浮存金业务一直都有兴趣，但是——你知道，蓝筹印花曾经就是这样的业务，直到某一天它消失不见了——（笑）——我们找不到了。我们翻遍了壁橱，到处找，甚至在后院找。（笑）它去哪儿了？所以我们喜欢那种类型的生意。但大多数浮存金业务的成本都非常明确。就像我说的，我们不喜欢大多数保险公司作为浮存金业务。我们对收购典型的保险业务不感兴趣，因为我们认为浮存金最终会让我们付出太高的代价。我们宁愿以明确的成本借钱，也不愿像大多数公司那样承担承保亏损的隐性成本。但我们一直——我们感兴趣的是提供现金而不是消耗现金的业务。如果它们消耗现金能产生足够高的回报，我们也愿意它们消耗现金。但我们倾向于能产生现金的东西。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，如果我们进入预售需求的殡仪馆业务，那就有意思了。（笑声）

38. 预计A类股市场会比B类股“更好”

第3区。（笑声）

查理真难接话。我是罗伯特·基利，来自华盛顿特区。我有个简短的评论和问题。评论是，我认为你可能大大低估了本周晚些时候和下周二市场对B类股购买的兴趣。我在华盛顿至少有10个朋友知道我是伯克希尔的股东，并且我要来参加这次会议。他们坚持要我明天回去向他们报告B类股的情况，因为他们非常有兴趣买一些。当然，这只是个例。但如果你把这10个人的比例放大到今天到场的股东，那就会有成千上万的人进入那个市场。我的问题涉及流动性。在你的年报第18页，你写道，我引用一下：“多数股东将持有A类股的前景表明，A类股将拥有比B类股更流动的市场。”你能解释一下吗？在我看来，如果大多数股东持有A类股，不转换也不出售，那么B类股反而会更具流动性。也许我不理解流动性的含义。

不，我认为你理解。你确实理解。我来稍微详细解释一下。当然，在第一周，我预计B类股交易量会大得多，尽管我希望它不像大多数新股发行那样相对于发行量过度交易。新股发行的本质是通常总是会有一些短期活跃交易。有时，我认为这相当过度。我认为伯克希尔不会这样。但会有一些短期活跃。但从长远来看，我们假设有4亿美元的B类股。那么将会有400亿美元的A类股。现在，诚然，你知道，我不会动我的股票。这个房间里的很多人持有成本非常低，除非在非常特殊的情况下，他们也不打算动自己的股票。所以在这400亿美元中，有相当大比例可以说是几乎对市场变化免疫。但仍然有非常可观的美元价值。例如，基金持有的数量也不少。所以，我认为可能交易的A类股市值很可能远远超过可能交易的B类股市值。现在，可能所有的B类股都是潜在可交易的，而A类股只有一小部分是潜在可交易的。但400亿对4亿的比例，我认为几乎可以保证，在初期的喧嚣之后，更好的市场——当我说“更好的市场”时，我指的是能够以最小的价格波动进行大额美元双向交易的能力——更好的市场——差距不会很大——但更好的市场很可能在A类股。坦白说，我们希望如此。当然，我们仍然希望B类股也有一个好的市场。

但如果你说的是10股A类股，那大约是30万美元的投资，我认为，两个月后——很可能买卖30万美元的A类股对价格的影响百分比会略小于买卖30万美元的B类股，但差距不会很大。这就是我说A类股市场比B类股略好一点的意思。这对我们很重要，因为如果情况反过来，B类股变成了更好的市场，那么随着时间的推移，人们就会有真正的动机将A类股转换为B类股，最终B类股市场将占据主导地位。我们预计这不会发生。而且我认为按照我们安排的方式，它不会发生。但这是有可能发生的。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，嗯，我认为我们还通过撰写招股说明书的方式以及奖励销售经纪人的方式，创造了倾向于抑制个人和机构需求的安排。我们有时能实现我们的目标。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：第4区？别问我们列出了哪些我们已经实现的目标。（笑声）

39. 企业净资产收益率可能会下降

丹·皮科，爱荷华州苏城。在70年代中期，您写了一篇关于通货膨胀如何欺骗股票投资者的文章，指出美国企业的平均净资产收益率大约是12%或13%。而去年，平均水平大约达到了20%。是经济规律被废除了还是被修改了？如果不是，那么当我们回归均值时，可能会发生什么样的灾难？

