2008年巴菲特财富访谈：What Warren thinks 巴菲特在想什么

admin

(Fortune Magazine) -- If Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting, scheduled for May 3 this year, is known as the Woodstock of Capitalism, then perhaps this is the equivalent of Bob Dylan playing a private show in his own house: Some 15 times a year Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett invites a group of business students for an intensive day of learning. The students tour one or two of the company's businesses and then proceed to Berkshire headquarters in downtown Omaha, where Buffett opens the floor to two hours of questions and answers. Later everyone repairs to one of his favorite restaurants, where he treats them to lunch and root beer floats. Finally, each student gets the chance to pose for a photo with Buffett.
　　《财富》杂志：如果说将于今年5月3日举行的波克夏 哈萨维公司年度会议是为资本家举办的伍德斯托克音乐节的话，那么下面这种活动也许更像Bob Dylan 在私人别墅举办个人演唱会一样：波克夏公司CEO沃伦 巴菲特一年不少于15次邀请一群商学院的学生进行为期一天的集中学习，学生们将会参观一两间公司下属的企业，然后前往位于奥马哈市中心的波克夏公司总部，在那里，巴菲特将进行两个小时的问答，随后，大家会被带往他喜欢的餐厅，招待大家午餐，享用漂着冰淇淋的无糖醇饮料（－－就是上面封面小图中巴菲特手中拿的那种饮料）。最后，每位学生都将有机会和巴菲特合影～～
　　Buffett says he 'got a call' about Bear Stearns, but bailing out the investment bank with only two days for due diligence, he says, 'took some guts that I didn't want to match.'
　　（上图）巴菲特说：有人曾希望他出手拯救濒临绝境的华尔街投行贝尔斯登公司，但在得知只有两天时间来做尽职调查－－一以保释这家投行时，他说：“饥不择食不是我的风格。”
　　In early April the megabillionaire hosted 150 students from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and offered Fortune the rare opportunity to sit in as he expounded on everything from the Bear Stearns bailout to the prognosis for the economy to whether he'd rather be CEO of GE - or a paperboy. What follows are edited excerpts from his question-and-answer session with the students, his lunchtime chat with the Whartonites over chicken parmigiana at Piccolo Pete's, and an interview with Fortune in his office.
　　在4月初，这位超级百万富翁接待了150位宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的学生并给了《财富》杂志一个宝贵的机会得以听他详述从贝尔斯登的救赎到对美国经济的预测以及他是更愿意当个报童还是GE的CEO之类的问题。以下章节的内容选自他和学生们的问答部分、他在Piccolo Pete's同沃顿人享用chicken parmigiana午餐时的闲聊以及在办公室接受《财富》杂志采访时的谈话。
　　第一部分：和学生们的问答
　　Buffett began by welcoming the students with an array of Coca-Cola products. ("Berkshire owns a little over 8% of Coke, so we get the profit on one out of 12 cans. I don't care whether you drink it, but just open the cans, if you will.") He then plunged into weightier matters:
　　巴菲特用一打打可口可乐产品欢迎学生们并说：“波克夏公司拥有超过8％多一点的可口可乐的股份，所以我们可以从12罐里就能得到1罐的利润，我不在意你们是否会饮用它，而只在乎你是否打开饮料罐，请吧，如果你愿意的话～～”接着他陷入凝思。。。
　　Before we start in on questions, I would like to tell you about one thing going on recently. It may have some meaning to you if you're still being taught efficient-market theory, which was standard procedure 25 years ago. But we've had a recent illustration of why the theory is misguided. In the past seven or eight or nine weeks, Berkshire has built up a position in auction-rate securities of about $4 billion. And what we have seen there is really quite phenomenal. Every day we get bid lists. The fascinating thing is that on these bid lists, frequently the same credit will appear more than once
　　巴菲特：在我们开始提问之前，我打算先告诉你们最近发生的一件4情，它可能对你们来说很重要，如果你们仍然被灌之以市场有效理论－－就像25年前的教学标准那样。然而我们最近的一个实例可以告诉你们为什么那种理论是误导。在过去的7、8或者9星期前，波克夏公司在auction-rate securities 上面构建了大约40亿美元的组合，在这里我们看到的是很耐人寻味的事情。每天我们都会收到投标名单，有趣的是在这些名单里，同一信用频繁地多次出现。
　　Here's one from yesterday. We bid on this particular issue - this happens to be Citizens Insurance, which is a creature of the state of Florida. It was set up to take care of hurricane insurance, and it's backed by premium taxes, and if they have a big hurricane and the fund becomes inadequate, they raise the premium taxes. There's nothing wrong with the credit. So we bid on three different Citizens securities that day. We got one bid at an 11.33% interest rate. One that we didn't buy went for 9.87%, and one went for 6.0%. It's the same bond, the same time, the same dealer. And a big issue. This is not some little anomaly, as they like to say in academic circles every time they find something that disagrees with their theory.
