1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Zero-Coupon Securities

Refer To：《1990-03-02 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。

Zero-Coupon Securities

零息证券

In September, Berkshire issued $902.6 million principal amount of Zero-Coupon Convertible Subordinated Debentures, which are now listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Salomon Brothers handled the underwriting in superb fashion, providing us helpful advice and a flawless execution.

9月，Berkshire 发行了面值总额为9.026亿美元的零息可转换次级债券（Zero-Coupon Convertible Subordinated Debentures），该债券现已在 New York Stock Exchange 上市。Salomon Brothers 以极为出色的方式承销了本次发行，为我们提供了有益的建议并实现了无瑕疵的执行。

Most bonds, of course, require regular payments of interest, usually semi-annually. A zero-coupon bond, conversely, requires no current interest payments; instead, the investor receives his yield by purchasing the security at a significant discount from maturity value. The effective interest rate is determined by the original issue price, the maturity value, and the amount of time between issuance and maturity.

当然，大多数债券要求定期支付利息，通常为半年付一次。与之相反，零息债券无需当前支付利息；投资者通过以显著低于到期面值的折价买入，以此获取收益。其有效利率由发行价、到期价值以及发行至到期的时间共同决定。

In our case, the bonds were issued at 44.314% of maturity value and are due in 15 years. For investors purchasing the bonds, that is the mathematical equivalent of a 5.5% current payment compounded semi-annually. Because we received only 44.31 cents on the dollar, our proceeds from this offering were $400 million (less about $9.5 million of offering expenses).

就我们而言，本次债券按到期面值的44.314%发行，期限15年。对购买者来说，这在数学上等同于名义5.5%利率、半年复利的现值折算。由于我们每1美元面值仅收到0.4431美元，发行募集所得为4亿美元（扣除约950万美元的发行费用前）。

The bonds were issued in denominations of $10,000 and each bond is convertible into .4515 shares of Berkshire Hathaway. Because a $10,000 bond cost $4,431, this means that the conversion price was $9,815 per Berkshire share, a 15% premium to the market price then existing. Berkshire can call the bonds at any time after September 28, 1992 at their accreted value (the original issue price plus 5.5% compounded semi-annually) and on two specified days, September 28 of 1994 and 1999, the bondholders can require Berkshire to buy the securities at their accreted value.

本次债券的面额为每张10,000美元，每张可转换为0.4515股 Berkshire Hathaway 普通股。由于一张1万美元面额债券的发行价格为4,431美元，这意味着转换价相当于每股9,815美元，较当时市价溢价15%。自1992年9月28日之后，Berkshire 可按债券的累积价值（发行价按5.5%半年复利累积）在任何时间行使赎回权；而在两个特定日期——1994年9月28日与1999年9月28日——债券持有人可要求 Berkshire 以累积价值回购其所持债券。

For tax purposes, Berkshire is entitled to deduct the 5.5% interest accrual each year, even though we make no payments to the bondholders. Thus the net effect to us, resulting from the reduced taxes, is positive cash flow. That is a very significant benefit. Some unknowable variables prevent us from calculating our exact effective rate of interest, but under all circumstances it will be well below 5.5%. There is meanwhile a symmetry to the tax law: Any taxable holder of the bonds must pay tax each year on the 5.5% interest, even though he receives no cash.

就税务而言，尽管我们并未向债券持有人支付现金利息，但 Berkshire 每年有权税前扣除按5.5%计提的利息。因此，因税负减少而带来的净效果是正向现金流——这是一项非常重要的好处。由于存在一些不可知变量，我们无法精确计算本次融资的实际有效利率，但在任何情况下都将远低于5.5%。与此相对称的是：任何对该债券负有纳税义务的持有人，即便未收到现金，也必须就这5.5%的计提利息每年缴税。

Neither our bonds nor those of certain other companies that issued similar bonds last year (notably Loews and Motorola) resemble the great bulk of zero-coupon bonds that have been issued in recent years. Of these, Charlie and I have been, and will continue to be, outspoken critics. As I will later explain, such bonds have often been used in the most deceptive of ways and with deadly consequences to investors. But before we tackle that subject, let’s travel back to Eden, to a time when the apple had not yet been bitten.

