Open Table of contents

2009年年度股东大会

上午场

1. 问答环节开始

沃伦·巴菲特：早上好。我是沃伦。这边这位精力充沛的伙计是查理。（笑声）我们马上就开始问答环节，至少是一个提问环节，和去年会有些不同。我们右边有一个小组——我这里看不太清楚——由记者们组成，他们会和现场观众轮流提问。我们会交替进行。我这里有一张小清单，会在交替时使用。好了。我们还应该有一支笔用来打勾。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Good morning. I’m Warren. The hyperkinetic fellow here is Charlie. (Laughter) And we’re going to go in just a minute to a question and answer section, at least a question section, that will be a little different than last year. We have a panel — I can’t see very well here — over to the right, of journalists who will ask questions and alternate with the people in the audience. And we’ll go back and forth. Got a little checklist here that we’ll use as we go back and forth. Here we are. And we should have a pen here someplace to check things off.

2. 董事会成员介绍

沃伦·巴菲特：但首先，尽管我们稍后会有正式会议，我想先介绍一下我们的董事。请他们在被念到名字时起立，并保持站立直到结束。请大家等到最后再鼓掌，或者甚至更晚如果你愿意的话——（笑声）——我们会向他们致意。我们稍后会召开会议选举他们。请起立。就像我说的，这里灯光太强看不清楚——但有我和查理，我们先开始。然后是霍华德·巴菲特、苏珊·德克尔、比尔·盖茨、桑迪·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。这些是伯克希尔·哈撒韦的董事。（掌声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: But first, even though we’ll have the formal meeting later on, I would like to introduce our directors. And if they would stand as I announce them and then remain standing until the end. And if you’ll just hold your applause until the end or even later if you wish — (laughter) — we’ll recognize them. We’ll have a meeting later on to elect them. But if you’ll stand up. And like I say, you can’t see very well here with the lights, but — There’s me and Charlie, we start off. And then Howard Buffett, Susan Decker, Bill Gates, Sandy Gottesman, Charlotte Guyman , Don Keough, Tom Murphy, Ron Olson, and Walter Scott. Those are the directors of Berkshire Hathaway. (Applause)

3. 床垫下的钱比国债更划算

沃伦·巴菲特：现在我们只有一张幻灯片，实际上这比我们通常用的要多。（笑）但——它确实能说明去年发生的一些事情。同时它也为我们那款著名的、具有夜间存款功能的”Nervous Nellie”床垫做了广告。（笑声）去年——幻灯片上显示了吗？去年12月19日，我们开出了一张凭证。我们卖出了500万美元的国库券。希望你们能看到。12月19日那里被圈出来了。这些国库券于今年4月29日到期。也就是说，它们将在四个多月后到期。值得注意的是——这告诉你这是多么不寻常的一年——我们卖出的这500万美元国库券，将在2009年4月29日以500万美元兑付，但在2008年12月，我们以5,000,090美元零7美分的价格卖出了它们。

换句话说，如果那个从我们这里买入、支付了5,000,090美元的人，当初买了”Nervous Nellie”床垫并把钱放在床垫下，那么四个月后，他们反而会比买国库券多赚90美元。如果美国财政部当时卖出了5万亿美元的这样的国债，他们可以轻松赚到9000万美元，而蒂姆·盖特纳可以把钱放在”Nervous Nellie”床垫下，我们所有人都会过得更好。美国国库券出现负收益率确实是一件非常不寻常的事情。你从美国财政部得到的钱比你放在床垫下得到的还要少。我不确定你一生中是否还会再看到这种情况。但这确实是极其不平凡的一年。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Now, we only have one slide, which actually is more than we would usually have. (Laughs) And — but it does tell you something about what happened last year. And it also acts as a commercial for our Nervous Nellie mattress with the famous night depository feature. (Laughter) Last year — and have we got that up on the slide? Last year, we wrote a ticket on December 19th. And we sold 5 million of Treasury bills. I hope you can see that. It’s — we’ve got the December 19th circled up there. And those Treasury bills came due, or were to come due, on April 29th of this year. So they were going to come due over four months later. And the remarkable thing is, and this tells you about what an extraordinary year it was, is that we sold those $5 million of Treasury bills, which were going to pay off at $5 million on April 29th of 2009, in December of 2008 we sold them for five million and ninety dollars and seven cents.

In other words, if the person who bought those from us and paid us five million and ninety dollars, instead had bought the Nervous Nellie mattress and had put their money under the mattress, they would’ve been $90 better off at the end of four months, than by buying Treasury bills. If the U.S. Treasury had just sold 5 trillion of these, they could’ve made an easy $90 million and Tim Geithner could’ve put the money under a Nervous Nellie mattress and we all would’ve been better off. Negative yields on U.S. Treasury bills are really an extraordinary thing. You’ve got less on — less for your money from the U.S. Treasury than you got from sticking it under a mattress. I’m not sure you’ll see that again in your lifetime. But it’s been a very extraordinary year.

4. 记者小组介绍

沃伦·巴菲特：我们邀请了记者们到场。有《财富》杂志的卡罗尔·卢米斯，CNBC的贝基·奎克，以及《纽约时报》的安德鲁·罗斯·索尔金。他们收到了来自全国各地股东的问题。安德鲁告诉我，仅今天早上他就收到了几百个。他们挑选了他们认为——都是与伯克希尔·哈撒韦相关的问题。在近几年的年会上，我们遇到了一个问题，就是话题会偏离伯克希尔，跑到诸如别人家孩子最近在学校表现如何之类的事情上去了。（笑声）所以我们想把它拉回伯克希尔一点。因此，他们从收到的与伯克希尔相关的问题中挑选了最好的。我们将从——先从卡罗尔·卢米斯开始。然后转到观众席。我们有13个区域，12个在这个大厅，1个在另一个厅。我们通过抽签系统，在半小时到一小时前，从每个观众区选出了提问者。我们会交替进行。

就这样，我们从卡罗尔开始。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We have with us, the journalists. We have Carol Loomis of Fortune. We have Becky Quick of CNBC. And we have Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. They have received questions from shareholders all over the country. Andrew told me that he received a couple hundred just this morning. And they have selected what they think are — they’re all Berkshire Hathaway-related questions. We were having a problem in recent annual meetings where we sort of drifted away from Berkshire, into the realm of what people’s children had done in school recently and that sort of thing. (Laughter) So we wanted to bring it back a little bit to Berkshire. So they have selected among the best of the Berkshire-related questions that they’ve received. And we will go from — we will start with Carol Loomis. And we will go then to the audience. We have 13 sections, 12 in this room, one in an overflow room. And we have selected the people in each of the audience sections by a raffle system, half an hour to an hour ago. And we’ll go back and forth.

And with that, we’ll start it off with Carol.

5. 卡罗尔·卢米斯的说明

卡罗尔·卢米斯：早上好。我先来是因为卢米斯（Loomis）按字母顺序排在前面。但这让我有机会先简单说几句，告诉你们——关于我们收到的问题。我们今天早上碰过头。安德鲁收到的肯定比我和贝基都多。我们总共收到了近5000个问题，我想这甚至会让沃伦感到惊讶。因为我觉得他不知道会有这么多。我主要想说的是，其中非常多的问题都非常好。我们真的很难把它们精简到我们大概能提问的数量。我们甚至还不确定具体能问多少。但我想向任何给我们发送了与伯克希尔相关问题的人道歉，因为我们不得不剔除一些，因为它们不相关，而且你们的问题我们没有机会问到。也许明年会有机会。

原文

CAROL LOOMIS: Good morning. I come first because Loomis outrakes — outranks — the others alphabetically. But this gives me a chance to just have a few sentences to tell you that — about the questions that we received. We conferred this morning. Andrew definitely got more than any, either Becky or me. We got almost 5,000 questions, which I think even will surprise Warren. Because I don’t think he knew that it’d run that high. And the main thing I wanted to say is that an awfully lot of them were very good. And we had a real problem trying to get them down to the number that we’re probably going to be able to ask. We don’t even know what that is for sure. But we want to apologize to anybody who sent us a Berkshire-related question, because we did have to cut out some because they weren’t that, and whose question we didn’t get asked. And maybe in another year, it will work.

6. 我们的股指衍生品并不危险

卡罗尔·卢米斯：那么，我的第一个问题：“沃伦和查理，特别是沃伦。你曾将衍生品——这是著名的说法——称为’大规模金融杀伤性武器’。在1964年的电影《奇爱博士》中，由斯利姆·皮肯斯饰演的、绰号’金刚’的T.J.康格少校，骑着一件大规模杀伤性武器从他的B-52轰炸机的弹舱中飞了出去。作为一名长期持有伯克希尔股票的股东，我今天感觉有点像斯利姆。我理解，尽管股票市场大幅下跌，但考虑到我们保费的回报，我们很可能在我们的衍生品上赚钱。‘但考虑到这些衍生品所——至少暂时性地——摧毁的会计权益、法定资本以及，我认为，市场价值——‘这是提问者说的——‘你认为这些大规模的衍生品头寸对于一家高评级的保险公司来说是否合适？如果合适，你是否打算增加这些头寸？”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我想说的是。提问者在某种程度上自己回答了自己的问题。我不知道他是否像我一样强烈预期这些头寸总体上会赚钱。但是，你知道，我们的工作是让伯克希尔·哈撒韦随着时间的推移赚钱。它不影响资本。我们安排它们的方式是，抵押品追缴要求——这是衍生品领域的重大危险之一——我们在这方面面临的风险非常非常小。即使在3月31日，当市场相对于我们签订这些交易时大幅下跌时，我们提交的抵押品也仅占我们总可销售证券的不到1%。所以它们对世界总体上不构成问题。这就是为什么我在2002年的报告中，从宏观角度将它们称为大规模金融杀伤性武器。但我当时在那份报告中也说过，我们在自己的业务中会定期使用它们，当我们认为它们被错误定价时。

而且我们认为我们的股东足够聪明，如果我们解释这些交易——就像我们在年度报告中试图做的那样——并解释为什么我们认为我们会赚钱——没有人保证我们会赚钱，但我们的预期是我们会赚钱——我们认为，只要我们解释清楚，对股东的经济后果远远超过任何会计后果。我们在之前的报告中解释过，由于按市值计价，这些东西作为会计负债可能会波动数十亿美元。但是，例如，在我们的股票看跌期权中，唯一发生的现金流入是我们已经收到了大约49亿美元。我们持有这笔钱。最初，这些条款是15到20年。所以我们在15到20年内拥有这49亿美元的使用权。而届时市场必须比交易开始时更低。所以我个人认为，在这些股票看跌期权上，我们赚钱的几率非常高。我认为在我们已卖出的高收益指数信用违约掉期上，在计算我们持有的资金价值之前，我们很可能会亏钱。

现在，一年前我告诉过你们，我认为我们会在这上面赚钱。但在过去的一年里，我们遇到的破产数量远超正常水平。实际上，我们经历了一场金融飓风。我们为自然飓风提供保险。我们也为金融飓风提供保险。而我们正处于一场金融飓风之中。所以我预计这些合约，在计入投资收益之前，会显示亏损，也许计入投资收益之后也是。规模更大的合约是股票看跌期权合约。我认为我们在这些合约上赚钱的几率非常高。如果我们能按当前价格来写这些合约就好了，但我们可能无法在不涉及抵押品追缴要求的情况下做到这一点。所以我们在这些合约上有非常有利的地位。事实上，就在上周，我们修改了两份股票看跌期权合约，其中一份的执行价是1514点，现已降至标普500指数的994点。我们将其期限缩短了8年，但它仍有大约10年到期。

所以仅仅因为将期限从18年减少到大约10年，我们仍然拥有这10年的资金使用权，我们将执行价从1514点降至994点。所以我认为这些将是极其有利的合约。我认为我们的股东足够聪明，如果得到恰当的解释，他们会认识到这些合约有多么有利。我们将继续持有它们。我们将继续解释它们。它们对我们的财务灵活性没有影响。而我们远不止是一家保险公司。我的意思是，我们的盈利来自许多领域。母公司有大量现金。子公司也有大量现金。我们没有任何形式的重大债务到期。所以我们非常适合持有这类工具。查理，你怎么看？

查理·芒格：嗯，我同意提问者的看法，我们做这些事情应该有一定限度。但我认为我们远未达到那个限度。

原文

CAROL LOOMIS: So, my first question, “Warren and Charlie, Warren particularly. “You have referred to derivatives, this is famous, as weapons — financial weapons — of mass destruction. “In the 1964 movie, ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ Major T.J. Kong, nicknamed ‘King’ Kong and played by Slim Pickens, rides a weapon of mass destruction out of the bomb bay of his B-52. “As a long-term Berkshire shareholder, I’m feeling a little like Slim today. I understand that despite the dramatic decline in the stock market, there is a good probability we could make money on our derivatives, taking into account the return on our premiums. “But given the amount of accounting equity and statutory capital, and, I would argue, market value —” this is the questioner saying this — “that these derivatives have destroyed, at least temporarily, do you think these large derivative positions are appropriate for a highly-rated insurance company? “And if so, you do you think you will be adding to these positions?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I would say this. The questioner to some extent answers his own question. I don’t know whether he anticipates as strongly as I do that, net, these positions will make money. But over — you know, our job is to make money over time at Berkshire Hathaway. It does not impinge on capital. We have arranged them so that the collateral posting requirements, which are one of the big dangers in the derivatives field, that we have very, very minimal exposure to that. Even on March 31st, at a time when the market was down very substantially from when we entered into these transactions, we had posted collateral of a little less than 1 percent of our total marketable securities. So they have no — they pose no — they pose problems to the world, generally. And that’s why I referred to them on a macro basis, in the 2002 report, as being financial weapons of mass destruction. But I also said in that report, that we use them in our own business regularly when we think they’re mispriced.

And we think our shareholders are intelligent enough that if we explain the transactions, as we try to do in the annual report, and explain why we think we will make money — there’s no guarantee we’ll make money, but our expectancy is that we will make money — we think that as long as we explain them, that the financial consequences to our shareholders far outweigh any accounting consequences. We explained in earlier reports that because of mark-to-market, that these things can swing billions of dollars as an accounting liability. But the only cash that has taken place, for example, in our equity put options, we have received $4.9 billion roughly. And we hold that money. Originally, the terms of these were 15 to 20 years. So we have the use of $4.9 billion for 15 to 20 years. And then markets have to be lower at that time than they were at the time of inception. So I personally think that the odds are extremely good that on the equity put options, we will make money. I think on the high-yield index, credit default swaps we’ve written, I think that we will probably lose money before figuring the value of the money we’ve held.

Now, I told you a year ago, I thought we would make money on those. But we have run into far more bankruptcies in the last year than is normal. We’ve, in effect, had a financial hurricane. We insure against natural hurricanes. And we insure against a financial hurricane. And we have been in a bit of a financial hurricane. So I would expect those contracts, before investment income, would show a loss, and perhaps, after investment income. The bigger contracts are the equity put contracts. And I think the odds are very high that we make money on those. Now, it would be nice if we were writing with current prices. But we probably couldn’t write them without getting into collateral posting requirements now. So we have a very favorable position on those. In fact, in the last week, we modified two equity put contracts, one that had a strike price of 1514. That has been reduced to 994 on the S&P 500. Now, we shortened it up eight years. But it still has about 10 years to run.

So merely for reducing the term from 18 years to about 10 years, we still have the use of the money for 10 years, we reduced the strike price from 1514 to 994. So I think those are going to be very advantageous contracts. I think our shareholders are intelligent enough to, if they’re explained properly, to realize how advantageous they are. And we’ll continue to hold them. And we’ll continue to explain them. And they have no impact on our financial flexibility. And we are far more than an insurance company. I mean, we have earnings coming in from many areas. We have lots of cash sitting at the parent company. We have lots of cash in the subsidiaries. We have no significant debt maturities of any kind. So we’re ideally suited to hold this sort of instrument. And Charlie, what would you say?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would agree with the questioner that there is some limit to the amount of those things we should do. But I think we stayed well short of the limit.

7. 金融知识问题可能对伯克希尔有利

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们到1号区。

观众：你好。我叫斯科特·斯莱比（音）。我来自科罗拉多州丹佛市。首先，我想感谢巴菲特先生和芒格先生今天邀请我们来到这里。我很感激你们把我们请到这里，非常感谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：也谢谢你。

观众：你们回答我们的问题，这太棒了。我以前是老师。或者说我是老师。我不应该说是”以前”。您自己以前也是老师，我看到了我们未来一代在金融知识方面存在的问题。我很好奇，您认为未来的一代应该知道些什么？随着我们向前发展，学校里是否需要增加一些课程来教导年轻人金融知识？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我认为我们这一代人的金融知识也有问题。（笑声）安迪·海沃德，他曾帮助我们制作卡通片，他有一家——他去年卖掉了他的公司，但他有了一家新公司。他将要推出一个解决这个问题的节目。我在里面扮演一个很小的角色。美国广播公司（ABC）也即将推出一个节目，里面有很多知名人士参与，将涉及金融知识问题。你知道，在一个充斥着信用卡的世界里，在一个依赖于计算器而不是让人们坐下来做实际算术的世界里，教这些东西很难。但最终，我认为随着时间的推移，我们会取得进展。我的意思是，我希望我们的年度报告能对此有所贡献。但你总会看到人们用钱做非常愚蠢的事情。我记得在我度蜜月的时候，我21岁，我妻子19岁。我们开车向西。我从未去过西部。我们穿过了拉斯维加斯。那是1952年。

我们在火烈鸟酒店停了下来。那时赌场里的人们穿着更讲究。有一群奥马哈的伙计当时实际上拥有火烈鸟酒店的一部分，他们对我们非常友好。但我环顾那个赌场，看到各种各样穿着体面的人，他们旅行了数千英里来做一些非常愚蠢的事情。我想，这是一个你会变得非常富有的国家。（笑声）如果人们要从纽约坐飞机飞越几千英里，站在那里做每一行动数学期望都是负数的事情，那是一个充满机会的世界。所以——（笑声）——我——你知道，我建议你——你和你的学生们一起努力。我21岁时开始在奥马哈大学教书。你和你的学生们一起努力，让他们具备金融知识。他们将拥有巨大的优势。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，在一个许多州以彩票形式进行合法赌博的世界里，人们被鼓励参与赔率不利的赌博；在一个我们过度使用高成本信用卡债务的世界里，我们需要更多的金融知识。我会说——金融素养。我认为我们一直在朝着错误的方向前进。所以我不认为你能教给那些连信用卡都不会明智使用的人——（笑声）——高深的金融知识。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。如果你——我跟学生们谈过这个。如果你愿意为信用卡支付18%或21%的利息——顺便说一句，信用卡公司现在需要这个，因为损失接近10%。加上费用，他们可能需要那个利率。但没有任何办法能让你以那样的利率借钱还能在财务上获利。我不知道怎么做到。这很糟糕。另一方面，这可能对我们的业务有好处。我的意思是，我们——你知道——我们在寻找被错误定价的东西。越多的人认为用信用卡借钱是明智的，他们可能就越不认为做长期股票看跌期权合约是明智的。我们走我们的路，他们走他们的路。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ll go to zone 1.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name’s Scott Slaybee (PH). I’m from Denver, Colorado. First off, I’d like to thank Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger for having us out here today. I appreciate you bringing us out here so thank you very much.

WARREN BUFFETT: And thank you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And it’s great that you answer our questions. I’m a former teacher. Or I’m a teacher. I shouldn’t say former. Being a former teacher yourself, I see a problem with financial literacy with our future generations. And I’m curious what you think future generations should know and if there’s anything that needs to be in school curriculums to teach younger people financial literacy as we move forward?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I think there’s a problem with financial literacy with our current generation. (Laughter) There’s a — Andy Heyward, who has helped us with the cartoon, has a — will have a — he sold his company last year, but he has a new company. And he will have a program coming out that works on that question. And that I play a very small part in. ABC has a program coming up with a number of well-known personalities in it that will deal with the question of financial literacy. And it’s, you know, it is a tough sell in a world of credit cards and, you know, a world that depends on calculators rather than people sitting down and doing actual arithmetic and all of that, to teach people. But in the end, I think we make progress over time. I mean, I hope our annual reports contribute to that sort of thing. But you’re going to have people doing very foolish things with money. I remember on my honeymoon. I was 21 and my wife was 19. And we drove west. I’d never been west. And we went through Las Vegas. And it was 1952.

And we stopped at the Flamingo. And people were better dressed in the casinos then. And there were a bunch of Omaha fellows that actually owned part of the Flamingo at that time, terribly nice to us. But I looked around at that casino and I saw all kinds of well-dressed people who had traveled thousands of miles to do something very dumb. And I thought this is a country where you’re going to get very rich. (Laughter) If people are going to get on a plane in New York and fly a couple thousand miles to stand there and do things with a mathematical expectation that’s negative on every action they take, that is a world of opportunity. So — (Laughter) I, you know, I recommend that you and — you work with your students. I started teaching at the University of Omaha, you know, when I was 21. And you work with your students to make them literate. And they will have a terrific advantage. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, a world where legalized gambling is now conducted by a great many states in the form of lotteries where people are encouraged to bet against the odds and a world where we have a vast overuse of high-cost credit card debt, it needs a lot more financial litery. I would argue — literacy. I think we’ve been going in the wrong direction. So I don’t think you can teach people high finance who can’t use a credit card — (laughter) — intelligently.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. If you’re — I talk to students about that. If you’re willing to pay 18 or 21 percent on a credit card — And the credit cards companies need it, incidentally, currently, because you have losses running close to 10 percent. So with expenses, they may need that. But there’s no way that you’re going to financially come out borrowing money at those kind of rates. And I wouldn’t know how to do it. And it’s too bad. On the other hand, it’s probably good for our business. I mean, one of — you know — we are looking for things that are mispriced. And the more people think that borrowing money on credit cards is intelligent, they probably will not think that doing long-term equity put contracts is intelligent. And we’ll go our way and they’ll go their way.

8. 巴菲特”赞扬”华盛顿应对信贷危机的举措

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

贝基·奎克：沃伦，首先，有人让我们转达一个消息，今天到场人数是35,000人。

沃伦·巴菲特：很好。（掌声）现在——

贝基·奎克：这——

沃伦·巴菲特：现在如果他们都适当地消费，那将是重要的一天。（笑声）

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自俄亥俄州洛根市的詹姆斯·刘易斯（音），他说可以使用他的名字和所在城市。他说：“伯克希尔的一项重要投资是富国银行。富国银行的主席据称表示，他不想从联邦政府那里接受问题资产救助计划（TARP）资金。‘他最近还表示，联邦政府为重振银行业而推出的一些计划是’愚蠢的’。‘芒格先生，您同意富国银行主席的看法吗？请解释您同意或不同意的原因。巴菲特先生，您同意芒格先生的看法吗？“（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：同意。（笑声）

查理·芒格：当政府应对70年来最大的金融危机时——这场危机威胁到全世界的重要价值——而决策是在匆忙、压力下并以善意做出的，我认为期望与自己的想法完全一致是不合理的。我认为，当政府在困难中尽最大努力时，应该得到更宽容的评价。当然，会有一些愚蠢的反应。我碰巧与富国银行的一些高管共享某种困扰，那就是我说话相当直率。我碰巧认为，那个说当你的信用被摧毁时你的盈利反而上升的会计准则——因为如果你还有钱，你可以折价买回自己的债务——我碰巧认为那是疯狂的会计。我认为投票使其生效的人应该被从会计委员会中除名。所以一个那样说话的人必须对富国银行的人有些同情。

沃伦·巴菲特：他通常会把他们的拇指吊起来，但他今天早上克制住了。去年九月中旬，政府确实——他们在面对一个我认为你能想象到的最接近整个金融体系全面崩溃的局面。几天之内，有几千亿美元从货币市场基金流出。商业票据市场冻结，这意味着全国范围内与金融世界基本无关的公司，将难以支付员工工资。我们——那时我们确实在凝视深渊。而且很多行动都是非常迅速地采取的。总的来说，我赞扬所采取的行动。所以正如查理所说，期望那些每天工作20小时、被来自各方的新信息、坏信息冲击的人做到完美无缺是不现实的。在那个雷曼倒下、AIG（美国国际集团）倒下、美林在我看来的话除非被美国银行收购否则也会倒下的周末。

我的意思是，当你四面受敌，你必须制定政策，必须考虑国会的反应和美国人民的反应，你知道，你不可能每件事都做得完美。但我认为总的来说，他们做得非常、非常好。我很同情——那句话是迪克·科瓦切维奇说的，他在去年的全球直言不讳大赛中仅次于查理。（笑声）确实，据我所知，迪克·科瓦切维奇在一个周日下午刚过中午接到电话，被告知第二天下午1点或2点到华盛顿，却没有被告知是什么事。那里有11位银行家和一些官员。他们被告知他们将接受TARP资金。他们将接受政府的贷款和优先股。他们只有一两个小时的时间签署，并且无法咨询董事会。但这就是紧急情况的性质。

你知道，我认为你——好吧，会有一些决定，事后回顾时有人会说：“我本可以做得更好一点。“但总的来说，在我看来，当局做得非常好。所有银行都远非相同。在我们看来，富国银行是一家——尤其是在大型银行中——它是一家极好的银行，拥有其他银行没有的一些优势。但在那样的时候，你处理的是并非细微差别的问题。顺便提一下，我向你们所有人推荐，去互联网上阅读杰米·戴蒙写给他股东的信。摩根大通的杰米·戴蒙。那是一封极好的信。它谈到了查理刚才提出的一个观点。但——杰米在写关于什么导致了这一切以及未来可能做什么方面做得非常出色。这是我所见过的最好的股东信之一。所以请务必查一下。它很长，但值得一读。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

BECKY QUICK: Warren, first of all, we’ve been asked to pass on a message that the attendance today is 35,000.

WARREN BUFFETT: Good. (Applause) Now —

BECKY QUICK: This —

WARREN BUFFETT: Now if they all just spend appropriately, it’ll be a big day. (Laughter)

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from James Lewis (PH) from Logan, Ohio, who said it was OK to use his name and city. He says, “One of the substantial investments of Berkshire is Wells Fargo. The chairman of Wells Fargo supposedly indicated that he did not want to take TARP funds from the federal government. “He, furthermore, recently said that some of the programs of the federal government to reinvigorate the banks were asinine. “Mr. Munger, do you agree with the chairman of Wells Fargo? And please explain why you do or do not agree. And Mr. Buffett, do you agree with Mr. Munger?” (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yes. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: When a government is reacting to the biggest financial crisis in 70 years, which threatens important values in the whole world, and the decisions are being made hurriedly and under pressure and with good faith, I think it’s unreasonable to expect perfect agreement with all of one’s own ideas. I think the government is entitled to be judged more leniently when it’s doing the best it can under trouble. Of course, there’s going to be some reactions that are foolish. And I happen to share one of the troubles of some of the Wells Fargo executives, in that I’m pretty blunt. I happen to think that the accounting principle that says your earnings go up as your credit is destroyed — because if you had any money left, you could buy your own debt back at a discount — I happen to think that’s insane accounting. And I think the people who voted it into effect ought to be removed from the accounting board. So a man who talks like that has to have some sympathy with the people at Wells Fargo.

WARREN BUFFETT: He usually gets to hang them by their thumbs, but he held back this morning. The government, in mid-September last year, really did — they were facing a situation that was as close to a total meltdown throughout the financial system as I think you can imagine. You had a couple hundred billion dollars move out of money market funds in a couple of days. You had the commercial paper market freeze up, which meant that companies all over the country that had nothing to do with the financial world, basically, were going to have trouble meeting payrolls. We were — we really were looking into the abyss at that time. And a lot of action was taken very promptly. And overall, I commend the actions that were taken. So as Charlie says, to expect perfection out of people that are working 20-hour days and are getting hit from all sides by new information, bad information, that one weekend with Lehman going, AIG going, Merrill would’ve gone, in my view, unless the BofA had bought it.

I mean it was — when you’re getting punched from all sides and you have to make policy and you have to think about congressional reaction and the American people’s reaction, you know, you’re not going to do everything perfectly. But I think overall, they did a very, very good job. I’m sympathetic — that remark was made by Dick Kovacevich, who came in second last year to Charlie in the plain speaking contest around the world. (Laughter) And it’s true that Dick Kovacevich was called on a Sunday at a little after noon, as I understand it, and told would be in Washington the next day at 1- or 2 o’clock, without being told what it was about. And there were 11 bankers there and some officials. And they were told that they were going to take TARP money. And they were going to take loans from the government and preferred stock. And that they only had an hour or two to sign it and they didn’t get to consult with boards. But that’s the nature of an emergency.

You know, it — I think you — well, you’re going to have some decisions that later can be looked back at and somebody will say, “I could’ve done it a little bit better.” But, by and large, the authorities, in my view, did a very good job. And all banks aren’t alike by a long shot. And in our opinion, Wells Fargo is a — among the large banks particularly — it’s a fabulous bank and has some advantages that the other banks don’t have. But in a time like that, you’re not dealing in nuances. Incidentally, I would recommend to all of you, that you go to the internet and read Jamie Dimon’s letter to his shareholders. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase. It’s a fabulous letter. It talks about a point that Charlie made there. But it — Jamie did a great job of writing about what caused this and what might be done in the future. It’s as good a shareholders letter that I’ve ever seen. So by all means, look it up. It’s long, but it’s worth reading.

9. 高等数学对投资可能很危险

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们去2号区。

观众：是的，谢谢巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫里克·富兰克林（音）。我来自密苏里州圣路易斯市。我想跟进一下麦克风1号关于金融知识的问题，以及我自己两年前关于您贴现率的问题。但在此之前，请允许我占用一点时间。托斯托尔（音）的妻子罗斯玛丽·库恩斯（音），如果您能到222区来一下。我找到了您的丈夫。（笑声）如果方便的话，您可以到麦克风2号来。

沃伦·巴菲特：这里什么都有。（笑声）

观众：所以我的问题是，自由现金流：卖方分析师喜欢做一个带有终值的10年贴现现金流分析。甚至一些关于您风格的书——《沃伦·巴菲特之路》、《巴菲特学》——暗示您会做这个练习。但我知道您以不使用电脑或计算器而闻名。我想知道这类练习是否属于”太难”的范畴，而您只是做一个简单的自由现金流——标准化的自由现金流——相比一个贴现率？如果您愿意用对可口可乐的数值分析来补充答案，我将不胜感激。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，答案是，投资——所有投资都是——现在拿出钱，以便以后拿回更多的钱。问题是，你能拿回多少，你有多确定能拿回，你何时能拿回？这回到了伊索寓言。你知道，“一鸟在手胜过双鸟在林。“那是伊索在公元前600年说的。他是个非常聪明的人。他不知道那是公元前600年。但我的意思是，他不可能知道一切。（笑声）但是——这就是金融课上教的内容——你现在有了博士学位，你把它搞得更复杂了，你不说”一鸟在手胜过双鸟在林”，因为用那种话你没法真正打动外行。但真正的问题是，林子里有多少只鸟？你知道你今天放出了一只鸟，就是一块钱。

然后林子里有多少只鸟？你有多确定它们在林子里？其他林子里有多少只鸟？贴现率是多少？换句话说，如果利率是20%，你必须比利率是5%时更快地得到那两只鸟，等等。这就是我们所做的。我的意思是，我们着眼于现在拿出钱，以便以后拿回更多的钱。你提到我不使用电脑或计算器。如果你需要电脑或计算器来做计算，你就不应该买它。我的意思是，它应该显而易见，以至于你不需要把它算到十分之一或百分之一。它应该对你大声喊出来。所以，如果你真的需要计算器来算出贴——贴现率是9.6%而不是9.8%——那就忘了整个练习吧。去找那些对你大喊大叫的东西。基本上，我们就是这样看待每一项业务的。

但你是对的，我们不会——我们不会坐下来做电子表格和所有那类事情。我们只是看到一些明显比周围其他所有东西都好、并且我们理解的东西。然后我们就行动。查理，你想补充吗？

查理·芒格：嗯，我会更进一步。我会说我见过的一些最糟糕的商业决策，就是那些做了大量正式预测和折现的决策。壳牌石油公司在收购贝尔里奇石油公司时就那么做了。他们让所有那些工程师做了所有那些复杂的数字。问题是你会开始相信这些数字。似乎高等数学，带有更多虚假的精确性，应该能帮你。但它不能。平均来看，当你试图像你说的那样将其形式化到那种程度时，效果是负面的。商学院里他们那么做是因为，嗯，他们总得做点什么。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：这很有道理。我的意思是，如果你站在全班面前说”一鸟在手胜过双鸟在林”，你知道，你得不到终身教职。（笑声）如果你身处僧侣阶层，非常重要的一点是，至少看起来你要比你布道的人知道得多得多。如果你走下来，只是——如果你是个牧师，你只是颁布了十诫并且说”就这样”，然后我们都回家，你知道，那不是在世界上进步的方式。所以，进入所谓这是两个标准差事件或三个标准差事件，因此我们可以承受这么大风险等等的虚假精确性，完全是疯狂的。我的意思是，你在1998年的长期资本管理公司那里看到了。你一次又一次地看到。而且它只发生在高智商的人身上。

你知道，那些智商120的人都是安全的。（笑声）但是如果你智商很高，并且你学了所有这些玩意儿，你知道，你觉得你必须得用它。而市场不是那样的。去年九月中旬的市场，当时那些经营大型机构的人不知道下周怎么获得资金，你知道，那不会出现在——你无法计算标准差——那个情况出现的标准差。它出现的频率会比人们想象的高得多，在由那些害怕和贪婪的人制造的市场里。他们不遵守抛硬币的规律——就结果分布而言。认为数学能在投资中带你走得很远是一个可怕的错误。你必须理解数学的某些方面。但你不需要理解高等数学。而高等数学实际上可能是危险的，它会把你引向最好不要踏足的道路。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ll go to area 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name’s Rick Franklin (PH). I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. I’d like to follow up on the microphone 1′s question on financial literacy. And my own question from two years ago on your discount rate. But before I do that, I hope you’ll indulge me. Torstol’s (PH) wife, Rosemary Coons (PH), if you could come to section 222. I found your husband. (Laughter) You can come to microphone 2, if that’s easier.

WARREN BUFFETT: You get a little of everything here. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So my question is, free cash flow: sell-side analysts like to do a 10-year discounted cash flow analysis with a terminal value. Even some of the books written about your style — “The Warren Buffett Way”, “Buffettology” — imply that you go through that exercise. But I know you’re famous for not using computers or calculators. I’m wondering if those type of exercises fall into the “too hard” file, and you just do a simple free cash flow — normalized free cash flow — over a discount rate? And if you care to augment the answer with your numerical analysis of Coke, I’d appreciate that. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the answer is that investing — all investing is, is laying out cash now to get more cash back at a later date. Now, the question is how much do you get back, how sure are you of getting it, when do you get it? It goes back to Aesop’s fables. You know, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Now, that was said by Aesop in 600 B.C. He was a very smart man. He didn’t know it was 600 B.C. But I mean, he couldn’t know everything. (Laughter) But the — but that’s what’s being taught in the finance — you got a Ph.D. now and you do it more complicated, and you don’t say, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” because you can’t really impress the laity with that sort of thing. But the real question is, how many birds are in the bush? You know you’re laying out a bird today, the dollar.

And then how many birds are in the bush? How sure are you they’re in the bush? How many birds are in other bushes? What’s the discount rate? In other words, if interest rates are 20 percent, you got to get those two birds faster than if interest rates are 5 percent and so on. That’s what we do. I mean, we are looking at putting out cash now to get back more cash later on. You mentioned that I don’t use a computer or a calculator. If you need to use a computer or a calculator to make the calculation, you shouldn’t buy it. I mean, it should be so obvious that you don’t have to carry it out to tenths of a percent or hundredths of the percent. It should scream at you. So if you really need a calculator to figure out that it’s — the discount rate is 9.6 percent instead of 9.8 percent — forget about the whole exercise. Just go onto something that shouts at you. And essentially, we look at every business that way.

But you’re right, we do not make — we do not sit down with spreadsheets and do all that sort of thing. We just see something that obviously is better than anything else around, that we understand. And then we act. And Charlie, do you want to add to that?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I’d go further. I’d say some of the worst business decisions I’ve ever seen are those that are done with a lot of formal projections and discounts back. Shell Oil Company did that when they bought the Belridge Oil Company. And they had all these engineers make all these elaborate figures. And the trouble is you get to believe the figures. And it seems that the higher mathematics, with more false precision, should help you. But it doesn’t. The effects, averaged out, are negative when you try and formalize it to the degree you’re talking about. They do that in business schools because, well, they got to do something. (Laughter and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: There’s a lot of truth to that. I mean, if you stand up in front of a class and you say, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” you know, you’re not going to get tenure. (Laughter) It’s very important if you’re in the priesthood to look, at least, like you know a whole more lot more than the people you’re preaching to. And if you come down and just — if you’re a priest, and you just hand down the 10 Commandments and you say, “This is it,” and we’ll all go home, you know, it just isn’t the way to progress in the world. So, the false precision that goes into saying that this is a two standard deviation event or this is a three standard deviation event, and therefore we can afford to take this much risk and all that, it’s totally crazy. I mean, you saw it with Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. You’ve seen it time and time and time again. And it only happens to people with high IQs.

