• 2001年股东大会
  • 上午场
    • 1. 正式商务会议（视频录制开始时会议已在进程之中）
    • 2. 四岁小女孩与巴菲特展望伯克希尔的未来
    • 3. 科技行业与制药行业不可比
    • 4. 交换伯克希尔股份类别的税务影响
    • 5. 州保险监管机构并未阻碍伯克希尔
    • 6. “今日之痛，明日之得”的保险交易
    • 14. 给年轻人的建议：投资自己
    • 14. Advice to young people: Invest in yourself
    • 15. 互联网“是人们将他人希望变现的机会”
    • 15. Internet “was a chance for people to monetize the hopes of others”
    • 16. “我们没有总体规划”
    • 16. “We don’t have a master plan”
    • 17. 巴菲特的胆固醇水平
    • 17. Buffett’s cholesterol level
    • 18. 养老基金不切实际的投资预期
    • 18. Unrealistic investment expectations for pension funds
    • 19. 公务机公司“在几十年内”不会成为“成熟”业务
    • 19. Executive Jet won’t be a “mature” business “for decades”
    • 20. “愚蠢的保险单有无限的市场”
    • 20. “There’s an unlimited market for dumb insurance policies”
    • 21. GEICO专注于美国市场而非全球扩张
    • 21. GEICO focusing on U.S. instead of global expansion
    • 22. 可口可乐在日本的广告
    • 22. Coca-Cola advertising in Japan
    • 23. 伯克希尔石棉风险敞口
    • 23. Berkshire’s asbestos exposure
    • 24. 赞扬State Farm
• 2001年年度股东大会
  • 第三部分（共六部分）
    • 28. 称之为“对冲基金”并不会让你更聪明
    • 28. Calling it a “hedge fund” doesn’t make you any smarter
    • 29. 小资金投资意味着更大机会
    • 29. Investing small amounts allows bigger opportunities
    • 30. 推销而非业绩，是华尔街最大的赚钱机器
    • 30. Promotion, not performance, is Wall Street’s biggest money maker
    • 31. 强大的力量不希望将股票期权计入费用
    • 31. Powerful forces don’t want to expense stock options
    • 32. 没有公司应该预测15%的年增长率
    • 32. No company should predict 15 percent annual growth
    • 33. “人们外推过去的方式太愚蠢了”
    • 33. “It’s stupid the way people are extrapolating the past”
    • 34. 对USG投资不予置评
    • 34. No comment on USG investment
  • 下午会议
    • 1. “保险浮存金一直是伯克希尔的巨大资产”
  • Afternoon Session
    • 1. “Insurance float has been a huge asset to Berkshire”
    • 2. 会计“花招”和“博弈”
    • 2. Accounting “shenanigans” and “gamesmanship”
    • 3. 青少年时期存钱并保持极度好奇
    • 3. Save money in your teen years and be very curious
    • 2001年年度股东大会
    • 8. 商学院在教授投资方面“可悲”
    • 8. Business schools are “pathetic” at teaching how to invest
    • 9. 信用卡建议：“负债是疯狂的”
    • 9. Credit card advice: “It’s crazy to get in debt
    • 10. 长期贸易逆差是“国家的一个显著减分项”
    • 10. Long-term trade deficit is “a significant minus for the country”
    • 11. 满意的卖家是“一支招聘力量”
    • 11. Satisfied sellers are a “recruiting force”
    • 12. 为什么伯克希尔卖掉了房地美和房利美的股份
    • 12. Why Berkshire sold its Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stakes
    • 13. 讨论好护城河是否更难找到
    • 13. Debating whether it’s good moats are harder to find
    • 14. 衍生品如何变成“潜在的炸药”
    • 14. How derivatives become “potential dynamite”
    • 15. GEICO的卢·辛普森“自主”管理
    • 15. GEICO’s Lou Simpson manages “autonomously”
    • 16. 伯克希尔对Finova的投资
    • 16. Berkshire’s investment in Finova
    • 17. GEICO的卢·辛普森买入了伯克希尔的盖璞股票
    • 22. 资本与机会成本
    • 23. 巴菲特如何知道自己有了”重大想法”
    • 24. 大型零售商正在攻击大品牌护城河
    • 25. 卖空”诱人”但”非常痛苦”
    • 26. 伯克希尔”忠诚效应”的价值
    • 27. 对伯克希尔文化将持续的信心
    • 28. “我们不想谈论白银”
    • 29. 电力放松管制导致破坏性短缺
    • 30. 好企业能弥补糟糕的管理吗？
    • 31. 首先要”头脑清晰”
    • 32. 推荐伯克希尔股票将是一个”大错误”
    • 33. 本杰明·格雷厄姆的“雪茄烟蒂”策略如今是否仍有效？
    • 33. Would Benjamin Graham’s “cigar butt” strategy work now?
    • 34. 书籍推荐
    • 34. Book recommendations
    • 35. 国会应放松对公用事业的资本限制
    • 35. Congress should loosen capital restrictions for utilities
    • 36. 竞选捐款需要更多监管
    • 36. More regulation needed for campaign contributions
    • 37. 芒格已不再从事房地产投资
    • 37. Munger has moved on from real estate investing
    • 38. 问答环节结束
    • 38. Q&A concludes

WARREN BUFFETT: And — (laughter) — Andy [Heyward], if you’re here, you could stand up, I think the crowd would like to say thanks. (Applause) We have one other guest, too. After doing an incredible job for all Berkshire shareholders and particularly for Charlie and me, Ralph Schey retired this year. But Ralph and Luci, I believe, are here. And [if] Ralph and Luci would stand up, the shareholders and I would like to say thanks. (Applause) Scott Fetzer was one of the best acquisitions we ever made, but the reason it was among the very best was Ralph. And a great many of the other companies that we own now, our ownership was made possible because of the profit that Ralph delivered over the years. So, thanks very much, Ralph. Now we will come to order. I will go through this fast. I’m Warren Buffett, chairman of the board of directors of the company, and I welcome you to this 2001 annual meeting of shareholders. I will first introduce the Berkshire Hathaway directors that are present in addition to myself. First of all, of course, is Charlie, on my left.

And if you’ll — the directors will stand when I give your name. Howard Buffett, Susan Buffett — she was the voice on the songs, the ones that were sang — sung well — Malcolm G. Chace, Ronald L. Olson, and Walter Scott Jr. Also with us today are partners in the firm of Deloitte and Touche, our auditors. They are 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, and he will make a written record of the proceedings. Miss Becki Amick has been appointed inspector of elections at this meeting. She 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. We will conduct the business of the meeting, and then adjourn the formal meeting. After that, we will entertain questions that you might have. Does the secretary have a report of the number of Berkshire shares outstanding, entitled to vote, and represented at the meeting?

FORREST KRUTTER: 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 2, 2001, being the record date for this meeting, there were 1,343,041 shares of Class A Berkshire Hathaway common stock outstanding, with each share entitled to one vote on motions considered at the meeting and 5,505,791 shares of Class B Berkshire Hathaway common stock outstanding, with each share entitled to 1/200th of one vote on motions considered at the meeting. Of that number, 1,116,384 Class A shares, and 4,507,896 Class B shares are represented at this meeting by proxies returned through Thursday evening, April 26.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you. That number represents a quorum, and we will therefore directly proceed with the meeting. First of 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 the shareholders be dispensed with.

WARREN BUFFETT: Do I hear a second?

VOICES: Aye.

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, say, “Bye, I’m leaving.” (Laughter) The motion is carried. The first item of business of this meeting is to elect directors. If a shareholder is present who wishes to withdraw a proxy previously sent in and vote in person on the election of directors, he or she may do so. Also, if any shareholder that is present has not turned in a proxy, and desires a ballot in order to vote in person, you may do so. If you wish to do this, please identify yourself to meeting officials in the aisles, who will furnish a ballot to you. Would those persons desiring ballots please identify themselves, so that we may distribute them? I now 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, Charles T. Munger, Ronald L. Olson, and Walter Scott Jr. be elected as directors.

VOICE: I second the motion.

WARREN BUFFETT: It has been moved and seconded that Warren E. Buffett, Susan T. Buffett, Howard G. Buffett, Malcolm G. Chace, Charles T. Munger, Ronald L. Olson, and Walter Scott Jr. be elected as directors. Are there any other nominations? Is there any discussion? 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 election. Would 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? Miss Amick, when you are ready, you may give your report.

BECKI AMICK: My report is ready. The ballot of the proxy holders, in response to the proxies that were received through last Thursday evening, cast not less 1,126,480 votes for each nominee. That number far exceeds a majority of the number of the total votes related to all Class A and Class B shares outstanding. The certification required by Delaware law of the precise count of the votes, including the additional votes to be cast by the proxy holders, in response to proxies delivered at this meeting, as well as those cast in person at this meeting, if any, will be given to the secretary to be placed with the minutes of this meeting.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you, Miss Amick. Warren E. Buffett, Susan T. Buffett, Howard G. Buffett, Malcolm G. Chace, Charles T. Munger, Ronald L. Olson, and Walter Scott Jr. have been elected as directors. The next item of business was scheduled to be a proposal put forth by Berkshire shareholder Bartlett Naylor. On April 20th, 2001, Mr. Naylor advised us he was withdrawing his proposal. Accordingly, we will not have the proposal presented at this meeting. At the adjournment of the business meeting, I will respond to questions you may have that relate to the business of Berkshire, but do not call for any action at this meeting. Does anyone have any further business to come before this meeting, before we adjourn? If not, I recognize Mr. Walter Scott Jr. to place a motion for the meeting. WALTER SCOTT JR.: I move this meeting be adjourned.

WARREN BUFFETT: Motion to adjourn has made and seconded. We will vote by voice. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor say, “Aye.”

VOICES: Aye.

WARREN BUFFETT: Opposed say, “No.” Meeting’s adjourned. (Applause) I ask you, am I getting slower in my old age? No, I’m — (Laughter) Now, the first — we’re going to go — We have eight microphones strategically placed. We have the first two on my right. Far back, three and four, and over to this back area, over here, and then up front for the seven and eight. And if you have a question, just go to the microphone, and queue up at the microphone, and we’ll keep rotating, like I say, until noon. Then we’ll have a break, and then we’ll start again around 12:30, or thereabouts, and go until 3:30.

WARREN BUFFETT: Now, first question in area 1, we have a special guest. I received a letter from Mark Perkins on April 5th, telling me about his daughter, who has been a shareholder since she was 6 months old. And she’s going to be 4 in November, and she would like — Marietta would like to ask the first question. And frankly, I take all the questions from 4-year-olds, and Charlie handles them from anybody — (laughter) — that’s been around a little longer. So Marietta, if you’ve got the microphone there, would you ask your question, please?

VOICE: Ask him. (Inaudible)

MARIETTA: (Inaudible)

VOICE: I’m Marietta.

MARIETTA: Marietta.

VOICE: I’m three. Speak up.

MARIETTA: I’m three.

VOICE: Berkshire Hathaway fistful of dollars.

MARIETTA: (Inaudible) dollars. (Laughter)

VOICE: Her — actually, her question was, she said she was three, and she says, “Berkshire Hathaway fistful of dollars,” and she says, “What should we invest in now” so that she’ll be ready when she goes to college?

WARREN BUFFETT: What should she invest in, or what should Berkshire invest in?

MOTHER: What should Berkshire invest in?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Berkshire would like very much to buy businesses of the same quality, and with managements of the same quality, and at prices consistent with the eight businesses that we’ve bought over the last 16 or 18 months. Our first preference is, and has been for many decades — although I would say most observers didn’t seem to realize it — but our first preference has always to been — to be buying outstanding operating businesses. And we’ve had a little more luck in that respect lately. We also own lots of marketable securities. We’ve bought many of those, for example, in the mid-’70s, that did very well for us. But the climate has not been as friendly toward making money out of marketable securities. And we, frankly, prefer — we prefer the activities associated with owning and operating businesses over time. So what we hope to do, Marietta, is by the time you’re ready to go to college, I would hope that well, first of all, I’d hope I’m still around.

(Laughter) But beyond that, I would hope that we would have — you’ll be ready in about 14 years or so. I would hope that we would have another, maybe, 40 businesses or so that would be added. And I would hope that we would have every business that we have now. And I would hope we would not have more shares outstanding, or any — at least any appreciable number of more shares outstanding. If we can get all that done, I think you’ll probably be able to afford college. Charlie, do you have anything to add?

CHARLIE MUNGER: No. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: And there’s some things in life, Marietta, you can really count on. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, let’s go to microphone number 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger.

VOICE: (Inaudible)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, sorry. OK. If you want to trade a share of Berkshire A for 30 shares of Berkshire B, as you had mentioned before, a personal stock split, or vice versa, is this considered a wash sale for tax purposes? Also, I’d like to ask you a question which you’ve heard before, but in a slightly different context. A few years ago, you said you had made a mistake by not buying shares of the major pharmaceutical companies around 1993. You cited their value to society, as well as their terrific growth, high profit margins, and great potential. You said that while you didn’t know which companies would do the best, you could’ve made some kind of sector play, because the entire sector had been decimated. These exact same words, including those about not knowing which businesses will dominate over time, can also be used to describe another industry, which has recently been decimated. This is industry is, of course, technology. How do you see these two investment ideas, pharmaceuticals in ‘93 and technology now, and what difference in the two situations makes the first a good opportunity for Berkshire, and the second not one?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Charlie answers all the questions about mistakes, so I will turn the second question over to him. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Personally, I think that the future of the pharmaceutical industry was easier to predict than the future of the high-technology sector. In the pharmaceutical sector, almost everybody did well, and some companies did extremely well. In the other sector, why, there are many permanent casualties in the high-tech sector.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I would say that there’s certainly nothing obvious to us about the fact that the tech sector — as a group — viewed in aggregate — would be a good buy or be undervalued. Whereas we should have had enough sense to recognize that the pharmaceutical industry, as a group, was undervalued. But the pharmaceutical industry has a far, far better record of returns on large amounts of equity over time, and with a high percentage of the participants having those returns, than the tech industry. I wouldn’t regard those two as comparable at all.

WARREN BUFFETT: Your first question about exchanging and whether you have a wash sale, and I think you indicated exchanging from B into A. If you actually, physically, have a share of A, and turn it in for 30 shares of B, that is not a taxable transaction, so there is no sale under such a circumstance. If you — There would be no reason, unless the B was at a significant discount, to actually sell the A and buy the B, but I — and I’m not giving tax advice on this — but I would think that they — I think the tax code refers to “substantially identical” securities when they talk about wash sales. And I would think that you — that the IRS would be entitled to, at least, raise the question if you had an A share you were selling at a loss, and replacing it with 30 shares of B. You’d have a better argument than if you bought a share of A back the next day, if you were establishing a loss. If you were establishing a gain, you’d have no reason — you know, they’re not worried about wash sales in that respect.

You can’t go from B to A by exchange, but you could go by selling 30 shares of B in the market, and buying a share of A. Again, if that were being done at a loss, I think the IRS could well argue that they were substantially identical, but you could argue otherwise. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: No, no, I think the IRS would win.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Laughter) Charlie might even go state’s evidence, you know, if there was a (inaudible).

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, let’s go to zone 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Dan Blum (PH) from Seattle, Washington. As an insurance holding company, Berkshire Hathaway is subject to regulation by insurance departments in every state in which GEICO or your other insurance subsidiaries do business. Has that handicapped or affected your operations in any way? And do you have any trenchant or wise observations to make about governmental regulation in that context?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we’ve really not been impeded in any way by the fact that — Berkshire Hathaway itself is not an insurance company, but it owns various insurance companies. Of course, it owns a lot of other companies, too. But being the holding company of insurance companies, which indeed are regulated by the states in which they’re admitted, it really has not slowed down any acquisition. They are not — whereas with the Public Utility Holding Company Act, under that statute, the authorities are directed to be concerned with the activities of the holding company. And in the banking business, to some extent, they are. In the insurance business, there’s relatively little in the way of regulation or oversight that extends up to the holding company. So, it has not slowed us down in that business, but it’s been reported recently in the electric utility business. There’s a statute from 1935, the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the acronym is that euphonious term, PUHCA. (Laughter) The Public Utility Holding Company Act has a lot of rules about what the parent company could do.

And that act was put on the books because the holding companies of the ’20s, most particularly ones held by — formed by — Sam Insull, but there were others. There were many abuses, and a good many of those abuses involved what took place at the holding company. So it was quite understandable that that act was passed in the ’30s. And it achieved a pro-social purpose at the time. I don’t think there’s anything, frankly, pro-social about limiting Berkshire’s ability to buy into other utilities. We can buy up to five percent of the stock. But we might well, in the last year or two, have bought an entire utility business if it were not — if that statute weren’t present. So we’re handicapped by the utility holding company statute, we are not handicapped, in my view, by any state insurance statutes. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 4?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning.

WARREN BUFFETT: Good morning.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Steve Bloomberg, from Chicago. I have two questions regarding the insurance operations. With regard to the reinsurance contracts, which were written at what some consider and call “good losses,” you’ve discussed those insurance contracts in your report, indicating that it’s generated 482 million of losses in the year 2000. Do we need an annual schedule disclosing the aggregate amortized charges of all current and past such deals, to make our adjustments, to reflect economic reality?

14. Advice to young people: Invest in yourself

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 4?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Steven Kampf (PH) from Irvine, California. I’m 10 years old and this is my fourth consecutive year here.

WARREN BUFFETT: Terrific.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: How I got —

WARREN BUFFETT: We’re glad to have you here.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thanks. This is my fourth consecutive year here, and how I got to owning stock is my dad taught me to start my own business. And I bought Berkshire Hathaway stock with my profits. In school, they don’t teach you how to make and save money, not in high school or college. So my question is, how would you propose to educate kids in this area?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a good question. Sounds to me like — (Applause) Sounds to me like you could do a good job yourself, too. And, you know, at 10, you’re way ahead of me. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy my first stock until I was 11, so I got a very slow start. And — (Laughter) It’s, you know, what it takes really is — and you find it in some classrooms and you don’t in others — but it takes teachers who can explain the subject. Charlie would say Ben Franklin was the best teacher of all in that respect. But, you know, it looks like you either got it from your parents — an education on that — and parents can do more education, really, in that respect, even, than teachers. But it’s, you know, I get a chance to talk to students from time to time. And, you know, one of the things I tell them is, you know, what a valuable asset they have themselves.

I mean, I would pay any bright student probably $50,000 for 10 percent of his future earnings the rest of his life. So he’s a $500,000 asset just standing there. And what you do with that $500,000 asset, in terms of developing your mind and your talents, is hugely important. The best investment you can make, at an early age, is in yourself. And it sounds to me like you’re doing very well in that respect. I congratulate you on it. I don’t have any great sweeping program for doing it throughout the schools though. We have — here in Nebraska — we have an annual get-together of students from all the high schools throughout the state. And it’s a day or two of economic education. I think it’s a very good program. But I think if you just keep doing what you’re doing, you may be an example to other students. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I’d like to interject a word of caution. You sound like somebody who’s likely to succeed at what you’re trying to do. And that’s not always a good idea. If all you succeed in doing in your life is to get early rich from passive holding of little bits of paper, and you get better and better at only that for all your life, it’s a failed life. Life is more — (applause) — than being shrewd at passive wealth accumulation. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: I think he’s going to do well in both.

