I.H.MOS.02.High Inflation

通胀是一股强大的淘汰弱者的机制，来源于人类自身的恐惧。

1、《1980-03-03 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

Since we have covered our philosophy regarding equities extensively in recent annual reports, a more extended discussion of bond investments may be appropriate for this one, particularly in light of what has happened since yearend. An extraordinary amount of money has been lost by the insurance industry in the bond area - notwithstanding the accounting convention that allows insurance companies to carry their bond investments at amortized cost, regardless of impaired market value. Actually, that very accounting convention may have contributed in a major way to the losses; had management been forced to recognize market values, its attention might have been focused much earlier on the dangers of a very long-term bond contract.

过去几年的年报，谈的主要是股票投资哲学，现在来谈谈债券投资可能更合适，尤其是去年底以来发生了那么多的事。整个保险业界，因投资债券而蒙受了相当庞大的损失，虽然依照会计原则，允许保险公司以摊销成本而非已严重受损的市场价值来记录其债券投资，事实上，这种会计惯例反而是导致更大损失的元凶，因为当初若是保险公司被迫以市场价格来认列损失，那他们或许就会早一点注意到长久期债券合同危险的严重性。

Ironically, many insurance companies have decided that a one-year auto policy is inappropriate during a time of inflation, and six-month policies have been brought in as replacements. “How,” say many of the insurance managers, “can we be expected to look forward twelve months and estimate such imponderables as hospital costs, auto parts prices, etc.?” But, having decided that one year is too long a period for which to set a fixed price for insurance in an inflationary world, they then have turned around, taken the proceeds from the sale of that six-month policy, and sold the money at a fixed price for thirty or forty years.

更讽刺的是，某些财产保险公司有鉴于通货膨胀高涨，决定将原本一年期的保单缩短为半年为期，因为他们认为根本无法去估量未来的十二个月内，医疗成本、汽车零件价格会是多少？然而荒谬的是，他们在收到保费之后，却一转身将刚收到的保费，拿去购买长达三、四十年的长期固定利率债券。

The very long-term bond contract has been the last major fixed price contract of extended duration still regularly initiated in an inflation-ridden world. The buyer of money to be used between 1980 and 2020 has been able to obtain a firm price now for each year of its use while the buyer of auto insurance, medical services, newsprint, office space - or just about any other product or service - would be greeted with laughter if he were to request a firm price now to apply through 1985. For in virtually all other areas of commerce, parties to long-term contracts now either index prices in some manner, or insist on the right to review the situation every year or so.

长久期债券是目前通货膨胀高涨的环境下唯一还存在的长期固定利率合约，合约的买家可以轻易地锁定 1980 年到 2020 年，每年使用这笔钱必须支付的固定利息，相较之下，其它诸如汽车保险、医疗服务、新闻信息、办公空间或是其它任何产品服务，如果他要求在未来五年内给予一个固定报价时，肯定会被别人笑掉大牙，在其它商业领域中，只要是签订长期合约，合约的任何一方通常都会要求某种方式适时反应价格指数，或是坚持每年必须重新审议合约。

A cultural lag has prevailed in the bond area. The buyers (borrowers) and middlemen (underwriters) of money hardly could be expected to raise the question of whether it all made sense, and the sellers (lenders) slept through an economic and contractual revolution.

然而在债券的领域却存在有理念落差，别指望买家(借款人)以及中介(承销商)会质疑这一切的合理性，至于卖家(债权人)即便历经经济周期与合约变革，却依旧浑然不觉。

For the last few years our insurance companies have not been a net purchaser of any straight long-term bonds (those without conversion rights or other attributes offering profit possibilities). There have been some purchases in the straight bond area, of course, but they have been offset by sales or maturities. Even prior to this period, we never would buy thirty or forty-year bonds; instead we tried to concentrate in the straight bond area on shorter issues with sinking funds and on issues that seemed relatively undervalued because of bond market inefficiencies.

最近这几年来，我们的保险公司没有成为任何纯粹长期债券的净买者(即不含转换权或可提供额外获利可能性的债券)，即使有买进也是为了弥补先前到期或出售的部位，而在此之前，我们也从未投资那些长达三、四十年的债券，相反，我们试图将注意力集中在备有偿债基金的短期债券，以及因市场缺乏效率而使得价格被低估的债券。

However, the mild degree of caution that we exercised was an improper response to the world unfolding about us. You do not adequately protect yourself by being half awake while others are sleeping.[3] It was a mistake to buy fifteen-year bonds, and yet we did; we made an even more serious mistake in not selling them (at losses, if necessary) when our present views began to crystallize. (Naturally, those views are much clearer and definite in retrospect; it would be fair for you to ask why we weren’t writing about this subject last year.)