You know, those of you who are — have 120 IQs are all safe. (Laughter) But if you have a very high IQ, and you’ve learned all this stuff, you know, you feel you have to use it. And the markets are not that way. The markets of mid-September last year, when people who ran huge institutions were wondering how they were going to get funding the next week, you know, that doesn’t appear on a — you can’t calculate the standard deviation with — that that arises at. It’s going to arise much more often than people think, in markets that are made by people that get scared and get greedy. And they don’t observe the laws of flipping coins, it’s — in terms of the distribution of results. And it’s a terrible mistake to think that mathematics will take you a long place in investing. You have to understand certain aspects of mathematics. But you don’t have to understand higher mathematics. And higher mathematics may actually be dangerous and it will lead you down pathways that are better left untrod.

10. 穆迪并非唯一犯错者

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。安德鲁，今天早上的那200个问题之一？或者是什么——

安德鲁·罗斯·索尔金：这个不是今天早上的，但它涉及穆迪。我们可能已经收到了至少300个关于这个话题的问题。这个问题来自亚伦·戈德梅泽（音），它代表了许多人的疑问。问题如下：“考虑到评级机构在当前经济危机中的作用——它们的利益冲突，它们依赖于——引用您今年致股东信中的话——‘有缺陷的、基于历史的模型’，以及信誉损失和/或监管改革可能迫使它们的商业模式或盈利流发生剧烈变化的可能性——为什么您仍然持有穆迪如此大的头寸？‘更重要的是，为什么您不用您的持股来尝试做些什么，以防止利益冲突和对这些有缺陷的、基于历史的模型的依赖？”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我认为利益冲突问题并不是——甚至远远不是——评级机构在预见CDO（债务抵押债券）、CNBS（商业抵押贷款支持证券）及诸如此类工具会发生什么方面存在缺陷的主要原因。基本上，五年前，全国几乎每个人，无论正式与否，心中都有一个模型，认为房价不可能大幅下跌。他们错了。国会错了。银行家错了。购买这些工具的人错了。贷款人——借款人错了。但人们认为，如果他们打算明年买房，最好今年就买，因为明年会卖得更贵。而那些借钱给他们的人说，即使他们在申请中撒谎或没有收入也没关系，因为房价在涨，如果我们不得不取消抵押品赎回权，我们也不会损失那么多钱。此外，他们明年可能还能再融资并偿还。

所以，几乎是一种完全的信念——总有一些人不同意——但全国几乎有一种完全的信念，认为房价肯定不会大幅下跌，而且很可能继续上涨。评级机构的人，以这样或那样的方式，将此纳入了他们的系统。我不——我真的不认为主要是支付系统造成了问题。我认为他们只是不理解各种可能性，在一个市场——或者实际上在泡沫中——人们在他们拥有的最大资产——房子上加倍杠杆。所以在一个50万亿美元的美国家庭总资产中，有一个20万亿美元的资产类别，被非常高倍地杠杆化了。然后一旦它开始崩溃，在下跌过程中就产生了自我强化的效应。所以我说他们在分析这些工具方面犯了一个重大错误。但他们犯了一个非常非常多人都犯了的错误。

而且很可能，如果他们四五年前对住宅抵押贷款持不同看法，他们就会面对国会委员会的质询，委员会会说：“你怎么能如此不美国，仅仅因为你不给这些证券更高的评级，就剥夺所有这些人的购房权利？“所以我——他们犯了一个巨大的错误。但美国人民犯了一个巨大的错误。国会犯了一个巨大的错误。国会监管着两家最大的抵押贷款公司。它们是国会的产物。它们受到国会的监督。而且，你知道，它们现在都处于托管状态。所以我不认为他们在预见未来方面是独一无二的无能。至于我们影响他们行为，我想我从未给穆迪打过电话。但同样，我也没有——也许打过一两个——给我们参与的其他公司打过电话。我的意思是，我们不会告诉伯灵顿北方铁路公司该采取什么安全措施。

我们不会告诉美国运通该停止谁的信用卡，以及，你知道，他们应该贷款给谁，不应该贷款给谁。当我们持有股票时，我们不是去那里试图改变别人。我们改变他们的运气无论如何都很低。事实上，查理和我在一些我们是最大股东的董事会里，我们想改变行为方面几乎没什么运气。所以，我们认为，如果你买入一家公司的股票，你知道，你最好不要指望你能改变他们的行动方向。至于卖出股票，评级机构业务很可能仍然是个好生意。它受到攻击。谁知道这会导致什么？谁知道国会会对此采取什么行动？但这是一个参与者很少的生意。这是一个影响经济大部分领域的生意。我的意思是，资本市场是巨大的。我认为未来很可能还会有评级机构。我认为这是一个不需要资本的生意。

所以它具备了一个相当好的生意的基本要素。在下一段时间——可能在资本市场的某些领域很长一段时间内——它不会达到过去的业务量。但资本市场会随着时间的推移而增长。我们过去在会上说过很多次，查理和我不关注评级。我的意思是，我们不相信把投资决策外包出去。所以，如果我们买入债券，评级对我们来说无关紧要，除非我们认为它的评级低于应有水平，这可能会帮助我们以有吸引力的价格买入。但我不认为穆迪、标准普尔或惠誉或其他任何地方的人，应该告诉我们一家公司的信用评级。我们自己来判断。有时我们与市场有重大分歧。我们通过这种方式赚了一些钱。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。我认为评级机构，由于擅长数学计算，急切地寻找那些允许他们做巧妙数学的愚蠢假设。这是一个聪明反被聪明误的例子。有句老话说：“对于拿着锤子的人来说，每个问题看起来都像钉子。”——（笑声）——这就是评级机构里发生的事情。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。关于所有这些AAA级证券，有趣的是，创造它们的人最后自己拥有了很多。所以他们自己也相信自己的胡言乱语。每个人都——信念是巨大的。所以这些人搅拌着Kool-Aid，然后他们自己喝了下去。他们——（笑声）——你知道，他们为此付出了巨大代价。但我不认为——我认为这是愚蠢，以及所有人都这么做的原因。我每隔几年才给我们的经理们发一封信。但就我而言，在伯克希尔，你不能给出的一个行动理由就是”别人都这么做”。你知道，如果那是你能想到的最好的理由，你知道，那就出问题了。但这种情况在证券市场上一直发生。当然，当查理和我在所罗门或类似的地方时，很难告诉一个庞大的组织，你不应该做那些受人尊敬的竞争对手正在做的事情。

特别是当其中有大量金钱的时候。所以一旦某种行为被行业接受，就很难阻止这些事情。你知道，查理和我在所罗门时非常不成功地试图说：“嗯，我们就是不想做这种事。“我们甚至无法让他们——最初，当我们刚加入时，他们在和马克·里奇做生意。我们说：“别和马克·里奇做生意了。“你知道，这就像在30年代说：“别和阿尔·卡彭做生意了”之类的。他们说：“但这是好生意。如果他不和我们做，他会和别人做。“他们那样想。我想我们赢了那一次。但不容易。查理，你记得吗？

查理·芒格：我当然记得。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Andrew, one of those 200 questions from this morning? Or what are —

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: This one’s not from this morning, but it relates to Moody’s. And we’ve probably received about 300 questions, at least, on this topic. This question, which is representative of many, comes from Aaron Goldsmeizer (PH). And the question is the following: “Given the role of rating agencies in the current economic crisis — their conflict of interest, their reliance on, quote, ‘flawed history-based models,’ as you described in this year’s letter to shareholders, and the likelihood that a loss of credibility and/or regulatory reforms could force drastic changes in their business models or earning streams — why do you retain such a large holding in Moody’s? “And more important, why didn’t you use your stake to try to do something to prevent conflicts of interest and reliance on these flawed history-based models?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t think the conflict of interest question was the — was the biggest —by anywhere close to the major cause of the shortcomings of the rating agencies in foreseeing what would happen with CDOs and CNBSs and all sorts of instruments like that. Basically, five years ago, virtually everybody in the country had this model in their mind, formal or otherwise, that house prices could not fall significantly. They were wrong. Congress was wrong. Bankers were wrong. People that bought the instruments were wrong. Lenders — the borrowers were wrong. But people thought that if they were going to buy a house next year, they better buy it this year because it was going to be selling for more money the following year. And people who lent them money said it doesn’t make any difference if they’re lying on their application or they don’t have the income because houses go up, and if we have to foreclose we won’t lose that much money. And besides, they can probably refinance next year and pay.

So there was an almost total belief — and there was always a few people that disagreed — but there was almost a total belief throughout the country that house prices would certainly not fall significantly, and that they would probably keep rising. And the people at the rating agencies, one way or another, built that into their system. And I don’t — I really don’t I think it was primarily the payment system that created the problem. I think they just didn’t understand the various possibilities of what could happen in a market— or in a bubble, really — where people leveraged up enormously on the biggest asset that most Americans possess, their house. And so you had a $20 trillion asset class in a $50 trillion of total assets of American families that got leveraged up very high. And then once it started melting down, it had self-reinforcing aspects on the downside. So I say that they made a major mistake in terms of analyzing the instruments. But they made a mistake that a great, great, great many people made.

And that probably if they had taken a different view of residential mortgages four or five years ago, they would’ve been answering to Congressional committees that would be saying, “How can you be so un-American as to deny all these people the right to buy houses simply because you won’t rate these securities higher?” So I — they made a huge mistake. But the American people made a huge mistake. Congress made a huge mistake. Congress presided over the two largest mortgage companies. And they were their creatures. And they were supervised by them. And, you know, they’re both in conservatorship now. So I don’t think they were unique in their inability to spot what was coming. In terms of us influencing their behavior, I don’t think I’ve ever made a call to Moody’s. But it’s also true that I haven’t made it to, or made — maybe made one or two — to other companies in which we’re involved. I mean, we don’t tell, you know, the Burlington Northern what safety procedures to put in.

We don’t tell American Express who to cut off on credit cards and, you know, what they’re — who they should lend to and who they shouldn’t. We are — when we own stock, we are not there to try and change people. Our luck in changing them is very low, anyway. In fact, Charlie and I have been on boards of directors where we’re the largest shareholders. And we’ve had very little luck in changing behavior. So, we think that if you buy stock in a company, you know, you better not count on the fact that you’re going to change their course of action. And in terms of selling the stock, the odds are that the rating agency business is probably still a good business. It is subject to attack. And who knows where that leads? And who knows what Congress does about it? But it’s a business with very few people in it. It’s a business that affects a large segment of the economy. I mean, the capital markets are huge. I think there will probably be rating agencies in the future. And I think that it’s a business that doesn’t require capital.

So it has the fundamentals of a pretty good business. It won’t be doing the volume in the next — probably for a long time in certain areas of the capital markets. But capital markets are going to grow over time. We have said in this meeting in the past, many times, that Charlie and I don’t pay any attention to ratings. I mean, we don’t believe in outsourcing investment decisions. So we — if we buy a bond, the rating is immaterial to us, except to the extent if we think it’s rated more poorly than it should, it may help us buy it at an attractive price. But we do not think that the people at Moody’s, or Standard and Poor’s, or Fitch, or anyplace else, should be telling us the credit rating of a company. We figure that out for ourselves. And sometimes we disagree with the market in a major way. And we’ve made some money that way. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, I think the rating agencies, being good at doing mathematical calculations, eagerly sought stupid assumptions that enabled them to do clever mathematics. It’s an example of being too smart for your own good. There’s an old saying, “To a man with hammer, every problem looks pretty much like a nail.” And that’s — (laughter) — what happened in the rating agencies.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, the interesting things about all those triple-As, is the people that created them ended up owning a lot of them. So they believed their own baloney, themselves. Every — the belief was enormous. So you had these people stirring up the Kool-Aid and then they drank it themselves. And they — (laughter) — you know, they paid a big penalty for it. But I don’t think it was — I think it was stupidity and the fact that everybody else was doing it. I send out a letter to our managers, only every couple of years. But the one reason you can’t give at Berkshire, as far as I’m concerned, for any action, is that everybody else is doing it. You know, and just — if that’s the best you can come with, you know, something’s wrong. But that happens in security markets all the time. And of course, it’s — when Charlie and I were at Salomon or someplace like that, it’s very difficult to tell a huge organization that you shouldn’t be doing something that people, wellregarded competitors, are doing.

And particularly when there’s a lot of money in it. And so it’s very hard to stop these things once you get sort of a industry acceptance of behavior. And you know, we were very unsuccessful, Charlie and I, at Salomon at saying, “Well, we just don’t want to do this sort of thing.” We couldn’t even get them — initially, when we got in there at first, they were doing business with Marc Rich. And we said, “Let’s stop doing business with Marc Rich.” You know, that’s like saying in the ’30s, “Let’s stop doing business with Al Capone,” or something. And they said, “But it’s good business. If he doesn’t do it with us, he’ll do it with somebody else.” And they felt that way. And I think we won that one. But it wasn’t easy. You remember that, Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I certainly do.

11. 房地产市场开始改善

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们去3号区。（笑声）好的，3号区，我们开始了吗？

观众：我是劳里·古尔德（音），来自加利福尼亚州伯克利。您认为未来一两年内，全国范围内，特别是加利福尼亚州的住宅房地产市场会走向何方？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们不知道房地产会怎样。我们几年前不知道它会怎样。我们认为在某些方面它变得有点危险。但这很难说。我想说，根据我——根据我所看到的，我确实看到了很多数据——而且，顺便说一句，加州非常大——我的意思是，加州内有很多不同的市场。斯托克顿会和旧金山不同，等等。但在过去几个月里，你看到了活动的真正回升，尽管价格低得多。但你已经看到了——我认为你看到了中低端房产的一些变化。在加州，“中端”和内布拉斯加州的意义不同。但你已经看到，也许在75万美元及以下的房产，活动有了真正的回升，竞标者多了很多。但价格还没有反弹回来。价格大幅下跌，因地区而异。

但看起来好像——你知道，有一段时间有止赎暂停令。所以这会造成一些扭曲。但根据我们的房地产经纪数据看——我们在南加州拥有最大的房地产经纪公司，在奥兰治县、洛杉矶县和圣地亚哥，即由MidAmerican拥有的Prudential California——我们看到，在中低端市场，在这些大幅降低的价格水平上，我可以说，接近于稳定。如果你有一栋500万美元或300万美元的房子，那仍然看起来非常——不稳定——是一个仍然没有太多活动的市场。但在较低端，现在活动很多。房子在成交。当然，利率下降了，所以还款容易得多。每天在加州入账的抵押贷款，比几年前的产品组合要好得多。所以情况正在改善。我不知道下个月或三个月后会怎样。住房形势基本上就是这样。

你可以这样看。我们每年大约创造1,300,000个新家庭。这个数字有些波动。而且它倾向于——在经济衰退中，倾向于减少，因为人们在某种程度上会推迟结婚等等。但如果一年创造1,300,000个家庭，而你每年有200万套住房开工，你就会遇到麻烦。这就是我们当时的情况。我们建造的房屋超过了基本需求所能吸收的数量。所以我们造成了房屋过剩。现在有多少过剩？也许有150万套。我们过去每年建造200万套。现在降至每年50万套。现在，如果你每年建造50万套，而每年有1,300,000个新家庭，你就会吸收过剩供给。全国情况会非常不均匀。南佛罗里达将在很长、很长一段时间内面临困境。所以，如果某个地方有需求而其他地方没有，你并不能把房子从一个地方搬到另一个地方。

但我们现在正在消化过剩库存。我们可能以每年70万到80万套的速度消化。如果过剩有150万套，那需要几年时间。这无法回避。你有三种选择。你可以炸毁150万套房子，你知道。如果他们那么做，我希望他们炸掉你的而不是我的，但那是——（笑声）我们可以摆脱它。我们可以尝试创造更多家庭。我们可以让14岁的孩子开始结婚生子，然后——（笑声）或者我们生产的数量低于自然需求的增长。我们现在正在做的就是这样。我们将消耗掉库存。你不可能一天内完成。你不可能一周内完成。但它会完成的。当它完成时，你将会看到价格的稳定。然后你将创造对更多住房开工的需求。

然后你会回升到每年125万套，然后我们的保温材料业务、地毯业务和砖块业务都会好转。究竟何时发生，没人知道。但它会发生。查理？

查理·芒格：哦，我认为在像奥马哈这样的地方，它从未有过真正的房价疯狂繁荣，利率如此之低，如果你的信用良好，如果我是想在奥马哈买房的年轻人，我明天就会买。（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我们在奥马哈拥有最大的房地产经纪公司。所以——（笑声）——如果他符合条件，查理会——我们会给他一份抵押贷款申请。确实，每年有450万套房子易手。全国大约有8000万套房子。其中2500万套没有抵押贷款。全国大约三分之一的房子没有抵押贷款。大约5500万套，或者略少一些，有抵押贷款。其中五六百万套以这样或那样的方式处于困境中。但我们每天都在卖出450万套房子。总的来说，它们进入了更强有力的手中。抵押贷款更负担得起了。首付更高了。我们——情况正在被纠正。但它不是一天、一周或一个月内造成的。它也不会在一天、一周或一个月内得到解决。我们正在通往解决的道路上。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ll go to area 3. (Laughter) OK, zone 3, are we on?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Laurie Gould (PH) from Berkeley, California. Where do you see the residential real estate market headed nationally, particularly in California, over the next year or two?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we don’t know what real estate is going to do. We didn’t know what it was going to do a few years ago. We thought it was getting kind of dangerous in certain ways. But it’s very hard to tell. I would say this. From what we’re — from what I’m seeing, and I do see a lot of data — there’s — and California, incidentally, is a very big — I mean, there are many markets within California. Stockton is going to be different than San Francisco and so on. But, in the last few months, you’ve seen a real pickup in activity, although at much lower prices. But you’ve seen — I think you’ve seen something in the medium- to lower-priced houses. And medium means a different thing in California than it does in Nebraska. But you’ve seen, in maybe $750,000 and under houses, you’ve seen a real pickup in activity, many more bidders. You haven’t seen it bounce back in price. Prices are down significantly and it varies by the area.

But it looks as if — you know, you had a foreclosure moratorium for a while. And so get into distortions because of that. But what it looks like, looking at our real estate brokerage data — and we have the largest real estate brokerage firm in Southern California, in Orange County, Los Angeles County, and San Diego in Prudential of California that’s owned by MidAmerican — we see something close, I would say, to stability at these much-reduced prices in the medium to lower group. If you’ve got a $5 million or $3 million house, that still looks like a very — erratic — it’s a market in which there still isn’t a lot of activity. But in the lower levels, there’s plenty of activity now. Houses are moving. Interest rates, of course, are down so it’s much easier to make the payments. The mortgages being put on the books every day in California, are much better than, you know, the mix that you had a few years earlier. So it’s improving. And I don’t know what it’ll do next month or three months from now. The housing situation is pretty much this way.

You can look at it this way. We create about 1,300,000 or so households a year. It bounces around some. But — and it tends to — in a recession, it tends to be fewer because people postpone matrimony and so on to some extent. But if there’s 1,300,000 households created in a year and you create two million housing starts annually, you are going to run into trouble. And that’s what we did. We just created more houses than the demand was — the fundamental demand — was going to absorb. So we created an excess of houses. How much excess is there now? Perhaps a million and a half units. We were building two million units a year. That’s down to 500,000 units a year. Now, if you create 500,000 units a year and you have a 1,300,000 households created, you are going to absorb the excess supply. It will be very uneven around the country. South Florida’s going to be tough for a long, long time. So it isn’t like you can move a house from one place to another if there’s demand in one place and not another.

But we are eating up an excess inventory now. And we’re probably eating it up at the rate of 7or 800,000 units a year. And if we have a million and a half excess, that takes a couple of years. There’s no getting away from it. You have three choices. You could blow up a million and a half houses, you know. And if they do that, I hope they blow up yours and not mine, but that’s a — (Laughter) We could get rid of it. We could try to create more households. We could have 14-year-olds start getting married and having kids, and — (Laughter) Or we can produce less than the natural demand increase. And that’s what we’re doing now. And we’re going to eat up the inventory. And you can’t do it in a day. And you can’t do it in a week. But it will get done. And when it gets done, then you’ll have a stabilization in pricings. And then you will create the demand for more housing starts.

And then you go back up to a million and a quarter, and then our insulation business and our carpet business and our brick business will all get better. Exactly when that happens nobody knows. But it will happen. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Oh, I think in a place like Omaha, which never had a really crazy boom in terms of housing prices, with interest rates so low if you’ve got good credit, that if I were a young person wanting a house in Omaha, I would buy it tomorrow. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: We own the largest real estate brokerage firm in Omaha. So — (laughter) — Charlie will be — if he qualifies, we will give him a mortgage application. If is true that 4 1/2 million houses will change hands. There’s about 80 million houses in the country. Twenty-five million of those do not have a mortgage. About a third of the houses in the country do not have a mortgage. You’ve got about 55 million, or a little less, that have a mortgage. And five or six million of those are in trouble one way or another. But we’re selling 4 1/2 million houses every day. And by and large, they’re going into stronger hands. The mortgages are more affordable. The down payments are higher. We’re — the situation is getting corrected. But it wasn’t created in a day or a week or a month. And it’s not going to get solved in a day or a week or a month. We are on the road to solution.

12. 2008年对投资经理候选人来说不是好年份

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，卡罗尔？

卡罗尔·卢米斯：也许我一开始就应该再说一件事。你们中那些仔细阅读了年报的人知道，查理和沃伦对我们三个人将问什么问题一无所知。所以不要以为他们得到了一份小清单。他们什么也没看到。这个问题，我收到了很多版本。这封碰巧来自纽约市的乔纳森·格兰特。它涉及您所说的作为您可能继任者的四位投资经理。“您能否告诉我们，不指名道姓，但最好用定量和定性的术语，描述这四人在2008年管理他们为客户管理的资金的表现如何。‘您说过希望挑选那些能够预见前所未有事件的人。虽然世界以前见过信贷危机，但2008年发生了许多事情，尤其是最后几个月，很少有人预测到，而且您自己也形容为几乎前所未有。‘您如何评价这四位经理在管理这些低概率风险方面的表现？

这四个人都还在名单上吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，答案是四个人都还在名单上。让我先说明一点，因为有些报道略有偏差。我们有三名CEO候选人。这是我们董事会会议上一个主要的讨论话题。他们都是内部候选人。你们应该知道这一点。以前说过。但这里被误报了一两次。我想，因为投资岗位有四个候选人，所以被混淆了

2009年度股东大会

第二部分/共六部分

沃伦·巴菲特：伯克希尔有一个不寻常的情况，那就是最高层的大多数人，几乎是所有人，都在做他们想做的事。我的意思是，他们喜欢经营自己的企业。这正是他们当初入职时的期望。而他们现在也正是在这样做，我们让他们按照自己喜欢的方式去做。因此，我们没有50个人都认为自己身处某个金字塔的顶端。欧文希望我指定——他跟我提过这件事。他希望我指定接班人是谁。但这事将来可能会有变化。这可能会引发一些潜在的问题——我们曾在通用电气看到过，当杰夫·伊梅尔特被从三位候选人中选中时，另外两位就离开了。我真的看不出身边有个“太子”有什么好处。不过欧文会继续给我写信，这点我可以向你保证。（笑声）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We have an unusual situation at Berkshire that most of the people at the top, virtually all of them, are doing what they want to do. I mean, they like running their businesses. That’s what they came in expecting to do. And that’s what they’re doing, and we’re letting them do it the way they like to do it. And so we don’t have 50 people that all think they’re on some pyramid to get to the top. And Irving would like me to name — he’s talked to me about it. He would like to me name who it would be. But that could change in the future. It could create some possible — Well, we saw it at General Electric, I mean, when Jeff Immelt got appointed from among three, the other two left. And I don’t really see any advantage in having some crowned prince around. But Irving will keep writing me, I can promise you that. (Laughter)

15. 巴菲特的商学院：仅两门课程

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第五区。

参会者：嗨，沃伦。声音有点大，抱歉。嗨。我叫莎拉。来自内布拉斯加州奥马哈。我想知道您能否解释一下您的策略，特别是价值投资，在培养下一代投资者方面。您将如何教导这群年轻人？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，今年有49所——主要是大学，还有一些学院——来到奥马哈。我们每次安排六所学校。最后一批，我们多增加了一所大学。所以我们举办了八场全天课程。他们问我如果我来运营一所商学院教授投资，我会怎么做。我告诉他们我只会开两门课。一门是如何评估企业价值，第二门是如何思考市场。不会有任何现代投资组合理论、贝塔系数、有效市场或类似的东西。我们会在头十分钟里把这些都扔掉。但是——如果你知道如何评估企业价值——而且你不必知道如何评估所有企业。在纽约证券交易所，我不知道，大概有4、5千家上市公司，纳斯达克还有更多。你不需要在4千或5千只股票上都正确。你甚至不需要在400只上正确。

你也不需要在对40只上正确。你只需要待在能力圈内，也就是你能理解的东西。然后在你能够估值的股票中，寻找那些售价低于其价值的。你可以从一个相当小的能力圈开始，随着时间的推移，慢慢学习更多关于企业的知识。但你会发现，有大量企业根本不适合估值，这些你就不用管了。我认为，如果——会计学在这方面对你有帮助，你需要懂会计学来了解商业语言，但会计学也有巨大的局限性。你必须学到足够的知识，来知道哪些会计信息是有意义的，以及何时需要忽略会计的某些方面。你必须理解竞争优势何时是持久的，何时是短暂的。我的意思是，你必须学会区分呼啦圈公司和可口可乐公司。但这并不太难做到。然后，你必须知道如何思考市场波动，真正学会市场是为你服务，而不是指导你的。在很大程度上，这跟智商无关。

如果你——如果你从事投资行业，智商有150，那就卖掉30点给别人吧，因为你不需要。我的意思是——（笑声）——你需要相当聪明。但你绝对不需要是天才。事实上，高智商反而可能有害。但你必须拥有情绪稳定性。你需要对自己的决策有一种内心的平和。因为这是一个你每分钟都会受到各种刺激的游戏，人们无时无刻不在发表意见。你必须能够独立思考。而且，我不知道——我不知道这有多少是天生的，有多少是可以后天教会的。但如果你拥有这种品质，并且花时间在上面，你在投资中会做得非常好。学点如何评估企业价值。这不是一个复杂的游戏。就像我说过很多次的——这很简单，但并不容易。这不是一个复杂的游戏。你不需要懂高等数学。

你不需要——你知道，你不需要懂法律。有各种各样的事情你不需要擅长。这个世界上有各种各样的工作要难得多。但你确实需要某种情绪上的稳定性，能够带你度过几乎任何情况。然后随着时间的推移，你会做出好的投资决策。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，你面临一个基本问题，那就是未来世界上的投资者中，正好有一半会处于后50%。换句话说——（笑声）——你总是会在顶部拥有比底部更多的技能。你永远无法让全世界的投资专业知识同质化。现代投资实践、现代投资银行、现代商学院学术界，甚至经济学系中，有太多虚假和疯狂的东西。如果你只是减少这些废话，我认为这就是你能合理期望的全部了。

沃伦·巴菲特：然而，在超越某个基本技能水平之后，你不认为你的情绪构成比某些超高水平的技能更重要吗？

查理·芒格：绝对如此。而且如果你认为自己的天赋——如果你认为自己的智商是160，而实际上是150，那你就是个灾难。（笑声）你知道，一个智商130但能良好自控的人要好得多。

沃伦·巴菲特：我见到了来访问的学生。我喜欢一个来自芝加哥大学的学生，他是其中之一。问我的第一个问题是：“我们正在学的东西里，哪些是错得最离谱的？”这才是——我的意思是，我希望他们也能向台上的我们问这类问题。

查理·芒格：你怎么在一次会议中处理这个问题？

沃伦·巴菲特：是啊。（笑声）但25年前，有效市场理论简直就是神圣的教条。你知道，我从来不明白你怎么能教这个东西。我的意思是，如果你在头五分钟走进去，对学生说：“所有东西的定价都是合理的。”那接下来的一个小时你怎么打发？但是——（笑声）——他们做到了。并且因为做得好而获得了博士学位。你知道，他们能在自己的文章里塞进越多的希腊符号，就越受尊敬。对我来说，这是令人震惊的——这可能也让我对学术界普遍产生了偏见的看法——那些疯狂的想法被接受并传播的程度。然后前几天我读到一句引语，可能部分解释了这一点。马克斯·普朗克在讲话，那位著名的物理学家。马克斯·普朗克在谈论人类思维，即使是聪明的思维，对新思想的抵抗力。特别是那些经过多年精心发展，并得到其他权威人士认可的思想。

他说：“科学的进步，是一次葬礼一一次葬礼地进行的。”我认为这很有道理。在金融界肯定也是如此。

原文

15. Buffett’s business school: only two courses

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, zone 5.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Warren. That’s a little loud, sorry. Hi. My name’s Sarah. And I’m from Omaha, Nebraska. I’d like to know if you could explain your strategies, namely value investing, in regards to cultivating the next generation of investors. How will you teach this young group?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I had 49 — mostly universities, a few colleges — that came to Omaha this year. We do them in clumps of six. And then the last one, we had an added university. So we had eight sessions, full-day sessions. And they asked me what — sometimes they asked me what I’d do if I was running a business school, teaching investments. And I’d tell them I’d only have two courses. One would be how to value a business, and the second would be how to think about markets. And there wouldn’t be anything about modern portfolio theory or beta or efficient markets or anything like that. We’d get rid of that in the first 10 minutes. The — But if you know how to value a business — and you don’t have to know how to value all businesses. On the New York Stock Exchange, I don’t know, there’s 4- or 5,000, probably, businesses and a whole lot more on NASDAQ. You don’t have to be right on 4,000 or 5,000. You don’t have to be right on 400.

You don’t have to be right on 40. You just have to stay within the circle of competence, the things that you can understand. And look for things that are selling for less than they’re worth, of the ones you can value. And you can start out with a fairly small circle of competence and learn more about businesses as you go along. But you’ll learn that there are a whole bunch of them that simply don’t lend themselves to valuations and you forget about those. And I think if — accounting helps you in that, you need to understand accounting to know the language of business, but accounting also has enormous limitations. And you have to learn enough to know what accounting is meaningful and when you have to ignore certain aspects of accounting. You have to understand when competitive advantages are durable and when they’re fleeting. I mean, you have to learn the difference between a hula hoop company, you know, and CocaCola. But that isn’t too hard to do. And then you have to know how to think about market fluctuations and really learn that the market is there to serve you rather than to instruct you. And to a great extent, that is not a matter of IQ.

If you have — if you’re in the investment business and you have a IQ of 150, sell 30 points to somebody else, ’cause you don’t need it. I mean, it — (laughter) — you need to be reasonably intelligent. But you do not need to be a genius, you know. At all. In fact, it can hurt. But you do have to have an emotional stability. You have to have sort of an inner peace about your decisions. Because it is a game where you get subjected to minute-by-minute stimuli, where people are offering opinions all the time. You have to be able to think for yourself. And, I don’t know whether — I don’t know how much of that’s innate and how much can be taught. But if you have that quality, you’ll do very well in investing if you spend some time at it. Learn something about valuing businesses. It’s not a complicated game. As I say — said many times — it’s simple, but not easy. It is not a complicated game. You don’t have to understand higher math.

You don’t — you know, you don’t have to understand law. There’s all kinds of things that you don’t have to be good at. There’s all kinds of jobs in this world that are much tougher. But you do have to have sort of an emotional stability that will take you through almost anything. And then you’ll make good investment decisions over time. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, you do have the basic problem that exactly half of the future investors of the world are going to be in the bottom 50 percent. In other words — (laughter) — you’re always going to have more skill at the top than you have at the bottom. And you’re never going to be able to homogenize the investment expertise of the world. There is so much that’s false and nutty in modern investment practice, and in modern investment banking, and in modern academia in the business schools, even in the Economics departments, that if you just reduce the nonsense, that’s all I think you should reasonably hope for.

WARREN BUFFETT: Beyond a certain basic level, though, of skill, wouldn’t you say your emotional make-up’s more important than the — than some super high degree of skill?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Absolutely. And if you think your talent — if you think your IQ is 160 and it’s 150, you’re a disaster. (Laughter) You know, much better a guy with a 130 that’s operating well within himself.

WARREN BUFFETT: I get to see the students that come by. I loved a fellow from the University of Chicago, one of the students. And the first question that was asked of me was, “What are we learning that’s most wrong?” That’s the kind of — I mean, I wish they’d ask that sort of thing of the panel here.

CHARLIE MUNGER: How do you handle that in one session?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Laughter) But it was holy writ 25 years ago, efficient market theory. You know, I never understood how you could even teach it. I mean, if you walked in in the first five minutes, you said to the students, “Everything is priced properly,” I mean, how do you kill the rest of the hour? But — (Laughter) — they did it. And they got Ph.D.s for doing it well. You know, and the more Greek symbols they could work into their, you know, their writings, you know, the more they were revered. It’s astounding to me and I — that may have even given me a jaundiced view of academia generally — is the degree to which ideas that are nutty take hold and get propagated. And then I read a quote the other day that may have partially explained it. Max Planck was talking, the famous physicist. Max Planck was talking about the resistance of the human mind, even the bright human mind, to new ideas. And particularly the ones that had been developed carefully over many years, and were blessed by others of stature, and so on.

And he said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” And I think there’s a lot of truth to that. Certainly been true in the world of finance.

16. 阿吉特·贾恩的继任者不会拥有同样广泛的权力

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，安德鲁？

安德鲁·罗斯·索尔金：好的。我们有一个关于继任的问题。不过，这个问题有个转折，来自本·诺尔。引用您的一句名言：“你应该投资于连傻瓜都能经营的企业，因为总有一天傻瓜会接手。”（笑声）“考虑到贵公司再保险部门的规模和倾向于进行大规模金融押注，您能否进一步向我们保证，一旦阿吉特离开，风险会怎样？您有他的继任计划吗？”本说：“AIG在格林伯格离开后的泰坦尼克号式结局，让我感到害怕。”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我要说，要取代阿吉特是不可能的。我们也不会尝试。因此，我们也不会给予其他人像给予阿吉特那样的自由度，尤其是在风险规模方面。不，我们认为他拥有独特的天赋，我的看法是这样，查理也是。所以，当你找到这样的人时，在你确信你面对的是谁之后，你会给予他们巨大的权力。但这并不意味着权力是随职位而来的。权力是随个人而来的。我们不会——正如他们所说，在保险业交出你的笔，是极其危险的。在我们这个城市，有Mutual of Omaha保险公司，它在1980年代，经过当时可能75年的精心经营，已经成为世界上最大的健康与意外险协会，我相信是这样。然后他们产生了一个想法，认为应该承保财产意外再保险。于是他们把笔交给了公司内部的某个人。

可能根本没人听说过那家伙的名字。结果，仅仅签了几份合同，他们就在很短的时间内损失了一半的净资产。他们还担心可能损失得更多。所以在保险业，一支笔就能造成巨大的破坏。你必须非常小心，把笔交给谁。我们把笔交给了阿吉特，但不会以这种方式交给其他任何人。现在，碰巧我很喜欢听他做的那些事情。所以我们每天都通话。但我们每天通话，并不是因为他需要我批准任何事情。我们每天通话，是因为我觉得这非常有趣。当他说：“我们应该收多少钱来为迈克尔·泰森的生命保险几年？”我的意思是，这就是那种能让我感兴趣的事情。

我——（笑声）我问他，保单里有没有免责条款，万一他被一个对其待遇感到不满的女人开枪打中之类的情况，这会影响定价，但我喜欢这类事情。但我不是必需的。而阿吉特是必需的。我们找不到他的替代者。你知道，有些事情必须这样面对。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。那句引语的含义是，有时换个说法，如果你说一个企业经不起一点管理不善，那它就不是什么好企业。当然，你更愿意要一个即使管理得不太好也能经营得不错的生意。但这并不意味着，当你得到这样一个企业而且管理得极其出色时，你就不更喜欢了。这两个因素都相当重要。我们不是在寻找管理不善。我们喜欢的是，如果我们偶然遇到，它能承受这一点。但我们不是在寻找它。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不会去做我们认为——我们不会把我们认为超出他们能力范围的任务交给别人。碰巧的是，阿吉特拥有巨大的能力。所以他被分配了一些非常不寻常的任务。但你不能在我们的整个保险运营中看到这种情况。我们的经理们也不期望那样运作。阿吉特的情况是特例。而且他身体很健康。你知道，我们给他供应他想要的所有樱桃可乐或软糖。（笑声）

原文

16. Ajit Jain’s successor won’t have the same broad authority

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, Andrew?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: OK. We have a succession question. However, this one has a twist, coming from Ben Knoll. “You famously said, quote, ‘You should invest in businesses that a fool can run, because someday a fool will.’ (Laughter) “Given your reinsurance company’s capacity and inclination for big financial bets, can you provide us more reassurance about the risk once Ajit is gone? “Do you have a succession plan for him?” Ben says, “The Titanic-like ending at AIG, once Greenberg was gone, has me spooked.”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I would say that it would be impossible to replace Ajit. And we wouldn’t try. And, therefore, we wouldn’t give the latitude, in terms of size of risk or that sort of thing, that we give to Ajit. No, we’ve got a unique talent, in my view there, and I think in Charlie’s. And so, when you get somebody like that, you give enormous authority to them after you firmly establish in your mind that that’s who you’re dealing with. But that doesn’t mean that the authority goes with the position. The authority goes with the individual. And we would not — giving your pen away in insurance, as they say, is extraordinary dangerous. And we have in this town, we have Mutual of Omaha, which in the 1980s, had been built up carefully over, probably, 75 years by that time, and become the largest health and accident association in the world, I believe. And they got the idea that they should be writing property-casualty reinsurance. So they gave a pen to somebody within the place.