　　巴菲特：这里有一个昨天收到的。我们在承保飓风险的佛罗里达州国民保险的一个品种上投标。这家公司可以说是佛州的再造者。他们有保费收入作支持，一旦遭遇飓风，不足以赔付时，他们就会提高保费。他们的信用并没有什么问题，于是那天我们在三种不同的国民保险公司发行的品种上投标。我们得到的是一个利率为11.33％的出价、我们没有买的那个利率是9.87％、另一个是6.0％。这是同样的债券，同样的期限和发行商，也是受欢迎的品种。这并非有什么异常，就像学术圈的人每次喜欢说的那样他们发现了一些并不支持他们理论的东西。
　　So wild things happen in the markets. And the markets have not gotten more rational over the years. They've become more followed. But when people panic, when fear takes over, or when greed takes over, people react just as irrationally as they have in the past.
　　巴菲特：所以，市场常常发生一些狂热的行为，而市场也没有随着时间的推移而变得更理性，一旦投资者趋于狂热或者被恐惧所支配，他们的市场反应就跟过去的非理性毫无二致。
　　Do you think the U.S. financial markets are losing their competitive edge? And what's the right balance between confidence-inspiring standards and。。。
　　您是否认为美国金融市场逐渐失去了竞争力？在信心和激励标准上如何取得平衡？
　　 between regulation and the Wild West? Well, I don't think we're losing our edge. I mean, there are costs to Sarbanes-Oxley, some of which are wasted. But they're not huge relative to the $20 trillion in total market value. I think we've got fabulous capital markets in this country, and they get screwed up often enough to make them even more fabulous. I mean, you don't want a capital market that functions perfectly if you're in my business. People continue to do foolish things no matter what the regulation is, and they always will. There are significant limits to what regulation can accomplish. As a dramatic illustration, take two of the biggest accounting disasters in the past ten years: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. We're talking billions and billions of dollars of misstatements at both places.
　　巴菲特：在监管和狂热的行为之间？好的，我并不认为美国资本市场正在丧失优势。这是实行萨班斯-奥克斯利法案（美国立法机构根据安然、世界通讯等财务欺诈事件破产暴露出来的公司和证券监管问题所立的监管法规）的代价。有一些被滥用了，但相对于20万亿美元的市值相比，这些还不算什么。我认为我们拥有巨大的资本市场，但却被搞的一塌糊涂。在我的生意里，你不必指望资本市场的功能完美地发挥作用。人们总是要持续不断地做傻事，而且监管能有效实施的限制因素也有很多。作为戏剧性的例证，房地美和房利美是两个过去10年里最大的财务灾难，我们可以看到在它们那里有几十亿几十亿美元的虚假陈述。
　　Now, these are two incredibly important institutions. I mean, they accounted for over 40% of the mortgage flow a few years back. Right now I think they're up to 70%. They're quasi-governmental in nature. So the government set up an organization called OFHEO. I'm not sure what all the letters stand for. But if you go to OFHEO's website, you'll find that its purpose was to just watch over these two companies. OFHEO had 200 employees. Their job was simply to look at two companies and say, "Are these guys behaving like they're supposed to?" And of course what happened were two of the greatest accounting misstatements in history while these 200 people had their jobs. It's incredible. I mean, two for two!