15. Internet “was a chance for people to monetize the hopes of others”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Thomas Kamay (PH). I am 11 years old and from Kentfield, California. This is my fourth annual meeting. Last year, I asked how the internet might affect some of your holdings. Since a lot of the internet companies have gone out of business, how are — has your view of internet changed?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a good question. I think that the internet probably looks to most retailers like less of a competitive threat than it did a couple of years ago. For example, if you look at the jewelers who have been on the internet and, in many cases — in several cases, at least, had very large valuations a couple of years ago, so the world was betting that they would be very effective competitors against brick and mortar jewelry retailers. I think that that threat has diminished substantially. I think that’s been true in the furniture business. In both of those industries, very prominent dot-coms that had aggregate valuations in the hundreds of millions have vanished in short order. So I would say that we think the internet is huge opportunity for certain of our businesses. I mean, GEICO continues to grow in a — at a significant rate in internet business. See’s Candies’ internet business is up 40 percent this year. Last year it was up a much larger percent from the year before, and it grows and it will continue to grow.

So the internet’s an opportunity, but I think the idea that you could take almost any business idea and turn it into wealth on the internet — many were turned into wealth by promoting them to the public. But very few have been turned into wealth by actually producing cash results over time. So I think there’s been a significant change in the degree to which I perceive the internet as a possible threat to our retail businesses. There’s been no change in the degree to which I regard it as an opportunity for other of our businesses. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, Warren, you and I were once engaged in the credit and delivery grocery business. And it was a terrible business. It barely supported one family for a hundred years with all of them working 90 hours a week. And somebody actually got the idea that was the wave of the future and turned it into a great internet idea. That can only be described as mania. And it sucked in a lot of intelligent people.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yes, Charlie is talking about the infamous Buffett & Son Grocery Store, which did barely support the family for a hundred years. And, only then did we support the family by hiring guys like Charlie for slave wages. (Laughter) But I used to go out on those delivery trucks, and it was pretty damned inefficient. You know, people would phone their orders in. And now it’s true we took them down with a pencil and an order pad instead of punching them into a computer. But when we started driving around the trucks and hauling the stuff off and everything, you know, we ran into the same costs that Webvan is running into now. What the internet offered was a chance for people to monetize the hopes of others, in effect. I mean, you are able to capture the greed and dreams of millions of people and turn that into instant cash, in effect, through venture capital and the markets. And there was a lot of money transferred in the process, from the gullible to the promoters. But there’s been very little money created by pure internet businesses so far. It’s been a huge trap for the public. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing more.

16. “We don’t have a master plan”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 6.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you for taking my question. My name is Frank Gurvich (PH). I’m from London, Ontario. It’s great to see all the young people asking questions. I even have my own 11-year-old here, Matthew, this year. I first want to start by passing on a message from my wife to you, Mr. Buffett. And that is, “Thank you, Mr. Buffett for your autograph that Frank brought back last year. However, quite frankly, the ring in the Borsheims box you autographed was far more precious.”

WARREN BUFFETT: You can repeat that if you’d like. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question relates to the future of Berkshire. Back in 1994, there was a PBS video interview of you at the Flagler Business School. And I believe you said Berkshire was not an insurance company. It appears that’s not quite the case as much anymore, and I suppose insurance acquisitions will provide the financial fuel and the stability the Johns Mansvilles and MidAmerica types of acquisitions will need for their future growth. But I’m hoping that you and Charlie can describe for us an anticipated future look at, say, 20 years out, of how Berkshire might be different and — from how it is today — and perhaps a couple of the not so obvious problems that Berkshire will need to contend with. And thank you for all the apparently wonderful acquisitions you’ve made on our behalf in the last year.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, thank you. I think you ought to take your wife another ring, too. (Laughter) But thank you. We actually, as long ago as — I don’t remember whether it was in the 1980 annual report, but at least 20 years ago, we did say that we thought insurance would be our most significant business over time. We had no idea that it would get to be as significant as it is. But we’ve always felt that that was — we would be in many businesses — but that insurance was likely to be our largest business. Right now, it’s not our largest business in terms of employment. It’s our largest business in terms of revenue. And we would hope it gets a lot bigger over time. We don’t have anything in the works that would make that happen, although we will have natural growth in what we already own. But we will just keep acquiring things. And sometimes — some years we’ll, you know, we’ll make a big acquisition. Some years we’ll make a few small acquisitions. We’ll do whatever comes down the pike.

I mean, if there’s a phone call waiting when this meeting is over and it’s an interesting acquisition, it’ll get done. We don’t have a master plan. We don’t — Charlie and I do not sit around and strategize or talk about the future of various industries or do anything of that sort. It just doesn’t happen. We don’t have any reports. We don’t have any staff. We don’t have any of that. We try to look at what comes in — we try to survey the whole financial field. We try to look at what comes in and look for things we understand, where we think they have a durable, competitive advantage, where we like the management, and where the price is sensible. And, you know, we had no idea two or three years ago, you know, that we would be the 87 percent owner of the largest carpet company — broadloom carpet company — in the world. You know, we just don’t — we don’t plan these things. But I would tell you in a general way that 20 or so years from now, we will own a lot more businesses.

I would still think it likely — I mean, I think it’s certain that insurance will be a bigger business for us in 20 years than it is now. Probably much bigger. But I think it’s — and I think it’s also likely it will be our biggest business still. But that could change. I mean, we could get a deal offered to us tomorrow that, you know, was a 15- or $20 billion deal, and then we’ve got a lot of money in that industry at that point. So it’s — we have no more master plan now than we had back in 1965 when we bought the textile mill, really. I mean, we had a lousy business. I didn’t realize it was as lousy as it was when I got into it. And we had to, you know, we just had to start trying to deploy capital in an intelligent way. But we’ve been deploying capital, you know, since I was 11. And I mean, that’s our business and we enjoy it. And we get opportunities to do it. But the bigger you are, the fewer the opportunities you’re likely to get. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think it’s almost a sure thing that 20 years from now there’ll be way more strength and value behind each Berkshire share. I also think it is an absolutely sure thing that the annual percentage rate of progress will go way down from what it has been in the past.

WARREN BUFFETT: No question about it.

17. Buffett’s cholesterol level

WARREN BUFFETT: On that happy note, we move to zone 7. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Gary Radstrom (PH) from right here in River City [Omaha]. I’ve been a shareholder since ’93, and have loved every minute of it. Recently, there’s been medication available to reduce cholesterol. My doctor even gave it to me since mine is kind of high. Every time I hear what you like to eat, Warren, it makes me wonder what your cholesterol level is — (Laughter) — or if you even worry about it. I think everyone here wants you to be with us for a long time, so have you considered taking this new medication to reduce your cholesterol level? (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: I do know the number, and I don’t remember it. My doctor tells me, “It’s a little high,” but if he says it’s a little high, it means it isn’t that high, or he would — because he always tries to push me into making a few changes in my life. But he — I’ve got a wonderful doctor. And I was lucky last year, because I hadn’t been in to see him for about five years. And — (laughter) — due to — those guys cost a lot of money, I mean. (Laughter) And due to purely an accident, a reaction to some other medicine I was given when I was out of the city, he got a hold of me, and then he shamed me into having a physical. And it was extremely lucky, because I had a polyp in the colon that would have probably caused trouble, you know, within a couple of years. I would say that if you ask my doctor, he would want me to make a few changes, but he would also say that my life expectancy is probably a lot better than the average person of 70.

You know, I have no stress whatsoever. Zero. You know, I mean, I get to do what I love to do every day. You know, and I’m surrounded by people that are terrific. So that problem in life just doesn’t exist for me. You know, and I don’t smoke or drink or, well, we’ll end it right there. (Laughter) And so, you know, if you were an underwriter for a life company, you would rate me considerably better than the average. You’d rate Charlie better than average, too. And I’m sure that, you know, I could change it slightly, perhaps, on the probabilities, you know, if I change my diet dramatically or something. But it’s very unlikely to happen. Actually, when my mother got to be 80 — you know, the most important thing in life, in terms of how long you live, is how long your parents live. So I got her an exercise bike when she got to be 80. (Laughter) She put 40,000 miles on it. And I told her to watch her diet and do all these things.

And I mean, she lived to be 92, so you know, she did her share, and I helped her do it by giving her the exercise bicycle. So, I think that improved my odds at that point. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. I have a book recommendation which will be very helpful to all shareholders that worry about Warren’s health and longevity. And that’s this book called “Genome” by Matt Ridley, who was, for years, the science editor of The Economist magazine. And if Ridley is right, Warren has a very long life expectancy. There are very interesting correlations between people who cause stress to others instead of suffering it themselves. (Laughter and applause) And Warren has been in that position ever since I’ve known him. (Laughter) And the figures that Ridley quotes are awesomely interesting. It is a fabulous book. Of course, I’m recommending a bestseller, but they’re selling it in the airport. It’s called “Genome,” and you’ll feel very good about Warren’s future if you agree with the science of the book.

18. Unrealistic investment expectations for pension funds

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 8.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Charlie Sink (PH). I’m from North Carolina. Mr. Buffett, your article last year in Fortune Magazine was excellent. I’m thinking — well, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on American business profit margins and return on equity in the future. I also would like your thoughts about the — some businesses today with their huge inventory write-offs, what your thoughts about those are.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, in that article I talked about the unlikelihood of corporate profits in the United States getting much larger than 6 percent of GDP. And historically, the band has been between 4 and 6 percent. And we’ve been up at 6 percent recently. So, unless you think that profits, as a part of the whole country’s economic output, are going to become a bigger slice of the pie — and bear in mind, they can only become a bigger slice of the pie if other slices get diminished to some extent, and you’re talking about personal income and items like that. So, I think it’s perfectly rational and reasonable that in a capitalistic society the corporate profits are something like 6 percent of GDP. That does not strike me as outlandish in either direction. It attracts massive amounts of capital, because returns on equity will be very good if you earn that sort of money. And on the other hand, I think it would be very difficult in the society to get where they’d be 10 percent or 12 percent, or something of the sort because it just — it would look like an unfair division of the pie to the populace.

So, I don’t see any reason for corporate profits — they’re going to be down in the near future as a percentage of GDP from recently, but then they’ll go back up at some point. So I think 10 years from now, you’ll be looking at a very similar picture. Now, if that’s your assumption and you’re already capitalizing those profits at a pretty good multiple, then you have to say that you have to come to the conclusion that the value of American business will grow at a relationship that’s not much greater than the growth in GDP. And most of you would estimate that probably to be, you know, maybe 5 percent a year, if you expect a couple percent a year of inflation. So, I wouldn’t change my thoughts about the profitability of American business over time. And I wouldn’t change my thoughts much about the relationship of stock prices over time to those profits. So, I — you know, I would come down very similarly.

Now, interestingly enough, some of those same relationships prevailed decades ago, but you were buying stocks that were yielding you perhaps 5 percent or something like that, so that you were getting 5 percent in your pocket, plus that growth as you went along. And of course, now if you buy stocks you get 1 1/2 percent, if you’re the American public, before the frictional cost. So that the same rate of growth produces a way smaller aggregate return. And some — You know, I think stocks are a perfectly decent way to make 6 or 7 percent a year over the next 15 or 20 years. But I think anybody that expects to make 15 percent per year, or expects their broker or investment advisor to make that kind of money, is living in a dream world. And it’s particularly interesting to me that back when the prospects for stocks were far better — I even wrote something about this in the late ’70s — pension funds were using investment rate assumptions that were often in the 6 percent or thereabout range. And now when the prospects are way poorer, most pension funds are using — building into their calculations — returns of 9 percent or better on investments.

I don’t know how they’re going to get 9 percent or better on investments. But I also know that they change the investment assumption down, it will change the charge to earnings substantially. And they don’t want to do that. So, they continue to use investment assumptions which I think are quite unrealistic. And with companies with a big pension component in their financial situation, and therefore in their income statement, that can be quite significant. It will be interesting to me to see whether in the next couple years where pension funds are experiencing significant shortfalls from their assumptions, how quickly they change the assumptions. And the consulting firms are not pushing them to do that at all. It’s very interesting. The consulting firms are telling them what they want to hear, which is hardly news to any of us. But it’s what’s taking place. The second question about inventory write-offs.

You know, that gets into the category entirely of big-bath charges, which are the tendencies of management, when some bad news is coming along, to try and put all the bad news that’s happened into a single quarter or a single year — and even to put the bad news that they are worried about happening in the future into that year. And it’s — it leads to real deception in accounting. The SEC has tried to get quite tough on that, but my experience has been that managements that want to do it usually can find some ways to do it. And managements, frequently, are more conscious of what numbers they want to report than they are of what has actually transpired in a given quarter or a given year. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, pension fund accounting is drifting into scandal by making these unreasonable investment assumptions. It’s — evidently, it’s part of the human condition that people extrapolate the recent past. And so, since returns from common stocks have been high for quite a long period, they extrapolate that they will continue to be very high into the future. And that creates a lot of reported earnings, in terms of pension benefits, that aren’t available in cash and are likely not to be available at all. And this is not a good idea, and it’s interesting how few corporate managements have just responded like Sam Goldwyn: “Include me out.” You’d think more people would just say, “This is a scummy way to keep the books, and I will not participate.” Instead, everybody just drifts along with the tide, assisted by all these wonderful consultants.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t think — I don’t know of any case in the United States right now, and I’m sure there are some, but except for the pension funds that we take over, I don’t know of any case where people are reducing their assumed investment return. Now you’d think if interest rates drifted down several percentage points that that might affect what you would think would be earned with money. It certainly is to bond holders or to us with float or something of the sort. But most major corporations, I believe, are using an investment return assumption of 9 percent or higher. And that’s with long-term governments below 6 percent, you know, and maybe highgrade corporates at 7. They don’t know how to get it in the bond market. They don’t know how to get it in the mortgage market. I don’t think they know how to get it in the stock market. But it would cause their earnings to go down if they change their investment assumption. And, like I say, I don’t know of a major company that’s thinking about it.

And I don’t know of a major actuarial consultant that’s suggesting it to the managements. It just — they’d rather not think about it.

CHARLIE MUNGER: The way they’re doing things would be like living right on an earthquake fault that was building up stress every year and projecting that the longer it’s been without an earthquake the less likely an earthquake is to occur. That is a dumb way to write earthquake insurance. (Laughter) And the current practice is a dumb way to do pension fund planning and accounting.

WARREN BUFFETT: If you talk —

CHARLIE MUNGER: Dumb and improper.

WARREN BUFFETT: If you talk to a management or board of directors about that, you get absolutely no place.

CHARLIE MUNGER: No, they — their eyes would glaze over before the hostility came. (Laughter)

19. Executive Jet won’t be a “mature” business “for decades”

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 1.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, gentlemen. Marc Rabinov from Melbourne, Australia. I had a question on two of our key operating businesses. Firstly, Executive Jet. Once this becomes a mature business, would it be fair to say that its net margin should be about 5 percent? And secondly, would it be fair to say that our current insurance businesses are likely to grow aggregate float at about 10 percent over time?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it’s really anybody’s guess. I mean, I don’t expect Executive Jet to become a mature business for decades. I mean, it — there’s a whole world out there on that one. And we have something over 2,000 customers in the United States at the current time. We have a little over a hundred, but in Europe. But there are tens and tens and tens of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people or businesses where it does make sense over time. So it’s going to be long time. I mean, there are only 700, roughly, jets a year being produced. And of course, up until a few years ago that was limited to people who wanted to buy single planes. But you won’t change that output much in the next five years. But — so, you couldn’t really take on — We can take on about 600 customers a year, just in terms of the delivery schedule that we have built into our business.

And we couldn’t change that — we couldn’t double that — because the planes simply aren’t available in the next year or two, although we have orders further out. But I would say it will be a long time until Executive Jet is a mature business, and I would say that — a long, long time. I mean, we’re going to, when we get Europe — as we make progress in Europe, we’ll move to Asia. We’ll move to Latin America over time. And so we’re going to be, I think, growing that business significantly for a very long time. When it becomes mature, or close to it, you know, if you’re talking 5 percent after-tax margins, I’d say that that’s probably a reasonable figure. But we’re so far away from even thinking about that, that, you know, it’s pure speculation.

20. “There’s an unlimited market for dumb insurance policies”

WARREN BUFFETT: In our insurance business, we’ve grown our float and then we’ve purchased businesses to add to the float. This year, I would certainly expect, unless one — a big transaction would fall through or something — I would certainly expect our float to grow at least 2 1/2 billion. And that is close to 10 percent of the beginning of the year float. That’s a rational expectation. But whether it can grow 10 percent a year, you know, how far you can do that — I would say the total float of the property-casualty industry in the United States is — I’m pulling this out from making some other calculations in my head as I talk — but it wouldn’t be much more than 300 billion. So, we are close to 10 percent of the entire U.S. float now, and I don’t think the U.S. float — the aggregate float — you know, is going to grow at a 10 percent rate. So when you’re as big a part of the pie as we are, it may be difficult to sustain a 10 percent rate.

But we’re doing everything possible that makes sense to grow float. I mean, that is a major, major objective. But the even bigger objective is to keep it low-cost. I don’t think you can see — unless the world changes in some way — I don’t think you can see 10 percent growth over 25 years. But we’ll do our darnedest to get it, you know, at the rate you suggest for at least the near future. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I certainly agree that long term, it’s not going to happen. Good, but not that good. (Buffett laughs)

WARREN BUFFETT: But we’ve been surprised at what’s happened. I mean, there’s no — I mean, when we bought Jack Ringwalt’s company in 1967, you know, my memory is Jack had a float of, you know, less than 15 million. And would we have ever guessed that we might hit something close to 30 billion this year? We never dreamt of it. But we just kept doing things, and we’ll keep doing things. But it can’t be at huge rates for a long period of time, because we’re too big a part of the pie now. We were nothing initially, and we kept grabbing a little more of the pie as we’ve gone along. And we like that, but it can’t go on forever.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. That’s what I call really low-cost float. If it ever should be advantageous for us to go into what I would call higher-cost float, that might change the figures upward, in terms of growth of float.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Although, that won’t be — I mean, it could happen that we could take on incrementally some higher-cost float under very special circumstances if we saw unusually good ways to use it, but that — we don’t even like to think about that. We certainly don’t want the people running our businesses to think about that. Because keeping it low- cost, you know, that is the big end of the game. Anybody can generate float. I mean, if we gave our managers a goal of generating 5 billion of float next year, they could do it in a minute, you know, and we would be paying the price for decades to come. You can write dumb insurance policies, you know. There’s an unlimited market for dumb insurance policies. And they’re very pleasant, because the first day the premium comes in and that’s the last time you see any new money. From then on, it’s all going out. And that’s not our aim in life.