And probably nobody had even heard the guy’s name, you know. And in just signing a few contracts, they lost half their net worth in a very short period of time. And they were worried that they might have lost more than that. So you can do enormous damage in the insurance business with a pen. And you’d better — have to be very careful about who you give your pen to. And we’ve given our pen to Ajit in a way that we wouldn’t give it to anyone else. Now, it just so happens that I enjoy hearing about the kind of things he does. So we talk daily. But we don’t talk daily because he needs my approval on anything. We talk daily because I find it very interesting. When he says, “How much should we charge to insure Mike Tyson’s life for a couple of years?” I mean, that’s the kind of thing I can get kind of interested in.

I — (Laughter) I asked him whether there was an exclusion in case he got shot by a woman that felt unhappy about her treatment or something, but — And it makes a difference in the price, but — I enjoy that sort of thing. But I’m not needed. And Ajit is needed. And we won’t find a substitute for him. And you know, there’s some things that have to be faced that way. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. What that quotation indicates is sometimes, stated differently, you say if it won’t stand a little mismanagement it’s not much of a business. Of course, you prefer a business that will prosper pretty well, even if it’s not managed very well. But that doesn’t mean you don’t like even better when you get such a business that’s managed magnificently. And both factors are quite important. We’re not looking for mismanagement. We like the capacity to stand it, if we stumble into it. But we’re not looking for it.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we will not do things that we think are — we will not assign tasks to people that we think are beyond their capabilities. And it just so happens that Ajit has enormous capabilities. So he gets assigned some very unusual things. But you don’t see that prevailing throughout our insurance operation. And our managers don’t expect to operate that way. That’s a one-off situation with Ajit. And he’s in good health. And, you know, we send him all the Cherry Coke or fudge that he wants. (Laughter)

17. 伯克希尔在2008年底“更便宜”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第六区。顺便说一句，我推荐这种软糖。非常好吃。我很享受。（笑声）

参会者：早上好。我是来自肯塔基州路易斯维尔的史蒂夫·富尔顿。我今天下午放弃了肯塔基德比大赛的包厢票，来这里问您这个问题。谢谢您给我这个机会。我的问题与您如何看待市场对伯克希尔股票的估值有关。您经常评论说，伯克希尔有两个主要的价值组成部分：它们拥有的投资——股票、债券等——以及您所拥有的非保险运营公司的收益。当你比较2007年和2008年时，投资下降了约13%。收益下降了约4%。但市场给予股票的估值却下降了约31%。我很好奇您对此估值的评论。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，嗯，我认为你说到了点子上。我们确实认为——显然，我们相信这些投资的价值与其账面价值相符，否则我们就不会持有它们。事实上，在任何时候，我们都认为它们的价值高于账面价值，因为我们总的来说认为它们被低估了。因此，我们对那个数字没有异议。我们定义我们的盈利能力——我们排除保险承保的利润或亏损，基于这样的理论：如果保险业务达到盈亏平衡，就会为我们提供浮存金，我们可以进行投资。总的说来，我实际上认为保险业可能会产生一些承保利润。所以我认为在这方面我们甚至有点低估了这一点。但我们认为，这些企业的盈利能力去年不如正常水平。今年也不会如正常水平那样好。但我们认为，总的来说，这些都是相当不错的企业。其中少数几家有问题。但——但大多数会表现良好。而且我认为其中少数几家会表现得极其出色。

所以，我认为将伯克希尔视为两部分的总和是完全合理的。大量的流动有价证券——或者可能不那么流动，但至少定价合理，甚至可能被低估的证券——以及大量的盈利能力，我们打算随着时间的推移努力增加这种能力。如果你这样看，你会得出结论，伯克希尔在2008年底相对于其内在价值比2007年底更便宜。但你也会得出结论，对大多数证券来说也是如此。换句话说，是整个证券市场的水平。每只股票都会受到其他股票售价的影响。我的意思是，如果ABC股票的价值下跌，在其他变量不变的情况下，XYZ的价值也会降低。如果你能以8倍市盈率买入好公司的股票，你知道，或者9倍市盈率，那么——这降低了伯克希尔的价值，相比之下，当股票以18倍或20倍市盈率出售时，情况则不同。我是随便举的数字。但金融世界中，一切事物都相互影响。

当你说明智的占有胜过不明智的追求时，你是在将它与你所能获得的每一个其他机会进行比较。所以，你是正确的，伯克希尔在2008年底相对于其内在价值比2007年底更便宜，至少在我看来是这样。而且这两个变量会起作用。我们会定期向你们报告。随着时间的推移，我们希望两者都能增长。我们尤其希望经营收益方面能够增长，因为那是我们的主要关注点。我们希望在时间推移中将资金投入到好的运营企业中，并大幅增加那个数字。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为去年对于浮存金业务来说是糟糕的一年。这自然会使得浮存金的所有者，在短期内看起来处于劣势。但从长远来看，拥有大量成本低于零的浮存金，将是一个巨大的优势。我不会对股价下跌过于激动。我碰巧知道，有一个买家，在伯克希尔股价被拉至绝对顶峰时，颇为笨拙地买入了大约10,000股。从长远来看，这在宏观计划中又有多少意义呢？重要的是这样的事情：我们的意外险业务可能是世界上最好的大型意外险公司——我们的公用事业子公司，嗯，如果还有更好的，我不知道——如果我必须在世界上打赌一家硬质合金刀具业务，我会赌伊斯卡胜过任何其他对手。我可以一直往下列举很多。我认为从长远来看，这些事情将非常重要。

如果你认为达到伯克希尔所占据的这种地位很容易，那你生活在与我不同的世界里。（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们的保险业务现在是一项了不起的业务。而且它有一些了不起的管理者。

原文

17. Berkshire was “cheaper” at the end of 2008

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, area 6. I recommend this fudge, incidentally. It’s terrific. I’m having a good time. (Laughter)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning. I’m Steve Fulton (PH) from Louisville, Kentucky. I gave up box tickets to the Kentucky Derby this afternoon to come out and ask you this question. Thank you for this opportunity. My question relates to how you view, or what your view is of the market’s valuation of Berkshire’s shares. You commonly comment that Berkshire has two primary components of value: the investments that they own — the stocks, the bonds, and similar — and the earnings from the non-insurance operating companies that you’ve got. And when you compare 2007 to 2008, the investments were down about 13 percent. And the earnings were down about 4 percent. But the value that the market was placing on the shares was down about 31 percent. And I was curious as to your comments on that valuation.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, I think you put your finger on something. We do think that the — we think, obviously, the investments are worth what they’re carried for, or we wouldn’t own them. In fact, we think they’re worth more money than they’re carried for at any given time because we think, on balance, they’re underpriced. So we have no problem with that number. We define our earning power — we leave out insurance underwriting profit or loss, on the theory that insurance is — if it breaks even — will give us float, which we will invest. And on balance, I actually think that insurance probably will produce some underwriting profit. So I think we even understate it a little bit in that respect. But we think the earning power of those businesses was not as good last year as normal. It won’t be as good this year as normal. But we think those are pretty good businesses overall. A few of them have got problems. And — but most of them will do well. And I think a few of them will do sensationally.

So, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to look at Berkshire as the sum of two parts. A lot of liquid marketable securities — or maybe not so liquid, but at least fairly priced, or maybe even undervalued, securities — and a lot of earning power, which we are going to try and increase over time. And if you look at it that way, you would come to the conclusion that Berkshire was cheaper in relation to its intrinsic value at the end of 2008 than it was at the end of 2007. But you would also come to the conclusion that was true of most securities. In other words, the whole level of securities. And every stock is affected by what every other stock sells for. I mean, if the value of ABC stock goes down, XYZ, absent any other variables, but XYZ is worth less. If you can buy stocks at eight times earnings, good companies, you know, or nine times earnings, you know, they — it reduces the value of Berkshire, as opposed to when stocks were selling, well, at 18 or 20 times earnings. I’m pulling those numbers out of the air. But everything is affected by everything else in the financial world.

When you say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, you’re comparing it — you’ve got to compare that to every other bush that’s available. So, you’re correct that Berkshire was cheaper in relation to intrinsic value at the end of 2008, than 2007, at least in my opinion. And that that those two variables will count. We’ll report them to you regularly. And over time, we would hope that both increase. And we particularly hope the operating earnings aspect increases, because that’s our major focus. We would like to move money into good operating businesses over time and build that number a lot. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would argue that last year was a bad year for a float business. It was naturally going to make the owner of the float appear, briefly, to be at a disadvantage. But long-term, having a large float, which you’re getting at a cost of less than zero, is going to be a big advantage. And I wouldn’t get too excited about the fact that the stock goes down. I happen to know that there was one buyer there who rather inartistically bought about 10,000 shares when Berkshire was driven to its absolute peak. And how much significance does that have in the big scheme of things over the long term? What matters are things like this: our casualty insurance business is probably the best big casualty business in the world — our utility subsidiary, well, if there’s a better one, I don’t know it — and if I had to bet on one carbide cutting tool business in the world, I’d bet on ISCAR against any other comer. And I could go down the list a long way. I think those things are going to matter greatly over the long term.

And if you think that it’s easy to get in that kind of a position, the kind of position that Berkshire occupies, you are living in a different world from the one I inhabit. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, our insurance business now, it is a remarkable business. And it’s got some remarkable managers.

18. GEICO如何从金融危机中受益

沃伦·巴菲特：发生了一件有趣的事情。去年九月，当我们面临金融崩溃，实际上几乎是终极危机——几乎是《中国综合症》那种情况时——美国人的行为开始改变。可能全世界都是如此，但我确切知道，就我们的业务而言，就像敲响了一个铃铛。其中一个表现相当有趣。尽管这严重损害了我们的珠宝业务、地毯业务，损害了NetJets，损害了所有业务。还损害了美国运通，例如。你知道，平均每笔交易额下降了近10%。我的意思是，就是这样，人们的行为发生了变化。但其中一件事是，它也导致GEICO的电话铃声更加响个不停。我们并没有特别改变广告投放。我们相对于其他公司的价格优势，也没有太大变化。但突然间，就这么——太惊人了。每周都有成千上万的人访问我们的网站或给我们打电话。

所以，突然间，省下100美元、150美元或任何数目，变得重要了。不仅仅是那些当天看到我们广告的人，还包括那些心里一直记挂着这件事的人。他们去了geico.com。因此，今年头四个月——去年，我们增加了大约66.5万名保单持有人。那是一个庞大的数字。这使我们远远成为大型汽车保险公司中增长最快的。今年头四个月，我们在四个月内增加了50.5万名。这是行为改变的结果。而那个特许经营权，那个竞争优势，已经建立了几十年。托尼·奈斯利像无人能及那样培育它，日复一日，办公室接办公室，员工接员工。然后当时机到来时，它就获得了巨大的回报。因为我们可以——我们是大型汽车保险公司中的低成本生产商。这意味着我们可以提供最好的价值。而现在人们注重价值。所以这些事情一直在我们的子公司中发生，由那些经理们运作。并且随着时间的推移，它积累了大量的价值。

我的意思是，每一位GEICO的保单持有人都是公司的真正资产。我可以给你一个估计值。但我认为这不一定是明智之举。但他们值真金白银。而且，我们现在是全国第三大汽车保险公司。我认为到年底，我们的市场份额可能会达到8.5%。而1993年托尼接管业务时，这个比例是2%多一点。而且基本面已经到位——（掌声）——可以带我们走得更远。

原文

18. How GEICO benefited from the financial crisis

WARREN BUFFETT: There’s one interesting thing that’s happened. In September, when we had a financial meltdown and, really, almost the ultimate — it was almost the China Syndrome-type thing — Americans started behaving differently. Probably people around the world, but I certainly know in terms of our businesses, it was like a bell had been rung. And one manifestation of it was kind of interesting. Whereas it hurt very much our jewelry business, our carpet business, it hurt NetJets, it hurt all the businesses. Hurt American Express, for example. You know, the average ticket went down almost 10 percent. I mean, it just was like that, that people’s behavior changed. But one of the things it did, was it also caused the phones to start ringing even more at GEICO. And we didn’t change our advertising, particularly. Our price advantage, relative to other companies, didn’t change that much. But all of a sudden, just — it was remarkable. Thousands and thousands and thousands of more people came to our website or phoned us every week.

So, it — all of a sudden, saving $100 or $150 or whatever it might be, became important. Not only the people who were watching our ads that day, but just with the people that it was lurking in the back of their minds. They went to geico.com. So in the first four months of this year — last year, we added about 665,000 policy holders. That’s a lot of people. It made us, by far, the fastest growing auto insurer among the big companies. First four months of this year, we’ve added 505,000 in four months. It’s the behavioral changes. And that franchise, that competitive advantage, has been built up over decades. And Tony Nicely has nurtured it like nobody else could, just day after day, office after office, associate after associate. But then it just pays off huge when the time comes. Because we can — we are the low-cost producer among big auto insurance companies. That means we can offer the best value. And now people are value conscious. So these things are going on all the time with our subsidiaries, with those managers. And it’s — it builds a lot of value over time.

I mean, every GEICO policy holder is a real asset to the company. I could give you an estimated value. But I don’t think it’d necessarily be smart. But they’re worth real money. And, we are now the third largest auto insurer in the country. I think we’ll end up the year maybe at 8 1/2 percent of the market. And it was 2 and a small fraction percent back in 1993 when Tony took charge of the business. And the fundamentals are in place — (applause) — to take us much higher.

19. 2008年很艰难，但依然没有分红计划

沃伦·巴菲特：卡罗尔？

查理·芒格：（轻声地）你能拿到那个花生脆糖吗？

卡罗尔·卢米斯：我向你保证，这个问题不是来自苏珊·露琪。不过，它确实与股息政策有关。它来自宾夕法尼亚州亚德利的彼得·萨金特。为了问这个问题，他引用了《所有者手册》中的第9条原则。沃伦在那里写道，引用：“我们觉得崇高的意图应该定期与结果进行对照检查。我们通过评估留存收益在长期内是否为股东每留存1美元创造了至少1美元的市场价值，来检验留存收益的智慧。迄今为止，这一检验已经通过。”这段话是以前写的。“我们将继续以五年滚动基础应用它。随着我们净资产的增长，明智地使用留存收益变得更加困难。”所以我现在引用提问者的话：“最近的年报让我思考了公司和股价的表现。伯克希尔在过去几年似乎表现相当不错。但股价似乎并没有完全跟上步伐。“所以我查看了过去五年的每股盈利。它们在年报的第26页。

它们加起来，总共是29,207美元。“你可能知道，伯克希尔在2008年12月31日的收盘价是84,250美元。如果你把这每股29,207美元的留存收益加到这个价格上，你会得出一个，引用，‘最低市场价值113,457美元。’“由于伯克希尔在2008年12月31日收盘于96,600美元”——哦，等等，我这里读错了。“伯克希尔在2003年12月31日的收盘价是84,250美元。“既然伯克希尔在2008年12月31日收盘于96,600美元，后来还更低，现在又回到那个水平附近，似乎市场价值并没有因为每一美元留存而增加。“假设我的分析是正确的，这就提出了一个问题：伯克希尔是否会在来年支付股息。”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们现在就那个计划进行一个小测验——（笑声）——针对这个问题。顺便说一句，这五年期间的盈利将包括期末那些列在未实现增值项下的收益。换句话说，其中一些收益在当时实际上已经体现在资产价值中，后来才变成已实现。但事实是，如果你把我们五年内赚到的所有钱，以及购买的股票、债券、企业，在2008年12月31日全部卖掉换现金，我们不会——我们会亏钱，我的意思是，在2008年12月31日存在的条件下。我认为几乎所有资本项目可能都是如此——（听不清）——如果你真的以你能卖掉的价格来衡量，我们买的企业——我们爱那些企业。但当时很多企业几乎没有市场。证券价值也大幅下跌。

所以，我认为他说得非常对，以2008年12月31日的价值来衡量，在那个特定的市场时点上，再投资的收益并没有产生一美元的市场价值。现在，我想说的是，我们也说过，我们是用标普500指数来衡量我们的业务表现。我们用账面价值作为内在商业价值的保守替代指标。我们认为内在商业价值更高，但我们用它作为替代指标。在伯克希尔的历史上，我们一直这么做。在那五年期间——或者在任何——我们从未有过五年期表现逊于标普500指数的情况，就我所说的伯克希尔内在价值衡量标准而言。而且，就像我几年前说过的，随着我们规模变大，做到这点要难得多，我们会满足于好上几个百分点。但到目前为止，这个检验已经——已经通过。而且是在我们留存所有收益的情况下通过的。

所以我认为我们的负担依然存在——我们仍然应该用事实来证明，伯克希尔的售价会高于我们留存的收益。伯克希尔的售价高于它——即使在今天，伯克希尔每留存的一美元，都转化为超过一美元的市场价值。但我当然要说，如果你把那五年买的所有东西在当时的价格都卖掉，那会产生亏损。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，对于这种每50年才发生一次的古怪事件，我并不太激动。如果你为此做了合理准备，在最低点受了点小伤，而其他人遭受的痛苦大得多，并且出现了你在其他条件下看不到的不寻常机会，我认为我们不应该得到任何同情的眼泪。

原文

19. 2008 was tough, but still no plans for dividend

WARREN BUFFETT: Carol?

CHARLIE MUNGER: (Quietly) Can you reach that peanut brittle?

CAROL LOOMIS: I promise you, this question did not come from Susan Lucci. However, it does concern dividend policy. It came from Peter Sargent of Yardley, Pennsylvania. And to ask that, he quotes from principle number 9 of the “Owner’s Manual.” And Warren wrote there, quote: “We feel noble intentions should be checked periodically against results. We test the wisdom of retaining earnings by assessing whether retention over time delivers shareholders at least $1 of market value for each $1 retained. To date, this test has been met.” Now, this was written some time ago. “We will continue to apply it on a 5-year rolling basis. As our net worth grows, it more difficult to use retained earnings wisely.” So I’m now quoting the questioner here: “The recent annual report made me think about the performance of both the company and the stock price. Berkshire seems to have done quite well in the past few years. But the stock price seems to have not quite kept pace. “So I looked at the last five years of earnings per share. They’re on page 26 of the annual report.

And they add up, in total, to $29,207. “As you probably know, the closing price of Berkshire on December 31st, 2008 was 84,250. If you add the 29,207 per share of retained earnings to this, you come up with a, quote, ‘minimum market value of 113,457.’ “Since Berkshire closed on 12/31/2008 at 96,600” — oh, wait, I have read something wrong here. “The closing price of Berkshire on 12/31/2003 was 84,250. “And since Berkshire closed on 12/31/2008 at 96,600, and it’s been lower than that since, and is now around that now, it would seem that the market value has not increased for each $1 retained. “Assuming my analysis is correct, it raises the question of whether or not Berkshire will pay a dividend in the coming year or not.”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we’ll now have a short quiz on that program — (laughter) — on the question. The earnings, incidentally, of the 5-year period would include gains from things that were listed in unrealized appreciation at the end of the period. In other words, some of those were actually built into the asset value at the time, but then become realized. But the truth is if you take all of the money we earned in the five years, and the stocks, bonds, businesses purchased, and you sold them for cash on December 31st, 2008, we would not have — we would’ve had a loss on that, I mean, under the conditions that existed on December 31st, 2008. I think that’s probably true of almost all capital programs that were (inaudible) — if you really measured it by what you could’ve sold, the businesses we bought — we love those businesses. But there was no market to speak of for many businesses at that time. And security values were down significantly.

So I would say that he’s absolutely right, that measured on the value on December 31st, 2008, that the reinvested earnings had not produced a dollar market value at that particular market point. Now, I would say this, that we also say we measure our business performance against the S&P. And we use book value as a conservative proxy for intrinsic business value. We think intrinsic business value is higher, but we use that as a proxy. And we’ve done that consistently throughout the history of Berkshire. And during that 5-year period — or during any — we’ve never had a 5-year period when we’ve under-performed the S&P, in terms of the — what I would call the intrinsic value measure of Berkshire. And, as I said a few years ago, it’s — as we get larger, it’s much harder to do that, and we’ll settle for a couple of points better. But so far, that test has been made — been met. And it’s been met while we reinvested all earnings.

So I think that we still have got the burden of — we still should have to prove by the fact that Berkshire will sell above the earnings we’ve retained. Berkshire sells above it — every dollar that’s been retained at Berkshire translates even today into more than a dollar of market value. But I would certainly say that if you took the five years and just sold all the things we bought during that period at that price, that there would be a loss. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, I don’t get too excited about these oddball things that happen once every 50 years. If you’re reasonably prepared for them and you’re dented a little on the bottom tick, and other people are suffering a lot more, and unusual opportunities are coming to you that you don’t see under other conditions, I don’t think we deserve any salt tears.

20. 富国银行股价暴跌不应引发抛售

查理·芒格：拿富国银行来说。我认为富国银行将以更强大的姿态走出这场混乱。股价在最低点吓坏了许多人，我认为这将被证明是一个非常短暂的现象。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。富国银行跌到了低于——实际上，最低触及每股9美元以下，而当时业务息差从未如此之好，存款流入从未如此之好，他们相对于其他大银行的资金成本优势也从未如此之大。但是，你知道，在一个恐惧的市场中，它——说真的，那天我有一个班级会议，那是唯一一次那些班级让我点名一只股票。但他们真的逼我。当时有人用黑莓，或者他们现在随身携带的那些玩意儿，查了一下价格，发现低于9美元。我说，如果我必须把我所有的净资产投到一只股票上，那就是那只股票。他们的业务——你知道，商业模式太棒了。而且，你知道，你什么时候有机会买到像美联银行这样的东西，它拥有美国第四大存款基础，并将其纳入囊中？然后开始获得像富国银行那样的资产与负债息差，并建立他们拥有的关系。这是一个巨大的商业机会。

富国银行的情况会更好——除非他们必须发行大量股票，他们不应该这样做——几年后，富国银行的情况会比什么都没发生时好得多。我认为其他一些企业也是如此。但是，你知道，你必须准备好。你不能让别人把你置于不得不抛售头寸的境地。杠杆是这个世界让人们陷入麻烦的原因。所以你不想——你绝不想处于别人可以釜底抽薪的境地。你也绝不想在情绪上处于自己釜底抽薪的境地。我的意思是，你不想让别人强迫你卖出，你也不想让自己的恐惧或情绪导致你在错误的时间卖出。我的意思是，为什么有人在富国银行股价9美元时卖出，而他们是在25美元时买入的，而且业务更好了，这是市场行为方式中一件奇怪的事情。但人们就是会这么做。他们受到价格观察的极大影响。

如果他们像我一样拥有一座农场，你知道，离这里30英里，他们不会每天得到一个报价。你知道，我25年前买了那个农场。你看玉米产量。你看大豆产量和价格以及化肥成本和一些其他东西。你看资产本身来决定你是否做了明智的投资。你对资产将产生什么有预期。但股票市场的人们倾向于看价格。所以他们让价格告诉他们应该有什么感觉或者——在我们看来这有点疯狂。我们认为你应该像看待你买的公寓楼或想要的农场那样看待企业。他们让每天都有报价可用这一事实变成了一种负担，而不是一种资产。所有我想说的是，你最好回去读读《聪明的投资者》第八章，它告诉你如何思考市场。那会比学习现代投资组合理论对你有益得多。

原文

20. Wells Fargo’s stock price plunge shouldn’t spark selling

CHARLIE MUNGER: Take Wells Fargo. I think Wells Fargo’s going to come out of this mess way stronger. The fact that the stock at the bottom tick scared a lot of people, I think will prove to be a very temporary phenomenon.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Wells Fargo got down below — actually, ticked below $9 a share at a time when spreads on business were never better, when depositing flows were never better, when their advantage in relation of costs of funds versus other large banks had never been better. But you know, in a market that was terrified, it — literally, I had a class meeting that day, and it was the only time any of those classes have ever got me to name a stock. But they actually pushed me. And somebody there with a BlackBerry, or whatever those instruments are that they carry around these days, checked the price and it was below $9. And I said, if I had to put all my net worth in one stock, that would’ve been the stock. The — their business is — you know, the business model is fabulous. And it, you know, when would you get a chance to buy something like Wachovia, which had the fourth largest deposit base in the United States, and bring that in? And then start getting the spread on assets versus liabilities that Wells gets and build the relationships they have. It’s a great business opportunity.

Wells Fargo will be better off — unless they have to issue a lot of shares, which they shouldn’t — Wells Fargo will be a lot better off a couple of years from now, than if none of this had happened. And I think that’s true of some of other businesses as well. But you — you know, you have to be prepared. You can’t let somebody else get you in a position where you have to sell out your position. Leverage is what causes people trouble in this world. So you don’t — you never want to be in a position where somebody can pull the rug out from under you. And you also never want to be emotionally in a position where you pull the rug out from under yourself. I mean, you don’t want to have other people force you to sell and you don’t want to let your own fears or emotions to cause you to sell at the wrong time. I mean, why anybody sells Wells Fargo at $9 a share when they owned it at $25 and the business is better off, is one of the strange things about the way markets behave. But people do it. And they get very affected by looking at prices.

If they own a farm like I do, you know, 30 miles from here, they don’t get a price on it every day. You know, they — I bought that farm 25 years ago. And you look to the production of corn. You look to the production of soy beans and prices and cost of fertilizer and a few things. And you look to the asset itself to determine whether you made an intelligent investment. You have your expectations about what the asset will produce. But people in stocks tend to look at the price. So they let the price tell them how they should feel or — that’s kind of crazy in our view. We think you should look at the business just like you’d look at the apartment house that you bought or the farm you want. They let the fact that a quote is available every day turn into a liability rather than an asset. And all I would say there is you better go back and read chapter 8 of “The Intelligent Investor,” where it tells you how to think about the market. And it will do you more good than learning what modern portfolio theory is all about.

21. 大规模刺激支出必然存在一些“浪费”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第七区。

参会者：我叫吉姆·鲍尔斯。我来自马萨诸塞州西牛顿。我的问题与联邦政府的经济刺激法案有关。我读到只有8%的资金打算用于基础设施。当您投资时，您通常会看您用钱得到了什么资产。随着国家债务不断增加，您不认为如果联邦政府投资的更大比例资金用于像大萧条时期那样的坚实资产，比如田纳西河流域管理局、胡佛水坝和其他设施，这些设施至今仍在盈利，并将政府的原始投资偿还了多倍，同时让大量人口就业，这样会更好吗？

查理·芒格：让我来回答那个问题。是的。（笑声和掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我当然同意。我的意思是，30年代——当时用于刺激经济的资金确实做了很多非常棒的事情。那应该是目标和榜样。我无法完美评估当前的经济刺激法案会做什么。我知道我——前几天我确实从社会保障局收到一份通知，告诉我我将多得到250美元。那应该够我花6、7个月了。（笑声）查理肯定会让他的钱花得更久，我敢肯定。（笑声）但你知道，这就是巴菲特家庭目前收到的刺激。显然，你想尽可能明智地使用这笔钱。同样明显的是，每当联邦政府大规模做任何事情时——任何时候任何大型组织，教会、企业或其他任何东西，你知道，把各种资源投入到某件事上，通常都会有一定数量的浪费。

我认为意图是——但当它通过国会和其他程序后，我无法保证结果会怎样——但我认为意图是让资金迅速投入行动，并最终以明智的方式使用。但是如果珍珠港事件发生后的第二天，你知道，如果你在宣战声明上附加了5、6千个专项拨款，你知道，那将不是一个好看的景象。我的意思是，我们现在的系统似乎并不是非常有效，我认为，在将特定立法者的利益与共同目标分开方面。我的意思是，当我看到一些法案被附加了什么内容时，我感到不安。这当然是一个例子。所以，我同意查理的答案。但我认为政府的意图是对的。当美国公众像现在这样退缩时，政府确实需要介入。这会产生后果。我们正在做的事情规模很大——我们在做常规的事情，但规模非常规。我们将从我们现在正在做的事情中看到后果。

我认为我们应该这样做。但我不认为我们应该认为这是免费的午餐。

查理·芒格：是的，在可以做出的基础设施投资清单中，我们有一个非常显而易见的项目。那就是大幅改进全国性的电网。这不会对我们没有帮助的可能性是零。而且，当它发生时，将极大地有利于伯克希尔的公用事业子公司。但那不是我提出这个问题的原因。即使我们没有公用事业子公司，我也会提出这个论点。

沃伦·巴菲特：不过，如果我们有公用事业子公司，我们可能会说得更强烈一点。（笑声）

原文

21. Big stimulus spending bound to have some “slop”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, number 7.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Jim Powers (PH). I’m from West Newton, Massachusetts. My question has to do with this stimulus bill by the federal government. I’ve read that only 8 percent of the money is intended to go to infrastructure. When you invest money, you normally look at the asset you’re getting for the money. With the country going into so much debt, don’t you think it would be better if a great percentage of the money invested by the federal government go to solid assets, as it did during the Great Depression with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover Dam, other facilities, that are still making money today, and paying back the original investment by the government many times over, while putting numerous people to work?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Let me answer that one. Yes. (Laughter and applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: I would certainly agree. I mean the ’30s — a lot of really wonderful things were done with the money that was used to then to stimulate the economy. And that should be the goal and a model. I can’t evaluate perfectly what the current stimulus bill will do. I know that I — I did get a notice the other day from the Social Security Administration telling me I’m getting $250 more. That ought to last me 6 or 7 months. (Laughter) Charlie will make his last longer, I’m sure. (Laughter) But you know, that’s the stimulus that the Buffett household has received at the present time. Obviously, you want to use the money as intelligently as possible. Obviously, also, anytime the federal government does anything on a massive scale — any time any big organization, a church or a business or anything, you know, throws all kinds of resources at something, usually there’s a fair amount of slop.

I think that the intent — but by the time it gets through Congress and everything, I can’t guarantee how the result comes out — but I think the intent is to get the money into action quickly and to end up having it utilized in intelligent ways. But if the day after Pearl Harbor happened, you know, if you’d attached 5 or 6 thousand earmarks to the declaration of war, you know, it would not have been a pretty sight. I mean, it — we have a system now where — that doesn’t seem to be perfectly effective, I would say, in detaching the interests of particular legislators away from the common goal. I mean, I get distressed when I look at what gets attached to some of these bills. And that certainly was a case in point. So I’ll go along with Charlie on the answer. But I think the intent of the administration is the right thing. When the American public pulls back like they have, government does need to step in. It will have consequences. We are doing things on a scale — we’re doing the conventional things, but we’re doing them in unconventional amounts. And we will see consequences from what we are doing now.

I think we should be doing it. But I don’t think we should think it’s a free ride.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we have one big no-brainer on the list of infrastructure investments that can be made. And that is a hugely improved nationwide electricity grid. The chances that that won’t help us are zero. And that, when it happens, will enormously benefit Berkshire’s utility subsidiary. But that isn’t the reason I’m raising it. I would be making this argument if we didn’t have a utilities subsidiary.

WARREN BUFFETT: We might make it a little more strongly if we had the utilities subsidiary, however. (Laughter)

22. 难以与政府担保债务竞争

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自丽塔·艾迪生，她问：“伯克希尔强劲的资产负债表和信用评级，如何帮助利用买入机会，当即使是弱小的金融公司也可以通过使用美国政府对其债务的担保，以比伯克希尔更低的成本借款时？”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，嗯，正如我在年报中指出的那样，在任何需要融资的业务中，当我们与那些通过政府担保获得资金和融资的人竞争时，我们处于显著劣势。我们的原材料成本要高得多。这在Clayton Homes尤其如此，我们有100到110亿美元的抵押贷款票据，主要是用于活动房屋的。而且这是一个质量非常好的投资组合。凯文·克莱顿和Clayton Homes的人在负责任地放贷方面做得非常出色。我们的借款人表现非常好。但为该投资组合融资的原材料——资金——成本远高于某些陷入困境的银行。这对我们来说是一个真正的问题。这迫使我们去尝试寻找各种其他为该投资组合融资的方式，以一种或另一种方式，让有政府担保的人参与到项目中来。这对我们来说是现在的一个现实。有些人是有政府担保的幸运儿。有些人则不是。

当然，你会在一些公司身上戏剧性地看到这一点，它们的一部分资金有政府担保，然后又出售其他没有担保的债券。我的意思是，就在几天前，我记得，我可能记错了，但我认为高盛出售了一些息差为400个基点且没有担保的产品。而他们有担保的票据的息差会低几百个基点。通用电气今年早些时候也出售了一些没有担保的产品。有担保和无担保之间的息差巨大。我们没有任何有担保的东西可以出售，所以我们根本不属于那个受优待的类别。而且我们不能成为银行控股公司。所以，只要这种情况持续下去，我们就必须想办法调整。我们真正使用借来的钱——我们只在公用事业业务中使用。但其他公用事业公司也不在这个受优待的类别里。我的意思是，一般来说，公用事业行业。所以，与大多数公用事业公司相比，我们的公用事业公司借款条件相当不错。中美能源的信用被认为非常好。

总的来说，我们以较低的利率筹集资金，这有利于我们在公用事业业务中的客户。我们在其他业务中不太使用资金，除了Clayton Homes的融资需求。我们不会使用太多资金。所以，我们基本上是通过浮存金获得资金。而我们的浮存金是——580亿美元。我刚才提到，富国银行在第一季度以1.12%的利率——112个基点——筹集资金，这非常便宜。但我们的资金更便宜。我们无法像富国银行那样获得那么多资金。但我们确实有580亿——实际上，我们现在更多——你预计其长期成本将低于零，尽管在某些时期我们会有成本。但对于与一个能够通过政府担保筹集资金的政府支持企业正面竞争，我们没有答案。无论我们多么审慎地经营，我们都没有办法在任何业务上与它们正面竞争。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我们当然处于资金劣势。但另一方面，我们不像银行或银行控股公司那样受到监管。我认为，如果我们只抓住这个降临到我们身上的劣势并执着于此，我们会非常忘恩负义。

沃伦·巴菲特：我一直听到这种说教。（笑声）

原文

22. Hard to compete with government-guaranteed debt

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Rita Addison (PH), who says, “How does Berkshire’s strong balance sheet and credit rating help take advantage of buying opportunities when even weak financial companies can now borrow more cheaply than Berkshire by using U.S. government guarantees of their debt?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, as I pointed out in the annual report, we are at a significant disadvantage in any financing-type business where we are competing against people who are getting their funding and their financing with a government guarantee. Our raw material costs us a lot more money. And that’s particularly applicable at Clayton where we have 10- or $11 billion of, really, mortgage paper on mostly manufactured homes. And it’s exceptionally good quality portfolio. Kevin Clayton and the people at Clayton Homes have done a great job in terms of lending responsibly. Our borrowers have behaved very well. But the raw material to fund that portfolio — money — costs us a whole lot more than some bank that’s in trouble. And that’s a real problem for us. And it’s forcing us to try to come up with various other sources of funding that portfolio where, one way or another, we get people with government guarantees involved in the program. That’s just a fact of life with us now. There are the blessed who have government guarantees. And there’re the ones that aren’t.

And of course, you see that dramatically, in the case of some companies that have a government guarantee for part of their money and then sell other money — and then sell other bonds — that aren’t guaranteed. I mean, just the other day, as I remember, I may be wrong on this, but I think Goldman Sachs sold something with a 400 basis point spread that wasn’t guaranteed. Whereas their guaranteed paper would be hundreds of basis points underneath that. General Electric sold something earlier this year that wasn’t guaranteed. And the spread between the guaranteed and the un-guaranteed was huge. We don’t have anything guaranteed to sell, so we are not in that favored class in any way. And we can’t become a bank holding company. So as long as the situation goes on, we have to figure out ways that we adjust. We only really use borrowed money — we use it in our utility business. But other utilities are not in this favored class. I mean, the utility industry generally. So our utility borrows money quite well, compared to most utilities. MidAmerican’s credit is regarded as very good.

And generally speaking, we’ve raised our money at a lower rate, which benefits our customers in the utility business. We don’t use much money in the rest of our businesses, except for the financing at Clayton. And we won’t use much money. So we get our money by float, basically. And our float is — it was $58 billion. I mentioned a little while ago, that Wells Fargo raises its money in the first quarter at, I think, 1.12 percent — 112 basis points — which is very cheap. But our money’s cheaper. We can’t get as much of it as Wells does. But we do have 58 billion — in fact, we have more now — that you would think will cost us less than zero over time, although there will be given periods when we have a cost to it. But we don’t have an answer for going head-to-head against a government-sponsored business that gets — can raise money with a government guarantee. We do not have a way of going head-to-head with them at any business, no matter how prudently we conduct our operations. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, of course we’re at a funding disadvantage. But on the other hand, we aren’t regulated like a bank or a bank holding company. I think we’d be pretty ungrateful if we took this one disadvantage that has come to us and obsessed on it.