然而，虽然较之同业我们稍具警觉心，却仍是不够的。"虽然其他人都在沉睡，但半梦半醒状态下的你依然无法为自己提供足够的保护[3]。"购买 15 年期债券是一个错误，这个错误我们犯了，更严重的是在我们现在的观点已经明确的情况下，我们没有卖出他们（即便是亏损价位）。（当然，在事后看来，这些观点更加清晰和明确；你也有权质询我们为什么去年没有提及这个话题。）[4]

Of course, we must hold significant amounts of bonds or other fixed dollar obligations in conjunction with our insurance operations. In the last several years our net fixed dollar commitments have been limited to the purchase of convertible bonds. We believe that the conversion options obtained, in effect, give that portion of the bond portfolio a far shorter average life than implied by the maturity terms of the issues (i.e., at an appropriate time of our choosing, we can terminate the bond contract by conversion into stock).

当然基于保险营运所需，我们必须持有大量的债券或固定收益部位，但最近几年我们在固定收益方面的投资仅限于可转债，也由于具有转换权，使得这些债券实际发行的期限比其票面的到期日要短得多，依合约规定我们可以通过转股而提前终止债券合同。

This bond policy has given us significantly lower unrealized losses than those experienced by the great majority of property and casualty insurance companies. We also have been helped by our strong preference for equities in recent years that has kept our overall bond segment relatively low. Nevertheless, we are taking our lumps in bonds and feel that, in a sense, our mistakes should be viewed less charitably than the mistakes of those who went about their business unmindful of the developing problems.

这样的规定使得我们实际的损失要比一些财险同业轻得多。另外由于对于股票投资的特别偏好，也让我们在债券投资的部位相对偏低。尽管如此，在债券方面我们还是跌了一跤，而且比起那些从来不管问题发生的同业，我们犯的错实在是不可原谅。

Harking back to our textile experience, we should have realized the futility of trying to be very clever (via sinking funds and other special type issues) in an area where the tide was running heavily against us.

回顾我们在纺织业的痛苦经历，我们早该明白，逆流而上的结果往往是徒劳无功的(指其买进备有偿债基金或其它特种债券)。

We have severe doubts as to whether a very long-term fixed-interest bond, denominated in dollars, remains an appropriate business contract in a world where the value of dollars seems almost certain to shrink by the day. Those dollars, as well as paper creations of other governments, simply may have too many structural weaknesses to appropriately serve as a unit of long term commercial reference. If so, really long bonds may turn out to be obsolete instruments and insurers who have bought those maturities of 2010 or 2020 could have major and continuing problems on their hands. We, likewise, will be unhappy with our fifteen-year bonds and will annually pay a price in terms of earning power that reflects that mistake.

我们实在很怀疑，为什么长期固定利率的债券合同还能在商业市场上存在，在这个世界里，美元的购买力几乎肯定会日益缩水，这些美元也包含政府发行的任何货币，有太多的结构性弱点，实在是很难作为长期的商业参照指标，同理，长期的债券可能会成为过时的工具，而那些买进 2010 年或 2020 年才到期债券将会变成投资人手中的烫手山芋，而我们也会对这些十五年期的债券不满，而且每年都必须为这个错误付出购买力下滑的代价。

Some of our convertible bonds appear exceptionally attractive to us, and have the same sort of earnings retention factor (applicable to the stock into which they may be converted) that prevails in our conventional equity portfolio. We expect to make money in these bonds (we already have, in a few cases) and have hopes that our profits in this area may offset losses in straight bonds.

在这其中，部分的可转换债券(经由潜在的转换权利)，有着跟我们股票投资组合一样的吸引力，我们预计可从中赚不少钱(而事实上，有些个案已开始获利)，同时亦期盼这部分的获利能弥补我们在直接债券上的损失。

And, of course, there is the possibility that our present analysis is much too negative. The chances for very low rates of inflation are not nil. Inflation is man-made; perhaps it can be man-mastered. The threat which alarms us may also alarm legislators and other powerful groups, prompting some appropriate response.