　　巴菲特：这是两个令人难以置信的机构，过去几年他们有大约占到40％多的抵押贷款，现在上升到70％。实际上，它们类似于准政府机构，于是政府成立了一个叫OFHEO.的机构－－我还不是很清楚这些字母代表什么。如果你去OFHEO的网站上看就会知道它的作用就是监管那两家公司的。OFHEO 有200名雇员，它们的工作就是评判那两家公司－－这些家伙是否象他们所期望的那样守规矩。然而，就在这200人履行职责的同时，却出现了有史以来最大的两起会计虚报。这实在不可思议～！
　　It's very, very, very hard to regulate people. If I were appointed a new regulator - if you gave me 100 of the smartest people you can imagine to work for me, and every day I got the positions from the biggest institutions, all their derivative positions, all their stock positions and currency positions, I wouldn't be able to tell you how they were doing. It's very, very hard to regulate when you get into very complex instruments where you've got hundreds of counterparties. The counterparty behavior and risk was a big part of why the Treasury and the Fed felt that they had to move in over a weekend at Bear Stearns. And I think they were right to do it, incidentally. Nobody knew what would be unleashed when you had thousands of counterparties with, I read someplace, contracts with a $14 trillion notional value. Those people would have tried to unwind all those contracts if there had been a bankruptcy. What that would have done to the markets, what that would have done to other counterparties in turn - it gets very, very complicated. So regulating is an important part of the system. The efficacy of it is really tough.
　　巴菲特：监管是非常困难的，如果我被任命为一名监管者，配备100名最优秀的员工为我工作，每天我从那些大型机构那里得到他们投资头寸资料，掌握他们在衍生品、股票或外汇的投资组合，我也无法告诉你他们到底在干什么。你每天的交易对手多达数百个，这些交易参与者的行为和风险是很难监管的。这也就是为什么财政部和美联储在周末就采取行动救赎贝尔斯登的原因。顺便说一句，我认为他们这样做是对的。当你有成千个对手时，没人能知道会发生什么。监管是金融系统中非常重要的一部分，但其效率则很难确定。
　　第二部分：在Piccolo Pete's午餐闲聊
　　At Piccolo Pete's, where he has dined with everyone from Microsoft's Bill Gates to the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, Buffett sat at a table with 12 Whartonites and bantered over many topics.
　　Piccolo Pete's，在这里，他曾经同从微软的比尔 盖茨到纽约洋基队的Alex Rodriguez等很多人都吃过饭，巴菲特坐在桌前和沃顿人开玩笑并聊了很多话题。
　　How do you feel about the election?
　　问：您对于选举有什么看法？
　　Way before they both filed, I told Hillary that I would support her if she ran, and I told Barack I would support him if he ran. So I am now a political bigamist. But I feel either would be great. And actually, I feel that if a Republican wins, John McCain would be the one I would prefer. I think we've got three unusually good candidates this time.
　　巴菲特： 我曾经告诉过希拉里如果她参选我就会支持她，同时我也告诉过Barack如果他参选我就支持他，所以我现在是一个政治重婚者。但我感觉他们二者之一将来可能会比较伟大。而且，实际上，我认为如果共和党赢了，我会更喜欢John McCain ，我想这次我们有三位非常优秀的候选人。（－－如果我没有翻译错的话，巴菲特在政治上是个很圆滑的人？谁都不得罪？）
　　They're all moderate in their approach.
　　问：他们在行为方式上都很稳健？
　　Well, the one we don't know for sure about is Barack. On the other hand, he has the chance to be the most transformational too.
　　巴菲特：嗯，我们不太确定的是Barack.，当然，他也有机会重塑的。
　　I know you had a paper route. Was that your first job?