WARREN BUFFETT: I get those kind of lectures all the time. (Laughter)

23. 格雷厄姆可能会同意我们对衍生品的看法

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第八区。

参会者：您好，巴菲特先生。您好，芒格先生。我叫玛丽·金布尔，来自纽约市。回到基础问题，您认为本·格雷厄姆会对衍生品说些什么？

沃伦·巴菲特：他不会喜欢它们。我认为他可能会说差不多我在2002年说过的话，它们对系统构成了真正的风险。它们导致杠杆率失控。它们导致交易对手签署在某些情况下可能难以兑现的协议。它们给本已脆弱的经济体系增加了额外的压力，这些压力可能以不可预测的方式爆发。但他可能也会说，如果他看到一些定价错误的衍生品，他会据此采取行动。但他不会让自己陷入一个不谨慎行事的人的问题可能给他带来麻烦的境地。我认为这大概就是答案。衍生品的一个基本问题——嗯，有好几个问题。我的意思是，在1929年之后，国会召开了会议——有一个佩科拉委员会等等——他们决定让人们大量借钱买入证券是非常危险的，并且这加剧了大萧条。因此，他们说美联储应该监管人们可以借多少钱来购买证券。这对社会很重要。

于是美联储开始要求保证金——他们有保证金要求。这些要求至今仍然存在。你借钱买入证券的金额不能超过50%。实际上，在某个时期，他们甚至不允许任何借钱。他们实行了百分之百的保证金。但是衍生品出现了，就把这些规定变成了笑话。有一种所谓的“总收益互换”，意味着你可以借相当于你拥有的资产的百分之百的钱。这远远超出了1929年存在的任何情况。所以衍生品成了规避市场杠杆监管的一种方式，而正如我所说，国会认为这种监管很重要，美联储仍然有责任强制执行。衍生品也意味着结算日期被推迟。证券市场的问题之一是，如果你今天做了一笔交易，但一年后才需要结算，有时你很难找到对方。而衍生品允许这种非常长的结算期。而证券市场要求在三天内结算。他们要求三天内结算是有原因的。

随着结算期延长，你会遇到越来越多的违约。所以，它们对系统是一种危险。这是毫无疑问的。我们在The Bookworm书店有一本加尔布雷思写的书，叫《大崩盘》。这是一本伟大的书。你真应该买一本。它讲述了1929年的故事，并涉及保证金要求，所以……本·格雷厄姆不会喜欢一个严重使用衍生品的系统。但他也不会——我不认为他会不屑于——如果他看到某些东西看上去严重偏离常规，并且他知道自己能处理——我认为他会很乐意买入或卖出一个定价错误的衍生品。查理？

查理·芒格：我认为衍生品业务存在一个更深层次的问题。衍生品交易商从客户那里获取两方面的优势。一是赌场式的数学优势，相当于拉斯维加斯赌场的庄家优势。二是衍生品交易商与自己的客户参与同一场游戏，但占有更优秀玩家的优势。所以——

沃伦·巴菲特：并且了解他们在做什么。

查理·芒格：——并且了解客户在做什么。这基本上是一个肮脏的生意。你实际上是在向信任你的客户出售对他们不利的产品。美国不需要更多这种东西。我们需要更少。（掌声）

原文

23. Graham would probably agree with us on derivatives

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, number 8.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Mr. Buffett. Hi, Mr. Munger. My name is Mary Kimble (PH) from New York City. In getting back to basics, what do you think Ben Graham would have said about derivatives?

WARREN BUFFETT: He would not have liked them. I think he probably would’ve said pretty much what I said back in 2002, that they pose a real risk to the system. They cause leverage to run wild. They cause counterparties to sign up for things that may be difficult to achieve under certain circumstances. That they place an already fragile economic system — added strains on them — which can pop up in unpredictable ways. But he would probably also say if he saw some that were mispriced, he would act accordingly. But he wouldn’t get himself in a position where the problems of the people who didn’t act prudently could cause him any problems. And I think that probably would be the answer. The — one of the — one basic problem on derivatives — well, there are several problems. I mean, back in — after 1929, Congress met — there was a Pecora committee and so on— and they decided that it was very dangerous to let people borrow a lot of money against securities and that it contributed to the Great Depression. And therefore, they said the Federal Reserve should regulate how much people could borrow against securities. And it was important for society.

And the Federal Reserve started requiring margin — they had margin requirements. Those requirements still exist. You are not supposed to be able to borrow more than 50 percent against your securities. Actually, during one period, they went to where they didn’t — the Federal Reserve allowed no borrowing whatsoever. They went to a hundred percent margin. But derivatives came along and just turned that into a — made those rules a laughingstock. You have what they call “total return swaps,” which means you can borrow a hundred percent against what you own. That goes way beyond anything that existed in 1929. So derivatives became a way around regulation of leverage in markets, which like I say, Congress felt was important and the Federal Reserve still has a responsibility for enforcing. Derivatives also meant that settlement dates got pushed out. One of the problems in securities markets comes about when you have a trade today, if you had — didn’t have to settle it for a year, you’d find it very hard sometimes to find the person on the other side. And derivatives allow these very long settlement periods. Whereas security markets demand them in three days. There’s a reason they demand them in three days.

As you extend out periods, you get more and more defaults. So they’re a danger — they are a danger to the system. There’s no question about that. We have a book in The Bookworm called “The Great Crash” by Galbraith. It’s one of the great books. You really ought to buy it. It tells the story of the ’29 and it gets into margin requirements, so… Ben Graham would not like a system that used derivatives heavily. But he would — I don’t think he would have been above — if he saw something that looked way out of line and he knew he could handle it himself — I think he would have been quite willing to buy or sell one that was mispriced. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think there’s been a deeper problem in the derivative business. The derivative dealer takes two advantages of the customer. One, there’s croupier-style mathematical advantage equivalent to the house advantage in Las Vegas. And two, the derivative dealer is playing in the same game with his own clients, with the advantage of being a better player. So —

WARREN BUFFETT: And having knowledge of what they’re doing.

CHARLIE MUNGER: — and having knowledge of what the clients are doing. This is basically a dirty business. And you’re really selling things to your clients who trust you, that are bad for the clients. We don’t need more of this kind of thing in America. We need less. (Applause)

24. 救助不应损害高级债务持有人

沃伦·巴菲特：安德鲁？

安德鲁·罗斯·索尔金：嗯，这个问题是今天早上提出的。这是一个及时的、哲学性的问题，考虑到下周将公布的压力测试结果。它涉及您在富国银行、美国合众银行和高盛的头寸。问题如下：“政府对克莱斯勒和通用汽车的拟议重组计划要求债权人以及普通股股东承担损失。“然而，对于银行，政府迄今为止的行动并未要求优先股和债务的持有人做出让步。政府仅仅要求稀释普通股股东。“优先股和债务的持有人应该在多大程度上分享银行救助计划或一家大型银行控股公司解决方案中的损失？您是否期望您持有的任何头寸被稀释？”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我要这样说。这非常取决于具体机构。对于房地美和房利美，优先股已经没了。我的意思是，已经没有股权了。优先股实际上和普通股一起被清除了。对于美国合众银行或富国银行，这些公司正在赚大钱。有很大量的股权。所以没有理由去找高级证券持有者，说他们应该放弃任何东西，因为下面有大量的普通股权益。这就好比说，我对我的房子有按揭，贷款金额是当前价值的70%，就因为附近其他人因为按揭贷款更高而付不起，你就对我的贷款人说，他应该放弃一些东西，进一步增加我的资产净值。那里有大量的股权，高盛、美国合众银行、富国银行也是如此。有大量的股权，大量的盈利能力。真的没有理由让高级债务放弃任何东西。

你知道，对于房地美和房利美，你可以就次级债是否也应该像优先股和普通股一样遭受损失提出论点。但我认为这不适用于拥有大量未来盈利能力的盈利机构。我很想买下整个美国合众银行。你知道，或者我很想

2009年年度股东大会

第3/6部分

这也是我们经营企业的方式。但对于股票和债券，我们会卖出它们。但我们比大多数人更不愿意卖出。我是说，如果我们当初做出了正确的决定，我们喜欢长期持有。我们持有很多股票——有些已经持有了几十年。但如果竞争优势消失了，如果我们真的对管理层失去信心，如果我们最初的分析是错的——这种情况确实会发生——我们就会卖出。或者如果我们发现了更有吸引力的机会——通常情况下我们手头有充足的资金。但在去年9月，9月下旬，我们承诺要投入66亿——呃，是60亿——收购箭牌。我们——然后高盛需要50亿，通用电气需要30亿。我卖出了价值几十亿美元的强生股票，仅仅是因为在当时的情况下，我不喜欢把现金水平降到某个点以下。那不是对强生的负面判断。只是——那意味着我想多保留几十亿美元的现金。而且我看到了一个机会，去做一些可能稍纵即逝的事情。

而我总可以在以后买回强生。但那是一个不寻常的情况。

原文

It’s also the way we want to run our business. But with stocks, bonds, we sell them. But we’re more reluctant to sell them than most people. I mean, if we made the right decision going on, we like to ride that a very long time. And we’ve owned many — we’ve owned some stocks for decades. But if the competitive advantage disappears, if we really lose faith in the management, if we were wrong in the original analysis — and that happens — we sell. Or if we find something more attractive — Normally we have plenty of money around. But in September of last year, late September, we had committed to put 6.6 million — billion — in Wrigley. We — and then Goldman Sachs needed 5 billion, GE needed 3 billion. I sold a couple billion dollars’ worth of J&J just because I didn’t like getting our cash level down below a certain point, under the circumstances that existed then. That not was a negative decision on J&J. It just — it meant that I wanted a couple billion more around. And I saw an opportunity to do something that I probably wouldn’t see too much later.

Whereas, I could always buy J&J back at a later date. But that’s an unusual situation.

28. 我们经营伯克希尔就像我们拥有它全部股权一样

沃伦·巴菲特：关于之前的那个问题，我还想回过头来谈一点。我经常问公司的CEO们，如果他们自己拥有整个公司，他们会怎么做不同的事情。当我和我们投资的公司或其他一些朋友经营的公司交谈时，我会问：“如果这家公司百分之百由你和你的家族拥有，你会做什么不同的事情？“他们会给我列出一堆事情。但在伯克希尔，没有这样的清单。我们基本上是按照如果我们百分之百拥有这家公司的方式来经营它。这就是一个区别——对于那些加入我们的人来说，他们不必调整自己的生活方式来适应一堆自我强加的规则——比如人们如何看待上市公司、关于盈利预测以及诸如此类的事情。有些特定的人更愿意与这样的企业联系在一起。

而且——继续我刚才解释的这个规则——他们知道，对于他们花了几十年建立起来并珍视的业务，他们只需要做一次决定——决定它去向何方——之后就不会再被意外了。他们不会遇到某个管理顾问过来说：“你应该做一个纯业务公司，华尔街是这么说的，所以你应该把这个分拆出去或者卖掉，“之类的事情。他们知道我们不会给它加杠杆。所以他们知道自己真的可以去做自己最爱的事情，那就是继续经营自己的企业，不被银行家、律师、公众预期或任何类似的东西打扰。就像我之前说的，这是一个真正的优势。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，在演艺界，他们说如果一出戏能持续很长时间，它就有”腿”。我想伯克希尔·哈撒韦的系统也有”腿”。

原文

28. We run Berkshire as if we owned all of it

WARREN BUFFETT: I’d like to go back to one point on the earlier question, too. I always — I frequently ask CEOs of companies what they would do differently if they owned the whole place themselves. You know, when I’m talking to, either companies where we’ve invested in, sometimes other companies, friends of mine run them. You know, “What would you do different if this was a hundred percent owned by you and your family?” And they give me a list of things. There is no list at Berkshire. You know, we basically run this place the same way we’d run if we owned a hundred percent of it. And that is a difference that — in terms of people joining in with us. They don’t have to adjust their lives to a bunch of rules that are kind of self-imposed, in terms of how people think about public companies, in terms of earnings, predictions, and all of that sort of thing. And there are certain people that would prefer to be associated with an enterprise like that.

And also —following through on this rule I just explained — know that they’ve made a one decision on where that business that they built up over decades and cherish and everything — they make one decision on where it’s going to go, and they’re not going to get surprised later on. They’re not going to get some management consultant come in and say, “You ought to have a pure player, Wall Street’s saying, so you ought to spin this off or sell it,” or anything like that. And they know we’re not going to leverage it up. So they know they’re really going to get to do what they love the most, which is to continue to run their business, not bothered by bankers or lawyers or public expectancies or anything of the sort. And that is a — like I said earlier, that’s a real advantage. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, in the show business, they say the show has legs if it’s going to last a long time. I think Berkshire Hathaway’s system has legs.

29. 为什么年会不进行网络直播

沃伦·巴菲特：好了，接下来我们请贝基。（笑声）

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自华盛顿州西雅图的Humin Timadin（音）。他有两个部分的问题。他说：“你们时不时会购买上市公司的股票。假定你们觉得那些股票在当时是比伯克希尔股票更好的投资，因为你们从不回购伯克希尔的股票。如果伯克希尔的股东能够以和你们相同的价格购买同样的公司股票，为什么他们不应该卖掉伯克希尔的股票，去买你们正在买的东西？“其次，他想知道为什么，因为他”和其他成千上万的股东一样，无法参加年会，为什么伯克希尔不进行年会网络直播？我知道讽刺的是，我将听不到你的回答。“（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我们的会议确实有文字报道，至少有很多博客和其他东西在报道。Outstanding Investor Digest会相当完整地报道它。还有其他一些机构会准备详尽的报告。它们会出现在互联网上。所以他很有可能找到答案。我们可以做网络直播。我也被问过同样的问题，关于我和学生们的会议是否要直播。为什么不这样做呢？这样会容易得多。我认为通过亲身接触会有所收获。我当然知道，当我在学习的时候，通过亲身接触我收获了很多。即使我读过本·格雷厄姆的书，但去和他在一起也让我收获良多。我在教学中也是这样做的。而且我认为——我喜欢我们得到的出席人数。我喜欢我们的合作伙伴出现，看到我们销售的产品等等。我们并不会躲起来，在内布拉斯加西部某个小村庄之类的地方开会，以阻止人们出席。我们有不同的态度。

而且我认为——我希望这能传达出去。我认为如果我们直播会议，就像打开一个电视节目一样，我觉得感觉会不一样。

原文

29. Why the annual meeting isn’t webcast

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. With that, we’ll go to Becky. (Laughter)

BECKY QUICK: This is a question from Humin Timadin (PH) in Seattle, Washington. He’s got a two-part question. But he says, “From time to time, you purchase shares of public companies. “Presumably, you feel that those shares are a better investment than Berkshire shares at the time, since you never buy back Berkshire shares. “If Berkshire shareholders can purchase shares in the same companies for the same price as you, why shouldn’t they shell — sell their Berkshire shares and buy what you are buying?” And secondly, he wants to know why, because he, “like thousands of other shareholders, is unable to attend the annual meeting, how come Berkshire does not webcast the meeting? I am aware of the irony that I will not hear your answer.” (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, our meeting does get written up, at least it gets written up a lot with various blogs and everything else. It gets written up pretty well in its entirety by Outstanding Investor Digest. And there are others that prepare extensive reports. And they pop up on the internet. So he will, in all likelihood, find out the answer. We could webcast. I get asked the same question about webcasting the meetings I have with students. You know, why not do that? It’s so much easier and everything. I think there is something gained by personal contact. I certainly know that when I was studying and all of that, I gained a lot by personal contact. Even though I’d read Ben Graham’s books, just going and being with him. And I follow that practice in teaching. And I think that — I like the turnout we get. I like our partners to show up and see the products we sell and all of that. This is not something where we’re going to go and hide and hold our meeting, you know, in some hamlet, you know, in western Nebraska or something to discourage attendance. We’ve got a different attitude.

And I think that that — I hope that comes across. And I think that if we webcast it, you know, it was something like turning on a television show, I don’t think it would be quite the same.

30. 与模仿者”没有争执”

沃伦·巴菲特：关于问题的第一部分，关于购买我们买入的证券，很多人都在这样做。他们中的一些人——顺便提一下，他们并不是用保险业务提供的免费浮存金来购买的。所以如果他们拥有580亿美元可以免息使用，那么他们在购买这些证券时就和我们处于同样的位置。但另一方面，他们有一些我们没有的税收优势。所以我对于这样做的人没有争执。我们不得不在一定程度上公开我们所拥有的东西。有些东西他们买不到，因为我们是直接购买。他们无法买入我们拥有的整个企业。但他们可能会通过某种方式搭我们的便车而做得更好。他们当然有这个自由。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，总的来说，我认为你说的做法——找出一些你认为非常熟练的投资者，仔细检查他们购买的所有东西，然后复制你喜欢的部分——是相当聪明的。我认为你有一个很好的主意。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我以前——在我21岁的时候，那时候我不得不向SEC邮寄申请——你大约一周后会得到那些劣质的复印件，每页要付很多钱——但我以前经常获取Graham-Newman公司的半年度报告，在我去那里工作之前。我会查看那里列出的每一个证券。我从中得到了一些想法。所以这——这并没有什么错。

原文

30. No “quarrel” with copycats

WARREN BUFFETT: In terms of the first part of the question about buying the securities we buy, plenty of people do that. And some of them — but they — incidentally, they’re not buying it with free float that’s available from insurance. So if they have $58 billion that they can get interest-free, they will be in the same position we are in buying those securities. But they are — on the other hand, they have some tax advantages we don’t have. So I don’t quarrel with people who do that. We have to publicize to some extent what we own. Some things they wouldn’t be able to buy because we make direct purchases. They wouldn’t be able to buy into the businesses we own. But they might very well do better piggybacking us in some way. And they’re certainly free to do it. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, generally, I think it’s quite smart to do what you’re talking about — is to identify some investors you regard as very skilled, and carefully examine everything they’re buying, and copy what you please. I think you have a very good idea. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I used — when I was 21 years old, I had to mail away to the SEC in those days — and you had these crummy copies about a week later and paid a lot per page to get them — but I used to get the semi-annual reports of Graham-Newman Corp before I went to work there. And I would look at every security that was listed there. And I got some of my ideas that way. So it’s a — there’s nothing wrong with that.

31. 你最好的通胀保护

沃伦·巴菲特：第11个问题。

观众成员：我叫Sam Alter（音），11岁，来自新泽西州威斯敏斯特。我的问题是，通货膨胀将如何影响我们这一代人？伯克希尔如何投资来为这个时期做准备？（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是关于通货膨胀的，对吧？通货膨胀会如何影响他？

查理·芒格：是的。通货膨胀如何——？

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，通货膨胀会影响到你。我们知道——随着时间的推移，我们肯定会有通货膨胀。保罗·沃尔克前几天非常不安，大约三周前他发言了，我想，当他读到联邦公开市场委员会的大多数成员将2%的通胀率作为目标时。沃尔克是在通胀肆虐时上任的，他看到了当通胀有了自己的势头时阻止它的问题。他说：“你知道，2%听起来不错，但在一代人的时间里，它会使购买力削减50%。“他是——差不多是一代人的时间——但他是对的，一旦你开始考虑几个百分点，你就开始走上一条滑坡。我们现在正在这个国家推行刺激政策——刺激经济——这些政策必然会产生一些通胀后果。而当我们从世界其他地方借钱时，未来的政客们很可能会做出非常人性化的决定，即他们宁愿用价值远低于他们借入的美元的美元来偿还世界其他地区。

我的意思是，这是减少外债影响和成本的经典方法。我们正在积累大量的外债。当现在的政客谈论用纳税人的钱做这个、做那个，以及纳税人如何支付AIG的奖金时，我总是觉得很有趣。在这个国家，我们根本没有提高税收。我的意思是，纳税人现在支付的税款并不比几年前多。事实上，今年联邦财政收入，几年前接近2.6万亿美元，现在可能更像是2.3万亿美元。所以我们从纳税人那里拿的钱更少。真正为我们现在做的事情买单的人，可能是那些购买固定美元投资的人——其中很多是美国政府发行的——当他们去赎回这些投资时，他们会发现购买力远低于当初。

所以你可以——你可能会说AIG的奖金——可能中国人才是——是那些最终在购买力损失方面付出最多的人，因为他们持有政府债券——美国国债——很多年后。但说纳税人比说中国人在为此买单听起来更好。这是一个有趣的情况。我每天都读到关于纳税人如何做这做那的评论。而你知道，我的税没有被提高。你的税也没有被提高。他们很快就要给我寄回250美元。纳税人到目前为止还没有支付任何东西。我的猜测是，其中很大一部分的最终代价将通过固定美元投资的价值的缩水——实际价值——来支付。这将是最容易做的事情。如果这是最容易做的事情，那就是最可能发生的事情。所以你会看到大量的通货膨胀。现在，对抗通货膨胀最好的保护是你自己的赚钱能力。

如果你是最好的老师，如果你是最好的外科医生，如果你是最好的律师，无论是什么，你都能获得他人生产的商品和服务的一定份额，无论货币是什么，无论是贝壳、马克还是美元。所以你自己的赚钱能力是最好的，远远超过其他。如果你是最好的记者，无论是什么，你都能获得国家经济蛋糕中属于你的那一份，无论货币的价值与早期标准相比如何。第二好的保护是一个出色的企业。你知道，如果你拥有可口可乐的商标和公司，20年后和50年后，你的产品将获得人们劳动的一定份额。而且一般物价水平发生了什么并不重要。因为人们会付出三分钟的劳动，无论是什么，来享受12盎司他们喜欢的产品。

所以这些是——这些都是伟大的资产，首先是你自己的赚钱能力，然后是不需要大量资本投入的出色企业的赚钱能力。如果需要大量资本投入，你在通货膨胀中就会遭受重创。根据这些指导原则，我会告诉你最好的事情是投资于你自己。查理？

查理·芒格：是的。这位年轻人应该成为一名脑外科医生，投资可口可乐而不是政府债券。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我是按字数收费的。他不是。（笑声）

原文

31. Your best inflation protection

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 11.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Sam Alter (PH). I’m 11 years old and I’m from Westminster, New Jersey. My question is, how will inflation affect my generation? And how is Berkshire investing to prepare for this time? (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that was about inflation, right? How inflation was going to affect him?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. How is inflation —?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, inflation is going to affect you. You know, the — it’s certain we will have inflation over time. Paul Volcker got very upset the other day and spoke out about three weeks ago, I guess, when he read that a majority of the Federal Open Market Committee had sort of targeted 2 percent inflation as the number. And Volker, who came in when inflation was raging and saw the problems of stopping it when it got a momentum of its own, said, “You know, 2 percent sounds great, but in a generation it cuts away purchasing power by 50 percent.” He was — kind of a long generation, there — but he was right in that once you start thinking about a couple percent, you are on something of a slippery slope. And we are following policies in this country now to stimulate things, which — stimulate business — which are bound to have some inflationary consequences. And to the extent that we borrow money from the rest of the world, it would be very human on the part of politicians in the future to decide that they would rather pay the rest of the world back in dollars that are worth far less than the dollars they borrowed.

I mean, it’s the classic way of reducing the impact and cost of external debt. And we’re building up a lot of external debt. I always find it interesting when politicians now talk about using the taxpayer’s money to do this and the taxpayer’s money to do that and how the taxpayers are paying the bonuses at AIG. We haven’t raised taxes at all in this country. You know, I mean, taxpayers are paying nothing beyond what they were paying a couple years ago. Matter of fact, the federal revenues this year, which were close to 2.6 trillion a couple years ago, you know, maybe more like 2.3 trillion. So we are taking less money from the taxpayers. The people who are really paying for the things we’re doing now will probably be the people who are buying fixed-dollar investments, much of it from the U.S. government, and who will find the purchasing power when they go to redeem those investments to be far less.

So you can — you might say that the AIG bonus is — probably the Chinese have — are the people that are ultimately paying the most in terms of the loss of purchasing power they will have with their holdings of government bonds, U.S. government bonds, many years down the road. But it sounds better to say the taxpayer than to say the Chinese are paying for it. It’s an interesting situation. I read that comment everyday about how the taxpayers are doing this and that. And, you know, I haven’t had my taxes raised. You haven’t had your taxes raised. They’re giving me $250 bucks back here pretty soon. The taxpayers haven’t paid anything so far. And my guess is that the ultimate price of much of this will be paid by a shrinkage in the value of — the real value — of fixed-dollar investments down the road. And that will be the easiest thing to do. And if it’s the easiest thing to do, it’s the most likely thing to have happen. So you will see plenty of inflation. Now, the best protection against inflation is your own earning power.

If you’re the best teacher, if you’re the best surgeon, if you’re the best lawyer, you know, whatever it may be, you will command a given part of other people’s production of goods and services no matter what the currency is, whether it’s seashells, or reichsmarks, or dollars. So your own earning power is the best, by far. If you’re the best journalist, whatever it may be, you will get your share of the national economic pie, regardless of the value of whatever the currency may be, as measured against some earlier standard. The second best protection is a wonderful business. You know, if you own the Coca-Cola, trademark, Company, you will get a given portion of people’s labor 20 years from now and 50 years from now for your product. And it’s doesn’t make any difference what’s happened to the price level, generally. Because people will give up three minutes of labor, whatever it may be, to enjoy, you know, 12 ounces, you know, of a product they like.

So those are the — and — those are the great assets, your own earning power first, and then the earning power of a wonderful business that does not require heavy capital investment. If it requires heavy capital investment, you get killed in inflation. And with those guidelines, I would tell you the best thing to do is invest in yourself. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. The young man should become a brain surgeon and invest in Coca-Cola instead of government bonds. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: I get paid by the word. He doesn’t. (Laughter)

32. 报纸行业正在衰落，但我们会保留布法罗新闻

沃伦·巴菲特：安德鲁？

安德鲁·罗斯·索金：好的。这个问题来自马里兰州沃尔多夫的Dennis Wallace（音）。我们收到了很多这样的问题。我对答案也自私地感兴趣。考虑到当前报纸和出版业的经济状况，您能否谈谈这对伯克希尔的影响？鉴于我们的投资标的华盛顿邮报公司的股票价值大幅下跌，它是否仍然是资本的良好用途？鉴于当前环境下所谓的”报纸廉价交易价格”，伯克希尔是否会考虑购买额外的报纸，以补充布法罗新闻和华盛顿邮报的资产？在什么价格下投资报纸行业会变得有吸引力？或者说，在今天的环境下，根本就没有什么价格会让它变得有吸引力？

沃伦·巴菲特：我想说，这不是今天的环境问题。我的意思是，这是一个演变性的发展。但是——所以当前的经济环境加剧了报纸的问题。但它不是根本原因。对于美国公众整体而言——查理和我——我每天读五份报纸。查理可能每天读五份。我们永远不会放弃它们。但同时我们也会是最后一批一边读报纸一边用着固定电话的人，你知道，放在我们旁边。（笑声）所以，你不应该根据我们的行为来判断消费者的偏好。报纸——不。答案是，对于美国大多数报纸，我们不会以任何价格购买它们。它们有可能——在某些地方，已经出现了——它们有可能走向无尽的亏损。而在二三十、四十年前，它们对非常高比例的美国公众来说是绝对必要的。它们是终极业务。基本上，在美国几乎每个城镇，只有一个赢家。

美国有1700家报纸。其中大约50家，在20年前，存在于有多家报纸的城市。所以它们是一种有定价权的产品，对客户是必要的，对广告商也是必要的。而它们已经失去了那种必要性。30或40年前，如果你想了解体育比分、股票价格甚至国际事务新闻，它们是主要的来源。然后那种性质——沃尔特·安纳伯格曾经称之为”必要性”，我不知道字典里是否有这个词——开始被侵蚀。然后侵蚀急剧加速。只有当它们对读者是必要的时，它们才对广告商是必要的。而且你知道，没有人喜欢在报纸上买广告。只是因为它们有效。而这——正在改变。每天都在改变。我看不到任何地平线上能结束这种侵蚀的东西。我们——你知道，在布法罗新闻，斯坦·利普西10年前会迎接我。他会说：“沃伦，你应该——从经济角度——卖掉这份报纸。”

我说：“我百分之百同意。但我们不会这么做。“而且你知道，几年前我们可以把布法罗新闻卖到数亿美元。而现在我们不能以任何接近这个数字的价格卖掉它。这是我们的政策之一。我们有一个非常合作的工会——工会，一群工会——最近几个月非常配合我们，试图建立一个至少能让我们赚点钱的商业模式。正如我在年度报告中所说的，在我们的经济原则中，只要我们认为我们不会面临无尽的亏损或重大的工会问题，我们就会坚持经营这些业务，即使如果你是一家残疾儿童信托的受托人，这样做是错误的。这就是我们在伯克希尔的政策。华盛顿邮报有一个非常好的有线电视业务。它有一个非常好的教育业务。但它在报纸业务上没有答案，正如唐·格雷厄姆在年度报告中写的那样。其他人也没有。

现在，我们都在四处寻找能发现新模式的人。但我认为现在美国大约有1400份日报，还没有人找到那个模式。信不信由你，我认为我们在布法罗的定位和任何人一样好，足以继续这场游戏。但我们是否能在情况变得不可逆转地陷入亏损之前找到什么，是否会变得不可逆转地陷入亏损，我不知道。但我们会尽可能坚持下去。这不是商学院教你的东西。但这是我们经营伯克希尔的方式。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为那百分之百正确。这真是一场全国性的悲剧。这些垄断性的日报一直是我们文明的重要纽带。总的来说，它们对广告商的压力是不可动摇的。总的来说，它们是可取的社论影响力。总的来说，它们让政府比原本更加诚实。所以随着它们消失，我认为取而代之的东西不会像我们正在失去的那样可取。但这就是生活。

原文

32. Newspapers are fading but we’re keeping the Buffalo News

WARREN BUFFETT: Andrew?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: OK. This question comes to us from Dennis Wallace (PH) in Waldorf, Maryland. We got a lot of these. And I’m selfishly interested in the answer. Given the current economic conditions in the newspaper and publishing business, can you please provide some of your thoughts on its impact on Berkshire? Given that our investee, the Washington Post Company, has had a substantial decline in its stock value, is it still a good use of capital? And given the, quote, “cheap trading prices of newspapers in the current climate,” would Berkshire considering — consider purchasing additional newspapers to add to the Buffalo News and Washington Post properties? At what price does it become compelling to invest in the newspaper business? Or is there no price at which it becomes compelling in today’s environment?

WARREN BUFFETT: I would say, it isn’t today’s environment. I mean, it’s an evolutionary development. But — so the current economic environment has accentuated the problems in newspapers. But it is not the basic cause. Newspapers are, to the American public as a whole — Charlie and I — I read five a day. Charlie probably reads five a day. We’ll never give them up. But we’ll also be the last guys reading a newspaper while having a landline phone, you know, by our side. (Laughter) So, you don’t want to judge consumer preferences by what we do. The newspaper — no. The answer is, for most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price. They have the possibility, and in certain places, they’ve already hit it, but they have the possibility of just going to unending losses. And they were absolutely essential to a very high percentage of the American public, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. They were the ultimate business. It was a business where only one person won, basically, in almost every town in the country.

There were 1,700 papers in the United States. And about 50 of those, 20 years ago, existed in a city where there were multiple papers. So they were a product that had pricing power, that was essential to the customer, essential to the advertiser. And they’ve lost that essential nature. They were primary 30 years or 40 years ago if you wanted to learn sports scores or stock prices or even news about international affairs. And then that nature, what Walter Annenberg used to call “essentiality,” I don’t know whether it’s in the dictionary or not, but it started eroding. And then the erosion has accelerated dramatically. And they were only essential to the advertiser as long as they were essential to the reader. And you know, nobody liked buying ads in the paper. It was just that they worked. And that has — that is changing. It’s changing every day. And I do not see anything on the horizon that causes that erosion to end. We — you know, at the Buffalo News, Stan Lipsey would greet me 10 years ago. And he would say, “Warren, you should — on an economic basis — you should sell this paper.”

And I said, “I agree 100 percent. But we’re not going to do it.” And you know, we could’ve sold the Buffalo News for many hundreds of millions of dollars some years back. And we couldn’t sell it, you know, for remotely anything like that now. And that’s one of the policies. We have a union that’s been very cooperative — unions, a bunch of unions — have been quite cooperative with us in recent months in trying to have an economic model that will at least keep us making a little money. And as I put in the annual report, in our economic principles, that as long as we don’t think we face unending losses or have major union problems, we will stick with the businesses, even though it would be a mistake if you were acting as a trustee for, you know, a bunch of crippled children or something of the sort. And that’s just our policy at Berkshire. The Post has a very good cable business. It has a very good education business. But it does not have answers on the newspaper business, as Don Graham wrote in the annual report. Nor does anyone else.

Now, we all keep looking around for somebody that will find the model. But there — I think there are about 1,400 daily papers now in the United States, and nobody yet has found the model. We are as well-positioned in Buffalo, believe it or not, I think, to play out the game as anyone else. But whether we find something before the lines get so that we’re inexorably in the red, whether the situation gets so we’re inexorably in the red, I don’t know. But we will play it out as long as we can. It’s not what they teach you in business school. But it’s the way we run Berkshire. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think that’s all 100 percent right. And it’s really a national tragedy. The — these monopoly daily newspapers have been an important sinew of our civilization. And, by and large, they were impregnable from advertiser pressure. And by and large, they were desirable editorial influences. And by and large, they kept government more honest than it would otherwise be. So as they disappear, I think what replaces it will not be as desirable as what we’re losing. But this is life.

33. 预计消费者支出疲软将持续”相当长一段时间”

沃伦·巴菲特：第12个问题。

观众成员：早上好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我是Marc Rabinov，来自澳大利亚墨尔本。我想问您，考虑到消费者支出的变化方式，零售、制造和服务企业受到经济衰退的严重影响了？三年后，结果是否仍可能比2007年水平低20%？

沃伦·巴菲特：我不知道三年后的事。当然，你提到的那些领域，在不同程度上，受到了严重打击。一些制造业与住宅建设相关。如果我们保持每年50万套的房屋开工率，我的猜测是最多几年内，我们会在住房方面接近平衡。也许更快。没有人知道精确的数字。但如果你每年新增130万户家庭左右，而你只建造50万套新单位，再加上一些旧房子烧毁了，一些——你会在一个不太遥远的点达到平衡。这将对我们的地毯业务、砖块业务、保温材料业务、油漆业务等产生重大影响。零售业受到了严重打击。一般来说，越高端，受到的打击越严重。消费者行为发生了巨大变化。我认为这会持续相当长一段时间。我认为多年来，政府一直在告诉人们要储蓄。

现在他们在储蓄了，他们却不高兴了。但我认为——我认为过去几年的经历不会很快消失。我认为它可能会持续相当长的时间。所以我不会认为我们的零售业务在相当长一段时间内会表现很好。我会说，在零售房地产方面，我认为在未来相当长一段时间内，这是一个很难涉足的领域。我认为购物中心将出现难以填补的空置率。我认为零售商在许多情况下将挣扎求存。当然，房地产的供应不会消失。所以，购物中心业务——以前以5%甚至更低的资本化率出售——我认为在这件事结束之前，它会显得非常愚蠢。事实上，它已经看起来是这样了。所以我不会指望——我不会——服务业务通常是较好的业务。它们需要的资本较少，并且可以更专注于它们所服务的市场，一般来说。

但我不会指望零售制造服务业务会很快反弹。我们还有一段路要走。与建筑相关的业务也有一段路要走。但至少在那些业务中，你大致可以看到它何时会好转的数学原理。而且你可以获得很多关于房地产市场情况的信息。南佛罗里达，我认为，例如——我认为那将是一个长期的问题。我希望不是。但我只是认为它的数学相当令人沮丧，考虑到你拥有的单位数量和那里的净家庭形成率。你需要消化很多东西。查理？

查理·芒格：我没什么要补充的。

沃伦·巴菲特：好。

原文

33. Expect weak consumer spending for “quite a bit longer”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 12.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. I’m Marc Rabinov, from Melbourne Australia. I’m wondering if I could ask you how retailing, manufacturing, and service businesses have been severely impacted by the recession given the way consumer spending has changed. Is it likely the results will still be 20 percent below 2007 levels in three years’ time?

WARREN BUFFETT: I don’t know about three years’ time. Certainly those areas you named, to varying degrees, have been hit very hard. Some of the manufacturing would tie in with residential construction. If we hold housing starts at 500,000 a year, you know, my guess is that in a couple of years at most, we would get something close to equilibrium in housing. Maybe quite a bit sooner. Nobody knows the figures with precision. But if you keep forming households at a million-3, or something like that, a year, and you create 500,000 new units and a few of the old ones burn down, and a few — you will reach equilibrium at a point that’s not ridiculously far in the future. And that will make a big difference in our carpet business, and brick business, and insulation business, and paint business, and so on. Retailing has been hit very hard. The higher the end of it, generally speaking, the harder it’s been hit. There’s been a big change in consumer behavior. And I think it will last quite a bit longer. I think for years, government was telling people to save.

