2010年股东大会 · 金融市场中最大的风险是——“别人都在这么做” — 文稿

F10:00

你提的三个关键问题里，有一个是：管理层到底是真心热爱他们在做的事，还是管理层爱的是钱？

One of your 3 key questions is, does management love what they do, or does management love the money?

那么，你觉得这场危机让管理层的诚信发生了什么变化？

So, how do you see the crisis having changed the integrity of management?

M10:16

嗯，我觉得，导致这场危机的原因之一，在某种程度上，就是很多管理层缺乏诚信。

Well, I think what led to the crisis involved, to some extent, a lack of integrity in many managements.

幸运的是，他们当中有些人现在已经出局了。

Fortunately, some of them are now gone.

所以，诚信非常重要。

So integrity is very important.

而且这也是最稳妥的赚钱方式。

It's the safest way to make money also.

偶尔也会有那种十足的坏蛋，在赚钱这件事上干得相当不错，不过那种成功会让我想起 Pope Urban 评价 Cardinal Richelieu 时说过的话。

There's an occasional perfect knave who succeeds pretty well with money, but that kind of success reminds me of what Pope Urban said about Cardinal Richelieu.

他说，如果上帝存在，那 Cardinal Richelieu 可有很多事情需要交代。

He said, If there is a God, Cardinal Richelieu has much to answer for.

但如果没有上帝，那他这辈子可算是混得相当不错。

But if there is no God, he's done rather well.

可惜的是，太多人都想活成 Cardinal Richelieu 那样——也就是 Pope Urban 眼中的 Cardinal Richelieu。

And too many people want to be like Cardinal Richelieu—Pope Urban's view of Cardinal Richelieu.

所以，呃，诚信很重要。

And, and, uh, integrity is important.

它重要得不得了。

It's terribly important.

当然了，人人嘴上都讲诚信，哪怕其实并没有。

And of course, everybody mouths integrity, even when it's lacking.

所以，这就，这就，这就很难，呃，去确定一个人口口声声说自己有诚信，是不是真的就有。

So it's, it's, it's difficult to, to, uh, be sure that professing integrity is the same as having it.

M21:36

“别人都在这么做”这种心态，我觉得才是最难对付的。

The everyone-else-is-doing-it is, is, is the toughest thing, I, I think.

M11:41

对。

Yeah.

M21:42

你看，大概在一九九三年前后，就有一个很经典的例子。就是 Accounting Standards Board 站出来说了一件大家其实一直都心知肚明的事：stock options 其实就是一种费用，而费用，不管怎么说，都应该进 income statement。

You had this classic example in about 1993, roughly. You know, the Accounting Standards Board came out and said what was obvious to everybody all along was that stock options were actually an expense, and that expenses, for some reason or another, belonged on the income statement.

结果整个 corporate America 的反击，简直猛烈得超乎想象。

And corporate America fought back like you cannot believe.

我是说，那感觉就像 World War III 爆发了一样，一大群 CEO 浩浩荡荡杀到 Washington 去。

I mean, it was like World War III had broken out in terms of armies of CEOs marching on Washington.

所以最后 Accounting Standards Board 退让了。

So the Accounting Standards Board backed off.

Congress——Senate 还以八十八票对九票通过表决，等于是在告诉他们，你说 Accounting Standards Board 懂个什么 accounting，Senate 才来告诉你 accounting 到底是怎么回事。

Congress—the Senate voted 88 to 9 to tell them that, you know, what the hell did the Accounting Standards Board know about accounting, and that the Senate would tell them what accounting was all about.

呃，等到 Accounting Standards Board 退让之后，他们就说，好吧，现在我们允许你们用两种办法中的一种。

Uh, when the Accounting Standards Board backed off, they said, there, we'll now say that you can do it one of two ways.

第一种是推荐做法，也就是把它记成费用。

Number 1 is preferred, which was the expense.

第二种也可以接受，但是，但是不是推荐做法。

Number 2 was acceptable but, but not preferred.

在 Standard & Poor's 500 这五百家公司里，有四百九十八家选了第二种，呃，也就是那个不被推荐的做法。

Of the Standard & Poor's 500 companies, 498 chose number 2, the, uh, the non-preferred way.

只有两家用了推荐的方法。

2 took the preferred method.

而那四百九十八家公司里，我还跟其中一些人聊过——不，是不少人——这些人是那种我会放心让他们做我遗嘱受托人的人。

And I talked to one—a number of people in that 498 that I would trust to be a trustee of my will.

你知道，我很愿意有他们这样的邻居。

You know, I'd love to have them as a next-door neighbor.

他们甚至都可以娶我的女儿。

They could marry my daughter.

但到头来，他们还是会说，如果别人不这么做，我就没法这么做。

But in the end, they said, I can't do it if the other guy isn't doing it.

