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2008年度股东大会

上午场

1. 肥皂剧明星苏珊·卢西与巴菲特互换工作

新闻主播：(CNBC的贝基·奎克，录像)各位，刚刚收到的消息。沃伦·巴菲特似乎与日间肥皂剧天后苏珊·卢西达成了一项互换工作的协议。据报道，巴菲特已成功争取到《我所有的孩子》剧组的常驻角色。而卢西女士正在前往奥马哈的路上，准备出任伯克希尔的新任CEO。(掌声)

查理·芒格：他能在哪儿呢？(笑声和掌声中，女演员苏珊·卢西登上舞台)

苏珊·卢西：你是指沃伦吗，查理？他在电视台录节目呢，被耽搁了。(笑声)

查理·芒格：真的吗？

苏珊·卢西：嗨，查理。我是苏珊·卢西。哦，你没听说我和沃伦之间的交易吗？他要去《我所有的孩子》当大明星，而我来接管伯克希尔·哈撒韦。

查理·芒格：嗯，你确实拥有一些沃伦所缺乏的重要品质。(笑声)

苏珊·卢西：哦，谢谢你，查理。现在你可以放松了，亲爱的。你就在这儿好好待着，因为接下来由我接手，谢谢。我一直想和我们的股东们谈谈。我觉得这里确实需要做一些改变。首先要考虑的是我们的分红政策。(笑声)我从未听说过这么吝啬、这么不公平对待我们优秀股东的事情。我们需要改变它。(掌声)

查理·芒格：听起来不错。(笑声)

苏珊·卢西：其次，我们需要提供盈利指引。而且每周都要做。(笑声)

查理·芒格：听起来不错。(笑声)

苏珊·卢西：第三，我们给董事的薪酬不能每年只有900美元了。(欢呼和掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：等一下。(掌声)

苏珊·卢西：嗨，沃伦。沃伦，我以为你在《我所有的孩子》的录影棚呢。

沃伦·巴菲特：我听到你说分红是怎么回事？

苏珊·卢西：哦，没什么重要的，沃伦。你只管专心演好你的角色就行了。

沃伦·巴菲特：苏珊，我的节目就是伯克希尔·哈撒韦。我的角色就是经营它。(从夹克口袋里掏出一张纸撕碎)

苏珊·卢西：沃伦，你不能那样做。

沃伦·巴菲特：我已经做了。《我所有的孩子》离不开你，而我也离不开伯克希尔。(掌声)

苏珊·卢西：哦，沃伦。那意思是交易取消了？

沃伦·巴菲特：交易取消了。我真的要谢谢你。你让我清醒了。你可以回《我所有的孩子》去了。我留在伯克希尔。不过我非常感激你，苏珊，我希望你去伯克希尔——不，不是伯克希尔——去波仙珠宝，挑任何你喜欢的东西，记在查理的账上。(笑声)

苏珊·卢西：哦，沃伦，你太贴心了。谢谢你。(掌声)苏珊·卢西(对芒格)：你也很贴心。

沃伦·巴菲特：等等。

苏珊·卢西：谢谢。(掌声)

原文

Title: 2008 Annual Meeting

Part 1/5

2008 Annual Meeting

Morning Session

1. TV soap star Susan Lucci trades jobs with Buffett

NEWS ANCHOR: (CNBC’s Becky Quick, on tape) Folks, this just in. It appears that Warren Buffett has struck a deal to trade jobs with daytime soap opera diva Susan Lucci. Buffett has reportedly negotiated a permanent spot on the cast of All My Children. Apparently, Ms. Lucci is en route to Omaha as the new CEO of Berkshire. (Applause.)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Where could he be? (Laughter and applause as actress Susan Lucci comes on stage)

SUSAN LUCCI: Do you mean Warren, Charlie? He’s been detained at the TV studio. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Really?

SUSAN LUCCI: Hi, Charlie. I’m Susan Lucci. Oh, haven’t you heard about the deal between Warren and me? He’s going to be a big star in All My Children, and I’m going to be taking over Berkshire Hathaway.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you’ve certainly got some important qualities that Warren lacks. (Laughter)

SUSAN LUCCI: Well, thank you, Charlie. And you can relax now, you dear man. You just make yourself at home because I’ll take it from here, thank you. I’ve been wanting to talk to our shareholders for quite some time now. There’s some changes I really think we need to make around here. The first thing we need to look at is our dividend policy. (Laughter) I have never heard of anything so cheap and so unfair to our wonderful shareholders. We need to change it. (Applause)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Sounds good to me. (Laughter)

SUSAN LUCCI: And, second, we need to look at giving guidance on earnings. And we need to do that every single week. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Sounds good to me. (Laughter)

SUSAN LUCCI: And, third, we need to pay our directors more than $900 a year. (Cheers and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Just one minute. (Applause.)

SUSAN LUCCI: Hi, Warren. Warren, I thought you were at the All My Children studio.

WARREN BUFFETT: What’s that talk about dividends that I hear?

SUSAN LUCCI: Oh, nothing important, Warren. You just concentrate on your role on the show.

WARREN BUFFETT: Susan, my show is Berkshire Hathaway. And my role is to run it. (Takes paper out of jacket pocket and rips it up)

SUSAN LUCCI: Warren, you can’t do that.

WARREN BUFFETT: I just did it. All My Children can’t do without you, and I can’t do without Berkshire. (Applause.)

SUSAN LUCCI: Oh, Warren. So you mean the deal is off?

WARREN BUFFETT: The deal is off. I really want to thank you. You’ve brought me to my senses. You can go back to All My Children. I’ll stay here at Berkshire. But I am so grateful to you Susan, that I want you to go out to Berkshire — not to Berkshire — to Borsheims and I want you to pick out anything you would like, and charge it to Charlie. (Laughter)

SUSAN LUCCI: Oh, Warren, you are darling. Thank you. (Applause.) SUSAN LUCCI (to MUNGER): And you’re a darling, too.

WARREN BUFFETT: Now, wait a second.

SUSAN LUCCI: Thank you. (Applause)

2. 欢迎致辞

沃伦·巴菲特：好了。查理，我们开始吧。(笑声)她——她花在他身上的时间比花在我身上的还多，不过——(笑声)我们——我们按照惯例进行。商务会议将在下午3:15开始。但在这之前，中间休息吃午饭，我们会回答大家的问题。我们不提前筛选问题，如你们所知——按谁先站到麦克风前面为准。我们会按区域轮流，然后转到分会场。据我了解，我们估计今天大约有31,000人在这里。(掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：我这里有张地图。马克，有吗？什么？这边什么也听不见。总之——在黄色便签纸上。好了。我们一个一个来。在开始之前——我听到罗恩·奥尔森在笑。我想他来了。很高兴。让我介绍一下我们的董事。在大家为分红和涨薪之类的事情热烈鼓掌之后，我真不确定是否还要进行这个环节——但台上——查理·芒格坐在我的左边。他是能听的那个；我是能看的那个。因此我们配合工作。(掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：当我念到名字时，请其余各位起立。请把掌声留到最后——或者你们想留更久也行——(笑声)——我来介绍他们。他们是霍华德·巴菲特、苏珊·德克尔、比尔·盖茨、大卫·戈特斯曼、夏洛特·盖曼、唐·基奥、汤姆·墨菲、罗恩·奥尔森和沃尔特·斯科特。全美最好的董事们。(掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：查利和我会在中午休息，因为到那时我们大概已经吃完了台上所有的东西，需要吃午饭了。如果各位能把问题限定为一个，不要包含三个或四个部分，我会很感激。也不需要做长篇的开场陈述，这样我们能回答更多问题，尽可能覆盖更多人。

原文

2. Welcome

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Charlie, let’s get this show on the road. (Laughter) The — she spent more time with him than she did with me, but — (Laughter) The — we’re going to follow the usual procedure. The business meeting will start at 3:15. But between now and then, with a break for lunch, we’re going to answer your questions. We don’t screen them ahead of time, as you know — based on who gets lined up at the microphone first. And we’ll go around from sections to sections and then go to the overflow rooms. My understanding is that our best estimate is that we have about 31,000 people here today. (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: Somewhere I have a map here. Marc, do we have that? Pardon me? Can’t hear a thing up here. But in any event — on the yellow pad. OK. We’ll just mark them off as we go along. The — I would like, before we start — I heard Ron Olson laughing there. I think he made it. I’m glad to hear it. Let me introduce our directors. I really wasn’t sure whether to go through with this part of the show after they showed that rousing applause for things like dividends and raising their — but we have up here — we have Charlie Munger on my left. He’s the one that can hear; I can see. We work together for that reason. (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: And if the rest of you will just stand as I give your name. And if you’ll hold your applause to the end — or even longer if you would like — (laughter) — I will introduce them. It’s Howard Buffett, Susan Decker, Bill Gates, David Gottesman, Charlotte Guyman, Don Keough, Tom Murphy, Ron Olson, and Walter Scott. The best directors in America. (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie and I will take a break at noon because we will probably, by that time, have finished all of the things we have up here to eat, and we’ll need to have lunch. I’d appreciate it if you would limit your questions to one question, and that means not embodying a three-parter or a four-parter or something like that. And there’s no need to make a long introductory statement because we’ll get more questions answered that way, and we want to cover as many people as we can.

3. 如何不当旅鼠

沃伦·巴菲特：那么，我们直接转到1号位，开始第一个问题。

观众：巴菲特先生和芒格先生，早上好。我叫拉杰什·弗罗(音)，来自印度孟买。我从你们的信件中学到了很多东西。这是我从其他地方从未学到的关于投资哲学的深刻见解。做得太棒了。这是从思想层面。但从心灵层面，最触动我的是你们多年来以百分百诚实的品格取得的成就，我对此表示敬意。谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。

观众：我的问题是，您会推荐哪些关键步骤来纠正像我这样典型投资者的心态——您曾称之为”旅鼠般”的从众心态？

沃伦·巴菲特：我们推荐什么——问题重复一遍——关于投资者的心态？是吗——？

查理·芒格：他想让你建议他如何变得不那么像旅鼠。(笑声)

沃伦·巴菲特：既然你重复了问题，我让你先回答，查理。(笑声)直到他吃掉大约一千卡路里——(笑声)

查理·芒格：他想投资时少像旅鼠一样。

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，我明白了。我是让你先说的。好吧，我告诉你什么改变了我自己的投资生涯。我11岁开始投资。我最早开始阅读这方面的书——我相信要阅读一切能看到的东西。我大概六七岁就开始阅读了。但大约有八年时间，我徘徊在技术分析周围，做各种事情，然后我读了一本叫《聪明的投资者》的书。那是我19岁在内布拉斯加大学时读的。我想说，如果你吸收了《聪明的投资者》的教训——主要是在——我写了一篇序言，特别推荐第8章和第20章——你就不会表现得像旅鼠，而且可能会比旅鼠做得好得多。我们在Bookworm书店有《聪明的投资者》的副本，我认为它现在和我在1950年初读到时一样伟大。

如果你遵循本·格雷厄姆在那本书中教导的教训，你永远不会得到坏的结果。我还应该提到，有一本书我没想到会在这个时候完成。我的表弟比尔·巴菲特写了一本关于我们祖父杂货店的书，叫《你会喜欢的食物》。比尔会在那里。他会在签名售书。我几天前刚拿到第一本。读了，很喜欢。查理在同一家杂货店工作过——那是多少年前？对查理来说大概是整整70年前。我们俩都不太擅长。(笑声)但我祖父——你不想太在意他对股票的建议。他写了很多信，对股市非常悲观，强调在杂货店努力工作。所以我们不再听他的了。(笑声)相反，读《聪明的投资者》。那本书给了我沿用多年的哲学。

其中有三大教训，与你对股票的整体态度有关：把股票看作企业的一部分；对市场的态度，利用市场为你服务，而不是指导你；以及安全边际的概念，总是留出一些额外空间。但在这个房间里的人，我想已经学到了那个重要的第一课。我认为大多数拥有伯克希尔的人不认为自己拥有的只是一个股票代码，或一个可能有利或不利盈利惊喜的东西，而是更愿意认为自己拥有隔壁房间里那些企业的一部分。这就是看待股票的方式。如果你这样做，你永远不会成为旅鼠。

原文

3. How NOT to be a lemming

WARREN BUFFETT: So with that, we’ll go right over to post number 1 and start in with the first question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Very good morning to Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Rajesh Furor (PH) from Bombay, India. I have been learning a lot from letters of yours. It’s been a great insight into investment philosophy that I haven’t learned from anywhere else. Great job. That’s on the mind side. But on the heart side, what touches me the most is what you have achieved all these years is through a hundred percent honesty, and I salute to that. Thanks.

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Now, my question is on what key steps would you recommend to correct the mind set of typical investor like me, which is what you noted as lemmings-like, the crowd mindset?

WARREN BUFFETT: What would we recommend — we got the question being repeated here — about the mindset of an investor? Is that —?

CHARLIE MUNGER: He wants you to advise him as to how he can become less like a lemming. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, since you repeated the question, I’m going to let you give the first answer to that, Charlie. (Laughter) Until he eats about a thousand calories, it — (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: He wants to invest less like a lemming.

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, I understand that. I was giving you the first shot at it. Well, I will tell you what changed my own life on investing. I started investing when I was 11. I first started reading about it — I believe in reading everything in sight. And I first started reading about it when I was probably six or seven years old. But for about eight years I wandered around with technical analysis and doing all kinds of things, and then I read a book called “The Intelligent Investor.” And I did that when I was 19 down at the University of Nebraska. And I would say that if you absorb the lessons of “The Intelligent Investor”, mainly in — I wrote a forward and I recommended particularly Chapters 8 and 20 — that you will not behave like a lemming and you may do very well compared to the lemmings. We have here in the Bookworm, copies of “The Intelligent Investor”, and I think it’s as great a book now as I did when I read it early, I guess, in 1950.

You will never — you can’t get a bad result if you follow the lessons of — Ben Graham taught in that book. I should mention that there’s a book out there also that I did not know it would be completed by this time. My cousin, Bill Buffett, has written a book about our grandfather’s grocery store called “Foods You Will Enjoy.” And Bill will be out there. He’s signing books. I just got my first copy a couple days ago. Read it, and I enjoyed it a lot. Charlie worked at the same grocery store — how many years ago? Probably a good 70 years ago in Charlie’s case. Neither one of us was very good. (Laughter) But my grandfather — you don’t want to pay much attention to his advice on stocks. He wrote a lot of letters, and he was very negative on the stock market and big on hard work at the grocery store. So we quit listening to him. (Laughter) Instead, read The Intelligent Investor. That’s the book that gave me the philosophy that has taken me now for a lot of years.

And there’s three big lessons in there which relate to your attitude towards stocks generally, which is that you think of them as parts of a business; and your attitude toward the market, which is that you use it to serve you and not to instruct you; and then the idea of a margin of safety, of always leaving some extra room and things. But the people in this room, I think, have learned that important first lesson. I mean, I think most people that own Berkshire do not see themselves as owning something with a little ticker symbol or something that may have a favorable or unfavorable earnings surprise or something of the sort, but they’d rather think of themselves as owning a group of those businesses that are out there in the other room. And that’s the way to look at stocks. You’ll never be a lemming if you do that.

4. 巴菲特将管理科隆再保险的投资组合

沃伦·巴菲特：我们转到2号位。

观众：早上好，沃伦。早上好，查理。我叫乔治·伊西斯(音)，来自德国科隆。我的问题是：科隆再保险的业务整合进展如何？非常感谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：科隆再保险，对于不熟悉的人来说，是通用再保险95%控股的子公司，而伯克希尔·哈撒韦100%拥有通用再保险。我相信科隆再保险是世界上最古老的再保险公司。作为通用再保险和后来伯克希尔·哈撒韦的一部分，它为我们做了出色的工作。我们有一个流程，不久后我们将拥有科隆100%的股权。届时的一个区别是——运营上不会有任何区别。它目前的运营方式已经很出色。但在那时——在此之前，他们管理自己的投资组合。那个投资组合和GEICO的股票投资组合是仅有的两个我不管理的。但当我们拥有科隆100%股权时，我将负责科隆的投资组合。否则，很难在科隆的管理运营上做出改进。所以不会有其他变化，只是我们将合并科隆100%的收益，而不是95%。

原文

4. Buffett will handle Cologne Re’s investment portfolio

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to Number two.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Warren. Good morning, Charlie. My name is George Iscis (PH) from Cologne, Germany. My question: how is the operational integration of the Cologne Re progressing? Thank you very much.

WARREN BUFFETT: Cologne Re, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a 95 percentowned subsidiary of General Re, of which Berkshire Hathaway owns 100 percent. And Cologne Re, I believe, is the oldest reinsurance company in the world. It’s done a magnificent job for us as part of, first Gen Re, and then Berkshire Hathaway. And we have a process in place that will, before too long, result in us owning a hundred percent of Cologne. One difference, then — there won’t be any difference in operation. It runs magnificently the way it’s being run. But at that point — up until this point, they have run their own investment portfolio. That portfolio and the equity portfolio of GEICO are the only two that I don’t run. But when we own a hundred percent of Cologne, then I will take the responsibility for Cologne’s investment portfolio. Otherwise it would be hard to improve on the operation of the management of Cologne. So there will be — you will not see any other changes except we will consolidate in 100 percent of the earnings of Cologne rather than 95 percent.

5. “忘掉’股票’这个词”

沃伦·巴菲特：3号区。

观众：早上好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫萨姆·赖纳(音)，来自新泽西州李堡。我的问题涉及您本周关于经济衰退的评论，以及股市在4月份的大幅上涨。您能阐述一下市场将从这里走向何方吗？(笑声)

沃伦·巴菲特：哈。我可以展开说，但我回答不了。(笑声)查理和我完全不知道股市下周、下个月或明年会怎么走。我们从不谈论这个。你知道，这从来不是话题。我们的董事们会告诉你，他们参加的董事会上从未讨论过股市走向的话题——我们不做那个业务。我们不知道怎么做那个业务。显然，如果我们能高比例地成功猜测股市走向，我们就会只做标普期货市场。没有理由再去研究企业和股票了。所以这不是我们的游戏。我们不认为——当我们看股市时，我们看到每天有成千上万的公司被定价，我们忽略其中99.9%的内容，尽管我们会扫一眼。

然后时不时地，我们看到一些看起来定价有吸引力的东西，作为一个企业。忘掉”股票”这个词。所以当我们买股票时，即使有人告诉我们市场要关闭几年，我们也会很高兴持有那只股票。我们看的是企业。这就像你要在奥马哈郊外几英里处买一个农场。你不会每天得到它的报价，你也不会问今年的收成是否略高于预期或略低。你会看农场随着时间的推移会产出什么。你会看预期的产量。你会看预期的价格、税收、肥料成本，并根据农场相对于购买价格的产出来评估你购买决策的合理性。报价与此无关。这正是我们看待股票的方式。我们把它们看作企业。我们判断这些企业的未来会如何。

如果我们对——那些判断正确，股票自然会表现良好。查理？

查理·芒格：没什么好补充的。(笑声)

沃伦·巴菲特：他练了好几周了。(笑声)

原文

5. “Forget about the word ‘stock’”

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Sam Reiner (PH) from Fort Lee, New Jersey, and my question concerns your comment this week about the recession, and the stock market going up so significantly in April. Can you expand on where the market is going from here? (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Hah. Well, I can expand, but I couldn’t answer. (Laughter) Charlie and I haven’t the faintest idea where the stock market is going to go next week, next month, or next year. We never talk about it. You know, it never comes up. Our directors will tell you that they’ve never been to a directors meeting where the subject of the direction of the stock market is — we are not in that business. We don’t know how to be in that business. Obviously, if we could guess successfully a high percentage of the time where the stock market was going to go, we would do nothing but play the S&P futures market. There wouldn’t be any reason to look at businesses and stocks. So it’s just not our game. We don’t think — what we see when we look at the stock market is we see thousands and thousands and thousands of companies priced every day, and we ignore 99.9 percent of what we see, although we run our eyes over them.

And then every now and then we see something that looks like it’s attractively priced to us, as a business. Forget about the word “stock.” So when we buy a stock, we would be happy with that stock if they told us the market was going to close for a couple years. We look to the business. It’s exactly the same way as if you were going to buy a farm a few miles here outside of Omaha. You would not get a price on it every day, and you wouldn’t ask, you know, whether the yield was a little above expectation this year or down a little bit. You’d look at what the farm was going to produce over time. You’d look at expected yields. You’d look at expected prices, the taxes, the cost of fertilizer, and you would evaluate the intelligence of your purchase based on what the farm produced relative to your purchase price. Quotes would have nothing to do with it. That’s exactly the way we look at stocks. We look at them as businesses. We make judgments about what the future of those businesses will be.

And if we’re right about — in those judgments, the stocks will take care of themselves. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: He’s been practicing for weeks. (Laughter)

6. 我们不培养优秀经理，我们留住他们

沃伦·巴菲特：我们转到4号区。

观众：早上好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫钱德·查夫拉(音)，来自华盛顿州西雅图。伯克希尔·哈撒韦拥有一些世界上最好的经理人，而我非常不擅长招聘好的经理人。我做出的一些决定——那些没有接到杰米·李·柯蒂斯电话的决定——回头看看，我都不知道当时在想什么。您能建议一下，如何在一个小时内评估一个人成为优秀经理人的能力吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你得明白我们作弊了。(笑)我们收购拥有优秀经理人的企业。所以如果你给我一百个MBA——我经常有这些班级来奥马哈。今年大约有30个学校，通常每班有75到100名男女学生。我根本无法花几个小时把那100个人按未来管理成就从第一排到第一百，就像我无法挑选他们一样——对我来说是不可能的。但我们做的是收购已经拥有优秀经理人的企业。在很多情况下，我们见过这些人表现了几十年。我们看到了他们的记录，他们是随企业一起来的。所以我们的工作与其说是挑选优秀经理人，不如说是留住他们。我们已经有证实的记录表明他们是随企业一起来的。我们的工作是留住他们。而且很多经理人——伯克希尔工作的大多数经理人——都已经财务独立了。我们给他们开支票，有时是数十亿，经常是数亿。

所以在很多情况下，他们没有金钱上的理由去工作。我们的工作——顺便说一句，我们依赖他们。我的意思是，总部大约有19个人，而全球有25万人在为伯克希尔工作，我们无法管理他们的业务。我们的工作是确保在股权证书易手后，他们对自己的工作仍然拥有同样的热情、兴奋和激情。这就需要我们做出一些判断，判断这些人是热爱企业还是热爱金钱。他们都喜欢钱，但很多人——尤其是我们的经理人——他们热爱自己的企业。我的意思是，他们一直在耕耘这些企业——这些企业对他们来说是艺术品，有时已经在家族中传承了四代。所以我们必须在他们眼中看到激情，如果我们看到了，我们就必须以保持那种激情的方式行事。这不能通过合同来实现。我们没有合同。那行不通。

但我们可以努力创造一个环境——坦率地说，伯克希尔是理想的环境——甚至因为像今天这样的活动而成为理想环境。我们的经理人感到被欣赏。他们确实被欣赏。不仅是我和查理欣赏他们，你们也欣赏他们。我们想给你们一个为他们鼓掌的机会。(掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：所以我不能提供太大的帮助。如果你在看一群MBA，要知道，这并不容易。我的意思是，他们——到这个人生阶段，他们已经学会了如何愚弄你，给你想听的答案等等。我会找对工作有激情的人。意思是，总是做超出自己分内工作的人。你找善于沟通的人等等。但我更喜欢自己的方式。拿一个棒球打击率.400的人，说”我想把他放进阵容”，这简单多了。而我们这个行业的好处是，你知道，在棒球中，除非你是诺兰·莱恩之类的人，你到了40岁左右就得挂靴，但在我们的行业里，他们会一直干下去。我的意思是，我举个例子——我们有家具城的著名B夫人。

她为我们工作到103岁，然后离开，第二年就去世了。这对我们的经理人来说是一个教训——(笑声)查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，那是非常有用的建议。让我想起已故的霍华德·阿曼森。一个饥肠辘辘的商科学生曾向他请教如何出人头地，霍华德说：“嗯，我总是在手头留个几百万美元，以防好机会突然出现。“(笑声)

原文

6. We don’t cultivate great managers, we keep them

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to area 4.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Chander Chavla (PH), and I am from Seattle, Washington. Berkshire Hathaway has some of the best managers in the world, and I am very bad at hiring good managers. The — some of the decisions that I’ve made, which were without any phone calls from Jamie Lee Curtis, I look back and I see — you know, what was I thinking. What can you advise on, how in one hour you can assess the capability of a person to be a good manager?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, you have to understand that we cheat. (Laughs) We buy businesses with good managers. So if you give me a hundred MBAs — and I have these classes come out all the time to Omaha. I’ve had about 30 schools this year, and usually there’s 75 or a hundred men and women in the classes. I no more could take those hundred and spend a few hours and rank them from number one to a hundred in terms of their future achievements as managers, you know, than I could pick them — you know, it would be impossible for me. But what we do is we buy businesses with great managers in place. We’ve seen those people perform for, in many cases, decades. We’ve seen their record, and they come with the business. Now, our job is not so much to select great managers, because we do have this proven record that they come with. Our job is to retain them. And many of the managers — a majority of the managers that work at Berkshire — are independently wealthy. We hand them checks, sometimes, in the billions, often in the hundreds of millions.

So they do not have a monetary reason to work, in many cases. So our job — we are dependent on them, incidentally. I mean, we have 19 or so people at headquarters, and we have 250,000 working for Berkshire around the world, and we can’t run their businesses. And our job is to make sure that they have the same enthusiasm, excitement, passion, for their job after the stock certificate changes hands, than they had before. Now, that requires some judgment on our part as to whether these people love the business or love the money. They all like money, but many of them — well, our managers in particular — they love their businesses. I mean, they’ve worked at them — they’re a work of art to them, and they’ve been in the family sometimes as many as four generations. So we have to see the passion in their eyes, and if we see that, then we have to behave in a way that that passion remains. Can’t be done by contract. We don’t have contracts. It won’t — that doesn’t work.

But we can try to create an environment — and Berkshire, frankly, is the ideal environment — it’s even an ideal environment because of events like this. Our managers feel appreciated. And they are appreciated. They’re not just appreciated by me and Charlie; they’re appreciated by you. And we want to give you a chance to applaud them. (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: So I can’t be of enormous help. And if you’re looking at a group of MBAs, you know, it’s not easy. I mean, they know — they sort of learn by that point in life how to fool you, in terms of what answers you want to hear and all of that sort of thing. I would look for the person with passion for the job. I mean, the person that is always doing more than their share. You look for people that are goods communicators and all of that sort of thing. But I like my way better. It’s a lot easier just to take somebody that’s been batting .400 in baseball and say, “I think I’ll stick them in the lineup.” And the nice thing about our game is that, you know, in baseball, unless you’re Nolan Ryan or somebody, you have to hang up things at 40 or thereabouts, but in our game, they go on and on and on. I mean, I use as an example — we had a famous Mrs.

B from the Furniture Mart, and she worked for us until she was 103, and then she left and she died the next year. And that is a lesson to our managers that — (Laughter) Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, that was very useful advice. It reminds me very much of the late Howard Ahmanson. And a young and starving business student once asked him for advice as to how to get ahead, and Howard said, “Well, I always keep a few million dollars laying around in case a good opportunity suddenly turns up.” (Laughter)

7. 教授期权定价是”完全无稽之谈”

沃伦·巴菲特：好了，我们转到5号位。(笑声)

观众：早上好。我是乔·哈钦(音)，来自印第安纳州卡尔弗的股东。能否请您谈谈您如何利用股票期权进入或退出上市公司头寸？

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我们——我记得有一次我们卖出了可口可乐的看跌期权，想法是如果被行权，我们很乐意持有更多可口可乐。结果没有被行权。如果我们直接买股票，结果会更好。通常，如果你想买入或卖出一只股票，你应该直接买入或卖出股票。使用期权技术买入看涨期权而不是直接买入股票，认为可以便宜一点，这意味着大约五分之四的时间你是对的，但第五次股票可能提前上涨，你就会错过你原本想做的交易。所以我们几乎从未使用期权作为进入或退出头寸的方式，我怀疑我们以后也不会。我们使用过——我们卖出过这些股票——长期股票看跌期权，这在昨天的新闻稿和年度报告中有描述，但那是不一样的东西。

如果我们想买什么，我们就开始买。如果我们想退出，我们就开始卖。我们不会涉及任何花哨的技术。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，如果我没记错的话，当公共当局决定是否应该建立股票期权交易所时，你写了一封信。当时沃伦是孤立的，他写信说他认为以这种方式抛弃保证金规则对国家没有任何好处。我一直认为沃伦完全正确。我们——把金融市场变成赌场，让庄家赚更多钱的想法，对我们从来没有什么吸引力。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。(掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我和这些MBA学生交谈时觉得很有趣。几年前，芝加哥大学的一个学生，他问的第一个问题是：“我们被教错了什么？“我喜欢这样的问题。以后我得安排些托儿。商学院花大量时间——现在可能少了一点——教授期权定价之类的东西，这完全是无稽之谈。我的意思是，商学院需要两门课：一是如何评估企业价值——从投资角度——如何评估企业价值，以及如何思考股市波动。但你花那么多时间在公式上——问题当然是，教授们知道公式，而学生不知道，所以他们有东西可以花时间给你解释。

而且，你知道，这并不有趣——我的意思是，如果你在教授圣经研究，你可以用五种语言倒背如流地阅读三四本最重要的宗教典籍，但你讨厌告诉别人结论就是十诫。任何傻瓜都能做到。所以金融界的”教士”们非常渴望教授他们懂而你不懂、他们花了很长时间学习、可能需要相当多数学知识的东西。而这与投资成功毫无关系。投资成功取决于以合适的价格买入合适的企业。你必须知道如何评估企业，你必须有一种不受市场影响的态度。你希望市场在那里为你服务，而不是影响你。这需要一种心态，回到之前的问题，这种心态在《聪明的投资者》第8章中描述得很好。

原文

7. Teaching option pricing is “totally nonsense”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, let’s go to number 5. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. I’m Joe Hutchin (PH), a shareholder from Culver, Indiana. Could you please comment on how you use stock options when trying to enter or exit a position in a public company?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We’ve — I think there’s one time we sold a put on Coca-Cola with the idea that, if it got exercised, we were very happy to own more Coca-Cola. It didn’t get exercised. We would have been better off if we had just bought the stock. Usually, if you want to buy or sell a stock, you should buy or sell the stock. And using an option technique to buy a call on a stock instead of buying the stock outright with the idea that you get it a little cheaper that way means that about four times out of five you’ll be right and the fifth time the stock will have moved earlier and you’ll have missed, you know, the transaction you wanted to have. And so we virtually have never used options as a way to enter a position or exit a position, and I would doubt very much if we do. We’ve used — we’ve sold these equity — long-term equity put options that were described in the press release yesterday and were described in the annual report, but that’s a different sort of thing.

If we want to buy something, we’ll just start buying it. And if we want to get out of it, we’ll start selling it. And we won’t get involved in any fancy techniques. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, if I remember right, you wrote a letter when the public authorities were deciding whether we should have option exchanges for stocks. And Warren was all alone at that time, and he wrote a letter saying that he didn’t think it would do any good at all for the country to throw out the margin rules in this fashion. I’ve always thought that Warren was totally right. We — it’s — the idea of turning financial markets into gambling parlors so the croupiers can make more money has never been very attractive to us.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It’s very interesting to me when I talk to these MBA students. One of them from the University of Chicago, the very first question I got a few years ago, he says, “What are we being taught that’s wrong?” I love questions like that. I have to plant them in the future. The amount of time spent at business schools — maybe it’s a little less now — but teaching things like option pricing and that sort of thing, it’s totally nonsense. I mean, you need two courses in a business school: one is how to value a business, and — from the standpoint of investments — how to value a business and how to think about stock market fluctuations. But the idea that you would spend all of this time with formulas — but the problem, of course, is that the instructors know the formulas, and you don’t when they come, and so they’ve got something to fill the time explaining to you.

And, you know, it is no fun if you — I mean, if you were teaching Biblical studies, you know, and you could read three or four of the most important religious tomes forward and backward in five different languages, you would hate to tell somebody that it comes down to the Ten Commandments. I mean, any damn fool can do that. So there’s a great desire of the priesthood in finance to want to teach the things that they know and you don’t know and that they spent a long time learning and that maybe requires a fair amount of mathematics. And it really has nothing to do with investment success. Investment success depends on buying into the right businesses at the right price. And you have to know how to value businesses, and you have to have an attitude that divorces you from being influenced by the market. You want the market there, not to influence you, you want it there to serve you. And that requires a mindset, which goes back to an earlier question, and it’s a mindset that’s described quite well in Chapter 8 of “The Intelligent Investor.”

