2006 年致股东信

Berkshire’s Corporate Performance vs. the S&P 500: 1965–2006

伯克希尔与标普 500 年度百分比变化 1965–2006

Notes: Data are for calendar years with these exceptions: 1965 and 1966, year ended 9/30; 1967, 15 months ended 12/31. Starting in 1979, accounting rules required insurance companies to value the equity securities they hold at market rather than at the lower of cost or market, which was previously the requirement. In this table, Berkshire’s results through 1978 have been restated to conform to the changed rules. In all other respects, the results are calculated using the numbers originally reported. The S&P 500 numbers are pre-tax whereas the Berkshire numbers are after-tax. If a corporation such as Berkshire were simply to have owned the S&P 500 and accrued the appropriate taxes, its results would have lagged the S&P 500 in years when that index showed a positive return, but would have exceeded the S&P 500 in years when the index showed a negative return. Over the years, the tax costs would have caused the aggregate lag to be substantial.

说明：数据按日历年度统计，但以下年份除外：1965年和1966年截至9月30日；1967年截至12月31日（共15个月）。自1979年起，会计准则要求保险公司按市价而非成本与市价孰低法（此前的要求）计量其持有的权益证券。在本表中，伯克希尔1978年之前的结果已按新规则重新列报。其他方面，结果均按最初报告的数字计算。标普500指数数据为税前数据，而伯克希尔数据为税后数据。如果像伯克希尔这样的公司只是持有标普500指数并计提相应税款，那么在指数显示正回报的年份，其业绩会落后于标普500；在指数显示负回报的年份，其业绩会超过标普500。多年下来，税收成本会导致累计落后幅度相当大。

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:

致伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司股东：

Our gain in net worth during 2006 was $16.9 billion, which increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 18.4%. Over the last 42 years (that is, since present management took over) book value has grown from $19 to $70,281, a rate of 21.4% compounded annually.*

2006年，我们的净值增长了169亿美元，这使得我们A类和B类股票的每股账面价值增加了18.4%。在过去42年里（即自现任管理层接管以来），每股账面价值已从19美元增长到70,281美元，年复合增长率为21.4%。*

We believe that $16.9 billion is a record for a one-year gain in net worth - more than has ever been booked by any American business, leaving aside boosts that have occurred because of mergers (e.g., AOL's purchase of Time Warner). Of course, Exxon Mobil and other companies earn far more than Berkshire, but their earnings largely go to dividends and/or repurchases, rather than to building net worth.

我们相信169亿美元是净值单年增长的一项记录——超过了任何美国企业曾有过的记录，由并购带来的增值除外（例如美国在线收购时代华纳）。当然，埃克森美孚和其他公司赚得比伯克希尔多得多，但它们的收益大部分用于分红和/或回购，而不是用于增加净值。

All that said, a confession about our 2006 gain is in order. Our most important business, insurance, benefited from a large dose of luck: Mother Nature, bless her heart, went on vacation. After hammering us with hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 - storms that caused us to lose a bundle on super-cat insurance - she just vanished. Last year, the red ink from this activity turned black - very black.

话虽如此，关于我们2006年的收益，有必要坦白一下。我们最重要的业务——保险，受益于一大运气：大自然母亲，上帝保佑她，去度假了。在2004年和2005年用飓风重击我们——那些风暴导致我们在巨灾保险上损失惨重——之后，她就消失了。去年，这项业务的赤字变成了黑字——非常黑。

In addition, the great majority of our 73 businesses did outstandingly well in 2006. Let me focus for a moment on one of our largest operations, GEICO. What management accomplished there was simply extraordinary.

此外，我们的73家企业中绝大多数在2006年表现非常出色。让我暂时聚焦于我们最大的业务之一——盖可保险。管理层在那里取得的成就简直是非凡的。

As I've told you before, Tony Nicely, GEICO's CEO, went to work at the company 45 years ago, two months after turning 18. He became CEO in 1992, and from then on the company's growth exploded. In addition, Tony has delivered staggering productivity gains in recent years. Between yearend 2003 and yearend 2006, the number of GEICO policies increased from 5.7 million to 8.1 million, a jump of 42%. Yet during that same period, the company's employees (measured on a fulltime-equivalent basis) fell 3.5%. So productivity grew 47%. And GEICO didn't start fat.

正如我以前告诉过你的，盖可的CEO托尼·奈斯利45年前加入公司，当时他刚满18岁两个月。他于1992年成为CEO，从那时起公司的增长开始爆发。此外，托尼近年来实现了惊人的生产率提升。从2003年底到2006年底，盖可的保单数量从570万份增加到810万份，增长了42%。然而在同一时期，公司的员工数（按全职当量计算）下降了3.5%。因此生产率增长了47%。而且盖可起步时并不臃肿。

That remarkable gain has allowed GEICO to maintain its all-important position as a low-cost producer, even though it has dramatically increased advertising expenditures. Last year GEICO spent $631 million on ads, up from $238 million in 2003 (and up from $31 million in 1995, when Berkshire took control). Today, GEICO spends far more on ads than any of its competitors, even those much larger. We will continue to raise the bar.

这一非凡的增长使盖可能够保持其作为低成本生产商的至关重要地位，尽管它大幅增加了广告支出。去年盖可花费6.31亿美元用于广告，高于2003年的2.38亿美元（也高于1995年伯克希尔取得控制权时的3100万美元）。如今，盖可在广告上的花费远超任何竞争对手，甚至那些规模大得多的对手。我们将继续提高标准。

Last year I told you that if you had a new son or grandson to be sure to name him Tony. But Don Keough, a Berkshire director, recently had a better idea. After reviewing GEICO's performance in 2006, he wrote me, "Forget births. Tell the shareholders to immediately change the names of their present children to Tony or Antoinette." Don signed his letter "Tony."

去年我告诉你，如果你有了新的儿子或孙子，一定要给他取名叫托尼。但伯克希尔的董事唐·基奥最近有了更好的主意。在回顾了盖可2006年的表现后，他写信给我：“忘了新生儿吧。告诉股东们立即把他们现有的孩子改名为托尼或安托瓦内特。”唐把他的信签名为“托尼”。

Charlie Munger - my partner and Berkshire's vice chairman - and I run what has turned out to be a big business, one with 217,000 employees and annual revenues approaching $100 billion. We certainly didn't plan it that way. Charlie began as a lawyer, and I thought of myself as a security analyst. Sitting in those seats, we both grew skeptical about the ability of big entities of any type to function well. Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change and smug. In Churchill's words: "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." Here's a telling fact: Of the ten non-oil companies having the largest market capitalization in 1965 - titans such as General Motors, Sears, DuPont and Eastman Kodak - only one made the 2006 list.

查理·芒格——我的合伙人和伯克希尔的副董事长——和我经营着一家已经变成大企业的公司，拥有21.7万名员工，年收入接近1000亿美元。我们当然没有这样计划过。查理最初是一名律师，而我自认为是一名证券分析师。坐在那些位置上，我们都对任何类型的大型实体能否良好运作产生了怀疑。规模似乎使得许多组织思维迟缓、抗拒变革、自满。用丘吉尔的话说：“我们塑造了我们的建筑，之后我们的建筑塑造了我们。”一个说明问题的事实是：在1965年市值最大的十家非石油公司中——如通用汽车、西尔斯、杜邦和伊士曼柯达等巨头——只有一家进入了2006年的名单。

In fairness, we've seen plenty of successes as well, some truly outstanding. There are many giant-company managers whom I greatly admire; Ken Chenault of American Express, Jeff Immelt of G.E. and Dick Kovacevich of Wells Fargo come quickly to mind. But I don't think I could do the management job they do. And I know I wouldn't enjoy many of the duties that come with their positions - meetings, speeches, foreign travel, the charity circuit and governmental relations. For me, Ronald Reagan had it right: "It's probably true that hard work never killed anyone - but why take the chance?"

公平地说，我们也看到了许多成功，有些确实杰出。有许多大型公司的经理人我非常钦佩；美国运通的肯·陈纳德、通用电气的杰夫·伊梅尔特和富国银行的迪克·科瓦切维奇立刻浮现在我脑海。但我不认为我能做他们所做的管理工作。而且我知道我不会喜欢他们职位带来的许多职责——会议、演讲、出国旅行、慈善活动和政府关系。对我来说，罗纳德·里根说得对：“努力工作从未杀死过人——这话可能是真的，但为什么要冒险呢？”

So I've taken the easy route, just sitting back and working through great managers who run their own shows. My only tasks are to cheer them on, sculpt and harden our corporate culture, and make major capital-allocation decisions. Our managers have returned this trust by working hard and effectively.

所以我选择了轻松的路，只是袖手旁观，通过那些自主经营的伟大经理人来工作。我唯一的任务是为他们加油助威，塑造和强化我们的企业文化，并做出重大的资本配置决策。我们的经理人通过努力和高效的工作回报了这份信任。

For their performance over the last 42 years - and particularly for 2006 - Charlie and I thank them.

查理和我感谢他们过去42年的表现——特别是2006年的表现。

Yardsticks

衡量标准

Charlie and I measure Berkshire's progress and evaluate its intrinsic value in a number of ways. No single criterion is effective in doing these jobs, and even an avalanche of statistics will not capture some factors that are important. For example, it's essential that we have managers much younger than I available to succeed me. Berkshire has never been in better shape in this regard - but I can't prove it to you with numbers.

查理和我通过多种方式衡量伯克希尔的进展并评估其内在价值。没有单一标准能有效地完成这些工作，即使大量的统计数据也无法捕捉一些重要因素。例如，我们必须有比我年轻得多的经理人能够接替我。伯克希尔在这方面从未像现在这样好——但我无法用数字向你证明。

There are two statistics, however, that are of real importance. The first is the amount of investments (including cash and cash-equivalents) that we own on a per-share basis. Arriving at this figure, we exclude investments held in our finance operation because these are largely offset by borrowings. Here's the record since present management acquired control of Berkshire:

然而，有两个统计数据确实重要。第一个是我们按每股计算持有的投资额（包括现金和现金等价物）。在计算这个数字时，我们排除了金融业务中持有的投资，因为这些投资很大程度上被借款所抵消。以下是自现任管理层取得伯克希尔控制权以来的记录：

*Net of minority interests

*扣除了少数股东权益

In our early years we put most of our retained earnings and insurance float into investments in marketable securities. Because of this emphasis, and because the securities we purchased generally did well, our growth rate in investments was for a long time quite high.

在我们早期，我们将大部分留存收益和保险浮存金投入到有价证券投资中。由于这种侧重，并且因为我们购买的证券通常表现良好，我们的投资增长率在很长一段时间内相当高。

Over the years, however, we have focused more and more on the acquisition of operating businesses. Using our funds for these purchases has both slowed our growth in investments and accelerated our gains in pre-tax earnings from non-insurance businesses, the second yardstick we use. Here's how those earnings have looked:

然而，多年来，我们越来越专注于收购运营业务。将资金用于这些购买既减缓了我们投资的增长，也加速了我们来自非保险业务的税前收益增长，这是我们使用的第二个衡量标准。以下是这些收益的情况：

*Excluding purchase-accounting adjustments and net of minority interests

*不包括购买会计调整，扣除了少数股东权益

Last year we had a good increase in non-insurance earnings - 38%. Large gains from here on in, though, will come only if we are able to make major, and sensible, acquisitions. That will not be easy. We do, however, have one advantage: More and more, Berkshire has become "the buyer of choice" for business owners and managers. Initially, we were viewed that way only in the U.S. (and more often than not by private companies). We've long wanted, nonetheless, to extend Berkshire's appeal beyond U.S. borders. And last year, our globe-trotting finally got underway.

去年我们的非保险业务收益有了很好的增长——38%。然而，从现在开始，只有当我们能够进行大型且明智的收购时，才能获得大幅收益。这并不容易。不过，我们有一个优势：伯克希尔越来越成为企业主和经理人眼中的“首选买家”。最初，我们只在（而且更多是私营公司）美国被这样看待。尽管如此，我们长期希望将伯克希尔的吸引力扩展到美国以外。去年，我们的全球之旅终于开始了。

Acquisitions

收购

We began 2006 by completing the three acquisitions pending at yearend 2005, spending about $6 billion for PacificCorp, Business Wire and Applied Underwriters. All are performing very well.

2006年初，我们完成了2005年底待定的三项收购，为太平洋公司、美国商业资讯和Applied Underwriters花费了约60亿美元。所有这些都表现得非常好。

The highlight of the year, however, was our July 5th acquisition of most of ISCAR, an Israeli company, and our new association with its chairman, Eitan Wertheimer, and CEO, Jacob Harpaz. The story here began on October 25, 2005, when I received a 1¼-page letter from Eitan, of whom I then knew nothing. The letter began, "I am writing to introduce you to ISCAR," and proceeded to describe a cutting-tool business carried on in 61 countries. Then Eitan wrote, "We have for some time considered the issues of generational transfer and ownership that are typical for large family enterprises, and have given much thought to ISCAR's future. Our conclusion is that Berkshire Hathaway would be the ideal home for ISCAR. We believe that ISCAR would continue to thrive as a part of your portfolio of businesses."

然而，这一年的亮点是我们在7月5日收购了以色列公司伊斯卡的大部分股权，并与该公司董事长埃坦·韦特海默和CEO雅各布·哈帕兹建立了新的合作关系。故事始于2005年10月25日，当时我收到了埃坦一封一页半的信，我此前对他一无所知。信的开头是：“我写信是想向你介绍伊斯卡”，接着描述了一家在61个国家开展的切削工具业务。然后埃坦写道：“一段时间以来，我们一直在考虑大型家族企业典型的代际传承和所有权问题，并对伊斯卡的未来进行了很多思考。我们的结论是，伯克希尔·哈撒韦是伊斯卡的理想归宿。我们相信，作为你业务组合的一部分，伊斯卡将继续蓬勃发展。”

Overall, Eitan's letter made the quality of the company and the character of its management leap off the page. It also made me want to learn more, and in November, Eitan, Jacob and ISCAR's CFO, Danny Goldman, came to Omaha. A few hours with them convinced me that if we were to make a deal, we would be teaming up with extraordinarily talented managers who could be trusted to run the business after a sale with all of the energy and dedication that they had exhibited previously. However, having never bought a business based outside of the U.S. (though I had bought a number of foreign stocks), I needed to get educated on some tax and jurisdictional matters. With that task completed, Berkshire purchased 80% of ISCAR for $4 billion. The remaining 20% stays in the hands of the Wertheimer family, making it our valued partner.

总的来说，埃坦的信使公司的质量和其管理层的品格跃然纸上。这也让我想了解更多，于是在11月，埃坦、雅各布和伊斯卡的CFO丹尼·戈德曼来到了奥马哈。与他们相处了几个小时后，我相信，如果我们达成交易，我们将与一群才华横溢的经理人合作，他们可以像以前一样，在出售后以同样的精力和奉献精神来经营企业。然而，由于我从未购买过总部在美国以外的企业（尽管我买过一些外国股票），我需要在一些税务和管辖权问题上学习。完成这项任务后，伯克希尔以40亿美元购买了伊斯卡80%的股份。剩下的20%仍留在韦特海默家族手中，使他们成为我们宝贵的合作伙伴。

ISCAR's products are small, consumable cutting tools that are used in conjunction with large and expensive machine tools. It's a business without magic except for that imparted by the people who run it. But Eitan, Jacob and their associates are true managerial magicians who constantly develop tools that make their customers' machines more productive. The result: ISCAR makes money because it enables its customers to make more money. There is no better recipe for continued success.