当然，我们对债券的看法也有可能过于消极，通膨降低的机率也不是没有，毕竟通货膨胀多是人为因素所造成的，也或许有一天人们真能有效地控制它，立法当局及有力团体应该也已注意到这个警讯，进而采取必要的措施。

Furthermore, present interest rates incorporate much higher inflation projections than those of a year or two ago. Such rates may prove adequate or more than adequate to protect bond buyers. We even may miss large profits from a major rebound in bond prices. However, our unwillingness to fix a price now for a pound of See’s candy or a yard of Berkshire cloth to be delivered in 2010 or 2020 makes us equally unwilling to buy bonds which set a price on money now for use in those years. Overall, we opt for Polonius (slightly restated): “Neither a short-term borrower nor a long-term lender be.”

此外，现今的利率已反应较高的预期通货膨胀率，使得新发行的债券对投资者较有保障，这甚至将使我们可能错过债券价格反弹而获利的机会，然而，就像我们不愿意以一个固定的价格预先出售 2010 年或 2020 年一磅喜诗糖果或一尺伯克希尔生产的布料一样，我们也不愿意以一个固定的价格预先出售我们未来四十年金钱的使用权，我们倾向莎士比亚笔下的 Polonius 的看法(略微改编)："既不做短期借款人，也不做长期贷款人"。

2、《1987-10-19 Warren Buffett.What we can learn from Phil Fisher》

If that’s what’s coming, how does one protect oneself against this hyperinflation?

如果真要发生，那么该如何保护自己免受这种恶性通胀的伤害？

I made as deep a study as I could of what happened after World War I in France, where there was lots of inflation, and in Germany, where there was inflation into infinity. And in both countries the same thing happened. If you bought the very best stocks, according to my definition–not just any stocks–you were still darned uncomfortable during that period of the spiraling inflation. But when the inflation was over, you came out of it with about 80% of the real purchasing power intact.

我尽可能深入研究了一战之后的France（那里有大量通胀）以及Germany（那里通胀无限制地发展）的情况。在这两个国家，都出现了同样的现象：如果你按照我的定义买入“最优秀的股票”——而不是随便什么股票——在通胀螺旋上升的时期你仍会非常难受。但当通胀结束时，你大约能保住80%的实际购买力。

If I can come out of it with 80% of my present assets in real money, and my people can do that, that is fine. Until then I’m keeping a fair amount in Treasury bills.

如果我能以实际购买力计算保住当下资产的80%，而我的投资人也能做到，那就足够了。在那之前，我会把相当一部分资金放在Treasury bills上。

Timing these things is so damnably difficult. I don’t want to be the smart guy with too much cash because I think a big break is coming. Nor do I want, once it comes, to spend too long getting myself ready. When you’re not sure, you hedge. Very roughly, I have between 65% and 68% in the four stocks I really like, between 20% and 25% in cash and equivalents, and the balance in the five stocks that are in the grooming stage.

把握时点实在是难到要命。我不想因为预期大跌而持有过多现金，装作聪明人；也不想在它真的到来时花太久时间做准备。当你不确定，就对冲。大致来说，我把65%到68%的资金放在我真正喜欢的四只股票上，20%到25%放在现金及等价物上，剩余的放在五只仍处于“grooming stage（培养阶段）”的股票上。

3、《2012-02-25 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

Even in the U.S., where the wish for a stable currency is strong, the dollar has fallen a staggering 86% in value since 1965, when I took over management of Berkshire. It takes no less than $7 today to buy what $1 did at that time. Consequently, a tax-free institution would have needed 4.3% interest annually from bond investments over that period to simply maintain its purchasing power. Its managers would have been kidding themselves if they thought of any portion of that interest as “income.”

即使在对货币稳定有强烈诉求的美国，自我在1965年接管Berkshire以来，美元价值已惊人地下跌了86%。如今至少需要7美元才能买到当年1美元能买到的东西。因此，在那段时期里，一个免税机构需要从债券投资中每年获得4.3%的利息，才能仅仅维持其购买力。如果管理者把其中任何一部分利息当作“收益”，那就是自欺欺人。

For tax-paying investors like you and me, the picture has been far worse. During the same 47-year period, continuous rolling of U.S. Treasury bills produced 5.7% annually. That sounds satisfactory. But if an individual investor paid personal income taxes at a rate averaging 25%, this 5.7% return would have yielded nothing in the way of real income. This investor’s visible income tax would have stripped him of 1.4 points of the stated yield, and the invisible inflation tax would have devoured the remaining 4.3 points. It’s noteworthy that the implicit inflation “tax” was more than triple the explicit income tax that our investor probably thought of as his main burden. “In God We Trust” may be imprinted on our currency, but the hand that activates our government’s printing press has been all too human.