8. 巴菲特称赞姐姐多丽丝的”零售式”慈善

沃伦·巴菲特：我们转到6号位。

观众：嗨。我是艾琳，来自德国波恩。你们两位都非常慷慨。请问你们给予的快乐是什么，以及捐款时可能有哪些陷阱？

沃伦·巴菲特：给予的快乐和捐款的陷阱，啊。就我个人而言，我一生中从未放弃过任何对我的生活有影响的东西。我的意思是，有些人这个星期天去教堂，他们会把钱投入捐献盘，这会决定他们是否带家人外出吃饭、看电影、在圣诞节多买一份礼物等等。他们捐出的钱确实影响了他们的生活。我从未那样捐过一分钱，也永远不会。我这一生可以做任何想做的事。但因为我已经活了很长时间——这在财富积累上有巨大优势——而且我生活中想要的大多数东西并不来自花钱。所以钱积累起来了，基本上我捐出的是多余的。我捐出的不是必需品。

所以，我真的——你知道，我觉得我用钱做的是有用的事，但我并不认为这可以与那些捐出真正影响自己或孩子生活的人相提并论。那些才是真正的慈善家。我想我的姐姐多丽丝在这里。她捐出的钱影响了她的生活。她还捐出时间。她每天花八到十个小时，真正关注人们的实际需求，除了金钱之外还给予他们帮助、建议和一个可以交谈的人。这才是真正的给予。我为此钦佩她。我并没有效仿她。我的意思是，她做的是零售式的给予；我更喜欢批发。至于陷阱，你在任何领域都可能犯错。但如果你——你应该把钱捐给你个人感兴趣和相信的事情，可以是任何事情。我不会对捐款用途进行优先级排序。应该是你参与的事情。

你既想投入时间也想投入金钱的事情。除此之外，让查理接着说。

查理·芒格：是的。关于陷阱，我预测，如果你有极端的政治意识形态，无论是左派还是右派，你很可能会做出很多愚蠢的慈善捐赠。(笑声和掌声)

沃伦·巴菲特：如果你像我一样整天和查理在一起，你会看到生活的阳光面。我的意思是——(笑声)我们应该放那首歌，“阳光街”。

原文

8. Buffett praises sister Doris for her “retail” charity

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to number 6.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I’m Irene from Bonn, Germany. Both of you are very generous person. What is your joy of giving, and what are the potential pits when donating money — pitfalls when donating money? I’m sorry.

WARREN BUFFETT: The joys and giving and the pitfalls of donating money, huh. The — I know personally I’ve never given up anything in my life that made a difference in my life. I mean, there are people that will go to church this Sunday and they will drop money in a collection plate, and it will make the difference about where they take their family, or whether they take their family, in terms of where they eat, whether they go to a movie, whether they get an extra present at Christmas, whatever it may be. I mean, they are giving some money that makes a difference in their lives. I’ve never given a penny that way, and I never will. I mean, I get to do everything I want to do in life. But because I’ve lived a long time — which gives you an enormous advantage in terms of accumulating money — and most of the things I want in life don’t come from the expenditure of money. So it accumulates, and basically I’m giving away excess. I’m not giving away anything from necessity.

So I really — you know, I think what I’m doing is useful with the money, but I don’t think it’s on a par at all with the actions of somebody that’s giving money that really makes a difference in how they or their children live. Those are really charitable people. I think my sister Doris is here. She has given away money that made a difference in her life. She gives away time, too. She gives away eight or ten hours a day, in terms of actually looking into the real needs of people, and giving them things beyond the money — giving them help and advice and somebody to talk to. And, you know, that’s real giving. And I admire her for it. I’m not emulating her. I mean, she is in the retail business of giving; I like wholesale much better. In terms of the pitfalls, you know, you can make mistakes in any area. But if you — you should give to things that you personally have an interest in and believe in, and that can be anything. I don’t — I’m not going to prioritize what should be done with gifts. Something you’re involved in.

Something you want to give your time to as well as money. But beyond that, I’ll let Charlie carry on.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Regarding pitfalls, I would predict that, if you have an extreme political ideology, whether of the left or the right, you’re very likely to make a lot of dumb charitable gifts. (Laughter and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: If you hang around Charlie like I do, you get the sunny side of life. I mean — (laughter) We ought to have that playing, “The Sunny Side of the Street.”

9. 我们不会”告诉全世界如何经营他们的业务”

沃伦·巴菲特：我们转到7号位。

观众：早上好。我叫奥科什·瓦贾伊(音)，来自印度。我崇拜巴菲特先生的慈善事业，并希望有一天能为盖茨基金会服务。请问巴菲特先生，当您旗下公司面临道德困境时，您的参与程度如何？例如，鲜果布衣的竞争对手在中美洲有血汗工厂。您如何确保自己不会陷入同样的陷阱？

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我们让经理人经营他们的业务。我们有一些非常出色的经理人，不仅能力出众，而且多年来我们看到的经理人道德标准也非常出色。这并不意味着没有——这里或那里没有失误。但作为一个群体，几十年来，我对交出钥匙——不仅是财务表现，还有行为方式——感到非常满意。我想说，关于鲜果布衣——它的运营标准绝对出色。约翰·霍兰德在这里。我很乐意你之后和他见面。但我们——我们为自己的企业及其运营方式感到自豪。我们不给它们制定复杂的指导方针。我大约每两年给他们写一封信，要求他们给我回信，告诉我如果当晚发生什么意外，他们认为谁应该是继任者。我保留那些信。

幸运的是，它们很少被用到。但我也告诉他们，我们有足够的资金。多些钱当然好，但伯克希尔·哈撒韦不会缺钱。我们的声誉一点也不能多损失，我们绝不想用声誉换金钱。所以我们传达的信息和电影中关于所罗门的情景一样：不仅要守法行事，还要做到即使一个不友好但聪明的记者第二天在本地报纸上报道，他们的邻居和家人阅读后也不会感到不安。我们每年都在电影中播放这个，因为我们希望经理人一直得到这个信息。伯克希尔总部没有任何压力要求在任何季度报告X美元的收益。

他们不给我预算，所以他们没有——他们不觉得必须达到某个数字，否则我公布收益时会尴尬。我们没有激励机制让人们违背良心、玩游戏或走捷径之类的事。总的来说，我认为效果相当好。不是完美的。你不可能在一个有25万居民的城市里不发生任何事。我们确实有25万员工。但我不满意我们的打击率。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。当然，鲜果布衣有外国工厂，我们对此没有反对。我们现在有不少外国工厂。我们不偏爱外国工厂。我们只是做在当时情况下合理的事。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我在缅因州有一家鞋厂，我曾写过。那里有非常非常优秀的工人。他们比世界各地的工人都更有效率。但美国二十年前每年生产大约10亿双鞋，我们是一个伊梅尔达·马科斯之国。太疯狂了。布罗克顿，马萨诸塞州，还有你能说出的城镇，都围绕制鞋业，就像缅因州的德克斯特镇。我们买了那家公司。我们试图竞争。我们有好的品牌。我们有好的工艺。但我们发现根本无法与——与中国生产的鞋子竞争。所以现在这个国家每年使用的超过10亿双鞋，基本上都来自国外。你会看到这个趋势。中国的工厂，中美洲的工厂——它们的标准不完全像我们国家这样。这就是现状。

我们——我们不会——我们不会以大的方式告诉全世界如何经营他们的业务。显然，我们有一些必须满足的标准，但它们不完全是你会在美国看到的情况。

原文

9. We don’t “tell the world how to run their business”

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to number 7.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Okosh Vajay (PH), and I’m from India. I worship Mr. Buffett for his philanthropy, and I do hope to serve the Gates Foundation someday. My question to Mr. Buffett is, what’s your level of involvement when one of your companies is faced with an ethical dilemma? For example, Fruit of the Loom’s competitors have sweatshops in Central America. So what do you do to ensure that you don’t fall into the same trap?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, we let our managers run their businesses. And we’ve got some terrific managers, not only in terms of ability, but I would say that what we have seen of the ethical standards of our managers has been extraordinary over the years. That doesn’t mean there isn’t — there aren’t slip ups here or there. But taken as a group, over decades, I think that I’m very happy, in effect, turning over the keys, not only to the financial performance of the business, but in terms of how they behave. And I would say that I think you’re quite wrong in terms of — Fruit of the Loom’s operations are conducted in absolutely terrific standards. John Holland is here. I’d be glad to have you meet with him later. But we — we’re proud of our businesses and how they operate. We do not give them elaborate guidelines. I write them a letter every two years, roughly, and I ask them to send me a letter telling who they think should be the successor if anything happened to them that night. I keep those letters around.

Fortunately, they don’t come into play very often. But I also tell them we’ve got all the money we need. It’s nice to have more money, but we’re not going to lack for money at Berkshire Hathaway. We don’t have a shred of reputation more than we need, and we never want to trade away reputation for money. So we give them that same message that was given in the movie, in terms of the Salomon situation, which is that not only do they behave in a way that conforms with the laws, but that they behave in a way where, if a story were written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter, the next morning, in their local paper, they would have no problem with their neighbors, their family reading it. And we run that in the movie every year, just because we like the managers to keep getting that message all of the time. There is no pressure from Berkshire’s corporate office to report X dollars per — of earnings in any quarter.

They don’t give me budgets, so they don’t — there’s no feeling that they have to come through with given numbers or I’ll be embarrassed in public in terms of publishing earnings or anything of the sort. We have no incentives to cause people to do anything that would go against their conscience or play games or cut corners or anything of the sort. And, overall, I think it’s worked pretty well. It isn’t perfect. You can’t have 250,000 people in the city without having something going on at some point. And we do have 250,000 people working. But I’m not unhappy with our batting average. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. And, of course, Fruit of the Loom does have foreign plants, and we have no rule against that at all. We’ve got quite a few foreign plants now. We don’t favor foreign plants. We just do whatever makes sense under the circumstances.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we had a shoe business I’ve written about in Maine, and we had wonderful, wonderful workers there. They were more productive than workers around the world. But the United States was producing, 20 years ago, roughly a billion pairs of shoes a year, and we were a nation of Imelda Marcoses. I mean, it was wild. And Brockton, Massachusetts, and you name the towns, revolved around the shoe business, as did a town called Dexter, Maine. And we bought that business. And we tried to compete. We had a good brand name. We had great workmanship. And we found out that it just plain wouldn’t work against — competing against — shoes produced in China. So now of the — it’s over a billion pairs of shoes a year used in this country. Basically they all come from outside the borders. And you’re going to see that. And factories in China, factories in Central America — they do not have exactly the norms that we have in this country. And, you know, that’s going to be the situation.

We are — we will not — we are not going to tell the world how to run their business in any great way. We — obviously we have some standards that have to be met, but we are not — they are not exactly the situation you are going to find in the United States.

10. 巴菲特淡化原材料成本上涨的影响

沃伦·巴菲特：8号位。

观众：早上好。我叫迈克·麦高恩(音)，来自加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳。我是伯克希尔和韦斯科的股东。我经营一个叫FinancialFoghorn.com的网站，写关于贵金属之类的东西。我过去问过你关于白银的问题，但没有真正得到回答。所以这次我想问另一种大宗商品。我读到中国提高了钨的价格，我想起你去年关于收购伊斯卡公司的评论。像钨这样的商品价格上涨会影响伊斯卡的盈利能力吗？这是你在中国建厂制造机床的原因吗？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。在中国建厂的原因是为了服务中国市场，这个市场庞大且不断增长。我们在去年秋末在大连开业了。靠近原材料更好，但这与钨价格的变化无关。一般来说，如果你创造的是更高附加值的产品，正如伊斯卡所做的，从原材料到产品，可能需要三个月、六个月来调整原材料价格变化。显然，对于某些商品，如果价格足够高，会出现替代品。但钨在切削工具中没有替代品，也不会有——你知道，我们尝试过一些原油的替代品用于汽油——不是那么回事——但像天然气这样的替代品价格也会上涨。所以在很大程度上，在我们的业务中，原材料成本会被转嫁出去。现在，例如，在地毯业务中，我们在转嫁基于石油的原材料成本上涨方面遇到了困难。

但我们可能——无论如何，由于住宅建设的放缓，地毯业务可能都会遇到困难。这确实让事情更困难。但随着时间的推移，我们的业务会反映原材料成本。你知道，我这里的糖果，这个软糖，我迫不及待想吃，它最终会反映糖和可可等成本的变化。如果你经营航空公司，它会反映燃料成本。所以你会时不时遇到一些小挤压，但这不是大问题，当然也不是我们在中国设立伊斯卡工厂的原因。顺便说一句，伊斯卡——我们这里有很多来自伊斯卡的人，有些是全家来的。我——我买它的时候对它期望很高。它在各方面都超出了预期。在财务表现上超出了预期。在与人建立的人际关系上也超出了预期。我的意思是，我几年前告诉过你这是次了不起的收购。

这是一次梦寐以求的收购，我知道查理想补充。(掌声)

查理·芒格：是的。我想说的是，简短的答案是，虽然我们不喜欢通货膨胀，因为它对我们的国家和文明有害，但从长远来看，我们可能会因为通货膨胀而赚更多的钱。

原文

10. Buffett dismisses higher raw material costs

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 8.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Mike McGowan (PH). I’m from Pasadena, California. I’m a shareholder in both Berkshire and Wesco. I run a website called FinancialFoghorn.com, and I write about precious metals and things. And I’ve asked you questions in the past about silver, and I didn’t really get them answered. So I thought I’d ask about a different commodity this time. I read about the Chinese raising the price of tungsten, and I think about your comment last year in buying ISCAR. Will commodity price increases in things like tungsten affect the profitability of ISCAR? And would that be the reason you’re locating a plant in China to build machine tools? Thanks.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The reason the plant was built in China was to serve the Chinese market, which is large and growing. And we opened in Dalian late last fall. It’s nicer to be closer to the raw material, but it really had nothing to do with changes in the price of tungsten. Generally speaking, if you’re creating a higher value-added product, as ISCAR is doing, from a raw material, there may be three months, six months, of adjustment to changes in raw material prices. And obviously, with some commodities, if it gets high enough you get into substitutes. But there isn’t going to be any substitute for tungsten in the cutting tools, and there won’t be — you know, we tried some substitutes for crude oil in terms of gasoline or — not so — heating oil but then the substitutes like natural gas go up in price, too. So I think largely, in our businesses, raw materials get passed through. Now, we’re having a tough time, for example, in the carpet business in passing through the cost increases that we experience in oil-based raw materials.

But we would be having trouble — we probably would be having trouble in the carpet business regardless now because of the slowdown in residential housing. It does make it tougher. But over a period of time, our businesses are going to reflect raw material costs. You know, the candy here I have, this fudge, which I can hardly wait to get into, you know, it’s going to reflect sugar and cocoa and things like that over time. And if you’re running an airline, it’s going to reflect the cost of fuel. So you can have little squeezes here and there, but it’s not a big deal, and it certainly isn’t the reason that we went to China to locate the ISCAR facility. That facility — incidentally ISCAR — we have a number of people here from ISCAR, and families in some cases. That is — I had very high expectations for that when we bought it. It’s exceeded it in every way. It’s exceeded in terms of financial performance. It’s exceeded in terms of the human relations we’ve developed with the people. I mean, it was — I told you it was a terrific acquisition a few years ago.

It’s been a dream acquisition, and I know Charlie wants to add to that. (Applause)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. I would say that the short answer is that, while we don’t like inflation because it’s bad for our country and our civilization, that we will probably make more money over time because there is inflation.

11. 要找到比伯克希尔更好的投资需要大量工作

沃伦·巴菲特：转到9号位。

观众：早上好。我叫马克·拉比诺夫，来自澳大利亚墨尔本。我的问题是，伯克希尔在过去12个月中购买了大量上市公司股票。您是否预期这些投资的年化回报率在未来多年内介于7%到10%之间，这远低于伯克希尔过去的水平？

沃伦·巴菲特：答案是肯定的。(笑)我们——如果我们可以买入普通股，长期预期税前回报率（包括分红和资本利得）能达到10%，我们会非常高兴，我们可能也会接受略低于此的水平。毫无疑问——绝对毫无疑问——未来持有伯克希尔的回报将低于过去。毫无疑问，我们在伯克希尔持有的普通股在未来不会像过去大约40年里那样表现良好。我们现在操作的上市公司股票宇宙中——我们谈论的是市值至少100亿美元的公司，但实际上，在大多数情况下，要对伯克希尔产生有意义的影响，我们谈的是大得多的公司，可能是500亿美元以上。这个宇宙的可操作性不如拥有成千上万公司的整个宇宙。所以，我们——举个例子。

如果我们找到一家市值100亿美元的公司，我们可以买入5%——通常这就是我们在不扰乱市场的情况下能买的量——我们可以有5亿美元的投资。假设它在一段时间内翻倍。那是5亿美元。你支付35%的税。你有3.25亿美元。这对伯克希尔的表现来说不到0.2%。所以我们的宇宙已经大幅缩小，我们在这个宇宙中的表现——远远不如——我们在更广阔的宇宙中可以做的事情。我们偶尔找到一些小事情做，赚了一些钱。我一会儿可能会提到一两件事。它们不错，但对伯克希尔来说影响不大。所以任何期望我们接近复制过去的人应该卖掉股票。我的意思是，因为那不会——不会发生。

而且，你知道，我认为随着时间的推移，我们会获得不错的回报，但不会获得不合理的回报。在这个领域，我们更喜欢不合理的回报，但我们不会得到。查理？

查理·芒格：我认为你可以把沃伦的承诺当作银行担保。我们非常高兴未来以远低于过去赚钱速度的速度赚钱。我建议你也采取同样的态度。(笑声)

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我不会强迫他们那样。我认为如果你运作的资金量很小——我说过——

查理·芒格：哦，是的。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。那么你用你的钱可能找到比买伯克希尔好得多的选择。我的意思是，如果你运作的资金量很小，你愿意投入大量时间，研究数千只证券，你会找到比伯克希尔更聪明的买入对象。你知道，我们仍然认为伯克希尔是一个长期有吸引力的投资。我们认为它与其他非常大的公司相比相当不错。我们并不认为它是世界上最有吸引力的投资，相对于如果你愿意研究成千上万的可能性——那是查理和我多年前做的事情。现在对我们来说不可行，对伯克希尔也不会有影响。在伯克希尔，我们真正喜欢的是收购相当大乃至非常大的优质企业，拥有顶级管理层，然后只是持有。因为好处在于，你不必从一朵花飞到另一朵花。你可以只是坐在那里，看着它们每年创造更多价值，给你资本，然后你可以买更多企业。

这是一个很好的公式。我认为这个公式会为我们奏效。它不会产生像过去那样的回报。

原文

11. Lots of work to find a better buy than Berkshire

WARREN BUFFETT: Go to number 9.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Marc Rabinov from Melbourne, Australia. My question is, Berkshire has bought a lot of shares over the last 12 months in listed companies. Do you expect the return on these investments to be between 7 and 10 percent per annum over many years, which is, I would say, well below what Berkshire has achieved in the past?

WARREN BUFFETT: The answer to that is yes. (Laughs) The — we would be very happy if we could buy common stocks where our expectation over a long period, pretax, from a combination of dividends and capital gains — we’d be very happy if we thought it was going to be 10 percent, and we would probably settle for a little less than that. And there’s no question — absolutely no question — that returns from owning Berkshire will be less in the future than they have been in the past. There’s no question that we will not do as well with the common stocks at Berkshire that we own in the future as we have over the last, really, 40 years or thereabouts. We operate now in a universe of marketable stocks that — where we’re talking about companies with market caps of at least 10 billion but really, in most cases, to have a meaningful impact on Berkshire, we’re talking much bigger than that, maybe 50 billion and up. Well, that universe is not as profitable a universe to operate in as if you have the entire universe of thousands and thousands of companies. So we — if we — just take an example.

If we find a company with a market cap of 10 billion and we can buy 5 percent of it — and usually that’s what we can buy without disturbing things — we can have a $500 million investment. Let’s say it doubles over a period of time. That’s 500 million. You pay a 35 percent tax. You have 325 million. That’s less than two-tenths of 1 percent in terms of Berkshire performance. So our universe has shrunk enormously, and we will not do as well in that universe — remotely as well — as we would if we were the operating in a much wider universe and could do all kinds of things. We’ve found little things to do from time to time where we’ve made some money. I may refer to them a little later, a couple things. And they’re nice, but they don’t move the needle very much at Berkshire. So anyone that expects us to come close to replicating the past should sell their stock. I mean, because it isn’t — it isn’t going to happen.

And, you know, I think we’re going to get decent results over time, but we’re not going to get indecent results. And in this field we prefer indecent, but we’re not going to get them. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think you can take Warren’s promises to the bank. We are very happy making money at a rate in the future that is way less than the rate at which we made money in the past. And I suggest that you adopt the same attitude. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I wouldn’t condemn them to that. I think if you’re working with small amounts of money — I’ve talked —

CHARLIE MUNGER: Oh, yeah.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Then you may have something very much better to do with your money than to buy Berkshire. I mean, if you’re working with small amounts of money, and you want to put in significant amounts of time, and examine thousands of securities, you will find things that are more intelligent to buy than Berkshire. You know, we still think Berkshire is an attractive investment over a long period of time. We think that it stacks up reasonably well with other very large companies. We don’t think it’s the most attractive investment in the world, in terms of what you can find if you’re willing to go through those thousands of possibilities, which is what Charlie and I used to do many years ago. It’s not feasible for us to do it now and wouldn’t have any impact on Berkshire. What we really like at Berkshire is buying good-sized to very large first-class businesses with first-class management and just sitting there. Because the nice thing about that is you don’t have go from flower to flower. You can just sit there and watch them produce more and more every year and give you capital and you can buy more businesses.

That’s a nice formula. It’s a formula that will work, I think, for us. It won’t produce returns like the past.

12. 太平洋电力将遵循监管机构对克拉马斯河水坝的决定

沃伦·巴菲特：10号位。

观众：(听不清)我叫楚楚(听不清)，来自克拉马斯河，我带着沉重的心情来到这里。我知道这是一个轻松的活动，但去年我也是带着沉重的心情来的。我禁食十天开车过来和您谈话。去年我们真的受到了不尊重，因为您的一家子公司太平洋电力在克拉马斯河上的水坝正在产生有毒藻类繁殖，还有其他多种问题。我不展开说了。但我今天来这里是想和您达成一个原则性协议，您将坐下来帮助我们解决这个问题，让太平洋电力承担责任。

而且，作为美洲原住民，而您作为欧裔美国人是我的客人，我希望您能在今天所有股东面前真诚地这样做，表明您的关心，您作为慈善家关心帮助第三世界国家抗击贫困、疾病，但您却在美国本土制造了这些问题。

沃伦·巴菲特：你可能不——可能不——去年我们读了收购太平洋电力时的命令。实际上，你可能知道，我被禁止在太平洋电力领域做出决策。这是我们在收购时公用事业委员会裁决的一部分。但我们这里有戴夫·索科尔可以回答这个问题。我认为第一座水坝建于1907年，而我们几年前才收购了太平洋电力。但大卫——如果戴夫能到麦克风前，我认为——我认为他可以回答你提出的问题。我们去年绝对无意不尊重。去年在场的人知道，我们可能对此有不同意见，顺便说一句，据我了解，在你们地区对应该做什么也有强烈的不同意见。那么——我想我应该让戴夫来解释。戴夫？有人能打个光吗——

戴夫·索科尔：谢谢，沃伦。正如您首先指出的，巴菲特先生不适合对此问题做出任何详细回应，因为这是2006年收购太平洋电力的一部分。他特别书面同意不干涉太平洋电力受监管资产的任何决策。说完这些，我们在克拉马斯河上运营的四座水坝是在过去100年中建造的。在联邦能源监管委员会重新许可过程中，有一系列问题需要处理。通过这些监管程序的决策已经进行了八年，可能还需要六年才能最终确定。至此，有来自联邦、州和地方机构、美洲原住民、渔业人士、当地土地所有者等28个各方参与了关于这些资产应该或不应该做什么的讨论——我漏了灌溉者。在这28方中，除了太平洋电力，至少有四个不同的方向人们认为应该采取。

从我们的角度来看，当28方就解决方案如何推进、如何资助等达成一致时，我们很乐意找到解决方案。从根本上说，这取决于联邦能源监管委员会、州和联邦监管机构，以及太平洋电力运营的六个州的特定监管机构。所以如果公共政策走向拆除水坝、建造鱼梯或维持现状，那就是我们将遵循的流程。我们正在与各方建设性地合作。我们已经与四个部落各自会面多次。这是一个复杂的情况，希望随着时间的推移，能够达成合作解决方案。(掌声)

原文

12. PacifiCorp will follow regulators on Klamath River dam

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 10.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible). My name is Chu Chu (Inaudible), and I come here from the Klamath River, and I come here with a heavy heart. And I know this is a pretty light-hearted event, but I came here last year with a heavy heart, too. And I fasted for ten days driving over here to speak with you. And, you know, we really were disrespected last year, because one of your subsidiaries, PacifiCorp, has dams on the Klamath River that are creating toxic algae blooms, along with multiple other things. I won’t go into it too far. But I just come here today with a principle agreement between you and I, that you will sit down at the table and help us figure this out, help us make PacifiCorp accountable.

And being that I’m an indigenous American, and you’re a guest in my home as a European American, that you would do that in front of all your shareholders today in good faith, that you care, you know, as a philanthropist and you care about, you know, helping, you know, thirdworld countries, you know, fight poverty, disease, when you’re helping create it right here in the United States.

WARREN BUFFETT: You may not — you may not — last year we read the order under which we acquired PacifiCorp. And, actually, as you may know, I’m prohibited from actually making decisions in that — in the area of PacifiCorp. That was part of the public utility commission ruling when we bought it. But we have Dave Sokol here who can speak to that. I think the first dam was built in 1907, and we bought PacifiCorp a couple of years ago. But David — if Dave could go to a microphone, I think that — I think he could address the issues that you brought up. I don’t think we meant in any way to be disrespectful last year. Those of you who were here last year, we may have a difference of opinion on this, and incidentally there are strong differences of opinion, as I understand it, in your area about what should be done. And — well, I think I should have Dave make the explanation on it. Dave? Somebody want to put a spotlight on the —

DAVE SOKOL: Thanks, Warren. As you stated first, it would be inappropriate for Mr. Buffett to respond in any detail on this issue, because it’s part of the acquisition in 2006 of PacifiCorp. He specifically agreed in writing not to interfere with any decisions of our regulated assets within PacifiCorp. So having said that, these four dams that we operate on the Klamath River were built over the last 100 years. There are a whole series of issues in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing process as to what should occur. These decisions, through that regulatory process

2008年度股东大会

第二部分/共五部分

我上了那门课，课程一结束，我就立刻去奥马哈大学自愿开始教书，因为我知道自己必须学会在众人面前讲话。我认为，无论书面还是口头沟通能力都极其重要，却被严重低估了。大多数商学院都找不到教授这门课的讲师，因为他们觉得这种看似简单的事情有失身份。但如果你能沟通得好，你就拥有了巨大的优势。对于你们这些正在对着一群内向的人讲话的人来说——相信我，我在某些方面也曾非常内向——这——你知道吗——趁年轻走出去这样做很重要。如果你等到50岁，可能就太晚了。但如果你趁年轻就去做，就强迫自己进入那些必须培养这些能力的情境。我认为最好的方法就是和一群有同样问题的人在一起，因为这样你会发现你并不孤单，也不会觉得自己那么傻。

当然，这正是戴尔·卡耐基课程所做的。我的意思是，我们会站在30个几乎连自己名字都说不清楚的人面前，过一段时间后，我们发现我们居然能在众人面前说出自己的名字了。但我们还会站在桌子上，做各种傻事，只是为了跳出自我。你可能会觉得——到了这个时候你可能觉得在我这个具体案例上，做得有点过头了，但那是另一个问题了。（笑声）但如果你在帮助内向的人走出自我，那么你就在做一件非常有价值的事情。而通过和他们一起在小组中工作，让他们看到别人也有同样的问题，从而不觉得自己那么傻，我认为这是——当你帮助他们做到这一点时，你就在为一些人类做很多贡献。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。有一位教育家来做一些简单而重要的事情，而不是愚蠢而不重要的事情，这真是一件乐事。（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我希望他不是要点名批评。（笑声）

16. 克拉马斯河水坝的经济考量

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们回到第一个问题。

股东：您好，巴菲特先生。我叫Regina Chichizola，我是克拉马斯河的守护者。今天我和许多来自克拉马斯河的其他同仁来到这里，感谢您让我们参加，也感谢股东们今年对我们比去年友善得多。我的问题是，我相信您对克拉马斯河的严重污染问题很熟悉，比如有毒藻类问题，其水平是允许娱乐水平的4000倍，而且由于克拉马斯河的水坝，鱼类现在也有毒了。我想知道您是否了解克拉马斯河水坝背后的财务情况？许多经济研究表明，拆除克拉马斯河水坝将比重新为它们申请许可证便宜数亿美元。所以我的问题是，如果PacifiCorp决定保留这些水坝，尽管这意味着从长远来看，你们的股东会亏钱，而且PacifiCorp的客户也会亏钱，你们会怎么做？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为关于客户的问题将由公用事业委员会来处理。我的意思是，他们的工作是代表俄勒冈州的公民，并权衡多种不同的考虑因素——例如，清洁能源。你想用你所说的——煤炭——来取代水电能源吗？煤炭会向大气排放碳。这其中有巨大的权衡取舍。每当政府介入征地权——比如我们在爱荷华州的风电场就遇到这种情况——有些人对我们使用土地建风电场感到不满。但另一方面，你通过这种方式获得了清洁能源。政府政策中涉及权衡取舍。你会遇到关于征地权之类的问题。但我认为我会让戴夫来回答你提出的更技术性的问题。但我要说，总的来说，你面对的是利益迥异的人群。显然，其中一个重要利益是电力的成本。

在某种程度上，每个公用事业委员会在天然气、煤炭、风能、太阳能之间做决策时，部分是基于对其客户的经济影响，部分是基于他们对什么对社会最有利的看法，而这些委员会是由各州任命来做这些决策的。此外，在这个案例中，我们还有所谓的FERC，即联邦能源监管委员会，它也将对此做出裁决。他们会听取所有人的意见。他们会听取你的意见。他们会听取戴夫提到的其他28位的意见。最终，我们会完全按照他们说的做。我的意思是，作为公用事业公司，如果他们告诉我们要建——不要建燃煤电厂，我们就不会建燃煤电厂。如果他们告诉我们要建风电场，假设有合适的风力资源，我们就会建风电场。我们听从监管机构的指令。最终，他们会让我们对所投入的资产获得公平的回报，无论这些资产是什么，我们都会得到回报。如果他们让我们投资燃煤资产，我们就会从中获得回报。

所以从我们的角度来看，从盈利能力的角度来看，这是中性的。从社会角度来看，权衡所有这些不同因素，这是社会要做的决定。但是，戴夫，让我们——你想谈谈藻类问题吗？

戴夫·索科尔：当然。首先，重要的是，卡鲁克部落确实进行了一项研究，发现在克拉马斯河的鲈鱼和淡水贻贝中，微囊藻毒素或蓝绿藻存在生物累积。需要理解的是——顺便说一句，我们立即将该报告分发给了州和联邦卫生机构，因为他们应该了解情况。微囊藻毒素并非克拉马斯河独有。俄勒冈州还有其他27个湖泊有蓝绿藻，70个不同的国家、加拿大每个省以及美国27个州的湖泊都有蓝绿藻。它是由营养物丰富且自然形成藻类的湖泊产生的。在克拉马斯河的源头，有一个叫做上克拉马斯湖的湖泊，它实际上是一个垦务局的水库——它是一个浅而大的水库，被称为超富营养化，意味着有大量的藻类和各种营养物质。

这些营养物质随后顺流而下，并会通过，或者在某些情况下，被垦务局相关水坝下游的四个水库拦住。重要的问题是，这些因素实际上已被联邦能源监管委员会考虑在内。他们去年11月发布了环境影响报告，支持在水坝上采用各种鱼类通道方法，但不要求拆除水坝。但同样，这些决定将由所有州、联邦机构以及各个相关方要么达成一致，要么通过FERC的程序来解决。

17. 多空策略并非赚钱大户

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。第二个问题。

股东：您好。我叫Henry Pattener，最近来自新加坡。在您早年的一封信中——您1964年的合伙企业信件——您介绍了第四种投资方法，叫做“将军——相对低估”。在您的描述中，您说：“我们最近开始实施一种技术，该技术有望大幅降低因整体估值标准变化带来的风险。‘我们以12倍市盈率买入某只股票，而同类或质量较差的公司的市盈率为20倍，但随后发生重大重估，导致后者仅以10倍市盈率交易。’”这种技术是配对交易吗？如果是的话，您是如何思考并计算多头与空头比例的呢？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我不记得我们早在64年就开始做了，但在60年代，我们确实做过一些广义上可以称为配对交易的事情，这是许多对冲基金和其他机构使用的一种技术，即做多一只证券并做空另一只，通常他们试图让它们属于同一行业或类似情况。他们认为英国石油相对于雪佛龙更具有吸引力，反之亦然，所以他们做多一个并做空另一个。实际上，这种技术最早是由本·格雷厄姆在20世纪20年代中期使用的，当时他有一个对冲基金——我经常读到文章，将20世纪40年代末A.W.琼斯视为对冲基金概念的创始人，但本·格雷厄姆在20年代中期就有了——而且他实际上从事过配对交易。他发现效果一般——非常一般——因为他的判断大约五次里对四次，但错的那次往往会毁掉其他四次赚的钱。我们做过——我们在合伙企业中大约有五年时间做空整个市场，达到一定规模。