伊斯卡的产品是与大型昂贵机床配套使用的小型消耗性切削工具。这项业务本身没有魔力，除非是经营它的人所赋予的。但埃坦、雅各布和他们的同事是真正的管理魔术师，他们不断开发工具，使客户的机器更具生产力。结果是：伊斯卡赚钱是因为它帮助客户赚更多的钱。没有比这更好的持续成功秘诀了。

In September, Charlie and I, along with five Berkshire associates, visited ISCAR in Israel. We - and I mean every one of us - have never been more impressed with any operation. At ISCAR, as throughout Israel, brains and energy are ubiquitous. Berkshire shareholders are lucky to have joined with Eitan, Jacob, Danny and their talented associates.

9月，查理和我，连同五位伯克希尔的同事，访问了以色列的伊斯卡。我们——我指的是我们每一个人——从未对任何企业有过更深刻的印象。在伊斯卡，就像在整个以色列一样，智慧和精力无处不在。伯克希尔的股东很幸运能与埃坦、雅各布、丹尼和他们才华横溢的同事们走到一起。

A few months later, Berkshire again became "the buyer of choice" in a deal brought to us by my friend, John Roach, of Fort Worth. John, many of you will remember, was Chairman of Justin Industries, which we bought in 2000. At that time John was helping John Justin, who was terminally ill, find a permanent home for his company. John Justin died soon after we bought Justin Industries, but it has since been run exactly as we promised him it would be.

几个月后，伯克希尔再次成为“首选买家”，这笔交易来自我在沃斯堡的朋友约翰·罗奇。你们很多人会记得，约翰是贾斯汀工业公司的董事长，我们于2000年收购了该公司。当时，约翰正在帮助身患绝症的约翰·贾斯汀为他的公司寻找一个永久的归宿。在我们收购贾斯汀工业后不久，约翰·贾斯汀就去世了，但此后公司一直按照我们向他承诺的方式运营。

Visiting me in November, John Roach brought along Paul Andrews, Jr., owner of about 80% of TTI, a Fort Worth distributor of electronic components. Over a 35-year period, Paul built TTI from $112,000 of sales to $1.3 billion. He is a remarkable entrepreneur and operator.

11月，约翰·罗奇来看我时，带来了小保罗·安德鲁斯，他是TTI约80%的股东，TTI是沃斯堡的一家电子元器件分销商。在35年的时间里，保罗将TTI的销售额从11.2万美元做到了13亿美元。他是一位杰出的企业家和经营者。

Paul, 64, loves running his business. But not long ago he happened to witness how disruptive the death of a founder can be both to a private company's employees and the owner's family. What starts out as disruptive, furthermore, often evolves into destructive. About a year ago, therefore, Paul began to think about selling TTI. His goal was to put his business in the hands of an owner he had carefully chosen, rather than allowing a trust officer or lawyer to conduct an auction after his death.

64岁的保罗热爱经营自己的企业。但不久前，他碰巧目睹了创始人的去世对一家私营公司的员工和所有者家庭造成的破坏性影响。而且，一开始的混乱常常演变成毁灭。因此，大约一年前，保罗开始考虑出售TTI。他的目标是将自己的企业交给他精心挑选的所有者手中，而不是让信托官员或律师在他死后进行拍卖。

Paul rejected the idea of a "strategic" buyer, knowing that in the pursuit of "synergies," an owner of that type would be apt to dismantle what he had so carefully built, a move that would uproot hundreds of his associates (and perhaps wound TTI's business in the process). He also ruled out a private equity firm, which would very likely load the company with debt and then flip it as soon as possible.

保罗拒绝了“战略”买家的想法，因为他知道，在追求“协同效应”的过程中，这类所有者很可能会拆散他精心打造的一切，这一举动将使他的数百名同事流离失所（并可能在此过程中损害TTI的业务）。他也排除了私募股权公司，这类公司很可能会让公司背上沉重的债务，然后尽快转手。

That left Berkshire. Paul and I met on the morning of November 15th and made a deal before lunch. Later he wrote me: "After our meeting, I am confident that Berkshire is the right owner for TTI . . . I am proud of our past and excited about our future." And so are Charlie and I.

只剩下伯克希尔了。保罗和我在11月15日上午见面，并在午饭前达成了交易。后来他写信给我：“在我们会面之后，我相信伯克希尔是TTI合适的东家……我为我们的过去感到骄傲，也对我们的未来感到兴奋。”查理和我也一样。

We also made some "tuck-in" acquisitions during 2006 at Fruit of the Loom ("Fruit"), MiTek, CTB, Shaw and Clayton. Fruit made the largest purchases. First, it bought Russell Corp., a leading producer of athletic apparel and uniforms for about $1.2 billion (including assumed debt) and in December it agreed to buy the intimate apparel business of VF Corp. Together, these acquisitions add about $2.2 billion to Fruit's sales and bring with them about 23,000 employees.

2006年，我们还在鲜果布衣、MiTek、CTB、肖氏工业和克莱顿进行了一些“补强”收购。鲜果布衣的收购规模最大。首先，它以约12亿美元（包括承担的债务）收购了运动服装和制服领先生产商罗素公司，并在12月同意收购VF公司的内衣业务。这些收购合计为鲜果布衣增加了约22亿美元的销售额，并带来了约23,000名员工。

Charlie and I love it when we can acquire businesses that can be placed under managers, such as John Holland at Fruit, who have already shown their stuff at Berkshire. MiTek, for example, has made 14 acquisitions since we purchased it in 2001, and Gene Toombs has delivered results from these deals far in excess of what he had predicted. In effect, we leverage the managerial talent already with us by these tuck-in deals. We will make many more.

查理和我喜欢我们能够收购那些可以放在已经在伯克希尔证明过自己的经理人（如鲜果布衣的约翰·霍兰德）下面的企业。例如，MiTek自2001年被我们收购以来已经进行了14次收购，吉恩·图姆斯通过这些交易带来的成果远远超过了他的预测。实际上，我们通过这些补强交易放大了我们已经拥有的管理人才。我们还会做更多。

We continue, however, to need "elephants" in order for us to use Berkshire's flood of incoming cash. Charlie and I must therefore ignore the pursuit of mice and focus our acquisition efforts on much bigger game.

然而，我们仍然需要“大象”来利用伯克希尔涌入的大量现金。因此，查理和我必须忽略对老鼠的追逐，将我们的收购努力集中在更大的猎物上。

Our exemplar is the older man who crashed his grocery cart into that of a much younger fellow while both were shopping. The elderly man explained apologetically that he had lost track of his wife and was preoccupied searching for her. His new acquaintance said that by coincidence his wife had also wandered off and suggested that it might be more efficient if they jointly looked for the two women. Agreeing, the older man asked his new companion what his wife looked like. "She's a gorgeous blonde," the fellow answered, "with a body that would cause a bishop to go through a stained glass window, and she's wearing tight white shorts. How about yours?" The senior citizen wasted no words: "Forget her, we'll look for yours."

我们的榜样是一位老先生，他在购物时把手推车撞到了一个年轻得多的家伙的车。老先生歉疚地解释说，他跟丢了妻子，正全神贯注地找她。他的新相识说，巧了，他的妻子也走散了，并建议说如果他们一起找两位女士可能会更有效率。老先生同意了，问他的新同伴他妻子长什么样。“她是个漂亮的金发女郎，”那人回答，“身材能让主教冲破彩色玻璃窗，穿着紧身的白色短裤。你的呢？”老先生毫不浪费时间：“别管她了，我们找你的。”

What we are looking for is described on page 25. If you have an acquisition candidate that fits, call me - day or night. And then watch me shatter a stained glass window.

我们正在寻找的目标在第25页有描述。如果你有合适的收购对象，打电话给我——白天或晚上都行。然后看我怎么撞破彩色玻璃窗。

Now, let's examine the four major operating sectors of Berkshire. Lumping their financial figures together impedes analysis. So we'll look at them as four separate businesses, starting with the all-important insurance group.

现在，让我们审视伯克希尔的四个主要运营部门。将它们的财务数据混在一起会妨碍分析。所以我们将把它们作为四个独立的业务来看待，从至关重要的保险集团开始。

Insurance

保险

Next month marks the 40th anniversary of our entrance into the insurance business. It was on March 9, 1967, that Berkshire purchased National Indemnity and its companion company, National Fire & Marine, from Jack Ringwall for $8.6 million.

下个月将是我们进入保险业40周年。1967年3月9日，伯克希尔以860万美元从杰克·林沃尔手中收购了国民赔偿公司及其姊妹公司国民火灾与海洋保险公司。

Jack was a long-time friend of mine and an excellent, but somewhat eccentric, businessman. For about ten minutes every year he would get the urge to sell his company. But those moods - perhaps brought on by a tiff with regulators or an unfavorable jury verdict - quickly vanished.

杰克是我的老朋友，一位优秀但有些古怪的商人。每年大约有十分钟的时间，他会有出售公司的冲动。但这些情绪——也许是与监管机构的争执或不利的陪审团裁决引起的——很快就消失了。

In the mid-1960s, I asked investment banker Charlie Heider, a mutual friend of mine and Jack's, to alert me the next time Jack was "in heat." When Charlie's call came, I sped to meet Jack. We made a deal in a few minutes, with me waiving an audit, "due diligence" or anything else that would give Jack an opportunity to reconsider. We just shook hands, and that was that.

在20世纪60年代中期，我请投资银行家查理·海德——我和杰克的共同朋友——在杰克下次“发情”时提醒我。当查理的电话打来时，我飞速赶去见了杰克。我们在几分钟内达成了交易，我放弃了审计、“尽职调查”或任何可能给杰克重新考虑机会的事情。我们只是握了握手，就这样了。

When we were due to close the purchase at Charlie's office, Jack was late. Finally arriving, he explained that he had been driving around looking for a parking meter with some unexpired time. That was a magic moment for me. I knew then that Jack was going to be my kind of manager.

当我们约定在查理办公室完成交易时，杰克迟到了。终于到达时，他解释说他在开车四处寻找还有剩余时间的停车计时器。对我来说，那是一个神奇的时刻。我当时就知道杰克会是我喜欢的那种经理人。

When Berkshire purchased Jack's two insurers, they had "float" of $17 million. We've regularly offered a long explanation of float in earlier reports, which you can read on our website. Simply put, float is money we hold that is not ours but which we get to invest.

当伯克希尔收购杰克的两家保险公司时，它们拥有1700万美元的“浮存金”。我们之前经常在报告中详细解释浮存金，你可以在我们的网站上阅读。简而言之，浮存金是我们持有的不属于我们、但我们可以用来投资的资金。

At the end of 2006, our float had grown to $50.9 billion, and we have since written a huge retroactive reinsurance contract with Equitas - which I will describe in the next section - that boosts float by another $7 billion. Much of the gain we've made has come through our acquisition of other insurers, but we've also had outstanding internal growth, particularly at Ajit Jain's amazing reinsurance operation. Naturally, I had no notion in 1967 that our float would develop as it has. There's much to be said for just putting one foot in front of the other every day.

到2006年底，我们的浮存金已增长到509亿美元，此后我们又与Equitas签订了一份巨额追溯再保险合同——我将在下一节中描述——这使浮存金再增加70亿美元。我们获得的大部分增长来自于收购其他保险公司，但我们也实现了出色的内生增长，尤其是在阿吉特·贾因神奇的再保险业务中。当然，我在1967年时并不知道我们的浮存金会发展到今天这样。每天只是脚踏实地地前进，这本身就很有意义。

The float from retroactive reinsurance contracts, of which we have many, automatically drifts down over time. Therefore, it will be difficult for us to increase float in the future unless we make new acquisitions in the insurance field. Whatever its size, however, the all-important cost of Berkshire's float over time is likely to be significantly below that of the industry, perhaps even falling to less than zero. Note the words "over time." There will be bad years periodically. You can be sure of that.

追溯再保险合同的浮存金（我们有很多这类合同）会随着时间自动下降。因此，除非我们在保险领域进行新的收购，否则未来增加浮存金将很困难。然而，无论规模大小，伯克希尔浮存金的成本——这一至关重要的事项——很可能显著低于行业平均水平，甚至可能降至负值。请注意“随着时间”这个词。会周期性地出现糟糕的年份。这一点你可以确信。

In 2006, though, everything went right in insurance - really right. Our managers - Tony Nicely (GEICO), Ajit Jain (B-H Reinsurance), Joe Brandon and Tad Montross (General Re), Don Wurster (National Indemnity Primary), Tom Nerney (U.S. Liability), Tim Kenesey (Medical Protective), Rod Eldred (Homestate Companies and Cypress), Sid Ferenc and Steve Menzies (Applied Underwriters), John Kizer (Central States) and Don Towle (Kansas Bankers Surety) - simply shot the lights out. When I recite their names, I feel as if I'm at Cooperstown, reading from the Hall of Fame roster. Of course, the overall insurance industry also had a terrific year in 2006. But our managers delivered results generally superior to those of their competitors.

然而，在2006年，保险业务一切顺利——非常顺利。我们的经理人——托尼·奈斯利（盖可保险）、阿吉特·贾因（伯克希尔再保险）、乔·布兰登和塔德·蒙特罗斯（通用再保险）、唐·沃斯特（国民赔偿主营保险）、汤姆·纳尼（美国责任保险）、蒂姆·克内西（医疗保护保险）、罗德·埃尔德雷德（本州保险公司和赛普拉斯）、席德·费伦茨和史蒂夫·孟席斯（Applied Underwriters）、约翰·凯泽（中央各州保险）和唐·托尔（堪萨斯银行家担保公司）——简直是光芒四射。当我念出他们的名字时，我感觉自己仿佛在库珀斯敦，朗读着名人堂的名册。当然，整个保险业在2006年也表现出色。但我们的经理人交出的成绩普遍优于他们的竞争对手。

Below is the tally on our underwriting and float for each major sector of insurance. Enjoy the view, because you won't soon see another like it.

以下是每个主要保险部门的承保和浮存金统计。欣赏眼前的景象吧，因为你不会很快再看到类似的情况了。

*Includes MedPro from June 30, 2005.
**Includes Applied Underwriters from May 19, 2006.

*包括自2005年6月30日起的MedPro。
**包括自2006年5月19日起的Applied Underwriters。

In 2007, our results from the bread-and-butter lines of insurance will deteriorate, though I think they will remain satisfactory. The big unknown is super-cat insurance. Were the terrible hurricane seasons of 2004-05 aberrations? Or were they our planet's first warning that the climate of the 21st Century will differ materially from what we've seen in the past? If the answer to the second question is yes, 2006 will soon be perceived as a misleading period of calm preceding a series of devastating storms. These could rock the insurance industry. It's naive to think of Katrina as anything close to a worst-case event.

2007年，我们常规保险业务线的业绩将会恶化，尽管我认为它们将保持令人满意。最大的未知数是巨灾保险。2004-2005年可怕的飓风季节是反常现象吗？还是它们是地球发出的第一个警告，表明21世纪的气候将与过去大不相同？如果第二个问题的答案是肯定的，那么2006年很快将被视为一系列毁灭性风暴之前一段误导性的平静期。这些风暴可能会动摇保险业。认为卡特里娜飓风接近最坏情况是天真的。

Neither Ajit Jain, who manages our super-cat operation, nor I know what lies ahead. We do know that it would be a huge mistake to bet that evolving atmospheric changes are benign in their implications for insurers.

