INTERVIEWER:

Thank you. Mr. Buffett we’re with the staff of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. We were formed by Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the financial crisis both globally and domestically. And to do a report, due at the end of this year, December 15, 2010 to the President and to Congress which we also plan to release to the American public. We’re tasked not only with investigating the causes of the financial crisis but looking at specific issues that Congress has enumerated in the Fraud Enforcement Recovery Act which formed the Commission. The Commission is a bipartisan Commission, six Democrats and four Republican Commissioners and we are with the staff of the Commission. We wanted to ask you a few questions today and get your views and your insights so that we may better understand the causes of the financial crisis. In addition, we would like to ask you a few questions about Moody’s

as well since you are a significant shareholder in Moody’s. And if you don’t mind, let’s ask first about Moody’s specifically.

采访者：

谢谢您。Buffett 先生，我们是 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission（金融危机调查委员会）的工作人员。该委员会由国会于 2009 年成立，旨在调查金融危机在全球与美国国内的成因，并撰写一份报告，于今年年底——2010 年 12 月 15 日——提交给总统和国会，我们也计划向美国公众发布。我们的任务不仅是调查金融危机的原因，还包括研究国会在成立本委员会的 Fraud Enforcement Recovery Act（《欺诈执法与追偿法案》）中列举的一些具体议题。本委员会是一个两党委员会，由六名民主党委员和四名共和党委员组成，我们是委员会的工作人员。我们今天想向您请教一些问题，听听您的观点与洞见，以便我们更好地理解金融危机的成因。此外，鉴于您是 Moody’s 的重要股东，我们也希望就 Moody’s 向您请教几个问题。如果您不介意，我们先从 Moody’s 的话题开始。

INTERVIEWER:

I understand sir, that in 1999 and in February of 2000 you invested in Dun and Bradstreet.

采访者：

我了解，先生，您在 1999 年以及 2000 年 2 月投资了 Dun and Bradstreet。

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s correct. I don’t have the dates, but that sounds right.

Warren Buffett：

没错。我记不清具体日期了，但听起来是对的。

INTERVIEWER:

Yes sir. And am I correct, sir, in saying that you made no purchases after Moody’s spun off from Dun and Bradstreet?

采访者：

是的，先生。那么我是否可以这样说：在 Moody’s 从 Dun and Bradstreet 分拆出来之后，您就没有再增持过？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I believe that’s correct.

Warren Buffett：

我想是对的。

INTERVIEWER:

What kind of due diligence did you and your staff do when you first purchased Dun and Bradstreet in 1999 and then again in 2000?

采访者：

当您在 1999 年首次买入 Dun and Bradstreet、并在 2000 年再次买入时，您和您的团队做了哪些尽职调查？

WARREN BUFFETT:

There is no staff. I make all the investment decisions and I do all my own analysis. And basically it was an evaluation both of Dun and Bradstreet and Moody’s but of the economics of their business. And I never met with anybody. Dun and Bradstreet had a very good business and Moody’s had an even better business. And basically the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. You’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, and you’ve got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent (laughs), then you got a terrible business. And I’ve been in both and I know the difference.

Warren Buffett：

没有什么团队。我做所有投资决策，也做所有分析。基本上，我评估的是 Dun and Bradstreet 与 Moody’s 的业务经济性（economics of their business）。而且我从未与任何人见面。Dun and Bradstreet 的生意非常好，而 Moody’s 的生意更好。说到底，评估一家企业时最重要的单一决策因素，就是定价权（pricing power）。如果你能提价而不把生意拱手让给竞争对手，那你就拥有一家非常好的企业。反过来，如果你每次把价格提高十分之一美分之前还得先开个祷告会（笑），那你拥有的就是一家糟糕的企业。我两种生意都做过，所以我知道其中区别。 

INTERVIEWER:

Now, you’ve described the importance of quality management in your investing decisions and I know your mentor Benjamin Graham, I happen to have read his book as

well, has described the importance of management. What attracted you to the management of Moody’s when you made your initial investments?

采访者：

您曾谈到过高质量管理层对您投资决策的重要性。我也知道您的导师 Benjamin Graham（我也读过他的书）也讲过管理层的重要性。那么当您最初投资时，Moody’s 的管理层有什么地方吸引了您？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I knew nothing about the management of Moody’s. I’ve also said many times in annual reports and elsewhere that one of the many, but with reputation of for brilliance in him gets hooked up with a business with a reputation of bad economics, it’s the reputation of the business that remains intact. If you’ve got a good enough business, if you have a monopoly newspaper, if you have a network television station, I’m talking in the past, you know, your idiot nephew could run it. And if you’ve got a really good business, it doesn’t make any difference. It makes some difference maybe in capital allocation or something of the sort, but the extraordinary business does not require good management.

Warren Buffett：

我对 Moody’s 的管理层一无所知。我在年报和其他地方也多次说过：当一个（个人）以聪明绝顶闻名的人，搭上了一个以糟糕经济性闻名的生意，最后能“保持名声不倒”的，往往是那门生意的名声。假如你拥有足够好的生意——比如你拥有一家垄断性的报纸，或者一家全国性电视网（我说的是过去那种环境）——你那个蠢到家的侄子都能把它经营下去。如果你真的拥有一家极好的企业，那么管理层好不好，其实差别并不大。也许在资本配置之类的事情上会有一点差别，但非凡的生意并不需要优秀的管理层。

WARREN BUFFETT:

I’m not making any reference to Moody’s management, I didn’t know them, but it really, you know, if you own the only newspaper in town up till the last five years or so, you have pricing power and you didn’t have to go to the office.

Warren Buffett：

我并不是在影射 Moody’s 的管理层——我根本不认识他们。但你要明白：如果在过去大约五年之前，你拥有的是镇上唯一的一份报纸，你就有定价权，甚至你都不必去办公室。

INTERVIEWER:

And do you have any opinion, sir, of how well management of Moody’s has performed?

采访者：

那么先生，您对 Moody’s 管理层的表现评价如何？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s hard to evaluate when you have a business that has that much pricing power. I mean, they have done very well in terms of huge returns on tangible assets, almost infinite. And they have, they have grown along with a business that generally capital markets became more active and all that. So in the end–and they’ve raised prices–we’re a customer of Moody’s too so I see this from both sides and an unwilling customer, but we’re a

customer nevertheless. And what I see as a customer is reflected in what’s happened in their financial record.

Warren Buffett：

当一家企业拥有如此强的定价权时，你很难评估管理层到底干得怎样。我的意思是，他们在有形资产回报方面做得非常好，回报率巨大，几乎是无限的。他们也随着业务一起增长——总体上资本市场变得更活跃之类的因素也推了他们一把。到最后——而且他们还不断提价——我们自己也是 Moody’s 的客户，所以我能从两边看这个问题：我们是一个不情愿的客户，但无论如何我们仍然是客户。而我作为客户所感受到的东西，也体现在他们财务记录里发生的一切之中。

INTERVIEWER:

And I’ve seen in many places where you’ve been referred to as a passive investor of Moody’s. Is that a fair characterization and what sort of interactions and communications have you had with the Board and with management of Moody’s?

采访者：

我在很多地方看到别人把您称为 Moody’s 的“被动型投资者”。这种说法公平吗？您与 Moody’s 的董事会及管理层之间，进行过哪些互动和沟通？

WARREN BUFFETT:

At the very start there was a fellow named Cliff Alexander who was the Chairman of Dun and Bradstreet while they were breaking it up. He met me, I met him in connection with something else years earlier. So we had a lunch at one time, but he wasn’t really an operating manager, he was there sort to oversee the breakup of the situation. Since we really owned stock in both Dun and Bradstreet and Moody’s when they got split up, I’d never been in Moody’s offices. I don’t think I’ve ever initiated a call to them. I would say that three or four times as part of a general road show their CEO and the investor relations person would stop by and they think they have to do that. I have no interest in it basically and I never requested a meeting. It just, it was part of what they thought investor relations were all about. And we don’t believe much in that.

Warren Buffett：

一开始，有个人叫 Cliff Alexander，在 Dun and Bradstreet 拆分业务的时候他是董事长。我更早些年因为别的事情见过他，所以后来我们吃过一次午饭。但他并不算真正意义上的运营管理者，他更多是来监督这次拆分过程的。由于在拆分时我们确实同时持有 Dun and Bradstreet 和 Moody’s 的股票，我从来没有去过 Moody’s 的办公室。我想我也从未主动给他们打过电话。我记得大概三四次吧，作为他们常规路演的一部分，他们的 CEO 和投资者关系负责人会顺路来拜访，他们觉得这是他们必须做的事。可我基本没兴趣，我也从未要求会面。这只是他们理解的“投资者关系”工作的一部分。而我们并不太相信那一套。

INTERVIEWER:

What about any Board members? Have you pressed for the election of any Board members to Moody’s Board?

采访者：

那董事会成员方面呢？您有没有推动过某些人当选进入 Moody’s 董事会？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No, I have no interest in it.

Warren Buffett：

没有，我对此没有兴趣。

INTERVIEWER:

And, we’ve talked about just verbal communications. Have you sent any letters or submitted any memos or ideas for strategy decisions to Moody’s?

采访者：

我们刚才谈的是口头沟通。那么您是否给 Moody’s 写过信、提交过备忘录，或者就战略决策提出过任何想法？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No, no.

Warren Buffett：

没有，没有。

WARREN BUFFETT:

If I thought they needed me I wouldn’t have bought the stock. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

如果我觉得他们需要我，我就不会买这只股票了。（笑）

INTERVIEWER:

In 2006 Moody’s began to re-purchase its shares, buying back its shares that were outstanding and they did so from 2006 to 2008 according to our records. Why didn’t you sell back your shares to Moody’s at that time? I know subsequent in 2009 you’ve sold some shares but from ’06 to ’09 during the buy-back did you consider selling your shares back and if so, why didn’t you?

采访者：

根据我们的记录，Moody’s 在 2006 年开始回购股票，并在 2006 到 2008 年间持续进行。您当时为什么没有把持股卖回给 Moody’s？我知道后来在 2009 年您卖出过一部分股票，但在 2006 到 2009 年这段回购期间，您有没有考虑过把股票卖回给他们？如果考虑过，为什么最终没有这么做？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Oh, I thought they had an extraordinary business and, you know, they still have an extraordinary business now subject to a different threat which we’ll get into later, I’m sure. But I made a mistake in that it got to very lofty heights and we didn’t sell. It wouldn’t have made any difference whether we were selling to them or selling in the market. But there are very few businesses that had the competitive position that Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s had, they both had the same position essentially. Very few businesses like that in the world. It’s a natural duopoly to some extent, now that may get changed, but it has historically been a natural duopoly where anybody coming in and offering to cut their price in half had no chance of success. And there are not many businesses where somebody could come in to cut the price in half. And if somebody doesn’t think about shifting, but that’s the nature of the ratings business and it’s a naturally obtained one. I mean, it’s assisted by the fact that the two of them became the standard for regulators and all of that. So it’s been assisted by the governmental actions over time. But it’s a natural duopoly.

Warren Buffett：

哦，因为我认为他们的生意是非同寻常的。而且你知道，他们现在仍然是非同寻常的生意——只是面临着另一种不同的威胁，我们后面肯定会谈到。但我犯了一个错误：股价涨到非常高的位置时，我们没有卖出。无论我们是卖给公司回购，还是在市场上卖出，其实没有本质区别。关键在于：世界上几乎没有多少生意能拥有 Moody’s 和 Standard and Poor’s 那样的竞争地位——他们本质上是同样的位置。这样的生意在全球极其罕见。某种程度上，这是一种“天然双寡头”（natural duopoly）。当然，将来可能会改变，但历史上它一直是一个天然双寡头：任何新进入者如果说“我把价格砍一半”，也毫无成功机会。能够被人“砍半价”来撬动、并且还真的可能成功的生意，本来就不多。而评级业务的特点就是：即使有人给出半价，你也不会轻易转过去——这就是评级行业的本质，它是一种自然形成的结构。再加上这两家后来成了监管者等各方的“标准”，所以这种结构也得到了制度层面的帮助——政府长期以来的做法在某种程度上强化了它。但无论如何，它就是一个天然双寡头。

INTERVIEWER:

Now, Mr. Buffett, you’ve been reported as saying that you don’t use ratings.

采访者：

Buffett 先生，有报道说您不使用评级。

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s right.

Warren Buffett：

没错。

INTERVIEWER:

But the world does.

采访者：

但这个世界会用。

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s right.

Warren Buffett：

没错。

WARREN BUFFETT:

But we pay for ratings which I don’t like. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

但我们还得为评级付费——我不喜欢这一点。（笑）

INTERVIEWER:

My question is one of more policy and philosophy and that is, would the American economy be better off in the long run if credit ratings were not so embedded in our regulations and if market participants relied less on credit ratings?

采访者：

我的问题更偏政策与理念：从长期看，如果信用评级没有如此深地嵌入我们的监管体系、并且市场参与者对信用评级的依赖更少，美国经济会不会更好？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I think it might be better off if everybody that invested significant sums of money did their own analysis but that is not the way the world works. And regulators have a terrible problem in setting capital requirements all of that sort of thing without some kind of standards that they look to even if those are far from perfect standards. I can’t really judge it perfectly from the regulators’ standpoint. From the investors’ standpoint, I think that investors should do their own analysis and we always do.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我认为如果每一个投入大笔资金的人都能自己做分析，从结果上讲也许会更好——但世界并不是这样运转的。而监管者在设定资本金要求之类的事情时，如果没有某种可以参考的“标准”，他们会遇到非常棘手的问题——哪怕这些标准远远谈不上完美。我也很难从监管者的角度给出一个完全正确的判断。但从投资者的角度，我认为投资者应该自己做分析，我们一直都是这么做的。

INTERVIEWER:

Would you support the removal of references to credit ratings from regulations?

采访者：

您会支持把监管法规中对信用评级的引用删掉吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s a tough question. I mean, you get into, you get into, you know, how you regulate insurance companies and banks. And we are very significantly in the insurance business and we are told that we can only own triple B and above and different–there are all kinds of different rules in different states and even different countries. And those may serve as a crude tool to determine proper capital or to prevent buccaneers of one sort from going out and speculating in the case of banks with money that’s obtained through a government guarantee. So that is not an easy question.

Warren Buffett：

这是个很难的问题。因为你很快就会进入——你知道——“如何监管保险公司和银行”这样的领域。我们在保险业务里占比很大，而监管会告诉我们只能持有 BBB 级及以上的资产；而且不同州、甚至不同国家都有各种各样不同的规则。这些规则也许可以作为一种粗糙的工具，用来判断资本是否充足，或者用来防止某类“海盗式人物”（buccaneers）借着政府担保拿到的资金——比如银行拿到的那种带政府隐性/显性担保的资金——跑出去搞投机。所以这不是一个容易回答的问题。

INTERVIEWER:

As I mentioned at the outset we’re investigating the causes of the financial crisis and I would like to get your opinion as to whether credit ratings and their apparent failure to predict accurately credit quality of structured finance products like residential mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Did that failure or apparent failure cause or contribute to the financial crisis?

采访者：

正如我一开始所说，我们在调查金融危机的成因。我想听听您的看法：信用评级以及它在准确预测结构化金融产品（例如住宅抵押贷款支持证券 RMBS、以及担保债务凭证 CDO）的信用质量方面的明显失灵——这种失灵（或看起来的失灵）是否导致了金融危机，或者是否对金融危机有所贡献？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It didn’t cause it but there were a vast number of things that contributed to it. The basic cause was, you know, embedded in, partly in psychology, partly in reality in a growing and finally pervasive belief that house prices couldn’t go down. And everybody succumbed, virtually everybody succumbed to that. But that’s, the only way you get a bubble is when basically a very high percentage of the population buys into some originally sound premise–and it’s quite interesting how that develops–originally sound premise that becomes distorted as time passes and people forget the original sound premise and start focusing solely on the price action. So the media, investors, mortgage bankers, the American public, me, you know, my neighbor, rating agencies, Congress, you name it. People overwhelmingly came to believe that house prices could not fall significantly. And since it was the biggest asset class in the country and it was the easiest class to borrow against it created, you know, probably the biggest bubble in our history. It’ll be a bubble that will be remembered along with South Sea bubble and [unintelligible] bubble.

Warren Buffett：

它（评级失灵）并不是原因，但确实有大量因素对危机做出了贡献。根本原因在于——你知道——一种不断增长、最终变得无处不在的信念：房价不可能下跌。这种信念一部分来自心理，一部分来自现实。几乎所有人都屈服于此，几乎所有人都被它俘获。你要形成泡沫，唯一的方式就是：人口中非常高的比例买入某个“起初是合理的前提”——而且这个过程很有意思——这个起初合理的前提，随着时间推移被扭曲了；人们忘掉了原本合理的前提，只盯着价格走势本身。于是媒体、投资者、按揭银行家、美国公众、我、你、我的邻居、评级机构、国会——你能想到的几乎所有人——都深信房价不可能大幅下跌。又因为房地产是全国最大的资产类别，同时也是最容易拿来抵押借钱的资产类别，于是它制造了——你知道——可能是我们历史上最大的泡沫。这个泡沫会像 South Sea bubble（南海泡沫）以及某个（听不清的）泡沫一样，被人们长期记住。

INTERVIEWER:

I do want to ask you some questions about the formation of that bubble, if I may ask a couple more on the rating agency side and then shift to that. And that is, do I take it, though, that you believe that at least the failure of the ratings contributed in some part to the financial crisis?

采访者：

我确实还想就泡沫如何形成向您请教一些问题。在转到那个话题之前，如果我能再就评级机构问两三个问题：我是否可以理解为——您认为评级的失灵至少在某种程度上对金融危机有部分贡献？

WARREN BUFFETT:

But I do think it was, I think every aspect of society contributed to it virtually. But they fell prey to the same delusion that existed throughout the country eventually. And it meant that the models they had were no good. They didn’t contemplate, but neither did the models in the minds of 300 million Americans contemplate what was going to happen.

Warren Buffett：

但我的确认为——我认为社会的几乎每一个层面都对它有所贡献。只是他们也像最终全国范围内的所有人一样，落入了同一种迷思之中。这就意味着他们手里的模型并不好用：他们没有把某些情形纳入考虑；但其实，美国 3 亿人的脑子里那套“模型”同样也没有把将要发生的事情纳入考虑。

INTERVIEWER:

And similarly, sir, the ratings agencies, both Moody’s and S&P downgraded securities en masse in July of 2007, July, roughly starting around July 10, 2007. And then again in mid October of 2007. Many have pointed to these downgrades as contributing to the crisis. Do you believe that these downgrades, the sudden downgrades contributed to uncertainty in the market or the looming crisis?

采访者：

同样地，先生，评级机构——Moody’s 和 S&P——在 2007 年 7 月集中下调了一批证券的评级，大约从 2007 年 7 月 10 日左右开始；之后在 2007 年 10 月中旬又下调了一次。很多人指出这些降级对危机有所贡献。您认为这些突然的集中降级，是否加剧了市场的不确定性，或促成了危机的临近？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I think that the realization by people that a bubble was starting to pop and, you know, everybody doesn’t wake up a six a.m. on some morning and find it out. But Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae they all felt different in the middle of 2007 than they did in the middle of 2006 or 2005. So people were watching a movie and they thought the movie had a happy ending and all of a sudden the events on the screen started telling them something different. And different people in the audience picked it up maybe different hours, different days, different weeks. But at some point the bubble popped.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我认为关键在于：人们逐渐意识到泡沫开始破裂。你知道，不是所有人都会在某天早上 6 点同时醒来就一下子明白了。但在 2007 年年中，Freddie Mac、Fannie Mae——这些机构在那时给人的感觉，已经和 2006 年或 2005 年年中的感觉完全不同了。就像人们在看一部电影，原本以为会是大团圆结局，可突然之间，屏幕上的情节开始告诉你：事情并不是那样。观众席里不同的人，会在不同的时间点捕捉到这个变化——可能是不同的小时、不同的天、不同的周。但总有一个时刻，泡沫会破掉。

WARREN BUFFETT:

And for differently people it was, they were seeing it at slightly different times. But you can say the media’s caused it too, if they say the bubble’s popping, you know. The recognition of it by the rating agencies I would say, you know, may have pulled a whole bunch of people that previously hadn’t been paying much attention that it was happening. The report’s coming out of Freddie and Fannie may have told people what was happening countrywide and I think that was the summer of 2007 certainly was telling people that. So it was dawning on people in a way sort of that what they believed wasn’t true.

Warren Buffett：

而且对不同的人来说，他们是在略微不同的时间看到这一点的。但你也可以说媒体“造成”了它——如果媒体说泡沫在破，你知道……从评级机构的角度，我会说：他们对情况的“确认”，可能把一大群原先并没有怎么注意的人也拉进来了，让他们意识到事情正在发生。Freddie 和 Fannie 发布的报告，可能让人们看到全国范围内到底发生了什么；我认为 2007 年夏天确实是在向人们传递这些信息。所以，人们开始逐渐明白：自己此前相信的东西并不是真的。

INTERVIEWER:

Now, I read in one of your shareholder letters I thought you appropriately said, “A pin lies in wait for every bubble.”

采访者：

我读过您一封致股东信，里面有一句我觉得说得很贴切：“每一个泡沫，都有一根针在等着它。”

WARREN BUFFETT:

And this was the biggest one.

Warren Buffett：

而这个泡沫，是最大的一个。

INTERVIEWER:

When did you realize that there was a mortgage melt down coming and if so, what steps did you take to prepare for it? And if not, why were you unable, as one of the purportedly wisest investors in the United States, why were you unable to spot this massive bubble growing?

采访者：

您是什么时候意识到抵押贷款领域将出现崩盘的？如果意识到了，您采取了哪些步骤来应对？如果没有意识到，那么作为“据称”美国最聪明的投资者之一，您为什么没能察觉这个巨大的泡沫在生长？

WARREN BUFFETT:

The answer is to the first part was not soon enough. (laughs) And it was something we talked about at our annual meetings. And I think one point I referred to it as a bubblette, I don’t remember what year that was. But, and I talked my home in Laguna where the implicit value of the land had gotten up to $30 million an acre or something like that, on that order. But the nature of bubbles is that, you know, with the internet bubble I was aware of it too, but I didn’t go and shorten stocks. I never shorted internet stocks and I didn’t short housing stocks.Looking back, you know, a) we don’t short around here but, you know, if I’d seen what was coming, I might have behaved differently (laughs) including selling Moody’s. Something’s wrong.

