Warren Buffett's vote of no confidence in U.S. fiscal policies is up to \$20 billion.
沃伦·巴菲特对美国财政政策的不信任票已高达200亿美元。
The dollar has fallen savagely against the euro for the past three years, and the trade deficit is running \$55 billion a month. Is the currency rout over? Can the trade deficit be fixed with a rise in interest rates or an upward revaluation of the Chinese currency? Warren Buffett, the world's most visible dollar bear, says the answer to both these questions is no. His bet against the dollar, reported at \$12 billion in his last annual report (for Dec. 31, 2003), has gotten all the bigger. Now his Berkshire Hathaway has a \$20 billion bet in favor of the euro, the pound and six other foreign currencies.
过去三年里，美元对欧元汇率惨遭重挫，贸易逆差正以每月550亿美元的速度扩大。货币的溃败是否已经结束？提高利率或人民币升值能否解决贸易逆差？世界上最知名的美元空头沃伦·巴菲特给出的答案都是“不能”。他此前在截至2003年12月31日的年度报告中披露的120亿美元做空美元头寸如今进一步增加。现在，他的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司押注200亿美元，支持欧元、英镑及其他六种外币。
Buffett has for a long time been lecturing fellow Americans about their bad habit of borrowing from abroad to live well today. He made a big stink about his currency trades in his March 2004 letter to shareholders. FORBES phoned him recently for an update, hoping for the news that the Scold of Omaha had softened his views on the decline of the dollar. What we got was more doom and gloom, more than we have ever heard from the man. In other words, he is not about to cover his short position on the dollar.
长期以来，巴菲特一直告诫美国同胞不要依赖国外借债来维持当下的优渥生活。在2004年3月致股东信中，他大肆强调自己的货币交易。《福布斯》杂志近日致电他了解最新动向，希望听到这位“奥马哈训诫者”已对美元贬值问题有所软化。然而他的回答却是前所未有的悲观——他丝毫没有打算回补美元空头头寸。
Buffett said that he began buying foreign currency forward contracts when the euro was worth 86 U.S. cents, and kept buying until the price reached \$1.20. It's now worth \$1.33. Buffett said he is not adding new positions now but has been rolling over contracts as they mature. Berkshire lost \$205 million on currency speculations in the first half of 2004, but more than made that back with a \$412 million gain in the third quarter. It's likely that the December quarter report will show another huge gain.
巴菲特表示，他在欧元价值0.86美元时开始买入外币远期合约，并一路买到1.20美元，如今欧元已涨至1.33美元。他说目前不再增加新仓位，但会在合约到期时进行展期。伯克希尔在2004年上半年因货币投机亏损2.05亿美元，但在第三季度获得4.12亿美元收益，完全弥补了前期亏损。预计12月份的季报还将显示另一笔巨额收益。
Since January 2002 the dollar has fallen 33% against the euro. Buffett blames that on bad policy, coming from both the White House and Congress. It does appear that forex speculators are no big fans of George Bush or his Treasury secretary, John Snow. Since Nov. 2 the dollar has fallen 4.4% against the euro.
自2002年1月以来，美元对欧元已贬值33%。巴菲特将此归咎于来自白宫和国会的糟糕政策。外汇投机者似乎并不欣赏乔治·布什总统或其财政部长约翰·斯诺。自11月2日以来，美元对欧元又下跌了4.4%。
Says Buffett: "The rest of the world owns \$10 trillion of us, or \$3 trillion net." That is, U.S. claims on foreign assets run to only \$7 trillion. "If lots of people try to leave the market, we'll have chaos because they won't get through the door." In a nutshell, the trade deficit is forcing foreign central banks to ingest U.S. currency at a rate approaching \$2 billion a day. Buffett continues: "If we have the same policies, the dollar will go down."
巴菲特说：“世界其他地区持有我们的资产达10万亿美元，净值约3万亿美元。”也就是说，美国对外资产仅为7万亿美元。“如果很多人都想撤离市场，就会陷入混乱，因为他们根本挤不出门。”简而言之，贸易逆差迫使外国央行以每日近20亿美元的速度吸收美元。巴菲特接着表示：“如果我们依旧奉行目前的政策，美元还会下跌。”
The \$20 billion bet has to be put in context. Berkshire has a huge portfolio of investments that includes \$40 billion of Treasury securities. Budget and trade deficits are likely to make dollars worth less and bonds worth less. So the currency play is a partial hedge of a large position that can be read as bullish on the U.S.
这笔200亿美元的押注需要放在背景中来看。伯克希尔持有的庞大投资组合中包括400亿美元美国国债。预算赤字和贸易赤字可能导致美元和债券价值双双下滑。因此，这笔货币操作在一定程度上对冲了其巨额美元资产头寸，整体上仍可被解读为对美国的看好。
Still, that Buffett is making a currency bet at all is striking given that this investor has, in his 74 years, rarely made macroeconomic bets. He built Berkshire to a \$130 billion market value by acquiring parts or all of lots of businesses, primarily in the insurance sector and primarily in the U.S. Now some of those assets are antidollar assets. Example: In 2002 he bought bonds of Level 3, a telecom company, that were denominated in euros. In 2000 Berkshire picked up MidAmerican Energy, a gas pipeline company. By doing so, Berkshire indirectly acquired the assets of Northern Electric, a utility in England, at a time when the pound was worth \$1.58. Now it's worth \$1.94, so Berkshire has a paper gain irrespective of any appreciation in the electric company's pound-denominated earning power.
