Irrational Markets
不理性的市场
In insurance, we think a lot more about low-probability events than most
people. We think more about big events in the financial arena than the
natural arena. Financial markets have vulnerabilities that we try to think of
and build in ways to protect us against them – and even some capabilities
where we might profit in a huge way.
在保险业，我们非常关心发生机率非常小的事件，但在投资领域我们关心的则是一些重大
的事件，金融市场有其脆弱的一面，而我们首要之务就是尽量避免受到其波动的影响，甚
至有可能因而得以大有斩获。
Munger: The temporary collapse in junk bonds, where they got to 35-40%
yields, was just a strange thing. There was absolute chaos at the bottom
tick. Apply this behavior to stocks – it’s not hard to imagine a big crunch
coming along.
曼格：垃圾债券市场暂时性的崩盘，使得值利率飙高到35-40%的报酬率就是一个怪现象，
节拍器有时也会乱了步调，在股票市场中，暂时性的崩跌也是时有所闻。
Buffett: It’s a fascinating thing to me: in 2002, there were tens of
thousands of smart people, money was available, everyone had the desire to
make money, yet look at what happened [to the prices of junk bonds].
Extraordinary things happened. Can these be the same people [buying such
bonds yielding 6% today] who let them sink to such levels?
巴菲特：当时真是令人回味再三，回顾2002年，成千上万的聪明人士、资金充沛，所有人
都妄想大发利市，但大家看看垃圾债券的价格，奇怪的事情发生，一直等到垃圾债券殖利
率回到6%时，同样这群人才又回过头来买这些债券。
Wall Street is awash in money and talent, but you get these absolutely
extraordinary swings. It doesn’t happen with apartments and other types of
assets.
华尔街的资金与人才汇集，但市场的波动也相当剧烈，不像不动产那样价格稳定。
At the minimum, you want to protect yourself from this type of insanity from
wiping you out – and better yet, make a profit from it.
最低底限，你必须保护自己不被这类不理性的疯狂行为所扫出场，更有甚者，还有可能从
中获利。
Risk of Derivatives
衍生性金融商品
We don’t think that in any year the chance is very high that derivatives
will lead to or greatly accentuate a financial trauma, but we think it’s
there.
我们不确定哪一个特定年度衍生性金融商品会导致或加剧金融风暴的产生，但我们认为这
样的危机确实存在。
It’s fascinating to look at a company like Freddie Mac: an institution that
dozens of financial analysts were looking at; that had an oversight office;
that was created by Congress with committees to oversee it; that had two
smart, exceptional board members, Marty Leiiebowitz and Henry Kauffman; and
that had auditors present – yet Freddie misstated earnings by $6 billion in
a short time. That’s big money. And a large part of it was facilitated by
derivatives. You can go back and read the footnotes, listen to the conference
calls, etc. and you wouldn’t have known. In the end, it was $6 billion, but
it could have been $12 billion if they’d wanted.
Freddie Mac这家公司相当有趣，这是一家财经分析师相当关注的一家公司，它上有一个
主管机关，并由国会立法成立并受其委员会监督，它有两位优秀又聪明的董事Marty
Leibowitz及Henry Kaufman，同时还有会计师负责查帐，但最后Freddie Mac还是出了问
题，突然间盈余被灌水60亿美元，这可不是一笔小数目，其中大部分的亏损系衍生性金融
商品所造成，你或许可以再把过去的年报附注拿出来读一读、或者去参加公司记者说明会
等等，但我打包票你一定找不出问题在哪里，就这样60亿美元飞了，若是他们敢，谁说不
可能是120亿美元。
Derivatives can lead to a lot of mischief. When you have a complicated
derivative transaction, and a trader with investment house A on one side and
investment house B on the other side, and on the day the deal is done, both
record a profit, this can lead to mischief – and the scale is getting bigger
every day.
衍生性金融商品有可能招致相当多舞弊，当你进行一项相当复杂的衍生性金融商品交易，
一位营业员代表投资银行A，另一位则代表投资银行B，在合约敲定的当天，两家同时都有
可能记录获利，这很容易导致舞弊事件发生，而且规模与日俱增。
I know the managements of many large financial institutions and they don’t
have their minds around this. We tried at Gen Re [where we had a small
derivative book] and couldn’t.
我认识很大大型投资机构的管理阶层，但他们却一点也没有警觉，我们在Gen Re便试过(
该公司目前有小额的衍生性金融商品部位)，结果没有用。
Whatever problems there were at Salomon [during its crisis years ago], they’
re far, far worse now [systemwide].
所罗门当年发生很严重的问题，但我认为现在的情况比起那时又严重许多。
In 1991, if the government hadn’t reversed himself [in its plans to put take
actions that would have put Salomon out of business], we were preparing
documents [to file for bankruptcy. Had this happened,] We had $1.2 trillion
[notional value] of derivative contracts that others were counting on, that
would have gone bad. All sorts of securities transactions wouldn’t have
settled, accounts in Japan and the UK would have been affected, etc. For
instance, Salomon had a relationship with a bank in Germany which took large
deposits in Germany and lent the money to Salomon. All kinds of things would
have come out. You don’t need to put these strains on a system that’s
already highly leveraged.
1991年，如果政府没有撤回吊销所罗门业务资格的决定，我们将会递件申请破产，一旦如
此，所罗门将有总值1.2兆美元的衍生性金融商品合约待解决，所有的证券交易将无法顺
利交割，还包含日本与英国的帐户也会跟着受到影响，举个例来说，所罗门跟德国一家银
行有大量的金额借贷关系，什么事都有可能发生，事实上，在高度杠杆的系统下，任何一
点压力都有可能变成压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草。
When you get huge amounts of transactions, which not many people understand,
you create a huge problem that may be triggered by an exogenous event.
当你从事大量的交易不是很多能搞得懂的，这些交易就很有可能因为某些外部事件而惹出
大麻烦。
We use derivatives – we get them collateralized – and we’ve made money on
them. But I predict that sometime in the next 10 years, we will have a big
problem caused by or exaggerated by derivatives.
我们利用衍生性金融商品，并提供相关担保，从中获利，但我预期未来10年以内，我们将
因此爆发严重的金融问题。
Munger: People don’t think about the consequences of the consequences.
People start by trying to hedge against interest rate changes, which is very
difficult and complicated. Then, the hedges made the results [reported
profits] lumpy. So then they use new derivatives to smooth this. Well, now you
’ve morphed into lying. This turns into a Mad Hatter’s Party. This happens
to vast, sophisticated corporations.
曼格：人们往往知其然不知其所以然，一开始有人试着想要去规避利率变动的风险，这本
来就是相当困难且复杂的事，然而避险的结果反而让帐面的获利起伏不定，所以接下来他
们又利用另一种新的衍生性商品来让获利看起来平顺一点，值此你为了圆第一个谎，就必
须编更多的谎言，到最后就演变成疯狂的派对，这种情形在庞杂的集团公司尤为常见。
Somebody has to have to step in and say, “We’re not going to do it