Warren Buffett：

第一个问题的答案是：不够早。（笑）我们在年度股东大会上也谈过这事。我记得我曾经在某个时点把它称作一个 “bubblette”（小泡沫），但我不记得是哪一年了。我还讲过我在 Laguna 的房子，那块地按隐含价值算，已经涨到每英亩 3,000 万美元之类的水平，大概是这个量级。但泡沫的本质是这样的：你知道，互联网泡沫的时候我也意识到它是泡沫，但我并没有去做空股票。我从没做空过互联网股票，也没有做空过房地产相关股票。回过头看，你知道，a）我们这里不做空；但如果我当时看清了将要发生什么，我可能会做得不一样（笑）——包括把 Moody’s 卖掉。显然哪里出了问题。

INTERVIEWER:

And we’ve obviously had bubbles in the past. As you pointed with the internet bubble and others. But at least in recent times we’ve never had a financial crisis as severe as the one we’re living through now. When did it dawn on you that this bubble bursting and this financial crisis was going to be different than none others in recent time?

采访者：

我们显然过去也经历过泡沫——正如您提到的互联网泡沫以及其他泡沫。但至少在近些年，我们从未经历过像这次这样严重的金融危机。您是什么时候意识到：这次泡沫破裂、以及随之而来的金融危机，会与近代其他危机都不一样？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, unfortunately, it’s a gradual process and, you know, you get wise too late. When it really became apparent that, you know, that this was something like we’d never seen was in September 2008 that’s when I said on NBC, this is an economic Pearl Harbor. Well, it was an economic Pearl Harbor by definition I meant that I hadn’t seen it three months earlier because I didn’t see a Pearl Harbor three months earlier. There were all kinds of developments, but the degree to which it would stop the financial system, you know. And then with the consequent overflow into the economy, you know. Until September 2008, I didn’t fully realize.

Warren Buffett：

唉，不幸的是，这是一个渐进的过程——你知道，人总是“醒悟得太晚”。真正让我明确意识到：这件事会是我们从未见过的那种级别——是在 2008 年 9 月。那时我在 NBC 上说，这是一次“经济上的 Pearl Harbor（珍珠港）”。之所以叫“经济上的 Pearl Harbor”，按定义就是：我在三个月之前并没有看到它，因为三个月之前我也并没有看到一场“珍珠港”。这期间发生了各种各样的发展，但问题的关键在于：它会在多大程度上让金融系统停摆；然后又会怎样外溢到实体经济。在 2008 年 9 月之前，我并没有完全意识到这一点。

INTERVIEWER:

What do you think it was, if you were to point to one of the single driving causes behind this bubble? What would you say?

采访者：

如果要您指出推动这次泡沫形成的单一关键驱动因素，您会说是什么？

WARREN BUFFETT:

There’s a really interesting aspect of this which will take a minute or two to explain, but my former boss Ben Graham in an observation 50 or so years ago to me that really stuck in my mind and now I’ve seen elements of it. He said you can get in a whole lot more trouble in investing with a sound premise than with a false premise. If you have some premise that the moon is made of green cheese or something, you know, it’s ridiculous on its face. If you come up with a premise that common stocks have done better than bonds and I wrote about this in a Fortune article in 2001. Because it was, there was a famous little book in 2001 by Edgar Lawrence Smith, in 1924, I think, by Edgar Lawrence Smith that made a study of common stocks vs. bonds. And it showed, he started out with the idea that bonds would over-perform during deflation and common stocks would over-perform during inflation. He went back and studied a whole bunch of periods and lo and behold, his original hypothesis was wrong. He found that common stocks always over-performed. And he started to think about it and why was that. Well it was because there was a retained earnings factor. They sold, the dividend you got on stocks was the same as the yield on bonds and on top of that you had retained earnings. So they over-performed. That became the underlying bulwark for the ’29 bubble. People thought stocks were starting to be wonderful and they forgot the limitations of the original premise which was that if stocks were yielding the same as bonds that they had this going for them.

So after a while the original premise which becomes sort of the impetus for what later turns out to be a bubble is forgotten and the price action takes over. Now we saw the same thing in housing. It’s a totally sound premise that houses will become, worth more over time because the dollar becomes worth less. It isn’t because, you know, construction costs go up. And it isn’t because houses are so wonderful it’s because the dollar becomes worth less that a house that was bought 40 years ago is worth more today than it was then. And since 66% or 67% of the people want to own their home and because you can borrow money on it and you’re dreaming of buying a home, if you really believe that houses are going to go up in value you buy one as soon as you can. And that’s a very sound premise. It’s related of course, though, to houses selling at something like replacement price and not [unintelligible] of stripping inflation. So the sound premise it’s a good idea to buy a house this year because it will probably cost more next year and you’re going to want a home and the fact that you can finance it gets distorted over time if housing prices are going up 10% a year and inflation is a couple of percent a year. Soon the price action, or at some point the price action takes over and you want to buy three houses and five houses and you want to buy with nothing down and you want to agree to payments that you can’t make and all of that sort of thing because it doesn’t make any difference, it’s going to be worth more next year. And the lender feels the same way. Doesn’t really make difference if it’s a liar’s loan or you don’t have the income or something because even if they have to take it over, it’ll be worth more next year. Once that gathers momentum and it gets reinforced by price action and the original premise is forgotten which it was in 1929. The internet, it’s the same thing. The internet was going to change our lives, but it didn’t mean that every company was worth $50 billion that could dream up a prospectus and the price action becomes so important to people that it takes over their minds.

所以，时间一久，那个最初推动泡沫的“正确前提”会被遗忘，取而代之的是“价格走势”（price action）接管一切。房地产也是同样的机制。你说“房子长期会更值钱”，这在逻辑上完全成立，因为美元会越来越不值钱。并不是因为建造成本上涨，也不是因为房子有多神奇——而是因为美元贬值，才让 40 年前买的房子今天看起来更贵。再加上有 66% 或 67% 的人都想拥有自己的住房，而且房子还能抵押借钱——如果你真心相信房价会涨，你当然会尽早买一套。这是一个非常合理的前提。当然，它也隐含着一个条件：房价大致在“重置成本”（replacement price）附近、并且通胀调整后不会出现离谱偏离（中间有一句我听不清）。但是，当房价每年涨 10%，而通胀只有百分之二左右时，这个“合理前提”会在时间里被扭曲：很快——或者在某个时点——价格走势开始接管你的大脑。你不再只想买一套自住，而是想买三套、五套；你想零首付；你愿意承诺自己根本付不起的还款；因为你觉得无所谓——反正明年更值钱。放贷人也会这么想：是不是 liar’s loan（撒谎贷款）、你有没有收入证明，都不重要；就算最后不得不收房，明年也更值钱。只要这股势头形成，并被持续上涨的价格走势强化，最初那个“合理前提”就会被彻底忘掉——就像 1929 年那样。互联网泡沫也是一样：互联网确实会改变生活，但这并不意味着每一家能编个招股说明书的公司就都值 500 亿美元。价格走势对人的影响变得如此重要，以至于它接管了人的心智。

And because housing was the largest single asset around 22 trillion or something like on about, you know, a household wealth of 50 or 60 trillion or something like that in the United States, such a huge asset, so understandable to the public. They might not understand stocks or the internet, you know, they might not understand tulip bulbs, but they understood houses. And they wanted to buy one anyway and the financing, and you could leverage up to the sky, it created a bubble like we’ve never seen. I wish I’d figured that out in 2005.

而房地产之所以造成我们从未见过的那种泡沫，是因为它是最大的单一资产——大概 22 万亿美元左右；而美国家庭总财富大概 50 或 60 万亿美元之类——如此巨大的资产类别，而且公众非常容易理解。人们可能不理解股票、不理解互联网，也可能不理解郁金香球茎，但他们理解房子。他们本来就想买房，再加上融资工具、再加上你可以把杠杆加到天上，于是它制造了一个前所未有的泡沫。我真希望自己在 2005 年就把这一切想明白。

INTERVIEWER:

This bubble, though, has been described as different from prior housing bubbles. And certainly the forces that you’ve described about prices and certainly the types of loans that you’ve described have been around for a while. What do you think, though, made this particular housing bubble different and what would you point to the growth of this particular housing bubble? Some have pointed to cheap money, in essence, some have pointed to lack of regulation in the origination business, some have pointed to the drive from Wall Street for securitized mortgages and RMBS and then as collateral for CEOs. Others have pointed to government policy that created the housing bubble. What do you think created and caused this housing bubble?

采访者：

不过，这次泡沫被描述为不同于以往的房地产泡沫。您刚才谈到的那些力量——价格的推动、以及您提到的那些贷款类型——其实存在已经有一段时间了。那么您认为，这一次的房地产泡沫究竟“不同”在哪里？您会把这次泡沫的增长归因于什么？有人指出本质上是“廉价资金”；有人指出是按揭发放（origination）环节监管不足；有人指出是华尔街对抵押贷款证券化、RMBS 的需求驱动，以及（把这些东西）作为 CEO 抵押品/担保品的做法；也有人指出是政府政策制造了住房泡沫。您认为到底是什么创造并导致了这次住房泡沫？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s a great question to which I don’t have a great answer. Why did the, I don’t know whether the tulip bulb bubble was in 1610 or 20 but tulips had been around before and they’d always looked beautiful and people had wanted them in their tables and all that. And for some reason it gets to a critical mass, this critical point where price action alone starts dominating people’s minds. And when your neighbor has made a lot of money by buying internet stocks, you know, and your wife says that you’re smarter than he is and he’s richer than you are, you know, so why aren’t you doing it. When that gets to a point, when day trading gets going, all of that sort of thing, very hard to point to what does it. I mean, it, you know, we’ve had hula hoops in this country, we’ve had pet rocks, I mean, you know, and this is the financial manifestation of, you know, a craze of sorts. And I, it’s very hard to tell what got the–all the, you can name a lot of factors that contribute to it but to say what is the one that this time was different that made, why it didn’t catch fire earlier, I can’t give you the answer.

Warren Buffett：

这是个很好的问题——但我没有一个同样“很好的答案”。为什么会这样呢？我甚至都不确定郁金香球茎泡沫是在 1610 年还是 1620 年，但郁金香在那之前就已经存在了，它们一直都很漂亮，人们也一直想把它们摆在餐桌上之类的地方。可不知为什么，某个时点它就达到了一个“临界规模”（critical mass）、一个“临界点”（critical point），从那一刻起，只有价格走势（price action）开始主宰人的大脑。当你的邻居靠买互联网股票赚了很多钱，而你太太又跟你说：“你比他聪明，可他比你有钱——那你为什么不这么做呢？”当事情发展到某个程度，日内交易（day trading）开始兴起，诸如此类的现象一出现，就很难再指出到底是什么东西点燃了它。你知道，我们这个国家曾经流行过呼拉圈（hula hoops）、流行过宠物石（pet rocks）……而这一次，只不过是某种“狂热”（craze）在金融领域的体现。我也很难说到底是什么触发了那个关键转折点——你当然可以列出一大堆促成因素，但要说“这一次与以往不同的那个单一因素是什么、为什么它没有更早被点燃”，我给不出答案。

INTERVIEWER:

You don’t make our job any easier. (laughs)

采访者：

您这可一点都没让我们的工作更轻松。（笑）

WARREN BUFFETT:

(laughs) No, well, no, listen, I don’t have a great answer, I’d probably have written an essay or something on it by this point. I mean, you know, I think it’s going to defy an answer to be perfectly honest. That doesn’t mean that your time is wasted or anything. Understanding, you know, the pathology of bubbles is not an unimportant–we had one that was more severe, in fact there was an article in the Omaha World Herald about three months ago that described how it was more severe, we had a bubble in the Midwest in the early ’80s in farmland that created much more financial dislocation, but it was limited to the farm belt than this particular bubble has which has not hit as hard in terms of housing in the Midwest. So Nebraska was much harder hit in the farmland bubble. And the farmland bubble had the same logic to it. Inflation was out of control, Volcker hadn’t really come in with his, with his meat axe to the economy and people said, you know, you’re not making more farmland, there are going to be more people eating, farmland gets more productive by the years, we learn more about it, fertilizers and all that sort of thing. And cash is trash so you should go to, and own something real which was a farm. And I bought a farm from the FDIC and well, no, it was the FDIC I think. They took over a bank 30 miles from here, I bought up a farm for (600 an acre that the bank had lent )2,000 an acre against. And the farm didn’t know what I’d paid for it or the other guy had paid, or lent on it. And that farm had a productive capacity of probably )60 an acre in terms of what corn soybeans were selling for. To lend $2,000 against it when interest rates were 10% was madness. And both the banks in [unintelligible] and Nebraska went broke because they went insane. They got through the ’30s alright, but the psychology that farms could do nothing but go up took over. And that was a significant, but very miniature version of what could happen with houses country-wide.

Warren Buffett：

（笑）不——听着——我确实没有一个很好的答案；如果我有的话，可能到现在我早就写成一篇文章之类的了。说实话，我觉得这件事很可能就是“拒绝被一个完美答案解释”的。但这不意味着你们的时间被浪费了。理解泡沫的“病理”（pathology of bubbles）并不是一件不重要的事——我们其实曾经经历过一个更严重的泡沫。事实上，大概三个月前 Omaha World Herald 有篇文章就写到它更严重：1980 年代初期，中西部的农地（farmland）曾经出现过一个泡沫，它造成的金融错位（financial dislocation）更大，只是它被限制在农业带（farm belt），不像这次的泡沫影响全国。而这一次的住房泡沫，在中西部的住房层面并没有那么重。换句话说，在那次农地泡沫里，Nebraska 受到的打击要大得多。而农地泡沫背后的逻辑其实也一样：当时通胀失控，Volcker 还没有真正拿着他的“肉斧”（meat axe）去砍经济（指强力加息紧缩）；人们就说：你造不出更多的农地，吃饭的人会越来越多，农地会一年比一年更高产，我们对农业更懂了，化肥等等都会提升产出；于是“现金是垃圾”（cash is trash），你应该去拥有某种真实资产，比如农场。我当时从 FDIC 买过一个农场——嗯，我想是 FDIC。他们接管了离这儿 30 英里的一家银行。我用每英亩 600 美元买下那块农地，而那家银行此前却按每英亩 2,000 美元的估值给它放贷。农场本身并不知道我付了多少钱，也不知道之前那个人付了多少钱，或者银行按它贷了多少钱。按当时玉米、大豆的售价算，那块地每英亩的产出能力大概也就 60 美元左右。在利率 10% 的情况下，还敢按 2,000 美元的地价去放贷，简直是疯狂。Nebraska（以及另一处我没听清的地方）的银行之所以倒闭，就是因为他们“疯了”。他们在 1930 年代都挺过去了，但后来“农场只会涨不会跌”的心理占据了上风。那次泡沫是一次很严重、但规模很小的预演——相当于全国住房泡沫可能发生的事情的一个微缩版本。

INTERVIEWER:

Now earlier you referenced the GSEs and it’s been reported that in 2000 you sold nearly all of your Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae shares. What persuaded you in 2000 to think that those were no longer good investments?

采访者：

您刚才提到了 GSEs（政府支持企业）。据报道，您在 2000 年几乎卖掉了所有 Freddie Mac 和 Fannie Mae 的持股。2000 年是什么让您认为它们不再是好的投资？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I didn’t know that they were not going to be good investments. But I was concerned about the management at both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae although our holdings were concentrated in Freddie Mac. They were trying to and proclaiming that they could increase earnings per share in some low double digit range or something of the sort. And any time a large financial institution starts promising regular earnings increases you’re going to have trouble. It isn’t given to man to be able to run a financial institution where different interest rates scenarios will prevail and all of that comes to produce smooth regular earnings from a very large base to start with. So if people are thinking that way they’re going to do things maybe in accounting it’s turned out to be the case in both Freddie and Fannie but also in operations that I would regard as unsound. I don’t know when it’ll happen, I don’t even know for sure if it’ll happen. It will happen eventually if they keep up that policy and so, we, or I just decided to get out.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我并不知道它们一定不会是好投资。但我对 Freddie Mac 和 Fannie Mae 的管理层感到担忧——尽管我们的持仓主要集中在 Freddie Mac。他们当时试图、并且宣称可以把每股收益（earnings per share）以某种“两位数但偏低”的速度持续增长之类的。任何一家大型金融机构一旦开始承诺“稳定、规律的利润增长”，你就会遇到麻烦。人并没有那种能力——在一个利率情景千变万化的环境里运营一家金融机构，还能从一个本来就很大的利润基数出发，持续制造出平滑而规律的盈利。所以，一旦管理层用这种思路去想问题，他们就会去做一些事：可能在会计处理上动手脚——后来事实证明 Freddie 和 Fannie 都是如此——也可能在经营操作上做一些在我看来不稳健（unsound）的事。我不知道它什么时候会出事，我甚至也不能完全确定它一定会出事。但如果他们继续坚持这种政策，事情终究会发生。所以我们——或者说我——就决定退出。

INTERVIEWER:

The Washington Post reported on October 31, 2007 that you had provided some testimony the day before in a case against Freddie Mac’s CEO where you had indicated that you became troubled when Freddie Mac made an investment unrelated to its mission. And you were quoted in that article as saying that you didn’t think that it made any sense at all and you were concerned about what they might be doing that I didn’t know about. What was that investment unrelated to its mission?

采访者：

《Washington Post》在 2007 年 10 月 31 日报道说：您在前一天就一宗针对 Freddie Mac CEO 的案件出庭作证时表示，当 Freddie Mac 做了一笔与其使命（mission）无关的投资时，您开始感到不安。报道还引用您的话说：您认为那件事完全说不通，并且担心他们还在做一些您不知道的事。那么，那笔“与使命无关”的投资到底是什么？

WARREN BUFFETT:

As I remember it was Philip Morris bonds, I think, I could be wrong, it might be R.J. Reynolds or something. But they’d made a large investment in that. Now they’re dealing essentially with government guaranteed credit. We knew that then, we’ve had it ratified subsequently by what’s happened. So here was an institution that was trying to serve two masters, Wall Street and her investors, and Congress. And they were using this power to do something that was totally unrelated to the mission and then they gave me some half-baked explanation about how it increased liquidity which was just nonsense. And the truth was they were arbitrating the government’s credit. And for something the government really didn’t intend for them to do. And, you know, there’s seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen, you know. You turn on the light and all those others all start scurrying around. And I wasn’t, I couldn’t find the light switch but I’d seen one.

Warren Buffett：

按我记忆，那是 Philip Morris 的债券——我想是这样，但我也可能记错了，也可能是 R.J. Reynolds 之类。反正他们在那上面做了一笔很大的投资。要知道，他们本质上是在经营一种“带政府担保的信用”。我们当时就知道这一点，后来发生的事情也等于把这一点“认证”了。所以这就变成：有一家机构试图同时侍奉两个主人——华尔街及其投资者，以及国会。他们利用自己这种“权力/地位”，去做一件和使命完全无关的事；然后他们还给了我一个半吊子解释，说这有助于提高流动性——那纯属胡扯。真相是：他们在“套利”政府信用（arbitrating the government’s credit），去做政府并不打算让他们做的事情。而且你知道，厨房里通常不止一只蟑螂。你一开灯，其他那些就都开始四处乱窜。我当时找不到电灯开关，但我已经看见了一只。

INTERVIEWER:

Shifting to more recent times. You’ve made investments in Goldman Sachs in September of 2008 and in General Electric. What were your considerations when you made those investments and were you persuaded by any government official to make those investments?

采访者：

我们转到更近的时期。您在 2008 年 9 月投资了 Goldman Sachs，也投资了 General Electric。您做出这些投资时主要考虑了什么？有没有任何政府官员游说或说服您进行这些投资？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I wasn’t persuaded by, I was, in my own mind, there was only one way the, both the financial world and the economy was going to come out of this situation that, of paralysis in September of 2008 and I made the fundamental decision that we had really the right people in Bernanke and Paulson and in there with the President would back them up. That we had a government that would take the action and only the government could. It would take the action to get an economic machine that had become stalled basically back into action. And I didn’t know what they would do, I didn’t know what Congress would go. It didn’t really make much difference. The important thing was the American public would come to believe that our government would do whatever it took. And I felt it would, it would have been suicide not to. But it hadn’t been done in the early ’30s and therefore those companies like General Electric or Goldman Sachs were going to be fine over time. But it was a bet, essentially, on the fact that the government would not really shirk its responsibility at a time like that to leverage up when the rest of the world was trying to de-leverage and panicked.

Warren Buffett：

没有人说服我。我当时的判断是：在 2008 年 9 月那种“瘫痪”（paralysis）的局面下，金融世界和实体经济要走出来，在我心里只有一条路。我做了一个根本性判断：我们确实拥有“对的人”（the right people）——Bernanke 和 Paulson；而且总统会在背后支持他们。我们有一个政府会采取行动——而且那种行动只有政府能做。政府会采取行动，把那台已经基本熄火、停摆的经济机器重新启动。我并不知道他们具体会怎么做，我也不知道国会会怎么走向。但这并不真正重要。重要的是：美国公众会相信，我们的政府会“不惜一切代价”（do whatever it took）把局面稳住。我认为他们会这么做——否则就等于自杀。早在 1930 年代初期并没有做到这一点，所以那一代才会出大问题。因此，像 General Electric 或 Goldman Sachs 这样的公司，从长期看会没问题。但这笔投资本质上是一场押注：押注政府在那样的时刻不会逃避其责任——当世界其他地方都在去杠杆、并且陷入恐慌时，美国政府会选择加杠杆、把系统顶住。

INTERVIEWER:

Around that same time on October 17, 2008 you wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times on why you were buying American stocks. And did anyone from the federal government or Federal Reserve ask you to write that?

采访者：

差不多就在同一时期，2008 年 10 月 17 日左右，您在《New York Times》写了一篇专栏文章，谈您为何在买入美国股票。请问是否有联邦政府或 Federal Reserve（美联储）的人请您写那篇文章？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No, no.

Warren Buffett：

没有，没有。

INTERVIEWER:

And similarly, I know you weren’t persuaded by anything the government asked you to do but did anyone ask you to make any investments in financial companies such as Goldman?

采访者：

同样地，我知道您并不是被政府要求所“说服”的，但有没有人请您去投资像 Goldman 这样的金融公司？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No. Well, Goldman asked me to and GE asked me to and a number of other

companies asked me to but nobody from government.

Warren Buffett：

没有。嗯——Goldman 让我投，GE 也让我投，还有一些其他公司也来问过我，但政府方面没有人找我。

INTERVIEWER:

No one from government?

采访者：

政府方面一个人也没有？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No.

Warren Buffett：

没有。

WARREN BUFFETT:

I have, I have, actually, testified that in the connection with Lehman was trying to raise some money in the spring of 2008 and Dick Fuld was calling me and he did get Hank Paulson to call but Hank did not urge me to buy. He was responding to the entreaties of Fuld that he make a call but I was not asked to buy anything. Wouldn’t have done any good if they’d asked. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

我其实作证说过：2008 年春天，Lehman 想筹点钱，Dick Fuld 给我打电话；他确实让 Hank Paulson 也给我打了个电话，但 Hank 并没有劝我买。那通电话只是 Hank 回应了 Fuld 的请求——Fuld 求他打个电话而已——但没有人要求我买任何东西。就算他们真开口让我买，也不会有什么用（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

Do you believe that your prominence as an investor and your stock purchases could alleviate the financial crisis, was that–?