然而，考虑到巴菲特在其74年的投资生涯中极少进行宏观押注，他如今涉足货币交易本身就颇为引人注目。他通过收购众多企业的全部或部分股权——主要是美国本土的保险公司——将伯克希尔的市值打造到1300亿美元。如今，其中一些资产已成为抗美元资产。例如，2002年他买入电信公司Level 3以欧元计价的债券；2000年伯克希尔收购了天然气管道公司MidAmerican Energy，从而间接拥有英国公用事业公司Northern Electric。当时英镑兑美元为1.58，如今升至1.94，即便不考虑该电力公司以英镑计价的盈利增长，伯克希尔也已获得账面收益。
A continuing fall in the dollar "could cause major disruptions in financial markets. There could be unpredictable side effects. It could be precipitated by some exogenous event like a Long-Term Capital Management," Buffett says, referring to the 1998 collapse of a steeply leveraged hedge fund.
巴菲特表示，美元持续下跌“可能对金融市场造成重大冲击，带来难以预测的副作用。它可能因某个外部事件而被触发，比如长期资本管理公司（LTCM）的崩溃。”他指的是1998年那家高杠杆对冲基金的倒台。
How about a soft landing for our deficit-addicted economy? Don't count on it. We're running \$100 billion a year in the hole against China, but Buffett doesn't expect that an upward revaluation of the renminbi (stoutly resisted, in any event, by the Chinese government) would greatly reduce this number.
对于沉迷赤字的美国经济能否实现软着陆？别指望了。美国对华贸易逆差每年已达1000亿美元，但巴菲特并不认为人民币升值（无论如何中国政府也极力抵制）会大幅缩小这一数字。
How about a rise in short-term interest rates? They used to say on Wall Street, "Six percent interest will draw money from the moon." Buffett is skeptical, though, that the recent tightening by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan will do much more than "put off the day of reckoning."
短期利率上调如何？华尔街曾有句老话：“6%的利率能把月球上的钱都吸过来。”然而巴菲特怀疑，联邦储备主席艾伦·格林斯潘最近的紧缩行动充其量只能“把清算日往后推”。
Nor does Buffett support the notion that intervention in the currency markets by one or another central bank can overcome the momentum of a currency that's losing value. "Sooner or later markets win over the intervenors. The intervenors always run out of gas," says Buffett.
巴菲特也不认可某个或多个央行通过干预外汇市场来扭转贬值货币趋势的观点。他说：“最终市场总会战胜干预者，干预者总有燃料耗尽的时候。”
What is absolutely necessary to bolster the dollar is "a public policy that brings imports and exports together." Buffett has proposed a grand scheme to force imports and exports into perfect balance by demanding that each dollar of imports be accompanied by a certificate bought from an exporter who moved a dollar the other way. He concedes, using the self-deprecating humor for which he is known, that this scheme has met with deafening silence from policymakers.
要支撑美元，“绝对必要的是一种能让进口与出口相匹配的公共政策”。巴菲特提出一项宏大的方案，通过要求每一美元进口都必须附带从出口商手中购买、代表等额逆向美元流动的凭证，从而迫使进口与出口完美平衡。他以一贯的自嘲口吻承认，这一方案遭到政策制定者的集体沉默。
Moving beyond cloudland to economic history, Buffett reflects wistfully on the writings of David Ricardo, the 19th-century trade theorist: "In those days the trade imbalances got settled in gold--and when they ran out of gold, people stopped doing business with you." A gold standard? More wishful thinking. But Buffett is no goldbug. It's more that he's an antidollar bug. In dollar terms, gold, copper and oil have all climbed in the past several years; in euros, not so sharply.
把目光从云端拉回经济史，巴菲特带着一丝向往提及19世纪贸易理论家大卫·李嘉图的著作：“那时贸易失衡用黄金结算——一旦黄金耗尽，别人就不跟你做生意了。”金本位？更像是痴人说梦。但巴菲特并非黄金迷，他只是美元的反对者。从美元计价看，过去几年黄金、铜和石油价格都已大幅上涨；若按欧元计价，涨幅就没那么明显。
So, Warren, what are you buying now? And what's your prediction for the dollar next year? His answers, respectively: No comment, and I'm not making one.
那么，沃伦，你现在在买什么？你对明年美元的预测是什么？他的回答分别是：无可奉告，我也不会给出预测。
But here's a long-term perspective. He says he may hold foreign currencies "for years and years." And he says that the electorate of the U.S. may be strongly tempted to get out of hock by inflating away the country's dollar debts.
不过，从长期来看，他表示自己可能“持有外币好多好多年”。他还说，美国选民可能会强烈倾向于通过通胀来消化国家的美元债务。