M10:43
对，这其实是太成功带来的问题之一。
Yeah, well, it's one of the problems of prosperity.
最理想的企业，就是那种几乎不需要资本、但还能持续增长的企业。这样的企业确实有一些，我们也持有其中一些。
The ideal business is one that takes no capital but yet grows, and, and there are a few businesses like that, and we own some.
但我们没法——我们当然很想找到一家我们能用一百亿、两百亿或者三百亿美元买下来的、而且又不是资本密集型的公司。以后也许能找到，但这更难了。
But we are not able—we'd love to find one that we could buy for $10 or $20 or $30 billion that was not capital intensive, and we may, but it's harder.
这确实会影响我们的盈利复合增长，因为很显然，如果你有一门生意，它一边增长、一边每年给你带来很多现金，而且这些钱它自己增长并不需要用掉，那么，你就会有一种双重效应：一方面，是企业内部在不消耗资本的情况下实现的盈利增长；另一方面，是它产生出来的资本，还可以拿去买别的公司。
And that does hurt us in terms of compounding earnings growth, because obviously if you have a business that grows and gives you a lot of money every year, and doesn't take it, it isn't required in its growth, uh, you know, you get a double-barreled effect from the earnings growth that occurs internally without the use of capital, and then you get the capital it produces to go and buy other businesses.
See's Candies 就是个很好的例子。
And See's Candies was a good example of that.
我以前也常拿这个来举例，尤其是在报业还很景气的时候。
I've used that, um, back when the newspaper business was good.
比如说，我们的 Buffalo 那家报纸，就是个很好的例子。
Uh, our Buffalo newspaper, for example, was a good example of that.
Buffalo 那家报纸有一段时间一年能赚四千万美元，而且几乎没有资本需求。
The Buffalo newspaper was making at one time $40 million a year and had no capital requirements.
所以，我们可以把这整整四千万美元全拿出来，去做——去买别的东西。
So, we could take that whole $40 million and go and do—go buy something else with it.
但是，资本增加在很多方面都会像个锚一样，拖累回报。
But increasing capital acts as an anchor on returns in many ways.
其中一种体现就是，光从可选择范围来说，它会把我们推向那些资本密集得多的行业。
And one of the ways is that it drives us into, just in terms of availability, it drives us into businesses that are much more capital intensive.
比如，你们刚才看到了一张关于 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 的幻灯片。就在过去这几周里，我们刚刚宣布，接下来要在风力发电上投资三十六亿美元。
You just saw a slide, for example, on Berkshire Hathaway Energy, where we just announced, just in the last couple of weeks, we announced a $3.6 billion investment coming up in wind generation.
而且我们还承诺，整体上要在可再生能源上投入三百亿美元。
And we pledged overall to have $30 billion in renewables.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy 做的任何事情，BNSF 做的任何事情，都需要很多钱。
Anything that Berkshire Hathaway Energy does, anything that BNSF does takes lots of money.
我们的资本回报还算不错，但拿不到那种特别高的资本回报；而那种高回报，恰恰是我们过去在收购一些非资本密集型企业时能做到的。
We get decent returns on capital, but we don't get the extraordinary returns on capital that we've been able to get in some of the businesses we acquire that are not capital-intensive.
就像我在年报里提到的，我们有少数几家公司，按真正投入的资本来算，一年实际上能赚到百分之百的回报。很明显，这跟 Berkshire Hathaway Energy 这种业务完全不是一回事。后者的资本回报可能是百分之十一到百分之十二，这已经是很不错的回报了，但它跟那种资本强度很低的生意，完全是两种不同的动物。
As I mentioned in the annual report, we have a few businesses that actually earn 100% a year on true invested capital, and clearly, that's a different sort of operation than something like Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which may earn 11% or 12% on capital, and that's a very decent return, but it's a different sort of animal than the business with very low capital intensity.
Charlie 呢？
Charlie?
嗯，当我们的处境变了，我们的想法也就变了。
Well, when our circumstances changed, we changed our minds.
而且变得很慢，也很不情愿。
Slowly and reluctantly.
早些年，有很多次，我们买下一门生意以后，很快它按我们买入的成本来算，年回报就能达到百分之百，而且几乎不需要太多再投资。
In the early days, quite a few times we bought a business that was soon producing 100% per annum on what we paid for it and didn't require much reinvestment.
如果我们能一直这么做下去，我们当然非常愿意继续这么做。
If we'd been able to continue doing that, we would have loved to do it.
但当我们做不到的时候，我们就转向了 Plan B，而 Plan B 目前运作得相当不错。
But when we couldn't, we went to Plan B, and Plan B is working pretty well.
从很多方面来说，我现在甚至有点更喜欢这种方式了。
In many ways, I've gotten so I sort of prefer it.
你觉得呢，Warren？
How about you, Warren?
对，没错。
Yeah, that's true.
要是有些事是硬塞给你的，那你还不如就接受它、喜欢它。
When something's forced on you, you might as well prefer it.
对。
Yeah.
不过——我的意思是，我们早就知道那会发生，问题在于，它会不会让你从原本看起来特别惊艳的结果，变成一个还算令人满意的结果？
But it— I mean, we knew that was going to happen, and the question is, does it lead you from what looked as a sensational result to a satisfactory result?
我们不——我们对一个令人满意的结果已经挺满意了。
We don't— we're quite happy with a satisfactory result.
要不然的话，另一种选择就是回到只操作非常非常小规模的资金，但这件事，Charlie 和我之间其实从来没怎么认真讨论过。
The alternative would be to go back to working with very tiny sums of money, and that really hasn't gotten a lot of serious discussion between Charlie and me.