我们直接从一些主要大学借入股票。我想我们在这方面可能相当早。我们去了哥伦比亚大学、哈佛大学、芝加哥大学等不同地方，并实际安排了直接借股。在那些日子里，这不像现在这么容易操作。所以我们会拿走他们的投资组合，然后说：“随便给我们一些你们想给的股票，过一段时间后我们会还给你们，并付给你们一点费用。”然后我们做多那些我们认为有吸引力的东西。我们并不做空我们认为没有吸引力的东西；我们只是普遍做空市场。对我来说，这总是有点意思的，当我拜访哥伦比亚大学或其他地方的财务主管时，我会说：“我们想借你们的股票来做空，”你知道，他当时认为他的股票相当不错。他会说：“你想要哪些？”我说：“随便给我一些就行——（笑声）——我很乐意做空你整个该死的投资组合。”

（笑声）我需要戴尔·卡耐基课程来让我应付那种场面，你知道。我们脑海中并没有具体的比例。我们总是受到愿意提供股票给我们做空的机构数量的限制。所以这不是什么大事，但在60年代我们可能因此多赚了一些钱。这完全不适合我们如今的做法。而且，一般来说，我认为如果你对某些被低估的企业有非常好的想法，那么做空市场真的没有必要。对于在座从事这个领域的人来说——有一种流行的提案——基金经理总是在向潜在投资者推销某种流行的提案——现在有一种叫做130-30的策略，即做多130%，做空30%。这些东西基本上都是试图向你推销当日想法的一堆说辞。它实际上并没有什么伟大的统计价值。但鱼会上钩，正如查理所说。

查理可以详细说明。

查理·芒格：是的。我们赚钱是通过做多一些优秀的企业。我们不是通过多空策略赚到的。

18. 重大机遇往往转瞬即逝

沃伦·巴菲特：第三个问题。

股东：尊敬的巴菲特先生，尊敬的芒格先生。我叫Oliver Krautscheid，来自德国法兰克福。次贷危机导致了资本市场定价不一致。信贷资产以大幅折价交易，而同时，股票并未反映这一点。我的问题是，这种情况何时结束，以及您如何利用市场错位？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，当市场出现错位时，总有办法加以利用，但我们把寻找这些机会的乐趣留给你们。但确实存在一些非常重要的错位。我带了一些数据来，只是为了让你们开心，这些数据是关于我们最近做的一些事情。不过这对伯克希尔没有什么重大意义。我的意思是，伯克希尔会从中赚点额外的钱。这不需要花时间去思考。但它确实说明了变化有多么剧烈。我带的数据涉及免税货币市场基金。这些基金总规模达3300亿。这是很大一笔钱——3300亿。它们依赖于——实际上在几乎所有情况下——都是一级市政债券的重新定价。每七天他们就有一次拍卖，这一切都安排得非常精细，以便人们在心中认为他们的钱或多或少可以立即取用，而且是免税的，这些基金被广泛销售。

我带来了——例如，这个是和——它们由各种市政债券支持。这个恰好是洛杉矶县艺术博物馆的。只是随手拿出来的。在1月24日，它的收益率是3.15%；1月31日，4.0%；2月7日，3.5%；2月14日，8%。现在，一个短期的免税债券怎么可能在一周内以3.5%的利率出售，一周后在情人节那天变成8%，再一周后变成10%？现在又回到了4.2%。这些都是市场上的巨大错位。这太疯狂了。如果是一些不太知名的微小项目，那可能是一回事，但这事发生在涉及数十亿、数百亿美元证券的领域。甚至发生在——我们每天都会收到这些投标单，这似乎是花旗集团的投标单。他们每七天就重新定价一次。

在这些上面你会发现——你会看到涉及很多品种——同一个品种会出现在好几个不同的页面上，因为它代表了不同的拍卖，尽管由同一个经纪商在同一时间处理。在一页上，你会发现一个品种——我们对所有这些都进行了投标——我们碰巧以11.3%的收益率投标。在一页上，我们以11.3%买到了。在另一页上，同一个品种，我们投标11.3%，而其他人投标6%。所以同一个品种，通过同一个经纪商，在同一时间，以11.3%和6%的价格被卖出。这些是极度错位的标志，你偶尔会发现这些。在1998年长期资本管理公司危机之后你见过。你在1974年的股票市场上见过类似情况，等等。那些是赚取非常规利润的大好时机。如果你——有些事情我们无法弄清楚。我在《华尔街日报》上看到——我最近看到一些广告，关于某些深奥的抵押贷款证券正在拍卖。

如果你有足够的时间，你也许能找出其中一些严重错误定价的。我们不搞那个。我们只是没有时间。我们能够做四个——我们现在在这方面有大约40亿。等我们全部做完，我们会在一两个月里赚点额外的钱。相对于伯克希尔的规模，这不算什么，但这是很容易做的事情。你也许可以通过在一些较小的品种上非常非常努力地工作——你也许能在这堆抵押贷款烂摊子里找到机会——而且这已经超出了次贷范围。已经扩展到Alt-A贷款、可调整利率期权贷款（Option ARMs）等。很可能外面有一些很好的机会，但查理和我不会再发现了，因为我们无法去看那么多东西。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。有趣的是——这些利用错位的机会常常是多么短暂。某个愚蠢的对冲基金以令人难以置信的利润率无限量购买市政债券。我认为他们用自有资金买了20倍于自己负担能力的市政债券，其余都是借来的。当这些东西被追缴保证金而抛售时，美国的市政债券突然被错误定价了。但这种错位非常短暂。所以你——

沃伦·巴菲特：但是非常极端。

查理·芒格：但是非常极端。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

查理·芒格：所以如果你不能快速思考并果断行动，这对你毫无用处。你就像一个站在溪边试图用矛叉鱼的人，而鱼每星期或每月或每十年才经过一次。你必须在那里，在鱼游走之前迅速投出鱼叉。如果你做对了，这是个相当苛刻的行当。

沃伦·巴菲特：但有时候确实有。我的意思是，在垃圾债券市场，2002年有三四个月的时间，发生了一些真正不可思议的事情，而且规模很大。所以——

查理·芒格：是的。这种事情大约每两个世纪发生两次。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。（笑声）这意味着他和我这辈子只碰上了四五次能这样做的时候。（笑声）

19. “前进的自动公式”

沃伦·巴菲特：我们来看第四个问题。

股东：您好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫Svinneyvaz Canadival，来自佛罗里达州劳德代尔堡。我多次阅读您所有的信件和年度报告，每次都能获得不同的见解。所以谢谢你们。我的问题是关于如何将成功的小企业转变为大型企业。过去几年我经营着一家成功的小企业，但我无法将其发展到下一个阶段。似乎缺少一些要素，所以我想听听你们的建议。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，伯克希尔曾经也是一家小企业。我的意思是，这需要时间。这就是复利的本质。你知道，你无法在一天或一周内建成。所以查理和我——你知道，我们从未试图通过什么神来之笔——把伯克希尔变成四倍大的公司。有些人有时在商业上做到了。但我们有点觉得，如果我们继续做我们理解的事情，并且始终如一地做，同时在做事的过程中享受乐趣，那么最终它会在某个时候变得相当大。但没有什么魔法——如果能吸引一大笔资金投入某个伟大的想法，并在几周内将其翻上好几倍，那当然很好。但这真的不是我们的方法。我们只是——总的来说，我们一直在做同样的事情。我们做了一些小小的变体，但我们多年来一直坚持做同样的事情，并且我们会继续做下去。

你知道，几年后我们将拥有比现在更多的企业。我们将拥有目前所有的企业。其中大多数会做得更好。有些不会。我们会增加一些东西。这是一个前进的自动公式，但不是飞速前进的自动公式。但我们并不真的觉得——我们并不因为不是在飞速前进而不高兴。如果停滞不前，我们也不会高兴。但是，你知道，我们拥有大约76家，在大多数情况下，相当出色的企业。就像我说的，随着时间推移，我们会拥有更多。所以这是一个非常简单的公式。吉普赛·罗斯·李曾经说过——她说：“我拥有五年前拥有的一切，只是低了2英寸。”嗯，我们希望五年后拥有的是我们以前拥有的所有业务，并且它们都高了2英寸，再加上一些新的业务。这就是公式。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。你必须记住，大多数小企业永远成不了大企业是事物的本质。另外，大多数大企业最终会陷入平庸或更糟，这也是事物的本质。所以这是一场艰难的游戏。此外，游戏的所有参与者最终都必须死去，这是游戏的规则，你必须习惯。就我所能想到的，我们完全从零开始创建并成长为一家大企业的小企业只有一个，那就是再保险部门。在那里，沃伦、阿吉特和其他人从无到有，创建了一个伟大而有价值的企业。但你还能想到我们在过去几十年里做过其他什么大型企业吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：不能。不能。

查理·芒格：我们只成功了一次，所以我们是一招鲜。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。那一次我们也很幸运。（笑声）是的，顺便说一句，没有阿吉特，我们根本做不成。

查理·芒格：对，对。

沃伦·巴菲特：不是我们做的，是阿吉特做的。我们只是坐在那里欢呼。

查理·芒格：有人曾问我们做过的最好的投资是什么，我回答是，我们付给猎头公司找到阿吉特·贾殷的费用。（掌声。）

20. 债券保险业务开局强劲

沃伦·巴菲特：关于这一点，我想给你们一个小小的报告。几个月前我们进入了市政债券保险业务，自然，我们是通过阿吉特来做的。他让我们的公司启动、获得牌照并开始运营。在2008年第一季度——我没有其他所有人的数据——但我们的保费收入超过了4亿美元。我认为——现在，这些绝大多数是在二级市场承保的，但我认为我们的保费收入不仅超过了美国任何其他市政债券保险公司，而且如果我说它等于其他所有公司的总和，我也不会感到惊讶。这是阿吉特从零开始实现的。我这里有一份清单，上面有300多——这是季度末的数据——我确信是278笔交易。所有这些都是由一个只有29或30人的办公室完成的，他们还同时在做很多其他事情。我的意思是，这是一个非常非常了不起的地方。

这件事有趣的一点是，几乎所有这些业务——虽然不是全部的保费量——所有的——几乎所有这些业务——都是人们带着市政债券来找我们，要求我们提供保险，而且除了两三个案例外，每个案例中，这些债券已经由其他债券保险公司提供了保险，其中大多数评级为AAA。所以他们付给我们更高的费用，让我们提供保险，这笔保险的赔付条件是，不仅市政当局不付款，而且最初的债券保险公司也不付款。所以我们在本季度以平均略高于2%的费率承保业务，而最初的保险公司可能收取了平均1%的费用。而且他们必须支付——实际上，我们赔付的唯一途径是他们破产了。这告诉你一些关于2008年第一季度债券保险领域中AAA评级的意义。阿吉特在这个领域做得非常出色。

伯克希尔还为底特律下水道区和底特律水务区承保了几份原始保单——每份大约3.7亿或3.8亿美元——人们发现，我们承保的债券在二级市场上交易时，对发行方来说，收益率更具吸引力。换句话说，收益率比任何其他债券保险公司的都要低。所以整个公司，仅仅在几个月的时间里，就被阿吉特在康涅狄格州的小办公室里建立起来了。这非常了不起，我为此祝贺他。（掌声。）

21. 我们偏爱“现金泛滥的企业”

沃伦·巴菲特：我们来看第五区，请。

股东：您好。我叫Stuart Kaye，来自纽约市。我想知道，如果您不能与管理层交谈，不能阅读年报，也不知道一家公司的股价，而只允许看一家公司的财务报表，您会看什么指标来帮助您决定是否应该收购这家公司？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们在投资中所做的，以及每个人在投资中所做的，都是现在投入资金，以期将来收回更多。现在，我们先不考虑资产的市场方面。我的意思是，当你买一个农场时，你真的不会考虑它明天、下周或下个月的市场价格。你考虑的是——你能从每亩地里收获多少蒲式耳大豆或玉米，以及可能的价格是多少。你看的是资产本身。在你描述的情况下，你必须做的第一个问题是，我是否足够了解这个业务，以便财务报表能告诉我做出关于未来财务报表会是什么样子的判断所需的有用信息。在很多情况下，答案是否定的。可能在绝大多数情况下，答案是否定的。

但我其实很多次都是像你描述的那样买股票的，它们是我认为自己理解其业务的公司，在那里，如果我对财务历史足够了解，它就能告诉我足够多的关于财务未来的信息，以至于我可以买入。我无法说这只股票值X，或者值的X的105%或95%，但如果我能以X的40%买入，我会觉得我有了格雷厄姆所说的那种安全边际，我就可以做决定。大多数时候我做不了决定。我不知道——如果你递给我一堆财务报表，却不告诉我这是什么业务，我无法判断未来会发生什么。它可能是一个呼啦圈业务；也可能是一个宠物石业务。你知道，另一方面，它也可能是早期的微软。所以除非我知道业务的性质，否则财务报表告诉不了我什么，你知道。

如果我知道业务的性质，并且我看到了财务报表，你知道，如果我看到箭牌的口香糖的财务报表，我对这个业务有所了解。在我做出判断之前，我必须先了解一些关于产品的东西。但我们已经买了非常非常多的证券。查理和我买的绝大多数证券，我们从未见过管理层，也从未和他们交谈过，但我们主要是依据财务报表、我们对业务的一般理解，以及对我们正在购买的行业和业务的一些具体理解来操作的。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。我认为有一个指标会误导很多人。我们倾向于偏爱那种现金泛滥的企业。它赚的钱太多了，以至于拥有它的主要原则之一就是所有这些现金都会进来。还有其他一些业务，比如我老朋友约翰·安德森的工程设备业务。他过去常说他的生意：“你一整年都在努力工作，到了年底，你的利润就摆在院子里。”从来没有现金。只是更多用过的工程设备。我们倾向于讨厌那样的生意。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。理解每个月都给你寄支票的业务要容易得多。但那就是一栋公寓楼——你知道，如果你拥有一栋公寓，如果你对所在的城市有所了解，你也许能很好地评估它的价值。如果你有财务报表，你可以对未来可能的收益做出合理的猜测。但那是因为它是一个给你现金的业务。现在，在那个领域也可能有意外。但我在财务报表的基础上买过很多东西。有很多东西我不会买，你知道，即使我认为管理层是世界上最优秀的——因为如果他们身处错误的行业，那真的没什么区别。

22. 克拉马斯河的污染

沃伦·巴菲特：第六个问题？

股东：早上好。我叫Mike Palmateer，是卡鲁克渔业公司的渔业主管。巴菲特先生，您在密苏里河岸边长大并仍然居住在那里。我也生活在一条叫克拉马斯的河边上。我的家族从远古时代就住在那里。2002年，由于疾病和糟糕的水质，68,000条鱼在克拉马斯河口死亡。这些鱼也是我的亲戚。如果另一家公司污染了您的河流，杀死了所有的鱼，使河流无法游泳和捕鱼，您会如何处理这个问题？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为社会作为一个整体——应该通过检查该情况下任何活动的净收益、电力的成本以及如果农民转向不同形式的水资源分配时他们的处境来解决问题。我的意思是，在一个大社会里有很多相互竞争的想法和愿望，基本上要由政府来理清这些。我们正在理清——现在，我们在国内建设燃煤电厂。我们在建设天然气厂。我们在做各种各样的事情。人们对他们想要什么样的权衡得出不同的结论，通常这些是在州一级做出的，尽管你可以有一个国家能源政策来凌驾于各个州的决定之上。我们对此响应国家政策。我们响应地方政策。

俄勒冈州公用事业委员会，我相信，完全了解你讨论的内容，他们必须考虑这些，但他们必须考虑很多其他事情，以确定什么是为俄勒冈州公民发电的最佳方式。戴夫，你想补充什么吗？

戴夫·索科尔：沃伦，只说一点。绝无冒犯渔民之意，但是——我们没有污染河流。我们没有向上克拉马斯河排出的水中添加任何东西，我们确实认识到关于灌溉是好是坏、像水电这样的可再生能源是否比让河流恢复到1907年之前的状态更好等不同的观点。但有一点——我想说清楚——PacifiCorp没有添加任何东西。水只是流过水压管道，产生电力，然后从后面流出，而且这是根据一份50年的FERC许可证进行的。同样，我们理解各种担忧，希望在接下来的六年里，能够达成一个平衡所有这些担忧的社会性答案。

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。（掌声。）

查理·芒格：我想——我想指出，有人提出一个与燃烧碳无关的污染问题，是多么 refreshing 啊。（掌声。）

23. 巴菲特给一个12岁孩子的建议

沃伦·巴菲特：第七个问题。

股东：嘿。我是Jack Range。我来自费城。我上七年级，今年12岁。我只想问，在我这个年级，我应该读什么样的书？因为我知道有很多东西是学校不教的，但你应该知道，我应该去了解些什么？（掌声。）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我会养成习惯，如果你还没有的话——但你听起来很可能已经有了——那就是每天读一份报纸，这在这个时代的年轻人中并不是最受欢迎的事情。但你想尽可能多地了解你周围的世界。比尔·盖茨，我想，他在读《世界百科全书》时，停在了字母P。停在那里似乎也没怎么害他。但你可以有一套《世界百科全书》。你可以读报纸。你应该尽情吸收。你会发现什么对你最有趣。我的意思是，你知道，在某个阶段，体育版对我最有趣，然后是财经版。我碰巧是个政治迷。但你在生活中永远学不够。我认为你会发现，你学得越多，你就越想学。我的意思是，这很有趣，但——你在我听来像一个会自己在这方面做很多事情的年轻人。

你有什么建议吗，查理？你可能会建议读本·富兰克林。

查理·芒格：我的建议是，刚才发言的这位年轻人已经知道如何在生活中成功了。你已经做到了。（掌声）

24. “我们从不劝人卖掉好企业”

沃伦·巴菲特：第八个问题。

股东：向大家问好，来自欧洲中部，德国波恩，莱茵河畔。我是Norman Rentrop。我是伯克希尔、韦斯科和科隆再保险的股东。我想感谢您和Eitan Wertheimer主动并花时间来到欧洲四个城市，并且可能遍及全球，告诉家族企业的所有者们，伯克希尔·哈撒韦在出售他们的企业给收购基金方面是多么好的一个替代选项。现在，我的问题关于巧克力行业。我面临一个挑战，因为我在家乡德国波恩买不到时思糖果。您举过那个关于优秀企业、好企业和糟糕企业的伟大例子。您引用时说思糖果向奥马哈输送了像13亿美元这样的现金利润。还有另一家公司叫做瑞士莲史宾利。现在，尽管时思糖果实现了超过20%的销售利润率，您描述其增长“还可以”。瑞士莲史宾利只有14%的销售利润率，但他们确实走向了全球。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。你能直接问问题吗？（笑声）

股东：是的。问题是关于——您是否愿意拥有一个高利润率但增长平平的公司，还是一个走向全球但利润率较低的公司？您的考虑是什么？

沃伦·巴菲特：这实际上对我们来说没什么区别。我们评估各种各样的企业。我们想要的是一个具有持久竞争优势的企业，你提到的两家公司都具备这一点。我们想要我们理解的东西。我们想要我们喜欢和信任的管理层。然后我们想要一个合理的价格。我们试着去看——我们可能考察了20年来每一家上市的糖果公司，我们看到过它们的财务数据。有时我们会找到可以采取行动的目标，但大多数时候找不到。当它们是私人企业时，我们不确定——一个真正好的私人企业——我总是告诉经理，如果你有一家出色的私人企业，最好的做法就是继续持有它。它明年和后年会变得更值钱。所以除非有外部因素，否则没有理由卖掉一家出色的企业。可能是因为家庭情况。可能是因为税收。可能因为没有其他潜在的继承人，等等。

但没有必要——如果你有一个价值十亿美元的企业，你并不需要这十亿美元——你已经拥有了一个价值十亿美元的企业——就像你有一个价值一百万美元的农场一样。你已经拥有那一百万美元了。你只是碰巧把它放在了农场里。如果你喜欢农业，你就留着它。所以我们从不劝人卖掉好企业。我们劝他们留着。但有时候他们会因为这样或那样的原因想卖掉——也许每20年或50年一次——我们确实认为，如果他们有一个让他们无比自豪的企业——一个真正优秀的企业——那么通过把它卖给伯克希尔，他们能够保留比卖给其他任何人多得多的他们所珍视的那些特质。所以我们是合乎逻辑的买家。

正如你提到的，我要去欧洲了——Eitan在安排这件事上做得非常出色——我们要去做一些宣讲，不是要说服任何人现在把他们的企业卖给我们，因为大多数人现在不应该把企业卖给我们。但我们希望他们在将来某个事件发生，导致他们考虑出售时，能想到我们。我们希望出现在他们的视野中。我们在美国的知名度比在欧洲高，我们正试图纠正这一点。但如果你考虑一家像你提到的公司，比如瑞士莲，你知道，总有一个价格我们会愿意买入瑞士莲的股票。也有一个价格我们会愿意买下整个公司。但不可能会在那个价格上成交。你知道，如果你想想成百上千家优秀的公司——我收到所有这些经理的信息——就在昨天有一个CEO给我打电话——他们想告诉我关于他们业务的情况，他们暗示他们的业务——或者他们想——他们的业务是世界上最吸引人的投资。

它并不是世界上最吸引人的投资。有成千上万种可能的投资。你知道，所有这些经理都说“我们的股票是世界上最棒的”这个想法是疯狂的。但我们的工作是考察数百种项目，对于有价证券，我们买我们认为最有吸引力的，在我们理解并喜欢其业务的公司中。然后偶尔我们有机会买到整个企业。我们从不以折价价格这么做。根本不可能。人们不会那样做。股票市场给你提供折价价格；个体所有者不会。但当我们有机会以公平价格这样做时，我们喜欢做。我们喜欢用一群具有良好长期经济特征的企业来建设伯克希尔。但任何一家公司——你知道，我们不会寻找一家特定的糖果公司说：“不管价格如何，我们都要买下它，”因为当“不管价格如何”这个词进入到句子中时，我们什么都不会做。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。我见过一个人在加州南部建立了一个企业，这是一个很棒的企业。到了出售的时候——他奉献了毕生精力来创造它——他把它卖给了一个众所周知的骗子，这人显然会毁了这家企业，只因为他能获得一个稍高一点的价格。我认为如果你拥有一家繁荣的企业，用这种方式度过一生是疯狂的。我认为更好的做法是把它卖给你知道会成为你所创造事物的好管家的人。（掌声。）

25. 美元长期来看可能会走弱

沃伦·巴菲特：我们来看第九个问题。

股东：您好。我叫Johann Freudenberg，来自德国。作为投资美国股票市场的欧洲投资者，您如何对冲美元风险？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：我如何什么？

查理·芒格：你如何对冲美元风险？

沃伦·巴菲特：哦。嗯，无论你是考虑从德国出发对冲在此投资的风险，还是反过来，我们都很乐意投资于那些在德国用欧元赚钱的公司，或者无论在法国、意大利，还是在英国用英镑赚钱的公司，因为我们没有那种感觉——至少我没有那种感觉——这些货币可能会对美元大幅贬值。那将是我们可能遭受损失的方式。我们可以通过那些国家借入资金，用他们的货币借款来购买投资来抵消这种风险。但总的来说，我认为美国将继续遵循一些近年来导致美元走弱的政策。所以如果我必须用生命打赌未来10年的方向，我可能会赌美元兑其他主要货币会走弱，因此，我感觉没有必要——如果我们购买的公司的盈利主要来自其他主要国家——我感觉没有必要去对冲这些购买。

我的意思是，如果我今天从火星着陆，带着十亿火星美元或他们在火星上叫的任何名字，我在想我的钱该放在哪里，你知道，我去了当地——不管我的UFO降落在哪里——然后去了银行，说：“我有十亿火星货币，”他们说：“嗯，你想在这里兑换什么？”我不认为我会把全部十亿都换成美元。所以对我来说，购买世界各地的公司，不对其货币进行对冲，并且让我们相当一部分盈利来自其他货币的收益，而这些收益我将来会按当时的汇率兑换成美元，这并不会困扰我。如果你拿可口可乐来说——我们拥有2亿股可口可乐的股票。如果它们的每股收益大约是3美元，那么可口可乐年度盈利中我们占的份额就是6亿美元。在这6亿美元的盈利中，你知道，可能接近5亿来自世界各地——各种不同的货币。基本上我喜欢这样。

我认为随着时间的推移，这对我们来说将是一个净利好，而且在最近几年它确实是一个净利好。所以我们基本上不做对冲货币的生意。我们没有设置大量的对冲工具。查理？

查理·芒格：没什么要补充的。

26. 小盘股和错误定价的债券提供机会

沃伦·巴菲特：第十个问题。

股东：嘿，你好吗？我是Eric Schline，来自纽约拉奇蒙特。这实际上是对我去年在会上提的一个问题的跟进。我问过你们，你们会如何处理小额资金，因为我管理着一个不到一百万美元的小投资组合。我问你们，你们会不会做一些像本杰明·格雷厄姆过去常说的那种net-nets，以及清算套利之类的事情。就像你们在巴菲特合伙公司时代常做的很多事情。你们承认，你们不会像我今天的你们这样，只是一个买入并持有的投资者，而是会做很多那样的交易。而且，巴菲特先生，你也说过，很多你用不到一百万美元做的投资会和股票无关，会是其他类型的证券，但你们两位都没有进一步详细说明。

所以我想知道，你们能不能稍微详细说明一下，你们当时的投资策略，比如在非股票投资方面，与你们今天的买入并持有策略会有何不同？那么你们会做些什么样的事情呢？也许你可以给我一个你们在50年代或60年代做过的例子。那会非常棒。谢谢。感激不尽。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，如果我操作小额资金——而且我会很乐意这样做——那将为我打开成千上万的可能性。你很可能——我们当然发现过严重错误定价的债券，我们无法在伯克希尔建立一个足以产生影响的大头寸，但如果你操作一百万美元，那就会产生影响。但那会是债券。会是美国和世界其他地方的股票。几年前我们在韩国发现了一些价格极其低廉的股票。你知道，你基本上可以实现非常显著的回报，但你不能投入大资金。所以可能是在股票上。可能是在债券上。不会是用小额资金做货币。但是，你知道，我有一个朋友过去常常购买税收留置权——你知道，Tom Knapp，他在这里有一些亲戚。一个有进取心的人可以找到很多不同的赚钱方式。你会发现其中大多数会在小盘股里。

如果你操作的是小资金，它们会在小盘股或一些专门的债券情况中。你会这么说吗，查理？

查理·芒格：当然。（笑声）

27. 逢迎的政客上台后表现会更好

沃伦·巴菲特：第十一个问题，请。

股东：您好。我是圣路易斯不孕症中心的Silber医生。我们觉得，通过制造许多许多的婴儿，我们正在尽最大努力帮助挽救社会保障体系的偿付能力。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我们不会把这个逻辑推得太远。（笑声）

股东：我们需要有人向系统缴费，而且，鉴于我们面临的人口结构崩溃和当前的反移民情绪，这是我们面临的社会保障困境的真正原因。这在大多数发达国家也是如此。但我的问题是，每个人都在密切关注你和查理在这次会议上会说什么，因为自从信贷危机以来，存在巨大的困惑，我想你已经经历了很多很多年、几十年的困惑。但每个人真的想知道你的想法，因为我们有三位候选人，其中一位我喜欢，我就不提名字了，但所有三位似乎都在迎合选民，并没有展现出对经济学的深刻理解。我们将降低利率以帮助应对信贷危机，我们将向经济注入1800亿美元作为免费礼物，然而我们的美元已经下跌了50%，我们当然不想要衰退以及随之而来的所有痛苦。但我们难道最终不会在美国经历一次巨大的通货膨胀吗？

而且——在中国，我们在这个问题上的主要伙伴，股市已经下跌，人们因为担心美国而赔钱。所以我想知道，如果你是一个总统候选人——我希望能看到这种情况发生——你的立场或政策会是什么？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我记得比尔·巴克利大约40年前竞选纽约市长，或者类似的事，有人问他如果当选第一件事会做什么。他说：“我会要求重新计票。”（笑声）这不是一场容易的游戏。我认为我们——就我个人而言——我认为这次我们有三位相当不错的候选人——相当好的候选人。但我认为你关于逢迎等的评论，恐怕这只是——如果你有一个非常漫长的政治过程，而你只有人们通常只愿意听简短观点的听众，而你又试图这样或那样地让其他候选人不好看——我认为实际情况是，在提出的政策中确实有很多逢迎之举。我认为候选人中有对经济学相当了解的。我碰巧认为三位中有两位可能比第三位在经济学上更聪明一点，但第三位也可能同样聪明。他们可能只是被迫采取不同的立场。

你知道，政治过程并不是一个适合进行道格拉斯-林肯式关于政策细节辩论的场合，这是一场艰难的游戏。而且我不认为——我认为有一点是，他们在任职期间会比在竞选过程中表现更好。我认为这对他们三个都是如此，而且我认为——但这是系统本身固有的。我们——你知道，我们有一个运作得非常好的国家。你知道，无论是沃伦·哈丁当政，还是富兰克林·皮尔斯，或者多年来无论什么情况。这又回到了我多次说过的那句话：你想买入一家优秀到连傻瓜都能经营的公司，因为迟早会有一个傻瓜来经营。（笑声）我们生活在一个如此优秀的国家，坦率地说，你的子孙后代的生活会比你好得多，尽管期间时不时会有一个或几个傻瓜来管理。但我们拥有的管理者远比傻瓜好得多。相信我。

我认为我们有三位非常优秀的候选人，我希望——无论他们中哪一个获胜，我都祝愿他们。你知道，这是世界上最艰难的工作，也是最重要的工作，而且我认为，有时他们的动机比他们在政治过程中的宣言要好得多。我认为在没有支持乙醇的情况下竞选爱荷华州是非常困难的。你知道，这也许最终会为你赢得一个勇气勋章之类的，但你不会赢得总统职位。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我想谈谈最近的动荡及其与政治的关系。在安然公司以其巨大的愚蠢和不当行为震惊全国之后，我们的政治家通过了《萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》，结果证明他们是在用豌豆射手射大象。而且你瞧，我们经历了一场让安然公司看起来像茶话会一样的剧变。我满怀信心地预测，我们在监管方面会有改变，而且它们不会完美地运作。（笑声）人性总是有这些合理化自身行为和不当行为的动机，而受过教育的专业阶层常常未能履行他们作为知识分子的基本责任。在你能预见的未来，我们将一直面临这种动荡。

沃伦·巴菲特：但这样看：我有一份我热爱的工作。你知道，我愿意付钱来做这份工作。现在，我有足够的股票，可以相当有把握地保住这份工作，但我们暂时假设外面还有其他三位候选人，我们都没有任何股票，我们都站在这里向你们推销。我的答案今天可能会有点不同，你知道，关于伯克希尔在我领导下的前景等等。这是一个腐蚀的过程。现在，你知道，它运作得还不错，但这个过程本身必然有腐蚀性。就拿我们经历的大宗商品价格繁荣来说吧。我们经历了石油价格的繁荣，但我们经历了玉米和大豆价格的繁荣。现在，我没有听到任何政治候选人说过，你经历了玉米和大豆价格如此巨大的上涨。

这意味着全国所有的穷人，他们将为食物支付更多，所以我们应对农民征收暴利税。这不是你会听到的话。另一方面，当石油价格上涨，而且恰好是埃克森美孚时，你知道，人们有时会提议我们应该对埃克森美孚征收重税。有很多情境伦理，或者说情境政策制定，这取决于任何特定类别中有多少选民，以及你恰好在哪个州等等。但我认为我的表现不会更好。如果我的目标是成为美国总统，你知道，我肯定会——我确信这会影响我谈论的内容和我的行为。你知道，我们都是人。

2008年年度股东大会

第三部分/第五部分

所以，当人们每天工作18个小时，旁边还有敌人朝他们开枪，他们开始稍微夸大一些事情时，我并不谴责他们。我只是认为你不应对人类期望过高——而且我认为，三位候选人中的任何一位——入主白宫后都会表现得相当不错。他们会屈服于总统们必须做的所有事情，比如回报帮助过他们的特定群体等等。但总体而言，我认为他们最终会做他们认为对国家最有利的事情，而且我认为他们都是聪明人。

原文

So I don’t condemn the people for the fact that when they, you know, are working 18 hours a day and the other guy is shooting at them and they start exaggerating things a little, I just don’t think you should expect more of human beings than — and I think that they will tend — I think any one of the three candidates — will tend to behave quite well in the White House. They’ll succumb to all the things that presidents do in terms of having to — certain groups that helped them get there and all that sort of thing. But I think, on balance, they will end up doing what they think is best for the country, and I think they’re all smart people.