21. GEICO focusing on U.S. instead of global expansion

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 2?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Kjell Hagan (PH). I’m a Norwegian working in Tokyo in Japan. I’m very satisfied to have more than 95 percent of our family’s savings in Berkshire. I have two questions. In my work, I’ve seen a lot of insurance companies in Europe and Japan. And I think that GEICO’s business model is quite superior to most primary insurance companies in Europe and Japan. And I think that GEICO would be very successful in Europe and Asia. So I’d like to hear what are the views and plans for GEICO doing business in Europe and Asia. Second, regarding Coca-Cola — living in Japan, I notice that Coke has a relatively low presence in advertising, although they are the largest player with 30 percent market share versus 15 for the number two. I think Coke is being too cheap on advertising, thus hurting the long-term position. I wonder if advertising strategy internationally is a high enough priority of Coke’s management, and if aggressiveness is sufficient. I’d like to hear if you have any comments on this.

Also I’d just like to thank you very much for this experience and for the wonderful company you have created.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, thank you very much. Clearly when you’ve got a business model that works as well as GEICO has in this country and it continues to work well, and has that fundamental advantage of being a low-cost operator, we think about every possible way that we can take that idea and extend it. It’s been remarkably hard to do it. I mean, the management has tried various things, ever since Leo Goodwin started the company in 1936, to take it into other areas, and those efforts have been modestly successful at certain things like life insurance, but then they got out of it, and various other things. But it’s an idea still. We have — you know, we have 4 percent or so of the market in the United States. This market is so huge. And as we look at the drain on human resources involved in extending it into other countries, and we’ve looked at it a lot, and it may be something we’ll do at some time.

But we’ve never felt that the possible gain, considering the rigidities of these other — both in Europe and in Asia — of breaking in — it’s not easy to get into those markets. And the cost, the time, we just felt that it would be better to concentrate those same resources in this country. It’s not a question of capital at all. I mean, we’d put the money in in a second. And we’re doing it in something like NetJets in Europe. I mean, we — there’s a human cost to it, there’s a financial cost to it. Financial cost bothers us not at all. Human cost is a real question, because it gets back to Charlie’s opportunity cost. We have talented managers, but we have a finite number of them. And I would rather have Tony Nicely and Bill Roberts and their crew focusing on how to gain additional market share in this country at the right rates than I would starting in a project in Europe or Asia now. But that’s — it’s a very good question. It’s something I can guarantee you we think about all the time and will continue to think about.

We’ve tried to extend geography. Coke has been the most successful company in the world in extending geography. We’ve tried to do it with See’s Candy, and it’s had limited — very limited — success. I mean, we’ve tried 50 different ways, because the trials are relatively cheap to do. And we think it should work, we just haven’t been able to make it work. But that — it’s a very good question.

22. Coca-Cola advertising in Japan

WARREN BUFFETT: The question about Coke’s advertising in Japan. As you know, Coke has a terrific presence in Japan. Japan’s an interesting market, because the percentage of soft drinks sold through vending machines is just far, far higher than any place in the world. And the United States is a very distant second. And then, the rest of the world, there’s very little done in the way of vending machines. I don’t know the specifics of the advertising in Japan, but of course, Doug Daft who now is the CEO of Coke, comes with a huge background in Asia. I mean, that was his territory for much of his career. And Doug — we have a new major — very major — advertising campaign coming up. And you probably read that Coke is going to spend 300 million-plus additional on marketing beyond the normal spend, which is huge. And I can’t tell you the specific markets in which that will be, but I would be surprised if Japan isn’t a big part of it, because Japan is an enormous market for Coca-Cola. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I have nothing to add.

23. Berkshire’s asbestos exposure

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 3, please.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Steve Rosenberg (PH). I’m from Ann Arbor, Michigan. First, I just want to thank both of you for being two phenomenal role models. I’ve really looked up to you both for a long time. My first question is about reinsurance. I believe that you’re willing to write larger policies in reinsurance than anyone else, but that you still insist on the amount of your liability being capped. I’m wondering, with your investments in companies with — that have exposure to asbestos, have you somehow capped that? Or is that unlimited, especially given joint and several liability? My second question involves auto insurance. And I was wondering, does State Farm’s structure as a mutual insurance company compensate it — or help it compensate — for having a higher cost structure because, over the long term, it need only remain solvent and not provide an adequate return on capital to its investors?

WARREN BUFFETT: The first question, on asbestos. We have not put any significant money, to our knowledge, in any company that has any asbestos exposure now. You know, we have a small amount of money in USG, where the subsidiary, United States Gypsum, has a major asbestos exposure. But that’s a very, very minor investment. The — and that would be the only one that I can think of. We’ve walked away from several deals that were quite attractive in every respect except asbestos. But that’s like saying to a 120-year-old, you know, “You’re in good health except for the fact that you’re dead.” (Laughter) So we don’t go near asbestos. Now, in terms of our retroactive insurance policies, we are taking over the liabilities of companies that have lots of asbestos exposure. And in that case, we assume that those exposure — that those contracts — will be paid in full. I mean, we make no assumption of any reduction in asbestos costs, but we do cap them. There’s a couple things you can’t cap in insurance.

You can’t cap workers’ compensation losses. I mean, they —you can as a reinsurer, but I mean, the primary insurer can’t do that. I believe in auto, for example, in the U.K., that it’s uncapped. And I think that nobody thought that was very serious until they had a recent accident that caused — I think it involved a car doing something that — an auto doing something to a train that was unbelievable. So they — there are a few areas where insurance is written on an uncapped basis. And in our case, we write some auto insurance in the U.K. and we write some workers’ compensation, primarily in California. But generally, in the reinsurance business, you are capping the liabilities you take on. I mean, obviously, when we bought General Re, they had asbestos liabilities from reinsurance contracts they had written. But the reinsurance companies are pretty careful about writing unlimited policies. We write huge limits. We’re the biggest — you know, if somebody wants to write a huge limit, or an unusual limit, they should call us.

Because there’s no one else in the world that will act as big or as promptly as we will. But we don’t write things that are unlimited. Now, the interesting thing is that the biggest exposures, in our view, are the people that write a lot of primary business and don’t have the catastrophe cover they need. I mean, if you write 10 percent of all the business in homeowners on — or 15 percent — on Long Island or in Florida, I mean, you are writing a catastrophe cover that would blow your mind. If you’re Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae and you’re guaranteeing mortgages, you know, for millions of people in areas like that, and they don’t have insurance — earthquake in California or property insurance in Florida — they’d be less likely to have earthquakes someplace — you are taking on enormous risks. I mean, huge risks, far beyond what we would ever take on. They just — but you don’t get paid for them, unfortunately. I mean, just take the New Madrid section of Missouri, down in the corner.

That was the area of three of the greatest quakes, that are sort of related in time, in the — certainly in the recorded history, they were the three greatest quakes in the United States. You know, how much homeowners’ business, how much commercial property business, does somebody have in that huge territory, which you know, supposedly caused church bells to ring in Boston when it happened back in whenever it was — 1807, or ’9, or something like that? So, there are all kinds of risks that can aggregate in huge ways that companies are not thinking about at all. I mean, I don’t know whether Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, for example, is demanding that all of the homes they insure in the, you know, 300-miles radius of New Madrid, have earthquake insurance. But, you know, it — that sort of thing never comes to mind until the unthinkable happens. But in insurance, the unthinkable always happens.

28. Calling it a “hedge fund” doesn’t make you any smarter

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 5?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Michael Wong (PH), San Diego, California. First of all, I would like to thank both of you. My question is, when you started your business, why you started an investment partnership instead of a mutual fund? And also, can you recommend a good book, or books, regarding how to start an investment partnership fund and how to service clients, et cetera?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t know of any books on starting partnerships or hedge funds. Do you know, Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: No, but people seem to manage to create them without the books. (Laughter) The incentives are awesome.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yes. And the one thing, I mean, it’s always interesting to both of us how you get certain things that are fashionable. And people think that by naming something a given name, that somehow that makes everybody smarter or able to make money in it. I mean, there is no magic to private equity funds, international investing, hedge funds — all of the baloney that gets promoted in Wall Street. What happens is that certain things become very promotable, usually because there’s been recent successes by other people, and that the new entrants extrapolate the successes of a few people in the past to promote new money from people currently. So, they adopt titles that, you know, that they think will attract money and they — but it doesn’t make anybody any smarter if they hang out a shingle in front of their house that says, “hedge fund” or they have a shingle that says “asset allocation firm” or something of the sort. The form doesn’t create talent. I backed into the business. I mean, I’d worked for a mutual fund — closed-end investment company.

In fact, there’s a fellow here today who’s a friend of mine that — the two of us worked there, and we were 40 percent of the whole company because there were three other people, all of whom outranked us considerably. And that firm was Graham-Newman Corp, from 1954 to 1956. And it was a regulated investment company. It was about $6 million in assets, which seemed like a big deal at the time. And Ben Graham was one of the best known investors in the world, and he had $6 million in his fund. There was a sister partnership called Newman and Graham, which operated in what would, today, be called “hedge fund style,” as far as a partnership split of the profits and so on. And when I left there in ’56 and I came back here, we had seven people, a couple of whom are here in the room, who said, “Do you want to manage money?” And I said, “Well, here’s what I learned at Graham-Newman,” that Newman and Graham is a better way to do it than GrahamNewman.

So I formed a little partnership, and then I met Charlie a few years later. And he figured, if I was making money doing it, he’d make a lot more. So — (laughter) — he formed one. And that was the carefully calculated strategy of how we both became involved in the partnership business. Charlie? (Laughs)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, it is amazing how big the hedge fund industry has become. They have conventions on the subject now. And in the late ’20s, you could take a course on how to run a crooked security pool. And these things come in great waves. I’m not suggesting the hedge funds are crooked, but I am suggesting that you get these waves of fashion that go to great extremes. The amount of money, what is it now, Warren, in hedge funds?

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s very big, although it’s a little less in a few quarters than it used to be. (Laughs) But I would be willing to put a lot of money up that if you take the aggregate experience of all the hedge funds — as starting right today and going for the next 15 years — I would bet a lot of money it will not hit 10 percent, in terms of return to partners. And I would, if you push me, I would bet at a lower figure than that.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Then you have Bernie Cornfeld’s idea, the Fund of Funds. There are people who want to get paid for selecting hedge funds for other people. And that didn’t work very well for Bernie Cornfeld.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it worked pretty well for Bernie for a while, but it didn’t work so well for his investors, actually. (Laughter) Yeah. That result was probably something Bernie had in mind at the start maybe.

29. Investing small amounts allows bigger opportunities

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 6.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Michael Zenga from Danvers, Massachusetts. That’s a town whose band Mr. Buffett so generously sent to the Rose Bowl parade last year, so you’re a very popular guy in my town. Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. Mr. Buffett, I wanted to ask you this question last week when I ran into you after Gillette’s annual meeting, but I choked. So now that there’s no pressure, here goes. (Laughter) In the years from — from my reading — in the years from 1956 through ’69, you achieved the best results of your career quantitatively. Twenty-nine percent annually against only 7 percent for the Dow. Your approach then was different than now. You looked for lots of undervalued stocks with less attention to competitive advantage or favorable economics and sold them rather quickly. As your capital base grew, you switched your approach to buying undervalued excellent companies with favorable long-term economics. My question is, if you were investing a small sum today, which approach would you use?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would use the approach that I think I’m using now of trying to search out businesses that — where I think they’re selling at the lowest price relative to the discounted cash they would produce in the future. But if I were working with a small amount of money, the universe would be huge compared to the universe of possible ideas I work with now. You mentioned that ’56 to ’69 was the best period. Actually, my best period was before that. It was from right after I met Ben Graham in 19 — early 1951 — but from the end of 1950 through the next 10 years, actually, returns averaged about 50 percent a year. And I think they were 37 points better than the Dow per year, something like that. But that — I was working with a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of money. And so, I would pour through volumes of businesses and I would find one or two that I could put $10,000 into or $15,000 into that just were — they were ridiculously cheap. And obviously, as the money increased, the universe of possible ideas started shrinking dramatically. The times were also better for doing it in that time.

But I think that, if you’re working with a small amount of money, with exactly the same background that Charlie and I have, and same ideas, same whatever ability we have — you know, I think you can make very significant sums. But you — but as soon as you start getting the money up into the millions — many millions — the curve on expectable results falls off just dramatically. But that’s the nature of it. You’ve got to — you know, when you get up to things you could put millions of dollars into, you’ve got a lot of competition looking at that. And they’re not looking as I did when I started. When I started, I went through the pages of the manuals page by page. I mean, I probably went through 20,000 pages in the Moody’s industrial, transportation, banks and finance manuals. And I did it twice. And I actually, you know, looked at every business. I didn’t look very hard at some. Well, that’s not a practical way to invest tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

So I would say, if you’re working with a small sum of money and you’re really interested in the business and willing to do the work, you can — you will find something. There’s no question about it in my mind. You will find some things that promise very large returns compared to what we will be able to deliver with large sums of money. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, yeah, I think that’s right. A brilliant man who can’t get any money from other people, and is working with a very small sum, probably should work in very obscure stocks searching out unusual mispriced opportunities. But, you know, you could — it’s such a small world. It may be a way for one person to come up, but it’s a long slog.

30. Promotion, not performance, is Wall Street’s biggest money maker

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, most smart people, unfortunately, in Wall Street figure that they can make a lot more money a lot easier just by, one way or another, you know, getting an override on other people’s money or delivering services in some way that people — And the monetization of hope and greed, you know, is a way to make a huge amount of money. And right now, it’s very — just take hedge funds. I mean, it’s — I’ve had calls from a couple of friends in the last month that don’t know anything about investing money. They’ve been unsuccessful and everything else. And, you know, one of them called me the other day and said, “Well, I’m forming a small hedge fund.” A hundred and twenty-five million he was talking about. Like, the thought that since it was only 125 million, maybe we ought to put in 10 million or something of the sort. I mean, if you looked at this fellow’s Schedule D on his 1040 for the last 20 years, you know, you’d think he ought to be mowing lawns.

(Laughter) But he may get his 125 million. I mean, you know, it’s just astounding to me how willing people are, during a bull market, just to toss money around, because, you know, they think it’s easy. And of course, that’s what they felt about internet stocks a few years ago. They’ll think it about something else next year, too. But the biggest money made, you know, in Wall Street in recent years, has not been made by great performance, but it’s been made by great promotion, basically. Charlie, do you have anything?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would state it even more strongly. I think the current scene is obscene. I think there’s too much mania. There’s too much chasing after easy money. There’s too much misleading sales material about investments. There’s too much on the television emphasizing speculation in stocks.

31. Powerful forces don’t want to expense stock options

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 7.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Robert Piton from Chicago. The Honorable Warren Buffett and the Honorable Charlie Munger, I felt it would be appropriate to address you both in a manner that reflects the tremendous amount of value that the two of you have been instrumental in unleashing for your shareholders, your employees, and the good of society. (Applause) The area that I’d like to inquire about is stock options. As you are aware and have written about in the past reports, companies have been taking advantage of, and contributing to, FASB’s inadequate rules regarding stock options. In particular, the lack of having to expense them on the income statement and the lack of having to report them as a liability on the balance sheet. My question is, are either one of you doing anything to help FASB’s current stance on the issue? If not, have either one of you ever considered establishing a, quote, “real,” end quote, independent body of accountants that would actually try to make companies produce accounting statements that reflect economic reality?

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie, I’ll let you. You have the history on it.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, we don’t like the accounting, which we’ve called “corrupt,” or at least I have. And I don’t think that’s too strong a word. I think it’s corrupt to have false accounting because you like a certain outcome better than another. All that said, I don’t think either of us spends a lot of time fighting with FASB or trying to create a better one. It’s like splitting your lance against stone or something. You can get a lot of back pressure from the butt of the lance. And we can’t be expected to cure all the ills of the world.

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve written about it and talked about it. Obviously, you’ve picked up on it. And when it was an active issue whenever it was, about, I don’t know, four years ago or so, Senator [Carl] Levin of Michigan was one of those who felt as we did. And, of course, FASB felt as we did. But the pressure was incredible that American business brought on, on Congress. They weren’t getting — they tried to put pressure on FASB and they weren’t getting a result, so they just said, “Well, we’re not going to let FASB set the accounting rules, we’ll have Congress set the accounting rules.” And I thought that was a bad idea, per se, but I thought in this — and, but they got plenty of supporters. Got a huge number of supporters. I mean, they — And at the time, I compared it, I think — there was a bill introduced in the Indiana legislature in the 1890s, I believe.

And the bill was to change the value of the mathematical term “pi” to three even, instead of 3.1415… (Laughter) And the legislator who introduced it said that it was too difficult for the school children of Indiana to work with this terribly long, unending term. And it would be so much easier if pi was just three. And he thought they ought to enact that. Well, I thought that was quite rational compared to, you know, what the Congress of the United States was going to do in telling people that, since it — one of the arguments was that, “It makes it very tough for startup companies if they have to expense this.” Well, it makes tough if they have to pay their electricity bill, too. But, I mean, but those were the kind of arguments you got. And my memory is, Charlie is better on this than I am probably, but I think the accounting firms 40 years ago or 50 years ago were in accord with our position. But every client would put pressure on, you know, and they don’t want to report expenses.

They particularly don’t want to report expenses that are paid to them, and that could be huge, and that might prove obnoxious if recorded by conventional accounting. But if it’s sort of lost in a table in the proxy statement, people don’t pay much attention. So, the only way it will get changed — we wrote about it and I even talked to a few senators at the time — the only way it will get changed is — and this is the only way corporate governance problems generally will get changed — if 15 or 20 large institutional investors would band together in some way on this. But some of them have the same problem because they’re getting paid extraordinary sums for doing something that, you know, is really not adding that much value. So, they’re not really inclined to call attention, in many cases, to what Charlie would refer to as “obscenities” in other people’s compensation. So, I think it’s going to go on. I mean, it’s a fascinating subject. But the institutional investors seem to focus very much on matters of form and not substance.

I mean, you get a lot of — they, you know, they cluck a lot about little things that don’t have anything to do with their economic return over time, whereas on stock options they’re something that’s terribly important. They’re the ones that are paying the costs, and the costs are there whether they get recorded or not. But American management will not change its position on that voluntarily. Consultants will never change their position. They’re getting paid to encourage people to look at other companies, and it just keeps ratcheting up. So, I don’t think you’re going to see change unless institutional investors do it. As I say, I get these questionnaires, you know, about the composition of the board or a nominating committee. None of that makes any difference in terms of how a business performs. I got one form that said they wanted a list of directors broken down by sex. And I said, “None that I know of.” (Laughter) But it just is not germane. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I can’t top that one. (Laughter)

32. No company should predict 15 percent annual growth

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 8, please.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Steve Casbell (PH) from Atlanta. My question concerns Gillette. Do you think their goal of trying to grow earnings at 15-plus percent kind of got them into their current inventory problems at the trade? And as well, the Duracell acquisition. I know at the time, neither one of you were the biggest fans of the deal. I just want to know how you feel about it now.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say it’s a mistake. And I’ve said it. I think it’s a mistake for any company to predict 15 percent a year growth. But plenty of them do. For one thing, you know, unless the U.S. economy grows at 15 percent a year, eventually any 15 percent number catches up with you. It just, it doesn’t make sense. Very, very few large companies can compound their earnings at 15 percent. It isn’t going to happen. You can look at the Fortune 500, and if you want to pick 10 names on there that will compound their growth from — other than some extraordinarily depressed year, I mean, if they had a year where they just broke even so the number’s practically zero. But if you pick any company on there that currently has record earnings, and you want to pick out 10 of them that over the next 20 years will average 15 percent or greater, I will, you know, I will bet you that more than half of your list will not make it.