　　问：我知道您有一份送报纸的路线图，那是您的第一个工作吗？
　　Well, I worked for my grandfather, which was really tough, in the [family] grocery store. But if you gave me the choice of being CEO of General Electric or IBM or General Motors, you name it, or delivering papers, I would deliver papers. I would. I enjoyed doing that. I can think about what I want to think. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. It might be wonderful to be head of GE, and Jeff Immelt is a friend of mine. And he's a great guy. But think of all the things he has to do whether he wants to do them or not.
　　巴菲特：呜呜～，那时我在家里的杂货店为我祖父工作，那时非常困难。但是如果给我一个选择－－成为GE、IBM、GM的CEO还是做一个报童，我宁可选择后者。我喜欢送报纸。我可以想我想要思考的事情，我不必去做那些我不想做的4情。也许成为GE的头头更精彩，Jeff Immelt（GE的总裁）是我一个朋友，他是一个了不起的人。但想想他不得不做所有的事情，而不论他自己愿不愿意吧。
　　How do you get your ideas?
　　问：您怎样得出您的理念呢？
　　I just read. I read all day. I mean, we put $500 million in PetroChina. All I did was read the annual report. .
　　巴菲特： 就是阅读，我每天不停地阅读。我们在中石油上投资了5亿美元，而我所做的不过就是读了（它的）一份年报而已。
　　What advice would you give to someone who is not a professional investor? Where should they put their money?
　　问：对于那些非专业投资者您有什么好的建议呢？他们应该把资金投向哪里呢？
　　Well, if they're not going to be an active investor - and very few should try to do that - then they should just stay with index funds. Any low-cost index fund. And they should buy it over time. They're not going to be able to pick the right price and the right time. What they want to do is avoid the wrong price and wrong stock. You just make sure you own a piece of American business, and you don't buy all at one time.
　　巴菲特：好的，如果他们不想成为一个主动投资者－－只有非常少数人可以这样做。那么最好选择指数型基金，特别是低成本的指数基金，而且应该在一段时间里持续买入。他们可能无法选择最优的价格或者最合适的时机买入，他们最需要避免的是以错误的价格、买入错误的股票。个人投资者需要记住这么一点：你应当拥有美国公司的一小部分权益，而不是某个时间一次性全部买入。
　　When Buffett said he was ready to pose for photographs, all 150 students stampeded out of the room within seconds and formed a massive line. For the next half hour, each one took his or her turn with Buffett, often in hammy poses (wrestling for his wallet was a favorite). Then, as he started to leave, a 77-year-old's version of A Hard Day's Night ensued, with a pack of 30 students trailing him to his gold Cadillac. Once free, he drove this Fortune writer back to his office and continued fielding questions.
　　当巴菲特说他已经准备好摆个pose照相时，150名学生迅速地跑到屋外排成一长串儿，接下来的半个小时，他/她将依次和巴菲特合影，常常摆出夸张的姿势，最逗人的就是抢他的钱包。当巴菲特起身离开时，一出77岁老人版的《艰难时光》出现了（绿茶注：《艰难时光》，以beatles为主题的美国音乐电影，本片曾荣获奥斯卡奖两项提名，它是有史以来表现“披头士乐队”这一特定主题的第一部影片，同时它也是表现摇滚乐影片的最优秀的代表作品之一。这里也有可能是指披头士的那首歌曲《艰难时光》,也有翻译成《一夜狂欢》的，特指巴菲特举办的此类活动吧～～），30多名学生送他上了金色的凯迪拉克，随后，他载着《财富》的记者去他办公室继续接受采访。
　　－请在控制条中选择播放－
　　第三部分：办公室访谈
　　How does the current turmoil stack up against past crises?
　　记者问：时下的混乱和以往的危机比较起来有什么不同呢？
　　Well, that's hard to say. Every one has so many variables in it. But there's no question that this time there's extreme leveraging and in some cases the extreme prices of residential housing or buyouts. You've got $20 trillion of residential real estate and you've got $11 trillion of mortgages, and a lot of that does not have a problem, but a lot of it does. In 2006 you had $330 billion of cash taken out in mortgage refinancings in the United States. That's a hell of a lot - I mean, we talk about having $150 billion of stimulus now, but that was $330 billion of stimulus. And that's just from prime mortgages. That's not from subprime mortgages. So leveraging up was one hell of a stimulus for the economy.