这其实就是另一种说法：我这么做，是因为别人也都这么做。

It was a variation on, I'm doing it because the other guy is doing it.

他们基本上就是在说，如果我少报了本来可以报出来的利润，那我就是在惩罚我的股东。

They, they basically said, I'll be penalizing my shareholders if I report less in the way of earnings than I can report.

而且其他人也都是这么干的，我也明白你的观点。

And all the other guys are doing it that way, and I understand your point.

这种情境伦理的问题非常严重。

And the situational ethics problem is huge.

你知道，我前面给你举过那个例子：如果把数字精确到每股收益的小数点后一位分，也就是十分之一美分，你会发现季度财报里出现一个“4”是多么罕见。

You know, it, uh, I gave you earlier that illustration of how rare it is to find, if you carry it out to tenths of a cent, a 4 in reported earnings quarterly.

那不是偶然的。

That's not accidental.

但是，如果你去跟那些动手脚、把那个“4”弄成“5”的人聊，他们会说，哎呀，反正别人也都这么做。

And it's—but if you talk to the people that play games to get that 4 up to 5, they would say, well, everybody else is doing it.

连你自己的统计都证明了这一点。

Your own statistics prove that.

这个问题，你知道，确实很难处理。

And that is a, you know, it is a tough problem to deal with.

我们会尽量在 Berkshire 里少制造那种会诱发这种行为的情境。

We try to create as few situations in Berkshire as we can that would induce such behavior.

你知道，我不会让经理人把预算交给我。

You know, I don't have the managers submit budgets to me.

Berkshire 没有统一的预算。

There is no Berkshire budget.

当然，他们在各自的经营里可以自己用预算。

You know, they can use them in their own operations.

有些人用，有些人不用。

Some do and some don't.

很多人会用，非常多。

Many do, a great many do.

但如果他们要把预算交给我，你知道，一旦他们觉得自己差一点完不成，而且又觉得我一直在盯着看，诱惑就来了，就会想在某些地方做点手脚。

But if they submit them to me, you know, and the temptation becomes, if they're not quite making it and they think I'm looking at all the time, the temptation becomes to fudge in some way.

真正会这么做的人其实很少，但越是觉得别人都在这么做的人，最后这么做的人就会越多。

And very few would do it, but the more that thought the other ones were doing it, the more that would do it.

这就是人的行为方式，所以你得尽量建立一种机制，把人性里的弱点压到最低。

It's just human behavior, and you want to kind of create a structure that minimizes the weaknesses in human behavior.

我觉得 Berkshire 在这方面已经算是做得非常好的地方之一了，当然，我也肯定我们并不完美。

And I think Berkshire's about as good a place at that as any, although I'm sure we're not perfect at it.

John？

John?

M14:59

对，这个问题真正有意思的地方在于，很多糟糕的行为其实并不是出于恶意，也不是出于过度的贪婪，或者诸如此类的东西。

Yeah, what's really interesting on this issue is that so much of the bad behavior does, does not come from malevolence or overweening greed or anything like that.

它更多是来自一种潜意识里的认知偏差，让人们替很多行为找到理由，而这些行为如果看得更清楚一点，其实根本是站不住脚的。

It comes from subconscious poor cognition that justifies a lot of behavior that's really not justifiable if it's better understood.

这种事几乎发生在每个人身上，而要治这个毛病非常难。

And that happens to practically everybody, and the cure is very difficult.

最好的办法，就是建立一种制度，让做决策的人自己承担后果。

The best cure is to have a system where the people who are making the decisions bear the consequences.

这也就是为什么 Wall Street 造出来的那套体系有问题：根本没有人真正持有那些 mortgage，他们只是很快把它们转手给别人，顺便赚一笔。

And that's why the system that Wall Street created, where nobody really owned the mortgages, they just passed them rapidly to somebody else at a profit.

所以也就没有人会觉得，自己有责任确保那些 mortgage 是好的。

And so nobody felt any responsibility that the mortgages be any good.

这种体系从根子上说，就是一种不负责任的体系，而去建立这种不负责任的体系，本身就是非常不道德的。

Systems like that, at a basic level, are irresponsible systems, and it's deeply immoral to create irresponsible systems like that.

但建立这种体系的人并没有意识到自己是在做不道德的事。

But the people who create them don't realize they're being immoral.

他们还觉得那套体系特别棒。

They think those systems are wonderful.

你看，现在这场乱局里那些你觉得特别令人遗憾的行为，又有谁出来为此道歉了呢？

Who do you see apologizing for the behavior you now find so regrettable in our recent mess.

你会注意到，几乎没有什么道歉。

There are very few apologies, you'll note.

人们都觉得自己做得挺好。

People think they did fine.