对于像你我这样需要纳税的投资者，情况要糟糕得多。在同样的47年期间，不断滚动持有美国国库券的年化收益为5.7%。听起来还不错。但如果个人投资者平均按25%的税率缴纳个税，那么这5.7%的回报在实际收入上将一无所获。该投资者可见的所得税会从名义收益中剥走1.4个百分点，而无形的通胀税会吞噬剩下的4.3个百分点。值得注意的是，这种隐含的通胀“税”超过了投资者自以为的主要负担——显性所得税——的三倍。“In God We Trust”或许印在我们的货币上，但推动政府印钞机的手却太过“人性”。

4、《2015-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, the best businesses during inflation are usually the best — they’re the businesses that you buy once and then you don’t have to keep making capital investments subsequently.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。在通货膨胀期间，最好的企业通常是最好的——它们是你一次购买后就不需要再进行后续资本投资的企业。

So you get — you do not face the problem of continuous reinvestment involving greater and greater dollars because of inflation.

所以你就不会面临由于通货膨胀而导致的持续再投资问题，这涉及到越来越多的资金。

That’s one reason real estate, in general, is good during inflation. If you built your own house 55 years ago like Charlie did, or bought one 55 years ago like I did, it’s a one-time outlay, whereas if you’re — and you get the — you get an inflationary expansion in replacement capital without having to replace yourself.

这也是为什么房地产在通货膨胀期间通常表现良好的原因之一。如果你像Charlie一样在55年前建造了自己的房子，或者像我一样在55年前购买了一套房子，这就是一次性支出，而如果你——你会看到——你会在不需要自己替换的情况下获得通货膨胀带来的资本扩张。

And if you’ve got something that’s useful to someone else, it tends to be priced in terms of replacement value over time, so you really get the inflationary kick.

如果你拥有对别人有用的东西，它的价格往往会随着时间的推移而以替代价值来定价，因此你确实会感受到通货膨胀的影响。

Now, if you’re in a business such as the utility business or the railroad business, it just keeps eating up more and more money, and your depreciation charges are inadequate and you’re kidding yourself as to your real economic profits.

现在，如果你从事的是公用事业或铁路行业，这些行业只会不断消耗更多的钱，而你的折旧费用不足，你对自己真实的经济利润自欺欺人。

这是很严重的缺陷。

So, any business with heavy capital investment tends to be a poor business to be in in inflation and often it’s a poor business to be in generally.

因此，任何需要大量资本投资的企业在通货膨胀时期往往是一个不好的行业，通常来说，这也是一个不好的行业。

And the business where you buy something once — a brand is a wonderful thing to own during inflation.

而那些一次性购买的业务——品牌在通货膨胀期间是非常有价值的。

You know, See’s Candy built their brand many years ago. Now, we’ve had to nourish it as we’ve gone along, but the value of that brand increases during inflation, just as the value of, really, any strongly branded goods.

你知道，See’s Candy 多年前就建立了他们的品牌。现在，我们在发展过程中不得不不断滋养它，但在通货膨胀期间，那个品牌的价值会增加，就像任何强势品牌商品的价值一样。

Gillette bought the entire radio rights to the World Series in 1939. And as I remember, it cost them $100,000, and for that they got to broadcast the Yankees, I think, versus the Reds in 1939.

Gillette在1939年购买了整个世界大赛的无线电广播权。根据我记得的情况，它花费了他们10万美元，他们获得了广播1939年洋基队对红人队的比赛。

And think of the number of impressions they made on minds in 1939 dollars for $100,000, and they were getting in the minds of young guys like myself. I was eight or nine. And millions of people — and they did it in those dollars then.

想想他们在 1939 年用 10 万美元对人们心灵产生的影响，以及他们在像我这样的年轻人心中留下的印象。我那时八九岁。还有数百万人——他们当时就是这样做到的。

And, of course, if you were going to go out and try out and do — have similar impressions on millions of minds now, it’d cost a fortune. And part of that is due to inflation. Part of it’s due to other things.