管理我们巨灾保险业务的阿吉特·贾因和我都不知道未来会怎样。我们确实知道，押注不断变化的大气变化对保险公司影响温和将是一个巨大的错误。

Don't think, however, that we have lost our taste for risk. We remain prepared to lose $6 billion in a single event, if we have been paid appropriately for assuming that risk. We are not willing, though, to take on even very small exposures at prices that don't reflect our evaluation of loss probabilities. Appropriate prices don't guarantee profits in any given year, but inappropriate prices most certainly guarantee eventual losses. Rates have recently fallen because a flood of capital has entered the super-cat field. We have therefore sharply reduced our wind exposures. Our behavior here parallels that which we employ in financial markets: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

但是，不要以为我们失去了对风险的兴趣。如果我们为承担风险获得了适当的报酬，我们仍然准备好在一个单一事件中损失60亿美元。然而，我们不愿意以不能反映我们对损失概率评估的价格承担哪怕是极小的风险。适当的价格不能保证任何特定年份的利润，但不适当的价格几乎肯定会导致最终的损失。由于大量资本涌入巨灾保险领域，费率最近下降了。因此，我们大幅减少了风灾风险敞口。我们在这里的做法与我们在金融市场上的做法如出一辙：别人贪婪时我恐惧，别人恐惧时我贪婪。

Lloyd's, Equitas and Retroactive Reinsurance

劳合社、Equitas 与追溯再保险

Last year - we are getting now to Equitas - Berkshire agreed to enter into a huge retroactive reinsurance contract, a policy that protects an insurer against losses that have already happened, but whose cost is not yet known. I'll give you details of the agreement shortly. But let's first take a journey through insurance history, following the route that led to our deal.

去年——我们现在说到 Equitas 了——伯克希尔同意签订一份巨额追溯再保险合同，这是一份保护保险公司免受已经发生但成本尚未可知的损失的保单。我稍后会给出协议的细节。但让我们先沿着通向这笔交易的路线，进行一段保险历史之旅。

Our tale begins around 1688, when Edward Lloyd opened a small coffee house in London. Though no Starbucks, his shop was destined to achieve worldwide fame because of the commercial activities of its clientele - shipowners, merchants and venturesome British capitalists. As these parties sipped Edward's brew, they began to write contracts transferring the risk of a disaster at sea from the owners of ships and their cargo to the capitalists, who wagered that a given voyage would be completed without incident. These capitalists eventually became known as "underwriters at Lloyd's."

我们的故事大约始于1688年，当时爱德华·劳合德在伦敦开了一家小咖啡馆。虽然不是星巴克，但他的店因其顾客——船东、商人和敢于冒险的英国资本家——的商业活动而注定享誉全球。当这些人啜饮着爱德华煮的咖啡时，他们开始签订合同，将海上灾难的风险从船主及其货物转移到资本家身上，这些资本家押注某次航行能平安完成。这些资本家最终被称为“劳合社承保人”。

Though many people believe Lloyd's to be an insurance company, that is not the case. It is instead a place where many member-insurers transact business, just as they did centuries ago.

尽管许多人认为劳合社是一家保险公司，但事实并非如此。它是一个许多成员保险公司进行交易的场所，就像几个世纪前一样。

Over time, the underwriters solicited passive investors to join in syndicates. Additionally, the business broadened beyond marine risks into every imaginable form of insurance, including exotic coverages that spread the fame of Lloyd's far and wide. The underwriters left the coffee house, found grander quarters and formalized some rules of association. And those persons who passively backed the underwriters became known as "names."

随着时间的推移，承保人开始招揽被动投资者加入辛迪加。此外，业务从海上风险扩展到所有可以想象的保险形式，包括那些使劳合社声名远扬的特殊保险。承保人离开了咖啡馆，找到了更宽敞的场所，并正式制定了一些协会规则。那些被动支持承保人的人被称为“人名成员”。

Eventually, the names came to include many thousands of people from around the world, who joined expecting to pick up some extra change without effort or serious risk. True, prospective names were always solemnly told that they would have unlimited and everlasting liability for the consequences of their syndicate's underwriting - "down to the last cufflink," as the quaint description went. But that warning came to be viewed as perfunctory. Three hundred years of retained cufflinks acted as a powerful sedative to the names poised to sign up.

最终，人名成员包括来自世界各地的成千上万人，他们加入时希望不费吹灰之力或承担严重风险就能赚到一些外快。诚然，潜在的人名成员总是被郑重告知，他们将对其辛迪加承保的后果承担无限且永久的责任——用一句古雅的描述来说，就是“直到最后一枚袖扣”。但这种警告逐渐被视为敷衍。三百年来保留的袖扣给准备加入的人名成员打了一剂强效镇静剂。

Then came asbestos. When its prospective costs were added to the tidal wave of environmental and product claims that surfaced in the 1980s, Lloyd's began to implode. Policies written decades earlier - and largely forgotten about - were developing huge losses. No one could intelligently estimate their total, but it was certain to be many tens of billions of dollars. The specter of unending and unlimited losses terrified existing names and scared away prospects. Many names opted for bankruptcy; some even chose suicide.

然后石棉问题出现了。当它的潜在成本被添加到20世纪80年代出现的环境和产品索赔浪潮中时，劳合社开始崩溃。几十年前承保、大多已被遗忘的保单正在产生巨额损失。没有人能明智地估计其总数，但肯定有几百亿美元。无休无止、无限损失的幽灵吓坏了现有人名成员，也吓跑了潜在成员。许多人名成员选择破产；有些人甚至选择了自杀。

From these shambles, there came a desperate effort to resuscitate Lloyd's. In 1996, the powers that be at the institution allotted £11.1 billion to a new company, Equitas, and made it responsible for paying all claims on policies written before 1993. In effect, this plan pooled the misery of the many syndicates in trouble. Of course, the money allotted could prove to be insufficient - and if that happened, the names remained liable for the shortfall.

从这些废墟中，人们开始拼命试图复活劳合社。1996年，该机构的掌权者向一家新公司 Equitas 拨付了111亿英镑，并使其负责支付1993年之前签发的所有保单的索赔。实际上，这个计划将许多陷入困境的辛迪加的苦难集中在一起。当然，拨付的资金可能被证明是不够的——如果发生这种情况，人名成员仍需对差额负责。

But the new plan, by concentrating all of the liabilities in one place, had the advantage of eliminating much of the costly intramural squabbling that went on among syndicates. Moreover, the pooling allowed claims evaluation, negotiation and litigation to be handled more intelligently than had been the case previously. Equitas embraced Ben Franklin's thinking: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall hang separately."

但新计划将所有负债集中在一个地方，其优点是消除了辛迪加之间许多代价高昂的内部争吵。此外，集中管理使得索赔评估、谈判和诉讼能够比以前更明智地进行。Equitas 采纳了本·富兰克林的思路：“我们必须团结一致，否则我们必定会被分别绞死。”

From the start, many people predicted Equitas would eventually fail. But as Ajit and I reviewed the facts in the spring of 2006 - 13 years after the last exposed policy had been written and after the payment of £11.3 billion in claims - we concluded that the patient was likely to survive. And so we decided to offer a huge reinsurance policy to Equitas.

一开始，许多人预测 Equitas 最终会失败。但当阿吉特和我在2006年春天审视事实时——距离最后一份有风险敞口的保单签发已过去13年，并且已经支付了113亿英镑的索赔——我们得出结论，这个病人很可能会存活下来。因此，我们决定向 Equitas 提供一份巨额再保险单。

Because plenty of imponderables continue to exist, Berkshire could not provide Equitas, and its 27,972 names, unlimited protection. But we said - and I'm simplifying - that if Equitas would give us $7.12 billion in cash and securities (this is the float I spoke about), we would pay all of its future claims and expenses up to $13.9 billion. That amount was $5.7 billion above what Equitas had recently guessed its ultimate liabilities to be. Thus the names received a huge - and almost certainly sufficient - amount of future protection against unpleasant surprises. Indeed the protection is so large that Equitas plans a cash payment to its thousands of names, an event few of them had ever dreamed possible.

由于存在大量不可估量的因素，伯克希尔无法为 Equitas 及其27,972名人名成员提供无限制的保护。但我们可以说——我简化一下——如果 Equitas 给我们71.2亿美元的现金和证券（这就是我提到的浮存金），我们将支付其所有未来索赔和费用，最高达139亿美元。这个数字比 Equitas 最近对其最终负债的估计高出57亿美元。因此，人名成员获得了巨额——而且几乎肯定足够——的针对不利意外的未来保护。事实上，保护力度如此之大，以至于 Equitas 计划向其数千名人名成员支付现金，这是他们中几乎没有人梦想过的事情。

And how will Berkshire fare? That depends on how much "known" claims will end up costing us, how many yet-to-be-presented claims will surface and what they will cost, how soon claim payments will be made and how much we earn on the cash we receive before it must be paid out. Ajit and I think the odds are in our favor. And should we be wrong, Berkshire can handle it.

那么伯克希尔会怎样？这取决于“已知”索赔最终会花费我们多少，有多少尚未提出的索赔会出现以及它们的成本是多少，索赔支付的速度有多快，以及我们在必须支付之前收到的现金能赚取多少。阿吉特和我认为几率对我们有利。如果我们错了，伯克希尔也能应对。

Scott Moser, the CEO of Equitas, summarized the transaction neatly: "Names wanted to sleep easy at night, and we think we've just bought them the world's best mattress."

Equitas 的 CEO 斯科特·莫泽简洁地总结了这笔交易：“人名成员希望晚上能睡得安稳，我们认为我们刚刚为他们买到了世界上最好的床垫。”

Warning: It's time to eat your broccoli - I am now going to talk about accounting matters. I owe this to those Berkshire shareholders who love reading about debits and credits. I hope both of you find this discussion helpful. All others can skip this section; there will be no quiz.

警告：是时候吃你的西兰花了——我现在要谈论会计问题。这是我欠那些喜欢阅读借项和贷项的伯克希尔股东的。我希望你们两位觉得这个讨论有帮助。所有其他人可以跳过这一节；不会有测验。

Berkshire has done many retroactive transactions - in both number and amount a multiple of such policies entered into by any other insurer. We are the reinsurer of choice for these coverages because the obligations that are transferred to us - for example, lifetime indemnity and medical payments to be made to injured workers - may not be fully satisfied for 50 years or more. No other company can offer the certainty that Berkshire can, in terms of guaranteeing the full and fair settlement of these obligations. This fact is important to the original insurer, policyholders and regulators.

伯克希尔已经做了很多追溯交易——无论从数量还是金额上，都是其他任何保险公司签订的此类保单的倍数。我们是这些保险的首选再保险公司，因为转移到我们这里的义务——例如，向受伤工人支付的终身赔偿和医疗费用——可能需要在50年或更长时间内才能完全履行。没有其他公司能够像伯克希尔那样提供保证这些义务得到完全和公平结算的确定性。这一事实对原保险公司、保单持有人和监管机构都很重要。

The accounting procedure for retroactive transactions is neither well known nor intuitive. The best way for shareholders to understand it, therefore, is for us to simply lay out the debits and credits. Charlie and I would like to see this done more often. We sometimes encounter accounting footnotes about important transactions that leave us baffled, and we go away suspicious that the reporting company wished it that way. (For example, try comprehending transactions "described" in the old 10-Ks of Enron, even after you know how the movie ended.)

追溯交易的会计程序既不广为人知也不直观。因此，股东理解它的最好方式就是我们简单地列出借项和贷项。查理和我希望更经常地看到这种做法。我们有时会遇到关于重要交易的会计脚注，让我们感到困惑，然后我们离开时怀疑报告公司有意如此。（例如，尝试理解安然公司旧10-K文件中“描述”的交易，即使你知道电影结局之后。）

So let us summarize our accounting for the Equitas transaction. The major debits will be to Cash and Investments, Reinsurance Recoverable, and Deferred Charges for Reinsurance Assumed ("DCRA"). The major credit will be to Reserve for Losses and Loss Adjustment Expense. No profit or loss will be recorded at the inception of the transaction, but underwriting losses will thereafter be incurred annually as the DCRA asset is amortized downward. The amount of the annual amortization charge will be primarily determined by how our end-of-the-year estimates as to the timing and amount of future loss payments compare to the estimates made at the beginning of the year. Eventually, when the last claim has been paid, the DCRA account will be reduced to zero. That day is 50 years or more away.

因此，让我们总结一下我们对 Equitas 交易的会计处理。主要的借项将是现金和投资、再保险可收回款项以及假定再保险的递延费用。主要的贷项将是损失和损失调整费用准备金。在交易开始时不会记录损益，但此后每年随着递延费用资产的摊销，将产生承保损失。年度摊销费用的金额主要取决于我们年底对未来损失支付时间和金额的估计与年初估计的比较。最终，当最后一笔索赔支付完毕时，递延费用账户将减少到零。那一天在50年或更久之后。

What's important to remember is that retroactive insurance contracts always produce underwriting losses for us. Whether these losses are worth experiencing depends on whether the cash we have received produces investment income that exceeds the losses. Recently our DCRA charges have annually delivered $300 million or so of underwriting losses, which have been more than offset by the income we have realized through use of the cash we received as a premium. Absent new retroactive contracts, the amount of the annual charge would normally decline over time. After the Equitas transaction, however, the annual DCRA cost will initially increase to about $450 million a year. This means that our other insurance operations must generate at least that much underwriting gain for our overall float to be cost-free. That amount is quite a hurdle but one that I believe we will clear in many, if not most, years.

需要记住的重要一点是，追溯保险合同总是给我们带来承保亏损。这些亏损是否值得经历，取决于我们收到的现金是否产生了超过亏损的投资收益。最近，我们的递延费用摊销每年产生约3亿美元的承保亏损，这已被我们通过使用作为保费收到的现金实现的收入所抵消。如果没有新的追溯合同，年度摊销金额通常会随时间下降。然而，在 Equitas 交易之后，年度递延费用成本最初将增加到每年约4.5亿美元。这意味着我们的其他保险业务必须产生至少那么多的承保利润，才能使我们的整体浮存金实现零成本。这是一个相当大的障碍，但我相信我们在许多年份（如果不是大多数年份）能够跨越它。

Aren't you glad that I promised you there would be no quiz?

你不高兴我保证不会有测验吗？

Manufacturing, Service and Retailing Operations

制造、服务和零售业务

Our activities in this part of Berkshire cover the waterfront. Let's look, though, at a summary balance sheet and earnings statement for the entire group.

我们在伯克希尔这一部分的活动包罗万象。不过，让我们看一下整个集团的简要资产负债表和损益表。

Balance Sheet 12/31/06 (in millions)

资产负债表 2006年12月31日（单位：百万美元）

Earnings Statement (in millions)

损益表（单位：百万美元）

*Does not include purchase-accounting adjustments.

*不包括购买会计调整。

This motley group, which sells products ranging from lollipops to motor homes, earned a pleasing 25% on average tangible net worth last year. It's noteworthy also that these operations used only minor financial leverage in achieving that return. Clearly we own some terrific businesses. We purchased many of them, however, at large premiums to net worth – a point reflected in the goodwill item shown on the balance sheet – and that fact reduces the earnings on our average carrying value to 10.8%.