So, I think it’s a mistake, and as I’ve said in the annual report, I think it leads people to stretch on accounting. I think it tends to make them change trade practices. And you know, I’m not singling out Gillette in the least, but I can tell you that if you look at the companies that have done it, you will find plenty of examples of people who have made those sort of mistakes. And I think that, in connection with Duracell — I mean, obviously, Duracell has not turned out the way that the management of Gillette, at the time, hoped that it was going to do. And the investment bankers who came in and made the presentations, those presentations would look pretty silly now. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think that kind of stuff happens all the time. It will continue to happen. It’s just built into the system. I see more predictions of future earnings growth at a high rate, not less. I mean, a few people have sort of taken an abstinence pledge, but it’s very few. It’s what the analysts want to hear.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s what the investor relations departments want the managements to say. It makes their life easier, you know. But they don’t have to be there five years from now or 10 years from now doing the same thing. It’s — If we predicted 15 percent from Berkshire, you know, 15 percent means that — assuming the same multiples — I mean, that means in five years, 200 billion. In 10 years, 400 billion. You know, 15 years, 800 billion. A trillion-six in 20 years. And the values get to be crazy. And you know, if you have a business with a market value of 4- or 500 billion — and you had a few of those not so long ago — just think of what it takes to deliver, in the way of future cash, at a 15 percent discount rate to justify that. If you’ve got a business that’s delivering you no cash today and it’s selling for $500 billion, you know, to give you 15 percent on your money, it would have to be giving you 75 billion this year.

But if it doesn’t give you 75 billion this year, you know, it has to be giving you 86 and a quarter billion next year. And if it doesn’t do it next year, it has to be giving you almost a hundred billion in the third year. It just — those numbers are staggering. I mean, the implications involved in certain market valuations really, you know, belong in “Gulliver’s Travels” or something. But people take them very seriously. I mean, people were valuing businesses at $500 billion a year, a year-and-a-half ago, and there’s just no mathematical — almost no mathematical calculation you could make that would — if you demanded something like 15 percent on your money — there’s almost no mathematical calculation you could make that would — could possibly lead you to justify those valuations. Charlie, have any more?

CHARLIE MUNGER: You know, I said on another occasion that, to some extent, stocks sell like Rembrandts. They don’t sell based on the value that people are going to get from looking at the picture. They sell based on the fact that Rembrandts have gone up in value in the past. And when you get that kind of valuation in the stocks, some crazy things can happen. Bonds are way more rational, because nobody can believe that a bond paying a fixed rate of modest interest can go to the sky, but with stocks they behave partly like Rembrandts. And I said, suppose you filled every pension fund in America with nothing but Rembrandts? Of course, Rembrandts would keep going up and up as people bought more and more Rembrandts, or pieces of Rembrandts, at higher and higher prices. I said, “Wouldn’t that create a hell of a mess after 20 years of buying Rembrandts?” And to the extent that stock prices generally become sort of irrational, isn’t it sort of like filling half the pension funds with Rembrandts? I think those are good questions.

WARREN BUFFETT: Once it gets going, though, people have an enormous interest in pushing Rembrandts. I mean, it creates its own constituency.

33. “It’s stupid the way people are extrapolating the past”

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 1?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, my name is Joe Schulman (PH). I’m a shareholder from Oxford, Maryland. Thank you for a wonderful meeting. In order for Berkshire to have an opportunity to hopefully grow its earnings by about 15 percent per year, if we can do that, at least for the next few years, it’s obvious that because of the redeployment of earnings and float, the existing businesses do not need to grow at 15 percent. At what rate would you expect the existing businesses to grow to achieve an aggregate rate close to what I’m describing? And what do you think the probability is of achieving that?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yes. Well, I think the probability of us achieving 15 percent growth in earnings over an extended period of years is so close to zero, it’s not worth calculating. I mean, we’ll do our best, and we have a lot of fun doing it. So it is not something where we have to come down and do things that are boring to us or anything of the sort. I mean, our inclination is to — very much — to do everything we can, legitimately, to add to Berkshire’s earnings in things we can understand. But it can’t happen, over time. You know, we will have years when we do it, but — And you’re quite correct in pointing out we don’t need to do it from the present businesses — we will add things all the time — any more than we needed to do it from the current business back in 1965 with the textile business. I mean, we have to improvise as we go along. And we will. And the businesses we have are good businesses, in aggregate. They will do well.

They won’t do anything like 15 percent growth per annum, but we will take a good rate of progress from those businesses, and we will superimpose upon that acquisitions which will add to that. But we can’t do 15 over a period of time, and — nor, incidentally, do we think any large company in the United States is likely to do. There will be a couple that do it for a long period of time, but to predict which of the Fortune 500 will end up being the one or two or three, would be very hard to do. And it won’t be more than a couple out of 500, if you take large companies not working from a deflated base year. I think our method is a pretty good one. I mean, I think the idea of having a group of good businesses to throw off cash in aggregate, in a big way, that themselves grow, that are run by terrific people, and then adding onto those, sometimes at a slow rate, but every now and then at a good clip, more businesses of the same kind, and not increasing the outstanding shares, I think that’s about as good a business model as you can have for a company our size.

But what it produces, we’ll have to see. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I certainly agree that the chances of this 15 percent per annum progress extrapolated way forward is virtually impossible. I think, generally, the shareholding class in America should reduce its expectations a lot.

WARREN BUFFETT: Including the pension funds.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, including the pension funds, you bet. It’s stupid the way people are extrapolating the past. Not slightly stupid, massively stupid. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: And this is a message, incidentally, if you think about it. I mean, nobody has any interest in saying this — a financial interest in saying it — whereas people have all kinds of financial interest in saying just the opposite. I mean, so you do not get an information flow — if you listen to the financial world or read the financial press — you do not get an information flow that is balanced in any way, in terms of looking at the problem, because the money is in believing something different. And money is what, you know, it’s what causes people to become prominent, or it flows from becoming prominent in the investment world in terms of whether you go on television shows, or whether you manage money, or are trying to attract it through funds, or whatever it may be. I don’t think if you were an actuarial consultant and you insisted that the companies that you gave your actuarial report to use a 6 percent investment rate, I don’t think you’d have a client. So, it’s almost impossible for the advisors, in effect, in my view, to be intellectually honest on it. Don’t you think so, Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. There was a very smart — there is a very smart investment advisor in my town, and he said that, “Years ago, some risk arbitrage firm would tell his clients, ‘We know how to make 15 percent per annum year in and year out.’” And he said, “Years ago, everybody said, ‘That’s impossible.’” He says, “Now in this climate, they say, ‘So what?’” You know, who’s interested in a lousy 15 percent?

WARREN BUFFETT: And it was easier in the earlier climate, obviously, because the money hadn’t been attracted into it.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Generally speaking, there’s more felicity to be gained by — from reducing expectations than in any other way. It is simply crazy for this group to have very high expectations. Moderate expectations will do fine for all of us.

34. No comment on USG investment

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’ll take one more before we go — we break for lunch. We’ll go to number 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Ken Goldberg from Sharon, Massachusetts. A few questions ago, you mentioned the company’s investment in USG. I was wondering how the company — how you got comfortable with that as an investment, in light of the asbestos exposure? Do you view the company — the stock — as cheap enough and the asbestos exposure as manageable enough over time, so that the investment is justified? Or do you view it as, in a worst-case scenario, if the subsidiary with asbestos exposure blows up, the rest of the solid businesses are insulated from that and are alone worth the price of the investment?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Let me answer that. I don’t think we want to comment. (Buffett laughs)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It’s one-tenth of one percent of Berkshire, roughly. I mean, but as Charlie says, that gets too close to giving stock advice. But I will tell you their asbestos problems are serious, and they would be the first to tell you that.

Afternoon Session

1. “Insurance float has been a huge asset to Berkshire”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. I hope you’ve all had a cholesterol free lunch. And — (laughter) — we will move on. And when we stopped, we were about to go to zone 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, my name is Jason Tank from Traverse City, Michigan. I’ve got one kind of quick question that I’m sure you can answer relatively quickly, if you’re not interested. I know that Walter Scott’s on the board of directors and he’s also on the board of directors of a company called Level 3 Communications that is in an industry that’s — well, there’s been a lot of change happening and stock prices have been plummeting. I wonder if you’ve ever — You’ve probably spoken to him at great length about the economics of that business. And have you ever expressed any interest that business, especially at the prices today? That’s the first question. The second question is — if you look at Berkshire Hathaway as a portfolio, you’ve got wholly owned subsidiaries as operating businesses, marketable securities, common stocks and bonds. If you strip out — and if my premise is wrong, just please tell me.

If you strip out the leverage effect of the cost of the float being, you know, nearly zero or negative throughout the years — if you look at the portfolio minus that leverage piece, how fast do you think your book value would’ve grown over the last 30-plus years? Are we talking about 5 percent or 6 percent due to just the leverage piece on the insurance float?

WARREN BUFFETT: I don’t think it would run as much as 5 or 6 percentage points, but the float has been very useful to us. And actually, I’ve never made the calculation. So you could well be correct that if it was 5 or 6 points, that would be a quarter of our book value gain over the years being attributable to insurance float. And I think that’s probably maybe on the high side but — and you can’t make it — We don’t look at insurance float 100 percent the same as we would look at equity, but we’ve looked at it a good bit, you know. It’s largely tantamount to equity because we’ve had so much equity, we could afford to do it that way. So I — you’ll have to make that calculation yourself. We think insurance float has been a huge asset to Berkshire. We think it’ll continue to be a huge asset. And we look for every way possible to increase the amount of low-cost float. On a small scale, we added US Liability last year, an excess surplus lines carrier based in Philadelphia.

And so far, that’s working out extremely well. Got a terrific guy running it. And, you know, in a small way, we add float there. I just looked at the first quarter on it, and we had a significant underwriting profit and we had float added. And, you know, that’s the best of all worlds. So we’ll keep working on it, and it will add — it’s a big asset that Berkshire has that a great many companies — I mean, virtually no other company has it to the degree that we have that also invests in other businesses and uses it as a source of money to invest in other businesses. The question about Level 3, I obviously can’t answer. I just — I can tell you that you have two enormously smart and high-grade guys in Walter Scott and Jim Crowe in that business. But it’s not a business I know a lot about. And if I did, I wouldn’t talk about it. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I cannot talk just as well as you can. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Not always. (Laughter)

2. Accounting “shenanigans” and “gamesmanship”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Section 4.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: John Golob from Kansas City. I have a follow-up question to your comments about how financial statements can be distorted by making over-optimistic assumptions about returns for the pension portfolio. If you believe accounting statements, as published in annual reports, returns on equity for U.S. businesses are amazingly high — higher than in Europe, higher than they’ve been historically, higher than Japan. Are these highs, do you think, completely attributable to accounting shenanigans? Or are there any fundamental reasons in addition that might make returns in the U.S. higher than in Europe or higher than they’ve been historically?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say that they certainly — to the extent that American returns have been higher than those around the world, at least in developed countries, I would say that they are not solely due at all to accounting shenanigans. I think that the absence of honest accounting for option costs and — has been a factor. But American business has done very well, excluding — very well — excluding any accounting activities that Charlie and I might differ with. You know, I’m no expert on exactly what returns have been around the world in developed countries, but my impression definitely is that American business is well above averaged — average — for the developed world, in terms of profitability. And, you know, I don’t have the answers as to why that’s occurred. I think that American business, and I think the whole American system, has reflected more of a meritocracy than exists in many countries. And I think that a meritocracy works best.

I think — and I think that mobility between classes, which is the flip side of a meritocracy, you know, does tend to get the Jack Welches into positions of — whether they run a General Electric or an Andy Grove or an Intel or, you know, go with Sam Walton at Walmart. I think if you’d taken those same individuals and dropped them down in most countries, they would’ve done very well. But I don’t think they would’ve done quite as well as here. And I think that what they have done well has spilled over, in a big way, to benefit the American economy. So I would not lay it all on the accounting shenanigans. And the pension funds accounting, that applies very heavily at some companies. And, of course, most newer companies don’t have pensions. Companies that have started in the last 20 or 30 years are much more inclined to have various kinds of profit sharing or 401(k)s. The older industries that took on pensions spurred, to a great degree, I think, by World War II, when you got excess profits taxes that ran to 90 percent.

And there was a huge incentive to start pension plans and fund them heavily because the government, in effect, was funding 90 percent of your pension obligation. So there was a great boon — boom period in the inauguration of pension funds. And, of course, that meant steel and auto and all of those big industries of that time. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. It isn’t so much accounting shenanigans as it is deliberate financial practice. Take General Electric. There’s been a deliberate increase in financial leverage, which was made possible by the wonderful and deserved reputation. There’s been a deliberate increase in repurchase of stock, which General Electric has done even when they’re paying huge multiples of book value. That sort of thing does wonders for returns on equity as reported, as does the process of writing off everything in sight and various extraordinary charges, removing the burden of past costs from future earnings. You put all those things together, and American returns on equity are higher partly because the management has deliberately set out to paint the company as unusually efficient in its use of capital, meaning that it earns a high return on shareholders’ equity. Think of how high we could drive our return on equity at Berkshire. I mean, we could make it almost any number you want if we just used enough leverage.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we could run it with no (inaudible).

CHARLIE MUNGER: We could run Berkshire with no equity. And then people could say, “Gosh, these guys have finally learned how to manage the damn thing.” (Laughter) It’s not been an objective around here to reduce the equity to zero. But at other places, in order to make the reported return on equity good, they deliberately pound on the net worth as much as they can.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The questioner may have seen — if you look at the S&P figures of the last 15 years, they report them both before special charges and after special charges. And there’s been a very significant difference between those two figures. American business likes to frequently write off things and say that doesn’t count. And, of course, that takes the equity down. And it actually frequently benefits future earnings because you remove costs that would otherwise hit the income statement in future years.

CHARLIE MUNGER: The truth of the matter is you have — part of this is shrewd and correct management of the companies’ financial structure and operations. And part of it can drift into gamesmanship.

3. Save money in your teen years and be very curious

WARREN BUFFETT: Region 5.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Mr. Buffett. My name is Mallory Marshall (PH). I am 11 years old and I am from Kearney, Nebraska. I have 2 questions. First, my dad would like to know if you have any grandsons my age. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Any what her age?

CHARLIE MUNGER: She wants to know if you have any grandsons her age.

WARREN BUFFETT: How many shares of stock do you have? And I’ll tell you. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Also, what investment advice do you have for young people of my generation?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I’ve got a grandson fairly close to your age and he probably would go for a younger woman anyway, so — (laughter) — I will mention him to you. Mention you to him. The — well, if you’re interested in financial matters, A, you’ve got to have something to work with. I mean, I was fortunate in that respect because my dad paid for my education. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have become educated if I had to pay for it myself, but — So I was able to save $10,000 by the time I was 21. And, you know, that was a huge, huge head start. If I hadn’t have been able to do that and, you know, my first child came along when I was 22. So it’s much easier to save in those teenage years if you’re lucky enough to be in a family where you don’t have — where your parents are taking care of your financial obligations. Every dollar then is, you know, worth making $10 or $20 later on.

And, so if you are interested in financial matters, getting a stake early is very useful, and getting knowledge early is very useful. So, you know, I would say you’re well on the way

2001年年度股东大会

第四部分/共六部分

沃伦·巴菲特：骨料业务、混凝土，所有这些都是——查理可能比我更了解。我们看过这类企业。事实上，我们有时甚至持有过一些股票，因为这是一个可以理解的行业。这是一个——特别是如果你进入混凝土、水泥行业，你知道，曾经有过严重的产能过剩时期，尤其是在区域基础上。但这些是基础性行业。在合适的价格下，你知道，对于低成本产能和位置优越的原材料等等，我们会做的。事实上，查理和我在大概10或15年前讨论过一个——

查理·芒格：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：——讨论得相当多。他对这个行业相当熟悉。还有一个是什么？我记在这里了。让我看看。

8. 商学院在教授投资方面“可悲”

查理·芒格：他想知道一个年轻人应该上哪个商学院——

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，商学院。

查理·芒格：——去上。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。好吧，我会这么说，我认为布鲁斯·格林沃尔德在哥伦比亚的课程非常好。他邀请了很多从业者来授课。所以这门课非常实用。我认为布鲁斯很好。他大概在未来六个月内会出一本新书，内容会涉及那个。另外，佛罗里达大学也有捐赠设立的某些与价值投资相关的课程。我认为密苏里大学也有一门。所以我建议你至少查查密苏里大学、哥伦比亚大学和佛罗里达大学的课程。做一些比较，也许和几位最近的毕业生核实一下他们有什么样的经历。如果你能找到他们，我认为这是评估一个地方的最佳系统。但至少这三个地方，根据课程目录来看，有些课程听起来可能你会感兴趣。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。商学院在证券投资组合领域的大部分教学内容，不是我们所相信的，也不是沃伦多年前从本·格雷厄姆那里学到的。我们的思维方式只有很少的零星残留。斯坦福有一个。杰克·麦克唐纳？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，当然。是的，那是研究生院。但没错。

查理·芒格：是研究生院。有趣的是，我认为那是整个斯坦福商学院最受欢迎的课程。他们有一种竞标系统。然而，我问杰克感觉如何，他说他感到孤独。他拥有最受欢迎的课程，但在整个教授群体中，处理投资事务的杰克·麦克唐纳们是一个自己的小团体，可以说是偏居一隅。现在，他们是对的。他们可以从中得到任何安慰。但大多数情况下，如果你去商学院，你会学到很多我们不相信的东西。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：杰克——鲍勃·柯比有时也会来和杰克一起工作。鲍勃在投资方面有很棒的头脑。我的意思是，这毫无疑问。你知道，那不是世界上最好进的学校，而且是研究生级别的。但在教学领域，时不时会有这些异常现象，就像他们说的。我的意思是，你真正想要的投资课程是如何估值一家企业。这才是游戏的核心。我的意思是，如果你不知道如何估值一家企业，你就不知道如何估值一只股票。如果你看看现在教的是什么，我认为你会看到很少关于如何估值企业的内容。其他的都是玩弄数字，或者，你知道，希腊符号之类的东西。但这对你没有任何好处。我的意思是，最终，你必须决定，你知道，你是要把一家企业估值成4亿美元、6亿美元还是8亿美元。

然后你把它和价格比较。这就是投资的本质。我不知道还有其他什么投资方法，你知道，基本上是去做的。而这——这根本没有被教授。没有教授的原因是，你知道，周围没有知道如何教授它的老师。我的意思是，他们自己也不知道。既然他们自己不知道，他们就教一些说“没人知道任何东西”的东西，那就是有效市场理论。（笑声）如果我不知道怎么做——如果我要教物理，我会提出一个理论说没人知道任何东西，因为这是我度过一天的唯一方式，你知道？但是——（笑声）对我来说，你知道，那些真正伟大的大学在这方面是如何运作的，真是令人着迷。如果你得到一份神圣的教旨，我的意思是，你进入金融系是因为你签字同意，你知道，无论当前团队相信什么。