And now that they’re saving, they’re unhappy about it. But I think that — I think the experience of the last couple years, I don’t think will go away very fast. I think it could last quite a long time. So I would not think our retailing businesses would do great for a considerable period of time. And I would say that in retail real estate, I would think that that would be a tough field to be in for quite a period. I think the shopping centers will be seeing vacancies that will be hard to fill. I think that the retailers will be struggling in many cases. And of course, the supply of real estate doesn’t go away. So, that could be — the shopping center business, which was selling at, you know, these premiere cap rates of 5 percent or even less sometimes. I think that is going to look very silly before all of this is done. In fact, it already is looking that way. So I wouldn’t count — I wouldn’t — The service businesses are generally the better businesses. They require less capital and they can be more specialized in the markets they serve, in general.

But I would not look for any quick rebound in the retail manufacturing service businesses. We’ve got a ways to go on that. And we’ve got a ways to go on the ones that are construction related. But at least there, you can sort of see the math of when it’ll work out. And you can get a lot of information on what’s going on in real estate markets. South Florida, I think, will be — for example, I think that’s going to be a problem for a long, long time. I hope it isn’t. But I just think the math of it is pretty devastating, in terms of the number of units you have and net household formation down there. You’ve got a lot to wade through. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I’ve got nothing to add.

WARREN BUFFETT: OK.

34. 我们永远不会以”愚蠢”的价格回购伯克希尔股票

沃伦·巴菲特：我们请卡罗尔。

卡罗尔·卢米斯：我收到了很多关于伯克希尔回购自身股票可能性的问题。其中一个问题是这样的：“你最近将伯克希尔关于股票回购的政策描述为自我挫败，因为在回购之前，你说，你会写一封信给股东解释我们为什么要这样做。你说这封信必然要告诉投资者，股票价格相对于内在价值有大幅折价，这会导致股价上涨。这封信本质上是一个买入建议，尽管作为政策，你不做这样的建议。过去，你曾大力支持其他公司的股票回购，并批评那些在价格合适时不愿回购的管理者。你说没有任何其他行动能像回购一样确定地使股东受益。你之前的观点表明，对于一个有自我挫败政策的管理者，你几乎没有耐心。你说，当你有一个管理者在回购明显符合所有者利益时持续背弃回购时，他暴露的信息比他意识到的关于自己动机的更多。

所以——市场会正确地对他托付的资产进行折价。“那么，是否可以合理地得出结论，市场会对伯克希尔的股价进行适当折价，除非你放弃自我挫败的政策并开始回购股票？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，顺便提一下——这实际上很重要——我关于回购的评论，绝大多数是在很多年前股票通常——经常——相对于内在价值便宜的时候做出的。我没有——你在过去10年左右的时间里没有看到我写关于这个的文章。因为我认为近年来大多数回购都是愚蠢的，因为人们支付了过高的价格。公司在很多情况下——他们永远不会承认这一点——但他们回购是因为他们基本上喜欢——他们试图发出一个买入建议，而这是不合理的。在70年代和80年代初，查理和我经常敦促人们回购股票，因为这比他们用钱做的其他事情有吸引力得多。我们唯一强烈认为伯克希尔应该回购股票的时候大概是在2000年左右，当时我们认为它明显低于内在商业价值。我们写道我们会这样做，它确实变得自我挫败。

显然有一个点，如果我们认为它明显低于——保守估计——内在商业价值，并且我们通知股东我们将这样做，我们就会去做。我认为它再次基本上会是自我挫败的。我不认为现在存在这种情况。我认为——我不会给出任何买入或卖出建议。但我认为它应该是相当有说服力的。就像我说的，我不——我认为，在过去五年里我所见到的回购活动中，可能90%我不认为是在为股东的利益服务。我认为这样做是因为管理层认为这是该做的事，他们的投资者关系部门告诉他们这是该做的事，而他们实际上是在以愚蠢的价格买入股票。而查理和我多年前看到Teledyne、华盛顿邮报或Cap Cities Broadcasting这样做时，情况并非如此。但最近几年我没有看到这样的情况。查理？

查理·芒格：对此我也没有要补充的。

沃伦·巴菲特：有趣的是，有多少公司在目前价格的两倍时买入自己的股票，而现在却不买入了。我的意思是，有很多这样的公司。我们永远不会以愚蠢的价格买入自己的股票。我们可能会因为没能在便宜的价格买入而犯错。但我不认为我们会因为以愚蠢的价格买入而犯错。而且我们认为，近年来美国企业界有很大比例的公司这样做了，包括我们自己持有的一些股票。

原文

34. We’ll never buy back Berkshire shares at a “silly” price

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to Carol.

CAROL LOOMIS: I got lots of question sent in to me about the possibility of Berkshire buying its own shares. And here’s what one said: “You recently described Berkshire’s policy regarding share repurchase as self-defeating, because before repurchase, you said, you would write a letter to shareholders explaining why we are going to do it. “You said the letter would, by necessity, tell investors that the stock price was at a substantial discount to intrinsic value, which would cause the stock price to rise. “The letter would be, in essence, a buy recommendation, though as a matter of policy, you don’t make those. “In the past, you have emphatically endorsed share repurchase by other companies and criticized managers who would not buy when the price was right. “You have said no alternative action can benefit shareholders as surely as repurchases. Your previous views suggest little patience for a manager with a self-defeating policy. “You’ve said when you have a manager who consistently turns his back on repurchases when these are clearly in the interest of owners, he reveals more than he knows of his motivations.

So — and the market correctly discounts assets lodged with him. “Would it not be rational to conclude that the market will appropriately discount Berkshire’s share price unless and until you abandon your self-defeating policy and engage in repurchases of shares?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, incidentally, the — and this important, actually — the comments I made about repurchasing, overwhelmingly, those go back a lot of years when stocks generally were — frequently were — cheap in relation to intrinsic value. I did not make that — You haven’t seen me writing about that in the last 10 years or so. Because I would say most of the repurchasing done in recent years, I’ve thought has been foolish, because people have been paying too much. And companies got, in many cases — they would never acknowledge this — but they were buying because they were basically liked — they were trying to give out a buy recommendation when it wasn’t justified. In the ’70s and early ’80s, Charlie and I would frequently urge people to repurchase shares because it was so much more attractive than other things they could do with their money. The only time we felt strongly that Berkshire should repurchase its shares was in roughly 2000, whenever it was, that we thought it was demonstrably below intrinsic business value. And we wrote we would do it, and it did become self-defeating.

There’s clearly a point where if we thought it was demonstrably below — conservatively estimated — intrinsic business value and we notified the stock holders we were going to do it, we would do it. I think again, it would largely be self-defeating. I don’t think that situation exists now. I think — I won’t give any buy or sell recommendations. But I think it ought to be quite compelling. Like I say, I don’t — I think, probably 90 percent of the repurchase activity I’ve seen in the last five years, I did not think was serving the cause of the shareholder. I thought it was being done because management thought it was the thing to do, and their investor relations department told them it was the thing to do, and they were actually buying stock at kind of silly prices. And that was not the case when Charlie and I looked at Teledyne or the Washington Post or Cap Cities Broadcasting doing it many years ago. But I haven’t seen situations like that in recent years. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: I’ve got nothing to add to that, either.

WARREN BUFFETT: Number — it’s interesting how many companies were buying in their stock at twice present prices that aren’t buying it now. I mean, there are lots of those. We will never buy in our stock at a silly price. We may make a mistake by not buying it at a cheap price. But we’ll never make a mistake, I don’t think, by buying it at a silly price. And we think a significant percentage of corporate America has done that in recent years, including a few stocks that we’ve owned ourselves.

35. 危机使机会成本计算变得困难

沃伦·巴菲特：第13个问题。

观众成员：Jack Benben（音），来自新泽西州霍沃斯。首先，我想感谢你们。这是我——我参加过大约十几场会议。这可能是最好的一次。非常感谢你们的新形式。也非常感谢那些帮了大忙的记者们。（掌声）

沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你。

观众成员：在过去的会议上，您和芒格先生曾广泛讨论过机会成本。请原谅。过去一年给您带来了许多不寻常的机会。您能谈谈过去一年中一些更重要的机会成本决策吗？这些决策是否受到了宏观经济形势的影响？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，当然，机会成本在过去18个月里更加突出。当事情发展非常快，当价格都在变动，并且在某些情况下，内在商业价值以我们很久没有见过的速度变动时，这意味着在衡量A与B、与C之间的关系时，更加困难了。它更有趣了。它更具挑战性。但它——也可能更有利可图。但这是一项不同的任务，与一切都在更悠闲地发展时不同。我之前描述过，你知道，我们面临这个问题。这是个好问题。我们在9月和10月面临过这个问题。因为我们总是想保留大量现金。我们在伯克希尔有各种级别的——额外的安全级别。我们永远不会变得依赖银行或别人的钱或任何其他东西。我们就是不会那样经营公司。所以我们当时看到了一些事情发生。

我的意思是，我们接到电话——我们接到很多电话。但大多数，我们忽略了。但我们忽略的那些电话也帮助我们校准了那些我们关注的电话。如果我们接到高盛的电话，我想那是在一个星期三，也许，那是一个上周三不可能完成、下周三也可能无法完成的交易。我们说的是真正的金额，那次是50亿。我们有一些未完成的承诺。我们有一个对陶氏化学的30亿承诺。我想在那个时候，我可能记错了具体是哪一天做出的。我们有一个对星座能源的50亿承诺。我们在10月初还有65亿美元需要支付给箭牌-玛氏的交易。所以我们面临着机会成本类的考虑。就像我之前说的，我们实际上卖掉了一些正常情况下我们不会考虑卖出的东西，即使价格高出10或15个点——强生。但我们只是不想让自己不舒服。

所以在一个混乱的市场中，特别是当人们需要大笔资金时——你不是在讨论一天买一亿、第二天再买一亿的东西——而是突然间你需要几十亿，如果你要参与的话。在那段时期，我们经常面临机会成本计算。我的意思是，当我们决定承诺购买星座能源时，我们必须愿意在七八个月后拿出50亿美元。而且你不知道确切的时间，因为它需要公共事业委员会的批准。但如果下周市场发生混乱，我们会接到电话。或者我们会看到股票或债券以我们喜欢的价格出售。而如果相对价值相对于我们持有的东西来说很有趣，我们可能会卖出一些东西。现在，在那样一段时期，大量卖出比大量买入更难。所以你必须衡量你是否真的能完成对冲交易，从一个转移到另一个。

如果我们想要把几十亿从一个转移到另一个，这与你可能把几十万或几万从一个持有转移到另一个的问题大不相同。除非我们小心，否则我们真的可能有大额的交易成本。但这就是我们进行的计算。我们喜欢有机会做这些计算。这是机会出现的信号。而且你知道，我们——我们已经很久没有像去年那样忙碌了。所以这是我们第一次真正面临这个问题：我们能否快速筹集几十亿美元，以确保我们能够抵消我们在购买方面承诺的现金需求。对于我们卖出的强生股票，我们实际上做了一个交易，我们得到了——我为卖出的股票设定了一个底价，仅仅是因为市场太混乱了，我们想要绝对确保当我们最终完成所有交易时，我们不会比舒适水平少几十亿美元。我们对舒适的定义是真正的舒适。

我们想要有几十亿、几十亿、几十亿的现金在身边。然后我们再考虑如何处理多余的部分。查理？

查理·芒格：再次，我没什么要补充的。

原文

35. Crisis made opportunity cost calculations difficult

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 13.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Jack Benben (PH) from Haworth, New Jersey. First, I’d like to thank you. This is — I’ve been to about a dozen meetings. This is probably the best one. So thank you very much for the new format. And thank you very much to the journalists who’ve really helped out a lot. (Applause)

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, thank you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: At past meetings, you and Mr. Munger have talked at great length about opportunity cost. Excuse me. The past year has presented you with many unusual opportunities. Can you discuss some of the more important opportunity cost decisions of the past year? And were those decisions at all affected by the macroeconomic picture? Thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, certainly opportunity cost has been much more in the forefront of mind in the last 18 months. When things are moving very fast, when both prices are moving, and in certain cases, intrinsic business value is moving at a pace that’s far greater than we’ve seen for a long time, it means that in terms of calibrating A versus B, versus C, it’s tougher. It’s more interesting. It’s more challenging. But it’s — and it can be way more profitable, too. But it’s a different task then when everything was moving at a more leisurely pace. And I described earlier, you know, we face that problem. And it’s a good problem to have. We faced that problem in September and October. Because we want to always keep a lot of money around. We have all kinds of levels — extra levels of safety — that we follow at Berkshire. And we will never get so we’re dependent on banks or other people’s money or anything else. We’re just not going to run the company that way. So we were seeing things happen.

I mean, we got a call — we got lots of calls. But, most of them, we ignored. But the calls that we got that we ignored helped us calibrate the calls that we paid attention to, too. And if we got a call from a Goldman Sachs, I think it was on a Wednesday, maybe, you know, that was a transaction that couldn’t have been done the previous Wednesday and might not be done the next Wednesday. And we’re talking real sums, 5 billion in that case. And we had certain commitments outstanding. We had a $3 billion commitment out on Dow Chemical. I think at that point, I could be wrong exactly on the day when we made it. We had a $5 billion commitment out on Constellation Energy. We had 6 1/2 billion we were going to have to come up with in early October on the Wrigley-Mars deal. So we were faced with opportunity cost-type considerations. And as I said earlier, we actually sold something that under normal circumstances we wouldn’t have thought about selling if it was 10 or 15 points higher, in Johnson & Johnson. But we just didn’t want to get uncomfortable.

So you are faced, in a chaotic market, particularly where people needs large sums — so you’re not talking about buying a hundred million dollars’ worth of something that, you know, one day and a hundred million the next day — but all of a sudden you’re called on for billions, if you’re going to play at all. We faced that opportunity cost calculation frequently during that period. I mean, when we decided to commit to buy Constellation Energy, we had to be willing to come up with $5 billion seven or eight months down the line. And you didn’t know exactly when because it would be subject to public utility commission approval. But if something chaotic happened in the market next week, we would get phone calls. Or we would see stocks selling or bonds selling at prices we liked. And if the relative values, against what we held, were interesting, we might sell things. Now, it’s harder to sell things in huge quantities than it is to buy things in huge quantities during a period like that. So you have to measure whether you can actually get the offsetting transaction done to move from one to another.

We have a much — if we’re going to move billions from one to another, it’s much different than the problem you may have in moving hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars from one holding to another. We really can have big transactional costs unless we’re careful. But that’s the kind of calculation we go through. And we love the fact we get the opportunity to make those calculations. It’s a sign of opportunity around. And you know, we’ll — we haven’t had the flurry of activity like we had last year for a long time. So it was the first time we really faced the question, you know, can we raise a couple billion dollars in a hurry, to be sure that we’ve offset the cash needs of what we’re committing to on the purchase side. On the Johnson & Johnson we sold, we actually made a deal where we got — I had a floor price on what we sell that for, just because the markets were so chaotic, that we wanted to be absolutely sure that we would not end up a couple billion dollars less than comfortable when we got all through. Our definition of comfortable is really comfortable.

We want to have billions and billions and billions around. And then we’ll think about what we do with the surplus. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Again, I’ve got nothing to add.

36. GEICO每年在广告上投入数亿美元，而且”永远不会停止”

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自俄亥俄州哥伦布市的一位名叫Yem（音）的人。这是——

沃伦·巴菲特：这范围缩小了。

贝基·奎克：是的。非常针对公司。问题是：“GEICO过去几年每年在媒体广告上花费大约4亿到6亿美元。决定花费多少的因素是什么？如何估计这种花费的净回报？”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，这是自从广告出现以来人们一直问自己的问题。而且，你知道，我不确定是Marshall Field还是Campbell Soup的John Dorrance，或者类似的某位先生，当被问及他们是否在广告上浪费了很多钱时说：“是的，我们浪费了一半，但我们不知道是哪一半。“（笑声）这就是广告的性质。尽管，对于GEICO，我们可以比大多数公司更好地衡量它。我们将花费大约8亿美元在广告上。我们花费的远多于——即使我们是第三大公司——远多于State Farm或Allstate。而且我们会花费越来越多。我的意思是，我们永远不会停止。在1995年我们取得控制权时，我们每年花费2000万美元，略多于这个数。但我们希望世界上所有人——嗯，全美国的人。我们不会很快在中国或其他地方卖保险。

但我们希望每一个美国人都知道，他们很有可能通过拿起电话或访问geico.com来省钱。而且是可观的钱。当我们把那个信息植入人们的脑海时，你永远不知道它什么时候会在以后产生回报。因为，就像我之前提到的，从9月30日左右开始，我们看到人们为了节省100或200美元而来找我们的倾向大大增加了，而他们以前可能不在乎节省那点钱。所以，我们希望——这是汽车保险。每个人都必须买。没有人喜欢买。但他们喜欢开车。如果你喜欢开车，你需要汽车保险。所以它总是会被卖出去的。你会从某个人那里买。如果你关心省钱，你会来查我们。我们希望确保每个人都明白这一点。而且我们不会——你知道，我保证，三年后我们会花更多的钱在上面。

现在，今年我们花在购买广告上的钱能得到更多。所以今年的8亿比几年前花8亿能买到更多的曝光。所以我们用同样的钱获得了更多的曝光。但我们喜欢在GEICO上花钱做广告。我们希望出现在每个人的脑海里。可口可乐出现在全世界每个人的脑海里。你知道，它始于1886年。他们不断地把可口可乐与快乐和幸福的时刻联系在一起。数以亿计的人脑海里有这个印象。而他们对RC可乐没有任何印象，你知道。你在地球上任何地方对某人说RC可乐，他们会给你一个茫然的眼神。你说可口可乐，它有意义。一个品牌是一个承诺。我们正在——我们正在人们的心中植入这个承诺：如果他们查一下GEICO，他们很有可能省钱。我们永远不会停止。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，很有趣。如果GEICO保持大致相同的规模，即使我们不那么大量地做广告，如果新客户的价值超过我们花费的8亿广告费，那么在一个重要的意义上，GEICO以某种方式多赚了8亿美元的税前利润，而这甚至没有显示出来。这就是我们喜欢在伯克希尔·哈撒韦内部看到的那种事情。

沃伦·巴菲特：正如查理所说，如果我们不断添加这些客户，GEICO的价值每年增长的幅度远超过盈利。我相信，我们可以很长时间维持目前的保单持有人数量，也许每年花费1亿美元，甚至更少。但我们的花费获得了超过其价值的回报。我们可能浪费了一些。但总体来说，我们获得了极好的回报。如果我认为明年花20亿能得到任何类似的回报，我们会花20亿。我的意思是，这是一个非常有吸引力的业务。而且我认为你无法创造出任何类似的东西。我的意思是，我们是低成本生产商。如果你在人们必须购买的、大约1500美元的商品上是低成本生产商，我的意思是，你有一个非常非常棒的生意。我们在那里拥有持久的竞争优势。

原文

36. GEICO spends millions on advertising and will “never stop”

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

BECKY QUICK: This is a question from someone named Yem (PH) in Columbus, Ohio. It’s —

WARREN BUFFETT: That narrows it down.

BECKY QUICK: Yeah. Very company specific. It says, “GEICO has been spending around 400 to $600 million on media advertising a year in the last few years. What are the deciding factors into how much to spend? And how could one estimate the net return on such spending?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s a question people have been asking themselves since the beginning of advertising. And, you know, I’m not sure whether it was Marshall Field or John Dorrance at Campbell Soup, or something, one of those fellows said that, you know, when asked whether they didn’t waste a lot of money on advertising, he said, “Yeah, we waste half of it, but we don’t know which half.” (Laughter) And that is the nature of advertising. Although, we can measure it better with GEICO than most companies. We will spend about $800 million on advertising. We spend far more — even though we’re the third largest company — we’ve spent far more than State Farm or Allstate. And we will spend more and more and more. I mean, we will never stop. We were spending $20 million a year, a little over that, when we bought control of it in 1995. But we want everybody in the world to — well, everybody in the United States. We’re not going to be selling insurance in China or someplace very soon.

But we want everybody in the United States to have in their mind the fact that there’s a good chance they can save money by picking up the phone or going to geico.com and checking it out. And important money. And when we get that message in people’s minds, you never know when it’s going to pay off later down the line. Because, as I mentioned earlier, starting in — around September 30th, we saw a big difference in the propensity of people to come to us to save $100 or $200, whereas they might not have cared about saving that before. So, we want — Here’s auto insurance. Everybody has to buy it. Nobody likes to buy it. But they like to drive. And if you like to drive, you need auto insurance. And so it’s going to sell. And you’re going to buy it from somebody. And if you care about saving money, you’re going to check with us. And we want to make sure everybody understands that. And we won’t — you know, we will spend more money on it, I will guarantee you, three years from now.

Now, we’re getting more for our money in buying advertising this year. So 800 million this year buys more than 800 million would’ve bought a couple of years ago. So we’re getting more exposure for the money. But we love spending money on advertising at GEICO. And we want to be in everybody’s mind. Coca-Cola’s in everybody’s mind around the world. You know, he started in 1886. And they just kept associating Coca-Cola with moments of pleasure and happiness. And billions and billions of billions of people have that in their mind. And they don’t have anything in their mind about RC Cola, you know. You know, or — they just — you say RC Cola to somebody around the globe and they give you a blank stare. You say Coca-Cola and it means something. And a brand is a promise. We’re getting our — we’re getting that promise in people’s minds that there’s a good chance they can save money if they check with GEICO. And we’ll never stop. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, it’s interesting. If GEICO would remain more or less the same size if we didn’t advertise so healthy, and if the new subscribers are worth more than the $800 million we’re spending advertising, then, in an important sense, GEICO is earning $800 million more pre-tax in a way that doesn’t even show. That’s the kind of thing we like to see within Berkshire Hathaway.

WARREN BUFFETT: The value of GEICO goes up by far more than the earnings every year, if we keep adding these people, as Charlie says. And we could maintain, I’m sure, we can maintain for a very long time our present policy holder count and probably spend $100 million a year, maybe less. But we are getting more than our money’s worth for the — for what we spend. We probably waste some. But overall, we’re getting at terrific return on it. And if I thought we could get anything like the same return by spending 2 billion next year, we’d spend 2 billion. I mean, it — it’s a very attractive business. And I don’t see how you create anything like it. I mean, we are the low-cost producer. And if you’re the low-cost producer in something people have to buy and is roughly a $1,500 item, I mean, you’ve got a terrific, terrific business. And we have durable competitive advantage there.

37. 富国银行比许多其他银行更好

沃伦·巴菲特：好了，接下来我们请第1个问题。然后我想我们休息吃午饭。第1个？

观众成员：好的。你好，沃伦，查理。我是Felton Jenkins，来自佐治亚州萨凡纳，长期股东和合作伙伴。只想对过去几年关于PacifiCorp的一件大事做个简短评论。有一些争议。但我很高兴PacifiCorp同意与西海岸的印第安人和渔业社区合作，拆除克拉马斯河上不经济且有害的水坝。所以我想鼓励PacifiCorp管理层迅速行动，完成交易，尽快开放河流。感谢他们过去一年来改进的努力。我的问题是，你提到富国银行跌到了9美元。在那个价格上看起来很划算。但是华盛顿互惠银行、AIG、瓦乔维亚银行、花旗集团、房利美，甚至一些我认为你涉及过的爱尔兰银行呢？它们都跌破了9美元。可能很多人认为它们在9美元仍然是好交易或定价错误。而现在这些股票证书基本上变成了非常昂贵的卫生纸。所以我的意思是，在下跌过程中你怎么知道呢？

看看像美国银行这样的东西，最近出现在13F上，美国银行可能的结果是什么？你会如何分析可能发生的事情？谢谢。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，有些你无法分析。在爱尔兰银行上，我错得不能再错了。但这并不是它们是否跌破9美元的问题。实际上是它们的商业模式是什么，以及它们有什么样的竞争优势。我认为富国银行，在大型银行中，拥有迄今为止最好的竞争地位，你知道，在真正的大型银行中。基本上，如果你看最大的四家，它们各自都有不同的模式。但富国银行的模式与其他三家中任何一家之间的差异，都大于其他三家中任何两家之间的差异。但在爱尔兰银行上我大错特错了。我根本没有理解。我本应该理解的。我本可以理解它们卷入的令人难以置信的敞口——更多的土地开发类贷款——不是房产贷款，就完成的房产而言——而是各种土地开发贷款。那是非同寻常的。

对于一个只有400多万人口的国家，你知道，他们贷出的用于开发房产、住宅的资金，会无限期地延续下去。这是我的巨大错误。没有人骗我，没有人给我提供任何错误信息。我就是没有注意。如果你谈华盛顿互惠银行——我不想一一列举所有名字，因为这与特定公司有关。但有很多迹象表明它们在做一些高杠杆机构不应该做的事情。如果这种房价持续上涨的模式被证明是假模式，那就会引发麻烦。杠杆会给你带来很多麻烦。我的意思是，你开始创造20美元的资产之类的东西。你知道，每一美元的权益，你最好是对的。其中一些大型机构做了一些——事后看来，在这里是确定的——愚蠢的事情，如果它们没有如此高的杠杆，它们不会受到如此严重的打击。

我想说，如果你阅读10-K和10-Q并进行一些核查，大多数银行中你可以发现差异。当然，你可以发现——如果你拿富国银行和华盛顿互惠银行之类的比较，完全没有可比性。我的意思是，你不需要有高深的银行专业知识就能比较这两家。它们是两种不同的业务。就像比较一个成本为每磅2.5美元的铜生产商和一个成本为每磅1美元的铜生产商。那是两种不同的业务。一个在每磅1.5美元时会破产。另一个仍然会做得很好。银行业存在真正的差异。但人们似乎不去看它们。数据是现成的。但他们似乎没有仔细看。当富国银行前几天公布财报时，它们有一个季度费用项目超过6亿美元，用于核心存款的摊销。那不是真实的费用。

我的意思是，随着时间的推移，核心存款的数字会上升。根据税法，它们有权计提大约150亿美元左右，它们可以摊销，这是一个优势。但我没有看到任何报纸文章或任何评论员提到那6亿美元的费用在那里，这与看任何其他银行完全不同。但它就——它没有被注意到。所以数据在那里。信息在那里。而且我认为，以房利美和房地美为例，我认为将要发生什么是很清楚的。有趣的是，政府告诉它们去市场上从投资者那里筹集更多资金。如果那些投资者把钱投进去了，它也会消失的。实际上，在一两个月内它就已经消失了，所以——。我们接到过相关的电话，人们试图——投资银行家——试图向我们推销几十亿的东西，关于那两个机构的。你只要看一眼就能知道它们有巨大的、巨大的麻烦。

你确实需要了解一些——你需要了解一些银行业务以及各种贷款的情况。而且我想说，一般来说，对于那些不在投资上花大量时间的人来说，区分金融机构会有困难。我认为对于只花有限时间在投资上的人来说，对可口可乐或宝洁这样的公司做出结论要比决定是否持有A银行、B银行还是C银行容易得多。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，还有另一个问题。公认会计原则允许一个保守、明智的银行通过改变其做法来大量发放极其愚蠢的贷款，从而显示大幅增加的收益。公认会计原则不应该被构建成允许这种结果。正是这一点引诱了这么多银行家做出这种可怕的决策。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，当我们收购通用再保险时，他们有一个金融产品部门。它的命名类似于AIG的那个。它被称为通用再保险金融产品——AIG金融产品。它定期产生数字，而且总是令人满意的数字。但是，你知道，当我们看它的时候，对我们来说它就像各种麻烦。我们花了超过4亿美元才摆脱它。一个像那样的黑盒子可以产生——这就是为什么管理层在某种程度上喜欢它们，它们可以产生数字。它们不一定产生现金。而且它们肯定可以产生各种各样的问题，如果你不得不开始提供抵押品和做类似的事情。我想说，对于你可以说是被动投资者，那些没有花很多时间在上面的人来说，很难辨别这种情况何时发生。所以我不——这不是一个坏领域，你可以直接说”这个太难了”，然后去选择其他更容易的事情。

我认为分析一个公用事业运营要容易得多，或者是一些顶级的消费公司之类的东西。我不认为我会去寻找困难的情况来区分困难的行业。但确实存在巨大的差异。再次，我敦促你去读摩根大通——杰米·戴蒙的信。因为你会从阅读中学到很多东西。

查理·芒格：但是很多即将出台的新法规甚至根本不需要，如果会计做得更好，特别是在银行业。然而，我还没有遇到来自任何大公司的会计师说过：“我为自己的职业感到羞耻。“那是会计上的一个错误。如果他们不感到羞耻，他们的想法就不对。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，带着这个快乐的想法，我们将——（笑声）——现在去吃午饭。我们大约在12:45重新集合。我们那时从安德鲁开始，回来后再进入第二部分。

原文

37. Wells Fargo is better than many other banks

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ll to go to number 1. And I think then we’ll break for lunch. Number 1?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: OK. Hello Warren, Charlie. Felton Jenkins from Savannah, Georgia, a longtime shareholder and partner. Just want to make a quick comment about something that was a big deal the last couple of years about PacifiCorp. There was some controversy. But I’m glad that PacifiCorp has agreed to work with the Native Americans and fishing communities on the West Coast to remove the uneconomic and harmful dams on the Klamath River. So I want to encourage PacifiCorp management to move quickly, close the deal, and open the river soon. But thanks for their improved efforts over the last year. My question is, you mentioned Wells Fargo got to $9. And that was a great deal, it looks like, at that price. But what about Washington Mutual, AIG, Wachovia, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, even some Irish banks that I think you were involved with? Those went through $9. And probably a lot of people thought they were still good deals or mispriced at $9. And now you’ve got very expensive toilet paper, essentially, out of those stock certificates. So I mean, how would you know on the way down?

And looking at something like Bank of America, that was on the 13F sometime recently, what’s a likely outcome for a Bank of America and how would you analyze what might happen? Thanks.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, there’s some you can’t analyze. And on the Irish banks, I couldn’t have been more wrong. But it isn’t a matter of whether they go through $9 or anything like that. It’s really what their business model is and what kind of competitive advantage they have. I would say that Wells, among the large banks, has, by far, the best competitive position, you know, of any — of the really large banks in the country. And essentially, if you look at the four largest, they each have somewhat different models. But the model of Wells is more different from the other three than any one of the other three would be from the remaining group. But I was wrong on the Irish banks in a very big way. I simply didn’t understand. And I should’ve understood. It was available for me to understand, the incredible exposure they’d got into in more land development-type loans — not property loans, in terms of completed properties — but all kinds of land development loans. It was extraordinary.

For a country with 4 and a fraction million people, you know, they had money lent for developing properties, homes, that would extend just forever in the future. It was the terrible mistake by me. Nobody lied to me, nobody gave me any bad information. I just plain wasn’t paying attention. The — If you talk about the WaMus — I don’t want to go through all the names on them, because it’s specific to some companies. But there were a lot of signs that they were doing things that a highly leveraged institution shouldn’t be doing. And that could cause trouble if this model of ever-rising housing prices turned out to be a false model. You can get in a lot of trouble with leverage. I mean, it’s — you start creating $20 of assets, or something like that. You know, for every dollar of equity, you better be right. And some of those big institutions did some very — what, in retrospect, for certain here — were foolish things, which, if they hadn’t been so highly leveraged, would not have hit them as badly.

And I would say most of them, if you read the 10-Ks and 10-Qs and did some checking, you could spot differences in them. Certainly, you can spot — There’s no comparison, if you take Wells Fargo versus a WaMu or something like that. I mean, you don’t have to have an advanced level of sophistication about banking to compare those two. They’re two different

标题：2009年股东大会

第4/6部分

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我马上就会把这个问题交给查理。但查理和我认为，除了价值投资之外，没有其他类型的投资。换句话说，我们不知道任何人怎么能进行非价值投资。所以我们一直对“价值”这个词感到困惑，因为它似乎与增长或其他什么相对立。价值关乎的是，相对于你今天付出的成本，你从未来预期的现金流中获得的大量回报。所以我们——我们一直——每次有人把我们描述为价值投资者时，我们总会问他们，还能有其他类型的投资吗？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. I’m going to turn that over to Charlie in just one second. But Charlie and I think there is no other kind of investment than a value investment. In other words, we don’t know how anybody would invest in a non-value investment. So we’ve always been puzzled by the term, “value,” and saying that contrasts with growth or anything. Value relates to getting a lot for the expectable flow of cash in the future, in terms of what you’re laying out today. So we — we’ve always — every time somebody characterizes us as value investors, we always ask them, what other kind can there be?

4. 芒格：电动汽车制造商比亚迪是一个“该死的奇迹”

沃伦·巴菲特：但查理是我们这里比亚迪团队的领头人。他非常兴奋。所以我可能得控制他一下。不过，开始吧，查理。（笑声）

查理·芒格：是的，当然，比亚迪，尽管其创始人只有43岁，但并不是一个初创阶段的风险投资公司。比亚迪是全球可充电锂电池的主要制造商之一。它在创始人王传福的领导下，从零起步达到了这一地位。然后——他们继续进入手机零部件领域，并建立了巨大的市场份额。最后，王传福不满足于已经创造的两个奇迹，决定进入汽车行业。据我所知，他在汽车方面是零经验。从零起步，资金非常有限，他迅速打造出了中国最畅销的单款车型。这是在与所有世界主要汽车公司的中国合资企业竞争的情况下取得的，那些合资企业拥有技术奇迹和更多的资本等等。这不是某种未经证实的、高度投机性的活动。这简直就是一个该死的奇迹。而且——（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：我提醒过你们。（笑声）

查理·芒格：当然，王传福雇用了17000名工程毕业生。这些工程毕业生是从中国的13亿人中选拔出来的。他招的是班级里的顶尖人才。所以——你得到了一个非凡的人才聚集。然后你还有中国人民的基本素质。当他们摆脱了错误类型的政府——例如，错误的皇帝——时，中国人民会取得巨大成功。当他们作为“苦力”——奴隶——来到这个国家时，他们会离开并很快成为镇上最重要的人物。所以这是一个非常有才华的群体。从某种意义上说，这个特定时期可能是中国的——中国时代。当然，这些电池，这些锂电池，在未来世界是完全必需的。在美国的每家公用事业公司都需要它们。在世界各地的每家公用事业公司都需要它们。我们必须利用太阳的直接能量。没有出色的电池，我们就做不到这一点。而比亚迪正处于这一领域的甜蜜点上。

我知道这看起来像个奇迹。看起来沃伦和我都疯了。但我不认为我们疯了。

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，最多我们中间有一个疯了。（笑声）

查理·芒格：你将在展厅看到的那辆车——我认为那辆车除了玻璃和橡胶之外，所有零件都是他们自己制造的。可能还有一两个小例外。这是闻所未闻的。有谁进入汽车行业后，制造每一个零件，并且让汽车成为最畅销的产品？这不是正常的。我的意思是，这非常不寻常。我认为，与一家试图为人类做如此多重要事情的公司联系在一起，是伯克希尔的荣幸。因为它可能是一家小公司，但它的雄心壮志很大。我不想与由王传福领导的17000名中国工程师以及在一个全新领域——按他们想要的方式构建——中的另外10万多名有才华的中国人对赌。如果这里不发生伟大的事情，我会感到惊讶。我认为，考虑到规模，这对伯克希尔在财务上可能不会那么重要。但在我的一生中，我从未——从未感到比与比亚迪联系在一起更荣幸。

沃伦·巴菲特：比亚迪是查理去年的项目。爱尔兰银行是我的项目。所以他——（笑声）——是赢家。顺便说一句，比亚迪每年有40亿美元的营业额。我的意思是，这不是一家小企业。而且它可能会变得更大。

原文

4. Munger: Electric car maker BYD is a “damn miracle”

WARREN BUFFETT: But Charlie is our team leader here on BYD. And he gets very excited. So I may have to control him. But go to it, Charlie. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes, well, of course, BYD, although its founder is only 43 years old, is not some early-stage venture capital company. BYD is one of the main manufacturers to the world of the rechargeable lithium battery. And it achieved that position from a standing start at zero under the leadership of the founder, Wang Chuanfu. And — they went on into cell phone components and developed a huge position. And then, finally, not satisfied with having worked a couple of miracles, Wang Chuanfu decided he would go into the automobile business. As nearly as I can tell, it was zero experience in automobiles. And from a standing start at zero and with very little capital, he rapidly was able to create the best-selling single model in China. And that’s against competition that was Chinese joint ventures with all the major auto companies of the world, technological marvels with way more capital and so on. This is not some unproven, highly speculative activity. What it is, is a damn miracle. And — (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: I warned you. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: And of course, Wang Chuanfu has hired 17,000 engineering graduates. And those engineering graduates are selected from a billion, 300 million people in China. And he’s hiring at the top of the classes. And — so you get a remarkable aggregation of human talent. And then you’ve got the basic quality of the Chinese people. Which, when unfettered from the wrong kind of government — for instance, the wrong kind of emperor — the Chinese people succeed mightily. When they came to this country as “coolies” — slaves — they would leave and soon be the most important people in the town. So this is a very talented group of people. And, in a sense, this particular period may be Chinese — the Chinese day. And of course, these batteries, these lithium batteries, are totally needed in the future of the world. We need them in every utility company in America. We need them in every utility company in the world. And we have to use the direct power of the sun. And we can’t do that without marvelous batteries. And he’s in the — BYD is in the sweet spot on that stuff.

