Life and Debt
人生和负债
The fundamental principle of auto racing is that to finish first, you must first finish. That dictum is equally applicable to business and guides our every action at Berkshire.
赛车比赛的基本原则是：想要第一个冲线，你必须先保证自己能完赛。这条原则同样适用于商业，也始终指导着我们在 Berkshire 的一切行动。
Unquestionably, some people have become very rich through the use of borrowed money. However, that’s also been a way to get very poor. When leverage works, it magnifies your gains. Your spouse thinks you’re clever, and your neighbors get envious. But leverage is addictive. Once having profited from its wonders, very few people retreat to more conservative practices. And as we all learned in third grade – and some relearned in 2008 – any series of positive numbers, however impressive the numbers may be, evaporates when multiplied by a single zero. History tells us that leverage all too often produces zeroes, even when it is employed by very smart people.
毫无疑问，有些人确实通过举债变得非常富有。但同样明显的是，用借来的钱也可以把人变得一无所有。当杠杆顺风时，它会放大你的收益，你的配偶会觉得你很聪明，你的邻居会开始羡慕你。但杠杆具有成瘾性，一旦尝到它的“甜头”，很少有人愿意退回到更保守的做法。而且，正如我们在三年级算术课上学到的——也是在 2008 年重新补上的一课——任何一串再漂亮的正数，只要乘上一个零，就会化为乌有。历史告诉我们，杠杆“制造零”的频率实在太高，即便操盘的人是非常聪明的人也不例外。
Leverage, of course, can be lethal to businesses as well. Companies with large debts often assume that these obligations can be refinanced as they mature. That assumption is usually valid. Occasionally, though, either because of company-specific problems or a worldwide shortage of credit, maturities must actually be met by payment. For that, only cash will do the job.
当然，杠杆对企业同样可能是致命的。负债沉重的公司，往往习惯性地假设：等债务到期时，总能顺利再融资。这个假设在大多数时候是成立的。但偶尔会有例外：要么因为公司自身出了问题，要么因为全球性信用紧缩，结果就是债务到期时真的需要“掏现金”还本付息，而那一刻，只有真金白银才能解决问题。
Borrowers then learn that credit is like oxygen. When either is abundant, its presence goes unnoticed. When either is missing, that’s all that is noticed. Even a short absence of credit can bring a company to its knees. In September 2008, in fact, its overnight disappearance in many sectors of the economy came dangerously close to bringing our entire country to its knees.
到那时，借款人就会明白：信用就像氧气。只要两者供给充足，人们甚至察觉不到它们的存在；一旦任何一项缺失，所有人的注意力就只剩下这一件事。即便只是短暂的信用中断，也足以让一家公司立刻跪下。事实上，在 2008 年 9 月，信贷几乎一夜之间在许多经济领域消失，这种局面已经非常接近于让整个美国经济跪倒在地。
Charlie and I have no interest in any activity that could pose the slightest threat to Berkshire’s wellbeing. (With our having a combined age of 167, starting over is not on our bucket list.) We are forever conscious of the fact that you, our partners, have entrusted us with what in many cases is a major portion of your savings. In addition, important philanthropy is dependent on our prudence. Finally, many disabled victims of accidents caused by our insureds are counting on us to deliver sums payable decades from now. It would be irresponsible for us to risk what all these constituencies need just to pursue a few points of extra return.
Charlie 和我对任何哪怕可能给 Berkshire 的长期健康带来一点点威胁的行为都毫无兴趣。（以我们加起来 167 岁的年纪来说，“从头再来”显然不在我们的心愿清单上。）我们始终清楚：你们这些合伙人，在很多情况下把自己相当大一部分积蓄托付给了我们；同时，还有重要的慈善承诺依赖于我们的稳健行事；最后，许多因我们承保客户而蒙受事故、致残的受害者，也指望我们在未来几十年按时支付赔款。如果为了多赚几个百分点的回报而拿这些群体的利益冒险，那对我们来说就是极其不负责任的行为。
A little personal history may partially explain our extreme aversion to financial adventurism. I didn’t meet Charlie until he was 35, though he grew up within 100 yards of where I have lived for 52 years and also attended the same inner-city public high school in Omaha from which my father, wife, children and two grandchildren graduated. Charlie and I did, however, both work as young boys at my grandfather’s grocery store, though our periods of employment were separated by about five years. My grandfather’s name was Ernest, and perhaps no man was more aptly named. No one worked for Ernest, even as a stock boy, without being shaped by the experience.