28. “我去世后不会出现空缺”

沃伦·巴菲特： 第12个问题？

观众提问： 我叫约翰·埃伯特，来自华盛顿州布雷默顿。很高兴看到您和查理都如此健康，也很高兴知道你们的目标是至少工作到102岁才退休。从屏幕上你们的表现来看，我想你们的秘诀一定是樱桃可乐和喜诗糖果。我的问题显然与继任有关。在去年的会议上，您谈到了您对首席财务官的安排。您能否向我们介绍一下继任计划的最新情况？

沃伦·巴菲特： 好的。关于CEO继任，我们已经确定了三个人选，他们中的任何一个都可以在许多方面做得比我更好。董事会一致同意，如果明天早上就需要任命，他们知道会选谁，但两三后可能就不同了。无论如何，我认为到时候他们会想选一个相对年轻的人，因为总体而言，长期担任这个职位是个好主意，而且这也有助于收购，并能向人们做出关于他们业务将如何被对待的承诺等等。至于投资官，董事会手上有四个名字。我们已经讨论过这四个人。他们中的任何一个或所有人，都能很好地胜任我的工作，在某些方面可能还更胜一筹。但他们现在都工作得很好，也很满意现状。我认为，如果我今晚去世，董事会向他们中的任何一位发出邀请，他们明天就会到位。他们都相对年轻。

他们都相当富有或非常有钱，薪酬对他们来说不是主要因素。我认为他们中的任何一位都会愿意以低于现有薪酬的水平接受这份工作，但现在没有理由让他们来。因为我还会做决策，他们可能会因为无法做决策而感到不快。我曾经为本·格雷厄姆工作过几年。我非常爱戴他，从他那里学到了很多东西。我大儿子的中间名就是以他命名的。但最终，我想自己做决策。如果本·格雷厄姆做了不同的决策，你知道，我实际上更喜欢自己做决定。任何善于管理资金的人都会有这种感觉。所以现在这样更好。继任可能明天发生，也可能五年后发生。但无论何时我不在了，董事会会决定是用这四个人中的一个、两个、三个，还是四个全部。他们可能会决定用四个人，把工作分成四份，也可能只用一个人。

他们可能会在很大程度上受到未来CEO想法的影响，看他希望与一个团队还是一个人合作。他们会来的。所以在我去世后，在管理资金方面不会出现空缺，而且他们可能比我更有精力。他们很可能取得比我好得多的业绩记录。他们中的一些人近期的业绩就比我好。查理？

查理·芒格： 嗯，你知道，我们这里还有一位叫沃伦·巴菲特的年轻人在不断成长。并且——（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特： 这就是和一个84岁的人一起工作的好处。你总是看起来很年轻。（笑声）

查理·芒格： 我认为我们想鼓励这位年轻人充分发挥他的潜力。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特： 我应该指出一点，我们的平均年龄是80岁，人们总是谈论老龄化管理层。但我们还没发现不老化的管理层。如果真有，我们想开始吃他们吃的东西。关于你们的管理层，我可以指出，既然我们的平均年龄是80岁，我们每年只老化1.25%，这是我所知道的美国公司中最低的老化率。我的意思是，有些公司有50岁的员工，他们每年老化2%，想想这风险有多大。（笑声）

原文

28. “There will be no gap after my death”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 12?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is John Ebert (PH). I’m from Bremerton, Washington. I’m very pleased to see that both you and Charlie look so healthy, and I’m also glad to know that your goal is to work to at least 102 before you retire. I think your secret must be the Cherry Coke and the See’s Candy by evidence of what you’re doing on the screen there. My question, obviously, deals with succession. At last year’s meeting, you spoke about your plan for your chief financial officer. Could you please update us on where you stand on succession?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And we’ve said, on the CEO front, we have three that any one of which could step in and do a better job than I do in many respects. And the board is unanimous, I believe, in terms of knowing which one it would be if it were tomorrow morning, but that might be different two or three years from now. I think in any event, when the time comes, they’ll want to pick somebody reasonably young, because I think, on balance, it’s good idea to have a long run at this job, and I think it aids in acquisition and being able to make promises to people about how their businesses will be treated and so on. In terms of the investment officer, the board has four names. We’ve discussed the four. Any one or all of the four would be good at doing my job, probably better in some ways, and — but they all have good jobs now. They’re happy where they are now. They would — I think any one of the four would be here tomorrow if I died tonight and they were offered the job by the board. They’re all reasonably young.

They’re all very well to do or rich, and compensation would not be a major factor with them. I think any of the four would take the job at less money than they’re making now, but there’s no reason for them to come now. I would still end up making the decisions, and they would probably chafe at the idea of not being able to make the decisions. I actually worked for Ben Graham for a few years. And I loved the man enormously. I learned an amount from him. I named my older son, middle name, is after him. But in the end, I wanted to make decisions, and I — if Ben Graham made them differently — you know, I actually prefer to make my own decisions. And anybody that manages money well is going to feel that way. So it’s just better in this case. It can happen tomorrow. It could happen five years from now. But whenever I’m not around to make the decisions, the board will decide whether to have one, two, three, or four of these people. They’ll decide — you know, they may decide to have four and divide it up four ways. They may decide to have only one.

They will probably be heavily influenced by how the incoming CEO feels about exactly how he wants to work with a group or with one. And they’ll come. So there will not — there will be no — there will be no gap after my death in terms of having somebody managing the money, and they’ll probably be a lot more energetic than I am now. And they’ll — they could very easily have a much better record. Some of them have a much better recent record than I do. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you know, we still have a rising young man here named Warren Buffett. And having — (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s the advantage of working with a guy 84. You always look young. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: And I think we want to encourage this rising young man to reach his full potential. (Laughter and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: One thing I should point out, with our average age being 80, people talk about aging managements. We haven’t found a management that isn’t aging. If we ever find them, we want to start eating what they eat. And what I can point out about your management, since our average age is 80, we’re only aging at the age of 1 1/4 percent a year, and that is the lowest rate of aging that I know of in corporate America. I mean, some of these companies have 50-year-olds, and they’re aging at 2 percent a year, and just think how much riskier that is. (Laughter)

29. “分散投资是为了一无所知的投资者”

沃伦·巴菲特： 我们继续，第13个问题。

观众提问： 我是艾萨克·迪米特洛夫斯基，来自纽约市。巴菲特先生，很高兴来到这里。我读到过，在您的投资生涯中，有几次您对某个想法非常有信心，以至于投入了大量资金——比如超过25%。我相信其中两次是70年代的美国运通和《华盛顿邮报》。我听过您讨论过那些想法。但您能否谈谈其他您有如此信心进行大额投资的情况，以及您当时的想法？

沃伦·巴菲特： 查理和我有过足够有信心的时候——如果我们只管理自己的净资产——我确定有相当多次，如果回顾50年，有很多次你会愿意把至少75%的净资产投在一个想法上。是吧，查理？

查理·芒格： 嗯，但伯克希尔之外75%的净资产从来都不是一个很大的数字。

沃伦·巴菲特： 不，我是说回到过去——我们就假设是这样。（笑声）假设你没有伯克希尔。有些时候——我的意思是，我们见过各种我们愿意投入75%净资产的想法。

查理·芒格： 沃伦，我一生中有过几次，我把超过100%的净资产投资在某些东西上。

沃伦·巴菲特： 那是因为你有一个友好的银行家；我没有。（笑声）那——有些时候——嗯，最初，我有70%——有几次我把75%的净资产投在一个机会上。在很长一段时间里，你会看到一些机会。我的意思是，如果你操作的资金较小，你会看到那些不把一半净资产投进去就会是错误的机会。确实，有时在证券市场中，你会看到一些稳赚不赔的事情。你不会经常看到它们，它们也不会在电视上被讨论，但一生中会有一些非凡的事情发生，你可以把75%的净资产或类似比例投在某个特定机会上。问题在于那些投入了500%净资产的人。你知道，我的意思是，看看长期资本管理公司。非常聪明的人，非常正派的人，我的一些朋友。水平很高，了解自己的业务。

但他们把净资产的大约25倍投在了那些稳赚不赔的事情上，如果他们没这么重仓的话。我的意思是，他们投在那些必然收敛的东西上，但没有机会让结果充分展开。但如果他们只投入了100%的净资产，结果会很好；如果投入200%，结果也会很好。但他们却投入了大约2500%或更多。所以确实有股票——实际上，这个房间里有很多人把接近100%的净资产投在伯克希尔，有些人已经持有了40多年。伯克希尔不算是稳赚不赔的类别，我认为它属于高概率类别。但2002年在垃圾债券领域，以及在股票市场，我看到过一些机会。

如果你能在1974年初买入由汤姆·默菲经营的《首都城市》，它的售价只有其资产价值的三分之一或四分之一，而且你拥有世界上最好的经理人，即使经理人不好，业务本身也非常出色。你可以投入100%的净资产而不用担心。你可以在比我们买入更早的时候，当然在差不多我们买入的时候，把100%的净资产投入可口可乐，那也不是一个危险的头寸。相对于经纪人推荐给人们的其他一大堆事情，那要安全得多。查理，你想说吗？

查理·芒格： 是的。如果——美国的这些学生进入精英商学院和法学院，他们学习现在被传授的公司金融和投资管理。其中一些人在报纸和其他地方写文章说，“投资的所有秘诀就是分散投资。”这是他们的口头禅。但他们完全搞反了。投资的所有秘诀是找到那些安全且明智地不进行分散投资的地方。就是这么简单。分散投资是为了一无所知的投资者；不是为专业人士准备的。

沃伦·巴菲特： 一无所知的投资者实践它没有任何问题。这正是他们应该做的。但这恰恰是一个优秀的专业投资者不应该做的。但这没有矛盾。一个一无所知的投资者，只要他知道自己是一无所知的投资者，在购买股票的时间和品种上进行分散，就能获得不错的回报。但对于真正知道自己在做什么的人来说，这样做是疯狂的。你会发现一些机会，如果你只投入20%的净资产，你会浪费一生一次的机会，因为你没有真正重仓。在我们过去操作小资金时，我们有过这样的机会。但以伯克希尔目前的资金规模，我们永远不会再有机会这么做了。但我们确实尝试重仓一些东西。

会有一些市场时刻让我们有机会这么做，但很少能买到我们想要的所有好主意。

原文

29. “Diversification is for the know-nothing investor”

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to 13.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Isaac Dimitrovski (PH) from New York City. Mr. Buffett, it’s great to be here. I’ve read that there were several times in your investing career when you were confident enough in one idea to put a lot of your money into it — say, 25 percent or more. I believe a couple of those cases were American Express and the Washington Post in the ’70s. And I’ve heard you discuss your thinking on those. But could you talk about any of the other times you’ve been confident enough to make such a big investment and what your thinking was in those cases?

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie and I have been confident enough — if we were only running our own net worth — I’m certain a very significant number of times, if you go over 50 years, there have been a lot of times when you would have put at least 75 percent of your net worth into an idea. Wouldn’t there, Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, but 75 percent of your worth outside Berkshire has never been a very significant amount.

WARREN BUFFETT: No. Well, I’m going back — let’s just assume it was. (Laughter) Let’s just assume you didn’t have Berkshire in the picture. There have been times — I mean, we’ve seen all kinds of ideas we would have put 75 percent of our net worth in.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Warren, there have been times in my life when I’ve had more than a hundred percent of my net worth invested in things.

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s because you had a friendly banker; I didn’t. (Laughter) That — there have been times — well, initially, I had 70 — several times I had 75 percent of my net worth in one situation. There are situations you will see over a long period of time. I mean, you will see things that it would be a mistake — if you’re working with smaller sums — it would be a mistake not to have half your net worth in. I mean, there — you really do, sometimes in securities, see things that are lead-pipe cinches. And you’re not going to see them often and they’re not going to be talking about them on television or anything of the sort, but there will be some extraordinary things happen in a lifetime where you can put 75 percent of your net worth or something like that in a given situation. The problem has been the guys that have put 500 percent of their net worth in. You know, I mean, if you look at — just take LTCM. Very smart guys. Very decent guys. Some friends of mine. High grade. Knew their business.

But they put, you know, maybe 25 times their net worth into things that were a cinch, if they hadn’t have gone in that heavily. I mean, they were in things that had to converge, but they didn’t get to play out the hand. But if they’d have had a hundred percent of their net worth in them, it would have worked out fine. If they would have had 200 percent of their net worth in it, it would have worked out fine. But they instead went to, you know, maybe 2500 percent or something like that. So there are stocks — I mean, actually, there’s quite a few people in this room that have close to a hundred percent of their net worth in Berkshire, and some of them have had it for 40 or more years. Berkshire was not in a cinch category. It was in the strong probability category, I think. But I saw things in 2002 in the junk bond field. I saw things in the equity markets.

If you could have bought Cap Cities with Tom Murphy running it in the early — in 1974, it was selling at a third or a fourth what the properties were worth and you had the best manager in the world running the place and you had a business that was pretty damn good even if the manager wasn’t. You could have put a hundred percent of your net worth in there and not worry. You could put a hundred percent of your net worth in Coca-Cola, earlier than when we bought it, but certainly around the time we bought it, and that would not have been a dangerous position. It would be far more dangerous to do a whole bunch of other things that brokers were recommending to people. Charlie, do you want to —?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. If you — students of America go to these elite business schools and law schools and they learn corporate finance the way it’s now taught and investment management the way it’s now taught. And some of these people write articles in the newspaper and other places and they say, “Well, the whole secret of investment is diversification.” That’s the mantra. They’ve got it exactly back-ass-ward. The whole secret of investment is to find places where it’s safe and wise to non-diversify. It’s just that simple. Diversification is for the know-nothing investor; it’s not for the professional.

WARREN BUFFETT: And there’s nothing wrong with the know-nothing investor practicing it. It’s exactly what they should practice. It’s exactly what a good professional investor should not practice. But that’s — you know, there’s no contradiction in that. It — a know-nothing investor will get decent results as long as they know they’re a knownothing investor, diversify as to time they purchase their equities, and as to the equities they purchase. That’s crazy for somebody that really knows what they’re doing. And you will find opportunities that, if you put 20 percent of your net worth in it, you’ll have wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, you know, in terms of not really loading up. And we’ve had the chance to do that, way, way in our past, when we were working with small sums of money. We’ll never get a chance to do that working with the kinds of money that Berkshire does. We try to load up on things.

And there will be markets when we get a chance to from time to time, but very seldom do we get to buy as much of any good idea as we would like to.

30. 家长电视委员会与合适的广告

沃伦·巴菲特： 第1个问题。

观众提问： 早上好，主席先生，查理。我是瓦尔·彼得神父。25年来，我很幸运地担任了Boys Town的负责人。业务扩展到了全国。沃伦长期以来对我非常友善，帮助很大。我今天代表的是家长电视委员会，全美有120万成员，我们的关切是帮助清除电视节目中的有害内容——如过度暴力等。当我读到一份报告时非常惊讶，我希望这不是真的，但可能确有其事：在最好和最麻烦的广告商中，伯克希尔·哈撒韦排在第452位中的第444位，接近底部。我希望这不是真的。但我的观点是：当我负责Boys Town时，如果有人说了类似的话，我会说，“去查清楚。改正它。”我的问题是，您能否善意地说一句，“去查清楚，”如果有必要，“改正它。”谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特： 好的。我会这样说：我不知道这些排名从何而来。我的意思是，我看到——当然，我们最大的广告商是GEICO。我们每年在广告上花费超过7亿美元。我在各处看到他们的广告，我不认为它们具有冒犯性，或引发反社会行为之类。我很乐意您联系托尼·奈斯利，因为我想不出伯克希尔还有其他公司做广告的量有这么多。托尼是个容易相处的人——他其实现在就在这里，但您可以写信到GEICO给他，或者可能晚些时候在GEICO的展台找到他，和他谈谈这件事。我很乐意您这么做，彼得神父。

原文

30. Parents Television Council and appropriate ads

WARREN BUFFETT: Go to number 1.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Charlie. I’m Father Val Peter. For 25 years I was lucky to be head of Boys Town. Expanded across the whole country. Warren was very kind to me, very helpful, over long periods of time. What I represent today is Parents Television Council, where 1.2 million folks across the country, and our concern is to help keep toxicity off television programs — excessive violence, et cetera. And I was very surprised, being on a parents television council board, when I read a report — I hope it’s not true, but it might be — that says that of the best and most troublesome advertisers, Berkshire Hathaway, is near the bottom at 444 out of 452. I hope that’s not true. But my point is this: when I was head of Boys Town and somebody said something like that, I’d say, “Go find out. Correct it.” My question is would you be kind enough to say, “Go find out,” if it’s necessary, “Correct it.” Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I would say this: I don’t know where the rankings come from. I mean, I see the — certainly by far our biggest advertiser would be GEICO. We spend over $700 million a year on advertising. I see their ads all over the place, and, you know, I don’t regard them as offensive or inducing antisocial behavior or anything like that. But I would be glad for you to contact Tony Nicely because I can’t think of any other company at Berkshire that does, remotely, the amount of advertising. And Tony is an easy fellow — he’s here now, actually, but you could write him at GEICO or you could find him at the GEICO booth, probably, later in the day and just talk to him about that. I’d be glad to have you do that, Father Peter.

31. 分散投资、个人退休账户与经纪账户

沃伦·巴菲特： 第2个问题。

观众提问： 早上好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫黛布·卡维洛，来自新泽西州温莎。我45岁，已经实现了财务独立，可以全职管理我和配偶的财务。这部分归功于嫁得好。我——

沃伦·巴菲特： 那可能是很重要的一部分。（笑声）

观众提问： 嫁得好是指我得到了鼓励和信心去追求这件事。

沃伦·巴菲特： 那太棒了。

观众提问： 我本想问一个关于分散投资的问题，但我想我会这样问。我稍微换个方式。我们每个人都有一个传统IRA、一个罗斯IRA，我们一起还有一个经纪账户。这些账户中的资产应该分开管理，还是作为一个整体来更好地管理？换句话说，是让每个账户有重叠的证券，还是将不同类型的证券分配到特定的账户？

沃伦·巴菲特： 好的。你的婚姻听起来会很长久，所以我认为你应该把你自己和你丈夫视为一个整体。在我看来，你应该关注你的整体财务状况，而不用担心资产在什么地方。所以，如果你的净资产是X，其中20%在401(k)里，30%是直接持有等等，就只看整体情况，决定你想要什么样的资产组合、什么样的资产类型，不要把它们当作独立的钱罐子。在伯克希尔，我们在很多不同的实体中持有股票——我们的保险公司在不同的投资组合中持有股票，我们甚至在科隆也有一个投资组合，如之前所述。我甚至不去想某个资产在哪个实体里。它们都在为伯克希尔工作，我认为你应该——考虑你情况的方式是考虑它们都在为你的家庭工作。

现在，如果你——在我看来你的婚姻很稳固，如果你丈夫和你分开，那他一定是疯了。但是，如果你刚刚开始，你可能想暂时把你们的钱分开，看看情况如何发展，因为相当一部分婚姻最终以离婚告终。听着，我不经常做婚姻咨询。（笑声）但我感觉脚下的地面有点不稳了。所以，我把这个问题交给我们的婚姻专家，查理·芒格。（笑声）

查理·芒格： 是的。有时你会发现一项投资会产生大量的应税收入。比如一只高收益的垃圾债券，利息是应税的。所以有些项目更适合放在那些有税收递延好处的退休账户里。但除此之外，它们都是同一个钱罐子。当然。

原文

31. Diversification, IRAs, and brokerage accounts

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Deb Caviello, (PH) and I’m from Windsor, New Jersey. I’m 45-years-old and have achieved financial independence in that I’m able to manage the money of my spouse and myself full time. And that goes to marrying well, part of that. I was —

WARREN BUFFETT: That can be a big part of it. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Marrying well in the sense that I received the encouragement and the confidence to pursue that.

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s terrific.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was going to ask you a question more along the lines of diversification, but I think I will put it this way. I’ll skew it a little differently. Each of us has a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, and together we have a brokerage account. Should the assets in those accounts be separated or better managed as a whole pile? In other words, have overlapping securities in each account or different types of securities relegated to a specific account?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, I would say your marriage sounds like it’s going to last, so I think you should think of yourself and your husband as a unit. And I would — you should — in my view, you should look at your overall financial condition and not worry about where the location of the assets will be. So if you have a net worth of X and you have 20 percent of it in a 401(k) and 30 percent outright and so on like that, just look at the whole picture and decide what mix of assets, what type of assets you want, and don’t treat them as being in separate pots. I mean, at Berkshire, you know, we own stocks in a whole bunch of different — our insurance companies own stocks in separate portfolios and we even have a portfolio in Cologne as mentioned earlier. I don’t even think about what entity anything is in. You know, it’s all working for Berkshire, and I think you should — the way to think about your situation is to think about it all working for your family.

Now, if you’re — you strike me as having a very solid marriage, and I think your husband would be crazy if he split with you. But the — if you’re just starting out, you may want to keep your money separate for a while until you see how it plays out, because a significant percentage do end up in divorce. Listen, I don’t get into marriage counseling very often. (Laughter) But I can feel the ground sort of disappearing between my feet here. But I will turn it over, therefore, to our marital expert, Charlie Munger. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Occasionally, you’ll find an investment that is going to produce a huge amount of taxable income. It’s a junk bond paying a high yield that’s taxable or something. So some items are more suitable for those retirement accounts that get tax-deferral benefits. But apart from that, it’s all one pot. Sure.

32. 最终能源将必须来自太阳

沃伦·巴菲特： 第3个问题。

观众提问： 你好，沃伦。我是道格·希克斯，来自俄亥俄州阿克伦。最近新闻里很多人说石油将在本世纪内耗尽。考虑到美国的政策是直到最后一刻才行动，你认为石油的终结会如何上演？例如，你认为这会不会不幸地导致第三次世界大战？或者你认为在石油耗尽的那一天，替代能源能否取而代之？还有，你认为当石油耗尽时，这些石油公司的价值会归零吗？

沃伦·巴菲特： 石油不会耗尽。事情不是那样的。石油在某个时候——谁知道什么时候——人们预测了很多不同的事情——石油在某个时候，全世界的日产量首先会持平，然后开始非常缓慢地下降。石油开采的特性使得油井——除了极少数例外——不会在日产100桶后突然停止或类似情况。你会遇到这种枯竭问题，进入递减曲线等等。所以我们不会——全世界每天生产8600万或8700万桶石油，这比我们以前生产的任何时期都多。根据我的计算，我们比以往任何时候都更接近——在油田当前开发阶段，我们的生产能力几乎达到了极限。我的意思是，我们的剩余生产能力，比我能记得的任何时期都要少得多，而且比大多数时期都要少。

所以，我们没有能力在任何短时间内，将每天8600万或8700万桶的产量提高到1亿桶。但无论这个峰值是多少，无论我们是在五年后还是五十年后达到它，然后它会逐渐下降，世界会适应它，希望我们能在它发生之前就考虑到它，世界会做出各种调整，使需求随着可用供应的减少而逐渐下降。但我们将在这个世纪之后继续生产石油。问题只是我们每天是生产5000万桶、7500万桶还是2500万桶。我不知道答案。世界上有很多石油资源。我们搞砸了大量石油的采收率。我们从未完全回收一个油田的全部潜在储量。有些油田因为工程失误，我们只采出了非常小的一部分。

也许未来会有更好的工程、三次采油等技术。但这不像一个开关，世界生产石油或适应减产不是一蹴而就的。你仍然可能有巨大的政治考量——关于石油的获取——因为它将在很长一段时间内对我们的社会如此重要。我们在任何短时间内都无法让世界摆脱对石油的依赖。这是一个现实。查理？

查理·芒格： 嗯，如果我们再经历200年的经济增长，并且广泛地分布在世界各地，而世界人口也在增长，那么世界上所有的石油、煤炭、天然气和铀储量都微不足道。所以最终，当然，你必须使用太阳能。没有其他选择。我认为我们可以自信地预测，在适应一个不同世界的过程中会有一些痛苦。就个人而言，我认为像我们这样快速地消耗世界上的碳氢化合物储备是极其愚蠢的。我认为我们没有好的替代品来替代它们作为化学原料，而用掉如此珍贵且没有确定替代品的东西是完全疯狂的。如果我们回头看看，我们当时应该怎么做？见鬼，我们应该在30年代买下中东所有的石油，用油轮运回来，储存在我们自己的地下。我是说，过去应该做什么是显而易见的。

即使那很明显，我们现在在做类似的事情吗？答案基本上是否定的。所以我认为政府政策在理性方面往往远远落后。我认为我们只能咬牙挺过去。但最终——如果我们想要一个繁荣的文明——除了太阳，我们没有其他选择。

沃伦·巴菲特： 你对25年后世界每天石油产量的上下限估计是多少？

查理·芒格： 下降。

沃伦·巴菲特： 是的。（笑声）这不是一个无足轻重的预测。相信我。如果石油产量在25年后下降，世界将完全不同。中国今年将销售超过1000万辆汽车。需求会持续——即使在这样的价格下——我很难想象需求会大幅下降。所以如果产量下降，你会看到一些有趣的后果。

原文

32. Eventually power will have to come from the sun

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Warren. I’m Doug Hicks (PH) from Akron, Ohio. And you hear on the news lately a lot of people say that oil will run out during this century. Considering the U.S. policy is to do nothing until the very last second, how do you think the end of oil will play out? For example, do you think that this would, unfortunately, result in World War III? Or do you think alternative energy will be available, the day that oil runs out, to take its place? And maybe, do you think these oil companies’ value will go to zero when oil runs out?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Oil won’t run out. It doesn’t work that way. What oil will do at some point — who knows when — people predict a lot of different things — oil at some point, daily productive capacity throughout the world will first level off and then start declining very gradually. The nature of oil extraction is such that wells don’t — with rare exceptions — they don’t go to a given point producing a hundred barrels a day and then all of a sudden quit or anything like that. So you run into this depletion aspect and get into decline curves and that sort of thing. So we won’t — we’re producing in the world, 86 or 87 million barrels a day of oil, which is more than we’ve ever produced before. We are closer — by at least my calculations — we are very much closer to producing almost as much as our productive ability is in the world, with fields in their current stage of development, than we’ve ever been. I mean, our surplus capacity, I think, is less than, well, any time I can remember. And it’s quite a bit less than most periods.

So we don’t have the ability to crank up, in any short period of time, the 86 or 7 to a hundred million barrels a day. But whatever that peak will be, and whether we hit it five years from now or 50 years from now, and then it will just gradually taper down, and the world will adjust to it, and hopefully we’ll be thinking about it, you know, well before it happens, and various adjustments will be made in the world that will cause the demand to somewhat taper down as the available supply. But we will be producing oil far beyond this century. It’s just — the question is whether we’re producing 50 million barrels a day, or 75 million, or 25 million barrels a day. I don’t know the answer to that. There’s a lot of oil in place in the world. We’ve messed up the recovery of a lot of the oil. I mean, we never recovered the, you know, the total potential of fields. And some fields we’ve mis-engineered in ways so that we will recover a very small percentage.

Now, maybe there will be better engineering, tertiary recovery, and that sort of thing in the future. It’s nothing like an on and off switch, though, in terms of the world producing oil or adjusting to reduced capacity or anything like that. You may still have enormous political considerations to — access to the available oil — because it’s going to be so darn important to our society for so long. There’s nothing we can do, in any short period of time, that will wean the world off of oil. You know, that is a fact of life. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, if we get another 200 years of economic growth pretty well disbursed over the world, while the population of the world also goes up, all of the oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium reserves of the world are like nothing. So eventually, of course, you have to use the sun. There is no other alternative. And I think we can confidently predict that there will be some pain in this process of adjusting to a different world. Personally, I think it’s extremely stupid to use up the hydrocarbon reserves of the world as fast as we are. I don’t think we’ve got any good substitutes for those things as chemical feed stocks, and I think it’s perfectly crazy to use up something so precious for which you have no alternative that’s sure to be available. And if you look at it backwards, what should we have done? Hell, we should have bought all the oil in the ’30s in the Middle East and take it over here by tankers and put it in our own ground. I mean, it’s obvious to see what should have been done in the past.

Even though that’s obvious, are we doing the equivalent of that now? And the answer is, basically, no. So I think the governmental policy tends to be way behind in terms of rationality. And I think we’ll just have to soldier through. But eventually the — if we’re going to have a prosperous civilization — we have no other alternative than the sun.

WARREN BUFFETT: What’s your over-under figure for 25 years from now, world production oil per day?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Down.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Laughter) That’s not an insignificant prediction. I mean, it — believe me. If oil production is down 25 years from now, it will be a different world. I mean, you — China’s going to sell over 10 million cars this year. I mean, the demand is going to keep — even at these prices — it’s hard for me to imagine demand falling off a lot. So if production falls off, you’ll have some interesting consequences.

33. 巴菲特总统治下对超级富豪加税

沃伦·巴菲特： 第4个问题。

观众提问： 巴菲特先生，芒格先生，我叫盖伊·波普，来自俄勒冈州波特兰。我很喜欢今天早上的漫画，我想就此展开一下。我也喜欢你们两位各担任一届美国总统的想法。假设一下，巴菲特先生你任第一届，芒格先生你任第二届。

沃伦·巴菲特： 我觉得反过来更好，但你继续吧。（笑声）

观众提问： 请你们每人说出三项在任期内为了国家更好而会实施的有难度的政策。

沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，查理会先担任第一届，所以让他先说三项。

查理·芒格： 我认为这个问题让我们偏离得太远了，要求太高了。让我们两人在几分钟内给出三个解决人类主要问题的完美方案？我们勉力生活到今天已经不错了，我觉得我们力所不及。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特： 我们可能会搞一个大规模联邦养老院项目，实际上。（笑声）我可能会在税收制度上做点文章，让超级富豪多交点税，中产阶级少交点，但是——（掌声。）

沃伦·巴菲特： 这可能就是为什么你们更愿意查理先干。

原文

33. Higher taxes for the superrich under Pres. Buffett

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 4.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, my name is Guy Pope, and I’m from Portland, Oregon. I enjoyed the cartoon this morning, and I’d like to expand on that. I, too, like the idea of both of you serving as a single term as the President of the United States. During — hypothetically, let’s say, Mr. Buffett, you served the first term; Mr. Munger, you served a second term.

WARREN BUFFETT: I think the other way around is better, but go ahead. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Each of you please name three difficult policy decisions you would implement during your term to better the country.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Charlie is going to serve the first term, so I’m going to let him name his three.

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think that one takes us so far afield that I think it’s asking too much. Three perfect solutions to the major problem of mankind from each of us in a few minutes? We’ve just barely managed to stagger through life as well as we have, and I don’t think we’re quite up to it. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: We’d probably have a massive federal program for retirement homes, actually. (Laughter) I would probably do something about the tax system that would change things so that the superrich paid a little more and the middle class paid a little less, but — (Applause.)

WARREN BUFFETT: That might be why you’d prefer to have Charlie serve first.

34. 芒格：乙醇是“极其愚蠢的”

沃伦·巴菲特： 第5个问题。

观众提问： 嗨。我是瑞安·约翰逊，来自亚利桑那州。我想问你们对世界粮食短缺的看法，以及你们认为未来一二十年的趋势是什么？

沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我也不是这方面的专家。查理？

查理·芒格： 嗯，我去年说过，我认为把美国玉米转化为汽车燃料的政策，是就世界未来而言我见过的最愚蠢的想法之一——（掌声）。我和一位学术机构的负责人一起来到这里，他称这个想法“惊人地愚蠢”。现在，我在内布拉斯加州，我希望内布拉斯加人繁荣。但这个想法是如此极其愚蠢，我认为它可能已经穷途末路了。

原文

34. Munger: Ethanol is “monstrously dumb”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 5.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I’m Ryan Johnson (PH) from Arizona, and I wanted to ask what you think about the food shortages in the world and what trends you see in the next decade or two?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, again, I’m no expert on that. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I said last year that I thought that the policy of turning American corn into motor fuel was one of the dumbest ideas, in terms of the future of the world — (applause) — that I’d ever seen. I came out here with the head of an academic institution, and he called the idea stunningly stupid. Now, I’m here in Nebraska where I like Nebraskans to prosper. But this idea was so monstrously dumb that I think it’s probably on its way out.