采访者：

您是否认为，您作为投资者的影响力以及您的买股行为，可以缓解金融危机？这是否——？

WARREN BUFFETT:

That was not a motivation.

Warren Buffett：

这不是我的动机。

INTERVIEWER:

Was that a consideration?

采访者：

那是否至少是一个考虑因素？

WARREN BUFFETT:

No, no, not a bit. (laughs) My public spirit has stopped short of $8 billion.

Warren Buffett：

不，不，一点也不是（笑）。我的“公益心”还没高尚到愿意掏出 80 亿美元那一步。

INTERVIEWER:

Would the American economy have been better off in the long run if there’d had been no exceptional government assistance to financial institutions? In other words do you think that we’ve increased the likelihood of moral hazard in the long run?

采访者：

从长期看，如果当时没有对金融机构提供那种“非常规的政府援助”，美国经济会不会更好？换句话说，您认为我们是否在长期上提高了“道德风险”（moral hazard）的可能性？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I think the moral hazard thing is misunderstood in a big way. There is no moral hazard existing with shareholders of Citigroup with Freddie Mac, with Fannie Mae, with WaMu, with Wachovia, you just go up and down the line. I mean, those people lost anywhere from 90% to 100% of their money. And the idea that they would walk away and think, ah, I’ve been saved by the federal government when I think just the companies I named there’s a least a half a trillion dollars of loss that the common shareholders now–there’s another question with managements which we might get into later. But in terms of moral hazard I don’t even understand why people talk about that in terms of equity holdings.

Warren Buffett：

我觉得人们对“道德风险”这件事有很大的误解。Citigroup 的股东、Freddie Mac 的股东、Fannie Mae 的股东、WaMu 的股东、Wachovia 的股东——你沿着这条线往下数就行了——这些普通股股东身上根本不存在什么“道德风险”。因为这些人损失了 90% 到 100% 的钱。所以，认为他们会转身离开、还想着“啊，联邦政府救了我”——这种想法本身就很荒谬。我认为光我刚才点名的这些公司，普通股股东的损失至少就有 5,000 亿美元之多。至于管理层层面，那是另外一个问题，我们后面也许会谈。但就“道德风险”而言，我甚至不理解为什么人们会把它套用到“持有股权”这件事上来谈。

INTERVIEWER:

Do you think we would have been better off though, if we had not the infusion of government assistance?

采访者：

WARREN BUFFETT:

I think it would be a disaster, you know. It would have. It would have been the disaster of all time.

Warren Buffett：

INTERVIEWER:

I’d like for you to try to help me square something you’ve been quoted as saying about credit default swaps and I’m sure my colleague Chris Seifer has been focusing in on these areas, he’ll ask you additional questions. But you’ve been quoted as saying credit default swaps were financial weapons of mass destruction.

采访者：

我想请您帮我把一件事“对上号”。您曾经就 credit default swaps（信用违约互换）发表过一些被引用的言论，我相信我的同事 Chris Seifer 正在重点研究这些领域，他之后还会追问您一些问题。但您曾被引用说：信用违约互换是“金融大规模杀伤性武器”。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I, I, no, I said derivatives.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我——不，我说的是 derivatives（衍生品）。

INTERVIEWER:

Derivatives, excuse me.

采访者：

衍生品，抱歉。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, were financial–systemically they represented potential financial weapons of mass destruction. And I think, I don’t think there’s any question about that.

Warren Buffett：

对。它们在金融体系层面（systemically）代表着一种潜在的“金融大规模杀伤性武器”。我认为这点毫无疑问。

INTERVIEWER:

And in 2008 you began to invest in credit default swaps and I understand that–

采访者：

而在 2008 年，您开始投资（或参与）信用违约互换，我理解——

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, we’ve sold insurance for a lot of years and sometimes that’s credit

insurance. And, you know, I don’t think the way–I don’t see a connection between selling insurance and thinking something can be systemically dangerous if again carried to extremes in terms of the leverage produced and the scope of contracts entered in but I don’t see anything improper about credit insurance.

Warren Buffett：

是的。我们卖保险已经很多年了，有时候卖的就是信用保险。你知道，我并不认为——我不认为“卖保险”与“认为某些东西在体系层面可能很危险”之间存在矛盾：如果一种东西在杠杆的制造、以及合同规模的扩张上被推到极端，它当然可能在系统层面变得危险；但我并不觉得“信用保险”本身有什么不妥。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Banks are doing that for decades with letters of credit and that sort of thing.

Warren Buffett：

银行几十年来一直都在做类似的事，比如信用证（letters of credit）之类的工具。

INTERVIEWER:

And in terms of though your concern with derivatives, is it a question of the type of product or is it a question of the use or both?

采访者：

那么就您对衍生品的担忧而言，问题在于“产品类型”本身，还是在于“使用方式”，还是两者都有？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s a question of being, it’s the ability to inject enormous amounts of leverage into a system where leverage is dangerous. And without people fully appreciating the amount of leverage and as a handmaiden of leverage, a risk of counterparties running up huge amounts of receivables and payables. And one of the reasons stock markets work well is that you’ve got a three day settlement period. But if you have a one year settlement period–in fact, I think over in Kuwait they did some years ago, and they had a total debacle–you would have far more problems. Well, derivatives and bonds are very, very long settlement period and things can happen between when you write a contract and if you have a settlement period, there was one at Gen Re that was 100 years, very hard to predict the behavior of somebody else 100 years from now. (laughs) And derivatives present big problems. Now, if there’s only a small amount in use it doesn’t make that much difference to the system. But if they become more and more pervasive, more and more imaginative and less, and in effect very little attention being paid to them which is why I sounded a warning. I don’t think they’re evil per se, it’s just, they, I mean there’s nothing wrong with having a futures contract or something of the sort but they do let people engage in massive mischief. And the thing I found really extraordinary– and Tracy, you might give them that letter– I mean I wrote this letter in 1982, about the date–the, here, you’ve got a Commission that’s doing what before I did, you know, many years ago. And when we had those hearings after ’29 we decided leverage was dangerous for people and it could cause systemic problems when used in the stock market. And we had the Federal Reserve power to determine margin requirements. We said that was important and that if people got over leveraged in the stocks they could cause a problem not only for themselves but for others if it was done on a wide scale. And then we came along in 1982 and we in a sense opened up leverage to anybody in extreme measures and since that time, 28 years since then, I and perhaps others, but I know I pointed out at least 20 times the, really nonsense of saying somebody at the Federal Reserves telling people they can only borrow 50% against stocks or whatever the margin requirements have been at various times. And then at the same time telling them that you can go gamble, you know, in S&P futures or something, the 2% or 3% margin or whatever it might be and to this day, and I’ve talked to Congress about it and to this day we sit there with a system where the Federal Reserve is telling you how much you can borrow against stocks and we’ve got this parallel system where people can gamble anything they want virtually in terms of the most obvious one being the S&P futures. And I’ve seen no attempt by anybody to address that total contradiction. Might be a suggestion for your Commission.

Warren Buffett：

问题在于——它（衍生品）让人能够把巨量杠杆注入一个“杠杆本身就危险”的系统。而且人们并没有充分意识到这个杠杆到底有多大。与此同时，杠杆的“侍女”（handmaiden）就是交易对手风险：对手方可能滚出巨额的应收与应付（receivables and payables）。股票市场之所以运转得相对好，其中一个原因是：结算周期只有三天。但如果你的结算周期是一年——事实上我记得 Kuwait（科威特）多年前就发生过类似情况，结果彻底崩盘（a total debacle）——你会遇到多得多的问题。而衍生品和债券的结算周期往往非常非常长。在你签订合同到最终结算之间，会发生很多事情。甚至在 Gen Re（通用再保险）有一笔合约的结算周期长达 100 年——你很难预测 100 年后另一个人的行为会是什么样（笑）。这使得衍生品带来很大的问题。当然，如果衍生品的使用规模很小，对整个系统影响也没那么大。但当它们越来越普遍、越来越“花样翻新”、与此同时人们又几乎不去关注它们——本质上对它们投入的注意力极少——这就是我为什么要发出警告。我并不认为它们本身就是邪恶的（evil per se）。比如期货合约本身没什么错。但它确实让人们能够进行大规模的“捣乱/作恶”（massive mischief）。还有一件让我觉得非常离谱的事——Tracy，你可以把那封信给他们——我是 1982 年写的这封信，差不多就是那个时候——你们现在这个委员会做的事情，其实我很多年前就做过类似的思考。1929 年之后我们开过听证会，我们当时就认定：杠杆对人是危险的；当它被用于股票市场，并且规模足够大时，会带来系统性问题。因此我们赋予 Federal Reserve（美联储）决定保证金要求（margin requirements）的权力。我们认为这很重要：如果人们在股票上加了过多杠杆，不仅会害了自己，还会在大范围上害到别人。可到了 1982 年，我们某种意义上把“极端杠杆”向任何人开放了。此后 28 年里——我也许还有别人——但我知道我至少讲过 20 次：这件事荒谬透顶。荒谬之处在于：一边是 Federal Reserve 的人告诉你，你买股票最多只能借到 50%（或不同时期的其他保证金比例）；另一边他们又告诉你，你完全可以去“赌博”——比如在 S&P futures（标普指数期货）里，用 2% 或 3% 的保证金（或类似比例）去下注。直到今天——我也和国会谈过这件事——我们仍然处在这样一个体系里：美联储规定你买股票能借多少，而同时存在一个并行系统，人们几乎可以想怎么赌就怎么赌，其中最明显的例子就是标普期货。我从没看到任何人试图去解决这种彻头彻尾的自相矛盾。也许这可以作为你们委员会的一条建议。

INTERVIEWER:

On that vein we’ve been charged with talking about excess risk and excess speculation and I know you’ve

commented on what you view as speculation in one of your letters. But we’ve had some internal conversations within the Commission itself about the use of the term speculation whether it’s a–

采访者：

沿着这个方向，我们被要求讨论“过度风险”（excess risk）和“过度投机”（excess speculation）。我知道您在某封信里也谈过您认为什么是投机。不过，我们在委员会内部也讨论过“speculation（投机）”这个词到底该怎么用、它是否——

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s an interesting–defining investment, speculation and gambling is an interesting question.

Warren Buffett：

这很有意思——给“投资（investment）”“投机（speculation）”“赌博（gambling）”下定义，本身就是个很有意思的问题。

INTERVIEWER:

I’d be interested in, you know, what you think speculation is as opposed to investing which you’ve written about and also what you think excess speculation or excess risk is in that context.

采访者：

我很想听听您的看法：您认为“投机”与您写过的“投资”有什么不同？以及在这个语境下，您认为“过度投机”或“过度风险”又是什么意思？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s a tricky definition, you know, it’s like pornography (laughs) the famous quote and all that, but I look at it in terms of the intent of the person engaging in the transaction. And an investment operation and that’s not the way Graham defines it in his book, but an investment operation in my view is one where you look to the asset itself to determine your decision to lay out some money now to get some more money back later on.

So you look to the apartment house, you look to the stock, you look to the farm in terms of what that will produce. And you don’t really care whether there’s a quote under it all. You are basically committing some funds now to get more funds later on through the operation of the asset. Speculation, I would define, as much more focused on the price action of the stock, particularly that you buy or the indexed future or something of the sort. Because you are not really, you are counting on, for whatever factors, could be quarterly earnings, could be up or it’s going to split or whatever it may be or increase the dividend, but you are not looking to the asset itself. And I say the real test of how you, what you’re doing is whether you care whether the markets are open.

When I buy a stock, I don’t care whether they close the stock market tomorrow for a couple of years because I’m looking to the business, Coca-Cola or whatever it may be to produce returns for me in the future from the business. Now if I care whether the stock market is open tomorrow then I say to some extent I’m speculating because I’m thinking about whether the price is going to up tomorrow or not. I don’t know where the price is going to go.

当我买一只股票时，我不在乎明天股市是不是关上两年——因为我看的是这门生意本身（比如 Coca-Cola 之类）未来能从经营中给我带来回报。但如果我很在乎股市明天开不开门，那我就会说：在某种程度上我是在投机，因为我在想明天价格会上还是会下。我不知道价格会怎么走。

And then gambling I would define as engaging in a transaction which doesn’t need to be part of the system. I mean, if I want to bet on a football game, you know, the football game’s operation is not dependent on whether I bet or not. Now, if I want to bet on October wheat or something of the sort people have to raise wheat and when they plant it they don’t know what the price is going be later on. So you need activity on the other side of that and who may be speculating on it but it is not an artificial transaction that has no necessity for existing in an economic framework. And the gambling propensity with people is huge. I mean, you took a, you know, some terrible sand out in the west about 100 years ago and you created, you know, huge industry with people flying thousands of miles to do things which are mathematically unintelligent, you know. Now that is, shows something in mankind that has a strong, strong behavioral, has a strong behavioral aspect to it and think how much easier it is, you know, to sit there in front of a computer and have the same amount of fun without, you know, getting on a plane and going a 1,000 miles and having to make reservations and do all that sort of thing. So with this propensity to gamble encouraged incidentally by the state with lotteries, you know, with terrible odds attached to them, people don’t have to be trained to want to gamble in this country but they, they have this instinct, a great many people. They’re encouraged when they see some successes around, that’s why the bells and whistles go off in the casino when somebody hits a jackpot, you know. So, you know, you have all these things pushing to that including governmental urging to buy lottery tickets and all that sort of thing. And now you’ve got a vehicle like, you know, S&P futures or something where you can go in and out and where Congress has granted particularly favorable tax treatment to you if you win. I mean, you can be in for ten seconds and have 60% long term gain which I regard as, you know, extraordinary. But it exists.

至于“赌博”（gambling），我会把它定义为：参与一种“并不需要成为经济系统一部分”的交易。比如我想赌一场足球赛，足球赛会不会进行并不取决于我赌不赌。但如果我想赌 10 月小麦（October wheat）之类，那就不一样：小麦必须有人种，种下去时他们并不知道后来价格会是多少，所以市场需要另一边有人参与，可能有人在投机，但它并不是那种“完全人为制造、在经济框架中毫无必要存在”的交易。人的赌博倾向是非常强的。你想想，大约 100 年前，有人把西部一片糟糕的沙地（指拉斯维加斯一带）搞成了一个巨大的产业，人们飞几千英里去做一些“数学上并不明智”的事情。那说明人类行为里有一种非常强、非常强的倾向。再想想，现在坐在电脑前就能获得同样的乐趣，而不用坐飞机飞 1,000 英里、订酒店、搞各种安排——这不是更容易了吗？而且这种赌博倾向还会被“国家”通过彩票（lotteries）等方式所鼓励——尽管彩票赔率非常糟糕。在这个国家，人们根本不需要被训练才想赌博，很多人天生就有这种本能。看到身边有人“成功”就更容易被刺激——赌场里有人中了大奖，铃铛和灯光响个不停，就是为了刺激这种心理。于是各种力量都在推着它走，包括政府鼓励你去买彩票吗之类。现在你又有了像 S&P futures（标普期货）这样的工具，你可以随意进出；而且国会还给了你如果赢了就享有特别有利的税收待遇。我的意思是，你哪怕只持有十秒钟，也可以把其中 60% 视为长期资本利得（long term gain）——我认为这简直不可思议，但它就是存在。

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s all I know about gambling, actually speculation (laughs) but I do know it when I see it.

Warren Buffett：

我对赌博了解就这么多了——其实说的是投机（笑）——但我看到它时，我确实能认出来。

INTERVIEWER:

My last question before I turn things over is, you’ve mentioned management and people have observed that there has been failures of management at Wall Street banks. Similarly people have described there to be failures of regulators during this crisis.

采访者：

在我把话题交给下一位之前，我最后一个问题是：您提到了管理层。很多人认为华尔街银行在这次危机中存在管理层失误。同样也有人认为监管者在这次危机中失职。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Failures of the media, failures of, you know, Congress failures, you know. Commentators, you know.

Warren Buffett：

媒体也失职，国会也失职，还有……评论员也失职，你知道。

INTERVIEWER:

How did management fail and what do you view as the essential failures in management of the Wall Street firms and similarly what would you view as the failures of the regulators leading up to and during the crisis?

采访者：

华尔街公司的管理层具体是怎么失败的？您认为他们管理上的关键失误是什么？同样地，在危机发生之前以及危机期间，监管者的失职主要体现在哪里？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, they didn’t anticipate, you know, how extraordinary a bubble could be created, you know. And very difficult to fault them because so few people have a difficult time doing that when a crowd is rushing in one direction knowing the other direction is very hard. And usually the people that do that become discredited by the price action, you know. If you were a Cassandra in 2005 or 2006 and houses kept going up, you know, after a while people quit listening and it [unintelligible] because they’re nuts anyway, you know, anything that’s going on so you, you have a fringe element to Cassandras too. Conceivably, you know, if the President of the United States, you know, or the Chairman of the Fed or somebody made a strong statement, Greenspan made a strong statement I remember in 1996 you know about irrational consumers, you know, that didn’t stop the stock market. When people think there’s easy money available they’re not inclined to change. Particularly if somebody said a month or two ago watch out for this easy money and then their neighbors made some more money in the ensuing month or two, it’s just, it’s overwhelming. And we’ve seen it.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，他们并没有预料到——你知道——竟然能制造出如此“非同寻常”的泡沫。也很难去苛责他们，因为在这种情况下，很少有人能够做到：当人群正朝一个方向蜂拥而去时，还能明知“另一个方向才对”，并且愿意逆着走。通常，敢这么做的人，反而会被价格走势“打脸”而失去信誉——你知道。如果你在 2005 或 2006 年扮演 Cassandra（卡珊德拉，预言灾难却无人相信的人），但房价却继续上涨，那么过了一阵子人们就不听了；而且（中间有一句听不清），人们还会觉得“这些预言者本来就疯疯癫癫”，所以 Cassandra 阵营里也常常夹杂着一些边缘人物。

理论上，如果美国总统、或者美联储主席之类的人发出强烈警告，或许会有点影响。Greenspan 不是在 1996 年就发表过很强烈的讲话、提到“irrational consumers”（大概指非理性繁荣/非理性行为）吗？但那并没有阻止股市上涨。当人们觉得“有轻松赚来的钱”（easy money）时，他们不会愿意改变。尤其是：如果某人在一两个月前提醒你“小心这种 easy money”，可接下来一两个月里，你邻居又赚了更多钱——那种诱惑和压力是压倒性的。我们都见过这种情况。

INTERVIEWER:

And the failures of regulators? Were there any?

采访者：

那监管者的失职呢？有没有？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, oh, I mean they are failures of everybody in one sense. But the biggest failure is that were unable to act contrary to the way humans act in these situations. I mean, it would have, you can say regulators should have been out there screaming about the fact you people are doing foolish things and sure, regulators could have stopped it. If a regulator said, or Congress could have stopped–Freddie and Fannie, if Freddie and Fannie had said, you know, we will only accept mortgages with 30% down payments, verified income and the payments can’t be more than 30% of your income, you know, that would have stopped it. But who, you know, who could do that.

Warren Buffett：

嗯——从某种意义上说，几乎所有人都失职了。但最大的失败在于：他们没法做出与“人类在这种情境下的天然行为方式”相反的举动。

当然你也可以说：监管者本该站出来大喊——“你们这些人正在做蠢事！”——是的，监管者确实有可能阻止它。如果监管者（或国会）真要阻止——比如针对 Freddie 和 Fannie——如果 Freddie 和 Fannie 当时宣布：“我们只接受首付 30% 的按揭；收入必须核实；月供不得超过收入的 30%。”——那确实会把泡沫掐灭。可问题是——你知道——谁能做到这一点？

INTERVIEWER:

Do you think if Fannie–

采访者：

您认为如果 Fannie——

WARREN BUFFETT:

In fact, if I think you recommend that (laughs), of course for future mortgage actions you better get an unlisted phone number.

Warren Buffett：

事实上，如果你们真打算建议这种做法（笑），那为了以后还能正常开展住房按揭业务，你最好赶紧弄一个不公开的电话号码。

INTERVIEWER:

(laughs) Do you think if Fannie had tighter standards and tighter controls that we could have averted a financial crisis?

采访者：

（笑）您认为如果 Fannie 采用更严格的标准和更严格的控制，我们是否就能避免金融危机？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, Freddie and Fannie were in a position–whether they were practically in that position, whether Congress, you know, would have tolerated them coming out with really much stricter standards, I don’t think it probably could have happened. I’m not sure they wanted it to happen either. I mean, they were enjoying the party too. And they didn’t think the party was going to end like this. I mean, it wasn’t like somebody was thinking this is going to end in a paralysis of the American economy, you know. They just, they started believing what other people believed. It’s very tough to fight that. We will have other bubbles in the future, I mean, there’s no question about that. I don’t think the President of the United States, you know, could have stopped it by rhetoric. And I think if any President of the United States had said, you know, I’m campaigning on a program of 30% down payments, verified income and not more than 30, you know, they might not have impeached him but they sure as hell wouldn’t have re-elected him. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

嗯，Freddie 和 Fannie 的确处在某种“位置”上——但他们在现实中是否真能这样做？国会是否会容忍他们推出真正严格得多的标准？我觉得这恐怕不可能发生。我也不确定他们自己是否愿意让它发生。我的意思是，他们也在享受这场派对。他们并不认为派对会以这样的方式结束。并不是说当时有人真的在想：这会以“美国经济的瘫痪”（paralysis）收场。他们只是开始相信别人相信的东西。要对抗这种群体信念非常难。未来我们还会有别的泡沫——这一点毫无疑问。我不认为美国总统仅靠讲话（rhetoric）就能阻止它。并且我认为，如果任何一位美国总统公开说：“我竞选的纲领就是首付 30%、收入核实、月供不超过收入的 30%……”你知道，他们也许不会弹劾他，但他们肯定不会再选他连任（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

Thanks. I’m going to primarily ask you about derivatives generally but I want to ask you about a couple of things different first. In your most recent shareholder letter you talked about how Berkshire Hathaway–

采访者：

谢谢。我接下来主要想问您关于衍生品（derivatives）的一般问题，但我想先问两件不同的事。在您最近一期致股东信中，您谈到了 Berkshire Hathaway——

INTERVIEWER:

That Berkshire Hathaway would never become dependent on the kindness of strangers.

采访者：

您说 Berkshire Hathaway 永远不会依赖“陌生人的善意”（the kindness of strangers）。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Absolutely.

Warren Buffett：

完全正确。

INTERVIEWER:

And too big to fail was not a fallback position and that the company would always have sufficient cash apparently in the magnitude of $20 billion these days so that would not be a problem. Generally when you look at the issue of too big to fail, is it just a liquidity issue? Do you have enough cash? No one’s too big to fail because the issue will never come up?