　　巴菲特：嗯，那很难说。每一次危机都有很多不同之处。但这次毫无疑问，过度的杠杆融资导致了目前的危机，另有些问题则与房地产市场交易价格过高有关。美国有大约价值20万亿美元的房地产，还有约11万亿美元的抵押贷款。其中很多抵押贷款并未出现任何问题，但也有大量的抵押贷款出现了风险。2006年，美国有大约3300亿美元资金被抽离了抵押贷款再融资市场，这是一个相当大的规模的资金外流。而市场现在总说美国政府出台了一个1500亿美元的刺激计划，但市场却失去了3300亿美元，而且是从优先级抵押贷款市场（prime mortgages）流走的，而不是引发信贷危机的次级抵押贷款市场。所以说，杠杆仍是美国经济致命的刺激因素。
　　If that was one hell of a stimulus, do you think the $150 billion government stimulus plan will make an impact?
　　记者问：如果那是致命的刺激因素，你是否认为1500亿美元的政府振兴计划将会发生作用呢？
　　Well, it's $150 billion more than we'd have otherwise. But it's not like we haven't had stimulus. And then the simultaneous, more or less, LBO boom, which was called private equity this time. The abuses keep coming back - and the terms got terrible and all that. You've got a banking system that's hung up with lots of that. You've got a mortgage industry that's deleveraging, and it's going to be painful.
　　巴菲特：嗯，这1500亿美元超过我们所有的，总比没有强。现在私人股权投资为代表的杠杆收购潮也失去了活力。总有一天，杠杆收购热潮还会再现。如果抵押贷款行业失去了杠杆融资的支持，这种痛苦是难以避免的。
　　The scenario you're describing suggests we're a long way from turning a corner.
　　记者问：您对未来的描述似乎暗示我们离转折还很远？
　　I think so. I mean, it seems everybody says it'll be short and shallow, but it looks like it's just the opposite. You know, deleveraging by its nature takes a lot of time, a lot of pain. And the consequences kind of roll through in different ways. Now, I don't invest a dime based on macro forecasts, so I don't think people should sell stocks because of that. I also don't think they should buy stocks because of that.
　　巴菲特：我想是的，如果所有人认为经济衰退的阴影很快就会结束，其程度也不会太厉害时，事实往往相反。非杠杆化需要相当长时间的，而且也会有很大的痛苦。目前，我不会有一毛钱的投资是基于宏观经济预期的，我也不认为投资者应该基于宏观经济预期而买卖股票。
　　Your OFHEO example implies you're not too optimistic about regulation.
　　记者问：您举的OFHEO的例子似乎暗示您对于监管并不是太过乐观？
　　Finance has gotten so complex, with so much interdependency. I argued with Alan Greenspan some about this at Don Graham's dinner. He would say that you've spread risk throughout the world by all these instruments, and now you didn't have it all concentrated in your banks. But what you've done is you've interconnected the solvency of institutions to a degree that probably nobody anticipated. And it's very hard to evaluate. If Bear Stearns had not had a derivatives book, my guess is the Fed wouldn't have had to do what it did.
　　巴菲特：随着投资工具日益增多，金融变得越来越复杂。我曾与美联储前主席格林斯潘在Don Graham's（华盛顿邮报的CEO）的晚宴上，谈论过金融监管的问题。他认为通过所有这些工具，风险遍布整个世界。现在自然不希望这些风险都集中在银行体系，但他过去所做的却是把机构的偿付能力弄到没人能预期的程度。这些都很难估价，如果贝尔斯登没有那么多衍生品合约的话，我猜美联储不会采取什么措施的。
　　If big financial institutions don't seem to know what's in their portfolios, how will investors ever know when it's safe?