这个形形色色的集团，销售从棒棒糖到房车的各种产品，去年在有形资产净值上获得了令人满意的25%的回报率。同样值得注意的是，这些业务在实现这一回报时只使用了很少的财务杠杆。显然，我们拥有一些出色的企业。然而，我们收购其中许多企业时，支付了相对于净资产的高额溢价——这一点反映在资产负债表上的商誉项目中——这一事实使我们按平均账面价值计算的收益率降至10.8%。

Here are a few newsworthy items about companies in this sector:

以下是该板块公司的一些值得关注的动态：

Bob Shaw, a remarkable entrepreneur who from a standing start built Shaw Industries into the country's largest carpet producer, elected last year, at age 75, to retire. To succeed him, Bob recommended Vance Bell, a 31-year veteran at Shaw, and Bob, as usual, made the right call. Weakness in housing has caused the carpet business to slow. Shaw, however, remains a powerhouse and a major contributor to Berkshire's earnings.

鲍勃·肖，一位杰出的企业家，从零开始将肖氏工业打造成为美国最大的地毯生产商，去年他在75岁时选择退休。鲍勃推荐了在肖氏工作了31年的万斯·贝尔作为他的继任者，而鲍勃一如既往地做出了正确的决定。住房市场的疲软导致地毯业务放缓。然而，肖氏工业仍然是一家强大的公司，并且是伯克希尔收益的主要贡献者。

MiTek, a manufacturer of connectors for roof trusses at the time we purchased it in 2001, is developing into a mini-conglomerate. At the rate it is growing, in fact, "mini" may soon be inappropriate. In purchasing MiTek for $420 million, we lent the company $200 million at 9% and bought $198 million of stock, priced at $10,000 per share. Additionally, 55 employees bought 2,200 shares for $22 million. Each employee paid exactly the same price that we did, in most cases borrowing money to do so.

MiTek 在我们2001年收购时是一家屋顶桁架连接件制造商，正在发展成一个迷你综合企业。按照它目前的发展速度，事实上，“迷你”可能很快就不合适了。我们以4.2亿美元收购 MiTek 时，向该公司提供了2亿美元9%利率的贷款，并购买了1.98亿美元的股票，每股价格为1万美元。此外，55名员工用2200万美元购买了2200股。每位员工支付的价格与我们完全相同，在大多数情况下，他们是借钱购买的。

And are they ever glad they did! Five years later, MiTek's sales have tripled and the stock is valued at $71,699 per share. Despite its making 14 acquisitions, at a cost of $291 million, MiTek has paid off its debt to Berkshire and holds $35 million of cash. We celebrated the fifth anniversary of our purchase with a party in July. I told the group that it would be embarrassing if MiTek's stock price soared beyond that of Berkshire "A" shares. Don't be surprised, however, if that happens (though Charlie and I will try to make our shares a moving target).

他们真为自己的决定感到高兴！五年后，MiTek 的销售额增长了三倍，股票估值达到每股71,699美元。尽管进行了14次收购，花费了2.91亿美元，MiTek 已经还清了欠伯克希尔的债务，并持有3500万美元的现金。我们在7月举办了一场派对，庆祝我们收购五周年。我告诉在场的人，如果 MiTek 的股价超过伯克希尔的“A”股，那将令人尴尬。然而，如果这真的发生了，不要感到惊讶（尽管查理和我会努力让我们的股票成为一个移动的目标）。

Not all of our businesses are destined to increase profits. When an industry's underlying economics are crumbling, talented management may slow the rate of decline. Eventually, though, eroding fundamentals will overwhelm managerial brilliance. (As a wise friend told me long ago, "If you want to get a reputation as a good businessman, be sure to get into a good business.") And fundamentals are definitely eroding in the newspaper industry, a trend that has caused the profits of our Buffalo News to decline. The skid will almost certainly continue.

并非我们所有的业务都注定要增加利润。当一个行业的基础经济正在崩溃时，有才华的管理层可能会减缓下降的速度。但最终，不断侵蚀的基本面将压倒管理者的才华。（正如一位明智的朋友很久以前告诉我的：“如果你想获得一个好商人的名声，一定要进入一个好行业。”）而报纸行业的基本面确实在受到侵蚀，这一趋势导致我们《布法罗新闻报》的利润下降。这种下滑几乎肯定会持续。

When Charlie and I were young, the newspaper business was as easy a way to make huge returns as existed in America. As one not-too-bright publisher famously said, "I owe my fortune to two great American institutions: monopoly and nepotism." No paper in a one-paper city, however bad the product or however inept the management, could avoid gushing profits.

当查理和我年轻时，报纸行业是美国最容易获得巨额回报的行业。正如一位不太聪明的主编所说：“我的财富要归功于美国的两个伟大制度：垄断和裙带关系。”在一个只有一家报纸的城市里，无论产品多差或管理层多么无能，都无法避免滚滚利润。

The industry's staggering returns could be simply explained. For most of the 20th Century, newspapers were the primary source of information for the American public. Whether the subject was sports, finance, or politics, newspapers reigned supreme. Just as important, their ads were the easiest way to find job opportunities or to learn the price of groceries at your town's supermarkets.

这个行业惊人的回报率可以简单解释。在20世纪的大部分时间里，报纸是美国公众获取信息的主要来源。无论是体育、金融还是政治话题，报纸都占据主导地位。同样重要的是，它们的广告是寻找工作机会或了解镇上超市食品价格的最简单方式。

The great majority of families therefore felt the need for a paper every day, but understandably most didn't wish to pay for two. Advertisers preferred the paper with the most circulation, and readers tended to want the paper with the most ads and news pages. This circularity led to a law of the newspaper jungle: Survival of the Fattest.

因此，绝大多数家庭觉得每天都需要一份报纸，但可以理解的是，大多数人不愿意为两份报纸付钱。广告商更喜欢发行量最大的报纸，而读者往往希望得到广告和新闻版面最多的报纸。这种循环性导致了报纸丛林的法则：最肥者生存。

Thus, when two or more papers existed in a major city (which was almost universally the case a century ago), the one that pulled ahead usually emerged as the stand-alone winner. After competition disappeared, the paper's pricing power in both advertising and circulation was unleashed. Typically, rates for both advertisers and readers would be raised annually - and the profits rolled in. For owners this was economic heaven. (Interestingly, though papers regularly - and often in a disapproving way - reported on the profitability of, say, the auto or steel industries, they never enlightened readers about their own Midas-like situation. Hmmm . . .)

因此，当一个大城市存在两份或更多报纸时（一个世纪前几乎普遍如此），领先的那一份通常会成为唯一的赢家。竞争消失后，报纸在广告和发行方面的定价权就被释放了。通常，广告商和读者的费率每年都会提高——利润滚滚而来。对所有者来说，这是经济天堂。（有趣的是，尽管报纸经常——而且通常以不赞成的方式——报道例如汽车或钢铁行业的盈利能力，但它们从未告知读者自己点石成金般的情况。嗯……）

As long ago as my 1991 letter to shareholders, I nonetheless asserted that this insulated world was changing, writing that "the media businesses . . . will prove considerably less marvelous than I, the industry, or lenders thought would be the case only a few years ago." Some publishers took umbrage at both this remark and other warnings from me that followed. Newspaper properties, moreover, continued to sell as if they were indestructible slot machines. In fact, many intelligent newspaper executives who regularly chronicled and analyzed important worldwide events were either blind or indifferent to what was going on under their noses.

然而，早在1991年我写给股东的信中，我就断言这个封闭的世界正在发生变化，写道“媒体业务……将证明远不如我、行业或贷款机构在几年前所认为的那样美妙。”一些出版商对这句话以及我随后的其他警告感到愤怒。此外，报纸资产继续像是不朽的老虎机一样出售。事实上，许多定期记录和分析重要全球事件的聪明报纸高管，要么对他们眼皮底下发生的事情视而不见，要么漠不关心。

Now, however, almost all newspaper owners realize that they are constantly losing ground in the battle for eyeballs. Simply put, if cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet, had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed.

但是，现在几乎所有的报纸所有者都意识到，他们在争夺眼球的战斗中不断失利。简而言之，如果有线电视、卫星广播以及互联网先出现，我们所知道的报纸可能根本就不会存在。

In Berkshire's world, Stan Lipsey does a terrific job running the Buffalo News, and I am enormously proud of its editor, Margaret Sullivan. The News' penetration of its market is the highest among that of this country's large newspapers. We also do better financially than most metropolitan newspapers, even though Buffalo's population and business trends are not good. Nevertheless, this operation faces unrelenting pressures that will cause profit margins to slide.

在伯克希尔的世界里，斯坦·利普西出色地经营着《布法罗新闻报》，我为其编辑玛格丽特·沙利文感到无比自豪。《新闻报》在其市场的渗透率是美国大型报纸中最高的。尽管布法罗的人口和商业趋势不佳，但我们的财务状况也比大多数大都会报纸好。尽管如此，这项业务面临着无情的压力，将导致利润率下滑。

True, we have the leading online news operation in Buffalo, and it will continue to attract more viewers and ads. However, the economic potential of a newspaper internet site - given the many alternative sources of information and entertainment that are free and only a click away - is at best a small fraction of that existing in the past for a print newspaper facing no competition.

诚然，我们在布法罗拥有领先的在线新闻业务，它将继续吸引更多的观众和广告。然而，考虑到有大量免费且只需点击一下即可获取的替代信息和娱乐来源，报纸网站的经济潜力充其量只是过去没有竞争的印刷报纸所拥有的一小部分。

For a local resident, ownership of a city's paper, like ownership of a sports team, still produces instant prominence. With it typically comes power and influence. These are ruboffs that appeal to many people with money. Beyond that, civic-minded, wealthy individuals may feel that local ownership will serve their community well. That's why Peter Kiewit bought the Omaha paper more than 40 years ago.

对当地居民来说，拥有一份城市的报纸，就像拥有一支体育队伍一样，仍然能立即带来声望。随之而来的通常是权力和影响力。这些吸引着许多有钱人的附带好处。除此之外，有公德心的富有人士可能觉得本地所有权对他们的社区有好处。这就是为什么彼得·基维特在40多年前买下了奥马哈的报纸。

We are likely therefore to see non-economic individual buyers of newspapers emerge, just as we have seen such buyers acquire major sports franchises. Aspiring press lords should be careful, however: There's no rule that says a newspaper's revenues can't fall below its expenses and that losses can't mushroom. Fixed costs are high in the newspaper business, and that's bad news when unit volume heads south. As the importance of newspapers diminishes, moreover, the "psychic" value of possessing one will wane, whereas owning a sports franchise will likely retain its cachet.

因此，我们很可能会看到非经济动机的个人买家出现购买报纸，就像我们看到这样的买家收购了主要的体育特许经营权一样。然而，有志于成为媒体大亨的人应该小心：没有规定说报纸的收入不能低于支出，亏损不能激增。报纸行业的固定成本很高，当单位销售量下降时，这是个坏消息。此外，随着报纸重要性的减弱，拥有一份报纸的“精神”价值也会减弱，而拥有一支体育队伍可能会保持其魅力。

Unless we face an irreversible cash drain, we will stick with the News, just as we've said that we would. (Read economic principle 11, on page 76.) Charlie and I love newspapers - we each read five a day - and believe that a free and energetic press is a key ingredient for maintaining a great democracy. We hope that some combination of print and online will ward off economic doomsday for newspapers, and we will work hard in Buffalo to develop a sustainable business model. I think we will be successful. But the days of lush profits from our newspaper are over.

除非我们面临不可逆转的现金流失，否则我们将坚持经营《新闻报》，正如我们说过的那样。（请阅读第76页的经济原则11。）查理和我热爱报纸——我们每人每天读五份——并相信自由而充满活力的媒体是维持伟大民主的关键要素。我们希望印刷和在线的一些结合能够抵御报纸的经济末日，我们将在布法罗努力开发一个可持续的商业模式。我认为我们会成功。但我们报纸丰厚利润的日子已经结束了。

A much improved situation is emerging at NetJets, which sells and manages fractionally-owned aircraft. This company has never had a problem growing: Revenues from flight operations have increased 596% since our purchase in 1998. But profits had been erratic.

NetJets 的情况正在明显改善，该公司销售和管理分时拥有的飞机。这家公司的发展从来都不是问题：自1998年我们收购以来，飞行运营收入增长了596%。但利润一直不稳定。

Our move to Europe, which began in 1996, was particularly expensive. After five years of operation there, we had acquired only 80 customers. And by mid-year 2006 our cumulative pre-tax loss had risen to $212 million. But European demand has now exploded, with a net of 589 customers having been added in 2005-2006. Under Mark Booth's brilliant leadership, NetJets is now operating profitably in Europe, and we expect the positive trend to continue.

我们向欧洲的扩张始于1996年，代价尤其高昂。在那里经营五年后，我们只获得了80个客户。到2006年年中，我们的累计税前亏损已达2.12亿美元。但现在欧洲的需求已经爆发，2005-2006年净增加了589个客户。在马克·布斯的出色领导下，NetJets 现在在欧洲实现了盈利运营，我们预计这一积极趋势将持续下去。

Our U.S. operation also had a good year in 2006, which led to worldwide pre-tax earnings of $143 million at NetJets last year. We made this profit even though we suffered a loss of $19 million in the first quarter.

我们的美国业务在2006年也表现良好，使得 NetJets 去年全球税前利润达到1.43亿美元。我们是在第一季度亏损1900万美元的情况下实现这一利润的。

Credit Rich Santulli, along with Mark, for this turnaround. Rich, like many of our managers, has no financial need to work. But you'd never know it. He's absolutely tireless - monitoring operations, making sales, and traveling the globe to constantly widen the already-enormous lead that NetJets enjoys over its competitors. Today, the value of the fleet we manage is far greater than that managed by our three largest competitors combined.

这一转变得益于里奇·桑图利和马克。里奇和我们许多经理人一样，没有工作的经济需求。但你永远看不出来。他绝对不知疲倦——监控运营、达成销售、环游世界，不断扩大 NetJets 已经领先于竞争对手的巨大优势。如今，我们管理的机队价值远大于我们三大竞争对手的总和。

There's a reason NetJets is the runaway leader: It offers the ultimate in safety and service. At Berkshire, and at a number of our subsidiaries, NetJets aircraft are an indispensable business tool. I also have a contract for personal use with NetJets and so do members of my family and most Berkshire directors. (None of us, I should add, gets a discount.) Once you've flown NetJets, returning to commercial flights is like going back to holding hands.

NetJets 成为遥遥领先的领导者是有原因的：它提供最极致的安全和服务。在伯克希尔以及我们的许多子公司，NetJets 飞机是不可或缺的商业工具。我自己也与 NetJets 有个人使用合同，我的家人和大多数伯克希尔董事也是如此。（我应该补充一点，我们没有人获得折扣。）一旦你乘过 NetJets，再回到商业航班就像是回到了牵手时代。

Regulated Utility Business

受监管的公用事业业务

Berkshire has an 86.6% (fully diluted) interest in MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which owns a wide variety of utility operations. The largest of these are (1) Yorkshire Electricity and Northern Electric, whose 3.7 million electric customers make it the third largest distributor of electricity in the U.K.; (2) MidAmerican Energy, which serves 706,000 electric customers, primarily in Iowa; (3) Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power, serving about 1.7 million electric customers in six western states; and (4) Kern River and Northern Natural pipelines, which carry about 8% of the natural gas consumed in the U.S.