我们的债券以及去年发行类似债券的其他一些公司（尤其是 Loews 和 Motorola）的债券，都不同于近年发行的大部分零息债券。对于后者，Charlie 和我过去一直直言批评，未来也会如此。正如下文我将解释的，这类债券经常以极具迷惑性的方式被使用，给投资者带来致命后果。但在讨论那个话题之前，让我们回到“伊甸园”，回到苹果尚未被咬下的一刻。

If you’re my age you bought your first zero-coupon bonds during World War II, by purchasing the famous Series E U. S. Savings Bond, the most widely-sold bond issue in history. (After the war, these bonds were held by one out of two U. S. households.) Nobody, of course, called the Series E a zero-coupon bond, a term in fact that I doubt had been invented. But that’s precisely what the Series E was.

如果你和我同龄，你很可能在二战期间就买过第一只“零息债”，那就是著名的 Series E U.S. Savings Bond——历史上销量最广的债券。（战后，全美每两户家庭中就有一户持有。）当然，当时没人称 Series E 为“零息债”（这个术语恐怕尚未被发明），但它本质上正是零息债。

These bonds came in denominations as small as $18.75. That amount purchased a $25 obligation of the United States government due in 10 years, terms that gave the buyer a compounded annual return of 2.9%. At the time, this was an attractive offer: the 2.9% rate was higher than that generally available on Government bonds and the holder faced no market-fluctuation risk, since he could at any time cash in his bonds with only a minor reduction in interest.

这些债券的面额最小可至18.75美元，以此金额可购买10年后到期、面值25美元的美国政府债务，给购买者带来2.9%年复利回报。彼时这很有吸引力：2.9%的利率高于当时政府债的一般水平，且持有人几乎不面临市场波动风险——因为可在任何时点兑现，仅在利息上作些小幅让渡。

A second form of zero-coupon U. S. Treasury issue, also benign and useful, surfaced in the last decade. One problem with a normal bond is that even though it pays a given interest rate - say 10% - the holder cannot be assured that a compounded 10% return will be realized. For that rate to materialize, each semi-annual coupon must be reinvested at 10% as it is received. If current interest rates are, say, only 6% or 7% when these coupons come due, the holder will be unable to compound his money over the life of the bond at the advertised rate. For pension funds or other investors with long-term liabilities, “reinvestment risk” of this type can be a serious problem. Savings Bonds might have solved it, except that they are issued only to individuals and are unavailable in large denominations. What big buyers needed was huge quantities of “Savings Bond Equivalents.”

在上一个十年，另一种形式的美国财政部零息工具也出现了，同样温和且有用。普通债券的一个问题在于：即便其票面利率为10%，持有人也不能确保实现10%的复利回报。要达成标称回报，每一张半年期息票在收到时都必须以10%再投资。若当期市场利率只有6%或7%，持有人在债券存续期内就无法按标称利率实现复利。对养老基金等拥有长期负债的投资者而言，这类“再投资风险”可能相当严峻。Savings Bonds 原本可解决此问题，但其仅向个人发行且面额不大。大型买家需要的是大量的“储蓄债等价物（Savings Bond Equivalents）”。

Enter some ingenious and, in this case, highly useful investment bankers (led, I’m happy to say, by Salomon Brothers). They created the instrument desired by “stripping” the semi-annual coupons from standard Government issues. Each coupon, once detached, takes on the essential character of a Savings Bond since it represents a single sum due sometime in the future. For example, if you strip the 40 semi-annual coupons from a U. S. Government Bond due in the year 2010, you will have 40 zero-coupon bonds, with maturities from six months to 20 years, each of which can then be bundled with other coupons of like maturity and marketed. If current interest rates are, say, 10% for all maturities, the six-month issue will sell for 95.24% of maturity value and the 20-year issue will sell for 14.20%. The purchaser of any given maturity is thus guaranteed a compounded rate of 10% for his entire holding period. Stripping of government bonds has occurred on a large scale in recent years, as long-term investors, ranging from pension funds to individual IRA accounts, recognized these high-grade, zero-coupon issues to be well suited to their needs.

