M20:21
嗯，最大的——我会说，我们并不担心我们手上这些企业的经营基本面。
Well, the greatest— I would say we don't worry about the economics of the businesses we have.
呃，我们有一组非常多元化的业务。
Uh, we've got a very diverse group.
总的来说，它们都是非常好的企业。
By and large, they're very good businesses.
总的来说，它们也都是由这个国家里一些最优秀的经理人在管理。
By and large, they're run by some of the best managers in the country.
但我们担心的是，会有哪里出问题。
But we worry about something going wrong.
我的意思是，你们也在那部电影里听过 Salomon 那件事。
I mean, you know, you heard about the Salomon thing in the movie.
我是说，我们在外面有十八万人，我敢保证，就在我们现在说话的时候，一定有某个地方正在出问题。
And I mean, we've got 180,000 people out there, and, uh, I'll guarantee you something is going wrong someplace as we talk.
这就是事情的本质。
That's just the nature of it.
但你希望的是，那件事相对不那么重要，或者我们能及时发现它。
But what you hope is that it's relatively unimportant or that we catch it.
不过那——那确实是我们知道一定会发生的事。
But that's— that is something that we know will happen.
我们会努力建立一种文化，尽量把这种事降到最低。
We try to have a culture that minimizes that.
而且我觉得，我们确实有这样一种文化，能把这种事降到最低。
And I think we do have a culture that minimizes that.
在我们看来，建立正确的激励机制非常重要。
It's very important, in our view, to have the right incentives.
而我们认为，很多地方的激励机制其实并不好。
And many places, we think, have incentives that aren't so good.
比如说，我上飞机的时候——像我们拥有 NetJets 这样的公司——我最不想做的一件事，就是告诉飞行员我快迟到了，希望我们能飞快一点到 New York。
I mean, when I get on an airplane, and we own the company, like NetJets, the last thing in the world I want to tell the pilot is that I'm running late and I hope we can get to New York a little faster.
我的意思是，如果一个飞行员担心你会不会影响到他的工作之类的，那你还去激励他在起飞、检查清单，或者别的什么环节上赶时间，这就太愚蠢了。
I mean, that is dumb to incent a pilot who may be worried that somehow you affect his job or something to get in a hurry about the takeoff or the checklist or whatever it may be.
而很多公司在薪酬方案里，或者在他们设置激励的方式上，一次又一次地——至少在我们看来——是在激励一些错误的事情。
Companies do that time after time in their compensation plans or things that they, they incent people, in our view at least, some of the wrong things.
这并不是说在任何情况下都不会出问题，但你不应该建立一种制度，让人们去——比如说——担心季度盈利。
That doesn't mean nothing wrong will happen under any circumstances, but you should not have a system that causes people to, uh, for example, worry about quarterly earnings.
我们的经理人没有任何人需要向 Omaha 提交预算。
None of our— our managers do not submit budgets into Omaha.
我根本不知道我们下个季度会赚多少钱，而且我也没有通过什么默认的肢体语言，或者任何类似的方式，向我们的经理人传递出一种信号，说我希望这个季度每股赚多少多少美元；因为尤其是在保险行业里，如果你做的是 long-tail business，而且时间又比较短，那你基本上想报什么数字都可以报出来。
I have no idea what we're going to earn next quarter, and I have I have no implicit body language out there or anything of the sort to our managers that I'm hoping to earn X dollars per share in the quarter, because in the insurance business particularly, you can report any numbers basically that you want to if you write long-tail business for a short period of time.
你知道，我们有四百五十亿美元的 loss reserves。
And, you know, we've got $45 billion of loss reserves.
那么，谁知道正确的数字到底是四百五十亿、四百六十亿，还是四百四十亿呢？
Well, who knows whether the right figure is $45 billion or $46 or $44?
如果你的目标是在某个季度报出某个既定数字，那你就不会说是四百五十亿，而会说成四百四十七点五亿美元，或者类似这样的数。
And if the desire is to report some given number in a given quarter, instead of saying $45 billion, you say $44.75 billion or something of the sort.
所以我们不会在薪酬上设置这种激励；也不会让大家因为不想让我失望而受到这种影响。
So we have no incentives in terms of the— how people are paid, or in terms of the fact they just don't want to let me down.
假设年初的时候，我要求每个人都提交预算，然后我又跑到 Wall Street 去大谈一堆数字。
Let's assume at the start of the year I asked everybody to submit budgets, and then I went out on Wall Street and preached a bunch of numbers.
即使他们的薪酬并不取决于这些数字，经理人也会觉得，你知道，我们可不想在这件事上让 Warren 失望，所以呢，我们就在准备金上采取一个偏乐观的看法。
Even if their compensation didn't depend on it, the managers would feel, you know, we don't want to let Warren down on this, so, you know, we'll take an optimistic view of reserves.
而这在季度末是很容易做到的，然后——然后我们就不会让他失望，他在 Wall Street 面前也不会显得像个傻子。
And that's easy to do at the end of the quarter, and, and we won't let him down, and then he won't look like a jerk in front of Wall Street.
所以我们——我们会尽量避免这种事情。
So we, we try to avoid that sort of thing.
嗯，不过就算是那样，那也是我们担心的事。
Um, but even then, that is what we worry about.
我们不担心这个地方赚不赚钱。
We don't worry about this place making money.
我是说，我们会赚钱的；要是赚不到，那是我的错。
I mean, we'll make money, and if we don't, it's my fault.
所以，那个不是问题。
And, uh, so that's not the problem.
现在的问题，除了我们刚才说的那个之外，问题在于怎么配置资本，这也是我的工作。
The problem right now, in addition to the one we just talked about, the problem is deploying capital, and that's my job too.
而且，你知道，我最近在这方面做得不算太好，不过运气要是稍微好一点，你知道，在另一种市场环境里，我们会有机会去做这件事。
And, you know, I haven't done a very good job of that recently, but with a little luck, you know, we will—in a different kind of market situation, we will get a chance to do that.
Charlie？
Charlie?