伯克希尔持有中美能源控股公司86.6%（完全稀释）的权益，该公司拥有多种公用事业业务。其中最大的包括：（1）约克郡电力和北方电力，其370万电力客户使其成为英国第三大电力分销商；（2）中美能源公司，主要为爱荷华州70.6万电力客户提供服务；（3）太平洋电力和洛基山电力，为西部六个州约170万电力客户提供服务；以及（4）克恩河和北方天然气管道，输送约8%的美国天然气消费量。

Our partners in ownership of MidAmerican are Walter Scott, and its two terrific managers, Dave Sokol and Greg Abel. It's unimportant how many votes each party has; we will make major moves only when we are unanimous in thinking them wise. Six years of working with Dave, Greg and Walter have underscored my original belief: Berkshire couldn't have better partners.

我们在中美能源的所有权伙伴是沃尔特·斯科特，以及其两位出色的经理人戴夫·索科尔和格雷格·阿贝尔。每一方拥有多少投票权并不重要；只有当我们一致认为某项重大举措明智时，我们才会采取行动。与戴夫、格雷格和沃尔特六年的合作，印证了我最初的信念：伯克希尔不可能有更好的合作伙伴了。

Somewhat incongruously, MidAmerican owns the second largest real estate brokerage firm in the U.S., HomeServices of America. This company operates through 20 locally-branded firms with 20,300 agents. Despite HomeServices' purchase of two operations last year, the company's overall volume fell 9% to $58 billion, and profits fell 50%.

有点不太协调的是，中美能源还拥有美国第二大房地产经纪公司 HomeServices of America。该公司通过20家地方品牌公司运营，拥有20,300名经纪人。尽管 HomeServices 去年收购了两家业务，但公司的总交易量下降了9%，至580亿美元，利润下降了50%。

The slowdown in residential real estate activity stems in part from the weakened lending practices of recent years. The "optional" contracts and "teaser" rates that have been popular have allowed borrowers to make payments in the early years of their mortgages that fall far short of covering normal interest costs. Naturally, there are few defaults when virtually nothing is required of a borrower. As a cynic has said, "A rolling loan gathers no loss." But payments not made add to principal, and borrowers who can't afford normal monthly payments early on are hit later with above-normal monthly obligations. This is the Scarlett O'Hara scenario: "I'll think about that tomorrow." For many home owners, "tomorrow" has now arrived. Consequently there is a huge overhang of offerings in several of HomeServices' markets.

住宅房地产活动的放缓部分源于近年来弱化的贷款操作。流行起来的“可选”合同和“诱饵”利率使得借款人在抵押贷款初期支付的款项远低于覆盖正常利息成本。自然而然地，当几乎不对借款人提出任何要求时，违约很少。正如一位愤世嫉俗者所说：“滚动贷款不生损失。”但未支付的款项会增加本金，那些早期无法承担正常月供的借款人后来会面临高于正常的月供义务。这是斯嘉丽·奥哈拉的场景：“我明天再想这件事。”对许多房主来说，“明天”已经到来。因此，HomeServices 的几个市场存在大量待售房源。

Nevertheless, we will be seeking to purchase additional brokerage operations. A decade from now, HomeServices will almost certainly be much larger.

尽管如此，我们将寻求购买更多的经纪业务。十年后，HomeServices 几乎肯定会变得更大。

Here are some key figures on MidAmerican's operation:

以下是中美能源运营的一些关键数据：

*Includes interest earned by Berkshire (net of related income taxes) of $87 in 2006 and $102 in 2005.

*包括伯克希尔赚取的利息（扣除相关所得税后），2006年为8700万美元，2005年为1.02亿美元。

Finance and Financial Products

金融及金融产品

You will be happy to hear - and I'm even happier - that this will be my last discussion of the losses at Gen Re's derivative operation. When we started to wind this business down early in 2002, we had 23,218 contracts outstanding. Now we have 197. Our cumulative pre-tax loss from this operation totals $409 million, but only $5 million occurred in 2006. Charlie says that if we had properly classified the $409 million on our 2001 balance sheet, it would have been labeled "Good Until Reached For." In any event, a Shakespearean thought - slightly modified - seems appropriate for the tombstone of this derivative business: "All's well that ends."

你会很高兴听到——我甚至更高兴——这将是我最后一次讨论通用再保险衍生品业务的亏损。当我们在2002年初开始清盘这项业务时，我们有23,218份未平仓合约。现在我们有197份。我们在这项业务上的累计税前亏损总计4.09亿美元，但2006年只有500万美元。查理说，如果我们曾在2001年的资产负债表上正确分类这4.09亿美元，它会被标为“待提取时仍为良好”。无论如何，一句稍微修改过的莎士比亚名言似乎适合作为这项衍生品业务的墓志铭：“结局好，一切都好。”

We've also wound up our investment in Value Capital. So earnings or losses from these two lines of business are making their final appearance in the table that annually appears in this section.

我们还结束了在 Value Capital 的投资。因此，这两项业务的收益或亏损将最后一次出现在本节年度表格中。

Clayton Homes remains an anomaly in the manufactured-housing industry, which last year recorded its lowest unit sales since 1962. Indeed, the industry's volume last year was only about one-third that of 1999. Outside of Clayton, I doubt if the industry, overall, made any money in 2006.

克莱顿房屋公司在活动房屋行业仍然是个异类，该行业去年的单位销量创下自1962年以来的最低记录。事实上，去年该行业的销量仅为1999年的约三分之一。在克莱顿之外，我怀疑整个行业在2006年是否整体上赚到了钱。

Yet Clayton earned $513 million pre-tax and paid Berkshire an additional $86 million as a fee for our obtaining the funds to finance Clayton's $10 billion portfolio of installment receivables. Berkshire's financial strength has clearly been of huge help to Clayton. But the driving force behind the company's success is Kevin Clayton. Kevin knows the business forward and backward, is a rational decision-maker and a joy to work with. Because of acquisitions, Clayton now employs 14,787 people, compared to 6,661 at the time of our purchase.

然而，克莱顿税前赚了5.13亿美元，并额外向伯克希尔支付了8600万美元作为我们获取资金以支持克莱顿100亿美元分期应收款组合的费用。伯克希尔的财务实力显然对克莱顿帮助巨大。但公司成功背后的驱动力是凯文·克莱顿。凯文对业务了如指掌，是一位理性的决策者，与他共事令人愉快。由于收购，克莱顿现在雇佣了14,787人，而我们在收购时为6,661人。

We have two leasing operations: CORT (furniture), run by Paul Arnold, and XTRA (truck trailers), run by Bill Franz. CORT's earnings improved significantly last year, and XTRA's remained at the high level attained in 2005. We continue to look for tuck-in acquisitions to be run by Paul or Bill, and also are open to ideas for new leasing opportunities.

我们有两个租赁业务：保罗·阿诺德经营的 CORT（家具）和比尔·弗朗茨经营的 XTRA（卡车拖车）。CORT 的收益去年显著增长，XTRA 的收益保持在2005年达到的高水平。我们继续寻找可以由保罗或比尔经营的补强收购机会，也对新的租赁业务机会持开放态度。

Here's a breakdown of earnings in this sector:

以下是该板块收益的细分：

*Includes all liabilities

*包括所有负债

Investments

投资

We show below our common stock investments. With two exceptions, those that had a market value of more than $700 million at the end of 2006 are itemized. We don't itemize the two securities referred to, which have a market value of $1.9 billion, because we continue to buy them. I could, of course, tell you their names. But then I would have to kill you.

下表列出了我们的普通股投资。除了两个例外，我们列出了2006年底市值超过7亿美元的项目。我们没有列出提到的那两种证券，它们的市值为19亿美元，因为我们仍在继续买入。我当然可以告诉你它们的名字。但那样我就不得不杀了你。

12/31/06

2006年12月31日

*This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis; GAAP "cost" differs in a few cases because of write-ups or write-downs that have been required.

*这是我们实际的购买价格，也是我们的计税基础；由于之前要求的减值或增值，GAAP下的“成本”在少数情况下有所不同。

We are delighted by the 2006 business performance of virtually all of our investees. Last year, we told you that our expectation was that these companies, in aggregate, would increase their earnings by 6% to 8% annually, a rate that would double their earnings every ten years or so. In 2006 American Express, Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble increased per-share earnings by 9%, 8% and 11%. These are stellar results, and we thank their CEOs.

我们对几乎所有被投资方2006年的业务表现感到满意。去年，我们告诉过你，我们预计这些公司总体上每年将增长6%至8%，这个速度大约每十年会使他们的收益翻一番。2006年，美国运通、可口可乐和宝洁的每股收益分别增长了9%、8%和11%。这些是出色的业绩，我们感谢他们的CEO。

We've come close to eliminating our direct foreign-exchange position, from which we realized about $186 million in pre-tax profits in 2006 (earnings that were included in the Finance and Financial Products table shown earlier). That brought our total gain since inception of this position in 2002 to $2.2 billion. Here's a breakdown by currency:

我们已接近清空我们的直接外汇头寸，2006年从中实现了约1.86亿美元的税前利润（这些收益包含在前面显示的金融及金融产品表格中）。这使得我们自2002年开始建立该头寸以来的总收益达到22亿美元。以下是按货币的细分：

Total Gain (Loss) in Millions

总收益（亏损）单位：百万美元

We've made large indirect currency profits as well, though I've never tallied the precise amount. For example, in 2002-2003 we spent about $82 million buying - of all things - Enron bonds, some of which were denominated in Euros. Already we've received distributions of $179 million from these bonds, and our remaining stake is worth $173 million. That means our overall gain is $270 million, part of which came from the appreciation of the Euro that took place after our bond purchase.

我们也获得了巨大的间接外汇利润，尽管我从未统计过确切数字。例如，在2002-2003年，我们花了大约8200万美元购买了——说来奇怪——安然公司的债券，其中一些以欧元计价。我们已经从这些债券中获得了1.79亿美元的分配，我们剩余的股份价值1.73亿美元。这意味着我们的总收益为2.7亿美元，其中一部分来自我们购买债券后欧元的升值。

When we first began making foreign exchange purchases, interest-rate differentials between the U.S. and most foreign countries favored a direct currency position. But that spread turned negative in 2005. We therefore looked for other ways to gain foreign-currency exposure, such as the ownership of foreign equities or of U.S. stocks with major earnings abroad. The currency factor, we should emphasize, is not dominant in our selection of equities, but is merely one of many considerations.

当我们最初开始进行外汇购买时，美国与大多数外国之间的利率差有利于直接货币头寸。但这一利差在2005年变为负值。因此，我们寻找其他方式获得外汇敞口，例如持有外国股票或在海外有大量收益的美国股票。我们应该强调，货币因素不是我们选择股票的主导因素，而仅仅是众多考虑因素之一。

As our U.S. trade problems worsen, the probability that the dollar will weaken over time continues to be high. I fervently believe in real trade - the more the better for both us and the world. We had about $1.44 trillion of this honest-to-God trade in 2006. But the U.S. also had $6.76 trillion of pseudo-trade last year - imports for which we exchanged no goods or services. (Ponder, for a moment, how commentators would describe the situation if our imports were $6.76 trillion - a full 6% of GDP - and we had no exports.) Making these purchases that weren't reciprocated by sales, the U.S. necessarily transferred ownership of its assets or IOUs to the rest of the world. Like a very wealthy but self-indulgent family, we peeled off a bit of what we owned in order to consume more than we produced.

随着美国贸易问题恶化，美元随着时间的推移而贬值的可能性仍然很高。我热切地相信真正的贸易——对美国和世界来说，越多越好。2006年我们拥有约1.44万亿美元的这种真正意义上的贸易。但美国去年还有6.76万亿美元的伪贸易——我们没有交换任何商品或服务的进口。（请思考一下，如果我们的进口是6.76万亿美元——占GDP整整6%——而我们没有出口，评论员们会如何描述这种情况。）进行这些没有销售回报的购买，美国必然将其资产或借据的所有权转让给世界其他地方。就像一个非常富有但放任自己的家庭一样，我们剥离了自己拥有的一小部分资产，以便消费超过我们生产的量。

The U.S. can do a lot of this because we are an extraordinarily rich country that has behaved responsibly in the past. The world is therefore willing to accept our bonds, real estate, stocks and businesses. And we have a vast store of these to hand over.

美国能做到这么多，是因为我们是一个非常富裕的国家，过去行为负责任。因此世界愿意接受我们的债券、房地产、股票和企业。我们有大量的这些东西可以移交。

These transfers will have consequences, however. Already the prediction I made last year about one fall-out from our spending binge has come true: The "investment income" account of our country - positive in every previous year since 1915 - turned negative in 2006. Foreigners now earn more on their U.S. investments than we do on our investments abroad. In effect, we've used up our bank account and turned to our credit card. And, like everyone who gets in hock, the U.S. will now experience "reverse compounding" as we pay ever-increasing amounts of interest on interest.

然而，这些转让将带来后果。我去年关于我们消费狂潮的一个后果的预测已经成真：我国的“投资收益”账户——自1915年以来每年都是正数——在2006年变成了负数。外国人现在在美国投资上赚的钱比我们在国外投资上赚的还多。实际上，我们已经用完了银行存款，转而使用信用卡。而且，就像每个负债的人一样，美国现在将经历“反向复利”，因为我们支付着不断增加的利息上的利息。

I want to emphasize that even though our course is unwise, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now than they do today. Per-capita wealth will increase. But our citizens will also be forced every year to ship a significant portion of their current production abroad merely to service the cost of our huge debtor position. It won't be pleasant to work part of each day to pay for the over-consumption of your ancestors. I believe that at some point in the future U.S. workers and voters will find this annual "tribute" so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash. How that will play out in markets is impossible to predict - but to expect a "soft landing" seems like wishful thinking.

我想强调的是，尽管我们的做法不明智，但十年或二十年后，美国人的生活将比今天更好。人均财富将会增加。但我们的公民每年也将被迫将其当前生产的很大一部分运往国外，仅仅是为了支付我们巨额债务头寸的成本。每天工作一部分时间来偿还你祖辈的过度消费，这可不是什么愉快的事。我相信，在未来的某个时候，美国工人和选民会发现这种每年的“贡品”如此繁重，以至于会产生强烈的政治反弹。这将在市场上如何演绎是无法预测的——但期待“软着陆”似乎是一厢情愿。

I should mention that all of the direct currency profits we have realized have come from forward contracts, which are derivatives, and that we have entered into other types of derivatives contracts as well. That may seem odd, since you know of our expensive experience in unwinding the derivatives book at Gen Re and also have heard me talk of the systemic problems that could result from the enormous growth in the use of derivatives. Why, you may wonder, are we fooling around with such potentially toxic material?

我应该提到，我们实现的所有直接外汇利润都来自远期合约，这是一种衍生品，而且我们也进入了其他类型的衍生品合约。这似乎有些奇怪，因为你知道我们在清盘通用再保险衍生品账簿方面付出了昂贵的代价，也听我谈论过衍生品使用的大规模增长可能导致的系统性问题。你可能会想，我们为什么要在这种潜在有毒的材料上浪费时间？

The answer is that derivatives, just like stocks and bonds, are sometimes wildly mispriced. For many years, accordingly, we have selectively written derivative contracts - few in number but sometimes for large dollar amounts. We currently have 62 contracts outstanding. I manage them personally, and they are free of counterparty credit risk. So far, these derivative contracts have worked out well for us, producing pre-tax profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars (above and beyond the gains I've itemized from forward foreign-exchange contracts). Though we will experience losses from time to time, we are likely to continue to earn - overall - significant profits from mispriced derivatives.