这时，一些巧思独具、且在此案例中极为有用的投行人士（让我高兴的是，以 Salomon Brothers 为首）登场了。他们通过把标准政府债的半年期息票“剥离（stripping）”，创造出市场所需的工具。每张被分离出来的息票，本质上就像一张 Savings Bond，因为它代表未来某一时点的一笔确定支付。例如，从一只2010年到期的美国政府债中剥离出40张半年期息票，你就得到40只零息债，期限从6个月到20年不等；这些息票可按相同期限打包后销售。若当前各期限利率均为10%，则6个月期的价格约为到期面值的95.24%，而20年期约为14.20%。购买任何给定期限的持有人，都被锁定为整个持有期获得10%复利。近年来，政府债的大规模“剥离”已十分普遍，因为从养老金到个人 IRA 账户的长期投资者都认识到，这些高评级零息工具非常契合他们的需求。

But as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end. In the last few years zero-coupon bonds (and their functional equivalent, pay-in-kind bonds, which distribute additional PIK bonds semi-annually as interest instead of paying cash) have been issued in enormous quantities by ever-junkier credits. To these issuers, zero (or PIK) bonds offer one overwhelming advantage: It is impossible to default on a promise to pay nothing. Indeed, if LDC governments had issued no debt in the 1970’s other than long-term zero-coupon obligations, they would now have a spotless record as debtors.

但华尔街常见的一幕又上演了：聪明人起初所做之事，愚者最终也会去做。过去几年里，信用质量不断恶化的发行人以巨大规模发行了零息债券（以及其功能等价物——以物抵息债，PIK bonds，以半年派发额外的PIK债替代现金利息）。对这些发行人而言，零息（或PIK）债有一个压倒性优势：承诺“不支付任何东西”是不可能违约的。事实上，若 LDC 政府在20世纪70年代只发行长期零息债，如今它们将拥有完美无瑕的债务人记录。

This principle at work - that you need not default for a long time if you solemnly promise to pay nothing for a long time - has not been lost on promoters and investment bankers seeking to finance ever-shakier deals. But its acceptance by lenders took a while: When the leveraged buy-out craze began some years back, purchasers could borrow only on a reasonably sound basis, in which conservatively-estimated free cash flow - that is, operating earnings plus depreciation and amortization less normalized capital expenditures - was adequate to cover both interest and modest reductions in debt.

这一原理在实践中的含义——只要郑重承诺长期“什么都不付”，你就可以长期不违约——并未被那些试图为愈发脆弱交易融资的推手与投行家忽略。但放贷人接受它花了一段时间：杠杆收购热刚兴起时，收购方只能在相对稳健的基础上借款，即保守估计的自由现金流——即经营利润 + 折旧与摊销 − 正常化资本开支——足以覆盖利息并小幅偿还本金。

Later, as the adrenalin of deal-makers surged, businesses began to be purchased at prices so high that all free cash flow necessarily had to be allocated to the payment of interest. That left nothing for the paydown of debt. In effect, a Scarlett O’Hara “I’ll think about it tomorrow” position in respect to principal payments was taken by borrowers and accepted by a new breed of lender, the buyer of original-issue junk bonds. Debt now became something to be refinanced rather than repaid. The change brings to mind a New Yorker cartoon in which the grateful borrower rises to shake the hand of the bank’s lending officer and gushes: “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

后来，随着交易撮合者的肾上腺素飙升，企业被以如此之高的价格收购，以至于全部自由现金流都不得不用于支付利息，本金偿还则一无所有。实际上，借款人在本金偿付上采取了 Scarlett O’Hara 式的“明天再说”，而这被一种新型放贷人——“原始发行垃圾债”的买家——所接受。债务从“要偿还”变成了“要再融资”。这让我想起《The New Yorker》的一幅漫画：心怀感激的借款人起身与银行放贷官握手，滔滔不绝地说：“我都不知道该怎么偿还你们。”

Soon borrowers found even the new, lax standards intolerably binding. To induce lenders to finance even sillier transactions, they introduced an abomination, EBDIT - Earnings Before Depreciation, Interest and Taxes - as the test of a company’s ability to pay interest. Using this sawed-off yardstick, the borrower ignored depreciation as an expense on the theory that it did not require a current cash outlay.

很快，借款人发现即便这种宽松的新标准也束手束脚。为了诱使放贷人买单更荒唐的交易，他们发明了一个骇人听闻的指标——EBDIT（Earnings Before Depreciation, Interest and Taxes）——来检验公司支付利息的能力。用这把“截短的尺子”，借款人以“折旧不需要当前现金支出”为由，把折旧当作可以忽略的费用。

Such an attitude is clearly delusional. At 95% of American businesses, capital expenditures that over time roughly approximate depreciation are a necessity and are every bit as real an expense as labor or utility costs. Even a high school dropout knows that to finance a car he must have income that covers not only interest and operating expenses, but also realistically-calculated depreciation. He would be laughed out of the bank if he started talking about EBDIT.