一点个人历史，或许可以部分解释我们为什么对金融上的“冒险主义”有如此强烈的厌恶。我直到 Charlie 35 岁才第一次见到他，尽管他从小在离我现在住了 52 年的地方不到 100 码的地方长大，而且也就读于 Omaha 市中心那所公立中学——我的父亲、妻子、孩子和两个孙辈都从那里毕业。不过，小时候我们都曾在我外祖父的杂货店打过工，只是两人的打工时间相隔大约五年。我的外祖父叫 Ernest，可以说“earnest”（认真、诚挚）这个名字配得上他本人。没有人能在他店里干活——哪怕只是当个理货小工——而不被那段经历深刻地塑造性格。
On the facing page you can read a letter sent in 1939 by Ernest to his youngest son, my Uncle Fred. Similar letters went to his other four children. I still have the letter sent to my Aunt Alice, which I found – along with $1,000 of cash – when, as executor of her estate, I opened her safe deposit box in 1970.
在本页对面，你可以看到一封 1939 年 Ernest 写给他小儿子（也就是我叔叔 Fred）的信。类似的信，他也分别写给了另外四个孩子。我至今仍保存着寄给我姑妈 Alice 的那一封——1970 年，我以遗产执行人身份打开她的保险箱时，在里面同时发现了那封信和 1,000 美元现金。
Ernest never went to business school – he never in fact finished high school – but he understood the importance of liquidity as a condition for assured survival. At Berkshire, we have taken his $1,000 solution a bit further and have pledged that we will hold at least $10 billion of cash, excluding that held at our regulated utility and railroad businesses. Because of that commitment, we customarily keep at least $20 billion on hand so that we can both withstand unprecedented insurance losses (our largest to date having been about $3 billion from Katrina, the insurance industry’s most expensive catastrophe) and quickly seize acquisition or investment opportunities, even during times of financial turmoil.
Ernest 从没上过商学院——事实上，他连高中都没念完——但他非常明白一件事：充足的流动性，是企业能否活下来的基本前提。在 Berkshire，我们把他那“1,000 美元方案”又向前推进了一大步，并郑重承诺：在不计入受监管的公用事业和铁路业务持有现金的前提下，我们自己始终至少持有 100 亿美元的现金。正因为有这一承诺，我们在实际操作中通常会将手头现金维持在至少 200 亿美元的水平，这样我们既能扛住史无前例的巨额保险赔付（迄今为止最大的一次是来自 Katrina 的约 30 亿美元——那也是整个保险业史上代价最高的一场灾难），又能在金融动荡时期迅速抓住合适的收购或投资机会。
We keep our cash largely in U.S. Treasury bills and avoid other short-term securities yielding a few more basis points, a policy we adhered to long before the frailties of commercial paper and money market funds became apparent in September 2008. We agree with investment writer Ray DeVoe’s observation, “More money has been lost reaching for yield than at the point of a gun.” At Berkshire, we don’t rely on bank lines, and we don’t enter into contracts that could require postings of collateral except for amounts that are tiny in relation to our liquid assets.
我们主要把现金放在美国国债（U.S. Treasury bills）上，而避免去买那些虽然多给几个基点收益、但本质上是短期信用工具的其他证券。早在 2008 年 9 月商业票据和货币市场基金的脆弱性暴露之前很久，我们就一直坚持这一政策。我们认同投资作家 Ray DeVoe 的那句名言：“因为追逐收益而亏掉的钱，比在枪口下亏掉的还多。”在 Berkshire，我们不依赖银行授信，也不会签订那种需要我们不断追加抵押品的合约，除非所需抵押金额与我们的流动资产相比微不足道。
Furthermore, not a dime of cash has left Berkshire for dividends or share repurchases during the past 40 years. Instead, we have retained all of our earnings to strengthen our business, a reinforcement now running about $1 billion per month. Our net worth has thus increased from $48 million to $157 billion during those four decades and our intrinsic value has grown far more. No other American corporation has come close to building up its financial strength in this unrelenting way.
另外，在过去 40 年里，Berkshire 一分钱现金都没有因为派发股息或回购股票而流出公司。相反，我们把全部盈利都留存在公司，用来加强业务实力，而这一“强化过程”现在大约以每月 10 亿美元的速度在进行。正因为这样，在过去这四十年中，我们的账面净资产从 4,800 万美元增长到了 1,570 亿美元，而内在价值的增幅远远超过这个数字。没有任何一家美国公司，能以这样“从不松懈”的方式，把自己的财务实力堆积到类似的高度。
By being so cautious in respect to leverage, we penalize our returns by a minor amount. Having loads of liquidity, though, lets us sleep well. Moreover, during the episodes of financial chaos that occasionally erupt in our economy, we will be equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense while others scramble for survival. That’s what allowed us to invest $15.6 billion in 25 days of panic following the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008.
在杠杆问题上保持如此谨慎，确实在一定程度上让我们的投资回报少了那么一小块“上浮空间”。但换来的，是我们拥有一大堆流动性，可以安稳睡觉。更重要的是，当经济中不时爆发金融动荡时，我们在财务上和心理上都能保持“进攻姿态”，而不是像别人那样忙于“保命逃生”。正是这种状态，让我们在 2008 年 Lehman 破产后的 25 天恐慌期里，能够投入 156 亿美元大举买入。