答案是，衍生品，就像股票和债券一样，有时会被严重错误定价。因此，多年来，我们有选择地签订了衍生品合约——数量很少，但有时金额很大。我们目前有62份未平仓合约。我亲自管理它们，它们没有交易对手信用风险。到目前为止，这些衍生品合约对我们来说效果不错，产生了数亿美元的税前利润（超过了我列出的远期外汇合约的收益）。尽管我们会不时经历亏损，但我们很可能继续从错误定价的衍生品中——整体上——赚取可观的利润。

I have told you that Berkshire has three outstanding candidates to replace me as CEO and that the Board knows exactly who should take over if I should die tonight. Each of the three is much younger than I. The directors believe it's important that my successor have the prospect of a long tenure.

我已经告诉过你，伯克希尔有三位出色的候选人接替我担任CEO，董事会非常清楚如果我今晚去世应该由谁接替。这三位都比我年轻得多。董事们认为，重要的是我的继任者有长期任职的前景。

Frankly, we are not as well-prepared on the investment side of our business. There's a history here: At one time, Charlie was my potential replacement for investing, and more recently Lou Simpson has filled that slot. Lou is a top-notch investor with an outstanding long-term record of managing GEICO's equity portfolio. But he is only six years younger than I. If I were to die soon, he would fill in magnificently for a short period. For the long-term, though, we need a different answer.

坦率地说，我们在业务的投资方面准备得不够充分。这里有一段历史：曾几何时，查理是我在投资方面的潜在接替者，后来卢·辛普森填补了这个位置。卢是一流的投资者，在管理盖可的股票组合方面有着出色的长期记录。但他只比我小六岁。如果我很快去世，他可以在短期内出色地填补空缺。但是，从长远来看，我们需要一个不同的答案。

At our October board meeting, we discussed that subject fully. And we emerged with a plan, which I will carry out with the help of Charlie and Lou.

在我们十月份的董事会上，我们充分讨论了这个话题。我们提出了一个计划，我将在查理和卢的帮助下执行这个计划。

Under this plan, I intend to hire a younger man or woman with the potential to manage a very large portfolio, who we hope will succeed me as Berkshire's chief investment officer when the need for someone to do that arises. As part of the selection process, we may in fact take on several candidates.

根据这个计划，我打算聘请一位更年轻的人（男性或女性），具备管理超大规模投资组合的潜力，我们希望在需要有人来做这件事时，他/她能接替我成为伯克希尔的首席投资官。作为遴选过程的一部分，我们实际上可能会吸纳几位候选人。

Picking the right person(s) will not be an easy task. It's not hard, of course, to find smart people, among them individuals who have impressive investment records. But there is far more to successful long-term investing than brains and performance that has recently been good.

挑选合适的人选并非易事。当然，找到聪明人并不难，其中不乏有令人印象深刻投资记录的人。但成功的长期投资远不止是头脑和最近表现良好。

Over time, markets will do extraordinary, even bizarre, things. A single, big mistake could wipe out a long string of successes. We therefore need someone genetically programmed to recognize and avoid serious risks, including those never before encountered. Certain perils that lurk in investment strategies cannot be spotted by use of the models commonly employed today by financial institutions.

随着时间的推移，市场会做出非凡甚至怪异的事情。一个大的错误就可能抹掉一连串的成功。因此，我们需要一个天生就能识别和避免严重风险的人，包括那些从未遇到过的风险。投资策略中潜藏的某些危险，无法通过金融机构如今普遍使用的模型来发现。

Temperament is also important. Independent thinking, emotional stability, and a keen understanding of both human and institutional behavior is vital to long-term investment success. I've seen a lot of very smart people who have lacked these virtues.

气质也很重要。独立思考、情绪稳定以及对人类和机构行为的敏锐理解，对长期投资成功至关重要。我见过很多非常聪明的人缺乏这些品质。

Finally, we have a special problem to consider: our ability to keep the person we hire. Being able to list Berkshire on a resume would materially enhance the marketability of an investment manager. We will need, therefore, to be sure we can retain our choice, even though he or she could leave and make much more money elsewhere.

最后，我们有一个特殊问题需要考虑：我们留住所聘人员的能力。能够在简历上列出伯克希尔，将极大地提高投资经理的适销性。因此，我们需要确保能够留住我们选择的人，尽管他/她可能会离开并在其他地方赚更多的钱。

There are surely people who fit what we need, but they may be hard to identify. In 1979, Jack Byrne and I felt we had found such a person in Lou Simpson. We then made an arrangement with him whereby he would be paid well for sustained overperformance. Under this deal, he has earned large amounts. Lou, however, could have left us long ago to manage far greater sums on more advantageous terms. If money alone had been the object, that's exactly what he would have done. But Lou never considered such a move. We need to find a younger person or two made of the same stuff.

肯定有符合我们需要的人，但他们可能很难识别。1979年，杰克·伯恩和我认为我们在卢·辛普森身上找到了这样的人。然后我们与他达成了一项安排，根据该安排，他将因持续的超越表现而获得丰厚报酬。根据这笔交易，他赚了很多钱。然而，卢很久以前就可以离开我们，以更优惠的条件管理更大规模的资金。如果金钱是唯一目标，他早就那么做了。但卢从未考虑过这样的举动。我们需要找到一两个具有同样品质的年轻人。

The good news: At 76, I feel terrific and, according to all measurable indicators, am in excellent health. It's amazing what Cherry Coke and hamburgers will do for a fellow.

好消息是：76岁的我感觉棒极了，而且根据所有可衡量的指标，我的健康状况极佳。樱桃可乐和汉堡包能为一个人带来什么，真是令人惊叹。

Some Changes on Berkshire's Board

伯克希尔董事会的变动

The composition of our board will change in two ways this spring. One change will involve the Chace family, which has been connected to Berkshire and its predecessor companies for more than a century. In 1929, the first Malcolm G. Chace played an important role in merging four New England textile operations into Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates. That company merged with Hathaway Manufacturing in 1955 to form Berkshire Hathaway, and Malcolm G. Chace, Jr. became its chairman.

今年春天，我们董事会的构成将发生两方面的变化。一项变化涉及蔡斯家族，该家族与伯克希尔及其前身公司有着超过一个世纪的联系。1929年，第一代马尔科姆·G·蔡斯在将四家新英格兰纺织企业合并为伯克希尔精细纺纱公司中发挥了重要作用。该公司于1955年与哈撒韦制造公司合并，成立了伯克希尔·哈撒韦，小马尔科姆·G·蔡斯成为其董事长。

Early in 1965, Malcolm arranged for Buffett Partnership Ltd. to buy a key block of Berkshire shares and welcomed us as the new controlling shareholder of the company. Malcolm continued as non-executive chairman until 1969. He was both a wonderful gentleman and helpful partner.

1965年初，马尔科姆安排巴菲特合伙公司购买了一大批伯克希尔的关键股份，并欢迎我们成为公司新的控股股东。马尔科姆一直担任非执行董事长直到1969年。他既是一位出色的绅士，也是一位有帮助的合伙人。

That description also fits his son, Malcolm "Kim" Chace, who succeeded his father on Berkshire's board in 1992. But last year Kim, now actively and successfully running a community bank that he founded in 1996, suggested that we find a younger person to replace him on our board. We have done so, and Kim will step down as a director at the annual meeting. I owe much to the Chaces and wish to thank Kim for his many years of service to Berkshire.

这个描述也适用于他的儿子马尔科姆·“金”·蔡斯，他于1992年接替父亲进入伯克希尔董事会。但去年，金——现在积极成功地经营着他1996年创立的一家社区银行——建议我们找一个更年轻的人接替他进入董事会。我们已经这样做了，金将在年会上辞去董事职务。我欠蔡斯家族很多，并感谢金多年来为伯克希尔服务。

In selecting a new director, we were guided by our long-standing criteria, which are that board members be owner-oriented, business-savvy, interested and truly independent. I say "truly" because many directors who are now deemed independent by various authorities and observers are far from that, relying heavily as they do on directors' fees to maintain their standard of living. These payments, which come in many forms, often range between $150,000 and $250,000 annually, compensation that may approach or even exceed all other income of the "independent" director. And - surprise, surprise - director compensation has soared in recent years, pushed up by recommendations from corporate America's favorite consultant, Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo. (The name may be phony, but the action it conveys is not.)

在选择新董事时，我们遵循长期标准，即董事会成员必须面向所有者、精通商业、有兴趣且真正独立。我说“真正”，是因为许多目前被各种权威机构和观察家视为独立的董事远非如此，他们在很大程度上依赖董事费来维持生活水平。这些费用有多种形式，每年通常在15万至25万美元之间，这种补偿可能接近甚至超过“独立”董事的所有其他收入。而且——猜怎么着——近年来董事费飙升，这是由美国公司最喜欢的咨询公司“棘轮、棘轮和宾果”的建议推动的。（这个名字可能是假的，但它所传达的行动不是。）

Charlie and I believe our four criteria are essential if directors are to do their job - which, by law, is to faithfully represent owners. Yet these criteria are usually ignored. Instead, consultants and CEOs seeking board candidates will often say, "We're looking for a woman," or "a Hispanic," or "someone from abroad," or what have you. It sometimes sounds as if the mission is to stock Noah's ark. Over the years I've been queried many times about potential directors and have yet to hear anyone ask, "Does he think like an intelligent owner?"

查理和我相信，如果董事要履行其职责——根据法律，是忠实地代表所有者——我们的四个标准是必不可少的。然而，这些标准通常被忽略。相反，寻找董事会候选人的顾问和CEO们经常会说：“我们正在寻找一位女性”，或“一位西班牙裔”，或“来自海外的人”，等等。有时听起来好像任务是给诺亚方舟配齐物种。多年来，我被问过很多次关于潜在董事的问题，但从未听到有人问：“他像一位聪明的所有者那样思考吗？”

The questions I instead get would sound ridiculous to someone seeking candidates for, say, a football team, or an arbitration panel or a military command. In those cases, the selectors would look for people who had the specific talents and attitudes that were required for a specialized job. At Berkshire, we are in the specialized activity of running a business well, and therefore we seek business judgment.

我得到的问题，对于那些为例如足球队、仲裁小组或军事指挥部寻找候选人的人来说，听起来会很荒谬。在这些情况下，选拔者会寻找具备特定工作所需的特定才能和态度的人。在伯克希尔，我们从事的是良好经营企业的专门活动，因此我们寻求商业判断力。

That's exactly what we've found in Susan Decker, CFO of Yahoo!, who will join our board at the annual meeting. We are lucky to have her: She scores very high on our four criteria and additionally, at 44, is young - an attribute, as you may have noticed, that your Chairman has long lacked. We will seek more young directors in the future, but never by slighting the four qualities that we insist upon.

这正是我们在雅虎CFO苏珊·德克尔身上发现的，她将在年会上加入我们的董事会。我们很幸运有她：她在我们的四个标准上得分很高，而且，44岁的她也很年轻——你可能已经注意到，这是你们董事长长期缺乏的一个特质。我们未来会寻找更年轻的董事，但绝不会轻视我们坚持的四个品质。

Berkshire will pay about $4.4 billion in federal income tax on its 2006 earnings. In its last fiscal year the U.S. Government spent $2.6 trillion, or about $7 billion per day. Thus, for more than half of one day, Berkshire picked up the tab for all federal expenditures, ranging from Social Security and Medicare payments to the cost of our armed services. Had there been only 600 taxpayers like Berkshire, no one else in America would have needed to pay any federal income or payroll taxes.

伯克希尔将为其2006年的收益支付约44亿美元的联邦所得税。在其上一个财政年度，美国政府支出了2.6万亿美元，即每天约70亿美元。因此，在超过半天的时间里，伯克希尔支付了所有联邦支出的费用，从社会保障和医疗保险到我们武装部队的费用。如果只有600个像伯克希尔这样的纳税人，那么美国其他任何人都不需要支付任何联邦所得税或工资税。

Our federal return last year, we should add, ran to 9,386 pages. To handle this filing, state and foreign tax returns, a myriad of SEC requirements, and all of the other matters involved in running Berkshire, we have gone all the way up to 19 employees at World Headquarters.

我们应该补充一点，我们去年的联邦纳税申报表长达9,386页。为了处理这份申报表、州和外国税务申报、大量的SEC要求以及经营伯克希尔所涉及的所有其他事务，我们的全球总部已经增加到19名员工。

This crew occupies 9,708 square feet of space, and Charlie - at World Headquarters West in Los Angeles - uses another 655 square feet. Our home-office payroll, including benefits and counting both locations, totaled $3,531,978 last year. We're careful when spending your money.

这些员工占用9,708平方英尺的空间，而查理——在洛杉矶的西部全球总部——使用另外655平方英尺。我们总部办公室的工资单，包括福利并计算两个地点，去年总计3,531,978美元。我们在花你的钱时很谨慎。

Corporate bigwigs often complain about government spending, criticizing bureaucrats who they say spend taxpayers' money differently from how they would if it were their own. But sometimes the financial behavior of executives will also vary based on whose wallet is getting depleted. Here's an illustrative tale from my days at Salomon. In the 1980s the company had a barber, Jimmy by name, who came in weekly to give free haircuts to the top brass. A manicurist was also on tap. Then, because of a cost-cutting drive, patrons were told to pay their own way. One top executive (not the CEO) who had previously visited Jimmy weekly went immediately to a once-every-three-weeks schedule.

企业巨头们经常抱怨政府支出，批评官僚们花纳税人的钱的方式与他们花自己钱的方式不同。但有时，高管们的财务行为也会根据谁的荷包在缩水而发生变化。这是一个我在所罗门公司的日子里遇到的说明性故事。20世纪80年代，公司有一位名叫吉米的理发师，每周来给高层管理人员免费理发。还有一位美甲师随叫随到。后来，由于一次削减成本的行动，顾客被告知要自己付钱。一位以前每周都去吉米那里的高管（不是CEO）立即变成了每三周去一次。

Every now and then Charlie and I catch on early to a tide-like trend, one brimming over with commercial promise. For example, though American Airlines (with its "miles") and American Express (with credit card points) are credited as being trailblazers in granting customers "rewards," Charlie and I were far ahead of them in spotting the appeal of this powerful idea. Excited by our insight, the two of us jumped into the reward business way back in 1970 by buying control of a trading stamp operation, Blue Chip Stamps. In that year, Blue Chip had sales of $126 million, and its stamps papered California.

查理和我时不时地会提前把握住一种潮汐般的趋势，这种趋势充满了商业前景。例如，尽管美国航空（以其“里程”）和美国运通（以信用卡积分）被认为是在给予客户“奖励”方面的开拓者，但查理和我在发现这个强大概念的吸引力方面远远领先于他们。被我们的洞察力所激励，我们两人早在1970年就通过购买一家 trading stamp 企业——蓝筹印花——的控制权，跳入了奖励业务。那一年，蓝筹印花的销售额为1.26亿美元，它的印花遍布加州。

In 1970, indeed, about 60 billion of our stamps were licked by savers, pasted into books, and taken to Blue Chip redemption stores. Our catalog of rewards was 116 pages thick and chock full of tantalizing items. When I was told that even certain brothels and mortuaries gave stamps to their patrons, I felt I had finally found a sure thing.

事实上，在1970年，大约有600亿张我们的印花被储户舔过，贴进册子，然后带到蓝筹印花的兑换商店。我们的奖励目录有116页厚，充满了诱人的商品。当我听说甚至某些妓院和殡仪馆也会给顾客印花时，我觉得我终于找到了一件稳赚不赔的事情。

Well, not quite. From the day Charlie and I stepped into the Blue Chip picture, the business went straight downhill. By 1980, sales had fallen to $19.4 million. And, by 1990, sales were bumping along at $1.5 million. No quitter, I redoubled my managerial efforts.