采访者：

您还说 “too big to fail（大而不倒）”不是公司的后备选项；公司会一直保持充足现金储备——看起来如今大约是 200 亿美元量级——因此不会成为问题。总体上，当您看待“大而不倒”这个议题时，它只是流动性问题吗？只要有足够现金，就不会出现“大而不倒”的问题，因为那个情形根本不会发生？

WARREN BUFFETT:

You’ll have the institutions too big to fail. We still have them now, I mean, we’ll have them after. Your Commission reports, certainly I mean Freddie and Fannie we’ve totally acknowledged we got–and incidentally are too big to fail. I’m not quarrelling with the policy on it and they aren’t too big to wipe out the shareholders though, I mean. So it isn’t, you know, society has done the right thing with Freddie and Fannie in my view. They’ve wiped out the shareholders, nobody’s got any illusion that the government is protecting them as an equity holder. They do have the belief that they will be protected as debt holders but we were sending that message well before the bubble. I mean, you know, Congress would say technically we aren’t backing them and they’ve only got this two and quarter million or whatever it was line of. But Freddie and Fannie paper was held all over the world and, you know, in a world where the other guy’s got nuclear bombs (laughs) you’re sort of implying to them that the government was standing behind this. I don’t think you would have wanted to default on Freddie and Fannie, so I think we’ve done the right thing. But there will be institutions that are too big to fail but they’re not too big to wipe out the shareholders–and I would argue that they’re not too big to, I think there should be different incentives with institutions like that with the top, the top management. They’re not too big to send away to the CEO that caused the problem, away without a dime.

Warren Buffett：

你一定会有“大而不倒”的机构。我们现在仍然有；你们委员会报告出来之后，我们也仍然会有。毫无疑问——比如 Freddie 和 Fannie，我们已经完全承认它们（并且顺带一提）就是“大而不倒”。我并不反对这种政策。但它们并没有“大到不能把股东清零”的程度。所以在我看来，社会在处理 Freddie 和 Fannie 上做对了：股东被清零了，没有任何人还会幻想政府是在“保护他们作为股权持有人”的利益。当然，大家确实相信政府会保护他们作为债权人（debt holders），但早在泡沫之前我们就一直在传递这个信号。国会会说“从技术上讲我们并不为它们背书”，它们只有所谓 225 万（我不记得具体是什么额度）的授信额度之类的说法。但 Freddie 和 Fannie 的债券在全世界到处都有人持有；而且在一个“对方手里有核弹”的世界里（笑），你其实是在向外界暗示：政府站在它们背后。我不认为你会希望 Freddie 和 Fannie 违约，所以我觉得我们做对了。但未来仍然会有“大而不倒”的机构——只是它们并没有大到“不能把股东清零”的程度。我还要说：这类机构的最高管理层，激励机制应该不一样。它们也没大到“不能把造成问题的 CEO 送走，而且一分钱都不给”的程度。

INTERVIEWER:

And I understand that is, I’m just asking if, your opinion, is the answer to the too big to fail problem make them hold more cash?

采访者：

我明白您的意思。我只是想问：在您看来，“大而不倒”问题的解决方案是不是让它们持有更多现金？

WARREN BUFFETT:

The answer, and it isn’t a perfect answer, you will always institutions too big to fail and sometimes they will fail in the next 100 years. But you will have fewer failures if the person on top and the Board of Directors who select that person and who set the terms of his or her employment if they have a lot to lose. And in this particular incident the shareholders have got probably it’s well over half a trillion, maybe approaching a trillion, they’ve suffered the losses, society has suffered the losses from all the disruption in the second place. Directors and CEOs, CEOs, you know they only have 80% of what they had before, but they’re all wealthy beyond the dream of most Americans. The Directors, you know, have collected their $200,000 or $300,000 a year and they’re protected by insurance. And so the people that are in a position to make decisions day by day as to trading off the safety of the institution vs. the chance for improving quarterly earnings or something of the sort, you need different incentives in my view. And so far nothing’s been done on that.

Warren Buffett：

答案是——而且这也不是一个完美答案——你永远会有“大而不倒”的机构，有时候它们在未来一百年里也仍然可能失败。但如果“坐在最上面的人”、以及挑选此人并设定其雇佣条款的董事会，真的有“很多东西会输掉”，那么失败的次数会更少。在这次事件里，股东承受的损失大概远远超过 5,000 亿美元，甚至可能接近 1 万亿美元；社会也因为各种冲击与紊乱而付出了代价。可董事和 CEO 呢？CEO 们也许只有以前财富的 80% 了，但他们仍然富得超出大多数美国人的想象。董事们每年照样拿着 20 万到 30 万美元的董事费，而且还有保险保护。所以，那些每天在做权衡的人——他们在“机构安全”与“提升季度盈利的机会”等等之间做交易——在我看来需要不一样的激励机制。但到目前为止，这方面什么都还没做。

INTERVIEWER:

So let me ask you because another area we look at is a potential contributing cost of financial crisis are compensation structures and incentive structures within firms. And you have seen a lot of firms, you know, come out since the crisis and say, oh well, now we’re doing things differently. Now we pay more of our executives in stock. Now the stock or cash bonuses are subject to claw back provisions and vesting periods or whatever. Do you have any thoughts on, you know, how you do make them have accountability for when things go wrong?

采访者：

那我想问您一个问题，因为我们调查的另一个可能导致金融危机的因素，是企业内部的薪酬结构与激励结构。危机之后，您也看到很多公司出来说：“我们现在做得不一样了。我们给高管更多股票；股票或现金奖金要受追索条款（claw back）、归属期（vesting periods）等约束。”您对“如何让他们在事情搞砸时真正承担责任”有什么看法？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, all of that is good. I mean, that’s better than what existed before. But I think it has to be far more Draconian than that, to really change behavior big time. And the difference is between a guy making $100 million and $50 million, you know, that, I don’t think, or clawing back $25 million of it, sure, you know, it registers but it doesn’t, I don’t think it changes behavior that much compared to at least what I would have in mind.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，这些当然都是好事——至少比以前强。但我认为，如果要真正大幅改变行为，它必须比这“严厉得多”（far more Draconian）。一个人赚 1 亿美元和赚 5,000 万美元之间的差别——或者从 1 亿里追回 2,500 万——当然会让他“感觉到”，但在我看来，这种力度还不足以像我设想的那样，真正显著地改变行为。

INTERVIEWER:

Do you and the next I was going to ask you, what are the more Draconian–

采访者：

那我接下来就想问您：更“严厉”的措施会是什么——

WARREN BUFFETT:

I think it’s enormously important when you get very big financial institutions and maybe in other cases too, well, we’re in a building run by the Keywood Company. It’s the most successful construction company in the world and it has been for decades. Nobody’s ever heard of it but it’s huge and it’s got a set of management principles and basically it started with Pete Keywood saying that arranging a compensation system so that the company got in trouble not only he went broke but all the people that got him in trouble went broke. And you, when you have the ability to do things with government guaranteed money as the banks or something, or Freddie and Fannie whatever it may be, you need a person at the top who has all of the downside that somebody has that loses their job, you know, working in an auto factory or something of the sort. And that will change behavior. Now, you can argue it may make them too cautious, I mean that, so you want some upside for them, too, I mean, you want them to balance somehow their interest in a way that society might balance its interest. And as part of that with the CEO I think you need important but far less Draconian arrangements in terms of Directors. Because they can’t evaluate risk in a large institution or have risk committees telling them what’s going on. But they can set the terms of employment for the CEO in a way that will make him terribly risk conscious and if they don’t do that, if they haven’t done it effectively, I think there should be significant downside to them. I’ve suggested to them that maybe they give back five times the highest compensation they received in the previous five years or something. It has to be meaningful but it can’t be so Draconian that you don’t get Directors. You’ll get CEOs, you don’t have to worry about that, if you’ve got a lot of upside for CEOs you can give them the downside of, you know, sack cloth and ashes and you’ll still get CEOs that–

Warren Buffett：

我认为，当你面对非常大型的金融机构——当然别的行业有时也一样——这种问题就变得极其重要。比如我们现在所在的这栋楼，是 Keywood Company 运营的。它是世界上最成功的建筑公司，几十年来一直如此。几乎没人听过它，但它规模巨大，而且有一套管理原则。它基本上始于 Pete Keywood 的一个理念：设计一套薪酬体系，使得一旦公司陷入麻烦，不仅他本人会破产，所有把他拖进麻烦的人也会破产。当你像银行、或者 Freddie 和 Fannie 这类机构那样，能够用“带政府担保的钱”去做事情时，你就需要一个站在最顶层的人，让他承担“全部下行风险”——就像一个在汽车工厂上班的人丢了工作那种下行风险一样。那才会改变行为。当然，你可以说这可能会让他们过度谨慎——所以你也要给他们一些上行空间（upside），让他们在某种程度上平衡自身利益，就像社会需要平衡自身利益那样。而在 CEO 之外，我认为对董事（Directors）的安排也需要更重要的约束，但不必像对 CEO 那样极端严厉。因为董事无法在一家大型机构里真正评估风险——哪怕有风险委员会给他们汇报。但他们能做的一件事是：设定 CEO 的雇佣条款，让 CEO 在风险上变得“非常敏感”。如果他们没这么做、或者没做有效，我认为他们也应该承担相当明显的下行后果。我曾建议：也许可以让他们退还过去五年里拿到的“最高年薪酬的五倍”之类。必须足够有分量（meaningful），但又不能严厉到根本没人愿意当董事。CEO 你不用担心招不到——只要你给 CEO 足够的上行激励，你就算让他们承担“披麻戴灰”（sack cloth and ashes）那样的下行惩罚，你还是会招到 CEO——

INTERVIEWER:

The downside of course is just zero because they file bankruptcy and that’s it. I had a question for you though related to that, in the 50 years plus that you’ve been investing have you seen changes in compensation approaches, policies, attitudes with respect to senior management at these various–

采访者：

当然，下行风险最终可能就是零——他们申请破产就完了。不过我有个相关问题：在您 50 多年的投资生涯里，您是否看到过关于这些大型机构高管薪酬方式、政策、以及态度方面的变化——

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, it’s gradually, maybe not, yeah, it’s changed over the years and you’ve seen it just in the relationship of top management compensation to the average employee. So it has gotten considerably more generous– if you want to use that term - from 50 years ago. There used to be a few outstanding–Bethlehem Steel was famous for paying a lot of money and you go way, way back and all that, but in general it wasn’t expected. And there’s some ironic aspects to that because in a sense the SEC has required more exposure in pay packages and everything like that so you’ve got this envy factor, I mean, you know, the same thing that happens in baseball. I mean, if you bat .320 you expect to get more than .310 and nobody knows in business whether you’re batting .320 or not so everybody says they’re a .320 hitter. And the Board of Directors has to say, well, we’ve got a .320 hitter because they couldn’t be responsible for picking a guy that bats .250. So you have this racheting effect which I’ve talked about a lot of times. And the more information that’s published about compensation in a way, the worse it’s gotten in terms of what people do. Because they look at the other guy and he’s got personal use of the plane or whatever it may be (laughs) and that gets built into the next contract. So, it’s changed over the years and the downside is not parallel, the upside in terms of innovation.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，它是逐渐变化的——也许不是……但对，是这些年来确实变了。你只要看一个指标就能看到：高层管理者薪酬相对于普通员工薪酬的关系。跟 50 年前相比，它变得“慷慨得多”——如果你愿意用这个词的话。过去确实有少数例外——比如 Bethlehem Steel 以高薪出名，你再往更早追溯也有类似案例——但总体来说，那并不是一种“理所当然的预期”。这里还有一些讽刺之处：某种意义上，SEC 要求薪酬方案更透明、披露更多，于是就出现了“嫉妒效应”（envy factor）。这跟棒球很像：如果你打击率 .320，你就觉得自己应该比 .310 的人拿得更多。可在商业里，没人知道你到底是不是 .320 的打者，于是人人都说自己是 .320。董事会也必须说：“我们选的是个 .320 的打者”，因为他们不可能承担“选了个 .250 的打者”的责任。所以就出现了我讲过很多次的“棘轮效应”（ratcheting effect）：薪酬只会一格一格往上拧。并且某种意义上，披露得越多，结果越糟——因为大家会盯着别人：他有私人使用公司飞机之类的福利（笑），于是这些东西就被写进下一份合同里。所以这些年确实变了，但“下行约束”并没有与“上行激励”同步；在“创新带来的上行收益”方面也并不平行。

INTERVIEWER:

Well, let me ask you other than looking at perhaps more Draconian measures for money and compensation that is received, do you have any opinions on just the amounts that are paid in whatever form in the first place. And for example, one of things we see, and frankly I saw this before I came to the FCIC is you always read in a proxy statement that all these companies go out and hire somebody to do a survey and see, you know, to come up with executive compensation and they’re looking at a bunch of companies that pay their executives a lot of money. And they say, okay, you should get a whole lot of money too.

采访者：

那我想问：除了更严厉地追究已拿到手的薪酬之外，您对“一开始就付出这么多钱”的薪酬水平本身有什么看法吗？比如我们看到的一件事——坦白讲，在我加入 FCIC 之前我就注意到了——就是你总能在委托书（proxy statement）里读到：公司会花钱请人做薪酬调查，用来制定高管薪酬；而他们参考的往往是一堆“本来就给高管发很多钱”的公司。然后他们得出结论说：好吧，那你也应该拿很多钱。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Ratchet, ratchet, ratchet, that’s the name of the comp board.

Warren Buffett：

棘轮、棘轮、棘轮——这就是薪酬委员会的名字。

INTERVIEWER:

I mean, is, do you have any opinions on just the level of executive compensation?

采访者：

我的意思是：您对高管薪酬的总体水平有什么看法吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, it’s perfectly understandable, I mean, you’ve got a CEO that cares enormously about his compensation. You’ve got a compensation committee that meets, you know, for a few hours maybe every meeting. You’ve got a human relations vice president who is working for the CEO that probably suggests a compensation consultant. But a compensation consultant who is Draconian is not going to get hired, generally around, or even too innovative on the downside, there’s just–so it is, you know, it’s the agency problem that the economist would call it. But it’s very, it’s very hard, over time–and then you’ve got this comparison factor which embodies all the other things I just mentioned and then they get into the system and people say, well, we didn’t hire a guy in the bottom quartile to be our CEO so we’re not going to compare to the bottom quartile, we’re not getting compared to the next to bottom quartile. So it just ratchets up and we’ve seen it. And I am the comp committee for 70-some companies which Berkshire owns. It’s not rocket science. And we pay a lot of money to some of our CEOs but it’s all performance. When they make a lot of money it’s performance related. And we have different arrangements for different people. But we’ve never hired a compensation consultant, ever. And we never will. I mean, if I don’t know enough to figure out the compensation for these people, you know, somebody else should be in my job. And the test is how do they perform and do they leave for other places and, you know, we’ve got the record on that. The problem, you know, I’m in a position of control, I am the stockholder of these subsidiary companies and when you get people in between who are getting paid, you know, 200,000to 300,000 a year being on a Board which is important to some of them and where they’re hoping that they get put on some other Board so they’ve got another $200,000-$300,000 a year, they are not exactly going to be doberman pinschers, you know, in policing things.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，这完全可以理解。你想：CEO 对自己的薪酬极其在意；而薪酬委员会每次开会可能就开几个小时；人力资源副总裁又是在 CEO 手下工作的人，他很可能会建议请一个薪酬顾问。但一个“过于严厉”（Draconian）的薪酬顾问一般是不会被雇的；就算不是严厉，只要在“下行约束”上过于有创新，通常也雇不上——所以事情就会变成这样。经济学家会把这叫做“代理问题”（agency problem）。长期看，这非常难解决。再加上比较因素——也就是我刚才提到的那些东西都被揉进“对标体系”里——人们会说：“我们请的 CEO 又不是底部四分位（bottom quartile）的人，所以我们不会拿底部四分位当对标；也不会跟倒数第二个四分位对标。”于是薪酬就只能一路棘轮式上拧，我们已经看到了这种结果。

而我本人就是 Berkshire 旗下七十多家公司的薪酬委员会——这根本不是什么火箭科学。我们确实给某些 CEO 付很多钱，但全部是绩效驱动（performance）。他们赚很多钱，是因为绩效真的好。我们对不同的人也有不同的安排。但我们从来没有雇过薪酬顾问——从来没有，将来也不会。我的意思是：如果我连这些人的薪酬该怎么定都不知道，那我的位置就该换别人来坐。检验标准很简单：他们表现如何？他们会不会跳槽去别处？我们在这方面有长期记录。问题在于：我处在控制位置——我是这些子公司真正的股东；而当中间隔着一群人——他们当董事每年拿 20 万到 30 万美元，对一些人来说董事身份本身就很重要，而且他们还希望被安排进更多董事会，再多拿一个 20 万到 30 万美元——那他们在“监督与纠偏”上，就不太可能像“杜宾犬”（doberman pinschers）那样凶狠地去咬人、去看门。

INTERVIEWER:

In terms of, we’ve seen Bear fail, Lehman fail, Merrill essentially fail and get acquired by BofA and Morgan Stanley and Goldman both received

government assistance and Goldman received the benefit of your investment too. All of those investment banking franchises, I believe the compensation structure was essentially minimum 45% of net revenues was getting paid out in comp, some years even higher. Any opinion on that structure?

采访者：

就结果而言，我们看到 Bear 倒了、Lehman 倒了、Merrill 实质上也倒了并被 BofA 收购；Morgan Stanley 和 Goldman 都获得了政府援助，而 Goldman 也受益于您对它的投资。在这些投行体系里，我理解它们的薪酬结构基本上是：至少把净收入（net revenues）的 45% 用来发薪酬，有些年份甚至更高。您对这种结构有什么看法？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I can tell you it’s very hard to change. I was at Solomon (laughs) and it, the nature of Wall Street is that overall it makes a lot of money relative to the number of people involved, relative to the IQ of the people involved and relative to the energy expended. They work hard, they’re bright, but they aren’t, they don’t work that much harder or that much brighter than somebody that, you know, is building a dam someplace, you know, or a whole lot of other jobs. But in a market system it pays off very, very big, you know. And it, in effect, you know, boxing pays off very big now compared to what it did when the only auditorium we had was 25,000 seats at Madison Square Garden and now you’ve cable television so you can put a couple of, you know, lightweights who you’ll never of again, you know, on pay per view and they’ll get millions for it now. Market systems produce strange results and Wall Street, in general, the capital markets are so big, there’s so much money, taking a small percentage results in a huge amount of money per capita in terms of the people that work in it. And they’re not inclined to give it up.

Warren Buffett：

我可以告诉你，这非常难改变。我在 Solomon（所罗门兄弟）待过（笑）。华尔街的本质在于：总体来说，它赚的钱与参与的人数相比、与参与者的智商相比、与付出的精力相比，都显得非常非常多。他们确实工作很努力，也很聪明，但他们并没有比那些在某个地方修大坝的人、或者做其他很多工作的人，“努力得多多少”或“聪明得多多少”。可在市场体系下，它的回报就是大得惊人。这有点像拳击：过去，当唯一的大场馆还是麦迪逊广场花园那种 25,000 个座位的体育馆时，拳击的回报远没有现在这么大；但现在有了有线电视，你可以把几个你以后再也不会听说的轻量级拳手放到 pay-per-view 上，他们也能赚到几百万。市场体系会产生一些“奇怪的结果”。而华尔街——更广义说资本市场——规模太大、钱太多，你只要从中拿走一个很小的百分比，分摊到从业者的人均上，就是一大笔钱。所以他们并不愿意把它让出来。

INTERVIEWER:

When you see the general compensation structure in terms of percentage payout and the types of structures they have with ever different levels of Draconian claw backs or whatever and the risks that were taken that resulted in failures and bailouts, I mean, do you see in the big, you know, the compensation picture in general as a contributing cause or part of the story of what happened on the street?

采访者：

当您看到这种总体薪酬结构——比如按收入比例支付、以及各种程度不同的严厉追索（claw backs）等安排——再结合他们承担的风险最终导致倒闭与救助，您是否认为：从更宏观的角度看，薪酬体系本身是华尔街发生这一切的“促成因素之一”或故事的一部分？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Comp, most of the comp, you’re talking about individual trader or something, you know, and they have, you know, they call it trader’s option. That they’ve got the upside, they have a good year and they have a bad year, you know. They might not have a good year again next year, they might go to a different firm but they really, their interests are not totally aligned with shareholders. And I would say this, I think most managements of Wall Street firms and I was around Solomon and I know what happens at [unintelligible], they’re trying, they want to align them, I mean, it isn’t, you know, it isn’t like the top management is oblivious to this problem. But I can just tell you, being at Solomon personally, it’s just, it’s a real problem because the fellow can go next door or he can set up a hedge fund or whatever it may be. You don’t, you don’t have a good way of having some guy that produces x dollars of revenues to give him 10% of x because he’ll figure out, he’ll find some other place that will give him 20% of x or whatever it may be. It is a tough managerial problem, but I think the best thing again, if you’re worrying about the Bear Stearnses of the world or anything is to have an arrangement in place that if they ever have to go to the federal government for help that the CEO and his spouse come away with nothing. And I think that can be done. And I think if society is required to step in and, you know, come up with all kinds of things, disrupt, you know, the lives of millions of Americans in various ways, I think there ought to be a lot of downside. And I think that would change behavior more than any, trying to write some terribly complicated thing, you know, that only 38% of us can (laughs). I just don’t know how to write rules otherwise. This would get their attention and I wouldn’t try

to, I wouldn’t know how to get more specific than that.

Warren Buffett：

薪酬——你说的这些薪酬，大多指的是个别交易员之类的人。他们有一种东西——他们管这叫 “trader’s option（交易员的期权）”：他们拥有上行收益。某一年做得好、某一年做得差，你知道。明年他可能就不会再有好年景了，他也可能换一家机构，但他的利益并没有与股东完全对齐。我还要说：我认为华尔街大多数机构的管理层——我在 Solomon 待过，我也知道（某家我没听清的机构）内部会发生什么——他们其实是在努力，他们希望把这些人的利益对齐。并不是说最高管理层对这个问题毫无意识。但我可以告诉你，以我在 Solomon 的亲身经历，这确实是一个很现实的问题：因为那个人可以去隔壁、也可以自己开一个对冲基金之类的。你很难有一种“好办法”——比如某个人创造了 x 的收入，你只给他 x 的 10%，他就会去找另一个愿意给他 x 的 20% 的地方。这是一个非常棘手的管理难题。但我再次认为：如果你担心的是 Bear Stearns 这类机构的命运，最好的办法是设立一条规则：一旦公司将来不得不向联邦政府求助，那么 CEO 以及其配偶必须“净身出户”，一分钱也拿不到。我认为这可以做到。并且如果社会必须介入、做各种安排、以各种方式扰乱数百万美国人的生活，那么我认为就应该有非常重的“下行惩罚”。我认为这比你去写一堆极其复杂、只有 38% 的人看得懂的规则（笑）更能改变行为。除此之外，我也不知道还能怎么写规则了。这会真正引起他们的注意。我也不会试图——我也不知道还能怎么比这更具体。

INTERVIEWER:

Well, then, let me ask you this then. If the CEOs and their spouse–unlucky marriage there–you know, have to give back everything–

采访者：

那我再问您一个问题：如果 CEO 以及他们的配偶——这婚姻可真够倒霉的（笑）——都必须把一切吐出来——

WARREN BUFFETT:

You’d think the spouse would be a better police than the regulator (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

你会觉得，配偶可能比监管者更能当“警察”。（笑）

INTERVIEWER:

You know, that they need to give everything back or be shown the door, if the company needs government assistance, there are CEOs at some firms that got government assistance that are still there including for example Mr. Blankfein that I’ve at least read you said, boy, if they’re going to replace Blankfein I’d like to replace them with his brother.