嗯，我一直对净资产收益率感到惊讶。大约两期前的《财富》杂志上有一篇好文章。嗯，是在“财富500强”那期里，不管是什么时候。它讨论了净资产收益率的问题。它提出了一些很好的观点，说明将退休后医疗福利引入资产负债表如何随后推高了股权回报。换句话说，它降低了所用总股本这一分母。而且有很多“巨额冲销”式的会计处理，进行了资产减记，所以考虑到这一点，我不认为它达到了20%。但它确实比——肯定比我写那篇文章时预期的要高。我要说的是，在我看来，在我们生活的这个世界里，平均股本回报率长期接近20%的水平，这似乎是非常极端的。但回报率如此之高确实让我感到惊讶。现在，你看可口可乐这样的公司，25年前，它们不会回购股票。因此，它们会在业务中积累更多的股权。如果可口可乐遵循1970年或1975年的政策，它的净资产收益率会比现在低得多。可口可乐实际上并不需要股权。因此，它可以获得非凡的回报和非常巨额的美元收益。就这点对数据的影响而言，它产生了一些影响。就通用汽车为退休后医疗福利设立数百亿美元的储备金而言，这往往使其回报率看起来比过去好得多，过去它甚至不确认这些成本，因此其股本实际上比真实的股本要大得多。所以确实发生了一些这样的事情。但总的来说，我认为在任何会计体系下，美国工业20%的回报率都是不太可能的。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我同意。而且我认为，这种大量整合，以及像富国银行这样成功的公司回购股票，我认为这也产生了巨大的影响。我不认为它实际上变得那么高——显然，我们经历了一个相当长的实际增长期等等。而且我认为，平均而言，企业获得了更高的净资产收益率。但我认为很多事情结合在一起推高了结果。我不认为它还能走得更远。

40. 巴菲特的投资并不反映任何房地产见解

第5区？

是的。我叫泰德·艾略特，来自康涅狄格州。新闻报道说您最近在房地产业进行了一项投资。我想知道您是否愿意评论一下您对该行业的看法。

嗯，那只是个小注脚。我几乎所有的钱都在伯克希尔，我在外面还有一些市政债券和其他一些小东西，但我不想买任何伯克希尔已经涉足的东西。那会让生活复杂化。所有最好的东西我都喜欢——（笑）——都在伯克希尔里。所以，偶尔有些太小而不适合伯克希尔的东西会出现在雷达屏幕上。我以前买过那家公司100股——它叫Property Capital Trust——在我们拥有NHP的时候，我买了100股，NHP和他们做过几笔交易。所以，出于我阅读所有能增加我知识的年度报告的政策，我买了100股。然后大约一年前，我碰巧看到他们说要清算。所以，手头有点闲钱，我就买了。但这并不是基于对房地产业的任何看法，也不是基于对公司的什么复杂分析，或者其他任何东西。这只是个小小的个人投资。我对此没有任何洞察力。我们在伯克希尔做过一些房地产交易。但都是大交易。曾有一小段时期，有少数几件事是明智的。如果我们开始得早一点，可能会有更多的事。但我们开始得有点晚了。所以我们现在什么都没做。但我们偶尔会听听看。我们在寻找。我们基本上是在为伯克希尔寻找大项目。我们已经很久没有在房地产领域找到任何东西了。也许以后也不会。但谁知道呢？我的意思是，我们已经在水里划桨了。我们参与的那几件事进展得不错。但相对于伯克希尔的规模来说，它们并不重要。

41. 伯克希尔过去的增长不是新投资的标尺

我们进入第6区。这是最后一个问题，因为马上就到3点了。请第6区提问。

嗨，我叫迈克·诺兰，来自新泽西。我和我的妻子自1984年以来一直是股东，而且很高兴。谢谢你们两位。今天有两个问题。在零售商店行业，考虑到伯克希尔过去几年每股账面价值年均增长23%的出色表现，而该行业的股本增长率大约只有8%到9%，我们想知道，为什么伯克希尔要用股票来换取这些证券？因为这些被收购公司的净资产增长率，如果接近今年你们收购的那些公司的行业平均水平，那只有伯克希尔增长率的三分之一甚至更低？引用Barnett Helzberg在年报中的话说：“钻石业务是一个非常竞争的行业。”

嗯，所有零售业都有竞争。这两家公司平均的净资产收益率都远高于你提到的行业数据。第二点，你知道，我们未来无法再实现23.6%的增长率。所以，如果我们用历史平均值作为新投资的标尺，那么我们将无法进行任何新投资，因为我们不知道未来如何实现23.6%的回报。但我们喜欢——我们认为零售业是一个非常艰难的行业。我们喜欢这些公司的记录、它们的市场地位和它们的管理层。当我们找到这样的企业，并且对经营它的人感到非常放心时，我们就会达成交易。但我们不会期望长期从这些投资中获得23.6%的回报。我想感谢各位的到来。你们，你知道——（掌声）