如果他们认为世界是平的，你最好也认为世界是平的，你知道？你的学生在考试时必须回答世界是平的。我会说，这个国家的投资——金融——教学，总的来说，有点可悲。

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为商学院在会计方面做得相当不错——

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，会计，当然，当然。

查理·芒格：——或者人事管理，或者——有很多学科我认为他们做得相当好。但他们错过了一个巨大的机会。如果你学会如何明智地思考如何成功投资企业，你会成为一个比不擅于理解成功投资需要什么的人更好的企业管理者。所以，他们通过如此糟糕地教授投资，错过了一个改进管理职业的巨大机会。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，你看，查理和我经常看到CEO们，从某种意义上说，他们不知道如何思考他们正在收购的企业的价值。然后，你知道，他们就出去雇佣投资银行家。你猜怎么着？投资银行家告诉他们做什么，告诉他们去做，因为如果他们做了，他们得到20倍的费用，如果没做，只得到1倍。你猜建议会是什么结果。所以，当一个企业的管理者在资产配置问题上感到无能为力时——他不会大声说出来，但内心感到无能为力——你知道，你就有了一个真正的问题。而且没有——我认为，他们没有上过能给他们提供任何真正帮助的商学院，以学习如何思考企业的估值。你知道，这也是我们写和谈论它的一部分原因，因为那里存在一个空白。

9. 信用卡建议：“负债是疯狂的”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。第一区。

股东：我叫马丁·米切尔（音），来自加利福尼亚州贝克斯菲尔德。我的问题，分为两部分，是关于债务的。我们知道个人债务可能是毁灭性的。您是否担心美国消费者整体负债过多，以至于成为一个问题？第二部分是，您是否认为我们与其他国家的贸易逆差值得关注？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，关于债务的第一个问题，我认为很难回答关于消费者整体的问题。我每天都收到来自生活中遇到问题的人的信件。这些问题围绕着——我是说，要么是健康，要么是债务。通常——经常——债务与健康有关，你知道吗？但他们——借钱对他们来说非常容易，他们陷入困境，然后一切都完了。毫无疑问，美国消费者总体上负债更多了一些。但我认为，要得出结论说它是否构成一个严重问题，是非常困难的。你知道，大多数人都拥有增值巨大的资产，直接或间接地，特别是在房地产和一些证券上。所以随着赚钱能力的增加和持有资产的增加，承担债务的能力也更强了。我无法就整个世界范围给你一个有用的答案。

但我经常给年轻人建议，那是我除了股东群体之外唯一交谈的人：就是不要一开始就处于不利地位。我的意思是，负债是疯狂的，因为摆脱债务太难了。而且，我的意思是，持有信用卡债务的想法——我们在所有业务中都发行信用卡，你知道，每个其他零售商也这样。但是，试图以18%的利率借钱，你知道，并认为你会在生活中取得成功，那是行不通的。我敦促人们——他们可以使用信用卡，但我敦促他们在开始滚动计息之前还清，因为这太贵了。查理和我无法用18%的资金赚钱。我的意思是，我们到处寻找浮存金，因为我们不想为资金支付5%的利息。所以，我非常同情那些陷入债务的人。但一旦你陷入其中，摆脱出来就是地狱。我的意思是，查理会有几句本·富兰克林的名言来引用这个话题。

实际上，你现在想引用几句本的话吗？（笑声）

查理·芒格：哦，不。

沃伦·巴菲特：他愿意，但我用错误的方式引导了他。

10. 长期贸易逆差是“国家的一个显著减分项”

沃伦·巴菲特：关于贸易逆差的第二个问题，这是一个非常有趣的事情。因为当你出现贸易逆差时，你所做的是用这样或那样的资产来换取超出你出口到国外的商品。所以实际上，你是在卖掉农场的一小部分，以便这个国家消费得比它生产的更多。如果你出现净贸易逆差，这个国家总体上消费得比它生产的少——或者说消费得更多。如果你是一个非常富裕的国家，你甚至看不到这一点，因为如果你有几千亿美元的贸易逆差，你知道，与一个可能价值40万亿或类似规模的经济体相比，你看不到它。但你每年都在用农场的一小部分来换取比当年仅仅依靠农场产出生活稍好一点的生活。如果你有良好的记录，你可以用借条来做这件事。

如果你是一个记录很糟糕的国家，你就不能用借条来做。所以他们必须用美元计价他们的债务。当然，他们没有能力发行大量的美元，人们也不想接受一种疲软的货币。所以一个弱国无法逃脱那样做，除非它从为此设立的机构那里获得特殊类型的贷款。在这个国家，我们几乎可以做任何我们想做的事情，因为我们不没收财产，而且我们——多年来，我们没有摧毁人们接受作为商品支付方式的货币。但我基本上认为，在足够长的时间内，显著的贸易逆差对这个国家是一个显著的减分项。但你不会日复一日、周复一周、月复一月地看到它。

但最终，如果你用花哨的小玩意儿或任何你得到的东西来交换超出你送出的东西，并且你交换掉了你的资产——幸运的是，一些我们在不久之前交换掉的资产，比如电影制片厂和一些类似的东西，对方吃了亏。但总的来说，国家年复一年地出现巨额贸易逆差不是一个好政策。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，当然，如果你交换的是花哨的小玩意儿、消费品或其他东西，那确实是如此。但是，当然，一个发展中国家出现贸易逆差用于建设发电厂或其他什么，这可能是一个非常明智的做法。事实上，美国曾经这样做过。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们在铁路上大量这样做过，你知道，而且——

查理·芒格：但在现代条件下，我们看起来像是一对喜欢巨额贸易逆差的人吗？（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：不。用这个过程修建铁路是一回事，但购买收音机和电视机是另一回事。我的意思是，这取决于你得到的是什么。但总的来说，我们的贸易逆差是在消费品上。长期来看，这不是一个大加分项。

11. 满意的卖家是“一支招聘力量”

沃伦·巴菲特：第二区。

股东：下午好。我是吉姆·海斯（音），来自弗吉尼亚州亚历山大市。我想感谢您和贾斯汀先生将他的杰作带入伯克希尔家族。但问题来了，您是否很快就会用尽那些符合收购标准、规模足够大以继续为伯克希尔带来回报的私营公司？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是个好问题，因为那些卖给我们的人——私营企业——可以选择卖到别处或者上市。似乎有足够多的人，他们用50年或100年时间，以及他们的父母和祖辈，充满爱心地建立了企业，他们确实关心企业最终的处置方式，而不仅仅是在当天拿到最后一分钱，所以我们时不时会有这些企业的供应。我认为我们会继续看到它们。你确实提出了一个有趣的问题。在整个经济中，有多少像这样价值10亿美元或更多的企业？似乎有——你知道，我希望更多，但已经有足够多了。所以我认为我们可能平均每年收购大概两家，诸如此类。真正的大型企业——我的意思是，我们想做的是100亿或150亿美元的收购。那类别的私营公司会非常少。然后，在那些属于该类别的公司中，你必须找到不会进行拍卖的人。

我们不——我们只是对拍卖不感兴趣。如果有人想拍卖他们的企业，我们对与他们合作并不感到兴奋，因为我们需要人在收购后经营它。如果那是他们看待自己企业的方式，我们可能会得到比过去根据我们使用的标准所得到的更多不愉快的意外。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。这种情况有两个方面。一是是否会有足够的企业？二是我们会从其他买家那里得到多少竞争？我们有一个优势是，如果你是那种喜欢今天这个房间里这种文化的企业主，那么没有其他人像我们这样。其他所有人都在不同的道路上，有着不同的文化。（掌声）所以——看看你们所有人。我的意思是，这种文化至少在某些群体中是受欢迎的。当然，未来也会像过去一样有其他喜欢这种文化的人，并觉得带着他们的公司加入它是合适的。

沃伦·巴菲特：到目前为止，我们在国际上还没有什么运气，但我们希望这能改变。大约一个月前我在欧洲，很多人问我，例如，我们是否会是欧洲企业的潜在买家。答案是肯定的。然后他们说，“嗯，你知道，那你为什么什么都没买？”我说，“电话从来没响过。”我不知道他们是否认为这是一个精彩的答案，但他们——（笑声）但我留下了我的电话号码在很多地方，你知道？每当有机会，我就给出那个答案。也许电话会响。我必须相信，如果过去五年我们在欧洲的知名度像在美国一样，我们可能已经收购了几家公司。只是，他们没想到我们。

在美国也有很多人没想到我们，但现在比五或十年前更多了。实际上，我们有一个合理的收购百分比，是直接或间接来自过去我们做过收购并且卖家感到满意的结果。很难找到任何与我们打交道而不满意的人。他们与行业内或其他地方的朋友有联系。所以，我们现在更经常听到一些事情，因为实际上我们有所谓的“招聘力量”，由已经和我们做过生意的人组成。这在很大程度上就像NetJets一样。我的意思是，我们在公务机公司为NetJets服务投入了大量广告费。但是，我们仍有70%左右的业务来自于已经是我们客户的机主。他们是我们最好的销售人员。顺便说一下，我就是这样被介绍到这项业务的。弗兰克·鲁尼，今天也在房间里，他在1995年1月左右告诉我他在NetJets的良好体验。

那是我加入的时候。如果弗兰克没告诉我，我可能在六年后也不会去了解它。我的意思是，你知道，我可能只是翻过那些广告页——但当弗兰克说，“你应该看看这个，”我就去看了。嗯，这就是我们希望我们在收购方面拥有的优势。我认为我们在某种程度上确实有。但我们希望它更大，在地理上更广泛，而不是像现在这样。

查理·芒格：当我还是律师时，我常说，“任何律师获得业务的最佳方式是已经放在他桌上的工作。”同样地，伯克希尔·哈撒韦获得业务的最佳方式可能就是我们已经放在桌上的业务实践。这就是推动新业务进入的方式，对吧，沃伦？

沃伦·巴菲特：当然。当然。

查理·芒格：所以这是一个非常老式的想法。你只需把你已经拥有的做好，更多同样的事情就会随之而来。

12. 为什么伯克希尔卖掉了房地美和房利美的股份

沃伦·巴菲特：请第三区。

股东：我叫史蒂夫·桑德海默，住在芝加哥，今年14岁。我是第三代股东，我的问题是，我注意到您卖掉了我们在房地美的头寸。您在那个行业看到了什么风险？

沃伦·巴菲特：你是乔的孙女吗？

股东：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，好的。我们有数量惊人的第二代、第三代甚至第四代股东，对此我感到非常高兴。我的意思是，我认为很多公司——股票交易所的大公司——没有这种情况。确实，我们去年卖掉了房地美的股票。随着业务的发展，我们对其某些方面感到不那么舒服了——房利美也一样。我们所看到的后果可能根本不会伤害这些公司。但它们让我们比早期，当这些做法或活动实际上不存在时，感到更不舒服。我没有——我要强调——我们卖掉不是因为担心政府对房地美和房利美加强监管。如果有什么不同的话，恰恰相反，所以——这不是——这不是——华尔街有时会对加强政府监管的前景做出负面反应，股票有时会因此而短期波动。但那不是我们的理由。我们——我们觉得风险状况已经有所改变。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，但这可能是我们的怪癖。我们特别容易对金融机构感到不自在。

沃伦·巴菲特：我们非常敏感——

查理·芒格：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：——对风险——无论是在银行、保险公司还是在他们所谓的GSE（政府资助企业）中，就像房地美和房利美的情况。我们觉得，对于金融机构，仅通过查看数字你无法了解太多，如果有什么事情让我们有点担心，我们永远不确定这是否是冰山的情况。这绝对不意味着我们放弃的银行或保险公司就是冰山的情况。但是我们见过足够多金融机构以某种方式运作而发生的事情，如果我们感觉到那种情况正在发生，我们只是认为我们永远不会看到它，直到为时已晚。所以我们说再见——并祝他们好运——没有暗示他们做错了任何事情。只是我们不能100%确定他们做的是我们喜欢的事情。当我们遇到这种情况时，这与买入一家有产品或其他东西的公司或零售业务不同。

在那些业务中，你通常可以相当早地发现麻烦。在金融机构中，你发现麻烦很晚。这就是这种业务的天性。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。金融机构在试图表现良好时往往会让我们紧张。（笑声）这听起来自相矛盾，但事实就是如此。

沃伦·巴菲特：金融机构在大多数情况下不会因为现金耗尽而陷入麻烦。其他业务，你可以通过那种方式发现。但一个金融机构可以越过临界点——10年前我们有银行大规模那样做——但即使他们还有大量现金，他们也可以越过偿付能力的临界点。

13. 讨论好护城河是否更难找到

沃伦·巴菲特：请第四区。

股东：下午好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫乔治·布拉姆利，来自北卡罗来纳州达勒姆。我们经常在迈克尔·波特的模型背景下评估公司，即相对于竞争对手、客户、供应商、替代产品的定位。您更简单地表述为，您寻找拥有宽深护城河保护的公司。要完成对一家公司的估值，我们都寻求选择合适的未来现金流票息。需要对其受保护的竞争地位进行定性评估，以精确预测那些未来的票息。在您看来，竞争、分销系统、技术，甚至客户变化的动态本质，是否使得准确预测那些未来现金流票息变得更加困难？未来，好的、受保护的企业是否会比过去更稀有？如果是这样，这是否使得少数确实存在的企业更有价值？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你确实很好地描述了投资过程。我这里看不清，但你是哪个乔治？你是弗雷德的连襟还是小一辈？

股东：我是乔治三世。我父亲也在这里。

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，很好。你问的问题切中要害。我们确实认为，就我对波特著作的理解程度而言，我们在商业方面的想法基本上是一致的。我们称之为护城河。他把它写成了一本书，这就是我们所在行业之间的区别。（笑声）我——查理对此可能有不同看法。我不认为美国商业中护城河的数量或可持续性在30或40年内发生了那么巨大的变化。现在，你可以说西尔斯和通用汽车以及类似的公司认为他们周围有非常宽的护城河，但事实证明并非如此，例如，在西尔斯的案例中，沃尔玛出现了。但是，我认为——在我们考虑的企业中，我认为我现在看到的护城河在我看来和30年前看到的护城河一样可持续。但我认为有很多企业——行业——很难评估护城河。这些是快速变化的行业。

相比以前，变化相对缓慢的企业是否更少了？我不这么认为，但也许查理这么认为。查理？

查理·芒格：不，我会争辩说，旧的护城河，有些正在被填平。而新的护城河比一些旧的护城河更难预测。不，我会说这变得越来越难。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你听到了。（笑声）伯克希尔意见一致。好的。我认为这是一个非常好的问题。我真的不知道——你知道，查理可能是对的，我可能是对的。我认为这是一个很难弄清楚的问题。但不管是否更少或更难找到，那仍然是我们伯克希尔努力去做的事情。我的意思是，这就是全部意义所在。我们给管理者的指示——我们没有预算，也没有各种报告系统或其他任何东西。但我们确实告诉他们，不仅要保护，还要扩大护城河。如果你扩大了护城河，其他一切都会随之而来。

14. 衍生品如何变成“潜在的炸药”

沃伦·巴菲特：第五区？

股东：比尔·格雷厄姆（音），来自洛杉矶。沃伦，您使外部股东能够理解伯克希尔的金融业务。但有一个业务对我来说似乎很难理解，那就是金融产品业务，我猜它涉及衍生品交易。出于同样的考虑——鉴于您和查理对金融业务表达的同样担忧——您能帮我们理解一下，以及为什么您对它感到放心？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为你说到点子上了，比尔。这是一个很难理解的业务。即使你拥有它，也很难理解，更不用说在别人的年报中读到它了。我猜想，大多数拥有复杂或大规模衍生品业务的人，我会说大多数CEO可能都不理解它。他们中有多少人为此夜不能寐，我不知道。实际上，在金融产品中，你在那一行收入以及资产负债表项目上看到的，是几样东西的组合。它包括通用再保险证券公司，以前是GRFP，通用再保险金融产品公司。还有——还有其他几项业务。它实际上包含我们的——它有我们的结构化结算业务，这是相当可预测且非常容易理解的业务。它实际上还包含一些我做的交易业务，也归在那里。这不是我们正常的投资业务，但可能涉及我认为是——它往往与固定收益相关。

它可能涉及套利或各种固定收益证券的半套利。它不会涉及任何股票套利。那不会放在那里。但我会说，一个公平的批评是，查理和我都不完全知道，甚至大部分不知道，衍生品业务中发生了什么。现在，我们有一个既聪明又值得信赖的人在管理它，马克·伯恩。所以我们对他个人感觉非常好。我们并不像可能对我们参与的大多数业务那样，对正在发生的一切有本能的了解。我认为我们在通用再保险证券公司大概有17,000份未结清合约。这些合约以各种方式相互影响。我不认为查理或我对那套产品组合有清晰的了解。这意味着我们希望对那个负责熟悉这些产品的人感到非常放心。我会告诉你，你知道，没有比马克·伯恩更让我放心的人了。但这对我们来说不是一个天然类型的业务。

该领域的其他一些事情，去年我们在一些与衍生品业务无关的事情上赚了不少钱。那些在我的直接控制之下。所以我对此感觉还好。结构化结算业务是一个利润微薄的领域。但它为我们赚了一些钱。现在，它没有吸引力。但未来可能会再次吸引人。那里可能还会放入其他金融类的东西。但如果我们放任何东西进去，那将是我在运营的东西。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，那个组合包括我所说的沃伦·巴菲特的古怪消遣——（笑声）——在——

沃伦·巴菲特：那些可以发表的。（笑声）

查理·芒格：——在普通股领域之外。我对此相当放心，尽管我确定结果会不规则。其余的——我认为我们还有可以称为马克·伯恩的古怪个人想法，我对此也相当放心。当你离开那些，进入可以称为更标准化的衍生品交易业务时，我认为公平地说，我喜欢它们的程度低于大多数从事这些业务的人。

沃伦·巴菲特：低得多。（笑声）

查理·芒格：是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们认为这个领域潜在地是炸药，因为如果你有一群人——一大群人——在许多情况下，在这个行业中——尽管我们试图自己远离它——但在许多情况下，这个行业里的人是根据预先确定的潜在利润获得报酬的，你可能会得到——我的意思是，让一百个人处于那种情况是危险的。你会发现有些人会在那种压力下崩溃，在他们的行为方面。你知道，他们有一一实际上，一两年前我们在电力公用事业行业就有这样一个案例，当时加利福尼亚的爱迪生公司通过一个子公司，根据当天记入账面的业务的预期盈利能力来补偿人们。那是华尔街的做法，被引入了公用事业行业。它产生了我认为是可以预见的结果。所以，付钱给人们去做那些你在15或20年内不会知道结果的交易，并提前给他们很多钱，这是危险的。这在行业中是非常标准的做法。

