2003年股东大会 · 巴菲特：通货膨胀是股票投资者的最大敌人 — 文稿

M10:00

早上好。

Good morning.

我叫 Matt Sauer，来自 North Carolina 的 Durham。

My name is Matt Sauer, and I'm from Durham, North Carolina.

M20:03

谢谢。

Thank you.

M10:04

你在一九七七年 Fortune 杂志上一篇题为《How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor》的文章里提出，总体来看，企业盈利有点像债券票息，因此会受到高通胀的负面影响。

In a 1977 Fortune magazine article titled How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor, you argued that corporate earnings in aggregate acted like a bond coupon and thus were negatively impacted by high inflation.

由于当时通胀很高，你设想过这样一种情况：企业股本百分之十二的回报，税后会降到百分之七，按实际购买力算下来，真实回报等于百分之零。

Due to high inflation at the time, you posited a world where a 12% return on corporate equity was reduced to 7% after taxes and netted out to 0% in real terms.

这几年来，你对股票的前景一直比较悲观，我们认为这很大程度上和一开始的估值过高有关。

You have been sounding downcast about the prospects for equities for several years, much of which we assume relates to extreme starting valuations.

如果通胀在一九七七年明显对投资者不利，那么在今天的经济环境里，相对缺乏通胀，至少也该算是对股票持有人有利的一项因素吧？

If inflation was decidedly bad for investors in 1977, isn't the relative lack of it in today's economy at least one mark in the plus column for equity owners?

还有，你发出这些警告、说投资者很可能会对股票回报失望时，里面是不是也包含了对未来通胀的预期成分？

Is there also a future inflation expectation component in your warnings that investors are likely to be disappointed by equity results?

M21:13

嗯，我会这么说——毫无疑问，没有通胀或者通胀很低，对持有人来说是个加分项。

Well, I would—there's no question that the lack of inflation is a plus for owners.

我的意思是，在我看来，如果是以差不多的价格买下 American business，那么持有它所能得到的真实回报，在长期低通胀或者接近零通胀的情况下，会高于长期高通胀的情况。

I mean, the real return you will obtain, in my view, from owning American business, if purchased at similar prices, the real return will be higher if we have long periods of low or close to no inflation than if we had long periods of high inflation.

这一点我觉得是毫无疑问的，因为那篇文章后面也解释了，为什么你会对名义回报纳税，而从真实购买力角度看，那里面有些回报其实是虚假的。

I don't think there's any question about that, because that article went on to explain how you got taxed on nominal returns and fictitious returns in real terms.

所以，关于你问的哪个时期对投资者更有利这个问题，只要拉长时间看，低通胀时期对投资者更好。

So, well, your question about which period is better for investors, a low inflation period over any long period is better for investors.

而问题就像你也指出的那样，在于起点，也就是我们为什么预测股票投资者的回报会比较温和。

And the problem, as you pointed out also, was the starting point in terms of predicting modest returns for equity investors.

我觉得这些回报也不一定就真的那么低。

The returns weren't necessarily so modest, I perceive.

只是和人们在一九八二年到一九九九年那段长期牛市中，逐渐以为自己能拿到的回报相比，它们显得没那么高而已。

They were just modest compared to what people had begun to think returns would be during that long bull market from 1982 to 1999.

当时 Gallup 和我记得是 PaineWebber 一起做过一些调查。

There were polls taken by Gallup working with, I think, PaineWebber at the time.

现在他们把这项合作转到 UBS Warburg 那边了。

Now they've moved it over to UBS Warburg.

调查显示了股市里人们的回报预期。

That showed the expectancy of people in the stock market.

我记得，人们预期的回报后来升到了百分之十四到百分之十五。

And those returns that people expected got up to 14% or 15%, as I remember.

而且他们觉得，在低通胀环境下，自己也能拿到百分之十四到百分之十五的回报。

And they were thinking they were going to get 14% or 15% in a low inflation environment.

嗯，那你知道，那就是在做梦了。

Well, that, you know, that was dreaming.

而且，呃，在低通胀环境下，赚个百分之六或者百分之七，其实一点问题都没有。

And, uh, there's nothing wrong in a low inflation environment at all in earning, you know, 6 or 7%.

这大概已经是——嗯，事实上，这已经是能发生的最好结果了。

That's probably as well—well, it is as good as will happen.

因为在低通胀环境下，GDP 能增长多少呢？

Because in a low inflation environment, how much is GDP going to grow?

嗯，GDP 嘛，如果通胀是百分之二，实际增长哪怕有百分之三，那加起来也就是百分之五。

Well, GDP, you know, if you have a 2% inflation and even 3% real growth, you're talking about 5%.

也就是说，GDP 的名义增速是百分之五。

In nominal terms, GDP growing.

如果 GDP 按这个速度增长，那么长期来看，企业利润大致也会按差不多这个速度增长。

If GDP grows at that rate, over time corporate profits will grow more or less at that rate.