And I know it looks like a miracle. And it looks like Warren and I have gone crazy. But I don’t think we have.

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, one of us, at most. (Laughter)

CHARLIE MUNGER: And that car you’re going to see in the annex — I think they make everything in that car except the glass and the rubber. There may be a couple of small exceptions. That’s unheard of. Whoever went into the automobile business and made every part, and made the automobile a best-settle — best-selling — thing? This is not normal. I mean, this is very unusual. And I regard it as a privilege to have Berkshire associated with a company that is trying to do so much that’s so important for humanity, when you get right down to it. Because it may be a small company, but its ambitions are large. And I don’t want to bet against 17,000 Chinese engineers led by Wang Chuanfu, plus 100,000 more talented Chinese in a brand-new area — constructed the way they want it. I will be amazed, if great things don’t happen here. I don’t think, given the size, it can be all that important to Berkshire, financially. But I have never, in my life, been more — felt more privileged to be associated with something than I feel about BYD.

WARREN BUFFETT: BYD was Charlie’s last year. The Irish banks were mine. So he’s — (laughter) — the winner. BYD, incidentally, does $4 billion a year of business. I mean, so it is not a small business. And it will probably get a lot larger.

5. 美元未来购买力将下降

沃伦·巴菲特：让我们转到第二区。

观众提问：你好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫丹·刘易斯，来自芝加哥。我的问题与美元兑其他主要货币有关。您已经谈了一些关于政府政策及其对未来通胀的影响。单就这一点而言，你会认为通胀会损害美元。但显然，还有很多其他因素在起作用。所以我有点想知道您对美元的最新看法。我知道您一直看跌。但考虑到过去六个月里发生的一切，您认为这些各种因素——贸易逆差、预算赤字——将如何结合在一起，并影响美元？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这相当难以预测。但是——我可以向你保证，五、十、二十年后，美元的购买力会下降。而且下降幅度可能非常大。但显然，我不知道具体程度。我们正在做一些会损害美元购买力的事情。另一方面，世界上其他国家也在发生同样的事情。所以很难说美元兑英镑、美元兑欧元等会如何表现。因为，你知道，英国今年的赤字将达到GDP的12%以上。即使是对通胀长期恐惧的德国，也可能出现GDP的6%以上的赤字。所以世界各国的政府都选择——我认为这样做是正确的——选择实施非常大的赤字，在某些情况下，几乎是除了战争时期以外前所未有的——这样做是为了抵消其公民需求的收缩。

这在相对汇率方面会如何发展，我无法告诉你。但在货币未来的购买力相对于现在的价值方面会如何发展，我认为比较容易说，那就是这会导致货币单位随着时间的推移购买力大大降低。这不会在未来一两年内发生。但这并不意味着市场不会在某个时候开始预期它。这将是一个非常非常有趣的未来。我的意思是，我们在做一些过去从未见过的事情。政策制定者不知道结果会怎样。我也不知道结果。但你知道它会产生后果。你可以押注通胀。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯——我在奥马哈长大。我清楚地记得两美分一张的头等邮票和五美分一个的汉堡。所以在我的一生中，经历了大量通胀。在我的一生中，我认为我生活在人类历史上最幸运的时代。所以一点点通胀不会毁掉我们任何一个人的生活。诀窍是避免失控的通胀。那是一个沃伦和我要留给年轻人的问题。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：不过，这里有一个产品。6.5盎司的这种产品，100年前，售价是五美分加上两美分的押金。而它的价格几乎没有上涨。这非常有趣。小麦、燕麦之类的东西也没涨那么多。另一方面，一份100年前售价一美分的报纸现在卖一美元，而且发行还亏钱。所以影响非常不均匀。

原文

5. U.S. dollar will buy less in the future

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to the — area 2.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name’s Dan Lewis (PH). I’m from Chicago. My question has to do with the U.S. dollar versus other major currencies. You spoke a little bit already about the — government policy and its effect on inflation in the future. And just by itself, you’d think inflation would hurt the dollar. But obviously, there’s a lot of other factors at play. So I’m kind of interested in knowing your latest outlook on the dollar. I know you’ve been bearish. But given everything that’s been thrown up in the air in the last six months, how you think these various things will come together, trade deficit, budget deficits, and how it will affect the dollar?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It’s pretty unpredictable. But the — I will guarantee you that the dollar will buy less, you know, five, 10, 20 years from now. And it may be — it may buy very, very substantially less. But I don’t know that, obviously. But we are doing things that will hurt the purchasing power of the dollar. On the other hand, the same thing is happening in countries around the world. So it’s very difficult to say whether the dollar versus the pound or the dollar versus the euro, et cetera — how that will behave. Because, you know, the British will run a deficit this year of 12 and a fraction percent of GDP. And even the Germans, with their, you know, long-time fear of inflation, will probably run a deficit of 6 and a fraction percent of GDP. So you’ve got governments around the world all electing to run — and I think properly so — electing to run very material deficits, in some cases, you know, close to unprecedented except in wartime — electing to do that in order to offset this contraction of demand by their citizenry.

And how that plays out in relative exchange rates, I can’t tell you. How it will play out in terms of the value of their currencies’ purchasing power in the future versus now, I think, is fairly easy to say, and that’s that it’s going to cause units of currency to buy a lot less over time. That isn’t going to happen in the next year or two. But that doesn’t mean that markets won’t start anticipating it at some point. And it’s going to be a very, very interesting future. I mean, we are doing things that we haven’t seen in the past. And policymakers do not know the outcome of that. I don’t know the outcome of it. You do know it will have consequences. And — you can bet on inflation. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well — I was raised here in Omaha. And I well remember the two-cent first class stamp and the five-cent hamburger. And so, in my life, there’s been a lot of inflation. And in my life, I think I’ve had the most privileged era of all history in which to live. So a little inflation is not going to ruin the lives of any of us. The trick is to avoid the runaway inflation. That is a problem Warren and I are going to quitclaim to the younger people. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Here is a product, though. Six and a half ounces of this product, 100 years ago, cost a nickel plus a two-cent deposit. And it’s hardly gone up in price at all. It’s very interesting. And wheat hasn’t gone up that much or oats or things of that sort. And on the other hand, a newspaper that cost a penny 100 years ago costs a dollar now and they lose money turning it out. So it gets very uneven, in terms of its impact.

6. 巴菲特对失去AAA评级感到“恼火”

沃伦·巴菲特：卡罗尔？

卡罗尔·卢米斯：沃伦，查理——这个问题，我收到了很多类似的。这个问题来自——它来自谁呢？嗯，它来自肯普顿·林或林·肯普顿——两者之一——来自加拿大卡尔加里。问题是，“你会如何量化伯克希尔失去AAA信用评级带来的财务影响和损害？这增加了伯克希尔的资本成本，而这无疑是公司的一个竞争优势。” “沃伦，你正在采取什么积极措施来努力恢复伯克希尔的AAA评级？你认为伯克希尔能够重新获得它吗？”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，它不会很快恢复，因为我认为评级机构不会这样掉头，即使他们应该这样做。我们在标准普尔仍然有AAA评级，但它是暂时的。他们大约会在——我想他们说过大约12个月后——重新评估。穆迪在1月初确认了评级。然后我们在某个时候发行了一次债券，那是在评级变更之后不久。实际上，就我们的信用违约互换而言，这是一个可以用来衡量信用接受度的指标——虽然，我马上会告诉你一个有趣的方面——这个利差实际上是下降了。这对我们的借贷成本影响非常非常小。我的意思是，非常小。而且，顺便说一句，它从来都没有过大的影响。我的意思是，AA级与AAA级之间的利差一直非常小。人们会在金融课上争论，为了拥有AAA评级而付出代价是不值得的，因为你在债务上省不了多少钱。

而且它在股本回报率方面会让你付出代价。我从不赞同这一点。我非常喜欢同时拥有穆迪和标准普尔的AAA评级。当穆迪下调我们的评级时，我很失望。我们真的没想到会发生这种事，但它确实发生了。这对借贷成本没有任何实质性影响。它确实让我们在全球范围内失去了一些在保险承诺方面的炫耀资本，尽管没有人的排名在我们前面，这是肯定的。但它不会很快恢复。我的意思是，人们在委员会做出的决定不会很快被推翻。这不符合人性。在我心里，我们仍然是AAA级。实际上，在标准普尔心里，我们也是AAA级，直到我们听到不同的说法。我们当然认为，并且我们以这样的方式经营，即没有比伯克希尔更强大的信用了。对于评级机构来说，如果它们有一个包含各种比率等指标的检查表系统，就很难衡量像管理层对债权人的态度这样的东西。

但我向你保证，伯克希尔的管理层将履行其义务视为神圣的，并且比增加每股收益或任何类似的事情重要得多。我的意思是，我们对工伤赔偿之类的人负有义务，这些义务可能长达50年之久。我的意思是，这是一个受重伤的人，每月从伯克希尔收到一张支票。你知道，这比我们是否赚取X，或X加十分之一，或几个百分点的股本回报率重要得多。我们的行为，或者我们试图——当然试图行为——的方式是，不仅人们会收到这些支票，而且他们甚至永远不必担心收到这些支票。评级机构很难量化伯克希尔管理层的这种态度。但请相信我，这种态度是存在的。我想说，穆迪的AAA评级变化对伯克希尔的未来不会产生实质性影响。但这仍然让我恼火。查理？（笑）

查理·芒格：嗯，至少他们表现出了相当大的独立性。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：谁知道呢？可能这也是一个因素。

查理·芒格：是的。我的态度相当豁达。我认为穆迪的下一次评级变动会是相反的。我认为这会实现，因为我们值得更高的评级，而且他们很聪明。（笑声）

沃伦·巴菲特：当查理和我意见不同时，我们确实经常意见不同。我们从不争吵，但我们意见不同。查理，当他到了真正想让我做某事的时候，比如买入比亚迪的权益之类的，他总是对我说，“嗯，他说，最终，你会明白我的看法。因为你很聪明，而我是对的。”（笑声）

原文

6. Buffett “irritated” by the loss of triple-A rating

WARREN BUFFETT: Carol?

CAROL LOOMIS: Warren, Charlie — this question, I got a good many of these. This one comes from — who does it come from? Well, it comes from Mr. Kempton (PH) — Kempton Lam or Lam Kempton (PH) — one of the two — from Calgary, Canada. And the question is, “How would you quantify the financial impact and damage of Berkshire losing its triple-A credit rating — which increased the cost of capital of Berkshire, which was surely a competitive advantage for the company? “And Warren, what are you doing actively to try to restore Berkshire’s triple-A rating? Do you think that Berkshire will be able to regain it?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it won’t regain it soon, because I don’t think rating agencies will turn around like that, even if they should. We have a triple-A from Standard & Poor’s, but it’s provisional. And they’re going to look at it in about — I think they said about 12 months. Moody’s affirmed the rating early in January. Then we issued a bond at one point, where it was — well, that was right after the rating changed. And actually, in terms of our credit default swaps, which is a metric you can use for credit acceptance — although, I’ll tell you, in a second, an interesting aspect of that — that spread came down, actually. It makes very, very little difference in our borrowing costs. I mean, very little. And it never has, incidentally. I mean, double-As versus triple-As, the spread has always been very small. And people would argue, in finance classes and all that, it wasn’t worth paying the price to have a triple-A because you didn’t save that much on debt.

And it costs you, in terms of return on equity. I never subscribed to that. And I very much liked having a triple-A from both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. I was disappointed when Moody’s downgraded us. We didn’t really think that was going to happen, but it did. And — it doesn’t have any material effect on borrowing costs. It does cause us to lose some bragging rights around the world in terms of our insurance promise, although nobody ranks ahead of us, that’s for sure. But, it will not change back in a hurry. I mean, people don’t make decisions in committees that they reverse very quickly. It’s just not human nature. We’re still a triple-A in my mind. And actually, we’re a triple-A in Standard & Poor’s’ mind, till we hear something differently. We certainly think, and we run it in a way, that there can be no stronger credit than Berkshire. It’s difficult for a rating agency, if they have a checkbox system of ratios and such, to measure something like the attitude of management toward creditors.

But I will assure you that Berkshire has a management that regards meeting its obligations as sacred and a lot more important than increasing earnings per share or anything of the sort. I mean, we have obligations to people in something like workers’ compensation that go 50 years out in the future. I mean, this is somebody that’s been injured severely and they get a check every month from Berkshire. And you know, that’s a lot more important than whether we earn X, or X plus a tenth, or a couple of tenths, percent on equity. And we conduct ourselves, or we try to — certainly try to conduct ourselves — so that not only will people get those checks, but they’ll never have to even worry about getting those checks. And that’s very difficult for a rating agency to quantify that attitude on the part of the management of Berkshire. But believe me, it exists. And — I would say that the triple-A change at Moody’s is not going to be material in the future of Berkshire. But it still irritates me. Charlie? (Laughs)

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, at least they showed a considerable independence. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: Who knows? That may have entered into it, too.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. My attitude is quite philosophical. I think the next change at Moody’s will be in the opposite direction. And I think that will happen because we deserve a higher rating and they’re smart. (Laughter)

WARREN BUFFETT: When Charlie and I disagree, and we do disagree a lot. We never argue, but we disagree. And Charlie, when he gets to the point where he really wants me to do something, like buy the BYD interest or something, he always says to me, “Well,” he says, “in the end, you’ll see it my way. Because you’re smart, and I’m right.” (Laughter)

7. 伯克希尔信用违约互换的“疯狂”价格

沃伦·巴菲特：我忍不住要指出一个对你们大多数人来说可能有点技术性的问题。但在座有些人会觉得它相当有趣。它实际上在很大程度上也进入了信用评级，信用违约互换也参与其中。当我们写一个，比如说，一个股权看跌期权，我们因写一个10亿美元的看跌期权而获得报酬时，有人付给我们1.5亿美元，我们当天就拿到这1.5亿美元的现金。我们当天设立了一笔1.5亿美元的负债，作为我们对该义务履行成本评估的价值或——我们——的评估。我的意思是，这是它的市场价格。对方从他的现金中拿出1.5亿美元，并在当天设立一笔1.5亿美元的应收账款。现在，这些应收款和应付款会随时间变化。但第一天，没有利润，没有损失，只是现金易手。一方设立资产，另一方——我们设立负债。

现在，随着过去几年世界的发展，对另一方来说，那项资产的价值在按市值计价的基础上增加了。他通过收益报告这一点。所以他的资产增加了。我们的负债增加了。我们通过收益将其报告为亏损。但我们拿到了现金，而他持有我们的一笔资产，这笔资产将在15年或类似时间后到期。在过去几年里，他的审计师——他的信贷部门——说，“哎呀，你有一笔来自伯克希尔的应收账款，将在15年后到期。而且，他们不必提供抵押品。所以你必须去购买一份信用违约互换来保护自己，以防这笔应收账款变成坏账。”现在，这有两个影响。第一，他每年都要花钱购买一些东西，这东西不花我们一分钱，但花他的真金白银。所以——他向我们显示的利润越多，他必须购买的信用保险就越多，所以每年花他的钱就越多。

这推高了对伯克希尔信用违约互换的需求，导致了一些疯狂的价格。所以有一次，我们的信用违约互换让他每年花费五个百分点。所以如果他显示，比如说，2亿美元的资产，他每年要付出10美元，而且他必须在15年内每年都付出，仅仅因为——这些信贷部门的要求。这使得我们交易对手方非常不愉快，即使他们不断记入利润。这不花我们一分钱。但它确实导致了信用违约互换市场变得有点疯狂。我意识到这对你们中的许多人来说不是一个紧迫的问题。但这很不寻常——这是我没想到的。它在一定程度上解释了为什么人们可能想要修改他们与我们的合同。如果他们——与我们——想要充分修改它们，我们会接电话。但与此同时，我们拿着钱坐着。（笑声）

原文

7. “Crazy” prices for Berkshire credit default swaps

WARREN BUFFETT: I will — I can’t resist pointing out one item that is, maybe, a little technical to most of you. But there are some people here who will find it quite interesting. And it actually even enters into credit ratings to a great extent, the credit default swaps enter into it. When we write a, let’s take an equity put option, and we get paid for writing a billion dollar put, somebody pays us $150 million, we get the $150 million of cash that day. And we set up a liability for 150 million the first day, for the value or the — that we — our appraisal of what it’s going to cost us to meet that obligation. I mean, that’s the market price for it. The other guy takes 150 million out of his cash and sets up a $150 million receivable that day. Now, these receivables and payables change over time. But the first day, no profit, no loss, just cash changing hands. One guy sets up an asset, the other guy — we set up a liability.

Now, as the world has developed in the last couple of years, the value of that asset to the other fellow has increased in a mark-to-market basis. And he reports that through earnings. So his asset goes up. Our liability goes up. And we report that through earnings as a loss. But we’ve got the cash and he’s got an asset from us that comes due in 15 years or something like that. And in the last couple of years, the — his auditors — his credit department — has said, “Gee, you’ve got a receivable from Berkshire that comes due in 15 years. And, they don’t have to post collateral. So you have to go out and buy a credit default swap to protect yourself against that receivable going bad.” Now, that has two effects. A, he’s laying out money every year to buy something that doesn’t cost us anything but costs him real money. So the — and the more he shows us a profit, the more of the credit insurance he has to buy, so the more money it costs him every year.

And that has driven up the demand for credit default swaps at Berkshire, which made for some crazy prices. So at one point, our credit default swaps were costing that guy five percent a year. So if he was showing, say, a $200 million asset, he was laying out $10 a year, and he was going to have to lay it out for 15 years, just because of these — this credit department’s requirements. And it made it very unpleasant for the people on the other side of our transactions, even though they keep writing up the profits. It doesn’t cost us anything. But it does result in kind of a crazy market in the credit default swaps. I realize that that has not been a burning issue with many of you. But it is an unusual — it’s something I didn’t anticipate. And it explains why, to some extent, people may want to modify their contracts with us. And if they — with us — and if they want to modify them enough, we’ll answer the phone. But in the meantime, we’re sitting with the money. (Laughter)

8. 中美能源与爱荷华州合作开发风电场

沃伦·巴菲特：让我们转到第三区。

观众提问：吉姆·哈登，来自爱荷华州达文波特的内布拉斯加大学玉米壳队球迷。在我们从达文波特开车过来的路上，我们注意到中美能源公司有两个相当大的风电场。我的问题是，这些风电场的投资回报将在何时实现？伯克希尔·哈撒韦是否在考虑其他替代能源？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，就拥有的风力发电容量而言，我相信我们是全国所有公用事业公司中最大的。爱荷华州风力发电占其发电量的比例最高。但当然，在爱荷华州，风只在大约35%的时间里吹，差不多这样。我们这里有可以给出更准确数据的人。但——所以你不能把它作为基本负荷之类的依赖。但爱荷华州一直非常非常乐于接受，而且我认为是进步的，鼓励我们——我们反过来也鼓励他们——引入大量的风力发电容量。我们在爱荷华州是电力净出口商。在我们的服务区域内，爱荷华州的发电量远远超过了自给自足。我认为这对爱荷华州人民有益。我们与爱荷华州有一个安排。我们——你可能知道，我们已经十多年没有提高电价了。这是通过效率实现的。这是通过风力发电实现的。

我们的回报是建立在公平对待我们和爱荷华州人民的基础上的。这种回报的一部分以税收抵免的形式出现——我认为是每千瓦时1.8美分——这是给予美国任何开发风力发电的人的。我们非常喜欢增加更多风电的想法。我们正在这样做。我们在PacifiCorp也在做。我认为我们将继续成为这个领域的领导者。与某些人相比，我们的一个优势是我们是大型纳税人，所以我们不必担心税收抵免是否有用。我想税收抵免也可以出售。但在我们的特定情况下，我们不需要这样做。所以你会看到中美能源公司越来越多的风力发电。当我们进入西海岸的PacifiCorp，覆盖那里的六个州时，他们在风力发电方面几乎没有什么——可能完全没有。我们已经开发了很多。而且我们还有更多项目在推进。查理？

查理·芒格：哦，我认为在公用事业领域几乎任何有意义的事情上，伯克希尔的子公司都会成为领导者。我想我们都可以为中美能源及其两位领导者感到非常自豪。

原文

8. MidAmerican working with Iowa on wind farms

WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s go to area 3.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Jim Hadden (PH), a Cornhusker in Davenport, Iowa. On our drive over from Davenport, we noticed two rather large wind farms by MidAmerica Energy. And my question is, when will be the return on investment of these wind farms? And are Berkshire Hathaway looking at any other alternative energies?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we’re the largest, in terms of owned capacity in wind, in the country, I believe, of any utility. And Iowa has the greatest percentage of its electricity generated by wind. But of course, the wind only blows about 35 percent of the time in Iowa, something like that. And we’ve got people here who can be more accurate than that. But — so you can’t count on it for your base load or anything of the sort. But Iowa has been very, very receptive and, I would argue, progressive, in encouraging us — and we’ve encouraged them, in return — to bring in a lot of wind capacity. We are a net exporter of electricity in Iowa. Iowa’s far more than self-sufficient in our service area in terms of electric generation. And I think that works to the benefit of the people of Iowa. And we have an arrangement with Iowa. We — as you may know, we have not increased our rates at all — what — for more than a decade now. And that’s been achieved by efficiencies. It’s been achieved with wind generation.

We have a return that’s built in on that that’s fair to us, fair to the people of Iowa. And part of that return comes in the form of a tax credit — I think it’s 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour — that is given to anybody in the United States that develops wind power generation. We love the idea of putting in more wind. And we’re doing it. We’re doing it out at PacifiCorp. And I think we’ll continue to be a leader in it. One advantage we have over, perhaps, some people is that we are a big taxpayer, so that we don’t have to worry about whether the tax credits are useful. I guess the tax credit could be sold, also. But we don’t need to do that in our particular situation. So you’ll see more and more wind generation by the MidAmerican companies. When we went into PacifiCorp out on the West Coast, to six states out there, they had virtually nothing — maybe nothing at all — in wind generation. And we’ve developed a lot. And we’ve got more coming on. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Oh, I think in practically anything that makes sense in utilities, the Berkshire subsidiaries will be leaders. I think we can all be very proud of MidAmerican and its two leaders.

9. 星座能源和戴纳基交易

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们为中美能源感到无比自豪。随着时间的推移，我们会在公用事业领域做更多的事情。星座能源的交易没有成功。我希望它能成功。但当时我们在那里——星座能源，我们在一个周二中午得知他们遇到麻烦。我的意思是，我们从股价等方面看到了。戴夫·索科尔和格雷格·阿贝尔当晚就在巴尔的摩，带着一份确定的、全现金的报价来解决星座能源的问题。星座能源很可能在48小时内，也许是24小时内被降级。他们将面临与各种衍生品交易相关的追加保证金要求，而这些要求他们很可能无法满足。我的意思是，他们面临破产。我们真的从戴夫中午或1点给我打的一个电话，到当晚在巴尔的摩向他们递交一份确定的报价。这是伯克希尔的优势之一。我认为这是一个持久的竞争优势。

我认为很少有组织会以这种方式行事，并且——作为首席执行官，你拥有你信任的人才，可以用那种数额的资金支持他们而不用担心。所以这是伯克希尔的一个加分项，即使那次没有成功。我们会在公用事业业务上做得更多。

查理·芒格：嗯，你买了一条管道，对吧，大概用了两个小时？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们确实买了一条管道，结果非常好。在那个特定案例中，公司，戴纳基，那是在2002年左右，公司急需资金。他们从安然公司得到了那条管道。这是一笔非常复杂的交易。但他们需要钱。而我们需要联邦贸易委员会的批准，即联邦贸易委员会对交易的批准，任何购买它的人都需要。我们实际上写了一封信。我给委员会写了一封信。我说，你知道，“这些人需要钱。他们需要在30天期限结束前拿到钱。让我们提前完成这件事。之后你让我们做什么，我们就做什么。”伯克希尔可以做这种交易。我们在做之前不问律师或别的什么。我们直接做。这是一个优势。这对戴纳基来说也是一个优势。它帮助他们度过了一段时期，否则他们可能——我不确定他们是否能挺过去。

所以，当机会来临时，我们可以迅速行动。但我们能迅速行动的原因有一个——实际上有几个。第一，我们总是有钱。你知道，而且——我们有这种心态。但我们也知道，一旦我们拥有了这些资产，我们有能够管理好它们的经理。这是一个巨大的、巨大的优势。回到——（录音中断）

原文

9. Constellation and Dynergy deals

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we’re enormously proud of MidAmerican. And we will do a lot more in utilities over time. Constellation didn’t work out. I wish it had. But we were back there — Constellation, we learned of their troubles on a Tuesday at noon. I mean, we saw it in the stock price and so on. Dave Sokol and Greg Abel were in Baltimore that evening with a firm, all-cash bid to solve Constellation’s problems. And Constellation was likely to get downgraded within 48 hours, maybe 24 hours. And they would’ve had posting requirements in connection with various derivative transactions that they probably would not have met. I mean, they were facing bankruptcy. And we literally went from a phone call that Dave made to me at noon or 1 o’clock to handing them a firm bid that evening in Baltimore. And that’s one of the advantages of Berkshire. That is — I think that’s a durable competitive advantage.

I think there are very few organizations that will act in that manner and that — where you have the talent there that you feel is — as a CEO — you can back them up with that kind of money without worrying about it. So it’s — that is a plus — for Berkshire, even though it didn’t work out in that case. We will do more in the utility business.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you bought a pipeline, didn’t you, in about two hours?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we did buy a pipeline, and it’s turned out very well. And, in that particular case, the company, Dynegy, that — this was back in 2002 or so — the company needed the money enormously. They had gotten the pipeline from Enron. It was a very complicated transaction. But they needed the money. And we needed the Federal Trade Commission approval, the FTC approval, on the deal, as would anybody that was buying it. And we literally wrote a letter. I wrote a letter to the commission. And I said, you know, “These guys need the money. They need it before the 30-day period is up. And let us go through with this early. And we’ll do any damn thing you tell us, subsequently.” And Berkshire can make that kind of a transaction. We don’t ask the lawyers before we do it or anything. We just do it. And that is an advantage. And it was an advantage to Dynegy. It got them through a period that they would’ve — I’m not sure they would’ve gotten through otherwise.

So, we can move fast when the time comes. But the — one of the reasons we — there’s a couple of reasons we move fast. A, we’ve always got the money. You know, but — and we’ve got a mental attitude toward that. But we also know we’ve got the managers that can deliver on the properties, once we own them. And that’s a huge, huge advantage. Back — (BREAK IN RECORDING)

10. 外资持股限制限制了在中国的机会

沃伦·巴菲特（进行中）：中国。我们会受到这种持股限制的约束。但很难想象随着时间的推移我们不会在中国找到更多事情可做。我的意思是，这是一个巨大的市场。我们做很多事情。其中一些是可出口的。或许还会有机会在那里收购更多企业。如果我们能的话，我们原本会买入比亚迪超过10%的股份。但那是他们愿意出售给我们的全部。所以我们希望这能实现。

原文

10. Foreign ownership rules limit China opportunities

WARREN BUFFETT (IN PROGRESS): — China. We would be restricted by that ownership limitation. But it’s very hard to imagine that we won’t find more things to do in China over time. I mean, it’s a huge market. We do a lot of things. And some of those are exportable. And there will also, perhaps, be opportunities to buy more businesses there. We would’ve bought more than 10 percent of BYD, if we could’ve. But, that’s all that they wished to sell us. So we hope that comes about.

11. 美国贸易逆差实际上是中国的问

沃伦·巴菲特：就中国持有的美元资产而言，在某种程度上，他们无法摆脱拥有更多美元资产的情况。我的意思是，其本质是，如果我们要像几年前或一两年前那样——如果我们对中国有2500亿美元的贸易逆差，我的意思是，如果他们要向我們运送商品——而我們想要這些商品——價值比我們賣給他們的多2500億美元，那麼他們最終會得到2500億美元的小紙片。他們可以把這些小紙片，也就是美元，兑换成美国房地产、美国股票、美国国债。他们可以做各种事情。他们甚至可以将其交易给法国人，换成欧元之类的东西。但那样的话，法国人就有问题了。所以，只要对中国有显著的贸易顺差，中国持有的美元资产就会增加。然后他们可以选择把这些美元投入什么。

到目前为止，他们选择将很大一部分投入美国国债。我认为——大约一个月前左右，中国的一位重要官员表示，他对投入美国国债的这些资金的购买力前景不太满意。我得说他是对的。我的意思是，任何在这个国家以外持有美元债务的人，如果长期持有，他们收回的购买力将少于他们当初承担这些美元债务时所拥有的购买力。这是一个主要问题，不是世界上最糟糕的问题，但对中国的财政部长或政府来说，决定如何处理这种因贸易顺差而积累起来的资金是一个主要问题。他们设立了中投公司，拥有几千亿美元——用于决定在全球进行投资，但是——

原文

11. U.S. trade deficit is actually China’s problem

WARREN BUFFETT: In terms of the Chinese dollar holdings, you know, in a way, they can’t get rid of owning more dollar assets. I mean, the nature of it is, if we’re going to run a, as we did a few years ago, or a year or two ago — If we’re going to run a $250 billion trade deficit with China, I mean, if they’re going to send us goods — and we want those goods — to the tune of $250 billion more than we sell to them, they end up with $250 billion of little pieces of paper. And they can convert those pieces of paper, called U.S. dollars, they can convert them into — U.S. real estate, into U.S. stocks, U.S. government bonds. They can do all kinds of things. They can even trade them to the French, you know, and get euros or something in exchange. But then the French have the problem. So the — Chinese dollar assets are going to build as long as there’s a significant trade surplus with China. And then they have the choice of what to put those dollars into.

And they have elected, so far, to put a significant amount — into U.S. government bonds. And — I think — a major official, about a month ago or so in China, said he wasn’t too happy about the prospect of what’s going to happen in terms of the purchasing power of that money that’s been put in U.S. government bonds. And I would say he’s right. I mean, he — it — he — anybody that owns dollar obligations outside of this country is, if they hold them a long time, is going to get less back in the way of purchasing power than existed at the time that they took on those dollar obligations. And it’s a major problem, not the world’s worst problem, but it’s a major problem for a finance minister or a government in China to decide what to do with this buildup that comes about, because they are running a trade surplus. And — they’ve set up the Chinese Investment Corp, which has a couple hundred billion dollars in it — in terms of deciding to make investments around the world, but —

12. 芒格：中国的经济政策“完全正确”

沃伦·巴菲特：这是一个有趣的问题，如果你让我做中国的财政部长，我会如何处理贸易顺差，以及因贸易顺差而流入的资金。我想把这个交给查理，问问他如果他是中国的财政部长，他会怎么做。

查理·芒格：嗯，我（听不清）那是个非常简单的问题。我会完全按照他们正在做的去做。我认为中国拥有世界上最成功的经济政策之一。中国的发展速度比世界其他国家都快。而且，我要说他们的政策完全正确。他们的发展速度如此之快，意义如此之大，以至于如果他们持有的美元资产损失一点购买力，从中国的角度来看，在大局中这只是小事一桩。因此，我对中国处理自身事务的方式只有钦佩。他们在世界各地都将非常难以竞争。这正是中国正确的政策。这是快速前进的方法，就是在世界各地变得非常难以竞争。所以我认为他们做得完全正确。而且我认为美国和中国应该是非常友好的国家。因为我们紧密相连。

沃伦·巴菲特：所以你会建议他们继续购买美国国债——

查理·芒格：当然。

沃伦·巴菲特：——在几乎没有收益的情况下？

查理·芒格：无论收益如何。它们不是没有收益。因为他们可以买更长期的。

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们给中国政府提供了一些建议。（笑声）

原文

12. Munger: China’s economic policies are “exactly right”

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s an interesting question, if you made me the finance minister of China, what I would do with the trade surplus, the funds that came in because of the trade surplus. And I think it’ll take it over to Charlie and ask him what he would do, if he were the finance minister of China.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I (Inaudible) that is a very easy question. I would do exactly what they’re doing. I think China has one of the most successful economic policies in the world. And China has advanced more rapidly than the rest of the world. And, I would say their policies are exactly right. And their rate of advance is so great and so meaningful that if they lost a little bit of purchasing power on their dollar holdings, it’s a trifle in the big scheme of things from the viewpoint of China. So I’ve got nothing but admiration for the way the Chinese have been running their own affairs. And they’re going to be very hard to compete with all over the world. And that is exactly the correct policy for China. That’s the way you get ahead fast is to be very hard to compete with all over the world. So I think they’re doing it exactly right. And I think that the United States and China should be very friendly nations. Because we’re joined at the hip.

WARREN BUFFETT: So you’d suggest they keep buying U.S. Treasurys at —

CHARLIE MUNGER: You bet.

WARREN BUFFETT: — practically no yield?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Whatever the yield. They’re not no-yield. Because they can buy longer.

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ve got some advice for the Chinese government. (Laughter)

13. 交易事后审查不应公开

沃伦·巴菲特：卡罗尔？

卡罗尔·卢米斯：“过去，您曾表示管理层应该——”这个问题来自英格丽德·亨德肖特。“过去，您曾表示管理层应该在几年后对所进行的收购进行事后审查。您能各自向我们提供伯克希尔最大收购案——通用再保险公司的事后审查吗？”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我不认为——我会评论通用再保险，但我不认为我们通常应该公开我们的事后审查。我不认为——我认为，如果我们收购了——我们确实相信事后审查。我们强烈相信它们。我们认为很少有公司进行这种审查。提出一项交易很容易，但事后解释它要难得多。查理是喜欢让人面对自己问题的忠实粉丝。这绝对应该做。我不认为这一定要公开。我认为，通过指出——即使是你作为收购方在预测中犯了错误——指出可能已经发生的、与那些可能正在努力克服你最初收购时的错误的经理们相关的不足，你不会吸引到企业和经理。所以我不想深入讨论这个问题。

原文

13. Deal post-mortems shouldn’t be public

WARREN BUFFETT: Carol?

CAROL LOOMIS: “In the past, you have stated that management should —” This question comes from Ingrid Hendershot. “In the past, you have stated that management should be required, after several years, to do a post-mortem on acquisitions it makes. Would you each provide us with your post-mortem on Berkshire’s largest acquisition, General Re?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t think — I’ll comment on General Re, but I don’t think we generally should make our post-mortems public. I don’t think — I think that, if we acquired — We do believe in post-mortems. We strongly believe in them. We think they’re conducted at far too few companies. It’s easy to propose a deal and it’s much harder to account for it later on. And — Charlie is a big fan of rubbing anybody’s nose in their own problems. And it absolutely should be done. I don’t think it necessarily should be made public. I don’t think that you attract businesses by — and managers — by pointing out — even though you are the one that made the mistake, as the acquirer, in your projections — pointing out the shortfalls that may have occurred with the managers that are maybe doing a very good job to try and overcome the fact that you made a mistake in buying it in the first place. So I don’t want to — I wouldn’t want to get into that.