我的意思是，我在所罗门的时候这是标准做法。正如我所说，人们偶尔会在那种压力下崩溃。这不完全类似，但值得一读罗杰·洛温斯坦的书，书名叫《天才的失败》，因为它触及了我们描述的一些问题，查理和我对此感到担忧。

查理·芒格：是的，衍生品业务有一个非常严重的问题，就是会计行业出卖了自己。会计是不恰当的。它预先确认了太多的收入。这是不理性地乐观，因为该领域的居民希望这样，因为它创造了更大的薪酬。这本质上是一个不负责任的系统。这是会计行业辜负了更广泛文明的另一个案例。

沃伦·巴菲特：我们发现——查理当时在所罗门的审计委员会——我们发现过单一头寸——被错误标记了接近2000万美元，不是吗，查理？

查理·芒格：哦，是的。但故意的错误标记不是主要问题。主要问题是整个会计系统是错误的。整个会计系统过于乐观。这就像进入出租车业务却采用30年的折旧率。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。或者就像承保长尾保险，根据预期利润提前支付大笔佣金，而预期利润是基于该保单未来10年或类似期限的，并且是由撰写保单的人准备的。在金融世界中，有些活动实际上是相当危险的。当你接近那种情况时，你就必须非常小心。现在你——实际上，马克正在实施一个系统，其补偿方式——会计处理方式——与许多机构显著不同。所以，你知道，你可以尝试解决它。但要离行业规范太远而同时还能做生意也很难。我的意思是——

查理·芒格：是的。感谢上帝，我们的会计比这个国家标准的衍生品会计保守得多。

15. GEICO的卢·辛普森“自主”管理

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。第六区。

股东：我叫斯科特·蒂尔森（音），来自马里兰州奥因斯米尔斯。先生们，你们多次提到卢·辛普森独立自主地管理GEICO的投资组合。辛普森先生作为投资者，拥有哪些独特或卓越的品质，使他赢得了这种巨大的信任投票？其次，伯克希尔既投资私营企业，也投资公开交易的证券。虽然估值公开和私营企业所需的技能可能相同，但如果需要，辛普森先生是否也具备谈判私人交易所需的额外经验和技能？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我认为他可以。但我希望他不会很快被召唤。（笑声）卢很聪明、细心、品质高尚、经验丰富。所以他确实自主管理着几十亿美元。他会买一些东西。我直到看月度报表或者有时在报纸上读到才知道。这没问题，你知道？他不知道我在做什么。我不知道他在做什么。偶尔，我们会买入同一只证券，所以在这种情况下，我们尽量协调买入或卖出。顺便说一句，你偶尔会看到头条新闻，不是很大的标题，但在财经媒体上写着“巴菲特买入XYZ”。嗯，有时它应该写“辛普森买入XYZ”。

他们——我们提交的报告不一定会告诉读者我们中的哪一个做了决定，因为即使报告显示GEICO买入了一些东西，那也可能是由我买入并因各种原因配置到GEICO的。或者，卢可以买入一些东西并合理地配置到国家 indemnity 或其他伯克希尔公司。但一些被报道为伯克希尔做的事情，完全是卢独立于我的决定。而大部分，按美元计算，是我做的。但卢的业绩和我一样好，所以。卢知道如何评估企业，无论是私人谈判还是公开证券，但——我不急于移交。（笑）

16. 伯克希尔对Finova的投资

沃伦·巴菲特：第七区。

股东：下午好。我叫斯科特·克罗伊（音），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥。巴菲特先生，您能否描述一下伯克希尔·哈撒韦今年早些时候对Finova集团的投资情况（如果有的话）？Finova似乎处境艰难。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。比处境艰难更糟。他们已经申请了第11章破产保护。（笑声）但这显然都是预料之中的。Finova是以前的Greyhound租赁公司，资产增长到大约130或140亿美元。然后就在大约一年前，遇到了融资困难。当你经营一个高杠杆的金融业务并遇到融资困难时，困难会迅速叠加。你知道，信心是一个真正的懦夫。我的意思是，一看到麻烦它就跑了。在金融业务中，你不断面临为旧债务再融资的问题，你还有商业票据在外等等。所以，当你在金融业务中遇到麻烦时，没有蜜月期。我们过去甚至看到过大型的例子，比如克莱斯勒金融等等。我的意思是，当信心消失时，它可能发生在任何地方。所以大约一年前，这打击了Finova。没过几个月就变得很明显，Finova要么必须被出售，要么进行重组。

我认为曾试图将公司出售给其他金融公司，甚至卖掉了投资组合中的一小部分。但他们没有成功出售。当债券价格开始下跌到我认为非常有吸引力的水平时，在去年秋天左右——说到有吸引力，我的意思是，我认为如果他们进入破产程序，资产相对于负债的价值远高于市场所显示的——我们开始买入债券。我们买了——我们公开宣布了。我们买了14.28亿美元面值的债券或银行债务。所以，在Finova总计110亿美元的债务中，我们拥有14.28亿美元面值。我们当时以看起来有吸引力的价格买入，现在看起来也有吸引力。后来变得清楚——这在一定程度上——从一开始就很清楚，他们要么出售，要么进入破产程序。随着时间的推移，他们找不到买家这一点变得更加清楚。所以，今年早些时候，他们很有可能宣布破产。

原因之一是，他们不想用可用现金来偿还明天到期的债权人，从而损害那些债权在以后到期的债权人的利益。我们曾认为，也许有人会提出重组计划。在我们看来，他们已经非常接近——他们会违约。因此，我们与Leucadia联合，在一家名为Berkadia的合资企业中，提出了我们自己的计划，并安排了一项交易。但他们现在处于第11章破产保护状态，不久将有一个或多个计划提交给法院。然后法院将决定——我不——查理可能比我更了解破产具体如何运作，尽管我认为他没有任何个人经验——一个计划会提交给债权人批准。我们将有一个计划，这在媒体上已有概述，几乎肯定会在下周内提交给法院，届时你可以读到。然后我们会看看是否发生其他事情。

我的意思是，可能其他人会提出一个计划。可能我们的计划被批准。如果我们的计划被批准，它将涉及显著额外的投资，以便能够向现有债务持有人进行初始付款。然后我们看看会发生什么。我们对Berkadia感觉非常好。我——我们认为Berkadia——嗯，我们认为Berkadia中的Leucadia部分为有效管理那里的资产带来了很多价值。当一个实体进入破产时，如何处理会带来很大不同。我的意思是，破产中可能会有大量的资产浪费。或者可能有一种相当高效的处理方式。我们认为Berkadia的安排将最大化资产价值。我们认为这很重要。但我们看看会发生什么。我认为我们的头寸会最终结果良好。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。我认为这是一个——

沃伦·巴菲特：麦克风。

查理·芒格：——一个非常有趣的交易。你希望能有更多这样的交易。

沃伦·巴菲特：会有的。（笑声）

查理·芒格：不，我的意思是，不是更多的破产，而是更多遵循这种模式的破产解决方案。我认为这是一个非常聪明的模式，一种非常干净、简单、迅速清理公司烂摊子的方式。我希望世界其他地方也像我一样看待它，法官和其他相关人员会说，“感谢上帝，”我们希望这个方案通过，并希望未来有更多类似的事情发生。

沃伦·巴菲特：顺便说一句，这也是我们在所罗门试图做的。我的意思是，我们试图以某种不同于典型的方式处理公司危机。我们希望，如果那取得了好结果，它可能成为一个模式，人们在未来的问题中会倾向于效仿，因为未来肯定会有问题。我们现在是Finova最大的债权人。所以我们在其中承担的风险比任何其他人都多，而且我们没有兴趣——你知道，我们的主要兴趣不在于收取费用或延长破产程序，或者任何诸如此类的事情。我们希望尽可能最大程度地实现资产价值。而正确做和错误做之间的差异，你知道，可能以十亿计。

17. GEICO的卢·辛普森买入了伯克希尔的盖璞股票

沃伦·巴菲特：第八区。

股东：下午好。我是克劳迪娅·芬纳（音），来自纽约长岛，我有两个问题。第一个是，作为盖璞的忠实粉丝，我想知道为什么您此时认为盖璞被低估了。第二个问题，如果您能把回答指向我丈夫，作为股东，您是否同意今天下午在波仙珠宝买一份大礼就像把钱从一个口袋拿出来放进另一个口袋？（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我让查理来处理第二个问题。（笑声）他是我们伯克希尔消费方面的专家。盖璞很好地说明了我之前谈到的观点，因为我认为全世界都以为是我决定伯克希尔买入盖璞的。实际上，那完全是、100%是卢·辛普森的投资组合投资。我想我没读过盖璞的年报——我知道——

2001年度股东大会

第5/6部分

股东：总之，我的问题是，苏珊是否也把那些禅宗书籍寄到了你的办公室或卧室？如果你读过那些书，有哪些关键思想促进了你的投资之道，甚至对我这种隐居、思想狭隘的禅宗僧人来说也有意义？感谢您今天给予我们的金融启示。

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。我把那些书转给了查理，所以让他来回答。（掌声）

查理·芒格：实际上，我更倾向于追随孔子。（笑声）我认为这个房间里充满了儒家价值观，你知道吗？如果儒家的首要法则是孝道，特别是对年长男性的孝道，你就会明白为什么我喜欢这套体系。（笑声）

22. 资本与机会成本

沃伦·巴菲特：第四部分。（笑声）

股东：下午好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫凯文·特鲁伊特，来自芝加哥。我有三个问题要问你们。芒格先生，在去年的股东大会上，您曾表示认为资本成本的概念没有真正的经济意义。您能解释一下为什么您这样认为，以及您会用什么来代替它吗？我的第二个问题是给巴菲特先生的。您曾提到偶尔出现一个重大想法的重要性。实际上，您是如何判断自己有了一个重大想法的？我的第三个问题也是给巴菲特先生的，您曾谈到特许经营权和可持续竞争优势的重要性。像家乐氏和金宝汤这样的公司，大多数人过去都会认为它们具备这些特质。然而，随着时间的推移，由于消费者品味的变化，这些特质消失了。是什么让您有信心同样的事情不会发生在可口可乐或吉列身上？

沃伦·巴菲特：查理？

查理·芒格：嗯——

沃伦·巴菲特：先谈资本成本。

查理·芒格：首先是资本成本。显然，成本考虑在商业中很重要。而且，显然，机会成本——这是经济学的一个原理，实际上是生活哲学的原理——也非常重要。我们一直都有这种基本思维。当然，资本不是免费的。而且，当然，当你借钱时，你可以计算资本成本。或者至少可以计算贷款成本。但理论家们不得不为股权成本提出某种理论。而在那方面，他们简直疯魔了。他们说，如果你因为拥有一家出色的企业而获得了100%的资本回报率，那么你的资本成本就是100%。因此，你不应该考虑任何只能带来糟糕的80%回报的机会。这种思考方式源于资本资产定价模型等理论，我一直认为这是荒谬的。伯克希尔的资本成本是多少？我们有这笔该死的资本。它不断地翻倍再翻倍。它的成本是多少？我们有完美、老式的原理，比如机会成本，你知道吗？

在任何时候，当我们考虑一笔投资时，我们必须将其与我们当时拥有的最佳替代投资进行比较。我们有非常完美、老式且非常基本的想法可用，但这些对于这些现代理论家来说还不够好。所以他们发明了所有这些荒谬的数学，结论是那些赚钱最多的公司拥有最高的资本成本。好吧，我只能说，这不适合我们。现在，问题的另一半我留给巴菲特先生。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，当然，你会发现，资本成本大约比CEO想要做的任何交易承诺的回报率低四分之一个百分点。就是这样的——（笑声）——非常简单。你知道，关于资本，我们有三个问题——始终围绕资本——暂且不谈我们是否想借钱，我们通常不想借钱。一是，把钱分给股东比留在公司内部更有意义吗？关于这一点的一个子问题是，如果我们把钱分出去，通过回购还是分红更好？决定是否分红的标准是，我们能否在内部利用这一美元创造出超过一美元的价值，而不是把它分出去？你永远不知道答案。但到目前为止，根据结果判断，答案是肯定的，我们可以。而且我们展望未来，也认为可以。但这是——你知道——这是我们的希望。它在某种程度上得到了过去历史的证明，但这并非确定无疑。

一旦我们跨过了那个门槛，那么我们要不要回购股票？显然，如果你能以低于保守计算的固有价值的显著折扣买入自己的股票，并且能以合理的数量买入，那这就是资本的一种用途。除此之外，问题就变成了，如果你拥有资本，并且认为能创造出超过一美元的价值，那么如何以最小的风险创造出最大的价值？这就涉及商业风险了。这与任何波动率的计算无关。我不知道用股票波动性来衡量喜诗糖果的风险有多大，因为自1972年以来该股票就没有流通了。这是否意味着我无法确定喜诗这家企业的风险有多大，因为我们没有它的每日报价？不。我可以通过审视其业务、它运营所处的竞争环境等来判断。所以，一旦我们做出了可以配置资本的决定，使得每保留的一美元能创造超过一美元的现值，那就只是找到你能做的最明智事情的问题了。

而且，你知道，这就是——我们所做的每一笔交易的成本，都是由当时可用的次优交易来衡量的，包括——在我们已经从事的领域做更多的事情。我在各种公司董事会会议和其他场合都听过关于资本成本的讨论。而且，你知道，我从未发现其中有什么非常有意义的东西，除了它是商学院学来的，而且顾问们谈论它。大多数董事会成员会点头，却根本不知道到底是怎么回事。这就是我关于资本成本的历史经验。

23. 巴菲特如何知道自己有了”重大想法”

沃伦·巴菲特：现在，谈到重大想法，当你有一个重大想法时，你是知道的。我无法确切告诉你，那时你的神经系统或大脑内部到底发生了什么。但这么多年下来，我们的重大想法、好想法相对较少。我不知道你认为我们总共有多少个，可能职业生涯中，每人大概25个或类似的数目？

查理·芒格：如果只取伯克希尔·哈撒韦前15个最重要的决定，你们中的大多数人今天就不会在这里了。（笑声）所以，大约每两年一个。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，每年或每两年一个。有时会集中出现一批，比如在1973年和1974年。但对我们来说，问题在于，现在的大，确实意味着大规模。我的意思是，它必须是数十亿美元才能对伯克希尔的整体状况产生明显影响。但我会说，当我50年前翻阅穆迪手册时，当我碰到一个重大想法时我会知道。我保留了大约六份50年前那些报告的复印件，就是因为它们太明显了——简直不可思议。这种情况时不时会发生。当我在1951年1月底见到洛里默·戴维森时，他花了四五个小时向我解释GEICO，我就知道这是一个重大想法。八个月后，不，大概是十个月后，我为《商业与金融纪事报》写了一篇文章，题为”我最喜欢的证券”。那是一个重大想法。当我发现西方保险证券公司时，我就知道这是一个重大想法。

我当时无法投入数亿——数百万——美元进去，但我当时也没有数百万资金，所以这没关系。我——我们随后也看到了一些东西。而且我们还会看到，你知道。如果我们有正常的寿命，在结束之前我们还会看到一些，但我无法告诉你——确切地——我无法确切告诉你脑海里发生了什么，就像亮起一个霓虹灯标志说：“这是一个重大想法。“你呢，查理？（笑声）实际上，我有个——我有一套真正的系统。（笑声）我对真正重大想法的定义是，我想到了它，然后打电话给查理，他只是说”不”，而不是说”这是我所听过的最糟糕的想法”。但如果他只是说”不”，那这就是个绝妙的想法。

查理·芒格：你知道，在我们这种类型的生活中，游戏的关键是能够在难得得到好主意时——或者当它难得地呈现在你面前时——认出它。我认为这是你需要长期准备的事情。有句老话怎么说来着？机会青睐有准备的头脑？我不认为你能在两分钟内教会人们如何拥有一个有准备的头脑。但这就是游戏的关键。

沃伦·巴菲特：然而，我们40年前学到的东西，将有助于我们识别下一个重大想法。

查理·芒格：关于机会成本，回到那个话题，目前风靡全国的大学一年级经济学教科书，几乎在第一页就提到了。它说：“所有聪明人都应主要根据机会成本进行思考。“这显然是正确的。但基于机会成本来教授商业知识非常困难。教授资本资产定价模型要容易得多，你只需输入数字，然后数字就会出来。因此，人们教授容易教的东西，而不是应该正确教授的东西。这让我想起了爱因斯坦的名言。他说：“一切事物都应尽可能简单，但不能更简单。”

沃伦·巴菲特：记下来。（笑声）

24. 大型零售商正在攻击大品牌护城河

沃伦·巴菲特：你还问了一个关于特许经营权的好问题，提到了金宝汤和家乐氏。你知道，我不是专家，但根据我多年来的一般观察，我认为问题来自两个不同的方面。我认为谷物——即食谷物——的问题与其说是口味或消费模式的变化，不如说我认为他们可能只是定价过高，以至于在没有获得——没有拥有——他们自以为拥有的护城河的情况下，市场份额流失给了通用磨坊的谷物、通用食品的谷物等等。我的意思是，如果你的定价真的严重失衡，人们把小麦片或葡萄坚果麦片与家乐氏的玉米片归为一类，你知道，你就会失去份额。一旦你开始失去份额，就很难再夺回来。我认为汤的问题更多地与生活方式相关。

我觉得它变得——有点不那么——也许与当前的生活方式不太契合了，相比40年前。软饮料——软饮料的消费量——我这里没有数据，但我敢打赌，在过去的110年里，软饮料的人均消费量几乎每年都在增长。我是说，现在它占了——接近30%——美国人液体摄入总量。所以，如果普通美国人每天摄入约64盎司液体，你大概可以说其中18盎司是软饮料，而在这18盎司中，有43%，即每天近8盎司，是可口可乐的产品。换句话说，在美国，无论男女老少，所有液体摄入量的1/8来自可口可乐的产品。但这一比例一直在上升，实际上——好吧，在全球范围内，人均消费量一直在上升，你知道，几乎自从软饮料被发现以来就是如此。我认为，在全球范围内，这种趋势几乎是不可能逆转的。

我是说，在许多国家潜力巨大，那里的人均消费量可能只有——嗯，我认为，也许是8盎司人均——他们谈论的是8盎司一份——一年64盎司。所以，在一些重要的国家，可口可乐产品的人均消费量只有这里的1/50。我不——我只是不认为这会——现在，你确实可以把定价推得太高。我是说，会有一个临界点——这取决于你所在的国家，甚至取决于该国的地区。但如果你在可口可乐和自有品牌产品之间设定过大的价差，你会在一定程度上改变消费模式。变化不会很大，但足以让你不想这么做。但我不认为你会看到——有趣的是，咖啡的消费量每年都在下降。

人们谈论星巴克等等，但如果你看看这个国家的咖啡消费量，或者牛奶消费量，你知道，人均消费量就是年复一年地下降、下降、下降、下降。我认为非常清楚的是，一旦人们习惯了某种饮料，并且价格合适，他们喜欢喝什么。关于可口可乐有趣的一点是，我出生在1930年，一瓶6.5盎司的可口可乐卖5美分，你还要为瓶子付2美分的押金。但不要管那个，只考虑那5美分。现在你买一罐12盎司或更大容量的产品，如果你在周末超市特价时购买，你每盎司支付的价格可能只比1930年（70年前）高出不到一倍。将其与你能找到的几乎任何产品的价格行为相比，除了原材料。但将其与汽车、住房、任何东西相比。它的价格几乎没有通货膨胀。