35. 业余投资者应坚持低成本的指数基金

沃伦·巴菲特： 我们现在——哦，不。我们还有时间再回答几个问题。我们来看第6个问题。

观众提问： 嗨。我叫蒂莫西·费里斯。我是普林斯顿大学的客座讲师，每年两次。我想谈一下早前关于用小资金投资的问题。我想问你们两位，如果你们现在又30岁，银行里有第一笔100万美元，假设你们不是全职投资者，有另一份全职工作，可以用其他储蓄支付约18个月的开销，没有家属，你们会如何投资？如果你们能尽可能具体地说明资产类别、百分比等任何信息，对我的学生、我自己和这里的其他人会非常有帮助。（人群嘈杂声）

沃伦·巴菲特： 嗯，我会很简单：在你描述的条件下，我可能会把所有的钱都投到一个非常低成本的指数基金里，可能是先锋基金之类的——我知道它可靠，成本低。因为你假设自己不会成为专业投资者，我会承认我是业余投资者。除非是在大牛市中买入（现在不是），我会觉得长期来看，在当前条件下，它会在一定程度上跑赢债券。然后我就忘了它，回去工作。查理？

查理·芒格： 是的。事情的本质是你不会有很多非常成功的专业投资者。你有一大群专业人士，他们像赌场庄家一样从系统中抽取利润，其中大部分人假装是专业投资者。这也是事物的本质。但如果你没有合理的前景成为一名非常熟练的专业投资者，当然你应该妥协于一些简单的东西，比如指数基金。

沃伦·巴菲特： 是的。你不会从任何人那里得到这个建议，因为没人会因为给你这个建议而得到报酬。所以会有各种各样的人告诉你，他们能为你做得更好，只要你给他们一个打包费或佣金之类的，但他们不会做得更好。平均而言，如果另外一千个像你一样的人做同样的事情，他们如果听那些向他们推销的人的话，会做得更差。最终，你为什么应该期望更多？按照我的建议，你可以在30年或40年内获得非常体面的回报。当你没有带来任何贡献时，你为什么应该期望更多？推销员会告诉你你能得到，但你得不到。

查理·芒格： 我再给你一个警告：不要根据你在这次会议上遇到的股票经纪人来判断整个行业。我们吸引了一些世界上最可敬、最聪明的股票经纪人。他们不能代表这个群体。

沃伦·巴菲特： （笑）他身上的政治家气质刚刚冒出来了。

原文

35. Amateurs should stick with low-cost index funds

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve now — oh, no. We’ve got time for a couple more. Let’s go to number 6.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Timothy Ferriss. I am a guest lecturer at Princeton University twice a year. And I’d like to touch on an earlier question about investing with small sums of money. I’d like to ask both of you, if you were 30-years-old again and had your first million in the bank, how would you invest it, assuming you’re not a full-time investor, you have another full-time job, you can cover your expenses with other savings for about 18 months, no dependents, and it would be really helpful for my students, for myself and others here, if you could be as specific as possible about asset classes, percentages, whatever you’re willing to offer. (Crowd noises)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I’ll be very simple: I — under the conditions you name, I’d probably have it all in a very low-cost index fund, and it would probably be — you know might be Vanguard — somebody I knew was reliable, somebody where the cost was low. And because you postulated that you’re not going to become a professional investor, I would recognize the fact that I’m an amateur investor, and I would feel that a — unless bought during a strong bull market, which this hasn’t been — I would feel that that was going to outperform, to a degree, bonds, under current conditions over a long period of time, and then I’d forget it and go back to work. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. It’s in the nature of things that you aren’t going to have a whole lot of screamingly successful professional investors. You’ve got a great horde of professionals taking croupiers profits out of the system, most of them by pretending to be professional investors, and that is in the nature of things, too. But if you don’t have any rational prospects of being a very skilled professional investor, of course you should compromise on some simple thing like an index fund.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. And that — you will not get that advice from anybody because nobody gets paid to give you that advice. So you will have all kinds of people telling you how much better they can do for you than that, and how if you just give them a wrap fee, or give them commissions, or whatever it may be, that they will do better, but they won’t do better. On average, you know, if a thousand other people like you do the same thing, that group of a thousand will do worse if they listen to the people that make pitches at them. And in the end, why should you expect — I mean, you’ve got a very perfectly decent return over a 30- or 40-year period by doing what I suggest. And why should you expect more than that when you don’t bring anything to the party? The salesman will tell you that you’ll get it, but you won’t.

CHARLIE MUNGER: I would give you another word of warning: do not judge stockbrokers generally by the ones you meet at this meeting. We attract some of the most honorable, intelligent stockbrokers in the world. They are not representative of the class.

WARREN BUFFETT: (Laughs) The politician in him just came out

36. 没有“极端节俭”，但不要入不敷出

沃伦·巴菲特： 好的。我们再回答一个问题，然后休息吃午饭。第7个问题。

观众提问： 早上好。我叫蒂姆·法姆，来自德克萨斯州奥斯汀。关于我的孩子，我想听听你们两位对于攀比之风的看法。你们能否给他们一些关于节俭、债务和职业道德的建议？

沃伦·巴菲特： 是的。告诉他们和巴菲特家攀比就行了。（笑声）嗯，查理和我一直很推崇量入为出。如果你这样做，你以后会有更多的收入。我认为他们在很大程度上——虽然不是完全——会效仿父母的榜样。如果他们的父母总是觊觎邻居的每样东西，或者想方设法提高生活成本而不一定提高生活质量，孩子们很可能会学会。但你也可能得到相反的效果。如果你对他们太苛刻，他们以后会走向另一个极端。（笑）但这是人们自己的选择。顺便说一句，有些人——有很多人我不会建议他们储蓄。

我的意思是，如果你生活拮据，收入合理，有工作，公司为你存了401(k)，你还有社保，那么谁能说把一美元的开销延期，比如不花在让家人非常开心的迪士尼乐园之旅上，以便在你75岁时能有一条30英尺的船而不是20英尺的船，哪个更好？我的意思是，有选择，在家庭年轻时以各种形式花钱有其好处，可以给他们带来各种享受、教育或其他。所以我不提倡——我自己可能实践节俭——但我不提倡极端节俭。我也不是说总是把收入的10%存起来比存5%好。我认为花掉收入的105%是疯狂的，那会导致各种问题，我每天都会收到经历过这些问题的来信。

但最终，你需要一个内心的记分卡。因为你的生活方式和邻居不同，并不意味着你更好或更差。过一种忠于自己的生活。查理？

查理·芒格： 是的。显然，教育孩子的最好方法是以身作则。（人群中有人喊叫）

沃伦·巴菲特： 我想我们听到的是一个没得到那种建议的孩子的声音。（笑声）

查理·芒格： 但当然，即使你以身作则，也很有可能不奏效——

沃伦·巴菲特： 现在是中午了。

查理·芒格： ——至少在某些时候。

沃伦·巴菲特： 现在是中午。我们休息大约30到40分钟。然后回来。另一间房间里的一些人——我们午饭后这里通常会有一些空位，也许你们可以移到主厅。我们12:45重新开始，一直到下午3点。

原文

36. No “extreme frugality” but don’t spend more than you make

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’ll do one more, and then we’ll break for lunch. Number 7.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. My name is Tim Fam (PH). I’m from Austin, Texas. For my children, I would like to hear from both of you as far as the temptation to keeping up with the Joneses. And can you give them advice that they can live by with respect to frugality, debt, and work ethic?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Just tell them to keep up with the Buffetts. (Laughter) Well, Charlie and I have always been big fans of living within your income, and if you do that, you’ll have a whole lot more income later on. And, you know, it — I think they will, to a considerable extent, not a perfect extent, they will follow the example of their parents. I mean, if their parents are coveting, you know, every possession of their neighbor, you know, or trying to figure out ways to increase their cost of living without necessarily their standard of living, the kids are likely to pick up on it. But now you can get the reverse effect. If you get too tough with them, they go crazy later on. (Laughs) But the — it’s — people make that election. Incidentally, there are people — there are plenty of people that I don’t advise to save.

I mean, the real — if you’re struggling along and making a reasonable income and you have a job with a 401(k) being put aside for you, and you have Social Security, who’s to say whether it’s better to defer a dollar of expenditure on your family on a trip to Disneyland or something that they’ll get enormous enjoyment out of so that when you’re 75 you can have a, you know, 30-foot boat instead of a 20-foot boat? I mean, there are choices and there are advantages to spending money in various forms for your family when it’s young, and giving them various forms of enjoyment or education or whatever it may be. So I don’t — I don’t advocate — I may practice — but I don’t advocate extreme frugality. The — and I don’t say that it’s always better to be saving 10 percent of your income instead of 5 percent of your income. I think it’s crazy to be spending 105 percent of your income, and I think that leads to all kinds of problems, and I get letters from people every day that have experienced those problems.

But, you know, in the end you want to have an internal score card. I mean, you are not a better person or a worse person because you live a different kind of life than your neighbor. Live a life that, you know, is true to yourself. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. It’s obviously the best method to train your children to provide the proper example. (A person in the audience is shouting)

WARREN BUFFETT: I think we’re hearing a child that didn’t get that advice. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: But of course, even if you do provide the proper example, it’s likely not to work —

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s noon.

CHARLIE MUNGER: — some of the time anyway.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s noon now. We’ll take about a 30 to 40-minute break. We’ll come back. Some of those who are in the other room — we always have some openings here after lunch so you might be able to move into the main room. We’ll reconvene, we’ll say, at 12:45. We’ll go to 3 o’clock.

下午场

1. 不再回答克拉马斯水坝的问题

沃伦·巴菲特： 好的。我们继续会议。上次我们停在了第七区域。我已经要求——为了让大家都知道——我们已经有了三个关于克拉马斯水坝情况的问题，我认为这已经超出了在场观众的兴趣比例。（掌声）所以我们跳过类似的问题。我认为立场已经明确了。

原文

Afternoon Session

1. No more Klamath Dam questions

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’re going to go back to work here. We broke off at area seven last time. I have asked — just so everybody’s aware of it — we’ve had three questions relating to the Klamath situation, and I think that’s more than proportional to the interest of the crowd. (Applause) So we’ll skip any more like that. I think the position is known.

2. “大到不能倒”的银行不能有“太多风险需要管理”

沃伦·巴菲特： 我们进入第8个问题。

观众提问： 我叫奥拉·拉尔森，住在盐湖城。我想是在1981年左右，在卢·鲁凯泽的《华尔街一周》节目上见过你。所以你一定给我留下了深刻印象，沃伦。我想问的是，展望未来，投资银行的业务实践是否已经变得如此复杂，以至于投资银行的负责人不可能逐日或逐周了解其所面临的金融风险敞口？

沃伦·巴菲特： 是的。这是一个非常好的问题，我认为答案很可能是肯定的，至少在某些地方是这样，尽管有些投资银行的负责人我非常尊重，他们有能力全面把握风险。但例如，当我们收购通用再保险时，它大约有23,000份衍生品合约。我认为即使我全职投入，也无法真正弄清楚我们在某些相当极端的情况下（我认为并非不可能，但运营者可能认为不可能，或者他们不太在意，因为他们的激励薪酬机制使得，如果某件事在一百年里有九十九年能赚钱，他们会觉得出大问题的概率非常小）可能承担了多少风险。但我不想有这种微小的概率。我想要零风险。所以我把自己视为伯克希尔的首席风险官。

如果伯克希尔因为我们的运营方式在风险方面出了问题，我无法把它推给一个风险委员会，或者让一些数学家进来做一堆计算，然后告诉我风险发生的概率是宇宙历史上才有一次之类的事情。我认为大型投资银行，其中不少——以及大型商业银行——我认为以它们选择的经营方式，从风险管理的角度来看，它们几乎大到无法有效管理。而且这在大多数时候会起作用。所以你无法看到风险。如果你有一个机构每50年破产一次的风险，一个62岁、计划65岁退休的高管可能不必太担心。我在伯克希尔担心所有事情。所以我要说它们非常难以管理，非常难以全面把握。

我的意思是，很明显，你在过去一年里看到过案例，大型机构，如果CEO知道发生了什么，他在事后肯定没有承认过。无论哪种情况都很尴尬，但承认不知道发生了什么，比承认知道这些活动在进行却放任不管，要不那么尴尬一些。有时人们会向我征求监管方面的建议，我们看到了一个非凡的例子，不知何故媒体并没有太多关注。有一个叫OFHEO的机构，其唯一的工作就是监督两家大公司，这两家公司是房利美和房地美。它们具有很大的公共目的元素，由联邦政府特许成立，它们的活动对整个抵押贷款和证券市场都有影响。

所以国会说：“如果我们要给你们这些‘大到不能倒’的保护，以及联邦政府介入并给予特殊特权，我们就要盯着你们。”所以他们成立了OFHEO，有200人每天上午9点上班，下午5点下班，他们唯一的工作就是看这两家公司在做什么。结果它们成了世界历史上最大的两起会计造假案。所以，对于它们唯一需要审查的两家公司，结果是两战两败。我担心，如果你试图对最大的商业银行或最大的投资银行做同样的事情，我不确定你能跟得上。你需要的是顶层有人，其DNA中对风险有非常、非常强的防范意识。他必须抵制下属的恳求，他们说别人都这么做，他们能在那边做并赚到这么多钱，为什么我们不能在这里做？这并不容易。

当你有一群习惯于每年赚七位数的高能力人士，他们想做某些事，并说：“如果你不在这里做，我们就去别处”，那么要维持一个系统是非常困难的。所以我要说，在许多方面，有些公司在风险方面，它们的经营方式使得它们大到无法管理。如果同时政府又说它们大到不能倒，这就会产生一些非常有趣的政策含义。查理？

查理·芒格： 嗯，我认为你说得很好。这确实有有趣的政策含义。让人们变得如此庞大和重要，以至于你不能允许它们倒闭，同时又允许它们像主要投资银行那样充满欺诈和愚蠢地运营，这是疯狂的。并不是说伯克希尔这些年没有从投资银行那里得到过优质服务，我们确实有。只是，作为一个行业，这种贪婪、过度扩张和对交易算法的过度自信等疯狂文化渗透了进来。我认为这对国家是相当适得其反的，应该被大幅遏制。这些机构大到不能倒，允许衍生品交易发展到今天这个样子，以及当前系统中嵌入的风险，是疯狂的行为。令人惊讶的是，在事情发生时，很少有人站出来反对。因为有太多容易赚的钱被报告出来。很多报告为赚到的钱实际上并没有被赚到。

它们属于我称之为“伸手即无”的那类美妙资产。它们静静地躺在资产负债表上，当你伸手去拿的时候，它就消失了，就像——（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特： 他不是在开玩笑。

查理·芒格： ——薄雾。

沃伦·巴菲特： 他不是在开玩笑。

查理·芒格： 我们从通用再保险那里得到了4亿美元的“伸手即无”资产。

沃伦·巴菲特： 而且他们当时的行为是诚实的。

查理·芒格： 是的。但无论如何，人们把它推得太远了。在药品行业，他们说“证明它有效”才会批准药物。在华尔街，他们开始相信牙仙，如果一个人报告赚了很多钱，其他人就会问：“为什么我们不在牙仙上下注？”这是一种疯狂的文化，在某种程度上是一种邪恶的文化，需要大幅收缩。会计行业彻底辜负了我们。行为最恶劣的是制定会计准则的人。他们非常官僚，拖拖拉拉，不想做任何真正困难、会得罪人的事情。当你的工作是制定会计标准时，这可不是一组好品质，会计标准应该像工程标准一样被对待。他们甚至没有正确的方法。所以有很多问题。

沃伦·巴菲特： 当查理和我第一次到所罗门时，我们注意到他们在和已经逃离美国的马克·里奇做交易。我们建议——实际上，我们告诉他们——我们想停止和马克交易。他们说，他们通过这种方式或其他方式在赚钱，还说我们对原油交易知道个屁，他们想继续和他交易。只有通过绝对的指令，我们才能阻止自己的员工和马克·里奇交易。如果你在关注此事时都无法阻止自己的员工和马克·里奇交易，想象一下在其他那些交易室里发生了什么。对于贝尔斯登——我认为美联储介入贝尔斯登是做对了。如果贝尔斯登在周日晚间倒闭——它本会倒闭的——他们会走到联邦法官面前，提交破产申请，我想是在中西部时间6点过后不久，因为那是东京开市的时间。

如果它们倒闭了，据我所知，第二天，它们有大约14.5万亿——这听起来没那么糟——但14.5万亿美元的衍生品合约。持有这些合约并对贝尔斯登有索赔权的对手方，将被要求——我认为几乎是他们签署的合约所要求的——非常迅速地解除这些合约，以确定他们对破产财产的损害赔偿。想象一下全球数千个对手方，都在试图解除合约，每个人都知道必须在非常非常短的时间内解除合约。我们试图伸手去拿却没找到的那4亿美元——我们有幸花了大约四五年时间来解除那些合约。这些人将只有四五个小时来做同样的事情，而且所有人都在同时这么做。这将是一个前所未有的景象，在我看来，它还会导致另一两家投资银行在几天内倒下。因为没人会借给你钱。

事实上，这是他们在参议院财政委员会作证时说的有趣的事情之一。我记得到两位证人说过，我们不明白——我们知道如果人们开始用怀疑的眼光看我们，我们无法借到无担保资金，但他们说，我们做梦也没想到连有担保的资金都借不到。嗯，我们在所罗门17年前就发现过这一点，当我们试图借有担保的资金时。当世界不想借钱给你时，10个基点、20个基点、50个基点，或者抵押品更大的折扣都没什么用。如果他们不想借钱给你，他们就不想借钱给你。如果你每天都依赖借来的钱，你每天早上醒来都希望世界对你有好感。就在几个月前，有一段时间，我认为美国的每家投资银行都非常担心第二天早上人们是否还会对他们有好感。

原文

2. “Too big to fail” banks can’t have “too much risk to manage”

WARREN BUFFETT: And we’ll go onto number 8.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Ola Larson (PH). I live in Salt Lake City. And I think — on Lou Rukeyser, Wall Street Week, 1981 or something. So you must really have impressed me, Warren. What I’d like to ask you is that looking at the future, have the business practices of the investment banks become so complex that it is not possible for the head of the investment bank to be aware of the exposures to financial risks day-to-day or week-to-week?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. That’s an exceptionally good question, and I think the answer, probably, is yes, at least in some places, although there’s a few investment bank heads I’ve got enormous respect for their ability to sort of get their minds around risk. But I decided, for example, when we bought Gen Re, it had about 23,000 derivative contracts, and I think I could have spent full time on that and not really been able to get my mind around how much risk we could — we were running — under some fairly extreme conditions that I did not think were impossible, but that the people who were running the operation might have thought were impossible, or that might not have cared about it that much because their own incentive compensation was such that if they made a lot of money one year on something, it would work 99 years out of a hundred, they would feel the chances of something going wrong big were very slim. But I don’t want to have it slim. I want to have it none. So I regard myself as the Chief Risk Officer at Berkshire.

If something goes wrong at Berkshire because of — in terms of risk — of the way we run the place, there’s no way I can assign that to a risk committee or have some mathematicians come in and make a bunch of calculations and tell me I’m only running a risk that will happen once in the history of the universe or something of the sort. I think the big investment banks, a number of them — and big commercial banks — I think they’re almost too big to manage effectively from a risk standpoint in the way they’ve elected to conduct their business. And it’s going to work most of the time. So you don’t see the risk in a way that — I mean, you don’t — if you have a 1 in 50-year risk that a place will go broke, it may not be in the interest of a 62-year-old executive that’s going to retire at 65 to worry too much about that. I worry about everything at Berkshire. So I would say they’re too — they’re very hard to manage, very hard to have your mind around.

I mean, clearly, you’ve seen cases in the last year where very big institutions, if the CEO knew what was going on, he certainly hasn’t admitted it subsequent to what’s happened. It’s embarrassing either way, but it’s less embarrassing to say I didn’t know what was going on than to acknowledge that you knew these kind of activities were going on and you let them go on. It’s — I’ve been asked for advice on regulation sometimes, and we’ve seen an extraordinary example, which somehow the press really hasn’t picked up on much. But you had an organization called OFHEO whose sole job was to supervise two big companies, and these big companies were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And they had a large element of public purpose in them, and they were chartered by the federal government, and they had — their activities had overtones for the whole mortgage and securities markets.

So Congress said, “If we’re going to give you all this ‘too big to fail’-type protection, in terms of the federal government stepping in and giving you special privileges, we want to keep an eye on you.” So they formed OFHEO and they had 200 people going to work, I presume at 9 o’clock every morning, and going home at 5, and their sole job was to see what these two places were doing. And they turned out to be two of the biggest accounting misrepresentations in the history of the world. So they were two for two with the only things they had to examine. And I fear that if you tried to do the same thing with the biggest commercial banks or the biggest investment banks, I’m not sure you can keep track of it. What you need is somebody at the top whose DNA is very, very much programmed against risk. And he is going to have to resist the entreaties of those who work beneath him who say everybody else is doing it, and if they can do it over there and make all this money doing it, why can’t we be doing it here? And that’s not easy to do.

When you’ve got a bunch of high-powered people who are used to making in seven figures every year, and they want to do things and they say, “If you don’t do them here, we’re going to go elsewhere,” it’s a very tough system to be. So I would say that, in many ways, there are firms that, in terms of risk, are simply — they are conducting themselves in a way that they’re too big to manage. And if at the same time the government says they’re too big to fail, that has some very interesting policy implications. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would argue that you say that very well. It does have interesting policy implications. It’s crazy to have people get so big and so important that you can’t allow them to fail, and allow them to be run with as much knavery and stupidity as permeated the major investment banks. It’s not that Berkshire hasn’t had wonderful service from investment banking all these years, because we have. It’s just that, as an industry, this crazy culture of greed and overreaching and overconfidence in trading algorithms and so on creeps in. I would argue it’s quite counterproductive for the country, and it ought to be reigned way back. These institutions are too big to fail, and it was demented to allow derivative trading to end up the way it’s ended up and with the current risks that are embedded in the present system. And it’s amazing how few people spoke against it as it was happening. There was just so much easy money to be reported. A lot of the money that was reported as being earned wasn’t really being earned.

It was in that wonderful category of assets that I call “good until reached for.” They sit there on the balance sheet, and when you reach for it, it just fades away like — (laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: He’s not kidding.

CHARLIE MUNGER: — mist.

WARREN BUFFETT: He’s not kidding.

CHARLIE MUNGER: We had 400 million of that “good until reached for” assets we got with General Re.

WARREN BUFFETT: And they were behaving honorably.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. But at any rate, people pushed it way too far. In the drug business, they say, “Prove that this works” before they certify the drug. On Wall Street, they start believing in the tooth fairy, and if one guy is reporting a lot of money, why, everybody else is asking, “Why aren’t we betting on the tooth fairy?” It’s a crazy culture, and to some extent it’s an evil culture, and it needs a huge reigning in. And the accounting profession utterly failed us. The worst behaving were the people who set the accounting practice standards. And they’re very bureaucratic and take forever, and they don’t want to do anything real difficult that displeases people. This is not a combination of wonderful qualities when your job is to set accounting standards, which ought to be dealt with sort of like engineering standards. And they don’t even have the right approach. So there’s a lot wrong.

WARREN BUFFETT: When Charlie and I first got to Salomon, we noticed that they were trading with Marc Rich, who had fled the country. And we suggest — well, we told them — we wanted to quit trading with Marc. And they said, well, they were making money doing it one way or another, and they said, what the hell did we know about crude oil trading, and they wanted to keep trading with him. And only by just total directive could we stop our own employees from trading with Marc Rich. Now, if you can’t stop your people trading with Marc Rich, you know, when you’re focusing on it, just imagine what goes on, you know, in those trading rooms elsewhere. It’s — if Bear Stearns — I think the Fed did the right thing by stepping in on Bear Stearns. If Bear Stearns had failed on Sunday night — and it would have — they would have walked over to a federal judge and handed him a bankruptcy petition, I guess, a little after 6 o’clock Midwest time, because that’s when Tokyo opened.

If they had failed, the next day, as I understand it, they had about 14 1/2 trillion — which isn’t as bad as it sounds — but 14 1/2 trillion of derivative contracts. Now, the parties that had those contracts that had a claim against Bear Stearns would have been required, I think, almost by the contracts they signed

2008年度股东大会

第4/5部分

就像查理说的，我已经讲过——在我去世之后、在这10年分配期启动之前——所以我已经告诉我的律师，确保我的遗产能持续相当长的时间。他说这就像告诉你的青少年儿子要有正常的性生活，当你跟律师说这个的时候。但这会是很长一段时间。就像我说的，如果我们以体面的复利水平运作，你实际上谈论的会是，你知道，美国最大的公司之一。而且我不认为有人会——我不认为会有人杠杆收购通用电气或埃克森，我认为对伯克希尔来说同样困难。然而，没有100%的保证。查理？

原文

And like Charlie says, I’ve told — there’s this period after I die before this 10-year distribution period kicks in — so I’ve told my lawyer to make sure that my estate lasts for quite a while. And he says that’s like telling your teenage son to have a normal sex life, when you tell a lawyer that. But it will be a long time. And like I say, if we do anything in the way of decent rates of compounding, you really are talking, you know, one of the very largest companies in the United States. And I don’t think anybody’s going — I don’t think there’s going to be an LBO of General Electric or Exxon, and I think it would be equally difficult with Berkshire. There’s no 100 percent guarantee, however. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的。而且，除此之外，沃伦并不打算太早离开。我听到过好几次，当人们问他在葬礼上想让人说什么时。他总是给出同样的答案。他说他希望人们说：“这是我见过的最老的遗体。”（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. And, besides, Warren doesn’t plan to leave very early. I’ve heard him say several times when people ask him what he wants said at his funeral. And he always gives the same answer. He says he wants people to say, “That’s the oldest-looking corpse I ever saw.” (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：而且我不太可能改变我对那个问题的看法。（笑）但还是谢谢你的提问。（笑）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: And I’m unlikely to change my views on that subject. (Laughs) But thanks for asking. (Laughs)

6. 挑战一个根深蒂固、广受欢迎的品牌很难

沃伦·巴菲特：第12个问题？

原文

6. It’s hard to challenge a well-established, popular brand

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 12?

观众：你好。我叫Harold Yulean（音译），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥。请您描述一下卡夫公司的经济特征，以及为什么您认为这是一家好企业。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. My name is Harold Yulean (PH). I’m from Chicago, Illinois. I’d like you to describe the economic characteristics of the Kraft Corporation, why you feel this is a good business.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我想说大多数大型食品公司都是好企业，因为它们在有形资产上能获得良好的回报。我不想深入——特别是关于卡夫的细节——但如果你在美国拥有重要、有品牌的产品，无论是箭牌、玛氏、可口可乐，还是卡夫的许多品牌，或者喜诗糖果，你都拥有良好的资产。挑战这些产品并不容易。想象一下，你知道，挑战——可口可乐今天将在全球售出15亿份8盎司装的产品。几乎地球上的每一个人心中都对可口可乐有某种认知。自1886年以来，它一直与快乐、物有所值的提神体验等联系在一起。在我看来，要挑战这样的产品几乎是不可能的。它在全球各地以一种巨大的方式满足着人们。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say most of the big food companies are good businesses in that they earn good returns on tangible assets. And I don’t want to get into — particularly into specifics on Kraft — but if you own important, branded products in this country, whether it’s Wrigley’s or Mars or Coca-Cola, or a number of the Kraft brands, or See’s Candy, you have good assets. It’s not easy to take on those products. Just imagine, you know, taking on — Coca-Cola will sell a billion and a half eight-ounce servings of its product around the world today. There’s something in everybody person’s mind virtually in the globe about Coca-Cola. It’s a product of — since 1886 has been associated with happiness and good value in terms of refreshment and all that. It’s just about impossible, you know, to, in my mind, anyway, to take on a product like that. It’s clearly satisfies people in a huge way, you know, everywhere on the globe.

而且，你知道，可能并非完全一样——例如，卡夫在粉末软饮料业务中有酷爱牌。你知道，我不认为我会想挑战酷爱。我宁愿拥有可口可乐。但它是一种很难对付的产品。要在人们心中扎根——想想看——要让皇冠可乐在全球扎根。皇冠可乐已经存在了很长很长时间。你知道，它不会有任何进展。我的意思是，这是非常非常困难的。实际上，理查德·布兰森来到这个国家——你知道，人们说品牌是一种承诺。我的意思是，拿起一块银河棒或一瓶可口可乐，其中包含一个关于它将带给你什么的承诺。理查德·布兰森七八年前，或者十年前，你知道，一个拥有著名航空公司等等的家伙，他推出了一种叫做维珍可乐的东西。我当时想，这是一种产品中相当不寻常的承诺。

原文

And, you know, it may not be the same — Kraft, for example, has Kool-Aid in the powdered soft drink business. You know, I don’t think I’d want to take on Kool-Aid. I’d rather have Coca-Cola. But it’s a tough product. And to get implanted — just think of — to get implanted in people’s mind RC Cola around the world. And RC Cola has been around a long, long time. You know, it isn’t going to go anyplace. I mean, that is very, very difficult. And actually, Richard Branson came over to this country — you know, they say that a brand is a promise. I mean, there’s a promise involved in picking up a Milky Way, or picking up a CocaCola, as to what it’s going to deliver to you. Richard Branson came over seven or eight years ago, 10 years ago, you know, a fellow with a famous airline and all of that, and he came out with something called Virgin Cola. And I thought that was kind of an unusual promise to have in a product.

（笑声）永远也搞不清楚那到底是什么承诺。但不管它是什么，都没成功。而且已经有过——我不知道有多少——唐·基奥会知道——但在过去很多年里，有过数百种可乐。但最终，你知道，谁会因为每罐便宜一分钱或两分钱就去买某种替代可乐，而不是可口可乐呢？喜诗糖果也一样，酷爱也一样，或者其他任何东西。所以我们对那些在其领域内遥遥领先的品牌产品感觉相当好。卡夫在行业中的地位与家乐氏或其他类似公司相比，并没有什么特别之处。所以，具体买入哪一个，可能部分取决于我们对价格的看法。价格肯定会有影响，管理层和其他一些因素也会有影响。但如果你买入好的品牌产品并且没有支付过高的价格，你很可能做得不错。

原文

(Laughter) Never could quite figure that one out, what the promise was. But whatever it was, it didn’t work. And there have been — I don’t know how many — Don Keough would know — but there have been hundreds of colas over the years. But in the end, who is going to, you know, buy some substitute cola for a penny a can less, or two cents a can less, than Coca-Cola, or the same thing with See’s Candy, or the same thing with Kool-Aid, or whatever it may be. So we feel pretty good about branded products when they’re runaway leaders in their field. And there’s nothing unusual about Kraft in their position versus Kellogg or some other people like that. So there’s — the specifics of which one we buy may depend a little bit how we feel about the price. It certainly will make a difference how we feel about the price, the management, and some other factors. But if you buy in with good branded products and you don’t pay too much, you’re probably going to do OK.

另一方面，你也不会变得超级富有，因为刚才我列出的那些优点已经相当广为人知。查理？

原文

On the other hand, you’re not going to get super rich because the attributes that I’ve just laid out are pretty well recognized. Charlie?

查理·芒格：我没什么要补充的了。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: I’ve got nothing to add.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK.

7. 避免可能摧毁公司的低概率问题

沃伦·巴菲特：我不——我们需要去另一个房间吗？嗯，我们还是直接进入第1个问题吧。如果我跳过了另一个房间，而那里面还有人，可以有人告诉我，我们会回去找他们。第1个问题。

原文

7. Avoid low-probability problems that could destroy the company

WARREN BUFFETT: I don’t — do we need to go to the other room or not? Well, let’s just go to number 1. If I’m skipping the other room and there are still people in there, somebody can let me know, and we’ll go back for them. Number 1.

观众：你好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我叫Kevin Truitt（音译），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥。我的问题是：您已经确定了四位投资专业人士，他们将在未来某个时候管理伯克希尔·哈撒韦的投资组合。您选择这四位人士的标准是什么？未来评估他们的标准又是什么？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. My name is Kevin Truitt (PH) from Chicago, Illinois. My question is this: you have identified four investment professionals who will at some point in time be running the portfolio for Berkshire Hathaway. What was the criteria that you used to select the four people and what will be the criteria for evaluating them going forward?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。关于选择的标准，我想我们在2006年的年报中已经说得相当清楚了。我们显然是在寻找那些有着相当不错业绩记录的人，但仅凭这个标准远远不足以得出我们想要的候选人。我的意思是，我们非常看重人的品质，我们认为在某些情况下我们可以做出这种判断，而在某些情况下则不能。我的意思是——对于我们没有选择的人，这并非否定。我们只是不确定他们是否是合适的人选。我们对四个人做出了肯定的判断，既包括他们的能力，也包括他们的诚信。我想——这里还有一点，我认为这在过去一年里变得更加相关。我说过，“因此，我们需要一个天生就能识别并规避严重风险的人，”然后我用斜体字写道，“包括那些从未经历过的风险。”接着我说，“投资策略中潜伏的某些危险，无法通过金融机构目前普遍使用的模型发现。”

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The criteria for selecting, I think, we laid out pretty well in the 2006 annual report. We obviously look for people that have had pretty good records, but that criteria alone is nowhere near sufficient to come up with the candidates we want. I mean, we care enormously about human qualities, and we think we can make that judgment in some cases, and in some cases we can’t. I mean — and it’s no negative vote on people we skipped over. We just decided we didn’t know whether they would be the right kind of person. We made an affirmative judgment on four, as to both their ability and their integrity. And I would like to — there was one other item in here, I believe, which I think achieved a little added relevance in the last year. I said, “We therefore need someone genetically programmed to recognize and avoid serious risks,” and then I put in italics, “including those never before experienced.” And then I said, “Certain perils that lurk in investment strategies cannot be spotted by one of the models — by use of the models — commonly employed today by financial institutions.”

