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1999年股东大会 · 巴菲特:变化太快的行业,对于投资是个威胁而不是机会

38 段 · 3 位说话人 · 原片 5:10
M1
M10:00

大家下午好。

Good afternoon.

我叫 Greg Caza,来自 Michigan 的 Oakland County。

My name is Greg Caza from Oakland County, Michigan.

我想感谢两位先生这个周末的热情款待。

I'd like to thank both of you gentlemen for your hospitality this weekend.

我的问题是关于价格通缩的。

My question deals with price deflation.

能不能请你们解释一下,技术进步和生产率提升,是怎么影响我们那些非固定收益类持仓的,尤其是保险业务?

Could you please explain how technological advances and productivity increases are affecting our non-fixed-income holdings, especially insurance?
M2
M20:27

嗯,我觉得,如果你的问题是在问,呃,技术进步到底是怎么影响通胀率的,也就是 technology 的发展带来的影响,我——我,呃,听过 Alan Greenspan 对这个讲过很多很有意思的看法。

Well, I think that to the extent your question implies, uh, the question, how has technology affected the inflation rate, the advances in technology, I, I, uh, I've heard Alan Greenspan make a lot of interesting comments on that.

我觉得这在某种程度上也让他很困惑,不过他也意识到,确实存在某种很重要、但又非常难衡量的因素,导致通胀并没有像大多数人原先预期的那样运行,呃,哪怕失业率下降了,整体经济也很繁荣,等等。

I think it baffles him to some extent, but he also recognizes that there's some important, very hard to measure factor that has caused inflation not to behave in the way that most people expected, uh, with this drop in unemployment, general prosperity, etc.

而且——我觉得他认为,这其中有一部分原因,虽然还是没法量化,是 Information Technology 领域正在发生的这些变化。

And he— I think he attributes it in some part, but again immeasurable, to what has been happening in the information technology world.

显然,低通胀对固定收益投资是有利的,不过这一点已经在长期利率里相当大程度上体现出来了,现在长期利率大概在百分之五点五左右。

Obviously, low inflation is good for fixed-income investments, but that's been reflected to a significant degree in a long-term rate that's at about 5.5% now.

你知道,就宏观经济因素来说,现在看起来几乎像是一个完美世界,这大概也是为什么人们对股票这么有热情;如果从价格通胀的角度看,这也是个很充分的理由。

You know, it is— it does look at the moment like an almost perfect world in terms of the macroeconomic factors, and that probably is a reason why people are enthused about stocks, and it's a good reason in terms of price inflation.

这也是为什么债券在过去这些年里——其实从一九八二年以来——表现一直不错。

It's a good reason why bonds have behaved well over the last, really since 1982.

至于这对未来意味着什么,我不知道答案。

I don't know the answer as to what it means for the future.

但我得相信,这个国家在 Information Technology 方面拥有这样的领先地位,对这个国家是非常有利的。

I have to believe that it's very good for this country to have the lead in information technology that it does.

我的意思是,作为一个非专业人士,在我看来,我们领先得太多了,而且资金不断流进去,人才也不断流进去。

I mean, we— it seems to me as a non-expert that we are so far ahead, and the money flowing into it, the brainpower flowing into it.

以至于你都很难想出谁能排第二。

That it's hard to think of who's in second place.

我觉得这已经在一些非常重大的方面帮助了这个国家,但我不知道该怎么去衡量。

And I think that's helped this country in some very significant way, but I don't know how to measure it.

Charlie?

Charlie?
M3
M32:24

嗯,我会这么说,Berkshire 旗下的业务,平均来看,比一般企业更不容易被新技术淘汰。

Well, I would say that Berkshire's businesses on average are less likely to be obsoleted by new technology than businesses generally.

不是那种得穿钢头工作鞋的行业。

No steel-toed work shoes.

我不预期技术会发生什么重大的变化,而且,而且我觉得,相比很多其他公司,我们拥有更多那种比较基础、也更难被淘汰的业务。

I do not anticipate a significant change in the technology, and, and I think we have more of the stuff that's sort of basic and hard to obsolete than many other corporations do.
M2
M22:55

对,就像我们在报告里提到的,我们认为所有这些活动从社会层面来看都是非常有益的。至于我们自己,更看重的是去找那种大体上可以预测,十年、十五年、二十年后会处在什么位置的企业。

Yeah, as we mentioned in the report, we think all of that activity is very beneficial from a societal standpoint. Our own emphasis is on trying to find businesses that are predictable in a general way as to where they'll be in 10 or 15 or 20 years.

这也就意味着,我们要找的企业,一般来说,不会特别容易受到太多变化的影响。

And that means we're looking for businesses that, in general, are not going to be susceptible to very much change.

在投资过程中,我们把变化看成更多是一种威胁,而不是机会。

We view change as more of a threat in the investment process than an opportunity.

这跟现在大多数人看待股票的方式正好相反。

That's quite contrary to the way most people are looking at equities now.

不过我们不会因为变化就特别兴奋——只有少数例外——我们不会把变化当成一种赚很多钱的方法而感到兴奋。

But we do not get enthused about— with a few exceptions, we do not get enthused about change as a way to make a lot of money.

我们努力找的是——我们在找那种没有太多变化的环境,去保护那些本来就很赚钱的模式,并且让它们未来还能赚得更多。

We try to look at— we're looking for the absence of change to protect ways that are already making a lot of money and allow them to make even more in the future.

所以我们把变化看成威胁。每当我们看一个企业,发现前面会有很多变化,十次里有九次,我们都会放弃。

So we look at change as a threat, and whenever we look at a business, and we see lots of change coming, 9 times out of 10, we're going to pass on that.

而当我们看到某样东西,觉得它十年后看起来很可能还是差不多一个样子,我们对预测它就会有信心得多。

And when we see something we think is very likely to look the same 10 years from now, we feel much more confident about predicting it.

比如说,Coca-Cola 现在卖的产品,跟一百一十多年前卖的那个,呃,还是非常非常相似;而它的分销基础、和消费者沟通的方式,以及这类东西,其实根本没怎么变。

I mean, Coca-Cola is still selling a product that is very, very similar to, uh, one that was sold 110-plus years ago, and the fundamentals of distribution and talking to the consumer and all of that sort of thing really haven't changed at all.

你五十年前对 Coca-Cola 做的分析,放到现在,基本上也还是适用的。

Your analysis of Coca-Cola 50 years ago can pretty well serve as an analysis now.

我们对那类生意会更有把握。

We're more comfortable in those kind of businesses.

这意味着我们会错过一些——很多非常大的赢家,但反正我们本来也不知道该怎么把它们挑出来。

It means we miss some—a lot of very big winners, but we wouldn't know how to pick those out anyway.

这同时也意味着,我们几乎不会出现特别大的亏家。

It doesn't mean also that we have very few big losers.

从长期来看,这一点帮助很大。

And that's quite helpful over time.
M3
M34:53

对,花生脆糖也是,技术变化也非常少。

Yeah, the peanut brittle, that's very little technological change too.
M2
M25:06

他们最好别改。

They better not change it.

我们就喜欢它现在这个样子。

We like it just the way it is.

第三区。

Zone 3.