这种态度显然是妄想。在95%的美国企业中，长期看与折旧大致相当的资本开支是刚性必需，与人工或水电一样真实。哪怕是辍学的高中生也知道，贷款买车需要的收入不只要覆盖利息与日常费用，还要覆盖合理计算的折旧。若他拿着 EBDIT 去跟银行谈，早就被笑出门了。

Capital outlays at a business can be skipped, of course, in any given month, just as a human can skip a day or even a week of eating. But if the skipping becomes routine and is not made up, the body weakens and eventually dies. Furthermore, a start-and-stop feeding policy will over time produce a less healthy organism, human or corporate, than that produced by a steady diet. As businessmen, Charlie and I relish having competitors who are unable to fund capital expenditures.

当然，企业在某个月可以跳过资本支出，就像人可以一天甚至一周不吃饭。但如果长期跳过且不补回，机体会衰弱并最终死亡。此外，时断时续的“补给”长期看会让人或企业比“规律饮食”更不健康。作为商人，Charlie 和我乐见那些无法为资本开支提供资金的竞争对手。

You might think that waving away a major expense such as depreciation in an attempt to make a terrible deal look like a good one hits the limits of Wall Street’s ingenuity. If so, you haven’t been paying attention during the past few years. Promoters needed to find a way to justify even pricier acquisitions. Otherwise, they risked - heaven forbid! - losing deals to other promoters with more “imagination.”

你或许以为，把折旧这样的重大费用一笔抹去、把糟糕交易包装成好交易，已经触及华尔街“创意”的极限。若你这么想，那说明你最近几年并未留心。推手们需要找到方式来自圆其说更高价的并购，否则他们就有——天哪！——把交易输给更有“想象力”的对手的风险。

So, stepping through the Looking Glass, promoters and their investment bankers proclaimed that EBDIT should now be measured against cash interest only, which meant that interest accruing on zero-coupon or PIK bonds could be ignored when the financial feasibility of a transaction was being assessed. This approach not only relegated depreciation expense to the let’s-ignore-it corner, but gave similar treatment to what was usually a significant portion of interest expense. To their shame, many professional investment managers went along with this nonsense, though they usually were careful to do so only with clients’ money, not their own. (Calling these managers “professionals” is actually too kind; they should be designated “promotees.”)

于是，推手们与其投行伙伴穿过“镜中世界”，宣称 EBDIT 只应与现金利息对比——这意味着在评估交易可行性时，可以忽略零息或 PIK 债上计提且复利的利息。此法不仅把折旧打入“忽略角”，还以同样方式处理了通常占比不小的利息费用。可耻的是，许多所谓的专业投资经理也随之起舞——不过他们通常很谨慎地只用客户的钱，而非自己的。（称他们为“professionals”其实太客气；更准确的称呼是“promotees”。）

Under this new standard, a business earning, say, $100 million pre-tax and having debt on which $90 million of interest must be paid currently, might use a zero-coupon or PIK issue to incur another $60 million of annual interest that would accrue and compound but not come due for some years. The rate on these issues would typically be very high, which means that the situation in year 2 might be $90 million cash interest plus $69 million accrued interest, and so on as the compounding proceeds. Such high-rate reborrowing schemes, which a few years ago were appropriately confined to the waterfront, soon became models of modern finance at virtually all major investment banking houses.

按这种新标准，一家税前赚1亿美元、当期需支付9000万美元现金利息的企业，可以再发一笔零息或 PIK 债，新增每年6000万美元的计提利息，这些利息会复利滚动，但几年内无需支付。此类债券的利率通常极高，意味着第二年可能变成9000万现金利息加6900万计提利息，随着复利推进依次递增。这样的高息再融资方案，几年前还只在“码头边缘”恰如其分地存在，不久便成了几乎所有大型投行的“现代金融”范本。

毕竟有个说法，在某些地方根本不需要这样的说法。

When they make these offerings, investment bankers display their humorous side: They dispense income and balance sheet projections extending five or more years into the future for companies they barely had heard of a few months earlier. If you are shown such schedules, I suggest that you join in the fun: Ask the investment banker for the one-year budgets that his own firm prepared as the last few years began and then compare these with what actually happened.

