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2002年股东大会 · 巴菲特芒格点评911事件及其对伯克希尔的影响

90 段 · 3 位说话人 · 原片 11:30
F1
F10:00

Buffett 先生、Munger 先生,你们好,我叫 Thomas Kamei。

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, my name is Thomas Kamei.

我十二岁。

I'm 12 years old.

我住在 California 的 Kentfield。

I live in Kentfield, California.

这是我第五次来参加年度股东大会。

This is my 5th annual meeting.

我知道因为 9·11,你们损失了很多钱,不过我想知道,9·11 是怎么改变了你们的生活,还有你们的投资策略的?

I know you lost a lot of money as a result of 9/11, but I would like to know how 9/11 changed your life and your investment strategy.
M1
M10:22

嗯,我觉得如果说对生活的改变——这是个好问题,呃,不过我想,它让这个国家的每一个人都意识到了一些事情。

Well, I think in the sense of changing life—it's a good question, and, uh, but it made everybody, I think, in the country aware.

我的意思是,我们经历过世界大战之类的事情,但本质上一直觉得,在这些国界之内我们是相当安全、相当受保护的。

I mean, we've, you know, we've gone through world wars and all of that and essentially felt quite protected within these borders.

而我一直都很担心——Charlie 可以证明——就是这种可能性,尤其是在这个国家出现某种 nuclear device 的可能性,我觉得这更可能是 terrorists 干的,而不是某个——

And I have been quite worried about—Charlie can attest to, you know, the possibility, particularly of some kind of nuclear device in this country, probably more likely by terrorists than by some—
M2
M20:55

Terrorists。

Terrorists.
M1
M10:56

而不是另一个国家正式宣战之类的行为。

Some at least declared act of war by another state.

9·11 让每个人都意识到,虽然这么多年来,人类在彼此相处的方式上并没有特别大的进步,但在伤害他们因为某种原因而憎恨的对象这件事上,他们造成破坏的能力却有了惊人的提升。

And 9/11 made everybody realize that as humans have not progressed particularly in terms of how they behave with each other over the years, they have progressed enormously in their ability to inflict damage on those that they hate for one reason or another.

而且这种能力,你知道,在世界上已经增强很久了。

And that has increased, you know, for a long time in the world.

如果你不喜欢某个人,以前你最多也就是朝他扔块石头,这种情况持续了几千年。

If you didn't like somebody, the most you could do was throw a rock at them, and that went on for millennia.

后来就发展到了——带点讽刺意味地说——你可能会称之为更高级的阶段,而在过去五十年里,这种能力是指数级增长的。

And then it moved into what you might characterize ironically as more advanced states, and in the last 50 years it's increased exponentially.

所以现在,那些自大狂、精神失常的人、宗教狂热分子,或者不管是什么人,那些以某种不理性的方式憎恨别人的人,现在手里掌握的手段,能造成的破坏,比几十年前多得多,多到难以置信。

And so now people who are megalomaniacs or psychotics or religious fanatics or whatever, and who hate others in some unreasonable way, now have means at their disposal to inflict a whole lot more damage, incredibly more damage than they had not too many decades ago.

9·11 让所有人都真正意识到了这一点——这件事他们可能在潜意识里明白,但平时并不会经常去想。

And 9/11 brought that home to everybody, something they probably understood subconsciously and didn't think about very often.

现在他们会更强烈地去思考这件事,这对他们来说也变得更真实了。

To something they thought about much more intensely, and it's become more real to them.

这其实并没有真正改变我对——我的意思是,从某种意义上说,我一直都知道,世界上有几百万、几千万、几千万的人恨我们,而他们当中的大多数其实也做不了什么。

It hasn't really changed my view about—I mean, in the sense that I've, you know, I—there are millions and millions and millions of people in the world that hate us, and most of them can't do anything about it.

但总有少数人一直试图做点什么,而现在他们能使用的工具,呃,从某种极端意义上说,最极端的就是 Middle East 出现的那种 human bombs。

But a few have always tried to do something about it, and now the instruments they can use, uh, and the most extreme in a sense being the human bombs that have appeared in the Middle East.

但总的来说,那些精神失常、想要伤害别人的人,现在造成伤害的能力强太多了,简直强了不知道多少。

But there's more ability to—incredibly more ability for the deranged who want to inflict harm to do harm.

这就是现实。

And that's a reality.