如果企业利润每年增长百分之五，那么这些利润的价值，也就是资本化之后的价值，在一个大致正常的起点上，长期来看大概率也会按差不多这个速度增长。

And if corporate profits grow at 5% a year, the value of those corporate profits, the capitalized value, will probably grow at something like that over any long term with a sort of a normal starting point.

再把股息加进去，扣掉各种摩擦成本之前，你得到的回报大概就是百分之六到百分之七。

And add that to dividends, and you will get 6% or 7% before frictional costs.

投资者其实会承担很多摩擦成本。

Investors incur a lot of frictional costs.

他们不一定非得这样，但他们确实会这么做，而且这往往会占到他们投资额的百分之一点五、百分之二。

They don't have to, but they do, and that often is 1.5%, 2% of their investment.

所以从算术上看并不差。

So the math isn't bad.

只是，这对那些看着一九九八年或者一九九九年的历史表现，习惯了或者期待特别高回报的人来说，就不是什么好事了。

It's just, it's just, it's just bad for those people that got used to or expected very high returns based on looking in the rearview mirror back in 1998 or 1999.

Charlie？

Charlie?

M34:01

我的总体看法，也就是比 Warren 稍微更悲观一点。

My general attitude is just slightly more negative than Warren's.

M24:11

各位，你们都听到了。

You've heard it, folks.

那也不是世界末日。

That isn't the end of the world.

我的意思是，实际上，如果拥有 American business 的人能分到这块蛋糕里的百分之五到百分之六——现在是一个十万亿美元的经济体，将来某一天会变成二十万亿美元的经济体——但如果我们能拿到这块蛋糕的百分之五或者百分之六，也就是我们这些把资本投出去、为 American business、American consumers、American population 生产商品和服务的人。

I mean, in effect, if the people who own American business get 5 to 6% of the pie— $10 trillion economy now, someday a $20 trillion economy— but if we get 5 or 6% of the pie, those of us who put our capital out to produce goods and services for American business, for American consumers, American population.

M34:43

这是个——

Is that a—

M24:44

你知道，我也不知道这是不是设计这个宇宙的人最终会拿出来的那个精确方案，但我觉得无论往哪个方向看，这都不算离谱。

You know, I don't know whether that's, you know, exactly what somebody who designed the universe would come up with, but it doesn't strike me as crazy in either direction.

你知道，我觉得，让那些出资的人拿到这么多商品和服务，已经不少了。但同时，你还有一亿多劳动人口，正用你的资本替你把这些东西生产出来。

You know, I think that, uh, that's a lot of goods and services to go to people that put up the capital. But you've got, you know, 100 million-plus people in the workforce that are working to turn that out for you using your capital.

如果通胀很低，这会带来我认为相当不错的实际回报。

And it provides what I would regard as a pretty decent real return if you have low inflation.

如果进入高通胀，正如我一九七七年写过的那样，投资者的实际回报很容易就会掉到一个非常非常低的水平。

If you get into high inflation, as I wrote about back in '77, you could easily have the real return to investors get to a very, very low number.

M35:26

对。

Yeah.

M25:27

甚至可能变成负的。

And perhaps negative.

我的意思是，通货膨胀会洗劫股票投资者，我当年就是这么写的，而且我用了七千个词来解释为什么。

I mean, inflation can swindle the equity investor, as I wrote back then, and I used 7,000 words to explain why.

如果还有人感兴趣，我很乐意把那篇文章寄一份给你。

I will be glad to send you a copy of that article if anyone's still interested.

但是从长期来看，通货膨胀是唯一一种能让投资者整体回报变成负数的东西，它就是投资者的敌人。

But inflation is the one thing that over a long period of time can turn investors' results in aggregate into a negative figure, and it's, it's the investor's enemy.

Charlie，这有没有让你想到更多补充的看法？

Charlie, does that bring forth any further thoughts?

M35:57

我觉得，在这些问题上，你也别指望 economics profession 能给你完全靠谱的帮助。

I don't think you'll get perfect help on these subjects from the economics profession either.

他们有一些固定的标准公式。

They have certain standard formulas.

在 economist 看来，一个 manufacturing job 转移到 China，那不过就是生产率又提高了一点。

To an economist, when a manufacturing job goes to China, that's just so much productivity increase.

如果你问他们，那假如 America 所有的 manufacturing jobs 都去了 China，难道这不会是效率提高得有点过头了吗？

And if you ask one, well, suppose all of the manufacturing jobs in America went to China, wouldn't that be a little too much efficiency increase?

他们的回答会是，不会。

And their answer would be no.

而且居然真的有人因为这样思考，在顶尖大学里拿薪水。

And people actually get paid for thinking like this in major universities.

M26:42

当然，真正能让他们明白这个道理的办法是，如果所有 economics 的教学都外包到 China 去，到那时，一种新的洞见大概就会出现了。

What would get across the point, of course, is if all the teaching of economics got exported to China, at which point a new insight would appear.

第六个问题。

Number 6.