采访者：

也就是说，如果公司需要政府援助，他们就必须把一切都吐出来，或者被扫地出门。但事实上，有些接受了政府援助的公司，它们的 CEO 仍然留任——比如 Mr. Blankfein。我至少读到过您说过一句话，大意是：“要是他们要换掉 Blankfein，那我倒希望用他的兄弟来替换。”（意指对他评价很高）

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, I don’t think they needed assistance. The system needed assistance then but if, when they had that famous meeting at the treasury on Monday if they hadn’t called on Goldman Sachs and they called on the others, Goldman would have been fine. The system needed to be supported, just, you know, it wasn’t important the precise action. It was that the world had to see that the federal government was going to do whatever it took. And nobody knew whatever it took meant. But they did need to see conviction, action and all of that. And Bernanke and Paulson they could have called on nine different other institutions, these were particularly good names to have there, but had gone through the same mechanism and Goldman Sachs would have been fine, Wells Fargo would have been fine. They didn’t need the money, the system needed the reassurance that the government was going to act.

Warren Buffett：

对。我不认为他们（Goldman）真的需要援助。那时候需要援助的是“系统”本身。假如在那个著名的“周一财政部会议”上，他们没有叫上 Goldman Sachs，而是叫了其他机构，Goldman 也会没事。当时需要的是对系统的支撑。具体采取哪一种措施并不关键；关键在于：全世界必须看到——联邦政府会“不惜一切代价”（do whatever it took）采取行动。没有人知道 “whatever it took” 具体意味着什么，但人们必须看到政府的决心、行动等等。Bernanke 和 Paulson 其实也可以叫上另外九家不同的机构，只是 Goldman 这样的名字放在那儿特别“好看”、特别能起到信心效果；但就算换成别的机构走同样的机制，Goldman 会没事，Wells Fargo 也会没事。他们并不需要那笔钱；系统需要的是政府会出手的“保证/安抚”。

INTERVIEWER:

It’s, we’ve been reported when you made the investment in Goldman in September of ’08 that you were, you know, somewhat betting on the government taking some type of action.

采访者：

有报道称：您在 2008 年 9 月投资 Goldman 时，某种程度上是在押注政府会采取某种行动。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Not in relation to Goldman though, but in the, no, I was betting on the fact the federal government would show the will to the American people that they would, in effect, do whatever it took to re-start the engine.

Warren Buffett：

但那不是针对 Goldman 的。不是。我押注的是：联邦政府会向美国人民展示决心——他们事实上会“不惜一切代价”把发动机重新启动。

INTERVIEWER:

So, I don’t know if you can answer this question because it’s somewhat of a hypothetical but if you knew then that the government was not going to put any money into Goldman would you have still made the investment?

采访者：

所以，我不知道您能不能回答这个问题，因为它有点假设性质：如果您当时就知道政府不会往 Goldman 注入任何资金，您还会做那笔投资吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Oh, yeah, it wouldn’t bother me whether I’m going to put it in Goldman but if I thought the government was not going to reassure the American public through acts, speeches whatever it might be that they were going to do whatever it took to save the system, I would have, you know, got my mattress out. But, Goldman did not need the money, the system needed the reassurance. But Goldman would have been, if they’d ever been called down there they would have been fine. I wouldn’t have put the money in if I thought Goldman needed specific government action. But I also would not have put the money in if I thought the government was going to stand by and watch things unfold.

Warren Buffett：

哦，会的。这并不会影响我把钱投进 Goldman 的决定。但如果我认为政府不会通过行动、讲话或任何方式去安抚美国公众，让他们相信政府会“不惜一切代价”拯救整个系统，那我大概就会把床垫搬出来把钱藏在下面了（笑，指极端保守）。Goldman 并不需要那笔钱；系统需要的是“信心保证”。如果他们真的被叫到财政部去（接受同样安排），Goldman 也会没事。如果我认为 Goldman 需要政府针对它的特定救助，我就不会投钱进去；但如果我认为政府会袖手旁观、看着事情继续恶化，我同样也不会投钱进去。

INTERVIEWER:

Okay. So now let’s actually turn to derivatives, I didn’t think we’d spend that much time–the statute amongst other things tells us to look at the role of derivatives that it played in the financial crisis and we have been talking to “many” experts in the field that, whether they’re academicians or market participants that work with derivatives. And, of course, we’ve read, you know, what you’ve written in the shareholder letters, the weapons of mass destruction, they can lead to excess risk and leverage and there’s counterparty risk. At the same time if they’re managed effectively they can be fine although I think in your shareholder letters you’re primarily talking about credit derivatives there but I may be mistaken.

采访者：

好的。那现在我们正式转到衍生品（derivatives）的话题。我没想到我们会在前面花这么多时间——法律要求我们调查衍生品在金融危机中扮演的角色。我们也采访了很多该领域的专家：不论是学者，还是实际参与衍生品交易的市场人士。当然，我们也读过您在致股东信里写过的东西：所谓“金融大规模杀伤性武器”，它们会导致过度风险与杠杆，并且存在对手方风险（counterparty risk）。与此同时，如果管理得当，它们也可能没问题——尽管我理解您在股东信里主要谈的是信用衍生品（credit derivatives），但也许我理解有误。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, when we buy the Burlington Northern, they’re hedging diesel fuel. Now what I tell them is I wouldn’t do it if I were them but it’s entirely up to them. I mean, diesel fuel’s a big cost for them and they’ve got pass-through costs to some of the people that use the railroad and they don’t have pass-throughs so they’re exposed partly. The only, I tell them if they really don’t want diesel fuel on the market we’ll just close up the railroad and then all trade diesel fuel all day, you know. And if they don’t know it, they’re going to be out the frictional costs over time. The reason many of them do it is that they want, the public companies, they want to smooth earnings. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that but that is the motivation. They’re not going to, they’re going to lose as much on the diesel fuel contracts over time as they make but they can protect themselves just like Coca-Cola does on foreign exchange and they make a big thing of this. I wouldn’t do it, they do, but all kinds, most companies what to do that. Anheuser-Busch was just talking about it in Business Week a few weeks ago how they do it. It’s a common practice. It’s overdone in my view, but it is the response to the fact that the market doesn’t like the fact that diesel fuel could affect the earnings of Burlington or Union Pacific up and down in some quarter when really over time they’re not going to make any, you know, they’re not going to save any money by doing it in my view.

Warren Buffett：

比如我们买下 Burlington Northern（BNSF）之后，他们会对柴油燃料（diesel fuel）做套期保值（hedging）。我跟他们说：如果我是你们，我不会这么做——但这完全由他们决定。柴油对他们来说是一个很大的成本项。有些客户的运费可以“成本转嫁”（pass-through），但也有些不能转嫁，所以他们在一定程度上暴露在柴油价格波动之下。我还开玩笑跟他们说：如果你们真的不想暴露在柴油市场里，那我们就把铁路关掉，然后你们就可以整天去交易柴油（笑）。而且如果他们没有意识到这一点，他们长期下来会被“摩擦成本”（frictional costs）拖累。很多上市公司之所以这么做，是因为他们想让盈利更平滑（smooth earnings）。我并不是说这有什么错，但动机就在这里。长期看，他们在柴油合约上赚到的，会在别的时点以亏损的方式吐回去——总体差不多相抵。但他们可以像 Coca-Cola 在外汇（foreign exchange）上那样“保护自己”，而且他们会把这当成一件很重要的事来讲。我个人不会这么做，但他们会做；而且不只是他们，很多公司、甚至大多数公司都想做这类事。Anheuser-Busch 几周前还在 Business Week 里谈过他们怎么做。这是很常见的做法。我认为它被过度使用了，但它的出现，是市场不喜欢看到“柴油价格让 Burlington 或 Union Pacific 某个季度盈利忽上忽下”这种波动——尽管从长期看，我认为他们这么做并不会省下什么钱。

INTERVIEWER:

And just broadly, whether it’s interest rate, foreign exchange commodity equities or credit derivatives, do you have a view on whether they contributed or caused the financial crisis, what role they played whether it was a cause, a contributing cause, a propagating mechanism or anything?

采访者：

那么更广义地说：不论是利率、外汇、大宗商品、股票，还是信用衍生品，您认为它们在金融危机中扮演了什么角色？它们是否导致了危机，或在某种程度上促成了危机，或成为危机扩散的机制（propagating mechanism）之类？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Anything that increased leverage significantly tends to make, it can’t even create a crisis, but it would tend to accentuate any crisis that occurs. So I think that if Lehman had been less leveraged there would have been less problems in the way of problems. And part of that leverage arose from the use of derivatives. And part of the dislocation that took place afterwards arose from that. And there’s some interesting material if you look at, I don’t exactly what Lehman material I was looking at, but they had a netting arrangement with the Bank of America as I remember and, you know, the day before they went broke and these are very, very, very rough figures from memory, but as I remember the day before they went broke Bank of America was in a minus position of (600 million or something like that they had deposited which I think J.P. Morgan in relation to Lehman and I think that the day they went broke it reversed to a billion and a half in the other direction and those are big numbers. And I think the numbers are, I think I’m right on just order of magnitude. So when things like that exist in the system, you know, that’s under stress for other reasons, it becomes a magnifying factor. How big of one you don’t know. But Lehman would have had less impact on the system if they had not had the derivative book they had. Now they had plenty of bad real estate investments and a whole bunch of other things as well.

Warren Buffett：

任何显著提高杠杆的东西，都倾向于——它未必“创造”一场危机，但会让一旦发生的危机被放大（accentuate）。所以我认为，如果 Lehman 的杠杆更低，那么它引发的麻烦也会更少。而它的部分杠杆，确实来自衍生品的使用；危机之后发生的一部分“错位/扭曲”（dislocation）也由此而来。我记得我看过一些关于 Lehman 的材料（具体是哪份我想不起来了）。按我记忆，他们和 Bank of America 有一个净额结算（netting arrangement）的安排。你知道，在他们破产前一天——下面数字都只是我凭记忆，非常非常粗略——但我记得在破产前一天，Bank of America 处于一个“净负头寸”（minus position），大概是 6 亿美元左右（好像是他们已经存放的金额；同时我还记得 J.P. Morgan 与 Lehman 之间也有类似关联）。而在 Lehman 宣告破产的那一天，这个数字又反向跳到了另一边，大概变成 15 亿美元——这是非常大的数字。我认为这些数值的“数量级”（order of magnitude）大体没错。当系统里存在这种东西，而系统本身又因其他原因承压时，它就会成为一个“放大器”。到底能放大到多大你很难事先知道。但如果 Lehman 当时没有那么庞大的衍生品账本（derivative book），它对系统的冲击肯定会更小。当然，Lehman 还有一堆糟糕的房地产投资以及很多其他问题。

INTERVIEWER:

And when you talk about the leverage and the counterparty risk from derivatives are you talking about certain types or derivatives, you know, there’s the five categories we see. Do you have any opinion on–?

采访者：

当您谈到衍生品带来的杠杆与对手方风险时，您指的是某些特定类型的衍生品吗？我们看到大概有五大类。您对——有什么看法吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately people were not really imaginative about derivatives. I mean it started out with the simple ones, you know, interest rates, swaps and that sort of thing, foreign currency. And then the profit got driven away from those. When I was at Solomon they talked about in the plain vanilla contracts there wasn’t any money in it anymore because they were on the screens and everybody knew–but what they call sometimes the toxic waste, there was a lot of money in and, you know, the more complicated the derivative, well, you remember the situation with Proctor and Gamble thing from the Banker’s Trust and American Greetings and all of that, if you read the nature of those contracts where they had these exploding factors, you know, when you got beyond a certain point, the CFO of a place like Proctor and Gamble or American Greetings was probably not understanding those things very well. And there’s just more money in contracts that people don’t understand. And so they get this proliferation of these things and who knows what’s in the mind of the end user of the things that, you know, they’re protecting themselves against the sort of Jefferson County in Alabama and all kinds of things. So, you know, it’s, it’s an instrument that’s prone to lots of mischief because long settlement periods, complicated formulas for sometimes deriving the variables that are entering into the eventual payout, it’s got a lot of possibilities for mischief. And a lot’s been caused. And mischief doesn’t make much difference if it’s, you know, one guy, you know, rolling dice against another and one guy’s loaded a dice they’re doing for $5 a throw but it makes a lot of difference when you get into big numbers.

Warren Buffett：

不幸的是，是的——不幸的是，人们在衍生品上变得“非常有想象力”。一开始还是很简单的那些：利率、互换（swaps）之类的，还有外汇。但后来，这些简单品种的利润被竞争“挤没了”。我在 Solomon 的时候，他们就说：在那些“plain vanilla”（最基础、最标准化）的合约里已经没什么钱赚了，因为它们都在屏幕上报价，大家都知道、都能比价；但那些他们有时称为 “toxic waste（有毒垃圾）” 的东西里却有很多钱赚。你知道，衍生品越复杂——你还记得 Bankers Trust 跟 Proctor and Gamble（宝洁）那件事、还有 American Greetings（美国贺卡公司）那一类事件吧——如果你去读那些合约条款，就会发现它们有一些“爆炸性因子”（exploding factors）：当某个变量超过某个点之后，后果会急剧放大。像 Proctor and Gamble 或 American Greetings 这种公司的 CFO，很可能并没有真正把这些东西理解得很透彻。而“人们不理解的合约”往往更赚钱。所以这些东西就会大量繁殖（proliferation）。至于最终使用者（end user）脑子里到底在想什么——他们以为自己是在“对冲风险”，比如 Alabama 的 Jefferson County 那类案例，以及各种各样的事情——谁又说得清呢？所以，你知道，这是一类特别容易滋生“捣乱/作恶”（mischief）的工具：结算周期很长；为了计算最终支付（payout）所需要的变量，常常又引入非常复杂的公式；它有很多“作恶空间”。而且这种作恶已经造成了很多问题。当然，如果只是两个人掷骰子，一个人用了灌铅骰子，赌的是每把 5 美元，那影响也不大；但当你把规模放大到“大数字”时，影响就会非常大。

INTERVIEWER:

So let me ask you on the issue of transparency you wrote in your shareholder letter, not the recent one, but the one from the year before that it’s simply impossible for investors to understand and analyze these. It was impossible or at least very difficult for auditors to audit them and for regulators to regulate them and after spending time with financial institutions 10K or whatever else you reached for a bottle of aspirin which I can very much appreciate.(laughter) But, and you also wrote, you know, that policymakers talk about transparency as being a great cure-all for–

采访者：

那我想问您关于“透明度”（transparency）的问题。您在一封致股东信里写过——不是最新那封，是前一年那封——这些东西（衍生品）让投资者根本不可能理解与分析；审计师几乎不可能（或至少非常困难）去审计它们；监管者也很难去监管它们。您说自己花时间读金融机构的 10-K 等材料后，得去找一瓶阿司匹林——我完全能理解（笑）。但是您也写到：政策制定者常常把“透明度”当成一种万能解药——

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s a great word (laughs).

Warren Buffett：

这是个很棒的词（笑）。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Nobody can be against transparency.

Warren Buffett：

没有人会反对“透明”。

INTERVIEWER:

But, you said, you know, look, I don’t know of any reporting system, you know, that can fix this. So, I mean, obviously, you know, we’re not just looking at causes of the financial crisis but this whole lack of transparency particularly in the area of derivatives as you know from taking aspirin for your headaches after looking at 10Ks, is a problem. So I’m just wondering what, you know, your opinions are and how do we address that problem?

采访者：

但您说过：您不知道有什么报告系统能够把这个问题“修好”。所以——我们当然不仅在看金融危机的成因——但这种“缺乏透明度”，尤其是在衍生品领域（您也说过看完 10-K 得吃阿司匹林止头疼），显然是个问题。那么我想请教：您的看法是什么？我们该如何解决这个问题？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I think it’s a terribly difficult problem, well, it was so difficult a problem I didn’t think I could solve it. We bought Gen Re which had 23,000 derivative contracts. I could have hired 15 of the smartest people that, you know, math majors, PhDs and I could have given them carte blanche to devise any reporting system to me that would enable me to get my mind around what exposure that I had and it wouldn’t have worked. I mean, it just, the only answer was to get out of it. Can you imagine 23,000 contracts with 900 institutions all over the world with probably 200 of them names I can’t pronounce. And all of these contracts extending years into the future, multiple variables, you know, and all of these, you can’t manage it. In my view, I wouldn’t be able to manage something like that. And if I read a 10K that’s 300 pages long and it describes notional values of all this, not to impugn anybody because probably one of the best managed really large institutions around, but if I look at J.P. Morgan I see two trillion in receivables, two trillion in payables, a trillion and seven netted off on each side of the 300 billion remaining maybe 200 billion collateralized. But that’s all fine but I don’t know what discontinuities are going to do to those numbers overnight if there’s a, if there’s a major nuclear, chemical or biological terrorist action that really is disruptive to the whole financial system here, who the hell knows what happens to those numbers on both sides or thousands of counterparties around. So I don’t think it’s – I think it’s virtually unmanageable.

Warren Buffett：

我认为这是个极其困难的问题——困难到我觉得自己根本解决不了。我们当年收购 Gen Re 的时候，它有 23,000 份衍生品合约。我完全可以雇 15 个最聪明的人——数学专业、PhD——给他们完全授权（carte blanche），让他们给我设计任何一种报告系统，好让我能够搞清楚自己到底暴露了多大的风险。但这也不会奏效。说白了，唯一的答案就是“退出”。你能想象吗：23,000 份合约，对手方是全球 900 家机构，其中可能有 200 家的名字我连念都念不出来。所有合约都延伸到未来很多年，包含多个变量……这种东西你根本没法管理。以我个人能力而言，我无法管理这种规模的东西。而且你知道，就算我读一份 300 页的 10-K，它描述了这些东西的名义金额（notional values）——我不是要指责谁，因为可能 J.P. Morgan 是管理最好的大型机构之一——但如果我看 J.P. Morgan，我会看到：应收（receivables）两万亿美元，应付（payables）两万亿美元，双方各自有 1.7 万亿美元对冲净额（netted off），剩下 3,000 亿，也许其中 2,000 亿还有抵押品（collateralized）。这些数字听起来都“合理”。但如果突然出现某个“非连续性冲击”（discontinuities）——比如一次重大核/化学/生物恐怖袭击，真正扰乱了整个金融系统——谁他妈知道这些数字一夜之间会在两边怎么变？更别提牵涉几千个对手方。所以我不认为这是——我认为它几乎是不可管理的。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Certainly it is, would be for me.

Warren Buffett：

至少对我来说，肯定是不可管理的。

INTERVIEWER:

And let me ask, well, Goldman’s the K, I looked at recently and there I see over a million contracts.

采访者：

那我再问一个：我最近看了 Goldman 的 10-K，那里我看到它有一百多万份合约。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Over a million contracts

Warren Buffett：

一百多万份合约。

INTERVIEWER:

They don’t disclose notional values in the K, at least not that I found yet, but, you know, they do disclose when you take out the netting, it’s about one and a half trillion dollars both assets and

liabilities go to BIS and get information from Goldman, it’s not in their 10K, it’s like 45 trillion when you add up all the numbers.

采访者：

他们在 10-K 里没有披露名义金额（notional values），至少我还没找到。但他们披露了在扣除净额结算（netting）之后，资产和负债两边都大概是 1.5 万亿美元。可如果你去 BIS（国际清算银行）拿 Goldman 的信息——那不在他们的 10-K 里——把所有数字加起来，大概是 45 万亿美元。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Its bigger at J.P. Morgan. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

J.P. Morgan 还更大。（笑）

INTERVIEWER:

And I don’t see anything in the Ks and there is a question coming, I promise, (laughs) on who the counterparties are. So, I mean, does, would that help in transparency, some more disclosure on who the counterparties are?

采访者：

我在这些 10-K 里也看不到对手方是谁——我保证我马上就要问这个问题了（笑）。那么，披露更多“对手方是谁”的信息，会不会有助于提高透明度？

WARREN BUFFETT:

You can’t design the system, I don’t believe, I mean, I couldn’t design the system and I’ve got a smart partner, Charlie Munger and we, the two of us couldn’t design a system or come close to designing a system that would have told us what we were doing. So we got out. And we do know what we’re doing with the 250 contracts we’ve got. And frankly I think we do a better job of disclosure of our derivatives position than any company in the United States, you know. We just tell people what we’ve done but, that’s easy to do with 250 contracts or thereabouts and they only fall into a couple of categories. But I want to know, I want to know every contract and I can do that with the way we’ve done it. But I can’t do it with 23,000 that a bunch of traders are putting on. I’m putting these on myself and I really only about two or three decisions that go through my mind in doing that. But to have a group of traders putting on thousands of them and counting on the behavior of party A over here to be the offset to what might happen with party C and I’m in between, I just, I don’t know how to do that. And I don’t think really anybody knows how to do that. And I probably shouldn’t talk about names on this but I’ve had discussions with very important people about this in the past before the crisis hit and those people were confident that risk committees could come in with spreadsheets and explain it all and I always thought that was total nonsense.