当然，如果你打算出去尝试并在数百万人的心中产生类似的印象，这将花费一大笔钱。这部分是由于通货膨胀，另一部分则是由于其他因素。

But it was a great investment, which could be made in 1939 dollars that paid off, in terms of selling razors and blades in 1960 and 1970 and 1980 dollars.

但这是一个很好的投资，使用 1939 年的美元进行投资，最终在 1960 年、1970 年和 1980 年的美元中获得了回报，体现在剃须刀和刀片的销售上。

软件企业的工资费用没有真的消失，钱付了，软件更好了。

So that’s the kind of business you want to own.

所以这就是你想拥有的那种生意。

5、《2024-05-29 James Dimon.Bernstein's 40th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference》

James Dimon Chairman & CEO

You have -- now you have the scenario-plan it, okay? If we have a soft landing and rates stay where they are, come down a little bit, which is what the world expects, everyone is fine. If you have a harder landing with stagflation, yes, you're going to see a lot of stress and strain in the system, from banks, to leverage companies, to real estate, to a whole bunch of stuff.

詹姆斯·戴蒙董事长兼首席执行官

你得做情景规划。如果经济软着陆、利率维持或小幅下降——世界普遍预期如此——那大家都没问题。如果出现滞胀式硬着陆，系统内将承受巨大压力，从银行到杠杆公司、房地产等各方面都会受影响。

That's what it is. If things get worse, it's going to filter right through all those things. And in my view, is the world's just not ready for that. I mean, a lot of you in this audience have never seen rates at 6% on a 10-year bond. And I don't know why you think it's not possible. It is possible. I for one think the odds are much higher than the people think. So you got to look at the scenarios for that. And so -- but I also think -- what I see a lot of banks doing in particular is thinking ahead in terms of capital, interest rate exposure, real estate exposure, reserves. Then you got to go bank by bank at that point. It doesn't help to make a generic statement about banks.

情况就是这样。如果变得更糟，冲击会层层传导。我认为世界对此并未做好准备。现场很多人从未见过 10 年期国债收益率 6%。我不明白你们为何认为不可能，它完全可能。我个人认为概率远高于大家的想象，所以必须审视这些情景。此外，我看到许多银行在资本、利率风险、房地产敞口、拨备方面开始超前思考。此时你必须逐家机构具体分析，泛泛而谈毫无意义。

And so -- but I think real estate, too. I remind people in real estate, because I heard Charlie talking about it a little bit, rates went up 300 basis points. That makes any cash flow worth 30% less. So it's got nothing to do with real estate. If an asset was worth \$100, it's now worth \$70. If people were lending \$60 against \$100, they're now lending \$50 against a \$70. That's all it is. That's got -- that's not even real estate. That could be almost any asset out there. So -- and of course, people have personal guarantees. They put in equity. And a bank will rollover not at 50%, but maybe 90% to keep the thing alive. But that is the kind of math. That's -- I call it, that's the gravity of interest rates. That's a cosmological constant. And so people need to be prepared for that.

关于房地产，我也提醒大家，因为我听查理提到：利率上升 300 个基点意味着任何现金流的现值减少 30%。这与房地产本身无关。如果资产价值原本 100 美元，现在只有 70 美元。如果原先借款人能贷 60，现在只能贷 50。这就是全部，仅仅是利率作用，几乎适用于任何资产。当然，人们提供个人担保，投入自有资金。银行可能不会只续贷 50%，而是 90%，以维持项目运转。但这就是数学，我称之为利率引力，是宇宙常数，人们必须为此做好准备。

The surprise will be stagflation. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I just give the odds much higher than other people. I look at the amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus that's taken place over the last 5 years has been so extraordinary. How can you tell me it won't lead to stagflation? Now it might not, but I for one, we're quite prepared for it.

真正的意外将是滞胀。我并不是说一定会发生，只是认为概率比别人估计的高得多。过去五年实施的财政和货币刺激极其庞大，你怎样能肯定不会导致滞胀？当然也可能不会发生，但至少我们已经做好充分准备。

I.H.MOS.02.High Inflation

I.H.MOS.02.High Inflation

1、《1980-03-03 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

2、《1987-10-19 Warren Buffett.What we can learn from Phil Fisher》

3、《2012-02-25 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

4、《2015-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

5、《2024-05-29 James Dimon.Bernstein's 40th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference》

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