嗯，不完全是这样。从查理和我踏入蓝筹印花的那一天起，业务就直线下滑。到1980年，销售额下降到1940万美元。到1990年，销售额在150万美元左右徘徊。我不是一个轻言放弃的人，我加倍了我的管理努力。

Sales then fell another 98%. Last year, in Berkshire's $98 billion of revenues, all of $25,920 (no zeros omitted) came from Blue Chip. Ever hopeful, Charlie and I soldier on.

然后销售额又下降了98%。去年，在伯克希尔980亿美元的收入中，来自蓝筹印花的只有25,920美元（没有省略零）。永远抱有希望，查理和我继续努力。

I mentioned last year that in my service on 19 corporate boards (not counting Berkshire or other controlled companies), I have been the Typhoid Mary of compensation committees. At only one company was I assigned to comp committee duty, and then I was promptly outvoted on the most crucial decision that we faced. My ostracism has been peculiar, considering that I certainly haven't lacked experience in setting CEO pay. At Berkshire, after all, I am a one-man compensation committee who determines the salaries and incentives for the CEOs of around 40 significant operating businesses.

我去年提到过，在我担任19家公司董事（不包括伯克希尔或其他受控公司）的服务中，我一直是薪酬委员会的伤寒玛丽。只有在一家公司我被分配到了薪酬委员会，然后我们在面临的最关键决策中我立即被投票否决。我被排斥的情况很奇特，考虑到我当然不乏制定CEO薪酬的经验。毕竟，在伯克希尔，我是一个人组成的薪酬委员会，决定大约40家重要运营业务CEO的工资和激励措施。

How much time does this aspect of my job take? Virtually none. How many CEOs have voluntarily left us for other jobs in our 42-year history? Precisely none.

我工作的这一方面需要花多少时间？几乎没有。在我们42年的历史中，有多少CEO自愿离开我们去其他工作？确切地说是没有。

Berkshire employs many different incentive arrangements, with their terms depending on such elements as the economic potential or capital intensity of a CEO's business. Whatever the compensation arrangement, though, I try to keep it both simple and fair.

伯克希尔采用许多不同的激励安排，其条款取决于CEO业务的经济潜力或资本密集程度等因素。然而，无论何种薪酬安排，我都力求使其简单而公平。

When we use incentives - and these can be large - they are always tied to the operating results for which a given CEO has authority. We issue no lottery tickets that carry payoffs unrelated to business performance. If a CEO bats .300, he gets paid for being a .300 hitter, even if circumstances outside of his control cause Berkshire to perform poorly. And if he bats .150, he doesn't get a payoff just because the successes of others have enabled Berkshire to prosper mightily. An example: We now own $61 billion of equities at Berkshire, whose value can easily rise or fall by 10% in a given year. Why in the world should the pay of our operating executives be affected by such $6 billion swings, however important the gain or loss may be for shareholders?

当我们使用激励措施时——这些激励措施可能很大——它们总是与特定CEO有权掌控的运营结果挂钩。我们不发行与业务表现无关的彩票式薪酬。如果一个CEO击出0.300的安打率，他就能获得0.300击球手的报酬，即使他无法控制的环境导致伯克希尔表现不佳。而如果他击出0.150，他不会仅仅因为别人的成功使伯克希尔大大繁荣就获得报酬。举个例子：我们现在在伯克希尔持有610亿美元的股票，其价值在特定年份很容易上下波动10%。为什么我们运营高管的薪酬会受到这种60亿美元波动的影响，无论这种盈亏对股东来说多么重要？

You've read loads about CEOs who have received astronomical compensation for mediocre results. Much less well-advertised is the fact that America's CEOs also generally live the good life. Many, it should be emphasized, are exceptionally able, and almost all work far more than 40 hours a week. But they are usually treated like royalty in the process. (And we're certainly going to keep it that way at Berkshire. Though Charlie still favors sackcloth and ashes, I prefer to be spoiled rotten. Berkshire owns The Pampered Chef; our wonderful office group has made me The Pampered Chef.)

你读过很多关于CEO因平庸业绩而获得天文数字薪酬的报道。鲜为人知的事实是，美国的CEO们通常也过着优越的生活。需要强调的是，许多人能力非凡，几乎所有人都每周工作远超过40小时。但他们在这个过程中通常受到皇室般的待遇。（而且我们肯定会在伯克希尔保持这一点。尽管查理仍然偏爱粗布和灰烬，但我更喜欢被宠坏。伯克希尔拥有“宠厨”公司；我们出色的办公室团队已经让我成为了“宠厨”。）

CEO perks at one company are quickly copied elsewhere. "All the other kids have one" may seem a thought too juvenile to use as a rationale in the boardroom. But consultants employ precisely this argument, phrased more elegantly of course, when they make recommendations to comp committees.

一家公司的CEO特权很快会被其他地方效仿。“所有其他孩子都有一个”这种想法似乎过于幼稚，不能在董事会上用作理由。但顾问们在向薪酬委员会提出建议时，恰恰使用了这个论点，当然措辞更优雅。

Irrational and excessive comp practices will not be materially changed by disclosure or by "independent" comp committee members. Indeed, I think it's likely that the reason I was rejected for service on so many comp committees was that I was regarded as too independent. Compensation reform will only occur if the largest institutional shareholders - it would only take a few - demand a fresh look at the whole system. The consultants' present drill of deftly selecting "peer" companies to compare with their clients will only perpetuate present excesses.

不合理和过度的薪酬做法不会因为披露或“独立”薪酬委员会成员而发生实质性改变。事实上，我认为我被那么多薪酬委员会拒绝服务的原因很可能是我被视为过于独立。薪酬改革只有在最大的机构股东——只需要少数几个——要求对整个体系进行重新审视时才会发生。顾问们目前巧妙挑选“同行”公司与客户进行比较的做法，只会使目前的过度行为永久化。

Last year I arranged for the bulk of my Berkshire holdings to go to five charitable foundations, thus carrying out part of my lifelong plan to eventually use all of my shares for philanthropic purposes. Details of the commitments I made, as well as the rationale for them, are posted on our website, www.berkshirehathaway.com. Taxes, I should note, had nothing to do with my decision or its timing. My federal and state income taxes in 2006 were exactly what they would have been had I not made my first contributions last summer, and the same point will apply to my 2007 contributions.

去年，我安排将我所持伯克希尔股份的大部分捐赠给五个慈善基金会，从而实现了我的终身计划的一部分，即最终将我的所有股份用于慈善目的。我所做承诺的细节及其理由已发布在我们的网站 www.berkshirehathaway.com 上。我应该指出，税收与我的决定或其时机无关。我2006年的联邦和州所得税与我没有在去年夏天进行首次捐赠时完全相同，同样的道理也适用于我2007年的捐赠。

In my will I've stipulated that the proceeds from all Berkshire shares I still own at death are to be used for philanthropic purposes within ten years after my estate is closed. Because my affairs are not complicated, it should take three years at most for this closing to occur. Adding this 13-year period to my expected lifespan of about 12 years (though, naturally, I'm aiming for more) means that proceeds from all of my Berkshire shares will likely be distributed for societal purposes over the next 25 years or so.

在我的遗嘱中，我规定我去世时仍拥有的所有伯克希尔股份的收益，将在我的遗产关闭后十年内用于慈善目的。由于我的事务并不复杂，遗产关闭最多需要三年时间。将这个13年的期限加上我大约12年的预期寿命（当然，我的目标是活得更长），意味着我所有伯克希尔股份的收益很可能在未来25年左右的时间里被分配用于社会目的。

I've set this schedule because I want the money to be spent relatively promptly by people I know to be capable, vigorous and motivated. These managerial attributes sometimes wane as institutions - particularly those that are exempt from market forces - age. Today, there are terrific people in charge at the five foundations. So at my death, why should they not move with dispatch to judiciously spend the money that remains?

我设定这个时间表是因为我希望由我认识的有能力、有活力、有动力的相对迅速地花掉这笔钱。这些管理品质有时会随着机构——尤其是那些不受市场力量影响的机构——的老化而减弱。今天，这五个基金会有出色的人负责。那么，在我去世时，他们为什么不应该迅速行动，明智地花掉剩下的钱呢？

Those people favoring perpetual foundations argue that in the future there will most certainly be large and important societal problems that philanthropy will need to address. I agree. But there will then also be many super-rich individuals and families whose wealth will exceed that of today's Americans and to whom philanthropic organizations can make their case for funding. These funders can then judge firsthand which operations have both the vitality and the focus to best address the major societal problems that then exist. In this way, a market test of ideas and effectiveness can be applied. Some organizations will deserve major support while others will have outlived their usefulness. Even if the people above ground make their decisions imperfectly, they should be able to allocate funds more rationally than a decedent six feet under will have ordained decades earlier. Wills, of course, can always be rewritten, but it's very unlikely that my thinking will change in a material way.

那些支持永续基金会的人认为，未来肯定会出现需要慈善事业解决的大型且重要的社会问题。我同意。但那时也会有许多超级富有的个人和家庭，他们的财富将超过今天的美国人，慈善组织可以向他们寻求资助。这些资助者可以亲身判断哪些机构既有活力又有重点，能够最好地解决届时存在的重大社会问题。通过这种方式，可以对想法和有效性进行市场检验。一些组织值得大力支持，而另一些则可能已经过时了。即使活着的人做出的决定不完美，他们也应该比六英尺下的逝者在几十年前所规定的更理性地分配资金。当然，遗嘱总是可以重写的，但我的想法发生实质性改变的可能性非常小。

A few shareholders have expressed concern that sales of Berkshire by the foundations receiving shares will depress the stock. These fears are unwarranted. The annual trading volume of many stocks exceeds 100% of the outstanding shares, but nevertheless these stocks usually sell at prices approximating their intrinsic value. Berkshire also tends to sell at an appropriate price, but with annual volume that is only 15% of shares outstanding. At most, sales by the foundations receiving my shares will add three percentage points to annual trading volume, which will still leave Berkshire with a turnover ratio that is the lowest around.

一些股东担心，接受股份的基金会出售伯克希尔股票会压低股价。这些担忧是没有根据的。许多股票的年交易量超过已发行股份的100%，但这些股票通常以接近其内在价值的价格出售。伯克希尔也倾向于以合适的价格出售，但其年交易量仅为已发行股份的15%。接受我股份的基金会的出售，至多会使年交易量增加三个百分点，这仍将使伯克希尔的换手率处于最低水平。

Overall, Berkshire's business performance will determine the price of our stock, and most of the time it will sell in a zone of reasonableness. It's important that the foundations receive appropriate prices as they periodically sell Berkshire shares, but it's also important that incoming shareholders don't overpay. (See economic principle 14 on page 77.) By both our policies and shareholder communications, Charlie and I will do our best to ensure that Berkshire sells at neither a large discount nor large premium to intrinsic value.

总体而言，伯克希尔的业务表现将决定我们股票的价格，并且大部分时间它将在一个合理的区间交易。基金会定期出售伯克希尔股份时获得合适的价格很重要，但新进入的股东不支付过高的价格也很重要。（请参见第77页的经济原则14。）通过我们的政策和与股东的沟通，查理和我会尽最大努力确保伯克希尔的交易价格不会大幅低于或高于其内在价值。

The existence of foundation ownership will in no way influence our board's decisions about dividends, repurchases, or the issuance of shares. We will follow exactly the same rule that has guided us in the past: What action will be likely to deliver the best result for shareholders over time?

基金会持股的存在绝不会影响我们董事会对股息、回购或股票发行的决定。我们将完全遵循过去指导我们的同一规则：随着时间的推移，什么行动可能会为股东带来最佳结果？

In last year's report I allegorically described the Gotrocks family - a clan that owned all of America's businesses and that counterproductively attempted to increase its investment returns by paying ever-greater commissions and fees to "helpers." Sad to say, the "family" continued its self-destructive ways in 2006.

在去年的报告中，我寓言般地描述了戈特罗克斯家族——一个拥有美国所有企业的家族，他们适得其反地试图通过向“帮手”支付越来越高的佣金和费用来增加投资回报。可悲的是，这个“家族”在2006年继续其自我毁灭的方式。

In part the family persists in this folly because it harbors unrealistic expectations about obtainable returns. Sometimes these delusions are self-serving. For example, private pension plans can temporarily overstate their earnings, and public pension plans can defer the need for increased taxes, by using investment assumptions that are likely to be out of reach. Actuaries and auditors go along with these tactics, and it can be decades before the chickens come home to roost (at which point the CEO or public official who misled the world is apt to be gone).

这个家族坚持这种愚蠢行为的部分原因是他们对可获得的回报抱有不可实际的期望。有时这些错觉是自利的。例如，私营养老金计划可以暂时夸大其收益，公共养老金计划可以通过使用可能无法实现的投资假设来推迟增税的必要性。精算师和审计师配合这些策略，可能要几十年后才会出现恶果（到那时，误导世界的CEO或政府官员很可能已经离开了）。

Meanwhile, Wall Street's Pied Pipers of Performance will have encouraged the futile hopes of the family. The hapless Gotrocks will be assured that they all can achieve above-average investment performance - but only by paying ever-higher fees. Call this promise the adult version of Lake Woebegon.

与此同时，华尔街的业绩吹笛人鼓励了这个家族徒劳的希望。不幸的戈特罗克斯家族会被保证，他们都能获得高于平均水平的投资业绩——但前提是支付越来越高的费用。可以把这个承诺称为伍贝贡湖的成人版。

In 2006, promises and fees hit new highs. A flood of money went from institutional investors to the 2-and-20 crowd. For those innocent of this arrangement, let me explain: It's a lopsided system whereby 2% of your principal is paid each year to the manager even if he accomplishes nothing - or, for that matter, loses you a bundle - and, additionally, 20% of your profit is paid to him if he succeeds, even if his success is due simply to a rising tide. For example, a manager who achieves a gross return of 10% in a year will keep 3.6 percentage points - two points off the top plus 20% of the residual 8 points - leaving only 6.4 percentage points for his investors. On a $3 billion fund, this 6.4% net "performance" will deliver the manager a cool $108 million. He will receive this bonanza even though an index fund might have returned 15% to investors in the same period and charged them only a token fee.

2006年，承诺和费用都创下了新高。大量资金从机构投资者流向“2和20”人群。对于那些不熟悉这种安排的人，让我解释一下：这是一个不平衡的系统，每年你本金的2%会支付给经理人，即使他什么也没做——或者，就此而言，让你损失了一大笔钱——此外，如果他成功了，还会支付给你利润的20%，即使他的成功仅仅是因为水涨船高。例如，一个实现10%毛回报率的经理人将保留3.6个百分点——先拿走2个百分点，再加上剩余8个百分点的20%——只给他的投资者留下6.4个百分点。在一个30亿美元的资金上，这6.4%的净“业绩”将为经理人带来整整1.08亿美元。尽管同期指数基金可能已向投资者返还了15%的回报率且只收取象征性的费用，他仍将获得这笔意外之财。

The inexorable math of this grotesque arrangement is certain to make the Gotrocks family poorer over time than it would have been had it never heard of these "hyper-helpers." Even so, the 2-and-20 action spreads. Its effects bring to mind the old adage: When someone with experience proposes a deal to someone with money, too often the fellow with money ends up with the experience, and the fellow with experience ends up with the money.