嗯，我认为这在一定程度上预言了去年发生的事情。所有这些机构都有模型。我的意思是，主要的银行，主要的投资银行。它们可能每周召开风险委员会会议，审阅它们的模型，所有的统计数据都打印成漂亮的列。但它们根本不知道自己面临着什么风险。在投资领域，你确实需要一个非常可靠的人，一个你信任的人，具备合理的分析能力。但你还需要一个能够思考那些尚未出现、但正因新金融工具或市场新行为等而开始成为可能的问题的人。这是一种罕见的品质。我的意思是，无法预见那些在你的历史模型中没有出现的东西，可能是致命的。查理和我花了很多时间思考那些可能突然打击我们、而其他人未曾考虑的事情。我们可能会因此错过一些机会，但我们认为，在管理他人的钱，或者说，管理我们自己的钱时，这是至关重要的。

原文

Well, I think that proved to be somewhat prophetic of what happened last year. All of these places had models. I mean, the major banks, the major investment banks. They would meet weekly at a risk committee, probably, and go over their models, and all of the statistics would be printed in nice columns and everything. And they didn’t have the faintest idea what risk they were involved. You really need, in the investment world, someone very solid, someone you trust, reasonable analytical skills. But you also need someone that actually can contemplate problems that haven’t popped up yet but which are starting to become possibilities, in terms of new financial instruments or new behaviors in markets and that sort of thing. And that’s a rare quality. I mean, that inability to envision something that doesn’t show up in your past model, you know, can be fatal. And Charlie and I spend a lot of time thinking about things that could hit us out of the blue that other people don’t include in their thinking. And we may miss some opportunities because of that, but we feel it’s essential when managing other people’s money or, for that matter, managing our own money.

所以我会说，你可以回头再去读读2006年的年报，但这些就是我们寻找的标准，而我们确定我们考虑的四个人选符合这些标准。查理？

原文

So I would say that you might go back and read the 2006 annual report again, but those are the criteria we’re looking for and we have identified as being met by the four people we’re thinking about. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的。你可以看到伯克希尔是多么厌恶风险。首先，我们努力以这样的方式行事，让任何理性的人都不会担心我们的信用。在我们做到这一点并持续多年之后，我们还会以这样的方式行事：即使世界突然不喜欢我们的信用，我们在几个月内甚至都不会注意到，因为我们拥有如此巨大的流动性，并且极不可能——无法——被任何人施加压力。这种对风险的双重保护就像呼吸一样存在于伯克希尔。这只是文化的一部分。而另一种文化则恰恰相反。你称呼一个人为首席风险官，但他往往是一个让你在做蠢事时感觉良好的人。（笑声）所以他就像德尔斐神谕，说服波斯国王攻击这个或那个敌人。我的意思是，他只是一个愚蠢的占卜者。一个人拥有博士学位，能做所有这些高等数学，又怎么会愚蠢呢？

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. You can see how risk averse Berkshire is. In the first place, we try and behave in a way so that no rational person is going to worry about our credit. And after we’ve done that, and done it for many years, we also behave in a way that, if the world suddenly didn’t like our credit, we wouldn’t even notice it for months, because we have such liquidity and are so unlikely to be — unable to be — pressured by anybody. That double layering of protection against risk is like breathing around Berkshire. It’s just part of the culture. And the alternative culture is just the opposite. You call a man the Chief Risk Officer, but often he is functioning as a guy that makes you feel good while you do dumb things. (Laughter) So he’s like the Delphic oracle that convinced the Persian king to attack somebody or other. I mean, it’s — he’s just a dumb soothsayer. And how can a guy be dumb when he’s got a Ph.D. and he can do all this advanced math?

沃伦·巴菲特：很容易。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Easy.

查理·芒格：你可以——（笑声）——但确实可以。这非常——你所要做的就是如此渴望系统和计算，以至于你扭曲现实去适应某个数学模型——实际上在极端条件下并不匹配。然后，由于你在所有事情上付出的这些努力，以及关于每日交易、风险等的计算，你自信地认为你已经击败了风险，但你没有。你只是把自己的脑袋搞糊涂了。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: You can — (laughter) — but you can. It’s very — all you’ve got to do is crave system and computation so much that you torture reality into fitting some model — mathematical model — which really doesn’t match, particularly, under extreme conditions. And then, because of this work that you’re putting into everything and these computations about daily trading, risk, and so forth, you feel confident that you’ve clobbered the risk, but you haven’t. You’re just clobbered up your own head. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我们真的想经营伯克希尔，你知道——（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We really want to run Berkshire, you know — (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：我甚至要为那个鼓掌。（笑）我们真的想这样经营伯克希尔：即使明天世界不再像今天这样运转，而且它以一种没人预料到的方式运转，我们也不会有问题。我们不想依赖任何其他人或任何其他东西。然而，我们还想继续做事。所以，我们已经找到了一种方法——我们认为是找到了一种方法——来做到这一点。这可能会放弃一些——嗯，显然会放弃在99%的时间、甚至99.9%的时间里获得更高回报的机会。显然，这些年来我们本可以通过更多的杠杆来经营伯克希尔。但我们不会睡得那么好，我们也会感到不舒服——这个房间里有很多人几乎把他们所有的净资产都投在了伯克希尔，包括我——我们不会觉得以那种方式经营企业是舒服的。为什么要这么做呢？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I’ll even applaud that one. (Laughs) We really want to run Berkshire so that if the world isn’t working tomorrow the way it’s working today and it’s working in a way nobody expected, that we don’t have a problem. We do not want to be dependent on anybody or anything else. And yet we want to keep doing things. So, we’ve found a way to do it — we think we found a way — to do that. It may give up some of the — well, obviously gives up earning higher returns 99 percent of the time, and maybe 99.9 percent of the time. Obviously, we could have run Berkshire with more leverage over the years than we have. But we wouldn’t have slept as well, and we wouldn’t feel comfortable — we’d have a lot of people in this room that have almost all their net worth in Berkshire, including me — and we wouldn’t feel comfortable running a business that way. Why do it?

我的意思是，为了某些并非那么有意义的东西，而让自己暴露在毁灭、耻辱和尴尬之中——这完全没有道理。如果我们能获得体面的资本回报，你知道，多一个百分点的回报率又算什么呢？它并没有那么重要。所以我们总是会努力以这样的方式行事：第一，不依赖任何其他人来评估风险，只有我们自己。这不能外包。你们已经看到了一些机构的情况，管理层以为他们把风险外包了。你知道，如果这意味着获得合理的回报而不是稍微不合理的回报，我们就接受。

原文

I mean, it doesn’t — it just doesn’t make any sense to us to be exposed to ruin and disgrace and embarrassment and — for something that’s not that meaningful. If we can earn a decent return on capital, you know, what’s an extra percentage point? It just isn’t that important. So we will always try to behave in a way that, A, is not dependent on anybody else evaluating the risk except for us. It cannot be farmed out. And you’ve seen what happened to some institutions where the management thought they were farming it out. And, you know, if that means a reasonable return instead of a slightly unreasonable return, we just accept it.

8. “如果我们不能在五分钟内做出决定，那么五个月也做不出决定”

沃伦·巴菲特：第2个问题。（掌声）

原文

8. “If we can’t make a decision in five minutes, we can’t make it in five months”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 2. (Applause)

观众：您好，巴菲特先生。您好，芒格先生。我叫（听不清），来自德国慕尼黑。我想回到您关于专业投资者应该能够迅速果断行动的观点。这意味着要知道内在价值是多少，并能在一天内或一小时内，当市场提供机会时采取行动。我的问题是，您脑海中知道其内在价值、并且能够在市场提供有吸引力的价格时一两天内采取行动的公司，这个范围有多大？第二，您为什么突然投资于韩国南部或中国？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, Mr. Buffett. Hello, Mr. Munger. My name is (inaudible) (PH), and I’m from Munich, Germany. I would like to get back to your point that, as a professional investor, one should be able to act quickly and decisively. That means being able to know what the intrinsic value is and to act within a day or within an hour if the market offers an opportunity. My question is, how large is the universe of companies which you have in your head whose intrinsic value you know, where you would be able to act within a day or two if the market offered an attractive price to you? And, secondly, how come you suddenly invest in southern Korea or China?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我们可以行动——我们能否立即决定我们是否能弄明白——向我们提供的是什么。我的意思是，有一个“行/不行”的信号。查理和我经常被认为很粗鲁，而我们只是觉得礼貌地不浪费别人的时间。所以，当他们第一次和我们谈话说到半句时，我们就说：“别想了。”查理很擅长这个，我也在学着。（笑声）——在谈话一开始，我们就非常非常快地知道，某人谈论的事情是否有任何可能让我们采取行动。我们并不担心那些错过的。我们想确保不浪费时间思考那些即使我们想透了，也不会知道足够的信息来做决定的事情。所以我们就把它们排除在外。这排除了很多事物。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We can act — our immediate decision is whether we can figure the — what’s being offered out to us or not. I mean, there’s a go/no-go signal. And Charlie and I are often thought to be rude when we think we’re just being polite and not wasting the other person’s time. So as they start mid-sentence in their first conversation with us, we just say, “Forget it.” And Charlie is pretty good at that, and I’m picking it up. (Laughter) It’s — we know very, very, very early in a conversation whether somebody’s talking about something that there’s any chance is actionable by us. And we don’t worry about the ones we miss. We want to make sure that we don’t waste any time thinking about things that, when we get all through thinking about them, we’re not going to know enough to make the decision on. So we just rule those out. And that rules a lot of things out.

但是，如果它通过了这几道过滤，进入了一个我们知道得足够多、足以做出决定的范围，我们就准备立刻行动。所以我们做决定——我们可以非常容易地在五分钟内做出决定。我的意思是，事情并没有那么复杂。现在，我们了解很多企业和行业，也有很多企业和行业我们一无所知。我们了解某些类型的债券的很多情况，我们了解——我们了解各种各样的事物，如果我们能扩展这个知识领域，那会是件好事。但最重要的是，任何通过过滤的东西都必须在一个我们了解的知识领域内。事实是，如果我们不能在五分钟内做出决定，那么五个月也做不出决定。你知道，在接下来的五个月里，我们不会学到足够的东西来弥补我们最初认知不足的缺陷。所以，这在伯克希尔根本不是问题。

原文

But then, if it gets through a couple of these filters and makes it into an area where it says this is something that we know enough about to make a decision on, we’re ready to move right then. So we make decisions — we can make a decision in five minutes very easily. I mean, it just is not that complicated. Now, we know about a number of businesses and industries, and there’s a lot of businesses and industries we don’t know anything about. We know a lot of things about certain kinds of bonds, and we know — there’s a variety of things we know about, and it’s nice if we can expand that universe of knowledge. But the most important thing is that anything that gets through is in an area of knowledge. And the truth is, if we can’t make a decision in five minutes, we can’t make it in five months. You know, we’re not going to learn enough in the followings five months to make up for the fact that we went in deficient in the first place. So it’s just not a problem around Berkshire.

如果我们接到一个电话，有人说他们有企业要出售——我们接到的电话就是这个——或者如果我在读报纸、杂志、年报或10-K报告，我看到一个价格，价格和价值之间存在显著差异，我们就会立刻行动。查理和我甚至不需要互相商量。我的意思是，我们想法一致，拥有大致相同的知识领域。查理？

原文

If we get a call and somebody says either they’ve got a business for sale or — that’s what we’re going to get on the calls — or if I’m reading a paper, or a magazine, or an annual report, or a 10-K, and I look at a price and there’s a significant differential between price and value, we move right then. And Charlie and I don’t need to talk to each other about it. I mean, we both think the same way, and we have generally similar spheres of knowledge. Charlie?

查理·芒格：——对于你的问题，答案是，我们可以非常快速、非常容易地对很多事情做出很多决定。而且——我们在这方面很不寻常。我们之所以能做到这一点，是因为我们不允许自己去思考其他大量的事情。就是这么简单。我的意思是，当有人向我推销时，我有一句口头禅，大约在第一句话说到一半时，我会说：“我们不做初创企业。”它们不存在。嗯，如果你把初创企业排除在外，生活中就少了一层复杂性。我们还有其他一些排除系统。通过这些系统，我们最终发现，剩下的仍然是一个相当大的、我们可以处理的领域。你觉得这样说公平吗，沃伦？

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s — the answer to your question is, we could make a lot of decisions about a lot of things very fast and very easily. And the — and we’re unusual in that respect. And the reason we’re able to do that is there’s such an enormous other lot of things that we won’t allow ourselves to think about at all. It’s just that simple. I mean, I have a little phrase when people make pitches to me, and about halfway through the first sentence, I say, “We don’t do startups.” They don’t exist. Well, if you blot out startups, there’s a whole layer of complexity that goes out of your life. And we’ve got other little blotter-out systems. And using those, we finally find out that what remains is still a pretty large territory that we can handle. You think that’s fair, Warren?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

查理·芒格：是的。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah.

沃伦·巴菲特：而且有很多暗示，人们在前一两句话中就会透露出来，你知道，我们就是知道我们不会——你知道，这行不通。（笑）我们浪费了很多时间——我会说，我们浪费了很多时间，但我们浪费在了我们想浪费时间的事情上。（笑）我们对此非常挑剔，然后我们也很擅长于此。我们浪费了很多时间。但我们不会把它浪费在我们不想浪费的事情上。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: And an awful lot of giveaways that people, in the first sentence or two, throw out that, you know, we just know we aren’t — you know, it isn’t going to work. (Laughs) And we waste very — I would say — we waste a lot of time, but we waste it on things we want to waste our time on. (Laughs) We’re very selective about that, and then we’re good at it. We waste a lot of time. But we’re not going to waste it on things we don’t want to waste it on.

9. 对墨西哥亿万富翁卡洛斯·斯利姆没有看法

沃伦·巴菲特：第3个问题。

原文

9. No thoughts on Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 3.

观众：巴菲特先生，芒格先生，非常感谢你们提供这个美妙的仪式。我叫Jorge Garza（音译），来自墨西哥城。来自那里，你们有时会被拿来比较——或者更确切地说，卡洛斯·斯利姆有时会被拿来与你们比较，原因除了你们对棒球的热爱之外还有其他。能否请您分享一下对他的看法？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, thank you very much for this wonderful rite. Coming — my name is Jorge Garza (PH), and I’m coming from Mexico City. Coming from there, you have been occasionally compared to — or rather Carlos Slim has been occasionally compared to you, for other reasons than your love of the game of baseball. Can you please share your thoughts on him?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我——他有一次带着他的两个儿子来过，我们一起吃了午饭。但那大概是15年前的事了。所以我真的没有什么特别的——我的意思是，你对卡洛斯·斯利姆的了解可能比我多。我看过新闻报道等等。那次午餐非常愉快。但那是很久以前的事了。查理，你有什么要说的吗？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I — he came up once with two of his boys, and we had lunch. But that was probably 15 years ago. So I really have no special — I mean, you probably know a lot more about Carlos Slim than what I do. I read the news stories and all of that. And we had a perfectly pleasant lunch. But that was a long time ago. And, Charlie, do you have anything?

查理·芒格：没有。我想你代表了我们两人对卡洛斯·斯利姆的全部了解。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: No. I think you speak for the total knowledge of both of us about Carlos Slim. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：如果你愿意，我们也可以为你把剩下的福布斯400强都走一遍。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ll go down the rest of the Forbes 400 for you, too, if you would like. (Laughter)

10. 人权问题不应阻止一个国家参加奥运会

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。第4个问题。

原文

10. Human rights issues shouldn’t keep a country out of the Olympics

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Number 4.

观众：你好。我叫Andre Stalty（音译）。我来自纽约市，非常高兴来到这里。我深受你们鼓舞。我们在纽约市的小型投资者分析商业课上追随你们。我的——

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. My name is Andre Stalty (PH). I come from New York City, and I’m thrilled to be here. I’m greatly inspired by you. We follow you in our analyze business class in New York City, a small group of small investors. And my —

远处声音：克拉马斯存在人权侵犯问题。

原文

VOICE SHOTING: There are human rights violations in the Klamath.

观众：我的问题是，您是否考虑过，或者已经考虑过，要求可口可乐撤回对北京奥运会的赞助，鉴于西藏存在的严重人权侵犯问题，或许能激励一种既重视人道主义利益也重视金钱利益的新商业模式？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is, would you, or have you, considered asking Coca-Cola to withdraw sponsorship from the Beijing Olympics in light of the immense human rights violations in Tibet, possibly inspiring a new business model that would value humanitarian interest as well as monetary interest?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我个人——你知道，我个人认为奥运会——我希望它们——你知道，永远举办下去，让每个人都参与。我个人认为，开始决定这个国家应该被允许，那个国家不应该被允许，是一个错误。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I personally — you know, I personally think that the Olympics — and I hope they are — you know, conducted forever with everybody participating. I think that, personally, it’s a mistake to start deciding whether this country should be allowed and this country shouldn’t be allowed. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：我认为，根据大约两百个可能参赛国家的行为来给它们打分，是非常困难的。我的意思是，美国直到1920年才允许女性投票。所以我们经历了大约140年，或者说130年，我会说那是一个严重的人权侵犯，但我不希望看到美国因为那个原因被禁止参加奥运会。所以我只是认为，试图——奥运会是一项精彩的活动。我认为参与的人越多越好。而且我认为，总的来说，随着时间的推移，它们有助于创造一个更美好的世界。所以我不会开始采取惩罚性措施。但我理解你的动机。谢谢。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I think it’s very hard to grade a couple hundred countries that might be participating, according to how their behavior was. I mean, we didn’t let women vote in the United States, you know, until 1920. So we went 140 or so, 130 years, and I would say that was a great human rights violation, but I would have hated to see the United States banned from the Olympics, you know, in the years prior to that because of that. So I just think it’s a terrible mistake to try to get into — the Olympics have a wonderful event. I think the more people participate in them, the better. And I think that, on balance, they contribute to a better world over time. So I would not start getting punitive about it. But I understand your motives on it. Thank you. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，沃伦低估了我的立场。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, Warren understates my position. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：我通常低估他的立场。这是一个有强烈观点的人。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I usually understate his position. This is a man of strong opinion.

查理·芒格：我想对那些对中国的不完善感到不满的人说，问问自己这个问题——中国到底是随着岁月的流逝变得更加不完善，还是更少？答案是，中国正在朝着正确的方向前进。只要这种情况在发生，我认为仅仅挑出你不喜欢的人的缺点并念念不忘，是一个严重的错误。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: And I would say to you people who are distressed by imperfections in China, ask yourself your question — the question — is China more, or less, imperfect as the decades have gone by? And the answer is China is moving in the right direction. And as long as that’s happening, I think it’s a grave mistake to just pick the worst thing about somebody you don’t like and obsess about it.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。美国多年来也在朝着正确的方向前进。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The U.S. has moved in the right direction over years. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：我们的宪法说黑人相当于五分之三个人，你知道。我们已经走了很长的路，而且我们还远未完美。但我认为，与你合作的人，如果他们大体上在朝着正确的方向前进，最好是鼓励他们。你可能想轻轻推他们一下，但我认为奥运会不是做这件事的正确方式。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Our Constitution said blacks were three-fifths of a person, you know. We’ve moved a long way, and we’re far from perfection. But I think you do better with people that you’re working with to — if they’re going in the right direction, largely, to encourage them. You may want to nudge them a bit, but I don’t think the Olympics is the right way to do it.

11. 我们将减少对煤炭的依赖，但不会很快

沃伦·巴菲特：我们进入第5个问题。

原文

11. We’ll reduce our reliance on coal, but not soon

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to number 5.

观众：嗨。我叫Jessica Helmers（音译），来自亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔。我的问题是，您认为煤炭行业未来的趋势是什么？您认为它的成本优势会超过其环境影响吗？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Jessica Helmers (PH), and I’m from Scottsdale, Arizona. My question is, what future trends do you see in the coal industry? Do you think its cost advantage will outweigh its environmental impact?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为短期内世界将使用更多的煤炭，你知道，而且我认为毫无疑问它存在环境方面的劣势。而且随着——我认为世界会慢慢——也许比那更快——但我们会想出更好的方法来做煤炭所做的事情，随着时间的推移会更加环保，但这不会很快发生。我的意思是，如果你关闭美国的燃煤发电公用事业，你知道，我们——我们将无法在这间开着灯的房间里举行这次会议。所以这是一个非常棘手的问题，很难解决，甚至在短时间内取得重大进展都很难。现在，我们——在 MidAmerican——我们在过去五年左右投入了大量风电容量——可能和任何人投入的一样多。但我们很大程度上依赖煤炭。它比20年前的煤更清洁，但——我们将长期依赖它。而且，你知道，这显然是一个全球性问题。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think in the short-term the world is going to use more coal, you know, and I think that there’s no question that there’s an environmental disadvantage to it. And as the — I think the world will slowly — maybe more rapidly than that — but we will figure out better ways to do the things that coal does, that will be more environmentally friendly over time, but it isn’t going to happen fast. I mean, if you shut down the coal-generated utilities in the United States, you know, this — we would not be able to hold this meeting in a room with the lights on. So it’s a very tough problem to solve, or to even make big inroads on in a short period of time. Now, we — at MidAmerican — we’ve put in a lot of wind capacity in the last five years or so — probably about as much as anybody has. But we are dependent a lot on coal. It’s cleaner coal than it was 20 years ago, but — and we will be dependent on it for a long time. And, you know, it’s a worldwide problem, obviously.

中国人正在以非常快的速度建设燃煤电厂。这需要全球范围内的合作和领导力。坦率地说，美国在领导力方面处境并不太好，因为，你知道，人均而言，我们对这个星球造成的负面影响不亚于世界上任何国家。所以我们——我们到处去说教有点困难，但我认为，我们需要一个能够超越我们过去记录、并让世界主要国家合作的领导者。但我认为这不会很快实现。查理比我对此不那么悲观。查理？

原文

The Chinese are building coal plants at a very rapid rate. It’s going to require cooperation and leadership on a worldwide scale. And, frankly, the United States is not in a great position in terms of leadership because, you know, per capita, we’ve done as much to this planet of a negative nature as any country in the world. So we — it’s a little tough for us to go around preaching to people, but we will need a leader, in my view, that can sort of transcend our record of the past and get cooperation from major countries around the world. I don’t think it’s going to be — but I don’t think it’s going to be fast. Charlie is less pessimistic on this than I am. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为那些非常反对使用煤炭的人应该反思一下：他们更愿意快速用完哪一种——碳氢化合物、石油和天然气，还是煤炭？我更愿意用完煤炭，因为它作为我们养活世界所需的化学原料不那么理想。所以我会争辩说，从人类的角度来看，存在一个支持使用煤炭的环境理由。大多数人不这么想，但我这么想。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think the people who are very against the use of coal should reflect: which one they’d rather use up fast — the hydrocarbons, the oil and natural gas, or the coal? I would rather use up the coal because it’s less desirable as a chemical feed stock for what we need to feed the world. And so I would argue that there’s an environmental reason, in terms of human kind, for being very pro-coal use. Most people don’t think that way, but I do. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：查理并不从众。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie does not find comfort in numbers.

查理·芒格：不。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: No.

12. 不要将地区性银行一概而论

沃伦·巴菲特：第6个问题。

原文

12. Don’t lump regional banks together

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 6.

观众：我叫Rosat Bastar（音译）。我住在加利福尼亚州萨克拉门托。过去一年里，大多数小型地区性银行的股价变得更具吸引力。您对作为投资标的的地区性银行有什么看法？如果您要购买股票，您会仔细考察哪些领域？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Rosat Bastar (PH). I live in Sacramento, California. The stock prices of most small, regional banks have become more attractive in the past one year. Do you have any opinions about regional banks as investments? And if you were going to purchase shares, what are the areas that you would carefully examine?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我认为你不应该对某种东西——无论你怎么定义它们，小盘、中盘、地区性银行，甚至全国性银行——做出一个笼统的决定。很大程度上取决于该机构的特质，这很可能在很大程度上反映了你所拥有的CEO的类型。而且我——银行可以是任何东西。它可以——你知道，它可以是一个做各种疯狂事情的机构。很久以前，在底特律有一家叫做联邦银行的银行，它走向了极端，一度在华尔街非常受欢迎。它也可以是最稳健的机构。我们曾经拥有过一家银行——伯克希尔完全拥有的唯一一家银行——在伊利诺伊州罗克福德，由一个名叫Gene Abegg的人经营。而且，你知道，不管它是超级地区性银行、地区性银行、小银行还是中盘银行，Gene Abegg除了经营一家超级稳健的银行之外，不可能做其他任何事。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I don’t think you should make a categorical decision about something like — however you define them — small, mid cap, whatever, regional, or national banks for that matter. So much depends on the character of the institution, which will probably be a reflection, to a great degree, of the type of CEO you have. And I — a bank can mean anything. It can — you know, it can mean an institution that’s doing all kinds of crazy things. It can — there was one called the Bank of the Commonwealth up in Detroit many years ago that went to extremes, and it was very popular on Wall Street for a while. It could mean the soundest of institutions. We had one — we owned a bank — the only bank Berkshire’s ever owned in its entirety — in Rockford, Illinois, run by a fellow named Gene Abegg. And, you know, it wouldn’t make any difference whether it was a super-regional or a regional or a small or a mid-cap bank, there’s no way Gene Abegg could run anything other than a super-sound bank.

所以我不认为你应该——我认为你应该对管理层的文化和机构有所了解，才能做出坚定的买入决定，这对于99%的银行来说是很难做到的。众所周知，我们持有股票——在我们的报告中有——富国银行、美国合众银行和水牛城的M&T银行。在这三个案例中，我认为我很好地理解了这些机构的DNA，即它们的行为方式。这并不意味着这些地方不会出问题，因为它们会遇到问题。但这意味着——在我看来——它们不会犯我称之为“机构性愚蠢”的错误。我不是说所有银行都能免于此。事实上，有一位非常睿智的人——我想是莫里斯·科恩（Morris Schapiro）——说过：“银行数量多于银行家”，如果你思考一下这句话，你就会明白我的意思。（笑）查理？

原文

So I don’t think you should — I think you should know something about the culture of the management and the institution to make a firm buy decision on a bank, and that’s hard to do for 99 percent of the banks. We own stock, as you know — it’s in our report — Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank and M&T up in Buffalo. And in all three cases, I think I understand quite well the DNA of the institution, in terms of how it behaves. That doesn’t mean those places are immune from problems, because they’ll have problems. But it means — but it does mean — they’re immune, in my view, from what I would call institutional stupidity. And I would not say that all banks are immune from that. As a matter of fact, there was a very wise man named — I think it was Morris Cohen (Morris Schapiro) — that said, “There are more banks than bankers,” and if you think about that awhile, you’ll get my point. (Laughs) Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为提问者说到点子上了。我们这里和欧洲的那么多大型银行，几乎给整个行业蒙上了一层耻辱的阴影，这无疑打压了一些本身完全没问题的中小银行的股价。所以我认为你正在一个有可能找到机会的领域里勘探。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think the questioner is onto something. So many of our very large banks, both here and in Europe, have sort of cast a pall of disgrace over the whole industry, and that is undoubtedly pounded down the stocks of some small banks that there’s nothing at all wrong with. So I think you’re prospecting in a likely territory.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，但你也能找到几家大银行——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, but you can find a few big banks —

查理·芒格：是的。（同时说话）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. (Crosstalk)

沃伦·巴菲特：而且——我不知道如果你把佛罗里达州最小的20家银行和最大的20家银行相比，就佛罗里达房地产形势而言，哪一组状况会更好。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: And it — I don’t know if you took the 20 smallest banks in Florida and the 20 largest banks in Florida which group would be in better shape, in terms of the Florida real estate situation.

查理·芒格：这是一个有些希望的领域。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s a territory that has some promise. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：这可是查理极其看好的说法了。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: That is a wildly bullish statement from Charlie. (Laughter)

13. 核扩散是“人类的首要问题”

沃伦·巴菲特：第7个问题。等我们一结束这里，我就要出去买那个东西。（笑声）

原文

13. Nuclear proliferation is the “primary problem of mankind”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 7. I’m going to go out and buy that stuff as soon as we get out of here. (Laughter)

观众：下午好。我叫Matt Thurman（音译），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥。巴菲特先生、芒格先生，鉴于叙利亚、伊朗、朝鲜和其他国家最近发生的事件，您对如何防止进一步的核扩散有何看法？谢谢。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. My name is Matt Thurman (PH), Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, what are your thoughts on preventing further nuclear proliferation, given recent events in Syria, Iran, North Korea, and other countries? Thank you.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。嗯，与核扩散或其他化学和生物领域的大规模杀伤性武器的扩散一样，这是人类面临的重大问题。核知识的精灵已经从瓶子里出来了，随着时间的推移，将会有越来越多的人知道如何对其他人种造成巨大伤害。人群中总有那么一定比例的人，他们是精神病患者、自大狂、宗教狂热分子或者其他什么，会希望他们的邻居遭受不幸。而瓶颈将是——大概是——材料，以及某种程度上，可投送性。我认为——人们通常将这些天的大规模杀伤性武器威胁与恐怖分子和某种流氓组织联系在一起，而不是与国家联系在一起。但我认为这两者都对人类的未来构成巨大威胁，而我们在这方面进展甚微——我们应该尽一切可能减少获取材料的机会——我对此有一些想法，你可以在核威胁倡议的网站上查看到。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, it’s the great problem of mankind, along with proliferation or the spread of other weapons of mass destruction in the chemical and biological field. The genie is out of the bottle on nuclear knowledge, and more and more people are going to know how to do enormous damage to the rest of the human race as the years go by. You’ll have a given percentage of the population that are psychotics or megalomaniacs or religious fanatics or whatever, and will wish ill on their neighbors. And the choke point will be — presumably — will be materials, and to a degree, deliverability. I think there — people generally associate weapons of mass destruction threats these days with terrorists and rogue organizations of some sort and not so much with nations. But I regard both as being enormous threats to the future of mankind, and we have not made much progress in that respect to — we should be doing everything possible to reduce access to materials — and I’ve even had a few thoughts on that which you can look up on the Nuclear Threat Initiative, probably on the website.

实际上，我们有一个提议，可能至少会稍微减少各种国家拥有高浓缩铀等东西的理由。但这是——这是人类的首要问题。如果你的世界有65亿人口，你可能会有——在你的世界里——你可能有大约两倍于30亿人口时那些希望邻居倒霉的人数。在很长一段时间里，如果你是一个精神病患者或者别的什么，你可以捡起一块石头扔向隔壁洞穴的家伙，然后发展到弓箭、步枪和大炮。但几千年来，无论你多么疯狂，造成大规模伤害的能力都非常有限。自1945年以来，正如爱因斯坦所说，原子弹“已经改变了世界上的一切，除了人的思维方式”。这是在广岛事件之后不久发表的评论。

原文

And we’ve got a proposal, actually, that might reduce by a tiny bit the rationale, at least, for all kinds of nations having highly-enriched uranium and that sort of thing. But it’s the — it is the primary problem of mankind. If you’ve got 6 1/2 billion people, you’re probably going to have — in the world — you’re probably going to have close to twice the number of people who wish ill on their neighbor than you had when you had 3 billion people. And for a long time, if you were a psychotic or something, you could pick up a stone and throw it at the guy in the next cave, and you moved onto bows and arrows and rifles and cannon. But for millennia, the ability to inflict massive damage was quite limited, no matter how crazy you were. And since 1945, when Einstein said that the atomic bomb, as they called it then, “has changed everything in the world except how men think.” That was a comment made shortly after Hiroshima.

我们生活在一个世界，在那里——经历了指数级增长——在给别人造成伤害的能力方面呈指数级增长，而我们还没有摆脱那些疯子或想这么做的人。而且，无论是伊朗，还是你叫得上名字的，或者是恐怖组织或其他什么，你知道，我们生活在一个非常、非常、非常危险的世界，而且随着时间推移，这种危险还在增加。自1945年以来，我们一直非常幸运，你知道，当60年代古巴导弹危机出现时，你知道，可能胜负各半，我认为我们很幸运我们面对的是赫鲁晓夫，我们也幸运肯尼迪那样行事。但我们很幸运，查理和我在60年代当时就谈了很多。但它不会消失。你至少希望，在美国，我们有一个政府，无论是共和党还是民主党，都能把这个作为首要议程，努力想办法最小化这种风险。你无法消除它。

原文

We live in a world where exponentially — has experienced exponential growth — in the ability to inflict harm on somebody else, and we haven’t gotten rid of the nuts or the people who want to do it. And it is — whether it’s, you know, Iran or you name it, or whether it’s terrorist organizations or whatever, you know, we live in a very, very, very dangerous world on that that is getting more dangerous as we go along. And we’ve been very lucky since 1945, you know, when the Cuban missile crisis came along in the ’60s, you know, it might have been 50-50, and I think we were lucky we were dealing with Khrushchev and we were lucky that Kennedy behaved the way he did. But we were lucky, and Charlie and I talked a lot about it in the ’60s at the time. But it won’t go away. And you would hope, at least in the United States, that we have an administration, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, where that’s at the top of the agenda, trying to figure out a way to minimize that risk. You can’t eliminate it.