14. 巴菲特：我对通用再保险的声誉判断“完全错误”

沃伦·巴菲特：通用再保险在经历了极其糟糕的开端后，最终结果不错。我在1998年收购它时，认为它是15年前的通用再保险，当时它在保险界拥有绝对顶尖的声誉。我完全错了。一些在准备金提取和承保方面的做法已经有所改变。但我很高兴地说，多亏了今天在场的泰德·蒙特罗斯和乔的共同努力，——

查理·芒格：那是乔·布兰登。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，当然是乔·布兰登。但是乔和泰德，他们在2001年9月接手时，实际上——大约在世贸中心问题发生的时候——他们着手处理所有问题。他们立即着手处理，准备金提取、承保，无论是什么。通用再保险现在就是我1998年购买时所认为的那个公司。所以我们为他们感到骄傲。这是一项非常艰难的工作。这不是一件能自行完成的事情。在某种程度上，当你收紧一个已经变得有些松懈的组织时，你知道，这不是一件容易的工作。他们两个，或者他们每个人，都可以去别的地方赚同样多的钱，甚至更多的钱，而不必面对他们在通用再保险遇到的问题。但他们坚持了下来。现在我们有了一个我们感觉极好且拥有光明未来的组织。查理？

查理·芒格：嗯，我认为这是对的。但是——重要的是要有能力把柠檬变成柠檬水。我们非常非常幸运有乔和泰德在这个过程中帮助我们。这并不愉快。也不漂亮。但非常成功。这不是普通经理人很可能做到的事情。你必须非常坚强才能修复通用再保险。而他们确实修复了它。

沃伦·巴菲特：当我们进行事后审查时，从某种意义上说，我们是在审视我们自己的成果。我的意思是，我们做决定。你知道，这不是某个地方的战略部门，或者负责收购的副总裁，或者某个进来告诉我们应该买这个或那个的管理顾问。我们在审视我们自己的决定。这非常重要。我们谈论这些。我们犯过一些愚蠢的决定。其中大部分是我的。因为我是那个坐在奥马哈，做出大部分决定的人。但是公开讨论我那些可能会在某些领域牵连到某些经理的愚蠢决定，将是一个真正的错误。所以我们不会披露这些。但我们会告诉你们，伯克希尔做出过愚蠢的决定。

查理·芒格：在通用再保险交易中真正明智的决定是乔·布兰登做出的。是他决定伯克希尔应该收购通用再保险。他促成了这笔交易。我认为，如果没有他，这笔交易就不会发生。你同意吗？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，没错。

查理·芒格：乔当时是通用再保险股东的受托人。我们得到了一个不错的結果，而他们得到了一个极好的结果。所以如果在那笔交易中资本主义有什么英雄的话，那么，乔就是英雄。

原文

14. Buffett: I was “dead wrong” on Gen Re’s reputation

WARREN BUFFETT: Gen Re has worked out well after a terrible, terrible start. And I was dead wrong, in 1998, when I bought it, in thinking that it was the Gen Re of 15 years earlier, which had absolutely the premier reputation in the insurance world. And some practices, in terms of reserving and underwriting, had changed somewhat. But I’m happy to say that, thanks to the combined work of Tad Montross, who is with us here today, and Joe, that the —

CHARLIE MUNGER: That’s Joe Brandon.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, Joe Brandon, of course. But Joe and Tad, when they took over in, what, September of 2001, actually — right about the time of the World Trade Center problem — they took after all of the problems. They went right after them, reserving, underwriting, whatever it might be. And Gen Re is the company now that I thought it was when I purchased it in 1998. So we’re proud of them. It was a very tough job. It wasn’t one that was going to get done by itself. And that, to some extent, when you tighten up on an organization that has fallen into some lax ways, it can — you know, that is not an easy job. Both of them, or each of them, they could’ve left for some other place and made just as much money, maybe more money, not had to face the problems that they faced at Gen Re. But they hung in there. And now we have an organization that we feel terrific about and has a great future. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think that’s right. And — but it’s very important that you have an ability to turn your lemons into lemonade. And we were very, very lucky to have Joe and Tad to help us in the process. It wasn’t pleasant. And it wasn’t pretty. And it was very successful. And it wasn’t something that ordinary managers would’ve been at all likely to do. You had to be very tough minded to fix General Re. And they really did fix it.

WARREN BUFFETT: When we do the post-mortems, we, in a sense, are looking at our own handiwork. I mean, we make the decisions. You know, it’s not some strategy department someplace, or vice president in charge of acquisitions, or some management consultant that comes in and tells us we ought to buy this or that. We’re looking at our decisions. And that’s very important. And we talk about that. And we’ve made some dumb decisions. And most of them have been mine. Because I’m the guy that’s sitting in Omaha, making most of the decisions. But it would really be a mistake to discuss, in public, my dumb decisions, which might reflect, you know, on some of the managers in some of the arenas. So we will not disclose those. But we will tell you that there are dumb decisions made around Berkshire.

CHARLIE MUNGER: The really brilliant decision in the General Re transaction was made by Joe Brandon. He was the one who decided that Berkshire should buy General Re. And he caused the transaction. And it wouldn’t have happened, I think, if he hadn’t been there. Would you agree with that?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, that’s true.

CHARLIE MUNGER: And Joe was the steward for the General Re shareholders. We got a decent result, and they got a fabulous result. So if capitalism has any heroes in that transaction, why, Joe’s the hero.

15. “我们不太相信合同”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们转到第六区。

观众提问：是的，先生。巴菲特先生，芒格先生，我是来自加利福尼亚州的查克·霍斯默。您之前提到了布法罗报纸的工会合作。在不引入工会的情况下，您如何看待伯克希尔子公司其他员工的合同？

沃伦·巴菲特：我正在想我们是否有任何真正的合同。

查理·芒格：我希望没有。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不太相信合同。在某些情况下，我们会给人们数亿或数十亿美元来收购他们的企业。我们必须做出的决定是，在他们把股票证书交给我们、我们把钱交给他们之后，他们是否会对企业拥有同样的热情？他们是否会有和以前一样的热情？如果我们在这点上错了，任何合同都救不了我们。我们不想要基于合同的关系。所以——我——我——我真的想不出我们有什么正式的合同。我们有关于奖金安排之类的谅解——那并不复杂——与各种经理之间。我的意思是，我们——每家公司的最高负责人的薪酬基本上是我的责任。我们有各种不同的安排，因为我们有各种不同的业务。我们的一些业务中，资本是一个重要因素。所以你必须把它纳入薪酬安排。有些业务中，资本毫无意义。

我们的一些业务非常容易且非常赚钱。有的则非常困难。需要天才才能获得一个平庸的结果。所以我们在那方面有很多不同的安排。但我们不试图用合同来约束人。那也行不通。我们基本上不喜欢签订合同。所以你在看一个公司——查理，你能想到我们有什么合同吗？

查理·芒格：没有。我们的模式是一个无缝的信任网络，这种信任是双方都值得拥有的。这就是我们的目标。好莱坞模式是每个人都有一份合同，双方都不值得信任，那根本不是我们想要的。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不——我们不想谈判高管浴室的大小。我的意思是，那不是我们的游戏。

原文

15. “We are not big believers in contracts”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, let’s go to number 6.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, sir. Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger, I’m Chuck Hosmer (PH) from California. And you mentioned earlier the union cooperation at the Buffalo newspapers. Without the introduction of unions, how do you view contracts for other employees of BRK subsidiaries?

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m just trying to think whether we have any real contracts.

CHARLIE MUNGER: I hope not.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we are not big believers in contracts. We hand people hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, in some cases, to sell us their business. And the decision we have to make is, are they going to have the same passion for the business after they hand us the stock certificate and we hand them the money? Are they going to have the same passion that they had beforehand? And if we’re wrong on that, no contract is going to save us. We don’t want relationships that are based on contracts. So — I can’t — you know, I’m — I can’t really think of a formal contract that we have. We have understandings about bonus arrangements and that sort of thing — and that’s not that complicated — with various managers. I mean, we have — the comp of the top person at each company is basically my responsibility. And we have all kinds of different arrangements, because we have all kinds of different businesses. Some of our businesses, capital’s an important factor. So you have to put that in the comp arrangement. Some of it, capital doesn’t mean a thing.

Some of our businesses are very easy and very profitable. Some of them are very tough. And it takes a genius to, you know, to get a so-so result. So we have a whole bunch of different arrangements on that. But we don’t try to hold people by contracts. And it wouldn’t work. And we basically don’t like engaging in them. So you’re looking at a company that — can you think of any contracts we have, Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: No. Our model is a seamless web of trust that’s deserved on both sides. That’s what we’re aiming for. The Hollywood model, where everyone has a contract, and no trust is deserved on either side, is not what we want at all.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we don’t — we do not want to negotiate the size of the executive bathroom. I mean, that is not our game.

16. 如何在巴菲特的办公室被赶出去

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自马萨诸塞州贝尔蒙特的爱德华·多纳休。“本着在当前时期提升合伙价值的精神，沃伦是否考虑过将一些公司分拆为独立的公司？我的想法是，其中一些公司的售价可能会比伯克希尔目前的账面价值倍数更高。此外，在适当的情况下，合并具有相似行业属性的公司，以期节省管理成本、行政费用，甚至潜在的销售成本。”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不会分拆任何公司。我们曾——我们曾是一家银行控股公司，信不信由你，在某个时候。我们在1969年成为了一家。然后我们被给予10年时间来处置我们的银行，那家银行在伊利诺伊州的罗克福德，我们确实进行了一次实质上的分拆。但是，如果——如果有人来找我们，说，“哎呀，你可以——你的倍数是X，而你可以通过分拆这个子公司获得1.5倍的X倍数，”你知道，我们迫不及待地想把他们赶出办公室。我的意思是，这对我们毫无吸引力。我们不是在寻找能让市值有一个月的跃升之类的东西。如果我们有一个很棒的业务，我们希望它留在伯克希尔内部。我们在伯克希尔内部拥有这种能力，这是一种真正的资产，可以在没有税务后果的情况下将资金转移到各种机会中去。我的意思是，它们是合并申报的一部分。

所以，如果See’s Candy是一个很棒的业务，它确实是，但它产生了大量不能在该业务中有效使用的资本，我们可以将其转移到其他业务或用它来收购其他业务。我们在资本配置方面拥有一个真正的优势，而股东基本上无法像我们在公司内部那样以税务高效的方式做到这一点。此外，当我们从人们手中收购企业时，我们向他们做出了承诺。你知道，他们可以在年报后面阅读我们的经济原则。他们知道我们是为了长期持有而收购。你知道，这是一场会持久的婚姻。我们不会因为可以暂时获得更高的倍数或其他东西，就分拆某个公司。除此之外，还会有那些其他成本。但这不是决定性因素。伯克希尔的基本原则是我们买入为了持有。人们可以相信我们会信守承诺。查理？

查理·芒格：是的，——很多这样的分拆，因为你的市值会稍微高一点，华尔街兜售那些东西，这样他们就能赚取费用。在通常情况下，这对任何人都没有多大好处。我想如果监管足够疯狂，可能会有一个例外，你知道，你可以想象某种情况可能会迫使伯克希尔分成两部分。但除了类似情况，你看到的就是你将得到的。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，如果某个业务因为监管重点而受到损害，并且这束缚了伯克希尔集团其他公司的手脚，你知道，我们不得不考虑一下。但是，正如查理所说，多年来，我们听过一次又一次的投资银行家的陈述，你知道，基本上是说，“如果你只是做这个美妙的事情，”你知道，所有这些——市场会爱你。而且——有多少是有意识的，有多少是潜意识的，我们永远不知道。但我们知道的一件事是，总会伴随有一笔费用。

原文

16. How to get yourself thrown out of Buffett’s office

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

BECKY QUICK: This is a question from Edward Donahue (PH) from Belmont, Massachusetts. “In the spirit of raising partnership value in these times, has Warren given any thought to spinning off as separate companies? “My thinking is that some of these companies would sell at higher multiples to book value that Berkshire currently does. Further, where appropriate, consolidate companies with similar industries with the wish to save on management costs, administration, and even potential selling costs.”

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we will not be spinning off any companies. We had to — we were a bank holding company, believe it or not, at one time. We became one in 1969. Then we were given 10 years to dispose of our bank, which was in Rockford, Illinois, and we did have a, in effect, a spinoff of that. But, we — if somebody comes around us and says, “Gee, you can — you’ve got a multiple of X, and you can have a multiple of 1 1/2 times X for this subsidiary, if you spin it off,” you know, we can’t wait to throw them out of the office. I mean, it just doesn’t interest us. We are not looking for something that gives a, you know, a one-month jump or something like that in market value. If we’ve got a wonderful business, we want to continue it within Berkshire. We’ve got this ability within Berkshire, which is a real asset, in terms of moving money around into various opportunities without tax consequences. I mean, they’re part of a consolidated return.

So if a See’s Candy is a wonderful business, which it is, but it generates a lot of capital that can’t be used effectively in that business, we can move it to some other business or buy other businesses with it. And we have a real advantage in allocation of capital that a shareholder, basically, can’t do as tax efficiently as we can do it within the company. Plus, when we buy businesses from people, we make them a promise. You know, they can read our economic principles in the back of the annual report. And they know that we’re buying for keeps. You know, it is a marriage that’s going to last. And we’re not going to, because we can get a higher multiple or something for a temporary period of time, spin something off. On top of it, that — there would be those other costs. But that’s not the determining factor. It’s the basic principle at Berkshire that we buy to keep. And people can trust us to keep our word on that. Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, the — so many of those spinoffs, because your market cap will be a little higher, Wall Street sells that stuff, so they can get fees. It isn’t really doing that much for anybody, in the ordinary case. I suppose the one exception that could happen, if the regulation was crazy enough, you know, you can imagine something that might cause Berkshire to go to two parts. But short of something like that, you’re looking at what you’re going to get.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, if it was actually hurting some operation that — because regulation was focused in that, and that tied the hands of other companies in the Berkshire group, you know, we’d have to look at that. But, as Charlie said, we have listened to presentation after presentation, over a lot of years, about — by investment bankers, you know, basically saying, you know, “If you just do this wonderful thing,” you know, all these — that the market will love you. And — it — how much is conscious, and how much is subconscious, we’ll never know. But the one thing we do know is there’s always a fee that accompanies it.

17. 对学生贷款业务了解不多

沃伦·巴菲特：第七区。

观众提问：下午好。迈克·诺兰，来自新泽西州蒙特克莱尔。直到最近，美国的学生贷款业务一直是一个非常有吸引力和成功的行业。然而，华盛顿提出的改革方案使该行业陷入混乱。您能否评论一下这个高度依赖信心、信任以及融资的行业，并谈谈这个行业中的公司？

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我对那了解不多。也许查理了解。

查理·芒格：不，我也不太了解。在销售方法方面，已经有相当多的丑闻。该领域的一些公司与一些大学管理者等人员关系过于密切。

沃伦·巴菲特：查理和我想申请学生贷款已经是很久以前的事了。所以我们——（笑声）——没有仔细查看那方面的规定。

查理·芒格：但是，你知道，我们对此了解不多。

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。（笑声）实际上，大约一年前或一年半前，有人找我谈过一笔关于Sallie Mae的交易，但那笔交易后来告吹了。当时，我对打电话给我的那个人说，我对此不太了解。结果证明我没参与是件好事。

原文

17. Don’t know much about student loan business

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 7.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon. Mike Nolan from Montclair, New Jersey. Until recently, the student loan business in the United States has been a very attractive and successful one. However, proposed changes coming out of Washington have thrown the industry into disarray. Could you comment on the industry, which is highly reliant on both faith, trust, as well as financing, and talk a little bit about the companies in this business?

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t know that much about it. Maybe Charlie does.

CHARLIE MUNGER: No, I don’t know this much about it, either. There’s been a fair amount of scandal, in terms of the sales methods. Some of the companies in the field got awfully cozy with some of the university administrators and so on.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s been a long time since Charlie and I thought about getting a student loan. So we — (laughter) — haven’t checked the regulations too carefully on that one.

CHARLIE MUNGER: But, you know, we don’t know a lot about it.

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Laughter) I actually got approached, I guess it was about a year ago or a year and a half ago, on the deal that fell through, on Sallie Mae. And I said, at the time, to the fellow that called me, I didn’t understand it that well. And it turned out to be a good thing I didn’t.

18. 高盛和通用电气的收益“管理”

沃伦·巴菲特：安德鲁？

安德鲁·罗斯·索金：好的，这个问题来自约翰·麦克唐纳。他问，“沃伦，在你对通用电气和高盛的投资中，你认为你选择的是有吸引力的企业，还是仅仅是有吸引力的证券？”本·格雷厄姆的《证券分析》指出，管理层能做的最可怕的事情之一就是管理收益，可以说这两家公司都这样做过。你对此有何反应？”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我可以这样说，在过去15年里，可以说美国工业中很大一部分企业，在某个时候，都曾管理过收益。我亲眼目睹过，并对此提出过反对意见，但毫无成效。所以，我不认为这是一种仅限于这些公司的病症。我不会具体评论那些公司。我对这些公司感觉很好，无论是它们业务的质量还是管理层的素质。但主要是交易条款促使我们做了这些交易。我的意思是，这些交易是在市场混乱的时期达成的，那时你本应为投入资金而获得非常好的条款。很少有人愿意，或者在有些——许多——大多数——情况下，能够在短时间内承诺大笔资金。我们需要好的条款才能做这些交易。就像我说的，我不确定在这些情况下是否有第二种可能性。那真是一个非同寻常的时期。我们很乐意做这些交易。

显然，我对这些交易感觉很好，因为我们获得了非常好的票息。但考虑到达成交易时的环境，我认为没有其他选择。所以，如果他们在那两笔交易中分别需要50亿和30亿美元，我认为我们实际上是出价最低的。但我也认为我们做了非常合理的交易。你知道，我们当时能用那些钱做更好的事情吗？我不——正如我当时衡量的那样，我找不到任何我更喜欢的。主要是交易的条款，尽管我们显然喜欢这些业务。我非常了解这两家公司的首席执行官。我认为他们都是了不起的人。我认为他们很聪明。我认为他们——他们对我们一直非常坦诚，在我们与他们做交易之前很久就非常坦诚。所以我们非常满意这些交易。查理？

原文

18. Earnings “management” at Goldman Sachs and General Electric

WARREN BUFFETT: Andrew?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: OK, this question comes from John McDonald (PH). And he asks, “Warren, in your General Electric and Goldman Sachs investments, do you think you’ve picked attractive businesses or simply attractive securities? “Ben Graham’s ‘Security Analysis’ suggests that the most frightening things an executive management can do is manage earnings, which it could be argued both of these firms do. What is your reaction to that?”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I can say that I could argue that a very substantial percentage of American industry over the last 15 years, at one time or another, has managed earnings. And I’ve witnessed it and argued against it and gotten no place. So, I don’t regard that as a malady that’s limited in its experience.

标题：2009年股东大会

第5部分/共6部分

再保险的承保本身并没有问题——你知道，我们可能更喜欢通用再保险——但瑞士再保险的承保也没有问题。它并没有导致他们现在面临的任何问题。这些问题源于与AIG类似的情况，尽管规模远不及AIG，但既涉及金融产品方面，也涉及资产端。并非源于承保业务。查理？

原文

There’s nothing wrong — you know, we may prefer Gen Re — but there’s nothing wrong with Swiss Re’s underwriting. It did not cause any of the problems that they have now. That arose from something akin to the problems of AIG, although not remotely on the scale of AIG, but both in somewhat in financial products and somewhat on the asset side. It did not arise from underwriting. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的，那是个糟糕的问题。我们希望我们能多一些这样的问题。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes, and that’s a terrible problem. We wish we had more of it. (Laughter)

23. 不合理的CEO薪酬与激励机制

沃伦·巴菲特：请第9区提问。

原文

23. Irrational CEO compensation and incentive systems

WARREN BUFFTT: Area 9, please.

观众：我是来自菲律宾的Vishali。我的问题关于资本密集型子公司的薪酬。现在，我冒昧地假设，大量银行倒闭在很大程度上是由激励偏差造成的。如果董事会在薪酬问题上犯了错误，那么董事会就会引入偏向盈利操纵的激励偏差。因此，牢记第一条规则“不要亏钱”，并牢记如果护城河在拓宽，短期亏损是可以接受的，那么，对于一个需要大量资本的子公司的经理，您如何制定一个公平且明智的薪酬方案？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Vishali (PH) from the Philippines. My question is about compensation in a capital-intensive subsidiary. Now, I am going to take the liberty to assume that the large number of bank failures were caused, in large part, by incentive bias. If a board of directors makes a mistake with compensation, then the board introduces incentive bias towards earnings manipulation. So bearing in mind rule number one, which is, “don’t lose money,” and bearing in mind that it’s OK to have losses in the short term if the moat is widened, then how do you develop a fair and intelligent compensation package for a manager of a subsidiary that requires a lot of capital?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，你显然——这是一个非常非常好的问题。这是查理和我都思考过的问题。我们见过太多疯狂的薪酬体系，以至于我们花了很多时间来思考和讨论它。在资本密集型业务中，你必须有一些东西——你必须在薪酬安排中加入一个包含资本成本因素的元素。我们有几十个子公司。我们对不同的业务有不同的安排。因为——正如你指出的——对于一个不需要资本的业务，比如喜诗糖果或商业资讯或类似的东西，其安排必须与需要大量资本的业务有实质性的不同。我们认为我们有合理的薪酬体系。我们同意你的观点，激励非常重要。我想说，我认为你的问题有点暗示董事会设定这些东西。事实是，至少根据我40年的经验和我曾任职的19个董事会，以及观察其他许多地方的行为——基本上，董事会对此的影响相对较小。

CEO在大多数情况下——在很多情况下——成功地成为自己薪酬安排的重要决定因素。他们，你知道，他们——人力资源——首先，他们会挑选薪酬委员会成员，你知道。所以我在19个董事会中只担任过一个薪酬委员会成员。我的意思是，人们不是在寻找杜宾犬。他们是在寻找可卡犬。然后——（笑声）他们在寻找那些摇着尾巴、非常友好的可卡犬。你知道，CEO们花很多时间思考谁在他们的薪酬委员会里。审计委员会没那么重要。但薪酬委员会，他们想得很多。薪酬委员会每几个月开一次会。然后人力资源副总裁进来，他直接向CEO负责，很可能推荐一个薪酬顾问。相信我，他们不会四处寻找那些会打乱计划的人。所以这是一个CEO主导的体系。

根据我的经验，董事会很少真正像所有者或所有者代表那样，深入思考到底什么是支付这些人的正确方式，以及如何激励他们不仅做正确的事，还要激励他们不做错误的事。查理和我对本地一家公司非常熟悉，即Peter Kiewit组织。Pete Kiewit，我不知道，大概50年前或更早，他就想出了一种非常非常合乎逻辑的方式来支付这个行业的人。这不是火箭科学。我敢保证他没有咨询过任何薪酬顾问。他自己就想出来了。你也能想出一个。我能想出一个。但你必须明白，并不是每个CEO都想要一个理性的薪酬体系，你知道吗？当非理性回报更高时，谁还想要理性呢？所以，在董事会层面让人们真正思考这个问题是一个真正的问题——我认为——我认为不应该有薪酬委员会。我认为整个董事会实际上应该彻底讨论这类事情。

这样你就不会得到薪酬委员会的一些报告，然后被当作圣旨，因为他们前一天据称辩论了几个小时，然后进来提出一些建议，每个人都盖章通过。我认为这应该是一个普遍讨论的话题。我认为如何补偿CEO非常重要。我在我们的年报中说过，选择合适的CEO，确保他们不越界，并在重大收购或剥离时做出独立判断，如果董事会做好了这一点，你就可以忘记所有这些其他的勾选清单——清单上的东西。如果他们没做好这一点，其他的也没什么区别。所以我想说这是可以做到的。要有一个体系，让董事会作为所有者或代表所有者思考，像被补偿的另一方那样关心这件事，是非常困难的。我确实认为近年来情况有所改善。但它起点很低。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, you obviously — it’s a very, very good question. It’s one that Charlie and I have both thought about. And we’ve been around so many crazy compensation systems that we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and talking about it. In a capital-intensive business, you have to have something that — you have to have a factor in the compensation arrangement that includes a capital cost element. We have dozens and dozens of subsidiaries. And we have different arrangements for different businesses. Because — as you point out —an arrangement for a business that needs no capital, like a See’s Candy or a Business Wire or something of that sort, has to be materially different than something that requires a lot of capital. We think we’ve got rational compensation systems. We agree with you that incentives are very important. I would say that I think your question implied, a little bit, that the board sets these things. The truth of the matter is, at least over 40 years of experience and 19 boards that I’ve been on and observing behavior a lot of other places — basically, the board has had relatively little effect on it.

The CEO has managed, in most cases — in a great many cases — to be an important determinant of his own — or her own, usually his — own compensation arrangement. They, you know, they — the human relations — first of all, they pick the comp committee, you know. So I have been on one comp committee out of 19 boards. I mean, people are not looking for Dobermans. They’re looking for Cocker Spaniels. And then — (Laughter) and they’re looking for Cocker Spaniels that are waving — wagging their table — tails, very friendly. You know, you — CEOs spend a lot of time thinking about who’s on their comp committee. The audit committee is less important. But the comp committee, they think about plenty. And the comp committee meets every few months. And a human relations vice president comes in, who is responsible, directly, to the CEO and probably recommends a compensation consultant. And believe me, they don’t go around looking for the ones that are going to upset the apple cart. So it’s been a system that the CEO has dominated.

And in my experience, boards have done very little in the way of really thinking through, as an owner or as owners’ representatives, what the hell is the proper way to pay these people and how to incent them, not only to do the right thing, but also to incentivize them not to do the wrong thing. Charlie and I are fairly familiar with a company here in town, the Peter Kiewit Organization. And Pete Kiewit, I don’t know, 50 years ago or more, you know, figured out a very, very logical way to pay people in this business. And it wasn’t rocket science. And I’ll guarantee he didn’t consult with any compensation consultant on the subject. He just figured it out. And you would be able to figure out one. I can figure out one. But you have to understand that not every CEO wants a rational compensation system, you know? Who wants rationality, when irrationality pays off more? So it’s a real problem getting people at the board level — I think the — I don’t think there should be a comp committee. I think the board as a whole actually should thrash this sort of thing out.

So that you don’t get some report from the comp committee, and that’s treated as holy writ, because they’ve debated for a couple of hours the day before, supposedly, and then come in and give some recommendation, everybody rubber stamps it. I think it ought to be a subject of general discussion. I think it’s very important how you compensate the CEO. I’ve said, in our annual reports, choosing the right CEO, making sure they don’t overreach, and exercising independent judgement on major acquisitions or divestitures, if the board does that right, you can forget about all this other check the list — checklist stuff. And if they don’t get that right, the other doesn’t make much difference. So I would say that it can be done. It’s very difficult to have a system where somebody — where the board, thinking as owners or representing owners, care as much about it as the guy on the other side who’s getting compensated. I do think it’s gotten better in recent years. But it started from a very low base. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的，在这个领域有一些反直觉的结论非常有趣。我认为，在一家大型美国上市公司中，薪酬丰厚的董事会——高薪实际上对公司良好管理是适得其反的。存在一种互惠关系。你知道，“你不断给我加薪，我也不断给你加薪。”这变得非常像俱乐部。我认为，总的来说，如果董事完全没有薪酬，美国公司的管理会更好。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, there are some counterintuitive conclusions in the field that are quite interesting. I would argue that a liberally paid board of directors in a big American public corporation is — the liberal pay is counterproductive to good management of the company. There’s a sort of a reciprocation. You know, “You keep raising me, and I keep raising you.” And it gets very club-like. And I think, by and large, the corporations of America would be managed better if the directors weren’t paid at all.

沃伦·巴菲特：我们正在朝这个方向努力。（掌声）嗯，这很有趣。因为SEC定义独立董事，你知道——他们会质疑我的独立性，如果我们拥有某只证券的数十亿美元，但我们会在冰雪皇后卖给他们冰淇淋或类似的东西。而要找到真正的所有者代表非常——并且要有知识，因为他们必须懂业务。他们必须真正有一些商业头脑。事实是，如果你找一个每年拿20万或25万美元董事薪酬的人，而他们的其他收入或净资产没那么高，他们非常想再拿20万美元多当一家公司的董事，他们极不可能坐在那里与CEO争论，说薪酬激励制度有问题或类似的事情。在薪酬安排中有太多胡扯——现在，你们有这些100页的代理声明。

如果你用100页来解释你如何支付公司人员的报酬，那肯定有问题。我的意思是，你不需要100页——我们没有100页的理解或任何类似的东西。但随着时间的推移，这已经变得越来越像一场游戏。我想说，正如查理所说——当薪酬成为董事福祉中非常重要的一部分时，你就不再有独立董事。有趣的是，按照现行安排，这些人往往被认为正是那些独立董事，在大多数情况下。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We’re working toward that. (Applause) Well, it is interesting. Because the SEC would define independent directors, you know, as — they would question, you know, my independence, if we would own billions and billions of dollars’ worth of some security, but we would sell them some ice cream at Dairy Queen or something of the sort. And the — to get real owners’ representatives is very — and knowledgeable, because they’ve got to know business. They have to really have some business savvy. And the truth is, if you get somebody that’s getting $200,000 a year, $250,000 a year, for being director of a company, and they don’t have that much income outside or net worth, and they would just love to get one more directorship for another $200,000, they are very unlikely to sit there and argue with the CEO and say that the system is rigged in favor of incentive compensation or something of the sort. There is more baloney in the compensation arrangements — And now, you have these 100-page proxy statements.

If you take 100 pages to explain how you’re paying the people of the place, something is wrong. I mean, you don’t need 100 — we don’t have 100-page, you know, understandings or anything of the sort. But it’s gotten to be more and more of a game as it’s gone along. And I would say that, as Charlie — that when compensation is a very important part of a director’s wellbeing, you do not have an independent director. And the funny thing is, the way it’s — the system has been arranged, those are the very people that tend to be regarded as the independent directors, in most cases.

查理·芒格：实际情况比几乎任何人认识到的都要糟糕得多。Elihu Root，他曾是美国最优秀的内阁官员，有一句名言：任何不能随时准备离职的人都不适合担任公职。当然，他一离开公职，就立刻回去做世界顶尖的律师。所以他没什么可失去的——但一个从职位上失去很多的人会非常不愿意成为独立董事。所以我们在伯克希尔·哈撒韦的做法，是美国的千分之一。而其他所有人的做法都很愚蠢。（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s way worse than practically anybody recognizes. Elihu Root, who was the ultimate good Cabinet officer in the United States, used to have a saying that no man was fit to hold public office who wasn’t perfectly willing to leave it at any time. And of course, the minute he left public office, he went right back to being the leading lawyer of the world. So he didn’t have much to lose by — But the man who has a lot to lose from his office is going to be very loath to be an independent director. So the way we do it, at Berkshire Hathaway, is one-tenth of 1 percent of America. And the way everybody else does it is silly. (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：（笑）我喜欢和他一起站在这里。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: (Laughs) I love being up here with him.

24. 保险运营的最坏情况

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基。

原文

24. Worst-case scenario for insurance operation

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky.

贝基·奎克：这是来自Paula Sauer的问题。既然查理似乎变得更乐观了，也许我们应该先问他这个问题。然后沃伦，你可以试着超越他。但Paula写道：“关于保险业务，您能想象的最坏情况是什么？”

原文

BECKY QUICK: This is a question from Paula Sauer (PH). And, since Charlie seems to be getting more optimistic, maybe we should ask him this question first. And then Warren, you can try and top it. But Paula writes in, “What’s the worst-case scenario you could imagine with respect to the insurance business?”

查理·芒格：你是说我们的还是泛指？

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: You mean ours or generally?

贝基·奎克：我相信她特指你们的。

原文

BECKY QUICK: I believe she means yours in particular.

查理·芒格：嗯。最坏的情况是某种灾难，我们税前损失几十亿美元。即便如此，我认为也不会严重损害现有的基本业务。所以我认为我们的保险业务非常出色。我不想用它去换我所知的任何其他业务。你呢，沃伦？

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Well, the very worst case is some catastrophe where we lose quite a few billions of dollars pretax. Even that, I don’t think, significantly impairs the basic business in place. So I think we have a marvelous insurance business. I don’t want to trade it for any other that I know. How about you, Warren?

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，不，这是一个极好的业务。最坏的情况——我曾经说过，在任何特大灾难中，我们可能会承担行业损失的4%到5%。我不确定卡特里娜飓风最终的数字是多少。我不知道是不是600亿左右。我们很可能支付了接近——我们在那个4%到5%的范围内。我们现在可能更低一些，不一定低很多。但如果有一千亿美元的灾难，你知道，我们目前可能会承担其中的3%到4%，所以大概是30到40亿。你知道，最坏的情况——我认为可能发生的最坏情况是，如果我们遭遇如此严重的通货膨胀，以至于人们对日常生活中必须购买的任何东西都感到非常非常不满。这也适用于公用事业业务，但肯定像汽车保险，实际上，他们会对通胀导致的涨价表达愤怒，并说：“让我们把整个行业国有化吧。”

我的意思是，那不会——如果发生这种情况，那将是一个巨大的资产消失。我不认为这有很高的概率。但如果你让我考虑最坏的情况，那可能是我能想到的一个。我——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, no, it is a fabulous business. The worst — I used to say we would probably play 4 percent to 5 percent of the industry loss — from any mega-catastrophe. I’m not sure where Katrina finally came in. I don’t know whether it was 60 billion or something in that area. And we probably did pay close to — we were in that 4 percent to 5 percent range. We’re lower than that, probably, right now, not necessarily way lower. But if we had $100 billion catastrophe, you know, we would probably pay 3 to 4 percent of that, currently, so that you’d be talking 3 to 4 billion. You know, the worst — I think the worst situation that could occur is if we ran into so much inflation that people got very, very unhappy with anything that they had to buy in their daily life. This applies in the utility business, too, but certainly like auto insurance, and in effect, that they express their outrage at inflationary increases and said, “Let’s nationalize the whole thing.”

I mean, that would not — that would be a huge asset that would disappear, if that occurred. I don’t think that’s a high probability. But if you’re asking me to look at worst cases, that’s probably the one I would come up with. I —

查理·芒格：嗯，这种事发生过。汽车保险在新西兰某个地方被国有化了。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, that happened. Auto insurance was nationalized somewhere, New Zealand or somewhere.

沃伦·巴菲特：哦，当然。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Oh sure.

查理·芒格：但这不是——如果你想要绝对的最坏情况，你找到了。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: But it’s not — if you want the absolute worst cases, you found it.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们在某种程度上将年金业务国有化了，你知道，当我们实施社会保障时。我认为这是一件好事。但当人们对某些事情足够愤怒时，你听过关于银行的讨论。我的意思是，当公众愤怒时，政客们会做出回应。而通货膨胀——恶性通胀——在我看来，如果类似的事情——我不认为这是可能的——但类似的事情发生在汽车保险上，那将是最可能的原因。这是一笔大多数人每六个月，甚至更频繁支付的账单。如果他们看到账单上涨，又不想放弃他们的车，他们会生气。公用事业公司会——公用事业客户——在通货膨胀期间会非常生气。因为他们需要开灯。他们讨厌看到，你知道，那些月度账单上涨。这是他们无法放弃的东西。而且非常显眼。

反应将是去找他们的公众代表说：“对此做点什么。”他们能做的事情之一就是接管它。所以这种可能性非常低，但并非不存在。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we nationalized, to some extent, the annuity business, you know, when we went into Social Security. I think it was a good thing. But when people get outraged enough about something, you’ve heard talk about the banks. I mean, when the public gets outraged, the politicians will respond. And inflation would be — wild inflation — would be the most likely cause, it seems to me, if something like that — I don’t think that’s probable — but something like that happening in auto insurance. It’s a bill that most people pay, you know, every six months, or even more frequently than that. And if they see that bill going up and they don’t want to get rid of their car, they’re going to get mad. And utility companies are going to get — utility customers — are going to get very mad during inflation. Because they need to turn on the lights. And they hate to see, you know, those monthly bills going up. It’s the — it’s something they can’t give up. And it’s very visible.

And the reaction will be to go to their public representatives and say, “Do something about this.” And one of the things they can do about it is take it over. So very low probability of that, but it’s not nonexistent.

25. 国际投资无预设目标

沃伦·巴菲特：第10区？

原文

25. No preset goal for international investments

WARREN BUFFETT: Area 10?

观众：先生们，来自爱尔兰科克的Patrick O’Donoghue。我想我应该先说我为你们在我这个原本美好的小国家经历如此艰难的时光感到抱歉。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Gentlemen, Patrick O’Donoghue (PH) from Cork in Ireland. So I suppose I should start by saying I’m sorry you’ve had such a tough time in my otherwise wonderful little country.

沃伦·巴菲特：我喜欢爱尔兰人。我们有一些——我们在爱尔兰人身上运气很好。这是我的错。（笑）

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I love the Irish. We’ve got some — we’ve had great luck with the Irish. It was my mistake. (Laughs)

观众：好的。现在，我想增加我在伯克希尔·哈撒韦的投资。我认为我们已经确定这是一家很棒的公司。所以我剩下几个问题，对于外国人来说，可能和美国人有些不同。第一个是，伯克希尔·哈撒韦的任何收益都可能被美元兑欧元汇率下跌抹去。显然，我们谈的是长期投资。第二个是，也许您可以讨论一下您的全球收购，这将减少您对美元的依赖并增加您的境外收入来源。第三个我忘了。请讨论一下这些。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: OK. Now, I’d like to grow my investment in Berkshire Hathaway. And I think we’ve established it’s a wonderful company. So I’m left with a couple of other issues, which, for a foreigner, are maybe a little different for people domestically, the first of which is that any gains in Berkshire Hathaway may be wiped out by a slide in the dollar versus the euro. And we’re talking a long-term investment here, obviously. The second is, perhaps you could discuss the — your — global acquisitions, which will reduce your dollar dependence and increase your foreign-source income. I’ve lost the third. If you could discuss those, please.

沃伦·巴菲特：当然，是的，如果你想起来了，那也没问题。预测欧元兑美元汇率，我不擅长。你——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Sure, yeah, and if it comes to you, that’ll be fine. The — predicting the euro versus the dollar, I’m no good at. You —

查理·芒格：你做得相当不错。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: You did pretty well.