当他们推销这些发行时，投资银行家会展现他们“幽默”的一面：他们为几个月前还几乎没听说过的公司，提供延伸到未来五年以上的利润表与资产负债表预测。如果有人给你看这样的预测，我建议你也加入这场“乐趣”：请那位投行人士拿出他所在公司在过去几年年初为自己编制的一年期预算，然后把那些预算与实际发生的情况做个对比。

Some time ago Ken Galbraith, in his witty and insightful The Great Crash, coined a new economic term: “the bezzle,” defined as the current amount of undiscovered embezzlement. This financial creature has a magical quality: The embezzlers are richer by the amount of the bezzle, while the embezzlees do not yet feel poorer.

不久前，Ken Galbraith 在其机智而深刻的《The Great Crash》中创造了一个新的经济学术语：“the bezzle”，指的是尚未被发现的挪用款的现存规模。这个金融怪物有一种魔力：挪用者因“bezzle”的金额而更富，被挪用者却尚未感到更穷。

Professor Galbraith astutely pointed out that this sum should be added to the National Wealth so that we might know the Psychic National Wealth. Logically, a society that wanted to feel enormously prosperous would both encourage its citizens to embezzle and try not to detect the crime. By this means, “wealth” would balloon though not an erg of productive work had been done.

Galbraith 教授敏锐地指出，应当把这笔金额加入“National Wealth”，以便我们得知“Psychic National Wealth”（心理国民财富）。从逻辑上说，一个想要强烈感受繁荣的社会，会既鼓励公民去挪用，又尽量不去侦查犯罪。由此，“财富”会迅速膨胀，尽管没有做出哪怕一尔格的生产性劳动。

The satirical nonsense of the bezzle is dwarfed by the real-world nonsense of the zero-coupon bond. With zeros, one party to a contract can experience “income” without his opposite experiencing the pain of expenditure. In our illustration, a company capable of earning only $100 million dollars annually - and therefore capable of paying only that much in interest - magically creates “earnings” for bondholders of $150 million. As long as major investors willingly don their Peter Pan wings and repeatedly say “I believe,” there is no limit to how much “income” can be created by the zero-coupon bond.

与“bezzle”的讽刺性胡扯相比，零息债在现实世界中的胡扯更为夸张。通过零息债，契约的一方可以获得“收入”，而对手方并未感受到支出的痛苦。按我们的例子，一家每年只能赚1亿美元、因此也只具备支付如此规模利息能力的公司，却能“魔法般”地为债券持有人创造出1.5亿美元的“收益”。只要主要投资者愿意戴上他们的 Peter Pan 翅膀、反复念叨“I believe”，零息债所能“创造”的“收入”便没有上限。

Wall Street welcomed this invention with the enthusiasm less-enlightened folk might reserve for the wheel or the plow. Here, finally, was an instrument that would let the Street make deals at prices no longer limited by actual earning power. The result, obviously, would be more transactions: Silly prices will always attract sellers. And, as Jesse Unruh might have put it, transactions are the mother’s milk of finance.

华尔街以一种“未开化之民对车轮或犁”的热忱来欢迎这一发明。终于，有了一个工具，使得交易价格不再受实际盈利能力的约束。结果显而易见：交易会更多——荒唐的价格总能吸引卖家。正如 Jesse Unruh 可能会说的，交易是金融的“母乳”。

The zero-coupon or PIK bond possesses one additional attraction for the promoter and investment banker, which is that the time elapsing between folly and failure can be stretched out. This is no small benefit. If the period before all costs must be faced is long, promoters can create a string of foolish deals - and take in lots of fees - before any chickens come home to roost from their earlier ventures.

对推手与投行而言，零息或 PIK 债还有一层额外吸引力：从愚行到失败之间的时间可以被拉长。这可不是小好处。如果在必须直面全部成本之前有很长一段时间，推手们就能在早期交易的“因果报应”上门前，连续做出一串愚蠢交易——并收取大量费用。

But in the end, alchemy, whether it is metallurgical or financial, fails. A base business can not be transformed into a golden business by tricks of accounting or capital structure. The man claiming to be a financial alchemist may become rich. But gullible investors rather than business achievements will usually be the source of his wealth.