它已经出了瓶子。但我们必须——首要任务应该是最小化风险，避免我们真的陷入某种涉及，你知道，前所未见规模死亡的事情。查理？

原文

It is out of the bottle. But we’ve got to — it should be paramount to minimize the risk that we really get into something that involves, you know, deaths on a scale that nobody’s ever contemplated before. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的。嗯，你谈到前所未见的死亡规模。人们最近发现，墨西哥的人口可能因为欧洲人带入病原体而减少了95%。那是一个相当庞大的文明经历了那个小磨难。这些事情可能发生，并且已经发生过。再看看今天的墨西哥。我不认为它会灭绝这个物种。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Well, you talk about deaths on a scale that people have never contemplated before. People have recently figured out that the population of Mexico probably had a population decline of 95 percent caused by European man bringing in his pathogens. And it was a pretty big civilization that went through that little knothole. These things can happen and have happened. And look at Mexico today. I don’t think it’s going to wipe out the species.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，那是——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s —

查理·芒格：我希望这能让你振作一点。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: I hope that cheers you up. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：蟑螂会存活下来。这是一个非常好的问题。我希望我知道更好的答案。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: The cockroaches will survive. It’s a very good question. I wish I knew a better answer.

14. 巴菲特给年轻人的建议

沃伦·巴菲特：第8个问题。

原文

14. Buffett’s advice for young people

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 8.

观众：下午好。我来自佛罗里达州阿波普卡。我想感谢你们提供这个绝佳的机会，让我学到这么多关于金融的知识，同时还能享受美妙的时光。很有趣。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. I’m (inaudible) from Apopka, Florida. I would like to thank you for this wonderful opportunity to learn so much more about finances and, at the same time, have a wonderful time. It’s been fun.

沃伦·巴菲特：那太好了。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s great.

观众：我在佛罗里达州奥兰多的瓦伦西亚社区学院教书。我教办公室管理和商业。我赞赏我的学生们通过上大学来投资自己。我也强调财务独立和财务自由。我通过告诉他们慢而稳者胜，还有良好稳健的财务管理，以及互惠法则来做到这一点。我让他们在一段时间内追踪每一笔开支。另外，他们理论上购买一只股票，并且也在一个时期内追踪它。我们关注当前的财经新闻、时事新闻，他们还要写研究论文。（掌声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I teach at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida. I teach office administration and business. I applaud my students for investing in themselves by enrolling in college. I also want to stress financial independence and financial freedom. I do this by telling them that slow and steady wins the race; also, good, sound financial management; and then the law of reciprocity. I have them track every expense over a period of time. Also they buy, theoretically, one stock and track that, too, over a period of time. We keep track of the current financial news, current news, and also they have research papers. (Applause.)

观众：谢谢。（笑声）他们研究FICO分数、信用报告、克拉克·霍华德、苏西·奥尔曼、十大亿万富翁，不是因为——（掌声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. (Laughter) They research FICO scores, the credit reports, Clark Howard, Suze Orman, the top ten billionaires, not because — (Applause)

沃伦·巴菲特：我想——你能接着问你的问题吗？拜托？（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I think — Could you move onto your question, then, please? (Laughter)

观众：是的。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.

沃伦·巴菲特：但还是要谢谢你。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: But thank you.

观众：好的。我还应该做些什么来引导他们——（笑声）——做出明智的财务决策，并拥有幸福、稳健的财务生活？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: OK. What else should I be doing to lead them — (laughter) — to make sound financial decisions and to have happy, sound financial life?

沃伦·巴菲特：我现在就准备雇用你整个班级的学生。（笑声）嗯，我认为你正在给他们一些很好的建议。我认为你能做的最重要的投资就是投资自己。我的意思是，非常、非常、非常少有人能够将他们潜在的马力转化为他们实际产出的马力。对如此多的人来说，潜力超越实现的程度是巨大的。我——你可以在你的课堂上尝试的一个例子是——我和高中生谈话时这样告诉他们——想象你16岁，我今天要给你一辆你任意挑选的车，任何你想要的车，——但有一个附加条件——这是你这一生中唯一能得到的一辆车，所以你必须让它一直用下去。你可以挑选你想要的最高档的车，一辆玛莎拉蒂，或者别的什么。你会怎么对待它？嗯，当然，在你转动点火钥匙之前，你会把车主手册读上大约五遍。你会把它停在车库里。任何一点生锈，你都会立即处理。你会比要求的多一倍的频率换机油，因为你知道它要用一辈子。然后我告诉学生们，你有且只有一个身体和一颗头脑，它们必须陪伴你一生，你最好以同样的方式对待它们，你最好从现在就开始这样对待，因为等你到五六十岁才开始担心，那点锈斑——已经变成大问题了，那就没用了。所以，你的学生们为他们的头脑和身体做的任何投资——尤其是头脑——我们这里没怎么在身体上花功夫——（笑声）——你知道，这是有回报的。它会以非凡的方式回报你。你最好的资产就是你自己。你可以在很大程度上成为你想成为的人。当我在大学课堂里时，我只是让他们想象，他们要买下同班同学未来一生10%的权益。他们会选谁？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m ready to hire your entire class right now. (Laughter) Well, I think you’re telling — you’re giving them some very good advice. I think that the most important investment you can make is in yourself. I mean, very, very, very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. And potential exceeds realization to just an enormous factor with so many people. And I — one illustration you might try with your class — I tell them this when I talk to high school groups — just imagine that you’re 16 and I was going to give you a car of your choice today, any car you wanted to pick, and — but there was one catch attached to it — it was the only car you were going to get in the rest of your life, so you had to make it last there. You can pick out the fanciest you want, a Maserati, whatever it might be. How would you treat it? Well, of course you would read the owner’s manual about five times before you turn the key in the ignition. You’d keep it garaged.

Any little rust, you would get taken care of immediately. You’d change the oil twice as often as you were supposed to, because you know it has to last a lifetime. And then I tell the students, you get one body and one mind, and it’s going to have to last you a lifetime, and you better treat it the same way, and you better start treating it right now, because it doesn’t do you any good to start worrying about that when you’re 50 or 60 and the rust — that little speck of rust — has turned into something big. So anything your students do to invest in their mind and body — particularly your mind — we didn’t work too hard on the bodies around here, but — (laughter) — you know, it pays off. It pays off in an extraordinary way. Your best asset is your own self. And you can become, to an enormous degree, the person you want to be. When I get classes in universities, I just ask them to imagine they were going to buy one of their classmates to own 10 percent of for the rest of their life. Which one would they pick?

他们不会选智商最高的那个，或者成绩最好的那个。他们会选那个将会很有效率的人。而人们之所以有效率，是因为别人想和他们共事。别人想围绕在他们身边。而另一些人则是别人不想接近的。而这些品质是个人可以培养的——慷慨、幽默、守时、不居功自傲反而谦逊、帮助他人——所有那些能吸引人的品质，还有一些是让人反感的品质。这些都是习惯，是他们在你学生那个年纪养成的习惯。他们今天拥有的习惯将伴随他们一生，所以为什么不养成好习惯呢？这就是我想给你的学生们的信息。（掌声）

原文

They wouldn’t pick the one with the highest IQ, or necessarily the one with the highest grades. They’d pick the person that’s going to be effective. And the reason people are effective is because other people want to work with them. They want to be around them. And other people they don’t want to be around. And those are qualities than an individual picks up — being generous, being humorous, being on time, not claiming credit for more than you do but rather less than you do, helping out other people — all kinds of human qualities that turn other people on, and then there’s things that turn other people off. And those are habits, and they’re the habits that you pick up when they’re the age of your students. The habits they have today will follow them throughout life, so why not have good ones? So that’s the only message I would give your students. (Applause)

查理·芒格：嗯，我有一个具体的建议来回答你的具体问题。我会给你那个广泛的教学大纲补充一点：教他们避免被销售商和贷款人利用他们常用的技巧操纵，从而损害自己的利益。你可以从一本比任何书都好的书开始，那就是西奥迪尼的《影响力》，我想本书作者鲍勃·西奥迪尼，他也是一位股东，就在这个听众席的某处。所以我有一本新教科书要推荐——我建议你把它加入你的课堂——那就是西奥迪尼的《影响力》。他刚刚有一本新书出版，我想今天第一次在奥马哈出售，书名是《Yes》。所以我建议你把这两本书加入你的课堂。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I’ve got a specific suggestion that answers your specific question. I would add to that extensive repertoire of yours by teaching them to avoid being manipulated to their disadvantage by vendors and by lenders using the standard tricks of the vendor and lender trade. And you couldn’t start with a better book than Cialdini’s “Influence,” and I think Bob Cialdini, who is a shareholder, is here somewhere in this audience. And so I have a new textbook to — I suggest you add to your class — which is Cialdini’s “Influence.” And he’s just got a new book that’s coming out and for sale in Omaha today, I think, for the first time, and that’s called “Yes.” So here’s two books that I suggest you add to your class.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. (Applause.)

15. 巴菲特谈拥有运动队

沃伦·巴菲特：我们进入第9个问题。

原文

15. Buffett on owning sports teams

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to number 9.

观众：我是安德鲁（听不清），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥，我九岁，是一个超级棒球迷。我知道您喜欢棒球，我最喜欢的球队是芝加哥小熊队。您愿意从山姆·泽尔手中买下芝加哥小熊队吗？（笑声）我的问题是，您认为购买棒球队是一项好的投资吗？（掌声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Andrew (inaudible) from Chicago, Illinois, and I’m nine years old, and I’m a big baseball fan. I know you like baseball, and my favorite team is the Chicago Cubs. Would you like to buy the Chicago Cubs from Sam Zell? (Laughter) And my question is, do you think buying baseball teams is a good investment? (Applause)

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，它一直是一项好的投资。它一直是一项好的投资。但这不一定是因为盈利大幅增长，尽管有线电视大大增加了其价值。实际上，电视扩大了体育场。我想，瑞格利球场的座位可能不到四万个。所以，1939年我第一次去看大联盟棒球赛时，那里只有四万个座位。但接着电视来了，然后是有线电视，再后来是付费体育频道或有线体育网络，这极大地增加了座位数量。现在，其中很大一部分收益流向了球员，但也有一部分留给了球队老板。我不是——我在你这个年纪的时候，会想如果我赚了很多钱，我会买一支球队。但那时我想做很多事——（笑声）——后来都没有做。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it’s been a good investment. It’s been a good investment. It’s not been a good investment necessarily because the earnings have gone up so much, although cable television multiplied the value in a big way. In effect, television expanded the stadium. Wrigley Field, I think, probably seats less than 40,000, maybe. So you had 40,000 seats available when I went there for my first major league baseball game in 1939. But then along came television, and then cable television, and pay — in effect, pay-cable television for baseball or sports networks, and that multiplied the seats in a huge way. Now, a lot of that went to the players, but some of it stuck to the owners. I am not a — when I was your age, I would have thought if I made a lot of money, I would have bought a team. But there were a lot of things I thought I would do then — (laughter) — I haven’t done subsequently.

所以，我不认为——如果小熊队卖七亿美元，而你银行账户里有那么大比例的资产——现在，我不认为我会以那个价格买入。对许多人来说，拥有运动队能带来精神上的收入。我的意思是，这让他们出名。也许不是他们当初买球队时所预期的方式，但是，你知道，这是获得即时名望和认可的一种方式。只要我们还生活在一个有很多很多有钱人的社会里，一定比例的人就会想通过经营球队来显示他们人生非常成功，而运动队肯定是其中一种方式。显然，这不是人们购买球队的唯一原因。但我要说，你不是第一个问我是否买小熊队的人。（笑）我接到过电话——不是山姆打的——是其他人，而且——我想这事还是留给你吧。查理？你知道关于买运动队的事吗？他比我更难被说服。

原文

So, I don’t think — if the Cubs sell for 700 million, and you’ve got a percentage of that in your bank account — now, I don’t think I would buy in at that price. There’s a psychic income to many people in owning sports teams. I mean, it makes them famous. Maybe not in the way they anticipated when they bought the team, but the — you know, it is a way to instant celebrity and recognition and all that. And as long as we live in a society where people have loads and loads of money, a certain percentage of people are going to want to become known for the fact that they have done very well in life, and a sports team is certainly one way of doing it. That isn’t the only reason people buy them, obviously. But I will say this, you are not the first one that’s asked me about buying the Cubs. (Laughs) I’ve had calls — not from Sam — but from other people, and it’s — I think I’ll

2008年股东大会

第五部分/共五部分

听众：我是来自伊利诺伊州埃尔克格罗夫村的拉里·蒂德里克。我的问题其实更像一个恳求。拿出你们的美国宪法，读一读第一条第八款——列举的权力；第九修正案；第十修正案；然后给卡托研究所的罗杰·皮隆打个电话。我认为今天发生的所有与金融和经济有关的事情，都与我们的宪法有关，而宪法实际上是基于财产权和合同权的。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Larry Tidrick (PH) from Elk Grove Village, Illinois. My question is really more a plea. Get out your copies of the U.S. Constitution, read over Article 1, Section 8, the enumerated powers; the Ninth Amendment; the Tenth Amendment; and give Roger Pilon a call at the Cato Institute. I think everything that’s gone on today, regarding finance and economics, has to do with our Constitution, which was really based upon property rights and contract rights.

沃伦·巴菲特：但你有问题吗，还是没有？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Do you have a question, though, or not?

听众：有的，先生。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, sir.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK.

听众：嗯，不，我没有了。（笑声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, no, I don’t. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：我有点猜到了。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I sort of suspected that.

听众：我提出了——是的。我提出了恳求，并且——

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I made — yeah. I made the plea and —

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK.

听众：——就是这样。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — that’s really it.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。嗯，谢谢。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Well, thank you.

21. 美国人对公共交通的厌恶短期内不会改变

沃伦·巴菲特：我们继续第三题。

原文

21. American’s distaste for mass transit won’t change soon

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ll go on to number 3.

听众：是的。我叫丹·施密特，来自明尼苏达州伯恩斯维尔。我想听听您对未来公共交通的看法，以及它与铁路的关系，这些交通系统和铁路未来会扩张吗？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. My name is Dan Schmidt (PH) from Burnsville, Minnesota. And I’d like your opinion on the future of mass transit and how it relates to railroads, and will these transit systems and railroads be expanding in the future?

沃伦·巴菲特：你是指客运方面？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: In terms of passenger traffic?

听众：是的。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Correct.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。美国公众基本上不喜欢公共交通。我的意思是，他们在需要的时候会忍受，但是——美国人与汽车的恋情，这转化为对公共交通的厌恶，几乎是压倒性的。我以前参与过巴士公司。你知道，你可以跟人们讲各种关于使用公共交通的理性理由，但一人一车似乎是一种极其受欢迎的出行方式。我认为这个国家的公共交通不太可能出现大规模扩张。我认为，无论出于何种原因，无论是后天养成还是基因里就有的，美国公众不喜欢出门等巴士或电车之类的。他们想开自己的车。即使汽油快到每加仑4美元，他们还是想去某个地方花很多钱停车，而且他们不太愿意拼车。这似乎就是人性。

也许它会改变，但我从不打赌一个长期朝一个方向发展的趋势会逆转，除非证据非常充分。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. The American public, basically, doesn’t like mass transit. I mean, it endures it when it needs to, but there — the American love affair with the car, which translates to aversion to mass transit, is sort of overwhelming. I used to be involved in bus companies. And, you know, you can make all kinds of rational arguments to people about the use of mass transit, but one person to a car seems to be an enormously popular method of moving around. And I think it’s unlikely that we see a large expansion in mass transit in this country. I think the American public is, for one reason or another, whether they’re trained to it or whether it’s just something in their genetic makeup, they do not like going out and waiting for buses or whatever it may be or trams. And they want to get in their car. And even with gas at close to $4 a gallon, they want to go someplace and pay a lot of money to park, and they don’t want to double up in the cars very much. And that just seems to be human nature.

Maybe it will change, but I never like to bet on something that has gone in one direction for a long time reversing unless the evidence is pretty strong. Charlie?

查理·芒格：你对此的看法比我乐观。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: You have a more optimistic view of it than I have. (Laughter)

22. 芒格处于“赞同阿尔·戈尔的尴尬境地”

沃伦·巴菲特：第四题。

原文

22. Munger’s in “awkward position of agreeing with Al Gore”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 4.

听众：嗨。我是来自明尼苏达州北奥克斯的汤姆·尼尔森。我的问题是问查理的。如果您负责管理这个国家，您会如何处理阿尔·戈尔所说的气候危机？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I’m Tom Nelson (PH) from North Oaks, Minnesota. My question is for Charlie. If you were in charge of this country, how would you handle Al Gore’s alleged climate crisis?

查理·芒格：嗯，当然，我处于一个赞同阿尔·戈尔的尴尬境地，我们不应该燃烧那么多碳氢化合物。（掌声）我只是有不同的理由。他的思维方式跟我不一样，你自己来判断你喜欢哪种吧。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, of course, I’m in the awkward position of agreeing with Al Gore that we shouldn’t be burning up so many hydrocarbons. (Applause) I’ve just got a different reason. His brain doesn’t work the way mine does, and you’ll have to judge for yourself which you prefer. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：我们晚点再投票。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ll have a vote a little later. (Laughter)

23. 对CDO危险性的分歧

沃伦·巴菲特：第五题。

原文

23. Disagreement on danger of CDOs

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 5.

听众：下午好，沃伦和查理。我是来自印第安纳州埃尔克哈特的弗兰克·马丁。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Warren and Charlie. This is Frank Martin from Elkhart, Indiana.

沃伦·巴菲特：很高兴你在这里，弗兰克。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Nice to have you here, Frank.

听众：谢谢，沃伦。我最喜欢您的一句格言是：“要想赢，首先不要输。”您刚才读的2006年年报摘录使这句格言与时俱进，我认为它既有先见之明又有预言性。注意，我说的是“预言性”而不是“可怜性”。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thanks, Warren. One of my favorite aphorisms from you is, “To win, first you must not lose.” The excerpt that you read a few moments ago from the 2006 annual report contemporized that aphorism, and I think was both prescient and prophetic. Notice I said “prophetic” and not “pathetic.”

沃伦·巴菲特：我注意到了。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I noticed.

听众：是的，谢谢你。（笑声）您曾多次与艾伦·格林斯潘意见相左，称衍生品为“金融大规模杀伤性武器”。我们都有自己认为国家目前处于衰退的记录。如果目前尚属良性的公司违约率上升——假如衰退加深，我们回到2002年或90年代初常见的违约率——那么信用违约互换问题是否会成为对金融稳定的严重威胁？我尊敬您，认为您是有史以来最伟大的风险定价者之一。您和查理一定认为，在没有准备金、没有真正了解定价风险的情况下出售保险是令人深恶痛绝的。在您看来，CDS市场有没有可能取代次贷市场，成为下一场金融危机的引爆点？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, thank you. (Laughter) On several of occasions disagreeing with Alan Greenspan, you have called derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction.” We both have our own record as believing the country is currently in recession. If corporate default rates, which are currently benign, escalate — should the recession deepen and we get back to default rates common in 2002 or back in the early 1990s — will the credit default swap problem materialize as a serious threat to financial stability? I respect you as one of the all-time great pricers of risk. You and Charlie must consider selling insurance without reserves, without really understanding pricing risk, to be an abomination. Is there a chance, in your judgment, that the CDS market may eclipse the subprime mortgage market as the next element of the financial meltdown?

沃伦·巴菲特：信用违约互换市场——你可以看到这些数据——我重复一下，但我不是验证它们——但最新公布的数字超过60万亿美元。当然，这里面有很多重复计算之类的情况。但毫无疑问，信用违约市场两边都有大量的资金。它们被称为信用违约互换。你可以把它看作是对公司破产的保险。实际上，我们大规模地写了两种类型的衍生品。我们在年报中解释过，也在昨天发布的新闻稿中再次解释了。我们承保了——我们写了一些保险，当特定指数上的公司违约时，会向另一方赔付。有高收益二、高收益三，一直到高收益九。我们针对这些指数写入了不同风险层级的保险，我认为我们会赚到可观的利润，尽管我们也可能会亏损。

这将取决于未来几年的信用状况。我认为，毫无疑问，公司违约率将会上升。这已经计入了我编写这些保险时的计算中。至于信用违约互换——这个市场的规模——是否会导致金融市场的某种混乱，我认为可能不会。尽管如果贝尔斯登倒闭了，例如，对手方将需要大规模平仓合同来确立他们的索赔等等。所以你会遇到相当混乱的局面。任何时候——信用违约互换只是一方向另一方的支付。所以它是一个负和项目。当有人在次级贷款、抵押贷款上亏钱时，他们亏的是真金白银。现在，可能有人以后会以更便宜的价格买下那栋房子，但在次级贷款变坏的时候，并没有等值的美元互换。而信用违约互换则涉及美元互换。所以只要对手方付款，如果A赚了100万美元，B就亏了100万美元。

问题是，如果出现一个没有被美联储干预的贝尔斯登式情况，对手方是否会违约，从而引发一系列连锁反应？我不认为这会发生，而且由于美联储介入贝尔斯登事件，这种情况发生的可能性已经显著降低。我们已经看到信用违约互换方面有巨额资金从一方支付给另一方。例如，一个叫Fairfax Financial的公司，一个相对较小的公司，我记得，在信用违约互换上赚了超过10亿美元。那么，其他人亏了那10亿美元，但这并没有对整个系统构成威胁。它只对亏钱的那个人构成威胁，但他在过程中想必一直在追加抵押品。所以并不是一下子让他拿出10亿美元。所以即使信用违约——在过去18个月里，它们一直是最波动的工具。

没有什么东西波动得这么大——也许有些次贷指数有——但实际上就是信用违约互换。而这并没有在系统中造成问题。所以我不认为——特别是如果美联储在他们认为太大而不能倒的投资银行或银行出现问题时介入的话——我认为这很可能不是问题的原因。它可能是一些机构巨额亏损的原因，但这些亏损会被其他机构的巨额盈利所抵消。我确实认为存在——系统可能出现的短期中断问题，我认为贝尔斯登本来会造成这种中断。但也许其他事情也可能造成这种中断——比如说曼哈顿的核弹爆炸之类的。那种情况——当存在不连续性，前一天提交的抵押品相对于发生的波动类型完全不足时——当然，在那种情况下，如果有大量CDS存在，它可能会在相当程度上加剧混乱。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: The credit default swap market — you can see these figures — and I’m repeating them, but I’m not validating them — but the last number that came out was over 60 trillion. Now, there’s lots of double counting in these things and all that sort of thing. But there’s no question there’s a lot of money on both sides of the credit default market. They call them credit default swaps. You can think of it as insurance against a company going bankrupt. And actually, we have written two types of derivatives on a big scale. We explained them in the annual report. We explained them again in the press release that was issued yesterday. And we have insured in the — we’ve written insurance that pays off to somebody else in the event of default by companies listed on given indices. There’s a high-yield two, a high-yield three, and so on, through high-yield nine. And we’ve written various traunches of risk on those things, and I think we’re going to make significant money, although we could lose money, too.

It will depend on credit experience in the next few years. I think there’s no question that the corporate default rate will rise. That’s been cranked into the calculations I make in writing this insurance. The question of whether the credit default swap — the size of that market — will lead to any kind of chaos in the financial markets, I think probably not. Although if a Bear Stearns had failed, for example, you would have had a huge unwinding of contracts by counterparties who had to establish their claims and all that. So you would have had rather chaotic conditions. Any time — a credit default swap is merely a payment by one party to another. So it’s a negative-sum item. When somebody loses money on a subprime loan, on a mortgage loan, they’ve lost real money. Now, somebody may be buying the house later on cheaper than they would have bought it earlier on, but there is not an equivalent swap of dollars at the time that a subprime loan goes bad. With the credit default swaps, there is a swap of dollars. So as long as the counterparties pay, if A is up a million dollars, B is down a million dollars.

And the question is, is if you get a Bear Stearns-type situation that didn’t get interrupted by the Fed, whether counterparties would fail and you get a lot of trip hammer effects, I don’t think that’s going to happen, and I think the chances of it happening were reduced significantly by what happened — by the fact that the Fed stepped in at Bear Stearns. We’ve had enormous payments from one party to another, in terms of credit default swaps. Just — there’s a firm called Fairfax Financial that made — a relatively small firm — that made, as I remember, well over a billion dollars in credit default swaps. Well, somebody else lost the billion, but it didn’t pose a threat to the system. It posed a threat to the guy that lost the billion, but he had to keep up putting up collateral, presumably, as he went along. So it wasn’t like he was called overnight for the billion. So even though credit defaults — they’ve been the most volatile of instruments in the last 18 months.

There’s been nothing that’s swung as much — maybe there’s some subprime index that has — but virtually it’s credit default swaps. And that really hasn’t created a problem in the system. So I do not think — particularly if the Fed is going to step in when they see investment banks that they regard as too big to fail, or banks too big to fail — I don’t think that that will probably be the cause of the problem. It may be a cause of enormous losses to some institutions, but those will be matched by enormous gains by other institutions. I do think there’s that — the problem of the overnight disruption in the system, which Bear Stearns, I think, would have produced. But maybe something else could produce it — a nuclear bomb going off in Manhattan, you know, or something of the sort. That kind of thing — where there’s a discontinuity, where the collateral posted the previous day was totally inadequate in terms of the kind of movement that occurred — certainly at that time something like having a large amount of CDSs out there, it could cause a — it could exacerbate — the chaos to a considerable degree. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为你的问题的答案是——信用违约互换是否会引发大混乱——是的，当然可能。我认为，尽管这种愚蠢行为很极端，但不如把流浪汉从贫民窟扫荡出来给他们房贷买房那么糟糕，但已经相当糟糕了。信用违约互换中有趣的一点是，但很少被评论的是，假设你在承保一个1亿美元债券发行可能导致的损失。而信用违约互换，不是1亿美元，而是30亿美元。那么，你就有价值30亿美元的合同的人，他们有强烈的动机让某人违约。当然，他们可能会通过某种欺诈或极端手段操纵，制造小的损失以获取大的赔付。监管机构允许这种情况在美国发生是疯狂的。

过去，对于没有保险利益的人来说，为他们不认识的人购买人寿保险是非法的，因为社会担心人们会这样做然后杀害那个人。洛杉矶就发生过这种情况。有些甜美的老太太，她们把流浪汉从贫民窟弄来，给他们买人寿保险。两年后，她们用伪造的肇事逃逸事故谋杀了他们。所以，人性中就有这种在巨大回报面前的卑劣之处。为什么我们要让这些巨大的赌注在相对不受监管的市场上进行，赌注规模是原始债券发行的10倍、20倍，这简直是疯了。如果我是写讽刺文章，你会说我夸大其词。我这是轻描淡写了。在这个领域，我们有一大群疯了的监管者和所有者。（掌声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think the answer to your question is — could we have a big-time mess out of credit default swaps — is yes, we certainly could. I think the stupidity, while it’s extreme, is not as bad as sweeping bums off skid row to give them mortgages to buy houses, but it’s pretty bad. One of the things that’s interesting about credit default swaps, which isn’t much commented on, is, let’s say you’re insuring against the outcome that people will lose money on a hundred million dollar bond issue. And the credit default swaps, instead of amounting to a hundred million, amount to 3 billion. Now you’ve got people with $3 billion worth of contracts that really have a big incentive in having somebody fail. And, of course, they may manipulate, in some fraudulent or extreme way, with the little loss in order to make the big collection. It was insane for the regulators to allow this outcome to occur in America.

It used to be illegal for people who had no insurable interest just to buy life insurance on people they didn’t know, because society was afraid that people would do that and then kill the person. And that happened in Los Angeles. We had sweet, little, old ladies that got bums off skid row. They’d take out life insurance on them. And when two years went past, they murdered them with fake hit-run accidents. So human nature is up to this kind of venality where you have big payoffs. And why we wanted these enormous bets to be made, in relatively unregulated markets, where the bets are 10, 20 times the size of the original bond issue, it’s crazy. If I did this as a satire, you’d say I was overstating. I’m understating. We have a major nut case bunch of regulators and proprietors in this field. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：查理得一；隐形之手得零。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Charlie, one; invisible hand, zero.

24. 巴菲特关于何时支付股息的标准

沃伦·巴菲特：我们来看第六题。

原文

24. Buffett’s test on when to pay a dividend

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to number 6.

听众：您好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫内哈里克·阿尼拉，来自德克萨斯州休斯顿。我是七年级学生，今年12岁。我想知道为什么您不相信股息，巴菲特先生，而您的导师本·格雷厄姆却相信股息？他在很多方面影响了您，但为什么您没有受到影响而相信股息？谢谢。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Neharick Aneela (PH), and I’m from Houston, Texas. I’m a seventh grader, and I’m 12 years old. I was wondering why you do not believe in dividends, Mr. Buffett, when your mentor, Ben Graham, believed in dividends? He influenced you in so many ways, but why weren’t you influenced into believing in dividends? Thank you.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我总得在某个方面展现一点个性。（笑声）嗯，答案是，在很多情况下我确实相信股息，包括我们持股的许多公司。是否支付股息的标准在于，你是否能每留存一美元就创造出超过一美元的价值。有很多企业——比如我们拥有的喜诗糖果。喜诗糖果几乎把所有赚到的钱都派发给我们了，因为他们在喜诗糖果内部没有能力明智地使用他们赚到的大笔资金。所以，喜诗糖果留存资金将是一个巨大的错误。所以他们分配给伯克希尔，我们希望我们把钱转移到其他领域，在那里，这一美元在现值上能变成1.10美元或2.10美元。如果我们能做到这一点，股东——无论他们是否纳税，无论他们是基金会还是依靠收入生活——如果我们保留资金，他们都会受益。

因为他们本来会得到1美元的股息，而这1美元立即在现值基础上变成1.10美元或1.20美元的市场价值，他们最好卖出一小部分股票，以这种方式实现所需的金额，这样做完之后，他们最终的钱会比我们支付股息时还多。但是，如果有一天——总有一天会到来——如果我们认为我们无法有效地使用资金，每留存一美元创造出超过一美元的市场价值，那么就应该派发出去。就像我说的，我们在伯克希尔内部也是这样做的。但是，因为我们有能力在公司内部以节税的方式重新分配资金，我们可能有更多的——我们有更多的理由——保留我们所有的收益。如果喜诗糖果是一家独立的公司，我们就会把大部分收益，几乎是所有收益，作为股息支付出去。就像我们现在做的一样，只是它们流向了伯克希尔。我们喜欢我们投资的公司把他们自己不能有效使用的资金支付给我们。

在某些情况下，是他们盈利的100%；在另一些情况下，是0%。我们持有一些不支付任何股息的股票。好市多支付了非常少的——查理，他们有一段时间支付过股息吗，还是——？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I had to show a little individuality in some respect. (Laughter) Well, the answer is I do believe in dividends in a great many situations, including many of the ones at companies in which we own stock. The test about whether to pay dividends is whether you can continue to create more than one dollar of value for every dollar you retain. And there are many businesses — take See’s Candy, which we own. See’s Candy has paid everything, virtually, out to us that they earn because they do not have the ability within See’s Candy to use large sums, which they earn, intelligently in their business. So it would be an enormous mistake for See’s Candy to retain money. So they distribute to Berkshire, and we hope that we move that around in some other area where that dollar becomes worth $1.10, or $2.10, in terms of present value terms. If we do that, the shareholder — whether they’re taxable or whether they’re not taxable, whether they’re a foundation or whether they’re living on income, even — they are better off if we retain the money.

Because if they were going to get a dollar in dividends and it became worth $1.10 or $1.20 in market value immediately on a present value basis, they’re better off selling a small percentage of their stock and realizing the required amount that way, and they will have more money when they get all through doing that than if we paid it in dividends. But if the time comes — and it will come someday — when the — if the time comes when we don’t think we can use the money effectively to create more than a dollar of market value per dollar retained, then it should be paid out. And, like I say, we do that individually within Berkshire. But because we have this ability to redistribute money in a tax-efficient way within the company, we probably had more — we had more reason — to retain all of our earnings. If See’s Candy were a standalone company, we would simply pay out a lot of the earnings, practically all of the earnings, in dividends. Just like we do now, except it goes to Berkshire. We like our — we like the companies in which we have investments to pay to us the money they can’t use efficiently in their own business.

In some cases that’s a hundred percent of what they earn; in some cases it’s 0 percent of what they earn. We own some stocks that don’t pay any dividends. Costco paid a very small — did they pay any dividend for a while, Charlie, or —?

查理·芒格：他们在快速成长期间不分红。最后他们开始分了。伯克希尔的政策也差不多。沃伦一直计划从伯克希尔支付大额股息，他效仿了圣奥古斯丁的方式，圣奥古斯丁说：“上帝赐予我贞洁，但不要现在。”

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: They — while they were growing very rapidly, they paid no dividend. And finally they are paying one. Berkshire’s policy is much the same. Warren has always planned on paying large dividends out of Berkshire, and he does it in the mode of Saint Augustine when he said, “God give me chastity, but not yet.”

沃伦·巴菲特：没错。我一直很欣赏那句话。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Right. I’ve always admired that.