Warren Buffett：

我不相信你能把这个系统“设计出来”。我的意思是：我设计不出来；我还有个很聪明的合伙人 Charlie Munger，但我们俩加在一起也设计不出——甚至谈不上“接近”能设计出——一种可以让我们真正搞清楚自己在干什么的系统。所以我们就退出了。而我们现在手里大概 250 份合约，我们确实知道自己在做什么。坦白讲，我认为我们在披露衍生品头寸方面做得比美国任何公司都好：我们就是把自己做了什么直接告诉大家。之所以能做到，是因为 250 份左右、而且只分成两三类，这很容易。但我希望自己能知道“每一份合约”是什么；在我们现在这种做法下我做得到。但如果是 23,000 份合约，由一群交易员不断加上去，我就做不到。我这些合约都是我自己下的，本质上也就两三个决策在我脑子里转。可如果是一群交易员下了几千份合约，指望这边 A 方的行为能对冲那边 C 方可能发生的事，而我夹在中间——我根本不知道怎么管理。我也不认为真有人知道怎么管理。我大概不应该点名，但在危机爆发之前，我就跟一些非常重要的人讨论过这个问题，那些人很有信心，说风险委员会可以拿着电子表格把一切解释清楚——我一直觉得那完全是胡扯。

INTERVIEWER:

There’s at least been some recent reports in the press that you’ve been lobbying against the retroactive, adjustment of the retroactive effect or at least some provisions in legislation that would require collateral to be–

采访者：

媒体最近至少有一些报道说，您一直在游说反对“追溯性调整”（retroactive adjustment）——或者至少反对立法中某些要求为（既有）合约补缴抵押品（collateral）的条款——

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, we’re not against collateral being required at all as far as–we do say if you’re changing contracts retroactively that if a change in any part of the contract is made that the party benefiting from that change should pay the appropriate amount to the party that’s suffering from it. Now when we put on our contracts because we didn’t want to get ourselves in a position where we were a problem to the country, we negotiated for non-collateral type contracts. Now the price of collateralized contracts we would have received considerably more in the way of premiums if we had agreed to collateral. Right now we’re looking at one contract where we can get paid $11 million if we agree to put up collateral and we can get paid $7.5 million if we don’t agree to put up collateral. Every other term of the contract is the same. So all we say is if these things are changed retroactively, we want to be paid for the difference in value between a collateralized contract and a non-collateralized contract. And otherwise, incidentally it isn’t just us, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, you name it, will have to send money to Wall Street as part of the deal that will be changed from before. And there’s nothing wrong with that, if it’s a matter of public policy that they want all contracts collateralized including changing them retroactively. There may be a constitutional problem, I’m not sure about that. But if the difference was paid for the difference between a value of the collateralized contract we were over $150 million on, during the height of the crisis on just a relatively small piece of it. If we would accept, if we would change from non-collateralized contract to a collateralized contract, my Wall Street, big Wall Street firm and we just say if that’s forced upon us to do that we want $150 million or whatever the appropriate number is. We sold a house in effect that was unfurnished and if we sold it furnished we would have gotten more money and if the government says now later on, two years after we made the deal, you’ve got to give the furniture too we want to get paid. And I think that would probably stand up in court incidentally, I mean, if it wasn’t even addressed in the bill. But we’ll see what happens on–

Warren Buffett：

是的——我们并不是反对“要求抵押品”这件事本身。我们只是说：如果你要追溯性地修改合约，那么只要合约任何一部分被改动，因改动而受益的一方，就应该向因此受损的一方支付相应的补偿。当我们签这些合约时，因为我们不想让自己处在“会成为国家问题”的位置上，我们谈下来的就是“不需要抵押品”（non-collateral）的合约。你要知道，如果当初我们同意提供抵押品，那我们本可以拿到明显更高的保费（premiums）。举个眼下的例子：我们现在正在看一份合约，如果我们同意提供抵押品，我们可以拿到 1,100 万美元；如果不同意提供抵押品，我们只能拿到 750 万美元。除了“是否提供抵押品”这一条，合约其他条款完全一样。所以我们想说的只有一点：如果这些合约被追溯性地改成“必须抵押”，我们希望拿到“抵押版合约”与“非抵押版合约”之间的价值差额。否则——顺带说一句——不只是我们，Coca-Cola、Anheuser-Busch 等等公司（你随便点名）都将不得不把钱送给华尔街，因为原有交易被追溯性改变了。如果出于公共政策，他们想让所有合约都必须抵押，哪怕追溯性地改，也没什么“不对”。当然，这里面可能有宪法层面的争议，我也不确定。但只要把差额补偿给我们就行：在危机最严重的时候，仅就我们其中相对较小的一部分头寸，抵押与非抵押合约的价值差额就超过 1.5 亿美元。如果我们要接受从“非抵押合约”改成“抵押合约”，面对一家大型华尔街机构，我们只是在说：如果这被强制施加给我们，我们就要 1.5 亿美元（或其他合理的数字）。这就像我们卖了一套“不带家具”的房子；如果当初是“带家具”卖，我们本来就能卖更贵。现在政府两年后说：你还得把家具也交出去——那我们当然要拿到相应的补偿。我认为即使法案里没写清楚，这个主张在法庭上大概率也站得住。至于最后会怎么样——我们再看——

INTERVIEWER:

Sure. Other things we’ve heard from other folks that I’ll ask your opinion on, a lot of people seem to think a lot of over the counter derivatives are really pretty standardized contracts that should be triggered on an exchange. Any opinions on that?

采访者：

明白。还有一些我们从其他人那里听到的观点，我也想请教您：很多人认为，大量场外（over the counter, OTC）衍生品其实是相当标准化的合约，应该放到交易所（exchange）上去交易。您怎么看？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I think it’s very hard to do. I mean, you’ve got right now certain foreign exchange contracts that are traded on exchanges. The volume is practically nothing. Because there, let’s just take a Swiss Franc contract. There’s a September contract and a December contract and a March contract. But if we want to hedge some instrument we’ve got and we’ve done this with a few contracts, we want to hedge some contract that comes due December 16th, we probably want to have a contract, a forward contract expires December 16th. And so whereas it’s easy to have and I don’t know whether July corn or October corn of whatever it may be there’s not a big delivery, there’s not a big tailoring of the specific industry’s requirements. You can get away with four different expiration dates or S&P you can get away with four expiration dates or something but if you’ve got a power contract or something of the sort, to deliver electricity on July 15th and you worry about what you might have to buy in the merchant market to do it you’re probably going to need one that contracted July 15th. And I don’t know how you standardize, I mean, it’s very easy to have standardized October copper and oil, I mean, you know, you got oil contracts extending out for many years or natural gas, but they are just periodic settlement dates. And I think that gets, that gets very tough with a great many derivative contracts. But I don’t, I’m no expert on how all this works, I mean, there may be ways of solving that in terms of exchanges.

Warren Buffett：

我认为这很难做到。比如现在确实有一些外汇合约在交易所交易，但成交量几乎可以忽略不计。原因在于：以瑞士法郎（Swiss Franc）的合约为例，交易所上可能只有 9 月合约、12 月合约、3 月合约。但如果我们要对冲我们手里某个工具——我们确实做过一些这样的合约——比如我们要对冲一笔在 12 月 16 日到期的东西，那我们很可能需要一份“12 月 16 日到期”的远期合约（forward contract）。所以，有些东西标准化很容易：比如我也不确定是 7 月玉米还是 10 月玉米之类，这些交割并不需要针对某个特定行业做大量定制；你用四个到期日就可以凑合。像标普（S&P）那类东西，也许用四个到期日就够了。但如果你面对的是电力合约（power contract）之类：你要在 7 月 15 日交付电力，而你担心届时需要在现货/商用市场（merchant market）买电来履约，那你大概率就需要一份“7 月 15 日交付/到期”的合约。我不知道这种东西该怎么标准化。当然，有些品种标准化很容易：比如 10 月铜、原油——你知道，原油合约可以往后延展很多年，天然气也是——但它们本质上只是按固定周期设置结算日。可很多衍生品合约要做到这种标准化，我认为就会变得非常困难。不过我也不是这方面的专家——也许在交易所机制上确实有办法解决。

INTERVIEWER:

Let me ask you about regulation. One of the things that we know from doing some research is that, of course, back in the beginning of the decade or the beginning of 2000 was the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, that had terms in it that said you can’t regulate credit derivatives. So they went unregulated. Any opinions on regulation of credit derivatives or derivatives in general?

采访者：

我想问您关于监管的问题。我们做了一些研究后了解到，当然，在这个十年的初期、也就是大约 2000 年左右，有一部 Commodities Futures Modernization Act（《商品期货现代化法案》），其中有条款写着：你不能监管信用衍生品（credit derivatives）。所以它们实际上就处于不受监管的状态。您对信用衍生品或更一般的衍生品监管有什么看法？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I think it’s very tough to do and I will tell you that whenever I hear the terms modernization or innovation in financial markets, I reach for my wallet (laughs). It’s, usually what they mean is revenue producing and I think it’s very tough. I mean that’s what I got into in my letter of 1982, I mean, you are opening Pandora’s box when you give people the right to either invest, speculate or gamble on very long term contracts, you know, with minimal margin requirements and all. I mean, it can pose dangers to the system but it gets down to leverage overall. I mean, if you don’t have leverage, you don’t get into trouble. That’s the only way a smart person can go broke (laughs). And I’ve always said if you’re smart

you don’t need it and if you’re dumb you shouldn’t be using it. So I’m not a big fan of leverage. But leverage and incentives are in my view things that, try to focus on. And recognizing that there’s a lot of limitations on what you can do. But if, I mean, we’ve always felt that way with banks. The bank has the right to use government guaranteed money in effect. You’ve got to have some limitations on leverage so then they come up with SIVs and derivatives and all kinds of ways to increase leverage without breaking the rules. And then, it’s a tough question but I would be fairly tough about how I would go at that. And I don’t like to keep going back to it but I, it doesn’t seem to be anything talked about much, but the CEO is the guy making the decisions, I’m making the decisions at Berkshire. When I make the decisions at Berkshire, I’m thinking about the fact that a) I’ve got 99% of my net worth in it and it’s all going to charities so I mean, if I cause this place to go broke, there’s a lot of downside to me. And there’s a lot of downside to the Keywood Company if they do silly things in their construction business. And I think that downside has an effect on people.

Warren Buffett：

我认为这非常难做。我跟你说，只要我听到金融市场里的 “modernization（现代化）” 或 “innovation（创新）” 这些词，我就会去摸我的钱包（笑）。通常它们真正想表达的意思是“能产生收入的东西”，而这类东西往往很棘手。我在 1982 年那封信里就谈过：当你允许人们在期限非常长的合约上——而且保证金要求极低——去投资、投机或赌博时，你就是在打开潘多拉魔盒。这当然可能对系统构成危险，但归根结底还是“总体杠杆”的问题。如果你没有杠杆，你就不会陷入麻烦。一个聪明人会破产，唯一的方式就是用了杠杆（笑）。我一直都说：你要是聪明，你不需要杠杆；你要是不聪明，你更不该用杠杆。所以我不是杠杆的拥趸。但在我看来，杠杆与激励机制是你应该努力盯住的重点——同时也要承认，你能做的事情有很多限制。我们对银行一直就是这种看法：银行本质上有权使用“带政府担保的钱”。因此你必须对杠杆设一些限制。于是他们就会发明 SIVs、衍生品以及各种办法，在不“触犯规则表面文字”的前提下提高杠杆。这是个很难的问题，但如果让我来做，我会采取相当强硬的方式。我不太想老是回到这个点上，但似乎也没人怎么谈：做决策的人是 CEO——在 Berkshire 做决策的人是我。当我在 Berkshire 做决策时，我会想到：a）我把自己 99% 的净资产都放在这里，而且这些钱最终都会捐给慈善机构——也就是说，如果我把这里搞破产了，我自己承担的下行后果很大。Keywood Company 在建筑业务上如果做蠢事，也会承担很大的下行后果。我认为这种“下行”会真实地影响人的行为。

INTERVIEWER:

Well, do you think that, I mean, you keep coming back to the CEO and accountability for perhaps unreasonable risks they are taking. Is that an area that you think regulation should address?

采访者：

那么您是否认为——我是说，您总是回到 CEO 与他们对可能不合理风险的责任（accountability）上——这是您觉得监管应该着力去解决的领域吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, I think, but, you know, I’ve never written a Bill in my life so I don’t know how you do that. But I do think that if I were in charge I would have some, yeah, I would, wouldn’t have to be very complicated. I mean, we’re not talking about some small community bank or anything. We’re talking about institutions that require government intervention. The FDIC will take care of the small banks and all that. I mean,

a lot of those will be a lot of personal ownership anyway. But FDIC is not the federal government. I mean, that is banks paying for banks errors but when society, the U.S. government starts paying for specific errors that-I think there ought to be a lot of downside.

Warren Buffett：

对，我是这么认为。但你知道，我这辈子从没写过法案（Bill），所以我也不知道具体怎么把它写出来。不过我确实认为：如果我来负责，我会设一些机制——对，会有一些——而且不必非常复杂。我们讨论的不是某个小型社区银行之类的机构。我们讨论的是那种需要政府出面干预的机构。小银行之类的，FDIC 会处理；而且很多小银行本来就会有相当程度的个人持股。但 FDIC 并不是联邦政府。FDIC 更像是“银行为银行的错误买单”。可当社会——也就是美国政府——开始为某些具体错误掏钱时，我认为就应该有很重的下行惩罚（downside）。

INTERVIEWER:

Can I follow up on that. You mentioned small banks and community banks. We’ve read stories and certainly heard reports about community banks investing in CDOs investing in–

采访者：

我能追问一下吗？您提到了小银行与社区银行。我们读到过报道、也听到过很多说法：一些社区银行投资了 CDOs、投资了——

WARREN BUFFETT:

They bought a lot of Freddie and Fannie preferreds, a lot of money lost in that.

Warren Buffett：

他们买了很多 Freddie 和 Fannie 的优先股（preferreds），在那上面亏了很多钱。

INTERVIEWER:

Correct, correct. But with respect to CDOs and many of them bought what were rated as triple A tranches of CDOs. Over 90% of the ratings on CDOs have been downgraded to near or around junk status. How much, putting aside legal responsibility because credit rating agencies have asserted they have a First Amendment right, how much though responsibility in the moral sense or otherwise do credit rating agencies have for the decisions by the investment community to rely on their ratings, that triple A meant triple A. How much responsibility do you think the credit rating agencies have for these decisions that the community banks made and subsequently made to their demise?

采访者：

对，对。但就 CDOs 而言，很多社区银行买的是被评为 triple A 的 CDO 分层（tranches）。而 CDO 的评级里，超过 90% 都被下调到了接近、或已经接近垃圾级（junk status）。先不谈法律责任——因为评级机构声称他们享有 First Amendment（第一修正案）的权利——但从道义层面或其他层面看，评级机构对投资界“依赖其评级”这件事要承担多大责任？也就是说，市场相信 triple A 就是 triple A。您认为评级机构对社区银行做出这些决策、并最终因此走向覆灭（demise），应该承担多大责任？

WARREN BUFFETT:

What do you think if you’re a banker? Your job is to assess the credit of whatever you’re committing to. And the interesting thing about those CDOs and a lot of them consisted of hybrid bank securities. I mean, so they were actually benefiting and there were a lot of hybrid bank securities put in the CDOs and they were benefiting from raising money from that forum. And that turned out to be a way poorer asset than they thought. They created the liability to some degree as they grew. But I would get back to the fact that if you run a bank, you know, I think your job is to assess the credit of when you lay out money whether you’re buying U.S. treasuries, whether you’re bonds of Greece, whether you’re buying or lending money to, for construction and, I think I would not want to cop out really, I was relying on a rating agency. And the rating agencies they have models and we all have models in our mind, you know, when we’re investing but they’ve got them all worked out, you know, with a lot of checklists and all of that sort of thing. I don’t believe in those myself, only to say I’ve got a model in my mind, everybody has a model in their mind when they’re making investments. But reliance on models, you know, work 98% of the time but it’s, they never work 100% of the time. And everybody ought to realize that that’s using them.

Warren Buffett：

如果你是一家银行的银行家，你觉得你的工作是什么？你的工作就是评估你要投入资金的东西的信用（credit）。而这些 CDO 里有个很有意思的点：很多 CDO 的资产其实由“银行混合型证券”（hybrid bank securities）构成。也就是说，这些银行一方面把大量混合型银行证券装进 CDO 里，另一方面又从这个渠道融资——它们实际上也从中受益。但事实证明，那类资产比他们想象的要差得多。随着它们规模扩张，它们在某种程度上也“自己创造了这种负债/风险”。但我还是要回到一点：如果你在经营一家银行，我认为你的职责就是在你掏钱的时候评估信用风险——无论你买的是美国国债（U.S. treasuries）、希腊债券（bonds of Greece），还是你在做建设项目的贷款或投资。我不愿意接受那种“推脱式”的说法：我只是依赖了评级机构。评级机构有他们的模型（models）。我们每个人在做投资时，脑子里也都有自己的模型；只不过他们把模型“形式化”了：有很多清单（checklists）之类。我个人不太信那一套——当然我也承认，我脑子里也有模型，人人在做投资决策时脑子里都有模型。但依赖模型这种事，可能 98% 的时间都管用，但永远不可能 100% 管用。任何使用模型的人都应该清楚这一点。

INTERVIEWER:

You mentioned transparency earlier as well. These CDO instruments were largely opaque in terms of compositions and the like to the investors who were investing in them. They were structured and created though around the ratings and in connection with the ratings and the rating agencies. Do you think, though, that because of the opaqueness of these instruments ratings became in the minds of investors more important than perhaps maybe they should have been?

采访者：

您之前也提到过透明度。这些 CDO 工具对投资者来说，在构成成分等方面大体上是“不透明”的。它们的结构设计与发行又是围绕评级、并与评级机构紧密相连的。您认为正因为这些工具如此不透明，评级在投资者心目中的重要性是不是变得比它本来“应该”有的重要性还要更高？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I would say that, you know, anybody that’s investing in something they consider opaque should just walk away. I mean, whether it’s a common stock or, you know, new invention or whatever it may be. You know, that’s why Graham wrote books is to try and get people to, you know, invest, to take that investment, it’s very tough to get that message across. And you’d think bankers however would have learned by the time they get to run a bank.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我会说：任何人如果在投资一件他自己都认为“不透明”的东西，就应该直接走开。无论那是普通股（common stock）、还是某种新发明、或者别的什么。你知道，这也是为什么 Graham 会写书：试图让人们明白应该如何去投资——但把这个信息传递出去非常困难。不过你会以为：银行家走到能经营一家银行那一步时，应该已经学会这一课了。

INTERVIEWER:

Okay. Let’s move away from derivatives now and talk about, I mean, we talked about several areas already today about your views on causes or contributing causes to the financial crisis. Of course we have a statute with a gazillion things in there telling us to investigate and I know time’s probably starting to run short so I’d like to first just ask you, you know, what haven’t you told us in terms of do you think were, you know, important contributing causes of the crisis. And then I’m going to try to quickly go down the list in our statute and get your ideas on this.

采访者：

好的。我们先从衍生品跳出来，聊聊别的。今天我们已经谈了好几个方面，关于您认为金融危机的原因或促成因素。我们的法律条文里列了无数项需要调查的内容，而且我知道时间也差不多了，所以我想先问您：到目前为止，您还没告诉我们的、但您认为对危机非常重要的促成因素，还有什么？然后我会试着快速按法律条文的清单逐项过一遍，听听您的想法。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I think the primary cause was a almost universal belief among everybody, and I don’t ascribe particular blame to any part of it, but it’s Congress, media, regulators, home owners, mortgage bankers, Wall Street, everybody that house prices would go up. And you apply that to a 22 trillion dollar asset class that’s leveraged up in many cases and when that goes wrong you’re going to have all kinds of consequences and it’s going to hit not only the people that did the unsound things but to some extent the people that did the semi-sound and then finally the sound things even if it is allowed to gather enough momentum of its own on the downside, the same kind of momentum it had on the upside. I think contributing to that, causing the bubble to pop even louder was and maybe even to blow it up some was improper incentive systems and leverage. I mean, those–but they will contribute to almost any bubble that you have whether it’s the internet or anything else. Incentive systems during the internet were terrible. I mean, you just, you formed a company and you said I’m going to somehow deliver a billion eyeballs and somebody said well, that’s $50 a piece or something. I mean, you get craziness that goes on there. Leverage was not as much a factor in the internet bubble but I think in this particular bubble because leverage is part of, so much a part of real estate that once you loosen up on that, you provide fuel because that bubble will get even bigger and you made the pop even bigger when it finally did pop.

Warren Buffett：

我认为最主要的原因，是几乎所有人都普遍相信——而且我并不把责任归咎于某一个单独群体——国会、媒体、监管者、房主、按揭银行家、华尔街，所有人都相信房价会涨。当你把这种信念应用到一个大约 22 万亿美元规模的资产类别上——而且在很多情况下又被高度加杠杆——一旦这件事走错方向，就会产生各种各样的后果。它不仅会打击那些做了明显不稳健事情的人，也会在某种程度上打击那些做了“半稳健”事情的人，最后甚至会打击那些做了稳健事情的人——只要下行端也积累出足够的自我强化动量，就像上行端曾经积累出来的那种动量一样。我还认为，促成这一点、让泡沫“破得更响”、甚至在某种程度上把泡沫“吹得更大”的，是不恰当的激励机制（improper incentive systems）和杠杆（leverage）。这些东西——其实几乎会促成任何泡沫，无论是互联网泡沫还是别的泡沫。互联网泡沫时期的激励机制就糟糕透顶：你只要成立个公司，说“我会带来十亿个 eyeballs（眼球）”，就有人说“那一个眼球值 50 美元”之类——你就会看到各种疯狂的事情。互联网泡沫里杠杆不是那么重要的因素；但在这次泡沫里，因为房地产天生就离不开杠杆，一旦你把杠杆限制放松，你就是在给泡沫加燃料：泡沫会变得更大，而当它最终破裂时，“爆裂声”也会更大。

INTERVIEWER:

Any views on the role of fraud, whether mortgage fraud or other types of fraud in the crisis?

采访者：

您对“欺诈”（fraud）在危机中的角色有什么看法吗？无论是按揭欺诈还是其他类型的欺诈。

WARREN BUFFETT:

No, I mean, it was obviously a lot of fraud. There was fraud on the parts of the borrowers and there were frauds on part of the intermediaries in some cases. And, but, you better not have a system that is dependent on the absence of fraud. (laughs) It will be with us.

Warren Buffett：

嗯——显然有大量欺诈。借款人有欺诈；在某些情况下，中介也有欺诈。但你最好别让一个系统“依赖于没有欺诈”才能运转（笑）。欺诈会一直与我们共存。

INTERVIEWER:

What about, you know, another thing that we, I think we’ve seen in the last ten years was different was a lot of financial institutions before used to originate loans and, you know, how novel, carry them on their books. But now we see, you know, the proliferation of mortgage brokers, originate to distribute models, the street packages and securitizes, sends it off to someone else who maybe either keeps it or throws it into CDO and so on and so on. Any opinions on that relative change in the way that mortgage assets are originated?