沃伦·巴菲特：（笑）是的，我们确实赚了几十亿。但是——（笑声）如果你愿意——我并非建议这样做——但欧元/美元很容易对冲。我不是推荐这样做。我只是告诉你，如果你担心一种主要货币，这是一个选择。对于较小国家的货币则很难做到。但当你谈论欧元/美元问题时，如果你愿意，你可以一直对冲。但就像我说的，我们通常不做这种事。那可能会让你很头疼。我想说，就伯克希尔的盈利而言，我们会继续做我们认为有意义的事情。现在，如果我们拥有——例如，我们拥有超过8%的可口可乐股份。可口可乐，你知道，其80%或更多的利润来自美国以外。我们拥有很多宝洁股份。他们很多利润来自美国以外。

卡夫很多利润来自美国以外。所以我们有很多间接的盈利来源。此外，我们在美国以外也有很多直接的盈利来源。伊斯卡大部分利润——它在美国盈利，但在其他地方也赚很多钱。我们还有类似的其他业务。我们完全没有设定在发展盈利方面达到某个百分比的目标。我们只是，你知道，每天去工作。我们不知道电话会来自以色列还是印第安纳州，关于投资机会。我们希望我们所有的子公司都到处寻找机会。有些会在国外找到机会，有些不会。所以，我们在盈利来源方面没有特定的方向。有很多国家我们感觉舒适。我们很乐意把钱投到那些国家。

但我们不会早上醒来就说，我们想有更多钱在德国或西班牙或其他地方，或者我们想把钱从那些国家撤走。查理，还有什么补充吗？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: (Laughs) Yeah, we did make a couple billion. But the — (Laughter) You could, if you wished — I’m not suggesting this at all — but euro/dollar is an easy thing to hedge. I’m not recommending that. I’m just telling you that that is an option, if you’re worried about a major currency. It’s hard to do with smaller-country currencies. But when you’re talking the euro/dollar thing, you can keep hedging that, if you want to. But like I say, we don’t normally do that sort of thing. And that could be a pain in the neck to you. I would say, in terms of Berkshire’s earnings, we will just keep doing things that make — we think make sense. Now, if we own — We own over 8 percent, for example, of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, you know, makes 80 percent or more of its money outside the United States. We own a lot of Procter & Gamble. They make a lot of their money out of the United States.

Kraft makes a lot of money out of the United States. So we have a lot of indirect sources of earnings. And then we have a lot of direct sources of earnings outside the United States. ISCAR makes most of its money — it makes money in the United States, but it makes a lot of money elsewhere. And we have other businesses like that. We do not have a predetermined goal at all of developing X percent of our earnings here or there or that place. We just keep, you know, every day, we go to work. And we don’t know whether the phone call will come from Israel or from Indiana, in terms of a chance to invest some money. We want all of our subsidiaries to be looking at opportunities everyplace. And some of them will find them abroad. And some of them won’t. So it — we are not a — we are not heading anyplace, in terms of sources of earnings. There are a lot of countries we feel comfortable with. And we would be happy to put money into those countries.

But we don’t wake up in the morning saying that we would like to have more money in Germany or Spain or whatever, or that we would want to take money out of those countries. And Charlie, have any more?

查理·芒格：是的。人们看着一个现代的、自由的民主制度。很容易得出结论，它混乱且充满缺陷。我认为这是正确的看法。但我完全不清楚我们这些混乱的缺陷是否比欧洲那些混乱的缺陷更糟糕。我对这些事情持不可知论态度。我认为大西洋两岸都有很多错误，也有很多正确之处。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. People look at a modern, liberal democracy. And it’s very easy to conclude that it’s messy and full of defects. And I think that’s a correct view. But it’s not at all clear to me that the messy defects that we have are worse than the messy defects of Europe. I am an agnostic about these things. I think there’s plenty wrong and plenty right on both sides of the Atlantic.

26. “没有人从裁员中得到任何快乐”

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，安德鲁？

原文

26. “Nobody gets any joy” from layoffs

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, Andrew?

安德鲁·罗斯·索金：这个问题来自三位股东，他们恰好是伯克希尔投资组合公司的员工。他们要求匿名。他们问以下问题：“我们既担心公司的财务状况，也担心我们工作的稳定性。您能否讨论一下您对使用裁员作为应对公司利润短期下滑手段的态度？”

原文

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So this question comes from three shareholders who happen to be employees of Berkshire portfolio companies. They’ve asked not to be named in the — they ask the following question. They say, “We are concerned with both the financial condition of the company and the stability of our jobs. Could you discuss your attitude towards the use of layoffs as a means of responding to short-term downturns in company profits?”

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这些是被投资公司还是子公司？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, these are investee companies or subsidiaries?

安德鲁·罗斯·索金：这些是——我猜它们是被投资公司。他们——

原文

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: These are — I imagine they are investee companies. They —

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

安德鲁·罗斯·索金：他们既是股东也是员工。

原文

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And they are shareholders and employees.

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，我的态度不会有什么不同。我只是澄清一下。毫无疑问，商业环境的变化可能使得临时或永久性裁员成为必要。我的意思是，业务规模会改变。像GEICO这样的地方，我们很幸运，我们的业务正在扩张。所以我们可能至少会增加，我猜，GEICO净增大约一千个工作岗位。但同时，我们在西南部可能关闭了近一半的砖厂，因为人们现在不建房子了。现在，那个业务会复苏。我们会重新雇佣人员。另一方面，我们的纺织业务从未复苏。布法罗新闻报的员工比一年前少了。我们不会重新获得那些职位或回到以前的水平。所以有些业务可能会永久收缩。在裁员方面，你必须面对这一点。还有其他一些业务经历了严重的周期性收缩，它们将面临大规模裁员。

还有其他一些业务在这个时期受到了一点影响，但影响很小。我们会抵制裁员的想法。你知道，没有人从裁员中得到任何快乐。通常，你可能做得有点晚，因为你一直希望业务会反弹或类似情况。但是，你知道，如果业务发生了实质性的改变，你最好改变你的商业模式。否则，别人会这么做。然后你将面临更多的变化。总的来说，我们希望我们进入那些不会面临这类问题的业务。但当然，在我们与建筑相关的业务中——Shaw裁员了，Johns Manville裁员了，Benjamin Moore裁员了，Acme Brick裁员了，真的没有其他选择。我的意思是，我们的竞争对手也都这样做了。你知道，在纺织业务中，我们在1965年进入。最后，我们解雇了所有人。

我的意思是，在我们进入之前，它已经大幅萎缩了。我们尝试了各种方法。我们最终放弃了。你知道，资本主义，是创造性的破坏。有时，你处于不利的一方。今年，就我们拥有的业务而言，你知道，我们的员工总数可能会减少——我几乎可以肯定——即使GEICO会扩张。不会急剧减少，因为它只影响某些领域。但会减少。我们的经理必须面对当前形势的现实。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I wouldn’t have a different attitude. I was just clarifying it. The — there’s no question that business conditions can change such as to necessitate temporary or permanent layoffs. I mean, there’s — scales of businesses change. We’re fortunate, in a place like GEICO, where our business is expanding. So we’ll probably add at least, I would guess, a thousand jobs, net, at a GEICO. But at the same time, we probably have close to half of our brick plants closed in the Southwest, because people just aren’t building houses now. Now, that business will come back. And we’ll rehire people. On the other hand, our textile business never came back. And we employ fewer people at the Buffalo News than we did a year ago. And we are not going to regain those or get back to previous levels. So there are some businesses that may permanently contract. And you have to face up to that, in terms of layoffs. There’s other businesses that have severe cyclical-type contractions, and they are going to face significant layoffs.

There are other businesses that are suffering a little bit during a period like this, but very little. And we will resist the idea of having layoffs. We — you know, nobody gets any joy out of it. And generally, you do it, probably, a little too late, even, because you keep hoping the business will bounce back up or something of the sort. But, you know, it — if the business changes in a material way, you’d better change your business model. Or, you know, somebody else will. And then you’ll even have more changes facing you. On balance, we hope we get into businesses that don’t face those kind of problems. But certainly, in our construction-related businesses — we’ve had layoffs at Shaw, we’ve had layoffs at Johns Manville, we’ve had layoffs at Benjamin Moore, we’ve had layoffs at Acme Brick, and there’s really no alternative. I mean, it — and our competitors all have had also. And you know, in the textile business, we got into it in 1965. In the end, we laid off everybody.

I mean, it — we — it had contracted enormously before we got there. We tried all kinds of things. And we finally gave up. You know, there — capitalism — you know, is creative destruction. And sometimes, you’re on the short end of that. This year, in terms of the businesses we have, you know, our employment will probably be reduced even — I’m almost sure it will — even though GEICO will expand. It will not be reduced dramatically, because it just hits in certain areas. But it will be reduced. And our managers have to look at the reality of the current situation. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的。我们的一些业务采用共担困难模式，它们不裁员，至少现在还没有。采用这种模式的业务往往在经济上处于非常强势的地位。所以我想这表明本杰明·富兰克林是对的，他说：“空袋子难以直立。”所以，我们在这一点上情况各异，整个行业也是如此。但是——我确实认为理想的模式是业务足够强大，能够以共担困难模式运作，而不是裁员。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Some of our businesses have a shared-hardship model, where they don’t layoff, at least not yet. And the businesses with that model tend to be very strongly placed, economically. So I guess it shows that Benjamin Franklin was right, when he said, “It’s hard for an empty sack to stand upright.” And, so we’re all over the map on that, and so is all of industry. And — But I do think the — an ideal model would be a business so strong that it could operate in the shared-hardship mode instead of the layoffs.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，有些正在这样做，他们减少工时。但是——很多运营方式也不太适合这样做。所以——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, some are doing that, where they — you know, you give up hours. And — but a lot of operations don’t lend themselves to that very well, either. So —

查理·芒格：伊斯卡就是这样运作的。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: ISCAR’s operating that way.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，伊斯卡是这样运作的。在其他情况下，你基本上必须关闭整个工厂。我的意思是——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, ISCAR’s operating that way. And, in other cases, you basically have to close down whole plants. I mean —

查理·芒格：是的，当然。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, sure.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，这就是本质。更好的是——你真的不能让每个工厂以50%的产能运作，并像关闭效率最低的工厂那样有效。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, that’s just the nature of it. It’s better — you really can’t operate every plant at 50 percent and have it work as effectively as shutting down the least-productive plants.

查理·芒格：在一个你有时必须截肢才能活下去的世界里，你不能指望每个业务都一成不变。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: In a world where you sometimes have to amputate a limb to stay alive, you can’t expect that every business can stay exactly as it is.

27. 用羞辱而非立法来对抗过分的CEO薪酬

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第11区。

原文

27. Fight egregious CEO pay with embarrassment, not legislation

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, area 11.

观众：嗨，我是来自康涅狄格州格林尼治的Ralph Witkin。我第一次来是1995年。我非常感谢你们主持这次会议的方式。我参加过几十次其他会议。我知道你们没有义务这样做。我感谢你们，两位。我的问题与第9个问题非常相似，关于高管薪酬。不完全是您对薪酬的看法，而是我们作为股东，如何能够尝试纠正这个问题，并使其恢复到某种平衡水平。谢谢。

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Ralph Witkin from Greenwich, Connecticut. I was first here in 1995. And I really appreciate the way you handle this meeting. I’ve been to dozens of others. And I know you’re not obligated to do this. And I thank you for it, both of you. My question is very similar to number 9’s, regarding executive compensation. Not so much your view on the compensation, but how we, as shareholders, can make some attempt to try to correct this and bring it back into some level of balance. Thank you.

沃伦·巴菲特：前几天有位参议员给我打电话。显然，他的选民对高管薪酬感到愤怒。可能，你知道，AIG产生了巨大的影响，尽管，你知道，你可以提到美林和其他所有公司。但那个故事对人们影响很大。在某种意义上，这种愤怒可能与实际发生的情况不成比例。但无论如何，这没什么区别。人们对此非常愤怒。所以这位参议员给我打电话。他说，你知道——他基本上是在说：“告诉我我们可以制定什么法律，让我的选民对高管薪酬感到满意。”我给他的建议是，他可能做不到，而且上次国会介入这个问题是在克林顿政府初期，他们通过了一项法案，我记得，对于前五名高管，超过100万美元的年薪不能税前扣除，除非与业绩以某种方式挂钩。

那可能是国会提出过的最适得其反的立法，这本身就是一个很严重的说法。（笑声）其最终结果是，当税收被征收时，当然是由股东支付，而不是高管。所以这惩罚了股东，而股东本已受到薪酬的惩罚。它导致了各种旨在规避这一规定的安排，这涉及大量的律师、大量的顾问和大量的代理声明页数，其净效果是急剧推高了薪酬。在我看来，薪酬的涨幅远远超过如果没有这项规定的情况。所以我建议他，他们应该做的第一件事可能就是废除它，并说“我们错了”，然后再弄清楚是否应该做正确的事情。但这并没有得到很好的反响。（芒格笑）所以我想说——我一直提出这个建议。它从未得到任何响应。但这不会阻止我继续提出来。

在这个国家，你只需要排名前五六位的投资经理，他们管理着，你知道，我们说的是数千亿、数万亿的资产。如果他们只是在最恶劣的案例上发声。仅仅如此。你知道，有很多关于“薪酬话语权”之类的说法。但其中五六个，他们得到大量关注——他们不必担心他们的观点无法传播。他们让大人物改变行为的方式是让他们难堪，你知道，基本上。媒体有绝佳的机会这样做。但——他们需要大投资者的合作。所以如果你有三四个最大的投资者，当XYZ公司提出某种疯狂的薪酬计划时，站出来说“这太离谱了”，这会改变行为。而且会——董事们不喜欢看起来愚蠢。他们不喜欢自己的名字出现在报纸上，显得愚蠢。你会看到一些真正的改变。

我认为针对这个问题的立法将会——我只是不知道如何起草这东西，你知道吗？我的意思是，你看看最近切萨皮克能源的案例，你知道，7500万美元的所谓续约奖金，还有一些其他东西。我的意思是，这简直——你会想人们到底在想什么。你知道CEO在想什么。这简直——我认为你无法写出能阻止它的法律。就像我说的，他们试图写的那条法律把事情搞得一团糟。但我确实认为大型机构——如果它们发声——你只需要其中三四个联合起来发声。他们完全不必对每家公司都这样做，只需在情况足够恶劣时。但如果他们因在恶劣情况下发声而建立了声誉，时不时地，这会起到作用——我认为这会对美国企业产生一些约束作用。因为现在没有约束因素——现在没有。

我的意思是，现在，每个顾问进来都会带来所谓纯正公司的人的薪酬水平。他们——没有人想说自己公司的CEO处于最低四分位之类。所以他们不断拿自己和更高的四分位比较。然后从那里开始加码。你知道，这是一个效果奇佳的游戏。我称之为“荣誉制度”。你知道，股东有荣誉，高管有制度。（笑声）查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: I had a senator call me just the other day. And, his constituents, obviously, are enraged about executive comp. Probably — you know, AIG really had a huge impact, although, you know, you can take the Merrills and all the rest of them, also. But that story was huge with people. And it was probably — in a certain sense, the outrage was disproportionate to what happened. But in any — it doesn’t make any difference. The people are enraged about it. So this senator called me. And he said, you know — he was essentially saying, “Tell me about a statute we can enact that will make my constituents happy about executive compensation.” And my advice to him was that he probably couldn’t, and that the last time Congress got into this was in the early days of the Clinton administration, when they passed a bill that said, as I remember, for the top five officers, that you couldn’t get deductibility for comp in excess of a million dollars annually, unless it was tied to performance in some way.

That was probably the most counterproductive piece of legislation that Congress has ever come up with, which is quite a statement to make in itself. (Laughter) The net result of that was that when the tax was imposed, of course, the stockholders paid it and the officer didn’t. So it penalized the shareholder, who was already getting penalized by the comp. It led to all kinds of arrangements that were designed to dance around this, which involved lots of lawyering and lots of consultants and lots of pages of proxy statements, the net effect of which was to ratchet up compensation very dramatically. Compensation increased far more, in my view, because that was put on the books than otherwise. So I suggested to him that the first thing they would do — should do — is probably repeal that and say, “We were wrong,” and then figure out whether they should do something right. But that did not go over very well. (Munger laughs) So I would say that — I’ve always proposed this. It never has gone anyplace. But that won’t stop me from continuing to propose it.

All you need in this country is the top half dozen or so investment managers who manage, you know, we’re talking hundreds of billions, trillions, in some cases, of assets. If they would just speak out on the most egregious cases. Just — you know, there’s a lot of stuff about “say on pay” and everything. But half a dozen of them, they get lots of publicity — they wouldn’t have to worry about getting their views out. The way they get big shots to change their behavior is to embarrass them, you know, basically. And the press has great opportunities to do that. And — but they need the cooperation of the big investors. So if you’ve got three or four of the biggest investors, when the XYZ Company comes out with some crazy plan, to step up and just say, “This is outrageous,” it would change behavior. And it would — The directors don’t like to look foolish. They don’t like their names in the paper looking foolish. And you would see some real changes.

I think that the legislation for it is going to be — I just don’t know how to write the stuff, you know? I mean, you read the case recently at Chesapeake Energy, you know, $75 million for kind of a re-signing bonus and some — there were some other things involved, too. I mean, it just — you wonder what people are thinking. You know what the CEO is thinking. And it just — I don’t think you can write the statute that stops it. And like I said, the one they tried to write just screwed everything up royally. But I do think big institutions — if they spoke out — you’d only need three or four of them that spoke out jointly. And they don’t have to do it on every corporation at all, just when it’s egregious enough. But if they get a reputation for speaking out when it’s egregious, every now and then, it would act as — I think there would be some restraining factor that might set in in corporate America. Because the restraining factor is not there then — not there now.

I mean, right now, every consultant comes in and brings along what the people at so-called pure companies are making. And they — Nobody wants to say their CEO is in the bottom quartile or something. So they just keep comparing themselves to the higher quartiles. And then they ratchet up from there. And, you know, it’s a game that works wonders. I call it the honor system. You know, the shareholders have the honor and the executives have the system. (Laughter) Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的，嗯，我不太乐观地认为能从大投资者的角度解决这个问题。大投资者群体中包含许多投资经理，他们每年赚2000万美元，却贡献甚微。他就像一个住在玻璃房子里却开始扔石头的人。而公共养老基金在很多情况下由左翼政客和工会主导，他们往往有自己的议程，与良好管理并不真正相关。所以，有时，治疗比疾病更糟糕。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, well, I don’t — I’m not too optimistic about fixing it from the big investor standpoint. The big investor groups contain many an investment manager making $20 million a year for insignificant contributions. He’s like a man in a glass house that starts throwing stones. And the public pension funds are dominated, in many cases, by left-wing politicians and by labor unions who tend to have an agenda of their own that doesn’t really relate to good management. So, sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease.

28. 我们不雇佣潜在的伟大经理

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，带着这个充满希望的看法，我们继续请卡罗尔提问。（笑声）

原文

28. We don’t hire potentially great managers

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, on that hopeful note, we’ll move on to Carol. (Laughter)

卡罗尔·卢米斯：这是来自Peter Poulson的问题，拼写是P-O-U-L-S-O-N。他说：“当你们收购公司时，它们通常配备了经理。总的来说，伯克希尔在把合适的领导者放在合适的岗位上做得很好。但偶尔，你们需要为某个高管职位招聘人员。请描述一下你们与潜在的伯克希尔运营高管可能进行的面试。你们看重什么？你们如何评估一个人成为伟大经理的潜力？”

原文

CAROL LOOMIS: This is a question from Peter Poulson, spelled P-O-U-L-S-O-N. He says, “When you acquire companies, they come equipped with managers. And in general, Berkshire has done a great job putting the right leaders in the right roles. “But occasionally, you have to hire someone for an executive spot. Please describe an interview that you might have with a prospective Berkshire operating executive. What do you look for? How do you evaluate a person’s potential to become a great manager?”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，通常，我们雇佣那些已经证明自己是伟大经理的人。我的意思是，当我们收购一家企业时，绝大多数情况下，管理层会随之而来。当我们收购伊斯卡时，你知道，我们得到的是一个多年来持续表现出色的团队。我们真正需要问自己的问题是，你知道，他们未来会和我们在一起吗？他们会——他们在交易后的感觉会和交易前一天一样吗？我们偶尔在这方面犯过错误。但总的来说，这确实可行。所以，我们在经理方面运气不错，虽然不是完美的。最困难的部分是，由于我们没有退休年龄，当经理们失去他们年轻时拥有的能力时。那——这并不涉及——没有可以用来衡量这种变化的标尺。所以——人们在商业能力上，他们的老去方式各异，速度也不同。

查理和我的问题是，有时候要弄清楚某人是否——是否不再拥有他们以前的管理能力。然后我们有责任对此采取行动。我们讨厌这样做。但这是——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, usually, we hire people that have already proven they’re great managers. I mean, when we buy a business, very — a very high percentage of the time, the management comes with it. When we buy an ISCAR, you know, we get the group that had been knocking the ball out of the park for years and years and years. And the real question we have to ask ourselves is, you know, will they be with us in the future? Will they keep — will they be feeling the same way after the deal as they did the day before the deal? And we’ve made occasional mistakes on that. But overall, that does come through. So it’s — we’ve had good luck with managers, not perfect. And, the toughest part is, since we have no retirement age, is when managers lose the abilities that they had at an earlier age. And that — it doesn’t relate to — there’s no yardstick you can use up and down the line for that. So it’s — people age, at least in business ability, they age in very different ways and at different paces.

And Charlie and I have the problem of figuring out, sometimes, when somebody has — does not have the same managerial ability that they had at an earlier time. And then we have the responsibility for doing something about it. And we hate it. But it’s —

查理·芒格：顺便说一句，我们在这方面动作很慢。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: By the way, we’ve been slow in those.

沃伦·巴菲特：我们每次都慢。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We’ve been slow every time.

查理·芒格：我们很慢。如果我们真的很喜欢这个人，我们就会非常慢。（笑声）我们远非理想。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: We’ve been slow. If we really love the guy, we’re really slow. (Laughter) We are far from ideal.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，嗯，这非常——嗯，我们有一个经理，你知道，一个很棒的——我是说，一个我们在韦斯科都很喜欢的人。他得了老年痴呆症。我的意思是，你知道，我们不想面对它。我们最终面对了。但这大概多花了一年，一年半的时间，对吧，查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well, it’s very — well, we had a manager, you know, a wonderful — I mean, a guy we both loved at Wesco. And he got Alzheimer’s. I mean, it — you know, and we didn’t want to face it. We finally did. But it took us probably an extra year, year and a half, didn’t it, Charlie?

查理·芒格：当然。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Sure.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。这基本上是我工作中唯一不喜欢的部分。我的意思是，我讨厌它。但是——我宁愿花很多钱也不愿去做这件事。但偶尔，它会发生。幸运的是，这似乎不常发生——我们发现那些热爱自己业务的人，你知道吗？我爱伯克希尔。我——你知道，我每天去上班，对此感到兴奋。我们——你可以在人们身上发现这一点。我的意思是，我想你们大多数人可能意识到这就是我的感受。我意识到这也是我们子公司经理们的感受。我的意思是，Tony——Tony Nicely——当他还是青少年时就去GEICO工作了。他每天都和我一样对GEICO感到兴奋。我第一次注意到——我昨天午餐时见到他。他做的第一件事就是递给我数据，他知道我在等着看。你知道，“（听不清），我们增加了50.5万”，他一路算到底，“保单持有人”。我的意思是，我对这些数字感到兴奋。他也对这些数字感到兴奋。你知道，我们逐州讨论，无论是什么。你不能把这些注入到别人身上。但当它存在时，我们确实能识别出来。我们会尽最大努力确保我们不做任何可能抑制它的事情。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. It’s the only part of my job that I don’t like, basically. I mean, I hate it. But — I’d pay a lot of money not to have to do it. But occasionally, it happens. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to happen that often at — We find people who love their businesses, you know? I love Berkshire. I — you know, I go to work every day, and I’m excited about it. And we — you can spot that in people. I mean, I think most of you would probably realize that that’s the way I feel about it. And I realize that’s the way the managers of our subsidiaries feel about it. I mean, Tony — Tony Nicely — went to work at GEICO when, you know, he was a teenager. And he’s as excited every day about GEICO as I am. It hit me the first time — I saw him yesterday at lunch. And the first thing he does is hand me the figure, which he knows I’m waiting for.

You know, “(Inaudible), we’re up 505-thousand,” and he carries it out all the way, “policyholders.” And, I mean, I get excited about those numbers. He gets excited about them. You know, we talk about state-by-state, whatever it may be. And, you can’t put that into somebody. But we do recognize it when it’s there. And we do our best to make sure that we don’t do anything that dampens that in any way.

29. 不要试图择时

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，第12区。

原文

29. Don’t try to time the market

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, area 12.

观众：下午好，巴菲特先生，芒格先生。我是来自俄亥俄州代顿的Jimmy Chong。巴菲特先生，去年十月，您在《纽约时报》的一篇专栏文章中写道，您正在将您的个人投资组合全部转移到美国股票。我的问题是，这个转移完成了吗？如果没有，您还在买入吗？此外，在您的投资生涯中，您如何评价最近的市场下跌在股票投资机会方面的排名？

原文

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. Buffett, Mr. Munger. Jimmy Chong (PH) here from Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Buffett, in October of last year, you wrote, in a New York Times op-ed piece, that you were moving your personal portfolio to a hundred percent U.S. equities. My question is, is that move complete? If not, are you still buying? And in addition to that, how would you rank the recent market downturn in terms of investing opportunities in stocks during your investment careers?

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，它当然不像1974年那段时期那么戏剧性。1974年的股票比现在便宜得多。但你也面临不同的利率环境。所以你可以说它们实际上并没有便宜那么多。你可以以大约四倍市盈率的价格买入非常好的公司，且前景良好。但当时的利率要高得多。那是我见过的买入普通股的最佳时期。当时这个国家可能不像我们在去年九月那样陷入那么大的麻烦。我不认为当时有。但股票那时更便宜一些。在最近这段时期，我——你知道，我买了一些股票。然后公司债券看起来异常便宜。利差非常非常大。所以我也买了一些。但东西越便宜，我越喜欢买。我的意思是，如果我在麦当劳买汉堡，昨天花X，明天降价到90%的X——不太可能——但如果真的降了，我会很高兴。

我不会考虑昨天为汉堡付了多少钱。我余生都会买汉堡，你知道吗？汉堡越便宜，我越喜欢。我余生都会进行投资。我宁愿付X的一半而不是X。至于我昨天付了X，这不会困扰我，只要——只要我知道企业的价值。所以从个人角度，我喜欢更低的价格。我知道这不是你们所有人早上醒来看到报价时的感受。但是，当东西打折时，你应该比平时更兴奋地去购买，这很合理。最近——当我在《泰晤士报》上写那篇文章时，我并没有预测股市会怎样。因为我从来不知道它们会怎样。但我知道什么时候你开始物有所值。那是我相信应该买入的时候。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, it’s certainly not as dramatic as the 1974 period was. Stocks got much cheaper in 1974 than they are now. But you were also facing a different interest rate scenario. So you could say they really weren’t that much cheaper. You could buy very good companies at four times earnings or thereabouts with good prospects. But interest rates were far higher then. That was the best period I’ve ever seen for buying common equities. The country may not have been in as much trouble then as we were back in September. I don’t think it was. But stocks were somewhat cheaper then. In the recent period, I — you know, I bought some equities. And then corporate bonds looked extraordinarily cheap. The spreads were very, very wide. So I bought some of those, too. But the cheaper things get, the better I like buying them. I mean, if I was buying hamburgers at McDonald’s, you know, the other day for X, and they reduced the price to 90 percent of X tomorrow — not likely — but if they did, I’m happy.

I don’t think about what I paid yesterday for the hamburger. I think I’m going to be buying hamburgers the rest of my life, you know? The cheaper they get, the better I like it. I’m going to be buying investments the rest of my life. And I would much rather pay half of X than X. And, the fact that I paid X yesterday doesn’t bother me, if I get — as long as I know the values in the business. So on a personal basis, I like lower prices. I realize that that is not the way all of you feel when you wake up in the morning and look at quotes. But, it just makes sense that when things are on sale, that you should be more excited about buying them than otherwise. And lately — when I wrote that article in the Times, I did not predict what stocks were going to do. Because I never know what they’re going to do. But I do know when you’re starting to get a lot for your money. And that’s when I believe in buying. Charlie?

查理·芒格：嗯，如果股票平均下跌40%，它们显然比之前更接近有吸引力的价格。当然，最近利率下降了很多，至少短期利率是这样。这和1973-74年完全不同。当那件事发生时，我就知道那是我的时代，也是我唯一的机会。我知道我再也不会有那样一次去购买柜台的机会了。不幸的是，我几乎没有可用资金，这就是——（笑声）

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, if stocks go off 40 percent on average, they’re obviously closer to an attractive price than they were before. And, of course, interest rates have gone down a lot recently, at least short-term interest rates. It’s nothing like ‘73-4. I knew when that happened that that was my time and my only time. I knew I was never going to get another trip to the buy counter like that one. Unfortunately, I had practically no money available, which is — (Laughter)

沃伦·巴菲特：这就是它发生的原因。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: That’s why it happened.

查理·芒格：这就是为什么那些时期会出现。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: That’s why those times occur.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah.

查理·芒格：所以，如果我是你，我不会等待1973-74年。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: So, if I were you, I wouldn’t wait for 1973-4.

沃伦·巴菲特：不，我们不试图抄底，或者你知道——我们对明天、下周或下个月股市会怎样没有看法。所以坐等，因为认为会有更吸引人的东西而不去做明智的事，这不是我们的方法。任何时候我们有机会做有意义的事，我们就去做。如果第二天它变得更有意义，而且我们有资金，我们可能会做得更多。如果没有，你知道，那——我们又能怎样呢？所以抄底基本上不是我们的游戏。定价是我们的游戏。这并不那么难。抄底，我认为，几乎是不可能的，但是——当你开始物有所值时，你就买入。就像我说的，在我写了那篇文章之后，股票确实变得更便宜了。公司债券——公司债券市场变得非常非常非常混乱。我们为伯克希尔买了相当大的一批债券。

我也为自己买了一些小东西。但我99%的时间都在思考伯克希尔。那是——

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: No, we don’t try to pick bottoms or you know — We don’t have an opinion about where the stock market’s going to go tomorrow or next week or next month. So to sit around and not do something that’s sensible because you think there will be something even more attractive, that’s just not our approach to it. Anytime we get a chance to do something that makes sense, we do it. And if it makes even more sense the next day, and if we’ve got money, we may do more. And if we don’t, you know, that — what can we do about it? So picking bottoms is basically not our game. Pricing is our game. And that’s not so difficult. Picking bottoms, I think, is probably impossible, but — When you get — when you start getting a lot for your money, you buy it. And as I say, after I wrote that, stocks did get cheaper. Corporate bonds — the corporate bond market got very, very, very disorganized. And we bought some fairly good-sized pieces of bonds for Berkshire.

And I also bought a few little things for myself. But I spend 99 percent of my time thinking about Berkshire. That’s —

查理·芒格：沃伦，到现在为止，我们的小型人寿保险公司是不是已经基本塞满了收益率10%的理想债务工具？

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Warren, by now, don’t we have our small life insurance companies pretty well full of desirable debt instruments at 10 percent?

沃伦·巴菲特：我们肯定比之前多得多，是的。（笑）不，我们——几个月前，我们有机会非常非常便宜地买入一些公司债券——至少在我看来是这样。我们人寿公司里的资金不能用于某些其他领域，而这正是全力投入的理想时机。任何时候我们喜欢做某事，我们真的很喜欢做。我的意思是，我们的理念不是蹑手蹑脚地进入任何事。所以当价格合适时，我们尽可能快地买入。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: We certainly have got a lot more of it than we had, yeah. (Laughs) No, we’ve — we got a chance to buy some corporate bonds very, very cheaply — at least in my view — a few months back. And we had money in life companies that can’t be used in certain other areas and for which this was an ideal time to just barrel in. And anytime we like to do something, we really like to do it. I mean, our idea is not to tiptoe into anything. So we buy them as fast as we can, when prices are right.

查理·芒格：是的，那个债券机会没有持续很久，但是——

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, that bond thing didn’t last very long, but —

沃伦·巴菲特：没有。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Nope.

查理·芒格：——有一些完全安全的债券，收益率超过9%，并且有非常好的赎回保护。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: — there were perfectly safe bonds that yielded 9 percent or more with very fancy call protection.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yep.

查理·芒格：其中一些债券已经上涨了20%、25%。所以机会常常在甲壳下，而你在看乙壳。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: And some of those bonds are up 20, 25 percent. So the opportunities are frequently under shell A, when you’re looking at shell B.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。我们试图看所有的壳。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. We try to look at all the shells.

查理·芒格：是的，我们看所有的壳。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, we look at all the shells.

30. 受监管公用事业获得“体面”的回报率

沃伦·巴菲特：贝基？

原文

30. “Decent” rates of return from regulated utilities

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky?

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自加利福尼亚州科斯塔梅萨的Jim Mitchell，他想问两位。他说：“多年前，您教导我们要警惕资本密集型业务，比如电力公用事业，这些业务可能因为低估折旧而夸大利润。现在您正在投资公用事业和天然气管道，您是否发现了发电厂长寿的秘密？还是我们需要对您的公用事业收益进行折现？”

原文

BECKY QUICK: This question is from Jim Mitchell from Costa Mesa, California, who wants to know from both of you. He says, “Years ago, you taught us to beware of capital-intensive businesses, like electric utilities, that may be overstating profits due to understating depreciation. “Now that you are investing in utilities and gas pipelines, have you discovered the secret of long life for power plants? Or do you need to discount your utility earnings?”

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，公用事业收益，基本上，来自于你所运营的司法管辖区允许的股本回报率。所以，例如，如果像养老金成本或类似的东西出现意外，你确实可以随着时间的推移赚回它。但你也不会得到任何意外之财。所以我要说，更让我害怕的资本密集型业务是那些公用事业领域之外的业务，在那里你只是投入更多的钱，却不知道你大体上会（在一定范围内）得到或多或少有保证的回报。所以我没有——我们的公用事业投资不可能让我们致富。但我们也不会变穷。我们在其中留下的股权能获得体面的回报率。无论有没有通货膨胀，我们可能都会得到这些回报。现在，如果进入非常高的通胀率，通货膨胀可能会削弱获得11%或12%股本回报的价值。在这个意义上，我同意Jim的观点，顺便说一句，我认识他。

他曾经和我女儿一起在21世纪地产工作。他是个不错的投资者。但是——总的来说，如果你能找到一个不需要大量资本的好业务，随着时间的推移，你会比在资本密集型业务中过得更好。我的意思是，世界上，这样的业务很难找到。但最好的业务是那些不需要太多资本，却仍能赚大钱的业务。它们有一些护城河保护它们，而不是资本作为进入该业务的壁垒来保护它们。如果你能找到那些持久的，你就有了一个伟大的投资，一个在通货膨胀中表现最好的投资，正如我们之前提到的，这似乎相当可能发生。查理？

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, the utility earnings, pretty much, come about through a return on equity capital allowed by the jurisdictions in which you operate. So, for example, if something like pension costs or something of the sort, you get surprises on, you do get to earn that back over time. But you don’t get any bonanzas, either. So I would say the capital-intensive businesses that scare me more are the ones outside of the utility field, where you just pump in more money without knowing that you’re going, in a general way, to get, more or less — within a range, anyway — a guaranteed return. So I do not have — there’s no way we get rich on our utility investments. But there’s no way we get poor, either. And we get decent rates of return on the equity that we leave in it. And we’ll probably get those returns with or without inflation. Now, inflation may diminish the value of getting an 11 or 12 percent return on equity, if you get into very high rates of inflation. So in that sense, I’d agree with Jim, who I know, incidentally.

He used to work with my daughter out there at Century 21. He’s a good investor. But the — on balance, if you can find a good business that’s not capital intensive, you’re going to be better off than in a capital-intensive business over time. I mean, the world, they’re hard to find. But the best businesses are the ones that don’t require much capital and, nevertheless, make good money. They’ve got some moat protecting them, other than the capital required as entry in the business that’s protecting them. And if you can find those that are durable, you’ve got a great investment and one that will do the best in inflation, which, as we mentioned earlier, seems fairly likely to come along. Charlie?

查理·芒格：是的，不幸的是，最近很多护城河都在被沙子填满，你知道，日报、网络电视台，所有这些拥有可爱护城河的城堡。护城河正在被填满。

原文

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of moats have been filling up with sand lately, you know, the daily newspaper, the network television station, all these castles with their lovely moats. The moats are filling up.

31. 巴菲特侄孙的意外求婚

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，在这个愉快的氛围中，我们只有一个问题的时间了。马克·

第37项：伯克希尔正式会议休会

WARREN BUFFETT: 如果有人在我们休会前还有其他事项要提交会议，请提出？如果没有，我请斯科特先生向会议提出动议。

WALTER SCOTT: 我提议本次会议休会。

WARREN BUFFETT: 有人附议吗？休会动议已提出并得到附议。我们进行口头表决。

原文

WARREN BUFFETT: Does anyone have any further business to come before this meeting, before we adjourn? If not, I recognize Mr. Scott to place a motion before the meeting.

WALTER SCOTT: I move that this meeting be adjourned.

WARREN BUFFETT: Is there a second? Motion to adjourn has been made and seconded. We will vote by voice.