　　记者问：如果大型金融机构都不清楚投资组合里面到底都是些什么，那么投资者怎么知道什么时候（投资）才是安全的呢？
　　They can't, they can't. They've got to, in effect, try to read the DNA of the people running the companies. But I say that in any large financial organization, the CEO has to be the chief risk officer. I'm the chief risk officer at Berkshire. I think I know my limits in terms of how much I can sort of process. And the worst thing you can have is models and spreadsheets. I mean, at Salomon, they had all these models, and you know, they fell apart.
　　巴菲特：他们一定不清楚的。实际上，试着了解一下那些掌控公司的人的DNA结构吧。在任何一个大型金融机构中，CEO必须是风险控制官，我就是波克夏公司的风控官。我很清楚我的局限，我认为最糟糕的事情就是模型和电子数据表格，在所罗门，他们就有很多这样的模型和试算表，但正如你所知，他们垮了。
　　What should we say to investors now?
　　记者问： 您现在想对那些投资者说些什么呢？
　　The answer is you don't want investors to think that what they read today is important in terms of their investment strategy. Their investment strategy should factor in that (a) if you knew what was going to happen in the economy, you still wouldn't necessarily know what was going to happen in the stock market. And (b) they can't pick stocks that are better than average. Stocks are a good thing to own over time. There's only two things you can do wrong: You can buy the wrong ones, and you can buy or sell them at the wrong time. And the truth is you never need to sell them, basically. But they could buy a cross section of American industry, and if a cross section of American industry doesn't work, certainly trying to pick the little beauties here and there isn't going to work either. Then they just have to worry about getting greedy. You know, I always say you should get greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. But that's too much to expect. Of course, you shouldn't get greedy when others get greedy and fearful when others get fearful. At a minimum, try to stay away from that.
　　巴菲特：我的回答是不要指望投资者从今天所看到的东西影响其投资策略。投资策略应当基于以下因素：第一，即使知道经济总体的发展趋势，这并不意味着你就知道股市会如何发展演变；第二，投资者不可能在选股上比别人优秀很多。股票只有在持有相当长时间之后才会称得上是个好东西。
　　你知道，我一再强调，投资者应当在别人贪婪时自己谨慎，别人谨慎时自己变得贪婪。如果你在别人贪婪时比别人更贪婪，在别人谨慎时比别人更谨慎，那么你最好不要有任何投资。
　　投资者可能有两件事情可能做错：你可能买入了错误的股票；或者你在错误的时间买入或卖出了股票。正确的事情是：你基本上不需要卖出你的股票。如果其中一些行业陷入了不景气，总有其他的一些行业日子会好过些。于是他们可能变得贪婪起来。我一再声称，投资者应当在别人贪婪时自己谨慎，别人谨慎时自己变得贪婪。如果你在别人贪婪时比别人更贪婪，在别人谨慎时比别人更谨慎，那么你最好不要有任何投资。
　　By your rule, now seems like a good time to be greedy. People are pretty fearful.
　　记者问：按照您的规则，现在似乎是变得贪婪的好时机，人们已经相当恐惧了？
　　You're right. They are going in that direction. That's why stocks are cheaper. Stocks are a better buy today than they were a year ago. Or three years ago.
　　巴菲特：你说对嘹。人们朝着恐惧的方向走，这就是为什么股票现在看起来更便宜的原因，和一年前或者三年前比较，股票成了更好的便宜货。
　　But you're still bullish about the U.S. for the long term?
　　记者问：那么您依旧对美国经济的长期走势充满信心？
　　The American economy is going to do fine. But it won't do fine every year and every week and every month. I mean, if you don't believe that, forget about buying stocks anyway. But it stands to reason. I mean, we get more productive every year, you know. It's a positive-sum game, long term. And the only way an investor can get killed is by high fees or by trying to outsmart the market
　　巴菲特：美国经济将会逐渐趋好，但它不可能在每年、每月或者每周都表现良好。如果你不认同我的这个观点，最好不要投资股市。但必须清楚地意识到，美国经济的生产率每年都在提高，这在长期而言是绝对正和的游戏。投资者失败的主要原因是过高的手续费和总是试图战胜市场。