呃,如果从商业层面来看,这个问题很明显,对 Berkshire 影响最大、远远超过其他业务的,就是保险。

Uh, in terms of the business aspects of it, the question, obviously the area at Berkshire that it affects most significantly by miles is insurance.

在 9·11 之前,虽然我们也意识到,像我所说的那种精神失常的人所采取的行动,可能会带来巨额的金钱损失,但我们在写保险合同的时候,并没有真正把条款写成:要么因为承担这类风险而收取相应保费,要么就把这类风险排除掉。

And prior to 9/11, even though we recognized that there could be huge monetary damages that flowed from the activities of what I would call deranged people, we hadn't really written the contracts in such a way as to either get paid for taking that risk or to exclude the risk.

换句话说,我们等于是白白把这类风险也保进去了。

In other words, we were throwing it in for nothing.

我们原本是把战争风险排除在外的。

We had excluded risk for war.

我的意思是,我们知道——我们也看过 England 在四十年代发生过什么。

I mean, we knew that—I mean, we'd seen what had happened in England in the '40s.

所以,对于那些我们当中有些人亲眼见过的事情,我们是有考虑进去的。

And so we had taken account of something that some of us had seen with our own eyes.

但对于另一种我们明知道有可能发生、呃、只是我们没有亲眼见过的事情,我们却没有把它考虑进去。

But we didn't take account of something that we knew was possible, uh, but we just hadn't seen.

而这在某种程度上,怎么说呢,就是人性的特点。

And that's, you know, that's the human condition to some degree.

从 9 月 11 号之后,保险业的每个人都意识到,他们一直暴露在一些自己并没有收费的风险之下,所以他们要么得把这些风险排除掉,要么就必须为这些风险收费。

Since September 11th, everybody in the insurance business recognizes that they've had exposures, uh, that they weren't charging for, and they either had to exclude those exposures or they had to charge for them.

呃,我们已经做的第一件事,当然就是,我们账上原来有很多保单,让我们在这方面有风险敞口,而这些保单大多数都是从不同时间点开始、保障期为一年的。

Uh, we have written— first thing we had to do, of course, is we had lots of policies on the books that left us exposed to this, and most of those policies ran for a year starting at different points.

这些保单大部分都已经到期退出了,但也还没有完全退出。

Those have run off to a great degree, but they're not entirely run off.

呃,我们做的另一件事,是针对新保单。

Uh, the other thing we did was on new policies.

我们卖出了相当一部分、数量挺大的 terrorism insurance,但不包括我们所说的 NCB——也就是 nuclear、chemical 和 biological。

We have sold a fair amount, quite a, quite a large amount of terrorism insurance that excludes what we call NCB— nuclear, chemical, and biological.

也包括不承保 nuclear 之后引发的 fire。

As well as fire following nuclear.

对于这类 terrorism,我们可以承担相当一部分风险,因为它不会——不会集中爆发。

And we can take a fair amount of exposure to that sort of terrorism, because it doesn't— it won't aggregate.

它在 Twin Towers,也就是 World Trade Center,那个地方出现了风险聚集,那种程度对于非 NCB 类型的活动来说,几乎已经是你能想到的最极端情况了。

It aggregated at the Twin Towers in a way that— World Trade Center— in a way that just about was about as extreme as you could get for non-NCB-type activities.

我是说,那次造成的损失非常巨大。

I mean, that was a huge amount of damage done.
M2
M25:19

对。

Yes.
M1
M15:20

而且还没有涉及 nuclear、chemical 或 biological。

Without nuclear, chemical, or biological.

但是,如果排除 NCB 的话,我们可以在更大的 New York 地区之类的地方承担几百亿美元规模的风险敞口。

But we can have tens of billions of dollars with NCB excluded throughout a greater New York area or something.

但我们不能承担几千亿美元的风险敞口,比如暴露在 nuclear 活动之下,因为一个实施者就够了。

But we can't have hundreds of billions of exposure that would be exposed, say, to nuclear activities, because they're an actor too.
F1
F15:45

对。

Yes.
M1
M15:46

或者三个协调一致地行动,就可能造成足以摧毁整个 insurance industry 的损失。

Or three coordinated could cause damage that would destroy the insurance industry.

如果我们对那种情况提供保障,那我们自己也会被摧毁。

And if we had coverage on that, it would destroy us as well.

所以我们承保得非常少。

So we write very little.