但归根结底，无论是冶金炼金术还是金融炼金术，都会失败。一个“劣质”的业务，不能通过会计把戏或资本结构花招被变成“金子般”的业务。自称金融炼金术士的人或许会致富，但其财富通常来自轻信的投资者，而非业务成就。

Whatever their weaknesses, we should add, many zero-coupon and PIK bonds will not default. We have in fact owned some and may buy more if their market becomes sufficiently distressed. (We’ve not, however, even considered buying a new issue from a weak credit.) No financial instrument is evil per se; it’s just that some variations have far more potential for mischief than others.

我们还应补充一点：尽管存在各种缺点，许多零息与 PIK 债并不会违约。事实上我们也持有过一些；如果其市场足够受挫，我们可能会再买入。（不过，我们从未考虑过弱资质发行人的新发债。）没有哪种金融工具本身就是“邪恶”的；只是某些变体更容易惹是生非。

The blue ribbon for mischief-making should go to the zero-coupon issuer unable to make its interest payments on a current basis. Our advice: Whenever an investment banker starts talking about EBDIT - or whenever someone creates a capital structure that does not allow all interest, both payable and accrued, to be comfortably met out of current cash flow net of ample capital expenditures - zip up your wallet. Turn the tables by suggesting that the promoter and his high-priced entourage accept zero-coupon fees, deferring their take until the zero-coupon bonds have been paid in full. See then how much enthusiasm for the deal endures.

“惹事生非”的桂冠应当颁给无法按期支付利息的零息债发行人。我们的建议是：每当有投行人士开始谈论 EBDIT——或者有人设计出一种资本结构，使得在扣除充足资本开支后当期现金流仍无法从容支付全部利息（包括应付与计提）——请把你的钱包拉链拉上。反客为主，建议推手及其昂贵随从接受“零息收费”——把他们的报酬递延到零息债全部兑付之后再拿。到那时再看看他们对这笔交易还能有多少热情。

Our comments about investment bankers may seem harsh. But Charlie and I - in our hopelessly old-fashioned way - believe that they should perform a gatekeeping role, guarding investors against the promoter’s propensity to indulge in excess. Promoters, after all, have throughout time exercised the same judgment and restraint in accepting money that alcoholics have exercised in accepting liquor. At a minimum, therefore, the banker’s conduct should rise to that of a responsible bartender who, when necessary, refuses the profit from the next drink to avoid sending a drunk out on the highway. In recent years, unfortunately, many leading investment firms have found bartender morality to be an intolerably restrictive standard. Lately, those who have traveled the high road in Wall Street have not encountered heavy traffic.

我们对投资银行家的评论或许显得苛刻。但我与 Charlie——以我们那种无可救药的“老派”方式——认为，他们应当履行把关者的角色，保护投资者免受推手恣意放纵的伤害。毕竟，推手在人类历史上在收钱这件事上的判断与克制，与酗酒者在喝酒这件事上的判断与克制如出一辙。至少，投行的行为应达到一个负责任的酒保的标准：在必要时，拒绝从“下一杯酒”中赚取利润，以免把一个醉汉送上公路。不幸的是，近些年许多一流投行觉得“酒保道德”是无法忍受的约束。最近，在华尔街走“高尚之路”的人，并未遇到拥堵。

One distressing footnote: The cost of the zero-coupon folly will not be borne solely by the direct participants. Certain savings and loan associations were heavy buyers of such bonds, using cash that came from FSLIC-insured deposits. Straining to show splendid earnings, these buyers recorded - but did not receive - ultra-high interest income on these issues. Many of these associations are now in major trouble. Had their loans to shaky credits worked, the owners of the associations would have pocketed the profits. In the many cases in which the loans will fail, the taxpayer will pick up the bill. To paraphrase Jackie Mason, at these associations it was the managers who should have been wearing the ski masks.

还有一条令人不安的脚注：零息债这场荒唐的成本不会仅由直接参与者承担。某些储贷协会大量买入了此类债券，资金来自FSLIC 保险的存款。为了拼凑体面的利润，这些买家在账面上记录了——却并未收到——极高的利息收入。许多协会如今陷入严重困境。倘若它们对脆弱借款人的贷款成功了，协会的所有者会把利润装进口袋；而在更多贷款失败的案例中，买单的将是纳税人。借用 Jackie Mason 的话改述：在这些协会里，真正该戴头套的人是管理者。

1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Zero-Coupon Securities

1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Zero-Coupon Securities

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