采访者：

另外一个我觉得过去十年里很不一样的变化是：很多金融机构以前会发放贷款，然后（多么“新奇”）把它们留在自己的资产负债表上。但现在我们看到按揭经纪人（mortgage brokers）大量涌现，“发放—分销”（originate-to-distribute）模式普及，华尔街把贷款打包证券化，再卖给其他人，其他人可能持有，也可能再塞进 CDO，如此层层转手。您对按揭资产“起源方式”（origination）这种相对变化有什么看法？

WARREN Buffett:

No, people will be more careful with their own money than with other people’s money. And you can argue that Freddie and Fannie were the ones, you know, they started securitizing in effect and in a huge way people got used to buying mortgage instruments where they were very

divorced from the origination of it. So there’s no question that if there’d been a law against laying off mortgages to somebody else that you wouldn’t have the same situation. You might not have as much, a lot of good things did happen in the country too, there was a balancing the two, I’m not sure I could do but I can tell that more mischief will occur if somebody in Norway is buying a mortgage in Omaha than if some guy here is lending his own money. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

嗯，人们用自己的钱会更谨慎，用别人的钱就没那么谨慎。你也可以说，Freddie 和 Fannie 在某种意义上是“始作俑者”——它们率先以很大规模推进证券化，于是人们逐渐习惯于购买那种“与起贷环节完全脱离”的按揭工具。所以毫无疑问：如果当年有法律禁止把按揭“甩”给别人，你就不会看到同样的局面。当然，这样做也未必全是好事——国家里也确实发生了很多好事，两者之间怎么平衡，我也未必做得到。但我可以告诉你：如果一个挪威人买着一笔 Omaha 的按揭，那里面发生“作恶/乱来”（mischief）的空间，肯定比本地某个人用自己的钱放贷要大得多（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

There certainly appeared to be a loosening of underwriting standards and certainly an increase in what we’ve termed non-traditional mortgage product whether it’s lower down payments, whether it’s the liar loans, stated income loans, whether it’s option arms, whether it’s 228s, 327s, etc., etc. Any views on whether that had any?

采访者：

确实出现了承销标准（underwriting standards）的放松，也出现了我们称之为“非传统按揭产品”（non-traditional mortgage product）的增长：比如更低首付、liar loans（撒谎贷款）、stated income loans（仅陈述收入贷款）、option ARMs（可选还款型浮动利率按揭）、2/28、3/27 等等等等。您认为这些有没有起到什么作用？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Oh, it had had plenty to do, I mean, it fuelled, it fuelled extreme leverage and it fuelled leverage that could only be paid out of the re-sale of the asset rather than the income of the borrower and once you start lending money big time to people where your hope of getting your money back is that the asset goes up rather than the asset produces enough to service the loan, I mean, that very nature whether it’s farmland, whether it’s oil in Texas, you know, it creates a lot of problems.

Warren Buffett：

哦，当然起了很大作用。它们为“极端杠杆”提供了燃料；而且它们推动的杠杆，往往只能靠“把资产转手再卖掉”来偿还，而不是靠借款人的收入来偿还。一旦你开始大规模给人放贷，而你收回本金的希望寄托在“资产价格会上涨”，而不是寄托在“资产或借款人现金流足以覆盖本息”，那这种结构——无论是在农地（farmland）、还是在德州油田（oil in Texas）——都会制造大量问题。

INTERVIEWER:

Any views on why we saw the growth in that kind of non-traditional mortgage product?

采访者：

您怎么看：为什么那类非传统按揭产品会快速增长？

WARREN BUFFETT:

We believed that, you know, houses were going to go up. Once you think the asset will go up you don’t look to anything to anything else. And it became, because it had been going up, an awful lot of people believed it had to keep going up. I mean, it gets back to the nature of bubbles.

Warren Buffett：

因为我们相信——你知道——房价会涨。一旦你认为资产一定会上涨，你就不会再去看别的东西。并且因为它一直在涨，于是非常多的人就相信它“必须继续涨”。这又回到了泡沫的本质。

INTERVIEWER:

We, I mean, from people we’ve talked to and articles we’ve read, I mean, we’ve heard people talk about or read that, you know, there was a lot of money coming into the U.S. chasing yield. There was the Street wanting it because of the change from buy and hold to the securitization model. Were Fannie and Freddie, you know, changing their purchasing patterns and increasing demand for non-traditional mortgage product for whatever reasons. Any comments on any of those possibilities?

采访者：

我们从采访的人、以及读到的文章里听到一种说法：有大量资金涌入美国追逐收益（chasing yield）；华尔街因为从“买入并持有”（buy and hold）转向证券化模式（securitization model）而需要这些产品；Fannie 和 Freddie 是否也在改变它们的购买模式，从而因各种原因增加了对非传统按揭产品的需求？您对这些可能性有什么评论吗？

WARREN BUFFETT:

The market system creates incentives to do more business. (laughs) That is the nature of it. And, but I, you know, and people talk about excess funds around the world and all that. I tend to discount that sort of thing. But I don’t discount the incentives that everybody in the American public from wanting to do a piece of business if they can do it tomorrow. Doesn’t mean that they’re terrible people or anything but what, you know, if I’m a realtor and I’ve seen a house go from 250to 500,000 do I say to the person, now, this buying the house at $500,000 is kind of dumb because–it just doesn’t happen. They say, you know, you better do it today because it’s going to be more tomorrow. And so everybody gets into the act, doesn’t mean they’re evil people. There are some crooks in the process, but overall what happened was not caused by the crooks. It may have caused the crooks to get rich (laughs), a lot of it but it in my view was caused by a mass delusion.

Warren Buffett：

市场体系天然会制造“多做生意”的激励（笑）——这就是它的本性。至于人们谈什么“全球资金过剩”（excess funds around the world）之类的，我往往会对那类说法打个折扣。但我不会低估这样一种激励：美国公众中的每一个人，只要明天能做成一笔生意，就都想把它做成。这并不意味着他们是坏人。你想，如果我是一个房地产经纪人（realtor），我眼看一套房子从 25 万涨到 50 万，我会对客户说：“现在 50 万买这房子挺蠢的，因为——”？这事几乎不会发生。经纪人会说：“你最好今天就买，因为明天更贵。”于是人人都参与进来。这不意味着他们都是邪恶的人。过程中确实有一些骗子（crooks），但整体上，发生的事情不是这些骗子造成的。它可能让骗子变得很富（笑），在很大程度上是这样；但在我看来，真正的原因是一种“群体性幻觉”（mass delusion）。

INTERVIEWER:

Throughout the ’90s and the 2000s members of Congress, members of the administration were all encouraging home ownership.

采访者：

在 1990 年代和 2000 年代，国会议员、政府官员都在鼓励住房自有（home ownership）。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Sure.

Warren Buffett：

当然。

INTERVIEWER:

Both through statements, through plans and policies. How much of that do you think contributed to the bubble?

采访者：

无论是通过表态，还是通过计划与政策。您认为这对泡沫贡献了多大程度？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It all contributes, but the truth is I’ve told people, home is a good investment, you know. Particularly if, it’s got values beyond what it will do in terms of possible appreciation over time. It really is a way to go short on the dollar. I mean, if you borrow a fair amount of money it gets and most people don’t have a good way of being short on the dollar and it’s a pretty sound policy to be short dollars as long as you’re carrying costs aren’t too high. And when interest rates get low the carrying costs are not high. So it is not an unintelligent thing to do. It’s only, it’s only when it gets into this bubble aspect that it becomes unintelligent. But I would recommend today, you know, if a couple can afford it and you’re not paying silly prices in terms of replacement value or things like that and you want to buy a home in Omaha, I would say, you know, have you found the neighborhood you wanted and you’re going to, your family’s going to live there and right now I think mortgage rates are very attractive, I would say buy it. But I wouldn’t say buy three more on speculation and I wouldn’t say buy it if it’s going to take 50% of your income to service the mortgage. It’s a sound idea that went crazy.

Warren Buffett：

它们都会有所贡献。但事实是：我一直告诉人们，房子是个好投资。尤其是因为它的价值不仅仅来自未来可能的升值——它还有其他层面的价值。它其实是一种“做空美元”的方式。我的意思是，如果你借了相当一部分钱买房，那么你就等于在“做空美元”；而大多数人并没有什么好办法去做空美元。只要你的持有成本（carrying costs）不要太高，做空美元在政策上/策略上是相当合理的。而当利率很低时，持有成本也不高。所以这么做并不愚蠢。只有当它进入“泡沫化”的阶段时，这才变得不理智。比如今天，如果一对夫妻负担得起，而且你买房的价格在重置成本（replacement value）等指标上不算离谱，你想在 Omaha 买房——我会说：你找到了你想要的社区了吗？你的家庭会长期住在那里吗？而且我认为现在的按揭利率很有吸引力——那我会建议买。但我不会建议你再额外买三套用来投机；我也不会建议你买一套要用掉你收入 50% 来供的房子。它原本是个合理的想法，只是后来“走火入魔”了。

INTERVIEWER:

Should it be a government policy to encourage home ownership?

采访者：

政府是否应该把“鼓励住房自有（home ownership）”作为一项政策目标？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I don’t think, I would say it should be a government policy and we’ve got it through and Fannie and Freddie, we say we’re in the mortgage business as a country. To help people who are following sound practice in the one way, I do not see anything wrong with having

a government guarantee program that kicks in when people really have a 20% down payment, really only putting only 30% or so of their income into it. Still people are going to lose their homes for unemployment reasons and death and divorce and disability. I mean, the three Ds. But that’s not going to cause a systemic problem. And more people are going to benefit from that program by far than anybody’s going to be hurt by it. So I think that the government has a place in that and around the world has a place in it. But I don’t think that if you’re going to get 20% down payments that you should then take deals on the 3% down payments and then lay off that on some mortgage insurer or something like that. You don’t want to encourage people to do things that are going to cause them pain later on. And you’re going to have occasional pain for unemployment but, you know what, you don’t want systemwide pain because you’ve encouraged them to do things that are stupid.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，我会说：这应该是政府政策的一部分。我们已经通过 Fannie 和 Freddie 实际在做这件事——某种意义上，我们这个国家就是在经营“按揭业务”。如果是为了帮助那些遵循稳健做法（sound practice）的人，我认为设立一种“政府担保计划”并没有问题：比如当人们真的有 20% 的首付、月供真的只占收入大约 30% 左右时，这种担保就生效。当然，即便如此，人们仍然会因为失业、死亡、离婚、伤残而失去房子——也就是所谓的 “three Ds”。但那不会造成系统性问题。而且从整体上看，受益于这种计划的人会远远多于受伤害的人。所以我认为政府在这方面有角色，世界各国政府也都有角色。但我不认为：如果你已经把标准设为 20% 首付，你就应该再去做 3% 首付的交易，然后把风险转嫁给某个按揭保险公司之类。你不应该鼓励人们去做那些以后会让他们痛苦的事。失业带来的偶发性痛苦你避免不了；但你不希望因为你鼓励人们做蠢事而引发“全系统的痛苦”。

INTERVIEWER:

One of the areas in our statute is the role of monetary policy and of course a lot of folks have commented on the low level of interest rates throughout the 2000s. Any view on that as a contributing cause?

采访者：

我们法律要求调查的一个领域是货币政策的作用。很多人评论说，整个 2000 年代利率都处在较低水平。您认为这是否是一个促成因素？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, it makes it obvious, it makes it easier but no, I don’t think that was what caused this. You couldn’t have had it if you’d had 15% rates obviously. But it all, you know, it all worked together, you know. And finally the fact that houses kept going up a lot. It just, you know, put a model in people’s minds. You have 300 million Americans have got a economic model in their mind and you say, Moody’s is dumb for having it and S&P is dumb for having it but it was pervasive.

Warren Buffett：

嗯，低利率当然让这件事“更显而易见”、也让它更容易发生，但我不认为那是根本原因。如果利率是 15%，你显然不可能出现同样的局面。

不过一切因素确实是联合作用的。最终关键还是房价持续大幅上涨——它在人的脑子里形成了一套“模型”。你想，美国 3 亿人脑子里都有一个经济模型；你可以说 Moody’s 有这种模型很蠢、S&P 有这种模型很蠢，但这种模型是“无处不在”的（pervasive）。

INTERVIEWER:

Another area in the statute that we’re directed to look at and we have been looking at of course is the role of accounting and specifically mark-to-market rules on accounting. I know you wrote in your shareholder letter or letters that, you know, the mark-to-market accounting rules result in wild swings in your derivative accounting but that you and Mr. Munger and what it is–

采访者：

法律还要求我们调查会计的作用，特别是“按市值计量”（mark-to-market）的会计规则。您在致股东信里写过：按市值计量会导致您在衍生品会计上出现剧烈波动，但您和 Munger 先生——以及它是——

WARREN BUFFETT:

We explain it, it is our job to explain it.

Warren Buffett：

我们会解释它——解释清楚是我们的工作。

INTERVIEWER:

Right, but do, and other people we’ve talked to and articles we’ve read have talked about, you know, the mark-to-market accounting rules if nothing else perhaps fueling the downward spiral, you know, in the ’07 and ’08 timeframe when folks got into liquidity crunches and had to sell assets, etc. Any views on the role of accounting and mark-to-market accounting?

采访者：

对，但我们采访的一些人和读到的一些文章都谈到：按市值计量（mark-to-market）会计规则，即便不是根本原因，也可能在 2007、2008 年期间“推波助澜”，加剧下行螺旋——当机构陷入流动性紧缩、不得不卖资产等等。您怎么看会计、以及按市值计量会计在其中扮演的角色？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I’m less religious about it than I used to be (laughs). I, because, well, you know, after ’29 in the insurance business they put in so-called, I forget, they had a term for it but I think it was called, basically it commissioned evaluations of some sort. And they did not make insurance companies write their stuff down because they said, you know, you’re basically putting them all out of business and these are temporary things. And the truth was it probably benefited the country that they didn’t liquidate all the insurance companies in the early ’30s based on what would have, in effect, been mark-to-market accounting. I still, there’s so much mischief when you get away from mark-to-market that I, that I’m still a believer in it but I can see where, I can see certain situations where it might have sort of anti-social effects as well. Getting back to derivatives, I mean, what has always struck me as extraordinary is that you basically have four big auditing firms in the country. And I would guarantee you that they are attesting to the statements affirmed where they have both sides of a derivative transaction and there is a different value being put on them by the two parties. And they’re signing them, I mean, we’re talking big numbers sometimes, too. It’d be interesting to take the million contracts or whatever they, a couple of million J.P. Morgan, and find two firms that have the same auditor and compare the valuations. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

我对它（按市值计量）的“宗教热情”（religious）没以前那么强了（笑）。因为你知道，1929 年之后，在保险业里他们引入了某种——我忘了术语——大概类似“委托评估”（commissioned evaluations）之类的机制。他们并没有强迫保险公司把资产全部减记（write down），因为他们说：你那样做基本等于把所有保险公司都弄破产，而那些损失很多是暂时性的。事实也可能是：国家从中受益了——因为在 1930 年代初期，他们没有基于一种“实际上等同于按市值计量”的做法，把所有保险公司都清算掉。我仍然认为：一旦你偏离按市值计量，会产生很多“作恶空间”（mischief），所以我总体上仍然支持它；但我也能看到，在某些情境下，它可能会带来某种“反社会效果”（anti-social effects）——也就是加剧系统性下行之类。再回到衍生品：让我一直觉得特别离谱的一点是，全国基本只有四家大型审计师事务所。我敢保证：当同一笔衍生品交易的双方都在报表里确认这笔交易时，双方给出的估值是不同的，而审计师却在两边都签字认可——而且有时候涉及的还是很大的数字。

如果拿 Goldman 那种一百多万份合约、或者 J.P. Morgan 那种几百万份合约，找两家由同一家审计机构审计的公司，把双方对同一类合约的估值拿来比一比，那会非常有意思（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

It might have been a good survey for us. You know, I mean, an area we somewhat touched on that’s really, leverage and liquidity are just capital requirements for financial institutions. Were they too low, are they too low?

采访者：

这倒可能是我们该做的一个调查。还有一个我们稍微提到过的领域：杠杆与流动性，本质上就是金融机构的资本金要求（capital requirements）。它们当时是不是太低？现在是不是仍然太低？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s very tough, it’s very tough because there’s such a difference in how when institutions can be doing, you know, I mean, just take the derivatives book, I mean. How do you measure that compared to straight loans? I mean, are you going to only take the netted off, non-collateralized balance finally, I mean, the residual and say that’s the only exposure you have or are you going to weight some for netting, you know, but only compounds it at 10% . It is very tough and, we’re going to have higher capital standards in all likelihood but knowing what to measure against and all that, it’s just a very difficult problem. And, of course, partly that was solved by people using ratings. And, you know, and the extraordinary thing, if you look at the AIG and my memory is and again, I’m doing all this from memory, my memory is that they got up to like a number of 300 billion of what they call regulatory arbitrage where it enabled largely German banks or certainly European banks to carry less capital against their loans since AIG was guaranteeing those loans against loss and AIG had a triple A rating therefore that carried over into lower capital requirements abroad. And they were getting paid practically nothing for them and they thought they were running no risk at all. But it was a ratings arbitrage, basically, it was, they called it regulatory arbitrage. But it was based on what ratings required in the way of capital requirements. But, you know, the regulators got a terrible job too, I mean, how do you deal with all these people doing different things and come up with some kind of standard that says what they have to maintain in the way of capital. I don’t envy them the job.

Warren Buffett：

这非常难，非常难，因为机构之间做的事情差异太大。就拿衍生品账本（derivatives book）来说吧：你怎么把它与“直接贷款”（straight loans）相比较、并衡量风险？你是只看最终净额结算（netting）之后、再扣掉抵押品与否之后，剩下那点“残余”（residual），然后说“这就是你唯一的风险暴露”？还是要对净额结算做某种权重处理——比如只按 10% 计入风险暴露之类？这非常难。我们很可能会提高资本标准，但“到底该按什么口径去衡量”和“用什么作基准”本身就是一个极其困难的问题。当然，人们一度部分靠“评级”（ratings）来解决这个问题。你看 AIG 的例子就很离谱——我凭记忆说，可能不精确——他们做到了大概 3,000 亿美元规模的所谓“监管套利”（regulatory arbitrage）：它让很多德国银行、或者更广义的欧洲银行，因为 AIG 给这些贷款提供了损失担保（guaranteeing against loss），而 AIG 又有 AAA 评级，于是这些银行在海外就可以对这些贷款持有更少的资本金要求。他们为此几乎没付什么钱，还以为自己完全没有风险。但本质上那就是一种“评级套利”（ratings arbitrage）——他们称之为监管套利——它建立在评级体系对资本金要求的规定之上。不过你也得承认：监管者的工作确实很痛苦。你要怎么应对所有机构在做不同的事情，然后制定一个标准，规定他们必须维持多少资本？我一点也不羡慕他们的工作。

INTERVIEWER:

You, an argument you often hear on the other side from institutions that don’t want higher capital requirements is it’s going to impact us competitively across the globe. Any views on that response?

采访者：

机构反对提高资本金要求时，常见的一个理由是：这会削弱我们在全球范围内的竞争力。您怎么看这种回应？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It would, it would. I mean, just take it to the extreme. If you said that every in the bank in the United States had to have 30% capital and every bank in Europe has 3% capital, you know. To earn the same returns on capital (laughs), they can work on much narrower margins than the American bank. That doesn’t mean you don’t do it but leverage is a competitive tool in terms of achieving returns on equity. That’s why it has to be guarded against.

Warren Buffett：

会的，确实会。你把它推到极端就明白了：如果你规定美国所有银行都必须有 30% 的资本金，而欧洲所有银行只有 3% 的资本金——那么为了赚到同样的资本回报率（returns on capital）（笑），欧洲银行就可以在远比美国银行更薄的利差（narrower margins）下运转。这并不意味着你就不该提高资本金要求；但杠杆（leverage）确实是一个在实现股本回报（return on equity）上的竞争工具——正因为如此，才必须防范它。

INTERVIEWER:

Any views on what the right capital levels are for financial institutions?

采访者：

那您觉得金融机构“合适的资本水平”应该是多少？

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s more complicated than that.

Warren Buffett：

这比那复杂得多。

INTERVIEWER:

Believe me, I know.

采访者：

相信我，我懂。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Okay. (laughter)

Warren Buffett：

好。（笑）

INTERVIEWER:

Is imposing some kind of leverage restriction and [unintelligible] the risk something that, looking back before banks were able to get into more exotic businesses, you know, 30,40, 50 years ago, is that something that you think should be a function of government through regulation or is that if Greenspan two years ago, is that something that the market could police itself in some way?

采访者：

施加某种杠杆限制、并（中间一句听不清）风险——回头看，在银行能进入更“奇异/复杂”的业务之前，比如 30、40、50 年前——这种事情您认为应该由政府通过监管来做吗？还是像 Greenspan 两年前那种观点：市场可以在某种意义上自我约束、自我纠偏？

WARREN BUFFETT:

I don’t believe the market polices itself, I mean, Greenspan is a friend of mine but he’s read more of Ayn Rand than I have, I mean, I’ll put it that way. (laughs) So I do not believe the markets police themselves in matters of leverage and other matters. I do, that’s why I get back to the incentives of the person. I mean, that makes a difference. It doesn’t solve everything, I mean, you can still get terribly optimistic managements that will do very stupid things and all that. But if I had a choice between setting the capital standards and setting the management incentives and that were my only choice with banks, I would rather set the management incentives.

Warren Buffett：

我不相信市场会自我约束。Greenspan 是我的朋友，但他读的 Ayn Rand 比我多——我就这么说吧（笑）。所以我不相信市场会在杠杆以及其他问题上自我约束。这也是为什么我总会回到“人的激励”（incentives）上：这确实会产生影响。当然，它不能解决所有问题——你仍然可能遇到极度乐观的管理层，做出非常愚蠢的事情。但如果在“设定资本金标准”和“设定管理层激励机制”之间只能选一个，而且这就是我对银行唯一能做的选择，我宁愿去设定管理层的激励机制。

INTERVIEWER:

One of the things we’ve seen and that I’ve seen from my previous life as a bank examiner, we particularly saw with the broker dealers was the liquidity issue of their asset liability mismatch. And particularly, you know, that they were, had a lot of short term money.

采访者：

我们看到的一件事——我以前做银行检查员时也亲眼见过——尤其是在券商（broker-dealers）那里，很突出的是流动性问题：资产与负债期限错配（asset-liability mismatch）。特别是，他们依赖大量短期资金（short term money）。

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s the nature of the national institutions both life insurance companies and banks. The, no capital requirements protect you against a real run. I mean, if your liabilities all are payable virtually that day or I should say virtually all your liabilities are payable that day, you can’t run a financial institution and be prepared for that. And that’s why we’ve got the Fed and the FDIC. I mean, you can’t stand, if you’re a life company or a bank, you can’t stand around, you can be the most soundly capitalized firm in town but if I hire, if there were no FDIC and the Fed and you had a bank capitalized with 10% of capital and I had one with 5% of capital and I hired 50 people to go over and start standing right in front of your bank, you’re the guy that’s going to fail first. Then when get through with you they’re going to come over to my bank too, that’s why we don’t do that sort of thing because you can’t contain the fire over on the other guy’s bank. But you can’t, you can’t stand a run. So you need the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. And even with Northern Rock, the UK government and came and said we guarantee everything they still had lines. I mean, when people are scared they’re scared. And there is no reason to leave, I mean, if you see if it’s uninsured and you see a line at a bank where you’ve got your money, get in line. (laughs). You know, buy a place from the guy that’s first in line if necessary, you know. And even if you’re at another bank, get in line there and take your mad money and put it under a mattress. You can always put it back a week later as long as there no penalties, why in the world, you know. That’s why we got a Fed and an FDIC and I think it’s one of the, you know, I think the FDIC and Social Security were the two most important things that came out of the ’30s. I mean, the system needed an FDIC.