我们确实会承保一点,因为我们可以承受——我们可以承受——损失十亿或二十亿美元。

We do write a little because we can take— we can take— we can lose $1 billion or $2 billion.

如果我们因为承担这种风险而拿到合适的保费,你知道,这本来就是我们所处的业务。

And if we got paid appropriately for taking the risk, you know, that's a business we're in.

但是我们承受不了五百亿或一千亿美元的损失。

But we can't lose $50 or $100 billion.

所以,呃,我们会承担一点——会承担少量涉及 nuclear、chemical 或 biological 的风险。

And, uh, so we take a little bit— we take a few risks that involve, uh, nuclear, chemical, or biological.

但总的来说,我们现在承保的 terrorism insurance——而且我们已经写了相当不少——都是把这些特定风险排除掉的。

But generally speaking, the terrorism insurance that we're writing— and we've written a fair amount of it— excludes those particular risks.

你可以说,比如拿 biological 来说,它怎么会在 insurance 的角度上变成很重大的问题呢?

You can say, you know, take biological, how could that be something, uh, significant from an insurance standpoint?

很多人其实没有意识到,World Trade Center 的损失,以极大的差距,成了历史上最大的 workers' compensation 损失。

Well, many people don't realize it, but the World Trade Center loss was by a huge margin the largest workers' compensation loss in history.

你会觉得那是 property damage,但最终,接近三千人死亡,而他们去世的时候,呃,正在工作,所以属于 workers' compensation 的保障范围。

You think of it as property damage, but in the end, close to 3,000 people died who, uh, were working at the time they died and therefore covered by workers' compensation.

如果同样的事情发生在 Yankee Stadium,当时大家都在看 baseball 比赛,或者发生在别的什么地方,那他们就不会被 workers' compensation 覆盖。

If the same thing had happened at Yankee Stadium while they were all watching a baseball game, or some other place, they wouldn't have been covered by workers' compensation.

所以某种程度上这是偶然发生的,但它还是以非常大的幅度成了历史上最大的 workers' compensation 损失。

So it was happenstance to some degree, but that became the largest workers' compensation loss in history by a huge margin.

现在,如果你想在这个国家造成巨大的破坏,而且你能想出某种 biological agent——而且确实有人在研究这个——可以被注入大型工厂、大型办公楼的通风系统之类的地方,那你就可能制造出 workers' compensation 损失,大到简直让人无法想象。

Now, if you were trying to cause huge damage in this country and you could figure out something that, in the way of a biological agent— and there are people working on this— that could be injected into the ventilation systems or whatever of large plants, large office buildings, you could create workers' compensation losses that, you know, would just totally boggle your mind.

而且任何在做这种事的人,你都得预期,如果他们觉得自己已经把它做成了,他们就会试图在那些有成千上万人同时工作的地区,几乎同时发动。

And anybody that was working on such a thing, you have to expect they would, if they thought they had perfected it, would try to do something close to simultaneously in areas where there would be thousands and thousands of people working.

那样的话——那可能会让 World Trade Center 的损失看起来都不算什么。

And it would— it could make the World Trade Center loss look like nothing.

所以,我们基本上必须时刻保持警惕。

So, we have to be basically vigilant.
F1
F18:02

对。

Yes.
M1
M18:02

比如说,我们允许某一类事情里的风险累积到多大程度。

In how much risk we let aggregate in something of that sort.

人们一直都很警惕,比方说在一段海岸线上他们要承保多少栋房子;或者从实体风险的角度来说,你知道,他们不想承保太多。

People have always been vigilant about how many houses they'll insure along a shoreline, or the— in terms of physical risk, they, you know, they don't want too many.

他们不希望在 San Andreas Fault 断层带上有太多房屋或者工厂之类的东西,因为他们知道那里面有风险集中的可能性。

They don't want too many homes or factories on the San Andreas Fault or something of the sort, because they recognize that as having aggregation possibilities.

但现在,你还得去考虑人可能会策划出来的那种灾难,而这种灾难同样会带来风险集中的可能性。

But now you have to think about things that man may plan in the way of catastrophes that will have aggregation possibilities.

这基本上是从九一一之后,才被引入保险业思考框架里的。

And that is something that's pretty much been introduced into the insurance world's thinking since September 11th.

我可以告诉你,你知道,我们对这个想得很多。

And I can tell you, you know, we think a lot about it.