而且我认为，这当然是人均消费量随时间增长的一个因素。查理，你怎么看谷物和汤？

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为这些是护城河对竞争对手变得不那么敌对的例子。部分问题在于购买力变得更加集中和强大。我是说，现在的大型食品杂货连锁店有很大的影响力。然后再加上沃尔玛、好市多、山姆会员店等等——家乐氏们面对的是一个与30或40年前完全不同的世界。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，品牌与零售商之间总会有一场战斗，因为零售商希望自己的名字成为品牌。在某种程度上，如果人们信任好市多或沃尔玛胜于——或同样程度地——信任品牌，那么拥有品牌的价值就从产品本身转移到了零售商身上。这种情况已经持续了很长时间。你知道，我第一次——我知道大量案例要追溯到20世纪30年代的A&P。而且我相信A&P是美国最大的食品零售商。他们也是自有品牌的大力推广者。例如，Ann Page我认为是他们一个重要的自有品牌。他们觉得在30年代可以说服消费者，他们的品牌比罐头上的Del Monte或金宝汤等不同类别的品牌更有意义。一度人们认为他们会赢得那场战争。谁知道呢？我的意思是，我不知道导致A&P衰落的所有变量，但那是戏剧性的。

我是说，它曾是——一段时间内它是美国一个伟大的成功故事，然后它就成了美国一个巨大的失败。查理，你——？

查理·芒格：山姆会员店和好市多的力量变得非常极端。今天早上早些时候，我在签名售书时，一位非常漂亮的女士走过来对我说要感谢我。我说：“为了什么？“她说：“你告诉我要买这条我现在正穿着的连裤袜，从好市多买的。“我显然之前做过一些评论，说好市多竟然能让恒适这样的人同意生产和销售一款联合品牌的连裤袜（恒适-柯克兰）在好市多店里，这真是太神奇了。这在20年前是不可能发生的。

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，她一定相当绝望才会向你咨询去哪儿买连裤袜。（笑声）

25. 卖空”诱人”但”非常痛苦”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们进入第五部分。

查理·芒格：好的。

股东：嗨，我是来自新罕布什尔州汉诺威的戴夫·斯台普斯，我有两个问题。首先，我想听听您对卖空证券的看法，以及您近期和整个职业生涯中的经验。第二个问题是，您如何着手建立您已识别的证券头寸？以USG为例，我相信您大部分股票是在14到15美元之间买入的。但当然，您肯定在18或19美元时也认为它是一个合理的投资。为什么14和15是神奇的数字？现在它跌到了12美元左右，您会继续增加头寸吗？您如何决定最终头寸是多少？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们不能谈论任何具体的证券，所以——我们的买入技巧很大程度上取决于我们正在交易的是哪种证券。有时候，这种证券可能需要好几个月才能完成收购。其他时候，你可以非常迅速地完成。有时候，支付溢价可能是值得的。其他时候则不然。事实是，你永远无法确切知道在你操作时应该使用什么正确的技巧，你只能根据过去的购买经验做出最佳判断。但我们不能讨论任何具体案例。卖空是一个值得研究的课题，因为，我的意思是，它毁掉了很多人。这是一种可能让你破产的操作。鲍勃·威尔逊，有很多关于他和国际度假胜地的著名故事。他并没有因此破产。事实上，他后来做得非常好。但做空某种东西，你的损失是无限的，这与做多你已经付过钱的东西完全不同。而且它很诱人。

在你职业生涯中，你会看到比被严重低估的股票多得多的被严重高估的股票。我是说——证券市场的本质就是偶尔会把某些东西推向天际，以至于证券的价格常常是其价值的五倍或十倍，而它们很少会以价值的20%或10%的价格出售。因此，你在高估一方会看到更大的价格与价值之间的差距。所以你可能认为通过卖空赚钱更容易。我只能说，对我来说并非如此。我认为对查理来说也不是。这是一项非常非常艰难的生意，因为你面临着无限的损失，而且因为那些持有被高估股票——非常被高估的股票——的人，往往在某种程度上介于推销员和骗子之间。这就是为什么他们会达到那个价格。

一旦到了那里——而且他们也知道如何利用那种估值为企业注入价值，因为如果你有一只售价为100而价值仅为10的股票，显然，走出去发行大量股票对你有利。如果你这样做，当一切完成后，价值可能变成50。事实上，有很多类似连锁信件的股票推销活动，或多或少基于管理团队会持续这样做的隐含假设。如果他们做了一次，通过在价值10时以100发行大量股票，将其价值推高到50，现在价值是50了，人们会说：“嗯，这些家伙在这方面真在行。我们付200或300买它吧。“然后他们可以再来一次，如此类推。通常不是那么——在他们头脑中那么清晰。但这是许多股票推销活动背后的基本原则。如果你卷入了一个成功的案例，你知道，你可能会在推销员用完点子之前就把钱输光。最终，它们几乎总是会成功。

我的意思是，我要说的是，在那些我们多年来觉得应该做空的案例中，如果持有到最后，从最终结果来看，命中率非常高。但过程非常痛苦，而且——以我的经验，在多头方面赚钱要容易得多。我曾经有一个情况，实际上是一个套利情况，当时我在——嗯，那是我在1954年搬到纽约的时候，所以大概是1954年6月或7月——涉及一个万无一失的交易，一个必须成功的套利交易。但有一个技术上的难题，我做空了某个东西。有那么一小段时间，我感觉就像——我觉得就像去年秋天的Finova。我是说，非常不愉快。你——在我看来，你不能通过它赚到真正的大钱，因为你无法承受如果大规模操作会带来的损失。查理，你呢？

查理·芒格：本·富兰克林说过：“如果你想在复活节之类的时候变得悲惨”，他说，“借一大笔钱，然后在四旬期偿还”，大致是这个意思。类似地，做空某样东西，它却因为有人以半欺诈的方式推销而不断上涨，你不断亏损，他们要求你追加保证金——你的生活中出现这么多烦心事根本不值得。在其他地方以更少的烦恼赚到钱并不那么难。

沃伦·巴菲特：无论如何，这对伯克希尔的规模从来都不适用。我的意思是，你永远无法为了对伯克希尔整体价值产生真正影响所必需的资金规模去做这件事。所以这不是我们会考虑的事情。不过，这很有趣。我是说，我有一份《纽约时报》的复印件，是北方太平洋公司逼仓事件那天的。那是一个案例，两个对立的商业巨头各自拥有北方太平洋公司——北方太平洋铁路公司——超过50%的股份。当两个人各自拥有某样东西超过50%时，你知道，这将很有趣。并且——（笑声）——北方太平洋在那天从170涨到了1000。而且是用现金交易，因为你那天必须实际拥有股票凭证，而不是通常的交割日。在《纽约时报》的头版——顺便说一句，当时它卖一分钱一份。

它的通货膨胀比可口可乐严重一点——《纽约时报》的头版，就在相关报道旁边，报道了新泽西州纽瓦克的一个酿酒商，因为这件事在那天收到了追加保证金的通知。他跳进了一桶热啤酒里，死了。这对我来说从来都不是一个有吸引力的——你知道——财务生涯的结局——（笑声）——谁知道呢？你知道，当他们逼仓Piggly Wiggly时，他们在20年代逼仓了奥本汽车。我的意思是，逼仓曾发生过。这是游戏的一部分，当时玩得很自由散漫。做空是不划算的。实际上，在那段时期——你可能会觉得有趣——在最近一期的《纽约客》杂志，也许是一期之前，有一篇关于特德·特纳的有趣故事，同时还有一篇关于海蒂·格林的故事。海蒂·格林是哈撒韦制造公司的创始股东之一，该公司是伯克希尔·哈撒韦业务的一半，那是在19世纪80年代。海蒂·格林当时正在积攒财富。

她是美国——也许是世界上最富有的女人。当然在美国是。也许国外某个女王更富有。但海蒂·格林只是通过缓慢、老式的方式赚钱。我怀疑海蒂是否卖空过任何东西。所以，作为海蒂·格林的精神后裔，我们在伯克希尔不会碰卖空。好的，第六部分。顺便提一下，海蒂——这个故事非常有趣。当我读到这个故事时，我几乎可以肯定地得出结论，她伪造了一份遗嘱，试图从她的姑妈那里收取一笔可观的钱。那是一个非常非常著名的审判，大概是在1860年或70年代。最后判决对她不利，但她还是设法成为了美国最富有的女人。

26. 伯克希尔”忠诚效应”的价值

沃伦·巴菲特：第六部分。

股东：嗨，我是来自德克萨斯州达拉斯的詹姆斯·哈尔珀林。我从1995年起就是股东了。感觉非常好，谢谢。这个问题与伯克希尔所谓的永久持股有关，以及在做投资决策时，您是否会以某种方式数学计算伯克希尔对其公众投资对象忠诚度的声誉价值。假设您足够有信心，百事可乐或宝洁的现金流增长会比可口可乐或吉列更快。而且股票的置换价值足够便宜，足以弥补税收。那么，比如，您会卖出可口可乐去买百事可乐吗？如果不会，为什么？在这些决策中，您如何评估忠诚度的声誉价值？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为这是一个非常好的问题。我不认为我们会——我认为我们不太可能得出结论，我们如此确定——你提到了宝洁和百事可乐对比我们持有的——但某个主要的消费品公司会比我们持有的那家做得更好。我们很可能断定另一家会做得很好，并额外买入它。实际上，如果我代表伯克希尔在一家公司的董事会里，或者查理，那么交易他们的证券非常困难——我说几乎是不可能的。这只会——会引发太多问题。人们会认为我们知道一些我们不知道的事情。或者，你知道，特别是如果我们卖出，人们会非常怀疑我们是否发现了公司内部对外界不可得的信息。所以当我们进入董事会时，我们实际上放弃了大量的投资灵活性。

所以我甚至不考虑做你建议的事情，尽管如果我仅仅是一个管理资金的投资经理，我很可能会考虑。我们当然，而且在年报后面的《所有者手册》中的基本规则里已经说明——我们明确表示，对于我们控股的企业，它们就是不出售的。诱人的价格不会打动我们。我们列出了例外情况，涉及那些我们认为在可预见的未来存在永久性现金损失的企业，或者我们遇到劳工问题的企业——我早些时候说过，那个时期我们在《布法罗新闻》可能遇到过。但除此之外，仅仅因为我们能在其他地方更好地使用资金，我们对出售不感兴趣。

你知道，我不能真正深入剖析我的内心，告诉你这在多大程度上是因为我认为如果我们那样做，将来会有助于我们收购企业，或者在多大程度上仅仅是我的自然倾向，即当我与某人达成交易并且对他们与我的相处方式感到满意时，我想与他们保持合作。你知道，可能是两者兼有。我不想试图权衡两者。我——你知道——对第一个的结果感到满意，对第二个我内心感受也很好。我只是认为这很疯狂——我知道如果我自己拥有整个伯克希尔，我做梦都不会与那些信任我、我喜欢并且对我一直非常公平的人进行企业交易。我做梦都不会为了我的遗产是某个巨大数字的105%而不是100%而去交易企业。我只是认为这是一种疯狂的生活方式。

我不希望因为我经营一家上市公司，就导致我做出如果我们是私营公司会感到不舒服的事情。但我也认为，作为股东，你们有权知道这是我的一种特质。因此，我把它摆出来，并且已经摆出来20年了，作为你在作为投资者或成为投资者之前应该理解的事情。我确信这随着时间的推移有助于我们的收购。但是，这是否在任何程度上补偿了查理所说的偶尔进行一次有利可图的处置所损失的机会成本，我不知道，这也是我永远不会计算的事情。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我确实倾向于计算它，至少是大致估算。到目前为止，我认为忠诚效应在我们的人生中是一个加分项。

沃伦·巴菲特：你认为这在公开市场——我的意思是，可流通证券和控股企业——都适用吗？

查理·芒格：哦，不。我不认为在许多上市公司中，忠诚效应像在私营公司中那样重要。

沃伦·巴菲特：你可以说，我们担任公司董事是一个错误，因为我们作为董事放弃了巨大的投资灵活性。我——毫无疑问我们确实如此。如果你纯粹想着赚钱，你不想担任任何公司的董事。这一点毫无疑问。

27. 对伯克希尔文化将持续的信心

沃伦·巴菲特：第七部分。

股东：汤姆·哈里森，来自俄克拉荷马州克莱尔莫尔。下午好，先生们。感谢你们带来了一个美妙的周末。这个问题是给巴菲特先生的。我天性有点悲观，所以我经常做一个噩梦，梦见《华尔街日报》的头条写着：“巴菲特翘辫子了。”

沃伦·巴菲特：他们可能会说得更文雅一些——（笑声）——但总有一天，这个头条会出现的。（笑声）

股东：当然，查理也不是小年轻了。（笑声）鉴于这些担忧，您能否比年报中所述更详细地谈谈继任问题？请原谅我提出这个不吉利的问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，没有理由道歉。我的意思是，顺便说一下，我每隔几年也会问我们的经理这个问题。大概每两年，我会给他们寄一封信，我说，你知道，“如果你今晚去世，你希望——你希望我明天早上知道些什么？“你知道，因为我必须做同样的决定，而我不是每晚都和他们交谈。所以我希望他们每两年一次，书面告诉我他们对这个问题的看法，他们认为谁应该接替他们，或者是否有几个候选人，或者优缺点是什么。我有这些信息。而且，你知道，你们有权得到关于继任问题的同样答案。这是投资这家企业的一部分。我可以告诉你，没有人比我对此更关心。查理也有类似的关心，因为我们净资产的很大一部分都在这个企业里。加上，我们为此付出了毕生的努力。

我们希望它成功，为了——在我们各自的情况下，可能，至少在我的情况下，最终的回报是我建立的那个基金会。但也因为我们只是希望——我们喜欢迄今为止所取得的成就，并且我们希望证明它可以——它不依赖于像我们这样的两个人，而是可以实际上被制度化。我们有，查理和我，我们知道谁将在可能两个职位上接替我，一个是可流通证券，一个是业务运营。我们希望非常确保文化得以维持。我认为它非常强大，所以很难改变它。但此外，我的股票所有权状况使得——如果有任何改变它的倾向，它是可以防止发生的。无论如何，我认为它不会改变。现在，至于谁接替我，那取决于我去世的时间。我——现在告诉你将是谁没有意义。这没有任何好处，而且20年后可能就不是同一个人了。

我的意思是，20年前，显然是查理。但现在不会是查理，因为他的年龄。会是别人。但20年后或15年后，可能是某个第三方。但我们有——我们对继任情况感觉非常好。我们对组织的稳定性感觉非常好，就股票所有权状况而言，因为这在今后非常非常长的时间内是有保障的。我们对现有的管理团队和现有的文化感觉再好不过了。而且，你知道，这个人将会被任命。我想我提到过，当他们打开那个信封时——信封里的所有内容关键人员都已经知道了——但当他们打开那个信封时，第一道指示是，你知道，再量一下我的脉搏。（笑声）但如果我没通过那个测试，会有一位非常优秀的人接手。查理？

查理·芒格：主要的防御措施，当然，是拥有那些或多或少会自动表现良好的资产。我们有很多这样的资产。而且，通过拥有非常优秀的管理团队和非常优秀的引进新管理者的个人化系统，这里有很大的惯性，即使现任管理层不在，一切也会非常好地持续下去。不过，我不认为我们的继任者在真正分配资金方面能和沃伦一样出色——（掌声）——（更响亮的掌声和笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：不，我们10年前做了一个小测试案例，因为我有9个月零4天在萨洛蒙兄弟公司做另一份工作。伯克希尔这边一切运行正常。我们——经理们不需要我。我们必须分配资本。我们必须确保他们受到公平对待。但是——除了资本配置之外，我们这里并不做其他决策。那将是很重要的。但其中一些是半自动的。而其他一些，你知道，有时确实需要一些想象力或类似的东西。但在1991年的9个月零4天里，你知道，我主要考虑的是萨洛蒙，而不是伯克希尔。一切照旧运行。而且我们现在比10年前强大得多，非常非常强大。所以我对我99%的遗产是伯克希尔股票感到非常放心。而且我认为，最终对基金会来说，这是一个明智的持有。知道这一点，你知道，在基金会得到它之前的某个时候，我将不在人世了。

28. “我们不想谈论白银”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第八部分。

股东：你好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫马特·阿纳，来自亚利桑那州图森市。今天能来到这里真是莫大的荣幸。这个问题可能属于查理·芒格的投资奇闻怪谈范畴。考虑到伯克希尔以前在白银方面的经验，您对当今的白银市场有何看法？您如何分析这个市场？您是否确定了白银的均衡价格？如果是，您愿意分享那个价格，或者向我们解释您是如何确定的吗？

查理·芒格：简短的答案是，我们不想谈论白银。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我们不会对石油或任何物品的价格进行评论或预测。不过，我可以告诉你，均衡价格就是它今天卖的价格。但一年后或五年后会有不同的均衡价格。但我们无法告诉你它会是多少。

29. 电力放松管制导致破坏性短缺

沃伦·巴菲特：第一部分。

股东：你好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫鲍勃·奥德姆，来自华盛顿州西雅图。考虑到当前的政治气候，以及电力公用事业市场似乎比以往更加管制的环境，还有那些似乎是在安抚选民而非关注价格与数量的常识的政治家——考虑到即使PUHCA法律可能被废除，它们也可能在几年后重新生效，再加上政治家可能凭空想出的其他任何立法的增减，从而使投资面临风险——那么，参与这些市场，超出已经对中美能源所做的投资，是否不是一个冒险之举？

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，你是加州居民。（笑）

查理·芒格：嗯，电力的生产，当然，是一个巨大的行业。它不会消失。认为我们可能在该领域再做点什么的的想法并非完全不可思议。这是一个非常基础的行业。现在，你确实说对了，加州在电力方面陷入了一团糟。这再次反映了，我要说，国家教育体系的一个根本缺陷，就是许多各行各业的聪明人，包括公用事业高管、州长、立法者、新闻领袖，他们很难认识到电力系统最重要的事情是拥有过剩的产能。这是一个很难理解的概念吗？（笑声）你知道，每个人都明白，如果你在建造一座桥，你不想要一座正好能承受20,000磅、一点都不能更多的桥。你想要一座能承受远大于最可能最大载荷的桥。这个安全边际在桥梁建设中极其重要。那么，电力系统是类似的事情。