Warren Buffett：

这其实是全国性机构的“天性”——不管是寿险公司还是银行。任何资本金要求，都无法真正保护你免于一场“真实的挤兑”（a real run）。我的意思是：如果你的负债几乎都是“当天就要兑付”的（virtually that day），或者我换句话说，几乎所有负债都要在当天兑付，那你就不可能经营一家金融机构，还能为这种情况做好准备。也正因如此，我们才需要 Fed（美联储）和 FDIC（联邦存款保险公司）。你扛不住挤兑。假设没有 FDIC 和 Fed：即使你是镇上资本最稳健的银行——比如你资本金 10%，而我的银行只有 5%——如果我雇 50 个人去你的银行门口排队站着，你也会先倒下。等他们把你弄倒了，接着就会来弄倒我——这就是为什么我们不会允许那种事情发生，因为你无法把“火”控制在隔壁那家银行。所以你扛不住挤兑，你就需要美联储和 FDIC。就算像 Northern Rock 那样，英国政府站出来说“我们担保一切”，银行门口照样排长队。人一旦害怕，就是真的害怕。而且如果你的存款没有保险，你看到你存钱的那家银行门口排队——那就去排队（笑）。必要的话，你可以从排在最前面那个人手里“买个位置”（买号）。甚至就算你是在另一家银行，你也应该去那家银行排队，把你的“疯钱”（mad money）取出来塞到床垫下面。只要没有罚金，你一周后再把钱存回去也行——那你为什么不这么做呢？正因如此我们需要 Fed 和 FDIC。我认为 FDIC 和 Social Security（社会保障）是 1930 年代带来的两项最重要的东西。这个体系需要 FDIC。

INTERVIEWER:

What did you do, you know, this is, you’re raising the issue really of the shadow banking system, the parallels unregulated without FDIC insurance or any other form of insurance other than until they stepped in and guaranteed money market funds as the short term stability and confidence raiser. What did Berkshire Hathaway do with all of its cash, I mean, you don’t have –.

采访者：

您提到的其实就是“影子银行体系”（shadow banking system）的问题：那是一个平行体系，缺乏监管，也没有 FDIC 存款保险或其他保险；直到政府介入、担保货币市场基金（money market funds），才短期稳定了信心与流动性。那么 Berkshire Hathaway 当时是怎么处理手里的大量现金的？我的意思是，你们并没有——

WARREN BUFFETT:

That’s a very good question because we were, for example, in September in 2008 we faced, I think it was October 6th or something like that we had to come up with six and a half billion for our Wrigley deal. I was only going to have that in treasury bills even if I had got a minus yield because I had to come up with it. And I didn’t know for sure, whether on October 6th, you know, what the situation would be with any bank. Now I thought it was 99.99% that it’d be fine, but I didn’t think it was 100% . And I may bring along to the hearing, I sold a treasury bill in December 2008 for 5,000,090anditwasa 5,000,000 treasury bill due in April—something where the guy was going to get $5 million. So he was saying that the treasury bill was $90 better than his mattress. I mean, he could have put the $5 million under his mattress and then 90 bucks better off in April than he was by buying the treasury bill. Well, that’s the way I felt too. I don’t, I still feel that way incidentally. I mean, we don’t have a whole list of approved short term investments around here. We have got treasury bills basically and treasury has the right, and is going to print money if necessary and that is triple A, I’m willing to go on the record on that. (laughs).

Warren Buffett：

这是个非常好的问题。因为比如在 2008 年 9 月，我们面临（我记得大概是 10 月 6 日左右）必须为 Wrigley 交易筹出 65 亿美元。我只会把那笔钱放在国库券（treasury bills）里——就算收益率是负的我也愿意——因为我必须在那天拿得出来。而我并不确定在 10 月 6 日那天，任何一家银行会处于什么状况。我当时认为 99.99% 会没事，但我不认为是 100%。我甚至可能会把一个例子带到听证会上：2008 年 12 月我卖出过一张国库券，成交价是 5,000,090 美元——而它是一张面值 5,000,000 美元、4 月到期的国库券（到期拿回 500 万）。这意味着买家是在说：这张国库券比把钱塞在床垫下“好 90 美元”。也就是说，他完全可以把 500 万美元塞在床垫下，到 4 月反而会比买国库券多 90 美元。但他还是买了国库券。嗯，我当时也是这种心态——顺带说一句，我现在仍然是这种心态。我们这里并没有一长串“认可的短期投资清单”。我们基本只持有国库券。因为财政部有权力——必要时也一定会——印钞来兑付；那就是 AAA。我愿意就这点公开表态（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

That’ll give you a rating yourself. (laughter)

采访者：

那您自己也能得到一个评级了（笑）。

WARREN BUFFETT:

But nobody else is triple A in my mind, you know. And if we’re really going to protect ourselves if we’re not going to, we need to have real money. And now, I let the smaller operations just for matters of convenience do other things. But in terms of the vast chunk of what we have around here it’s treasury and it will stay that way. Because I don’t know what can happen tomorrow. I don’t know if there’s a, you know, pick any kind of a hugely disruptive–that’s what you have to worry about are the discontinuities and there will be one someday. They closed the stock exchange in 1914, you know, for many months. They closed it for a few days after 9/11 but who knows what happens tomorrow.

Warren Buffett：

但在我心里，除此之外没有任何东西是真正的 AAA。你知道，如果我们真想保护自己——如果我们不想（承担某些风险）——那我们就必须持有“真正的钱”（real money）。当然，为了方便起见，我会让一些规模较小的业务在短期资金管理上做点别的选择。但就我们这里绝大部分资金而言，都是国库券（treasury），而且会一直保持这样。因为我不知道明天会发生什么。我不知道会不会出现某种——你随便想一种足够巨大的破坏性事件——你真正要担心的是“非连续性冲击”（discontinuities），而且总有一天会发生一次。1914 年证券交易所曾经关闭了很多个月；9/11 之后也关闭过几天。但谁知道明天会发生什么？

INTERVIEWER:

Speaking of that uncertainty, do you think in the financial crisis the government created some uncertainty by for instance stepping in and orchestrating the deal between J.P. Morgan and Bear whereas not stepping in or at least not stepping in sufficiently to orchestrate a deal for Lehman. Do you think that created uncertainty in the market for market participants?

采访者：

说到这种不确定性：您认为在金融危机中，政府是否反而制造了一些不确定性？比如它介入并促成了 J.P. Morgan 与 Bear 的交易，但却没有介入、或者至少没有足够介入来促成 Lehman 的交易。您认为这是否给市场参与者带来了不确定性？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Yeah, there’s no question that you would have expected, having seen them step in at Bear you would have expected to see them step in at Lehman. So when they didn’t step in at Lehman, the world panicked. Now it had all these repercussions too in that Lehman commercial paper was held by money market funds and 30 million Americans held money market funds and if you get 30 million Americans worried about whether their money market funds are going to be worth 100 cents on the dollar, they’re not going to buy anything, I mean. So they, you know, you create a tsunami, but, and most interestingly, of course, is if Ken Lewis hadn’t have bought Merrill on Sunday, I think the system would have stopped, you know. He is (laughs) the guy that turned out to have saved the system. He paid a crazy price in my view, well he could have bought it the next day for nothing because Merrill was going to go when Lehman went. So the government was going to have to step in some place and you can argue that they probably should have stepped at Lehman but I would say this, I consider overall the behavior of Paulson and Bernanke and Sheila Bair and even though I’m not a Republican, even the President, I consider them to have done a terrific job during that period. I mean, you don’t call everything right and if they made a mistake on Lehman they corrected it. And they did everything they could to correct it very quickly and if they hadn’t have done that and if Ken Lewis the B of A, we would have, the system would have stopped. It stopped a little bit for a short period anyway. But what we saw fall off into the economy subsequently was nothing compared to I think what would have happened otherwise.

Warren Buffett：

对，毫无疑问。你既然看到他们在 Bear 的时候出手了，你就会预期他们在 Lehman 的时候也会出手。所以当他们没有在 Lehman 出手时，全世界就恐慌了。而且这还带来了一连串后果：Lehman 的商业票据（commercial paper）被货币市场基金（money market funds）持有，而有 3,000 万美国人持有货币市场基金。如果你让 3,000 万美国人开始担心：他们的货基能不能仍然按 1 美元兑付 1 美元（100 cents on the dollar），那他们就什么都不会买了。于是你就制造了一场海啸（tsunami）。更有意思的是：如果 Ken Lewis（BofA 的 CEO）没有在周日买下 Merrill，我认为整个系统会停摆。结果他（笑）成了那个“救了系统”的人。当然，在我看来他付了一个疯狂的价格——他其实第二天可能一分钱都不用付就能买，因为 Lehman 一倒，Merrill 也会跟着倒。所以政府总归必须在某个地方介入。你可以争论说他们可能应该在 Lehman 出手。但我想说的是：总体而言，我认为 Paulson、Bernanke、Sheila Bair——甚至尽管我不是共和党人——连总统在内，他们在那段时间里的表现都非常出色。你不可能每一步都判断正确；如果他们在 Lehman 上犯了错，他们后来纠正了。他们也尽一切可能很快纠正。如果他们当时没这么做，再加上如果没有 BofA 的 Ken Lewis，我们的系统就会停下来。系统确实短暂地停摆过一小段时间；但之后实体经济遭受的冲击，在我看来已经远远小于“否则可能发生的情况”。

INTERVIEWER:

And following up on that the commercial paper market. You’ve alluded to what happened in the commercial paper market there. Any thoughts in terms of additional safeguards or anything that could remedy what had happened in–

采访者：

顺着商业票据（commercial paper）市场这个话题：您刚才提到那里面发生了什么。您认为有没有什么额外的防护措施，或者有什么办法可以补救当时发生的——

WARREN BUFFETT:

Pretty tough. We don’t buy commercial paper. But I do believe if you ran into a similar situation today the government would guarantee commercial paper, they’d have to. And that’s the important part. You have to believe the federal government will act and they will act promptly, decisively and all that sort of thing. That became, I guess, a little bit of a, more than a little bit of a question, significant question after Lehman. The treasury and the Fed remedied that very quickly by taking, in my view, by taking action. I said it was economic Pearl Harbor, but we sent out, you know, we sent out the fleet the next day, but we had the ships in the harbor unfortunately when the day Lehman failed. (laughs) But you saw one of the first TARP type arrangement got defeated in Congress what happened in the market. I mean, Congress was the big fear with, I think, was the biggest fear with the American public at that time.

Warren Buffett：

这挺难的。我们不买商业票据。但我确实相信：如果今天再遇到类似情况，政府会担保商业票据——他们不得不这么做。关键就在这里：你必须相信联邦政府会出手，而且会迅速、果断地出手。在 Lehman 之后，这件事（政府是否会出手）成了一个问题——不只是“一点点”的疑问，而是一个很重大的疑问。财政部和美联储在我看来很快就用行动把这个问题“补救”了。我说那是一次“经济上的 Pearl Harbor”，但我们第二天就“出航了舰队”；只不过不幸的是，在 Lehman 倒下的那一天，我们的“舰队还停在港里”（笑）。而且你也看到：第一批类似 TARP 的安排在国会被否决时，市场发生了什么。国会在当时对美国公众来说，是最大的担忧——我认为那是当时最大的恐惧来源。

INTERVIEWER:

How do you draw the line for determining where the government should intervene for specific institutions and not.

采访者：

那么政府应该在什么地方介入、对哪些机构介入而对哪些机构不介入——这条线该怎么画？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, I think they did it right in Bear, I mean they wiped out the stockholders pretty much, I mean, you lost 180 down to 10 as it turned out. But if Paulson had his way it would have been $2 or less. You wiped out the shareholders. Now again, you know, the management, Jimmy Cayne lost a lot of money, but he’s a rich man. And so that did not set a good lesson for the rest of the world in my idea but you send a big lesson in terms of the shareholders. And I think if the government has to decide, if troubles are brewing the government should err on the side of overkill.

Warren Buffett：

我认为他们在 Bear 的处理上做对了：基本上把股东清得差不多了——股价从 180 跌到 10（事实证明是这样）。如果 Paulson 当时能按他的想法来，可能会是 2 美元甚至更低。也就是说，股东被清零了。当然，管理层那边——Jimmy Cayne 确实亏了很多钱，但他仍然很富。所以在我看来，这并没有给世界树立一个很好的“管理层教训”；但在“股东层面”确实传递了一个强烈信号。而且我认为：当政府必须做决定、当麻烦正在酝酿时，政府应该宁可“用力过猛”（err on the side of overkill）。

INTERVIEWER:

How would you decide though between stepping in on Bear and not stepping in on ACME or another financial institution. How do you draw the line in your mind?

采访者：

但在 Bear 要出手、在 ACME 或其他金融机构却不出手之间，您会怎么判断？您心里那条线怎么画？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Well, with banks it’s easy because the FDIC can handle everything except Citigroup and BofA, I mean. They handled Wachovia in their own way, they handled WaMu. I mean, we had 8% or 9% of the deposits of the United States change hands without the federal government getting involved even. But the FDIC could not have, they participated in the situation with Citi, but Citi would have been probably too much. Wachovia was the third largest in the country and they got it done. So, stepping in, you don’t need to worry about stepping in on institutions around here, but the chance to step in on Freddie and Fannie there wasn’t any question about that. And then you get–they really didn’t need to step in, if they did with Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs or Wells Fargo. But they did need to get the system, they needed to give the American public the confidence that they would do whatever it took. Now those firms didn’t need it as long as the system didn’t totally collapse. But as part of convincing the world that the system wasn’t going to totally collapse that they were part of the movie that took place.

Warren Buffett：

对银行而言，这其实相对容易，因为除了 Citigroup 和 BofA 这种级别之外，FDIC 基本能处理一切。他们用自己的方式处理了 Wachovia，也处理了 WaMu。事实上，美国有 8% 或 9% 的存款发生“易手”，联邦政府甚至都不需要直接介入。但 FDIC 不太可能独立处理 Citi ——他们参与了 Citi 的处理，但 Citi 的体量可能就“太大了”。Wachovia 是全国第三大银行，他们也搞定了。所以在银行这边，你其实不用太担心“到底该不该介入”。但对 Freddie 和 Fannie 来说，介入根本没有疑问。而再往后——比如 Morgan Stanley、Goldman Sachs、Wells Fargo ——他们（政府）其实并不需要“为这些机构本身”介入。可是政府确实需要稳定系统，需要让美国公众相信政府会“不惜一切代价”（do whatever it took）。只要系统不彻底崩溃，这些机构本身并不需要救助；但为了让全世界相信系统不会彻底崩溃，它们就成了这场“电影”里的一部分。

INTERVIEWER:

We’re very close to being done because we started a little bit early so I thank you. A couple of questions. Do you have any sense as to what the difference between what’s going on in Europe is and what went on in Europe is and what happened here because clearly Europe didn’t have the same kind of crisis happening.

采访者：

我们快结束了，因为我们开得稍微早了一点，所以先谢谢您。我有两个问题。您是否能概括一下：欧洲正在发生的事情、以及欧洲过去发生的事情，与美国这里发生的事情有什么区别？因为很明显，欧洲并没有经历与我们同样类型的危机。

WARREN BUFFETT:

It’s true. It’s very different, it’s an even more interesting movie (laughs) and since this is on tape somebody will find how it all plays out. I don’t know how it’ll play out. It’s a different situation in that in the United States we were saving ourselves. And we wanted to be saved and we wanted Washington, we knew only the government could save us basically at the time from a colossal collapse. And even with that a year and a half later a lot of people are mad at the people who participated in doing it when all we were doing was trying to save ourselves we weren’t trying to save Mexico. It wasn’t like we had a North American union where we all were tied to the same currency and Mexico’s problems were–can you imagine what the reaction if we’d, if we’d been saving Mexico instead of the United States to the legislature or the regulators who were involved. So Europe, they have to act big but they have a, they have a system where a group of people are going to have to be helping another group. Now we all think we’re Americans so when America is saving America we, that can be pretty cohesive. But although like I say, it’s still recriminations, all kinds of things have come out of it. Now you picture Europe where you’ve got a group of people that are being asked perhaps to put up a lot of money and perhaps bear a lot of burdens perhaps incur inflation to help another group who they don’t think have been behaving the way that they would have behaved. And they don’t really have the, you know, ethnic social connection, I think it’s really problematic what happens.

Warren Buffett：

没错。差别非常大——而且那部“电影”甚至更有意思（笑）。既然这是录音，未来总有人会看到它最后怎么收场。我不知道它会怎么收场。

不同之处在于：在美国，我们是在“救自己”。我们希望被救，我们希望华盛顿出手——因为当时我们知道，基本上只有政府才能把我们从一场巨大的崩溃里救出来。即便如此，一年半之后，仍然有很多人对参与救助的人感到愤怒；但我们当时做的只是试图救自己，我们并不是在救墨西哥。我们又不是有个“北美联盟”，大家绑在同一种货币上，墨西哥的问题就等于我们的……你能想象吗：如果当时我们救的是墨西哥而不是美国，国会或监管者会面对怎样的反应？而欧洲，他们必须采取“大动作”，但他们的制度结构意味着：一群人不得不去帮助另一群人。我们都认为自己是美国人，所以当“美国在救美国”时，这种行动可以相当有凝聚力——尽管你看，事后仍然有各种指责、各种后遗症。可你想象一下欧洲：有一群人被要求拿出大量资金、承担大量负担、甚至可能承受通胀，去帮助另一群他们认为“行为方式并不符合他们标准”的人。而他们又缺乏那种真正的“族群/社会纽带”（ethnic social connection）。我认为这会让结局变得非常棘手。

INTERVIEWER:

But do you think there are any parallels in how their problem developed or is it really a European problem as opposed to a housing bubble?

采访者：

但您认为他们的问题形成过程与我们这边有什么相似之处吗？还是说那本质上是欧洲自己的问题，而不是像我们这样由住房泡沫主导？

WARREN BUFFETT:

Probably [unintelligible] because in the end, for a long time everybody thought they were all equal and if you got a Euro denominated bond it didn’t make difference or a deposit from any one of 16 countries it was the same then and all of sudden the market perceiving that it wasn’t the case. And once people started thinking about it, they realized it really wasn’t the case. And this thing’s only been around for, you know, less than 15 years or whatever it is. And they start thinking maybe I better line up at that bank. And they don’t have to do it physically they start pushing little buttons and the money starts moving around and all of a sudden 16 countries have a problem where they think, most of them think they weren’t part of it. And that is, could be enormously contagious. No one has to buy a Greek bond, nobody has to buy a Spanish bond. Now usually when, in America, the central bank has to buy, it’d be a roundabout process but (laughs) we know somebody will buy U.S. bonds tomorrow because we’ve got a central bank that’s totally in sync with the interests of the country. And we’ll print money if necessary. And nobody, Greece doesn’t have the power to print, you know, they’d be fine if their obligation [unintelligible] It’s a very, very interesting problem and I won’t predict how it will come out because you’ve got a tape (laughs) and I’d look very dumb later on.

Warren Buffett：

大概是（中间一句听不清）。因为归根结底，很长一段时间里，大家都以为“它们是平等的”：你买一张以欧元计价的债券（Euro denominated bond），来自 16 个国家里任何一个国家的存款或债券都一样；但市场突然意识到：事实并非如此。一旦人们开始认真思考，就会发现确实不是一回事。毕竟这个体系也就存在了不到 15 年左右（大概如此）。于是人们开始想：也许我最好去那家银行排队。只不过他们不必真的去排队，他们只要按几个按钮，资金就开始流动。转眼之间，16 个国家都可能陷入一种局面：多数国家会觉得“这事跟我无关”，但问题却变得极具传染性（enormously contagious）。没人必须去买希腊债（Greek bond），也没人必须去买西班牙债（Spanish bond）。而在美国，通常当中央银行需要买债时，也许过程会更迂回一些（笑）；但我们知道明天总会有人买美国国债，因为我们有一个与国家利益完全一致的中央银行。必要时我们会印钱。可希腊没有印钱的权力——你知道——如果它的义务（中间听不清）它就会“没事”。这是一个非常非常有意思的问题。我不打算预测它会怎么收场，因为你们有录音（笑），我以后会显得很蠢。

INTERVIEWER:

So you have any books that you’d like that have been written on the crisis? I know that Sorkin has worked with–

采访者：

那关于这场危机，有没有您推荐读的书？我知道 Sorkin 写过——

WARREN BUFFETT:

Sorkin has written a very good book. I mean, there have been a number of good books. The book I would write if I was in the writing business, I would write a fictional book and my book would probably be titled something like, If Ken Lewis Hadn’t Answered the Phone, and then I would go from there forward with Merrill falling on Monday and describing what the world would have looked like. It’d be a hell of a book. (laughs) I’m not sure what the ending would be but, you know, he got that call on Saturday, he gets a fairness opinion in 24 hours from two guys who are getting $10 million each. Is the fairness buy Merrill Lynch at $29 a share which, I mean–

Warren Buffett：

Sorkin 写了一本非常好的书。确实也有不少好书。如果我是写书的人，我会写一本虚构小说（fictional book）。书名大概会叫：《If Ken Lewis Hadn’t Answered the Phone（如果 Ken Lewis 当时没接那通电话）》。然后我会从那里往下写：假设 Merrill 在周一就倒了，世界会变成什么样。那会是一本“很狠的书”（a hell of a book）（笑）。我不确定结局会是什么，但你知道，他是在周六接到那通电话，然后在 24 小时内从两个人那里拿到了“公平意见”（fairness opinion）——那两个人每人拿 1,000 万美元——说以每股 29 美元买 Merrill Lynch 是“公平”的。我的意思是——

INTERVIEWER:

Chris Flowers.

采访者：

Chris Flowers。

WARREN BUFFETT:

Chris Flowers and another firm that is affiliated with Chris Flowers. And do you think Chris Flowers would have paid $29 or $2.90 for Merrill Lynch on Sunday? (laughs) You know, it’s an interesting world, but it may have saved the system some terrible acts. May have actually saved the system.

Warren Buffett：

Chris Flowers，还有另一家与 Chris Flowers 关联的公司。你觉得 Chris Flowers 会在周日用 29 美元买 Merrill Lynch，还是用 2.90 美元买？（笑）你知道，这是个很有意思的世界。但这件事也许让系统免于经历一些可怕的事情——也许真的“救了系统”。

INTERVIEWER:

Okay. Well.

采访者：

好的。嗯。

WARREN BUFFETT:

I don’t expect, if you decide to write that book, I don’t expect any royalties. (laughs)

Warren Buffett：

如果你决定写那本书，我不指望拿任何版税（笑）。

INTERVIEWER:

At the rate we’re going it’ll take a long time. Well, thank you.

采访者：

按我们现在这个进度，估计要写很久。谢谢您。