这——我的意思是,它带来的社会后果远比保险本身严重得多,但我们必须考虑我们要怎么赔付理赔款。

It's— I mean, the social consequences are far worse than insurance, but we have to think about how we pay our claims.

因为如果我们哪天真的做了非常愚蠢的事,承担了某种会让 Berkshire 净资产都赔光的集中风险,那我们不仅没法向那场灾难中的受害人赔付,而且还有另外一些人在十五年前受了伤,像截瘫患者之类的,我们本来要在他们余生里持续给他们付款,到时候这些钱我们也付不出来。

Because if we ever do anything really foolish and endanger— take an aggregation that would cause us to lose the net worth of Berkshire, we would not only not be able to pay the claims of the people in that disaster, but there are other people that suffered injuries 15 years ago, paraplegics and all that, that we're making payments to for the rest of their lifetime, and we wouldn't be able to make those payments.

而且我们不会那样经营我们的业务。

And we're not going to run our business that way.

Charlie?

Charlie?
M2
M29:16

对,九一一如果说有什么作用的话,那就是它让我们在面对某些显而易见的现实问题时,不再像以前那样软弱、愚蠢、马虎了——而我们以前显然就是那样。

Yeah, to the extent that, uh, September 11th has caused us to be less weak, foolish, and sloppy as we plainly were in facing some plain reality.

这是件好事。

It's a plus.

当然,发生的事情本身我们感到遗憾,但对于我们现在能以更理性的方式面对现实,这一点我们完全不该遗憾。

We regret, of course, what happened, but we should not regret at all that we now face reality with more intelligence.

我们现在大家都要承受的这些不便,像移民程序收紧之类的,其实早在很多年前就该这么做了。

This inconvenience that we all have, this tightening of immigration procedures, etc., should have been done years ago.
M1
M19:54

在投资里,最重要的不是智商特别高,谢天谢地。

The most important thing in investments is not having a high IQ, thank God.

我的意思是,重要的是现实感,还有纪律性。

I mean, the important thing is realism and discipline.

如果你足够现实、也有纪律,在投资上做得好并不需要你聪明到特别夸张。

And you don't need to be extraordinarily bright to do well in investments if you are realistic and disciplined.

保险承保也是一样。

And the same thing applies in insurance underwriting.

这不是什么神秘高深的科学,不是说只有极少数人才具备把它做好所需要的能力,也不是说这件事非得靠很强的数学能力——数学跟这件事关系其实很小。

It is not some arcane science that, you know, that, uh, the ability to do successfully is given only to a few, or which requires the ability to do— mathematics have very little to do with it.

当然,理解概率这些东西很重要,更像是一种直觉式的理解,但这并不要求你特别会摆弄数字。

Uh, there's an understanding of probabilities and all that, kind of a gut understanding that's important, but it does not require the ability to manipulate figures.

也就是说,实际上你知道,不会微积分也一样能做。

Uh, it does not really, you know, you, you could do it without calculus.

你能做,真的能做,只要你对算术有很好的理解,再加上一种天生的概率感。

You can do it. You can really do it with a good understanding of arithmetic and an inherent sense of probabilities.

而且就像 Charlie 说的,从投资角度来看,我觉得我们如果说有什么与众不同的地方,那就是在现实感和纪律性这两点上。

And as Charlie says, to the extent that— I think we've always, from the investment standpoint, you know, if we've had any distinguishing characteristics, it would be that in terms of realism and, and, and discipline.

而这通常就意味着,要界定清楚什么是你不知道的。

And generally that means defining what you don't know.

保险承保也是同样的道理。

Uh, in insurance underwriting, it's the same thing.

你必须——你必须现实地看待,什么是你能理解的,什么是你不能理解的,因此什么你能承保,什么你不能承保。

You have to have— you have to be realistic about what you can understand and what you can't understand, and therefore what you can insure and what you can't insure.

而且对于各种各样那些给你的条件、但你拿到的保费补偿并不合适的业务,你必须有纪律地把它们拒掉。

And you have to be disciplined about turning down, uh, all kinds of offerings where you're not getting paid appropriately.

而九一一把这些教训彻底敲进了人们心里,而且在某些情况下,它大概也重新定义了什么才叫拿到合适的补偿。

And, and September 11th drove home those lessons and probably redefined getting paid appropriately in certain cases.

第六区。

Area 6.