M20:28
这个嘛，这些年情况差别非常非常大，不过呢——我们没法识别出百分之百的造假公司，百分之九十、百分之八十也做不到，但有些公司就是会一下子跳出来，让你注意到。
Well, it varies just enormously over the years, but there are—we can't identify 100% of the frauds or 90% or 80%, but there's certain ones that jump out to you.
而且很多时候，人自己也会把自己暴露出来。
Just people give themselves away a lot too.
我是说，打扑克的人会说有那种 tells，我和 Charlie —— tell。
I mean, in poker, they talk about tells, and Charlie and I—tell.
我买过很多企业，而我们在买这些企业的时候，非常重要的一点就是，要在某种程度上比较准确地判断我们交易对象的为人。因为你知道，他们把股票凭证交给我们，我们把一大笔钱交给他们，然后我们还得指望他们在拿到钱以后，经营这家企业的热情，能和拿到钱以前一样高。
I've bought a lot of businesses, and it's very important when we buy those businesses that we assess the individuals that we're buying from with some degree of accuracy because, you know, they hand us the stock certificate and we hand them a lot of money, and then we count on them to run the business with as much enthusiasm after they have the money as they did before.
所以我们一直都在判断人，但我们并不觉得自己能把每个人都判断得很准。
And so we are assessing people, and we don't think we can assess everyone accurately.
我们只需要在那些我们做出明确肯定决定的人身上判断对就行了。这些判断也不是每次都完美，但总体上相当不错。而且我得说，这么多年过去了，我们大概还稍微更进步了一点。
We just have to be right about the ones where we make an affirmative decision, and those decisions have not always been perfect, but they've been pretty good, and I would say they've probably gotten a little bit better even as the years have passed.
类似地，看财务报表也是这样。比如在保险行业，我们见过一些造假案例，在那里你有时候能看出他们在赔付准备金上动手脚。
Similarly, in looking at financial statements, for example, in the insurance field, we've seen some frauds, and there you can see things being done with loss reserves occasionally.
我们以前就见过——我就不像 Charlie 那样点名了。
We saw it back in—I won't name any names, unlike Charlie.
我就不——我们就叫它们 Company A 和 B 吧，不点名。
I don't—we'll call them Company A's and B's instead of naming names.
不过你会看到，有些公司在向公众发行股票的时候，你知道，在那之前的一两年里，它们的准备金会非常可疑地下滑。然后呢，呃，或者，或者哪怕是在它们把公司卖给别的保险公司的时候，呃，呃，如果它们是在回购股票，它们又可能会把准备金做高。
But you would see companies that, when they were offering stock to the public, you know, the year or two before that, the reserves would go down very suspiciously, and, you know, then, and, uh, or, or even when they were selling them, uh, uh, to other insurance companies, uh, uh, if they were buying in stock, they might be building the reserves.
但方法有，呃，有，有上百万种，我当然不敢说我知道所有办法。不过这么多年下来，我见过足够多的情况，也见过那些 promoters 是怎么表现的。你是能看出某些人的，你知道，他们就是在用这种或那种方式玩数字游戏。
But there's a, there's a, there's a million different ways, and I don't claim I know all the ways, obviously, but I have seen enough situations over the years, and I've seen how promoters act, uh, and you can, you can spot certain people who you know, are one way or another playing games with the numbers.
他们会把自己暴露出来。
They give themselves away.
但我没法给你一个什么四十条的清单，告诉你该去资产负债表、利润表或者附注里找什么。
But I can't give you a checklist of 40 items or something of the sort that you look for in the balance sheet or the income account or the footnotes.
Charlie，你还能再帮他多说一点吗？
Charlie, can you help him any more?