25. 西南部的电力问题

沃伦·巴菲特：第七题。

原文

25. Electricity in the Southwest

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 7.

听众：下午好，沃伦·巴菲特先生、查理·芒格先生、各位股东。我叫理查德·迈耶斯，来自加利福尼亚州。根据您之前的意见，我将到南加州、亚利桑那州去问一个问题：您是否了解或有兴趣了解从亚利桑那州进入加利福尼亚州的电力走廊，还是电力是从加利福尼亚州流回亚利桑那州？既然加利福尼亚州以阳光州闻名，我们应该能够拥有自己的太阳能系统。我还有一个问题。我从今天凌晨2:30就开始排队，省了20美元，我想知道我能用这20美元买哪本书对我自己和我的部落最有好处。谢谢。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, shareholders. My name is Richard Meyers (PH). I’m from (inaudible), California. In respect to your opinion earlier, I will go down to southern California, Arizona, and ask a question: if you have knowledge or interest of the corridor for electricity coming in from Arizona into California, or is it going from California back into Arizona? As California is known as a sunny state, we should be able to have our own solar systems. I have one more. I have saved $20 by staying in line since 2:30 this morning, and I would like to know which one of these books that I could buy that would do me the most good and my tribe. Thank you.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，给我们说说这些书。你是指全部书单？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, tell us about the books. You mean the whole list?

听众：我用20美元能买哪一本？（笑声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Which one I can buy for $20. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：可能是今天卖得不太好的那些。（笑声）是的，我不太熟悉书的价格。我们尽量提供好的选择。我有点偏爱拉里·坎宁安的书，因为拉里·坎宁安的书汇集了我所有写过的东西的重写版。（笑声）但是，不，我们——我认为整个收藏都很好。我不想推荐一本胜过另一本。关于第一个问题，我一点也不知道。查理，你知道吗？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Probably the ones that haven’t sold very well today. (Laughter) Yeah, I’m not that familiar with the prices of the books. We try to have a good selection in there. I’m a little partial to Larry Cunningham’s books because — Larry Cunningham’s book — because it consists of a rewriting of all my own stuff. (Laughs) But, no, we — I think the whole collection is fine. I wouldn’t want to recommend one over the other. And I know nothing about that first subject. Charlie, do you?

查理·芒格：嗯，我了解一点点。你知道，加利福尼亚州曾导致在大峡谷附近建造燃煤电厂，因为加利福尼亚州不想要污染，但它需要电力，而且那些电厂离煤矿更近。最终这引起了巨大的抗议，就像我们听到的克拉马斯河事件一样。大峡谷开始出现一些能见度问题。我认为那些电厂可能已经退役，或者即将退役，所以这是一个非常复杂的问题。我很高兴把这个问题（听不清）还给你。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I know a little. You know, California did cause coal plants to be built near the Grand Canyon because California didn’t want the pollution and it needed the electricity and they were nearer the coal mines. And eventually that caused huge uproar, a lot like we heard about the Klamath River. And the Grand Canyon, that started having some visibility problems. And I think those things are, maybe, decommissioned, or about to be decommissioned, so it’s a very complicated subject. And I’m glad to (inaudible) it back to you.

26. 伯克希尔的国际野心

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。第八题。

原文

26. Berkshire’s international ambitions

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Number 8.

听众：下午好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫阿尔金·罗。我是八年级学生，住在德克萨斯州皮尔兰。读了您2006年的年报后，我请大家都叫我托尼。（巴菲特笑）我的问题是，您预见伯克希尔在不久的将来会在印度或中国收购任何业务吗？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Argin Row (PH). I am in the eighth grade and live in Pearland, Texas. I ask everybody to call me Tony after reading your 2006 annual report. (Buffett laughs) My question is, do you foresee Berkshire buying any businesses in either India or China in the near future?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，托尼，我——（笑声）——我们希望如此。如果你具体指出任何一个主要国家，除了美国之外，我们在任何主要国家进行收购的可能性都不大。我希望在未来三年内我们可能有机会收购一两家规模可观的公司。我们一直在收购适合我们现有业务的小公司。现在，MiTek在美国境外有几个机会。但是，就伯克希尔可能收购的主要业务而言，你知道，如果我们运气好，我们会在未来三四年内收购一两家总部在美国境外的公司。我们正在努力提高这样做的机会。至于最终会是中国、印度、德国、英国还是日本，谁知道呢？这其中有很多运气成分，具体取决于特定家族是否想到我们。但我们当然不会排除这种可能性。我们考虑过在一些国家设立保险公司。印度和中国都限制了伯克希尔持有国内保险公司的股权比例。

两国的法律都限制我们——我知道在中国是25%，我认为在印度也是25%，但可能在去年左右有变化。我们可能不想去一个只能拥有一家公司25%股权的国家。我们希望法律允许我们拥有更多，这样才值得我们投入。但我希望我们拥有一些业务。你知道，在你这个年纪，你一定会看到伯克希尔拥有——依我看来，你会看到那一天——我们在两国都拥有业务。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Tony, I — (laughter) — we would like to. The odds are somewhat against us buying in any major country except the United States, if you’d name any specific one. I would hope in the next three years that we might get a chance to buy one or two companies of size. We’re always buying little companies that fit in with our present operations. Right now, MiTek has several possibilities outside the United States. But in terms of major businesses that Berkshire would buy, you know, if we get lucky, we’ll buy one or two in the next three or four years that’s based outside the United States. We’re trying to increase our chances of doing that. Whether it turns out to be China or India or Germany or the UK or Japan, who knows? There’s a lot of luck in that, just in terms of specific families thinking of us specifically. But we certainly wouldn’t rule it out. We’ve looked into developing an insurance company in some countries. Both India and China restrict the percentage ownership that Berkshire could have in any domestic insurance company.

They both have laws that would keep us — I know it’s 25 percent in China, and I think it’s 25 percent, but it may have been changed in the last year or so, in India. We do not probably want to go into a country to own 25 percent of a company like that. We would want the laws to allow us to do more than that to make it worth our while. But I hope we own something. You know, certainly at your age, you will see the day that Berkshire owns businesses — in my view, you’ll see the day — that they own — we own — businesses in both countries. Charlie?

查理·芒格：没什么要补充的。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.

27. 父母、配偶和书籍是最好的老师

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。第九题。

原文

27. Parents, spouses, and books are the best teachers

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Number 9.

听众：先生们，我叫吉姆·詹姆斯，来自明尼苏达州，实际上是明尼阿波利斯。显然，你们今天激励了在场的38,000人。关于你们的书被写出来，不仅是因为你们的金融才能，更是因为你们的人格。你们能否分享一下对你们影响最大的两三个人——那些塑造了你们对生活和投资思考的人或教育家？谢谢。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Gentlemen, my name is Jim James (PH) from Minnesota, actually Minneapolis. And clearly you’ve inspired 38,000 people here today. Books have been written about you, not solely for your financial prowess, but because of the people you are. Could you share two or three influences on you — those kinds of people, educators, who have shaped your thinking on life and on investing? Thank you.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我认为最大的教育家——当然，就我而言——最初是我的父亲。我想查理可能也会这么说。我认为——你嫁给谁非常重要，非常重要，我非常幸运，他们都是很好的老师。当然，还有本·格雷厄姆。还有戴夫·多德。我从多年来写书的各种各样的人那里学习。我只是贪婪地阅读它们，到处汲取。查理显然从本·富兰克林那里学到了很多。（笑声）很多人认为本·富兰克林从查理那里学到了很多，但是——（笑声）——我们俩都从我祖父的杂货店学到了一些东西。但是你的父母——我告诉学生们，你知道，你最重要的工作，就是成为你孩子的老师。我的意思是，你是最终的老师。你是这个巨大的存在。你提供温暖、食物和一切，他们在学习世界，当他们进入研究生院或某个时候，这些不会改变很多。

所以——而且没有重播按钮。你不能重来一次。所以你必须尽最大努力做一个老师，你用你的行为来教，而不是用你的言语，来教这些小家伙。等到他们进入正规学校的时候，他们从你身上学到的可能比从其他人那里学到的都要多。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think the biggest educator — certainly in my case — initially was my father. I think probably Charlie would say the same thing. And I think— it’s very, very, very important who you marry, and I’ve been lucky there, and those are great teachers. And, of course, I had Ben Graham. I had Dave Dodd. I’ve learned from all kinds of people who have written books over the years. I’ve just devoured those and picking up things here and there. Charlie learned a lot from Ben Franklin, obviously. (Laughter) Many people think Ben Franklin learned a lot from Charlie but — (laughter) — we both learned a few things from my grandfather at the grocery store. But your parents — I tell the students, you know, the most important job you have, you know, is being the teacher to your children. I mean, you’re the ultimate teacher. You’re this big — great big thing. You provide warmth and food and everything else, and they’re learning about the world, and they’re not going to change a lot of that when they get into graduate school or sometime.

So it’s — and you don’t get any rewind button. You don’t get to do it twice. So you have to do your best as a teacher, and you teach by what you do, not by what you say, with these young things. And by the time they’ve got to a place where they’re entering a formal school, they probably learned more from you than they’re ever going to learn from anybody else. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为不同的人学习方式不同。对我来说，我的天性让我适合通过阅读来学习。如果有人跟我说话，他告诉我一些我不知道的事情、我不想知道的、我已经知道的，或者他讲得太慢或太快。在阅读中，我可以以适合自己的速度学习我想知道的东西。所以，对我来说，阅读是适合我天性的方式。对所有像我一样的人来说，我表示欢迎。这是一个不错的兄弟会。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would argue that differing people learn in differing ways. With me, I was put together by nature to learn from reading. If some guy’s talking to me, he’s telling me something I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I already know, or he’s doing it too slow or too fast. In reading, I can learn what I want at the speed that works. So, to me, reading is the — is what works for my nature. And to all of you who are at all like me, I say welcome. It’s a nice fraternity.

沃伦·巴菲特：你可能从父亲那里学到的东西比你从所有阅读中学到的还要多，你不觉得吗？就实际塑造你而言？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: You probably learn more from your father than you learned from all the reading you did, don’t you think? In terms of actually forming you?

查理·芒格：嗯，是的。我的父亲是那种总是多做自己那份工作、多承担自己那份风险的人。那种榜样，当然，非常有帮助，而且你从亲近的人那里学得更好。但是就概念性的东西而言，我说我是从书上学到的。现在，那些也是另一种意义上的父亲。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, yes. And my father was the type that always did more than his share of the work and took more of his share of the risk. All that kind of example was, of course, very helpful, and you learn it better from a person close to you. But in terms of the conceptual stuff, I’d say I learned it from books. Now, those are fathers in a difference sense.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

查理·芒格：写那些书的人。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: The people who wrote the books.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，嗯，有一本书显然改变了我整个的金融生涯，当我——你知道，也许是偶然的，我拿起了它。我甚至不记得当时为什么买它，那时我还在上学。但如果你不断地读足够多的书，你会发现一些——你会学到很多。我曾经翻遍奥马哈公共图书馆的书架。这也许是一种低效的方式，但是，我——如果你读20本你感兴趣主题的书，你会学到很多东西。尽管你不知道会从哪一本中学到这些知识。所以我会说，如果你有对的父母，你非常非常幸运，这比上对的学校或任何类似的事情都好。而找到对的配偶，你就加倍下注了。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, one book, obviously, changed my whole financial life when I — you know, by happenstance, probably, I picked it up. I can’t even remember why I bought it back when I was in school. But if you just keep picking up enough books, you’ll find some — you’ll learn a lot. And I used to go through the Omaha Public Library and just go down the shelves. It’s kind of an inefficient way, maybe, of doing it, but I — if you read 20 books on a subject you’ve got an interest in, you’re going to learn one hell of a lot. You don’t know which one you’re going to learn it in, though. So I would take having — if you get the right parents, you’re very, very lucky, and it’s better than going to the right school or anything of the sort. And to get the right spouse, you’ve just doubled down.

28. 大型机构股东应在CEO薪酬问题上表明立场

沃伦·巴菲特：第十题。

原文

28. Big institutional shareholders should take stand on CEO pay

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 10.

听众：先生们，我叫马克·斯莱比，来自芝加哥。我可能是今天最后几个发言或提问的人之一，所以代表31,000人，我要感谢您——

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Gentlemen, my name is Mark Slaybe (PH). I’m from Chicago. I probably am going to be one of the last guys speaking today or asking a question, so on behalf of 31,000 people, I’m going to thank you —

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you.

听众：——感谢您今天对股东表现出的尊重和礼貌。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: — for the respect and the common courtesy that you’ve exhibited to the shareholders today.

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you. (Applause.)

听众：我的问题是：我在一家相当大的电脑公司工作，是盖茨先生公司的竞争对手。我很好奇。作为一个普通人，一个普通股东，我们在场的31,000多人能做些什么，来应对这些大公司令人愤慨的薪水、奖金、福利？我们永远没有机会接触到它们，没有机会与它们共事，也没有机会获得那样的财富。您建议我们作为普通股东能做些什么，来让这个国家走上正轨，让这个问题得到正确解决？（零落掌声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is this: I work for a fairly large computer company that’s a competitor of Mr. Gates up there. And I’m curious. As a common, ordinary person and a common shareholder, what can we do, 31,000-some odd folks here do, about the outrageous salaries, bonuses, perks, of these enormous corporations that we will never have a chance at, a shot at, you know, working with them and that amount of wealth? What would you advise us as common shareholders that we can do to get this country going the right way and get this issue going the right way? (Scattered applause)

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我想说，特别是在薪酬方面，你个人能做的不多。但相对少数人可以大有作为。如果五六家最大的机构股东在极端情况下采取立场——我不建议他们针对每一家——但是当他们看到一些过分的情况时，如果他们只是投反对票，并发表一个简短声明说明他们为什么这样做，这会对董事会产生影响。大人物不喜欢被羞辱。你知道，他们不喜欢——这会吸引他们的注意。媒体是一个巨大的因素。在改变公司行为方面，媒体比法规或萨班斯-奥克斯利法案之类的东西作用更大。你需要好的媒体报道。但是媒体需要素材，而素材——原材料——可能是——我不会点名具体的机构——但是如果你看看五六家最大的投资机构，我认为如果他们能就他们认为薪酬确实过分的情况发表简短声明，那将产生很大影响。

我不清楚你个人能对此做什么，我也不知道如何创造激励让大机构去做这件事。我的意思是，这并不会给他们个人带来太多好处。我不认为——我认为很多机构用来决定是否赞同公司做法的清单是荒谬的。我的意思是，你知道，他们得到了某种“当前议题”，然后他们——他们找人建议他们如何投票，这有点愚蠢。我不知道为什么他们不能自己决定什么是合适的，什么是不合适的。本·格雷厄姆多年前就哀叹投资者像一群羊。而对于大机构，我没有看到太大的区别。但不需要很多机构。只需要少数几家最大的机构，并且愿意发声。剩下的媒体会做，董事会会对此做出回应。但他们不会回应你们。

我的意思是，我必须完全坦率地告诉你这一点。一个小股东可以写出世界上最有说服力的论点，我曾在董事会上看到过这样的信件。基本上，他们把这些信转交给公司秘书，说“处理一下这个”，或者类似的话。要改变行为，需要真正有效的压力，特别是当这种行为符合那个人自身利益的时候。人们不会轻易放弃自身利益。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I would say that, particularly on the compensation part, you can’t do much. But there are a relatively few people that could do a lot. If the half a dozen or so largest institutional owners took a position on extreme cases — I don’t advise them trying to go after each one — but when they see something egregious, if they would simply withhold their votes and issue a short statement as to why they’re doing it, that has an effect on — particularly on boards of directors. Big shots don’t like to be embarrassed. You know, they don’t — that gets their attention. The press is an enormous factor. Press is more of a factor in changing corporate behavior than regulations or Sarbanes-Oxley or that sort of thing. You want a good press. But the press needs the material, and material — the raw material — for that could be — I won’t name the organizations — but if you take the half a dozen largest investment organizations, I think it would have a lot of impact if they would — if they could get together on short statements when they felt pay was really egregious.

And I don’t know what you individually can do about that, and I don’t know how you create the incentives for the big institutions to do that. I mean, it doesn’t really do that much for them personally. I don’t think — I think the — a lot of the checklists that institutions use as determining whether they approve of corporate practices are asinine. I mean, they — you know, they get sort of the “issue du jure” and they get — and they get people recommending how they vote their proxies, which is kind of silly. I don’t know why they can’t make up their minds themselves as to what they think is proper or not proper. And Ben Graham, many years ago, bemoaned investors as a bunch of sheep. And with big institutions, I haven’t seen much difference. But it wouldn’t take many of them. It would take — just take a few of the biggest ones and the willingness to speak out. And the press would do the rest and boards would respond to that. But they’re not going to respond to you.

I mean, I have to be, you know, totally candid about that. A small shareholder can write the most persuasive arguments in the world, and I’ve been on the board where they’ve received those kind of letters. And basically they turn them over to the corporate secretary and say, “Take care of this,” or something of the sort. It takes real effective pressure to change behavior where the behavior is in the self-interest of that person. People do not give up self-interest easily. Charlie?

查理·芒格：这是一个老问题。在英国，那里有过很多阶级斗争，他们一度把所得税提高到90%，所以除了不申报收入之外，根本不可能有高额劳动收入。税率高到了那个程度。这对英国来说是相当反生产的。所以，你会得到一种嫉妒的政治，这种政治因为过高薪酬引发的自然怨恨和嫉妒等情绪，会毁掉经济体系。我认为拿高薪的人有道德义务不要拿那么多。我会说，当你在美国企业界升到足够高时，你就有道德义务拿低薪，不是拿你能拿到的一切，而是实际上拿更低的薪水。如果人们身居将军、大主教等职位却拿低薪，我不明白为什么大企业领导人就不能少拿最后那一块钱。（掌声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s an old question. In England, where they had a lot of class warfare, they at one time got the income taxes up to, like, 90 percent, so there just wasn’t any possibility of having a large earned income except, you know, by not reporting it. The tax rate got that high. That was quite counterproductive for England. And so you can get a politics of envy that sort of ruins the economic system because of the natural resentments and jealousies and so forth involved in excessive compensation. I think the people taking the compensation have a moral duty not to take it. I would argue that, when you rise high enough in American business, you get a moral duty to be underpaid, not to get all you can, but to actually be underpaid. If people are going to be generals and archbishops and everything else at low pay, I don’t see why leaders of great big enterprise can’t take less than the last dollar. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：你有什么关于如何实现这些观点的建议吗？（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Do you have any suggestions on how to implement those sentiments? (Laughs)

查理·芒格：非常困难。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s very difficult.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。查理总是说，嫉妒在他看来是七宗罪里最愚蠢的，因为当你嫉妒别人的时候，你会感觉更糟，而他们感觉没什么——他们感觉很好。事实上，也许他们感觉更好了，因为你嫉妒他们。所以这是一种非常反生产的东西。所以，把嫉妒排除在你的技能包之外。而暴食——（笑声）——我的意思是，那还是有点好处的。（笑声）也许是暂时的，可能有些副作用，但是，你知道，暴食还是有点意思的。至于色欲，当然，我让查理来说。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Charlie has always said that envy is — strikes him — as the silliest of the seven deadly sins, because when you’re envious of somebody, you feel worse, and they don’t feel any — they feel fine. In fact, maybe they even feel better because you’re envious. So it’s such a counterproductive type of thing. So we — rule out as envy as part of your repertoire. And gluttony — (laughs) — I mean, that has some upside to it. (Laughter) Maybe temporary, may have some side effects, but, you know, there’s something to gluttony. And so lust, of course, I’ll let Charlie speak to. (Laughter)

29. 作为整体购买制药股是可以的

沃伦·巴菲特：第十一题。

原文

29. It’s OK to buy pharmaceuticals as a group

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 11.

听众：您好。我是来自加拿大多伦多的克莱蒙·洛。我想感谢你们精彩的会议，我觉得在这几个小时里学到的东西比在大学很多个小时里学到的还要多。我的问题是，您投资了强生和赛诺菲等制药公司。您如何评估这些公司的研发管线，并知道它们的竞争优势是否确实持久？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. I’m Clemmon Low (PH) from Toronto, Canada. I want to thank you for the wonderful meeting, and I think I’ve learned a lot more here in a few hours than many, many more hours during university days. My question is, you have invested in drug companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi. How do you evaluate the pipeline of these companies and know if their competitive advantage is, indeed, enduring?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是个好问题。与许多业务不同，当我们投资像制药这样的领域时，我们不知道研发管线的答案。反正五年后也会是不同的管线。所以我们不知道辉瑞或默克，你知道，或者你随便提一家——强生——我们不知道哪一家会在三四年后推出重磅商业药物，我们也不试图去评估。我们觉得的是，如果我们以合理的价格买入一组这样的公司，总体来说，制药行业会表现不错。也许不会像过去那么好，但他们正在做一些非常重要的事情。他们正在做的事情应该提供随时间获得可观利润的机会。我们不是逐个挑选。我无法告诉你强生或赛诺菲的研发管线中排名第一的潜力产品是什么——无论你提哪家。

所以我认为在这个领域，实际上，采用组合方法是有道理的，但这并不是我们在银行或其他行业采用的方式。我确实认为，如果你以合理的市盈率买入一组制药股，你知道，五到十年后你可能会表现不错。我不知道如何挑选具体的赢家。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a good question. And unlike many businesses, when we invest in something like pharma, we don’t know the answer on the pipeline. It will be a different pipeline anyway five years from now. So we don’t know whether Pfizer or Merck, you know, or you name it — Johnson & Johnson — we don’t know which of those will come up with a blockbuster commercial drug three or four years from now, and we don’t try to assess it. What we do feel is, if we have a group of those companies bought at reasonable prices, that, overall, pharma will do well. Maybe not quite as well as they have in the past, but they’re doing something enormously important. They’re doing something that should offer chances for decent profits over time. And we do not pick one by one. I could not tell you what’s the number one potential in the pipeline of a J&J or Sanofi — whatever which one you want to name.

So I think in that area, actually, a group approach makes sense, which is not the way we would go at the banks or something of that sort. I do think if you buy pharma stocks at a reasonable multiple, a group of them, you know, you’ll probably do OK five or 10 years from now. I would not know how to pick the specific winner. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，你是在代表我们两个在药理学方面的全部知识说话。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you speak from a position where you have a monopoly of our joint knowledge about pharmacology. (Laughter)

30. 伯克希尔为何卖出中石油

沃伦·巴菲特：我们继续第十二题。（笑声）他在一天中晚些时候会变得暴躁。（笑声）我们快要结束了，但我们可以再回答几个问题。

原文

30. Why Berkshire sold PetroChina

WARREN BUFFETT: We will move on to number 12. (Laughter) He gets cranky later in the day. (Laughter) And we’re just about to the end, but we can take a couple more.

听众：谢谢。我姓周，来自中国无锡。谢谢巴菲特先生和芒格先生对中国和奥运会的公正评价。为了支持您（听不清），我们有一群中国上市公司的董事长和CEO来到奥马哈，试图向最优秀的人学习如何运营上市公司。（掌声）

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. My name is Chow (PH). I’m coming from Woshi, China. Thank you, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, for your unbiased opinion on China and Olympics. To support your (inaudible), we have a group of chairmen and CEOs from Chinese public companies to come to Omaha and try to learn from the best of how public companies should be run. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you.

听众：快速一个问题。我们注意到您对中石油做了一个快速的交易，而不是您通常采用的买入并持有方式。我们的问题是，在决定卖出中石油时，您想到了什么？您对这些高管有什么建议？中国有积极的力量，我们欢迎大家来参加我们的奥运会。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Quick question. We observed that you made a quick trade on PetroChina, not a typical buy and hold approach you do on investment. Our question is, when it’s come to selling PetroChina, what comes to your mind, and what suggestions you may have to these group of executives? There are positive forces in China, and we welcome everyone to our Olympics.

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。（掌声）几个月前我在这里见了中国投资有限公司的郭博士。对他印象非常深刻，在这里奥马哈和他共进了午餐。关于中石油的决定，就像我们当初决定买入它时，当时它的总估值在350到400亿美元，我们觉得它值1000亿。当油价在每桶70美元左右、大概75美元时，我估算它的价值大约在2750亿到3000亿美元之间，我们可以以那个价格卖出。我们不再觉得它相对于其他石油公司被低估了，所以我们卖掉了股票。顺便说一句，就在我们卖出后，它大幅上涨，因为正如你所知，他们在中国发行了A股，变得非常受欢迎。有一段时间，中石油成了按市值计算全球最有价值的公司，这在七八年前会让投资者大吃一惊。所以，他们做得非常出色。如果它的价格跌到我们认为相对于其估值有折扣——显著折扣——的水平，我们会再次买入中石油。

就——我不太确定我们目前是否有很多可以从中国学习商业的地方，比他们从我们这里学到的东西还多。我不确定我们是否希望我们的一些做法传播到中国。那里正在发生的事情是一个了不起的社会。我前不久去了大连，从市中心到我们的工厂，我大概开车走了45分钟。我看到了，真的，数百家工厂——最近几年发展起来的工厂。经济——中国人民开始意识到他们的潜力。我的意思是，这相当于——几个世纪以来——你有很多有能力的人，但系统没有释放他们的潜力。现在潜力开始被释放，这就是为什么你们的人均GDP增长非常可观，我认为这将继续下去。我只是建议你们寻找美国工业中的最佳实践，看到它们就模仿，然后抛弃其余的部分。我认为，你知道，这就是你学习人类行为的方式。

你试着——如果你看到一个有效率的个人，你试图找出他们为什么有效率。你知道，为什么唐·基奥，为什么汤姆·墨菲——他们为什么如此有效率？为什么人们愿意围绕在他们身边？为什么他们是领导者？为什么人们爱他们？你会看到某些人类品质，你应该模仿这些品质。当你看到某个家伙，他本应拥有一切，但镇上每个人都讨厌他，你知道，你要确保自己没有那些品质。嗯，在考察这个国家的企业时，我也会做同样的事情，努力寻找我钦佩的东西并效仿，并且确保——非常努力——不让你在我们这里发现的、令你不悦的东西渗入你自己的系统。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you. (Applause.) And I met Dr. Guo from the China Investment Corp here a few months ago. Was very impressed by him, had lunch with him here in Omaha. The PetroChina decision, just as we made it to buy it at a valuation overall of 35 to 40 billion when we thought it was worth a hundred billion, when oil was at $70 a barrel, roughly, 75, I figured the value was about 275 or 300 billion and we could sell it at that price. And we no longer felt it was undervalued compared to other oil companies, so we sold our stock. Now, incidentally, right after we sold it, it went up dramatically because, as you know, they issued A shares in in China, and it became very popular. And at one time, PetroChina became the most valuable company in the world, measured by market value, which would have come as enormous surprise to investors seven or eight years earlier. So they’ve done a terrific job. And if it went down to a price that we thought was a discount — a significant discount — to its valuation, we would buy PetroChina again.

The — in terms of — I’m not so sure we don’t have a lot to learn from the Chinese in terms of business currently, more than they have to learn from us. I’m not sure we would want some of our practices to spread to China. It’s a remarkable society, what’s going on there now. And I did go to Dalian not long ago, and I must have traveled for 45 minutes from the center of town out to our plant there. And I just saw, really, hundreds of plants that — factories that had developed in recent years. The economy is — the Chinese people are starting to realize their potential. I mean, what it amounted to is you had — for centuries — you had people of lots of ability but a system that did not unleash their potential. And now it’s starting to be unleashed, and that’s why you’re getting very substantial GDP growth per capita, and I think it will continue. I would just look for the best practices in American industry as you see them and copy them, and I would discard the rest. And I think it’s — you know, it’s how you learn about human behavior.

You try to — if you look at an effective individual, you try to figure out why they’re effective. You know, why is Don Keough, why are Tom Murphy — why are they so effective? Why do people want to be around them? Why are they leaders? Why do people love them? And you see certain human qualities, and you should copy those qualities. And when you see some guy that should have everything going for him and everybody in town hates him, you know, you want to make sure you don’t have any of those qualities. Well, I would do the same thing in terms of looking at businesses in this country, and try to look for what I admire and emulate it, and make sure that — try very hard — not to let the things that you find over here that are distasteful to you creep into your own system. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，我希望你回到中国后告诉他们，你至少遇到一个非常赞同孔子尊重老年男性观点的人。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I hope you’ll go back to China and tell them that you met at least one fellow that really approves the Confucius emphasis on reverence for elderly males. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：我认为你应该把女性也包括进去来自救，查理。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I think you should dig yourself out of that by including females too, Charlie. (Laughs)

查理·芒格：那不是孔子的想法。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: That wasn’t Confucius’s idea.

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，好吧。没有理由你不能修改一下。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh, OK. No reason why you can’t modify it. (Laughs)

31. 对伯克希尔的未来期望

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。我们再来一个，然后休息一下，几分钟后回来进行正式的业务会议。第一题。

原文

31. Future hopes for Berkshire

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. We’ll have one more, and then we’ll take a break and come back for the business meeting in a few minutes. Number 1.

听众：巴菲特先生和芒格先生，我叫辛西娅·比曼，来自加利福尼亚州阿瑟顿。我的问题是：您对伯克希尔·哈撒韦未来的最大期望是什么？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, my name is Cynthia Beeman (PH), and I’m from Atherton, California. This is my question: what is your fondest hope for Berkshire Hathaway moving forward in time?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，总的来说，我期望两件事——显然，我期望有不错的业绩，并且我希望我们拥有的文化得以保持，这种文化既以股东为导向，也以经理为导向，并且我们被视为世界上最好的大型、优秀的家族企业归宿。我认为业绩和这两个目标在某种程度上会相互交织。我不仅期望，而且完全相信，我们试图在伯克希尔建立的东西将远远超越我担任CEO的任期。我认为它会，因为，第一，我们有合适的接班人。除此之外，我们有董事会，有一批经理，他们都看到了这个系统运作得有多好。所以我认为我们拥有在美国企业中能找到的最强大的文化之一。如果这能持续下去，我非常确信它会持续很长很长时间，我认为我们会得到不错的结果。我们不会得到伟大的结果，因为以我们的规模基础，你无法获得那样的结果。

但这是我的希望——20年后，如果有人拥有一家他们花了几代人时间建立的好企业，他们立刻想到——如果他们因为某种原因不得不卖掉它——他们会想到伯克希尔·哈撒韦是他们想要的企业所有权归属地，并且作为经理，他们希望在那家公司继续工作，度过余生。如果我们能做到这一点，我们就能为股东带来好的东西，也能为我们所收购企业的经理和所有者带来好的东西。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, in a general way, I hope for two things — obviously, I hope for decent performance, and I hope that the culture we have is maintained, which is both shareholderoriented and manager-oriented, and that we are regarding as the best home in the world for large, wonderful, family businesses. And I think the performance and those two goals will be intertwined, in a way. And I not only hope, but I fully expect, that what we’ve tried to build into Berkshire lives far beyond, you know, my tenure as CEO. And I think it will because, A, we’ve got the right candidates to succeed me. And, beyond that, we have a board, we have a bunch of managers, that have all seen how well the system works. So I think that we have about as strong a culture as you could find in this country among American businesses. And if that’s continued, as I’m really sure it will be for a long, long, long time, I think we will get decent results. We won’t get great results, because you can’t get them from our size base.

But that’s my hope — that people 20 years from now, if they have a fine business they’ve spent a couple of generations building, and they immediately think — if they have to sell it for some reason — they think Berkshire Hathaway is the place where we want the ownership of this business and we want — as managers, we want to continue working at that company for the rest of their lives. And if we can achieve that, we’ll have something fine for shareholders, and we’ll have something fine for managers and owners of those businesses we buy. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的。我想说，我希望伯克希尔更当之无愧地成为一个榜样，我希望它对其他公司的变革有更多实际影响力。我认为这里发生的一些事情将对他人有用。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. I would say that I would like to see Berkshire even more deserved to be an exemplar, and I would like to see it have more actual influence on changes in other corporations. I think there are things that have happened here that will be useful to others.

沃伦·巴菲特：我们也希望它能拥有最年长的在任经理，但那是一个小问题。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We’d also like it to have the oldest living managers, but that’s a minor point. (Applause.)

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢。谢谢。谢谢。谢谢。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

32. 正式业务会议前休息

沃伦·巴菲特：现在我们要做的就是休息五分钟左右，然后重新集合举行正式的业务会议。之后，下午4点，对于国际访客，来自北美以外的朋友们，查理和我将亲自与他们见面。我感谢大家的光临。希望你们明年再来，并带上朋友。谢谢。（掌声）

原文

32. Break before formal business meeting

WARREN BUFFETT: The — now what we’ll do is we’ll just break for five or so minutes, and then we’ll reconvene and have the formal business meeting. After that, at 4 o’clock, for the international visitors, those from outside of North America, we will — Charlie and I — will meet with them personally. And I thank you all for coming. I hope you come back next year and bring your friends. Thank you. (Applause)

33. 正式业务会议

沃伦·巴菲特：——关于他们公司审计或伯克希尔账目的相关问题。我们的秘书福雷斯特·克鲁特先生将