现在，为什么所有这些聪明人，你知道，忽略了最明显和最重要的单一因素，把事情搞得一塌糊涂？所以，我给你一个回应，当然，这又是另一个问题。就像我的老教授常说的：“告诉我你的问题是什么，我来尽量让它变得更困难。“（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，对我来说，有趣的是，你有一个系统——我的意思是，查理显然是对的，从社会角度来看，你大约有三个目标——就你希望你的电力公用事业业务达到的状态而言，也许有三个目标。一是你希望它运营得相当高效。第二，因为它往往在许多情况下具有垄断特征，你希望它能产生一个合理的回报，但不是过高的资本回报。但足以吸引资本。第三，你希望有这个安全边际，即充足的供应。现在，当创造供应需要很长时间（这是增加发电容量的性质），你必须有一个能够奖励人们履行拥有额外产能义务的系统。一个受监管的系统能做到这一点。如果你给予人们所用资本的回报，如果他们保持资本略微过剩以拥有这个发电安全边际，并且他们因此得到报酬，他们就会走在需求曲线之前。他们总是拥有比所需多15%或20%的发电容量。

这种监管和垄断性质的缺点之一是它缺乏提高效率的动力。他们试图通过各种方式建立这种动力，但如果某人可以从他们花的任何资本上获得回报，就很难有提高效率的强大动力。所以公用事业监管者总是担心有人随便建个什么东西，然后获得州政府允许的回报率。但我要说的是，由比如一点点管理不善引起的问题，与发电不足引起的问题相比，根本不算什么。所以，在加州这里——我作为局外人的看法——你在监管下所处的状况是，公用事业公司有动力保留一点额外的发电容量，因为他们被允许在其上赚取体面的回报，一个能吸引资本的回报。然后，我认为，他们被迫出售了其一半左右的发电容量之类的。而且他们以账面价值数倍的价格卖给了一群现在只是非管制化的发电商。他们没有兴趣供应过剩。他们有兴趣供应不足。

所以，你已经完全改变了方程，因为现在拥有非管制化资产的人，为此支付了账面价值的三倍，现在必须在账面价值三倍的基础上赚取回报，而以前那个人在受管制环境下是一倍账面价值。因此，他不会建造额外的发电容量。那——那样做的结果只会拉低电价。你知道，他希望市场紧张。所以，在我看来，你造成了一种局面，即该行业公司的利益与社会利益严重背离。而且我——我觉得这毫无意义。我真的认为旧系统在社会意义上更合理。让人们赚取良好的回报，不是巨大的回报，而是能够吸引资本的回报，基于一种本身就内置了保持产能领先于需求的激励机制的投资，因为你无法那么精确地微调。而且你确实有很长的前置时间。现在，你知道，如何处理现在的烂摊子是个问题。

考虑到各种政治力量的反复，我认为你最好有一个鼓励建设额外产能的系统。因为你不知道太平洋西北地区会有多少降雨，因此可用多少水电。你也不知道天然气价格会怎样。因此，你知道，燃气轮机是否有利可图。旧系统给我的印象确实比我们或多或少偶然陷入的这种半放松管制的环境要好一些。但查理，你怎么看？

查理·芒格：当然，即使是旧系统也遇到了一些麻烦，因为每个人都有”不要在我家后院”（NIMBY）综合症。每个人都希望任何新的发电厂都建在别处，不要靠近我。如果每个人都这样想，而且如果政治制度意味着阻挠者总是说了算（这在某些地方关于分区和其他问题上是真实的），你就会陷入大麻烦。如果你让那些不合理、以自我为中心的人做出所有这类决定，你很可能会耗尽电力。那是一个错误。我们可能在炼油厂方面也犯这个错误。你知道，在过去的一段时间里，我们没建多少新的、大型的炼油厂。所以，你可能会重蹈覆辙。

沃伦·巴菲特：尽管如此，对更多发电容量的需求还是会有的。我的意思是，电力公用事业行业将会——将会增长。它将需要大量资本。应该有一些参与方式，让我们获得合理的资本回报。我们不期望获得巨大的资本回报。但我们会，你知道，我们乐意这么做。我们产生大量资本，我们对那个行业感到舒适。只要我们不四处为别人的产能支付难以置信的高价，然后让人们因为这意味着他们的电价会怎样而非常不满，我们就不会觉得风险过大。你不能走出去——如果你有一个在美国以X成本建成的公用事业工厂，然后你出去鼓励企业家以3X买入，你不能指望电价会下降。在我看来，那是一个非常基本的错误。我可能没有完全理解它。

30. 好企业能弥补糟糕的管理吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：第二部分。

股东：下午好。我叫帕维尔·贝贡。我来自白俄罗斯明斯克。我有两个问题。在提问之前，我想感谢您推荐阅读《聪明的投资者》。这是一本了不起的书，它几乎在一夜之间彻底重塑了我。所以我要为此感谢您。现在是我的问题。假设我是一家企业的所有者。该企业拥有持久的竞争优势和卓越的商业模式，并且由能干的人管理。然后，你知道，我开始注意到，基本上，管理层开始做一些远非明智的事情。那么，作为所有者、投资者，我该怎么办？我应该尝试告诉他们应该如何经营企业吗？还是我应该袖手旁观，什么都不做，因为卓越的商业模式应该能克服糟糕的管理？这是第一个问题。第二个问题是，名义上的投资经验有多重要？

通过说名义上，我指的是你在该行业实际的时间长度，而不是实际经验，后者也包括当你阅读本·格雷厄姆、您或彼得·林奇等人的书籍时所获得的经验？这就是我的问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：关于你的第一个问题，你假设你控制了企业，还是仅仅拥有可流通的证券？

股东：是的，如果我拥有比如20%的可流通证券。

沃伦·巴菲特：好吧。那么，你描述的情况，在第一种情况下，并非假设。（笑声）而且我要说，查理和我在说服正派、聪明的人——那些我们认为在做不聪明事情的人——改变他们的行动方针方面，历史记录很糟糕。你同意吗，查理？还是不同意？

查理·芒格：比糟糕更糟。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。（笑声）所以我要说，如果你真的认为你与那些拥有好企业的人在一起，但他们将不断用你的钱做蠢事，你最好离开，去与那些拥有好企业并且你认为他们会明智地运用它的人在一起。我的意思是，你有那个选择。现在，你也有选择尝试说服他们改变主意。但这非常非常困难。我的意思是，这是我们50年来一直面对的事情。最初，我们面对它时，处于没人知道我们是谁的位置。所以随着时间的推移，我们在这个话题上可能获得了一定的发言权。我们写过这方面的文章。我们仍然收效甚微。我的意思是，当人们想做什么事的时候，他们就是想做。

而且他们不是通过让某个股东告诉他们最新的想法很蠢而升到CEO职位的。我的意思是，那根本不是能爬到顶层的那种类型。所以我要说，作为一种投资技巧，也许作为，你知道，避免生活压力之类的东西——并且处理少量股票，以便更容易买卖之类的事情——我要说，与一个你合得来的管理层在一起，比仅仅在一家伟大的企业中，但管理层执意于做那些对你看来说没什么意义的事情要好。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我当然同意这一点。

31. 首先要”头脑清晰”

沃伦·巴菲特：第二个问题——（笑）——我猜是，我们的实际商业经验对比书本经验，在多大程度上有助于我们？

股东：嗯，你知道，如果你看一个人，他刚刚从事投资行业两年，而另一个人已经在投资行业干了10年。假设那个只有两年经验的人，阅读了大量关于本·格雷厄姆、您的以及彼得·林奇等人的技巧。那么，你会说那个只有两年经验的人可能比那个十年经验的人做得好得多吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，如果其他条件都相同，我的意思是，除了经验量之外其他一切都相同，我认为经验可能是有用的。但条件不会相同。而且我不认为——我认为——我认为更重要的不是你实践了10年，而是你在两年里思考了什么。如果——如果方向——如果所应用的技巧存在分歧，我宁愿与那个在哲学上与我同步的人在一起。如果我在哲学上与两者都同步，而一个有10年经验，那么如果他们在这10年里一直在观察企业，他们很可能比只观察了两年的人对更多企业了解得更多一点。但最重要的是，你知道，基本上，他们从一开始就有正确的头脑，即他们如何评估企业以及如何看待股票。

他们是把股票看作企业的一部分，还是看作会波动的小东西，并且可以通过看图表或听策略师的话就能知道很多？我们——查理和我在40或50年里学到了很多关于许多企业的知识。但我要说的是，就我们接触到的新事物而言，在第二年结束时，我们对它们的判断能力可能和今天差不多。但我认为，多看一些——更多关于人类行为方面的东西——比了解某个特定商业模式的细节要稍微有用一些。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，我认为——我观察沃伦很长时间了，我要说，随着年龄增长，他实际上变得更好了。不是在打高尔夫方面——（巴菲特笑）——或者许多其他活动方面，但是——

沃伦·巴菲特：还是泛泛而谈吧。

查理·芒格：——作为投资者，他更好了——（笑声）——我认为这很了不起。这表明经验规模很重要。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，看过很多商业情况确实有些帮助——我的意思是，查理谈到模型，你一边走一边根据观察构建你的模型。而且你的模型会——如果你注意的话，你观察的年头越长，你的模型就会越好，而不仅仅是试图让你最初几年看到的东西去适应一切。

32. 推荐伯克希尔股票将是一个”大错误”

沃伦·巴菲特：第三部分。

33. 本杰明·格雷厄姆的“雪茄烟蒂”策略如今是否仍有效？

沃伦·巴菲特：第四区。

听众：下午好。我叫马丁·奥利里（Martin O’Leary），来自德克萨斯州休斯顿。我的问题是：在今年的年报致股东信中，您提到50年前您遇到了本杰明·格雷厄姆，他对您的生活产生了重大影响，尤其是对您的投资成功。此外，您过去曾说过，《聪明的投资者》是有史以来最伟大的投资著作。该书中一个核心原则是，如果你买入一组股票——比如10到20只——它们的交易价格低于净流动资产的三分之二或更低，那么你将获得安全边际，并带来令人满意的回报率。如今，如果你能找到10到20只交易价格低于净流动资产三分之二的股票，你会倾向于为自己的个人投资组合（而非伯克希尔·哈撒韦）买入这些股票吗？第二个问题，既然我提到了这本书，我想知道您和芒格先生最近在读哪些书，并有什么推荐？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：关于你的第一个问题，如果你能找到这样一组股票——但我觉得你找不到——你买入这组股票很可能表现不错。但这不是因为这些企业本身随着时间的推移会发展得很好，而是因为这类股票很可能会有相当多的公司活动，比如管理层将公司私有化、收购等。但现在，这种低于营运资本的股票几乎找不到了。如果你进入一个存在大量这种股票的市场，你很可能也会发现很多优质企业卖得更便宜。我们的倾向是买入廉价而优质的企业。我认为，在市场高位或接近高位时，你不会再看到大量低于营运资本的股票。因为资金太多，在股票真正跌到那个水平之前，就会有人推动交易。但这是一种策略，是50年前的事了。沃尔特·施洛斯还在吗？沃尔特，你在吗？

如果你在，请站起来。50年前，我在遇到本·格雷厄姆时也遇到了沃尔特。我知道沃尔特今年出来了，但他已经知道我所讲的一切，所以可能已经离开了。但事实上，沃尔特一直更接近原始方法进行证券投资——他经营一家合伙公司已经46年了，我想。他更倾向于本·格雷厄姆当年所谈论的那种股票。他的业绩绝对惊人，远远超过那些被捧上电视节目的人。而他通过我常说的“雪茄烟蒂”公司做到了这一点。你知道，你可以免费吸一口，然后就没有了，而且它们不花什么钱。这就是那些低于营运资本的情况。沃尔特不得不稍微扩展了这个方法，但这在相当长的时间里——我是说46年——是一个非常出色的业绩记录。

所以我认为，如果你找到这类股票并作为一组操作——本总是强调组合操作，因为当你处理糟糕的公司时，你预计会有一定数量被收购等，所以最好有一组。而如果你处理的是优秀公司，你只需要几个。但我认为，如果你再次看到那个时期，我们会非常活跃。但不会是那种证券。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。还有一个变化。在过去，如果业务停止了，你可以把营运资本装进股东的口袋。而现在，正如你可以从所有的重组费用中看到的，当事情真的糟糕透顶时，别人会拥有很多营运资本。整个文化都变了。如果你在法国有一个小企业，你厌倦了它，就像玛莎百货一样，法国人会说：“你凭什么想把你的资本从法国拿回去？这个企业里有法国工人。”他们不在乎。他们不会说：“这是你的营运资本，拿回去吧。”当业务不再为你工作时，他们会说：“这是我们的营运资本。”整个文化在这方面已经变了。虽然没有完全变，但与本·格雷厄姆的时代相比变化很大。有很多原因导致一个时代的投资特性不会完美地转移到另一个时代。

沃伦·巴菲特：那份名单，我忘了是发表在1951年版的《证券分析》还是1949年版的《聪明的投资者》中，但有一系列公司。有萨科-洛厄尔、马歇尔-威尔斯、克利夫兰沃斯特德 mills、福斯特惠勒等，所有这些公司都是低于营运资本的公司，市盈率只有三四倍。如果你买入这样一组股票，你会做得很好。但是，你知道，我今天肯定没有在任何规模的公司中看到这种情况。我见过一些科技公司低于现金储备的名单。但它们决心使用这些现金。一两年后，这些现金可能就不在了。在本·格雷厄姆当时的名单中，这些动物在某种程度上是不同的品种。

34. 书籍推荐

沃伦·巴菲特：你问了第二个问题吗？

查理·芒格：你读过的书。

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，我读过的书。查理，告诉他你读过什么书。（笑声）

查理·芒格：嗯，我提到过那本书《基因组》。我很难把重音放在第一个音节上。但那是一本很棒的书。还有一位股东送给我一本书，你们中很多人可能不喜欢，是赫伯特·西蒙的，我想叫《我的人生模型》。对于某种学术类型的人来说，这是一本非常有趣的书。但那本《基因组》，你知道，是用23章讲述一个物种的历史，这是一本非常神奇的书，非常有趣。

沃伦·巴菲特：我以前可能推荐过，但如果你还没读过凯瑟琳·格雷厄姆的《个人历史》，我觉得你会发现这是一个引人入胜的故事。更令人惊奇的是，它是一个诚实的故事。你知道，如果我写自传，我会把自己写得像阿诺德·施瓦辛格，但是——（笑声）但她对所发生的事情有一种强迫性的诚实。这真是一部传奇。

查理·芒格：那是一本好书。我发现珍妮特·洛关于我的那本书在发行中有一个非常有趣的“子章节”。我注意到相当多的人买了那本书，并寄给每个后代一本。他们认为，只要这样做，后代的行为就会更像父母。看看这是否有效会很有趣。如果有效，它将超过《圣经》的销量。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：屏住呼吸——（笑声）

35. 国会应放松对公用事业的资本限制

沃伦·巴菲特：第五区。

听众：下午好。我是来自纽约市的劳拉·里滕豪斯（Laura Rittenhouse）。我想说，来到这里非常愉快。您早些时候谈到了一些将贪婪货币化的公司。能和这些将价值观货币化的人以及领导者在一起，真是太好了。几年前，您曾非常热情地谈论过竞选资金改革，我想知道您能否就这个问题，结合华盛顿另一个问题的最近发展，谈谈您的看法？您对废除《公用事业控股公司法》（PUHCA）的预期是什么？我知道最近参议院的一个小组委员会有一些活动。最后，问查理一个问题：您如何或将如何将内在价值投资的原则应用于房地产？

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。关于《公用事业控股公司法》，我很难——你知道，我对立法行动的预测没有很好的记录。但我想说，在当前情况下，公众对电力公用事业问题的意识，你知道，已经激增。我是说，它膨胀了。所以我认为——我认为国会更有可能接受这样一种观点，即他们需要采取一些措施来确保电力供应充足。而且我认为，可能有不少人认为《公用事业控股公司法》是资本从许多有资本可用的来源进入该行业的障碍。而解决这个问题需要资本。现在，他们不需要通过让伯克希尔做更多的事情来解决这个问题。但如果说伯克希尔有数十亿美元可以投资，那么这对未来的电力供应可能是一个净增好处，这并非一个疯狂的方法。所以我认为，废除或重大修改的可能性现在比几年前要高得多。

而且，我的意思是，政治家们不喜欢面对大规模的停电。我是说，他们可以试图责怪别人，而且他们很可能在责怪别人时是准确的。但如果这个国家电力耗尽，公众至少会部分地指责政治领导人，因为我们并没有失去建造发电机组的能力。你知道，我们可以建造所有我们需要的发电机组，拥有充足的电力。我们也可以建造输电线路等等。但是，你确实需要资本流入这个行业。而《公用事业控股公司法》在很大程度上限制了这种流动，我想是这样。

36. 竞选捐款需要更多监管

沃伦·巴菲特：关于竞选资金改革，你知道的和我一样多。你知道，我非常钦佩麦凯恩和法因戈尔德所做的一切。我不认为这是万灵药。我的意思是，金钱总会设法以某种方式购买政治影响力。但在我看来，目前的情况已经完全失控，而且，顺便说一句，完全背离了美国国会乃至公众的初衷，因为1907年国会规定——并且从未改变——公司不得向联邦选举捐款。1947年，他们对工会也做了同样的规定。然后他们在70年代初通过了竞选立法，后来被联邦选举委员会解释，使公司和工会能够无限量地做国会说过他们根本不应该做的事情。政治家们最初并未真正理解其中的潜力。我记得第一个打电话给我的人，一位参议院候选人，大概是在1985年左右，他打电话给我，要求一笔软钱捐款。

他对此有点尴尬，含糊其辞地说这笔钱将如何进入他的竞选活动等等。他向我要求的金额根据法律是非法的，除非我通过软钱的方式。这已经发展到这样一个地步：我确实有第一手资料，有人要求百万美元或更大数额的捐款，而这些捐款永远不会被报告。我们永远不需要报告。我认为这是对制度的扭曲。但我认为我们会看到一些显著的改善。我认为这之所以可能，只是因为麦凯恩在公众中建立的信誉，以及他坚决不放弃这个问题的事实。所以我——但我对它会改变美国民主的整个进程或类似的事情并不抱希望。但我希望这个政府体系——其中接触权被卖给出价最高者，而且每个选举周期，出价都以实质性的金额从更高水平开始——至少能在一段时间内受到抑制。查理，她有给你的问题。

查理·芒格：嗯，我在竞选资金改革方面的问题是，我害怕职业政治家一直连任下去，就像我害怕特殊利益集团用金钱保护自己一样。而且我从来不知道改革会如何运作。当我来到加利福尼亚时，我们有一个半腐败的、兼职的立法机构，由赛马场、酒吧和酒类经销商等主导。人们去那里招待立法者，提供妓女等等。说实话，事后看来，我确实更喜欢那个政府——（笑声）——而不是我现在拥有的全职立法者。所以我只是对我预测我会喜欢哪种改革的结果，以及我愿意用哪些改革换回我以前的恶行的能力更加怀疑。

37. 芒格已不再从事房地产投资

沃伦·巴菲特：劳拉，你还有一个问题，是关于——？是问查理的？

听众：这是一个关于将内在价值投资原则应用于房地产的问题。

查理·芒格：哦，我生命中的那个时期涉及遥远的过去。我更喜欢商业投资，而不是房地产投资。

38. 问答环节结束

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。现在是3点30分。我们随后将在这里召开一次董事会会议，我们每年只开一次。所以我请董事们留下。