这种怪诞安排的无情数学运算，必定会使戈特罗克斯家族随着时间的推移变得比以前从未听说过这些“超级帮手”时更穷。即便如此，“2和20”的做法仍在蔓延。它的效果让人想起一句老话：当有经验的人向有钱的人提出交易时，有钱的人往往最后得到了经验，而有经验的人最后得到了钱。

Let me end this section by telling you about one of the good guys of Wall Street, my long-time friend Walter Schloss, who last year turned 90. From 1956 to 2002, Walter managed a remarkably successful investment partnership, from which he took not a dime unless his investors made money. My admiration for Walter, it should be noted, is not based on hindsight. A full fifty years ago, Walter was my sole recommendation to a St. Louis family who wanted an honest and able investment manager.

让我以讲述一位华尔街好人结束本节，我的老朋友沃尔特·施洛斯，他去年已90岁高龄。从1956年到2002年，沃尔特管理着一个非常成功的投资合伙基金，除非他的投资者赚钱，否则他不拿一分钱。需要注意的是，我对沃尔特的钦佩并非基于后见之明。整整50年前，沃尔特是我向一个想要诚实能干的投资经理的圣路易斯家族唯一推荐的人选。

Walter did not go to business school, or for that matter, college. His office contained one file cabinet in 1956; the number mushroomed to four by 2002. Walter worked without a secretary, clerk or bookkeeper, his only associate being his son, Edwin, a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts. Walter and Edwin never came within a mile of inside information. Indeed, they used "outside" information only sparingly, generally selecting securities by certain simple statistical methods Walter learned while working for Ben Graham. When Walter and Edwin were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, "How would you summarize your approach?" Edwin replied, "We try to buy stocks cheap." So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

沃尔特没有上过商学院，甚至没有上过大学。1956年他的办公室只有一个文件柜；到2002年，数量激增至四个。沃尔特在没有秘书、文员或簿记员的情况下工作，他唯一的伙伴是他的儿子埃德温，毕业于北卡罗来纳艺术学院。沃尔特和埃德温从未接近过内幕信息。事实上，他们只是有节制地使用“外部”信息，通常是通过沃尔特在本·格雷厄姆工作时学到的一些简单统计方法来选择证券。当1989年《杰出投资者文摘》问沃尔特和埃德温“你如何总结你的方法？”埃德温回答说：“我们试图以便宜的价格购买股票。”现代投资组合理论、技术分析、宏观经济思想和复杂算法都见鬼去吧。

Following a strategy that involved no real risk - defined as permanent loss of capital - Walter produced results over his 47 partnership years that dramatically surpassed those of the S&P 500. It's particularly noteworthy that he built this record by investing in about 1,000 securities, mostly of a lackluster type. A few big winners did not account for his success. It's safe to say that had millions of investment managers made trades by a) drawing stock names from a hat; b) purchasing these stocks in comparable amounts when Walter made a purchase; and then c) selling when Walter sold his pick, the luckiest of them would not have come close to equaling his record. There is simply no possibility that what Walter achieved over 47 years was due to chance.

遵循一种没有真正风险——定义为永久性资本损失——的策略，沃尔特在他47年的合伙人生涯中取得的成果大大超过了标准普尔500指数。尤其值得注意的是，他是通过投资大约1000只证券（大多是平淡无奇的那种）来建立这一记录的。少数大赢家并不能解释他的成功。可以肯定地说，如果数百万投资经理通过以下方式进行交易：a）从帽子里抽取股票名称；b）在沃尔特购买时以可比较的数量购买这些股票；然后 c）在沃尔特卖出他的选择时卖出，他们中最幸运的人也无法接近他的记录。沃尔特47年来的成就绝不可能是偶然的。

I first publicly discussed Walter's remarkable record in 1984. At that time "efficient market theory" (EMT) was the centerpiece of investment instruction at most major business schools. This theory, as then most commonly taught, held that the price of any stock at any moment is not demonstrably mispriced, which means that no investor can be expected to overperform the stock market averages using only publicly-available information (though some will do so by luck). When I talked about Walter 23 years ago, his record forcefully contradicted this dogma.

我于1984年首次公开讨论了沃尔特的非凡记录。当时，“有效市场理论”是大多数主要商学院投资教学的核心。这个理论，正如当时最常教授的那样，认为任何股票在任何时刻的价格都无法被证明是错误定价的，这意味着不能期望任何投资者仅仅使用公开信息就能超越股市平均水平（尽管有些人会凭运气做到）。当我在23年前谈论沃尔特时，他的记录有力地反驳了这一教条。

And what did members of the academic community do when they were exposed to this new and important evidence? Unfortunately, they reacted in all-too-human fashion: Rather than opening their minds, they closed their eyes. To my knowledge no business school teaching EMT made any attempt to study Walter's performance and what it meant for the school's cherished theory.

当学术界的成员接触到这一新的重要证据时，他们做了什么？不幸的是，他们以极其人性化的方式做出了反应：他们没有打开思想，而是闭上了眼睛。据我所知，没有一所教授有效市场理论的商学院尝试研究沃尔特的业绩以及它对该校珍视的理论意味着什么。

Instead, the faculties of the schools went merrily on their way presenting EMT as having the certainty of scripture. Typically, a finance instructor who had the nerve to question EMT had about as much chance of major promotion as Galileo had of being named Pope.

相反，学校的教职员工们愉快地继续将有效市场理论当作圣经般确定无疑的内容来呈现。通常，一个敢于质疑有效市场理论的金融讲师，获得重大晋升的机会就像伽利略被任命为教皇一样大。

Tens of thousands of students were therefore sent out into life believing that on every day the price of every stock was "right" (or, more accurately, not demonstrably wrong) and that attempts to evaluate businesses - that is, stocks - were useless. Walter meanwhile went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions that had been given to those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it's helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat.

因此，成千上万的学生被送入现实世界，相信每一天每只股票的价格都是“正确的”（或者更准确地说，无法被证明是错误的），并且尝试评估企业——即股票——是无用的。与此同时，沃尔特继续超越市场，那些给年轻人灌输的错误教导使他的工作更加容易。毕竟，如果你从事航运业务，让你所有潜在的竞争对手相信地球是平的，这是很有帮助的。

Maybe it was a good thing for his investors that Walter didn't go to college.

对沃尔特的投资者来说，也许沃尔特没上过大学是件好事。

Our meeting this year will be held on Saturday, May 5th. As always, the doors will open at the Qwest Center at 7 a.m., and a new Berkshire movie will be shown at 8:30. At 9:30 we will go directly to the question-and-answer period, which (with a break for lunch at the Qwest's stands) will last until 3:00. Then, after a short recess, Charlie and I will convene the annual meeting at 3:15. If you decide to leave during the day's question periods, please do so while Charlie is talking.

我们今年的年会将于5月5日星期六举行。和往常一样，Qwest Center 将在早上7点开门，8:30放映一部新的伯克希尔电影。9:30，我们将直接进入问答环节（在 Qwest 的摊位吃午饭休息），将持续到下午3点。然后，短暂休息后，查理和我在3:15召开年度股东大会。如果你决定在白天问答环节离开，请在查理讲话时离开。

The best reason to exit, of course is to shop. We will help you do that by filling the 194,300 square foot hall that adjoins the meeting area with the products of Berkshire subsidiaries. Last year, the 24,000 people who came to the meeting did their part, and almost every location racked up record sales. But records are made to be broken, and I know you can do better.

当然，离开的最佳理由是去购物。我们会帮助你们做到这一点，用伯克希尔子公司的产品填满毗邻会议区的194,300平方英尺的大厅。去年，前来参加会议的24,000人尽了自己的一份力，几乎每个地方都创造了创纪录的销售额。但记录就是用来打破的，我知道你们可以做得更好。

This year we will again showcase a Clayton home (featuring Acme brick, Shaw carpet, Johns Manville insulation, MiTek fasteners, Carefree awnings and NFM furniture). You will find that the home, priced at $139,900, delivers excellent value. Last year, a helper at the Qwest bought one of two homes on display well before we opened the doors to shareholders. Flanking the Clayton home on the exhibition floor this year will be an RV and pontoon boat from Forest River.

今年，我们将再次展示一座克莱顿房屋（采用阿克米砖块、肖氏地毯、约翰斯·曼维尔隔热材料、MiTek 紧固件、Carefree 遮阳篷和 NFM 家具）。你会发现这座售价139,900美元的房屋物超所值。去年，Qwest 的一名助手在我们向股东开门之前很久就买下了展出的两栋房屋中的一栋。今年，在展览场地上，克莱顿房屋的两侧将停放着森林河的房车和浮桥船。

GEICO will have a booth staffed by a number of its top counselors from around the country, all of them ready to supply you with auto insurance quotes. In most cases, GEICO will be able to give you a special shareholder discount (usually 8%). This special offer is permitted by 45 of the 50 jurisdictions in which we operate. (One supplemental point: The discount is not additive if you qualify for another, such as that given certain groups.) Bring the details of your existing insurance and check out whether we can save you money. For at least 50% of you, I believe we can. And while you're at it, sign up for the new GEICO credit card. It's the one I now use (sparingly, of course).

盖可将设立一个展位，由来自全国各地的许多顶级顾问提供服务，他们都准备好为你提供汽车保险报价。在大多数情况下，盖可能给你一个特别的股东折扣（通常为8%）。在我们经营的50个司法管辖区中，有45个允许这种特别优惠。（补充一点：如果你符合其他折扣条件，例如某些团体的折扣，此折扣不可累加。）带上你现有保险的详细信息，看看我们是否能帮你省钱。我相信，对你们中至少50%的人来说，我们能做到。顺便说一下，可以申请新的盖可信用卡。这是我现在使用的卡（当然，是克制的）。

On Saturday, at the Omaha airport, we will have the usual array of aircraft from NetJets available for your inspection. Stop by the NetJets booth at the Qwest to learn about viewing these planes. Come to Omaha by bus; leave in your new plane. And take all the hair gel that you wish on board with you.

星期六，在奥马哈机场，我们将提供往常一样的一系列 NetJets 飞机供你参观。请到 Qwest 的 NetJets 展位了解如何观看这些飞机。坐巴士来奥马哈，开着自己的新飞机离开。带上你想要的任何发胶登机。

In the Bookworm's corner of our bazaar, there will be about 25 books and DVDs - all discounted - led again by Poor Charlie's Almanack. (One hapless soul last year asked Charlie what he should do if he didn't enjoy the book. Back came a Mungerism: "No problem - just give it to someone more intelligent.") We've added a few titles this year. Among them are Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin, a long-time Swedish shareholder of Berkshire, and Fred Schwed's classic, Where are the Customers' Yachts? This book was first published in 1940 and is now in its 4th edition. The funniest book ever written about investing, it lightly delivers many truly important messages on the subject.

在我们集市的 Bookworm 角落，将会有大约25种图书和DVD——全部打折——其中又以《穷查理宝典》为首。（去年一个倒霉的家伙问查理，如果他不喜欢这本书该怎么办。芒格式的回答来了：“没问题——把它送给更聪明的人就行。”）今年我们增加了几种书。其中包括伯克希尔的长期瑞典股东彼得·贝弗林的《寻求智慧：从达尔文到芒格》，以及弗雷德·施韦德的经典著作《客户的游艇在哪里？》这本书首次出版于1940年，现在是第4版。这是有史以来关于投资的最有趣的书，它轻松地传达了关于该主题的许多真正重要的信息。

An attachment to the proxy material that is enclosed with this report explains how you can obtain the credential you will need for admission to the meeting and other events. As for plane, hotel and car reservations, we have again signed up American Express (800-799-6634) to give you special help. Carol Pedersen, who handles these matters, does a terrific job for us each year, and I thank her for it. Hotel rooms can be hard to find, but work with Carol and you will get one.

本报告随附的委托书材料附件解释了如何获得参加年会和其他活动所需的凭证。至于飞机、酒店和汽车预订，我们再次签约美国运通（800-799-6634）为你提供特别帮助。负责这些事务的卡罗尔·佩德森每年都为我们做得很出色，我为此感谢她。酒店房间可能难找，但与卡罗尔合作，你就会找到一间。

At Nebraska Furniture Mart, located on a 77-acre site on 72nd Street between Dodge and Pacific, we will again be having "Berkshire Weekend" discount pricing. We initiated this special event at NFM ten years ago, and sales during the "Weekend" grew from $5.3 million in 1997 to $30 million in 2006. I get goose bumps just thinking about this volume.

在位于道奇街和太平洋街之间第72街占地77英亩的内布拉斯加家具卖场，我们将再次提供“伯克希尔周末”折扣价。我们10年前在 NFM 启动了这项特别活动，“周末”期间的销售额从1997年的530万美元增长到2006年的3000万美元。想到这个销量，我激动得起鸡皮疙瘩。

To obtain the Berkshire discount, you must make your purchases between Thursday, May 3rd and Monday, May 7th inclusive, and also present your meeting credential. The period's special pricing will even apply to the products of several prestigious manufacturers that normally have ironclad rules against discounting but which, in the spirit of our shareholder weekend, have made an exception for you. We appreciate their cooperation. NFM is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. On Saturday this year, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., NFM is having a special shareholder picnic featuring chicken and beef tacos (and hamburgers for traditionalists like me).

要获得伯克希尔折扣，你必须在5月3日星期四至5月7日星期一期间（含首尾两天）购物，并出示你的会议凭证。该期间的特价甚至适用于几家知名制造商的产品，这些制造商通常有反对打折的铁律，但本着我们股东周末的精神，他们为你破例。我们感谢他们的合作。NFM 周一至周六上午10点至晚上9点开放，周日上午10点至下午6点开放。今年的星期六下午5:30到晚上8点，NFM 将举办一场特别的股东野餐，提供鸡肉和牛肉玉米卷（以及给我这样的传统主义者准备的汉堡包）。

At a remodeled and expanded Borsheim's, we will again have two shareholder-only events. The first will be a cocktail reception from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, May 4th. The second, the main gala, will be held on Sunday, May 6th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Saturday, we will be open until 6 p.m.

在翻新扩建后的博希姆珠宝，我们将再次举办两场股东专属活动。第一场是5月4日星期五晚上6点到10点的鸡尾酒会。第二场是主要盛会，将于5月6日星期日上午9点至下午4点举行。星期六，我们将营业至下午6点。

We will have huge crowds at Borsheim's throughout the weekend. For your convenience, therefore, shareholder prices will be available from Monday, April 30th through Saturday, May 12th. During that period, please identify yourself as a shareholder by presenting your meeting credentials or a brokerage statement that shows you are a Berkshire holder.

整个周末，博希姆珠宝将人潮涌动。因此，为方便起见，从4月30日星期一到5月12日星期六，股东价格将有效。在此期间，请出示你的会议凭证或显示你是伯克希尔持有人的券商对账单，以证明你的股东身份。

On Sunday, in a tent outside of Borsheim's, a blindfolded Patrick Wolff, twice U.S. chess champion, will take on all comers - who will have their eyes wide open - in groups of six. Last year I carried on a conversation with Patrick while he played in this manner. Nearby, Norman Beck, a remarkable magician from Dallas, will bewilder onlookers. Additionally, we will have Bob Hamman and Sharon Osberg, two of the world's top bridge experts, available to play bridge with our shareholders on Sunday afternoon.

星期天，在博希姆珠宝外面的帐篷里，两次美国国际象棋冠军帕特里克·沃尔夫将蒙上眼睛，接受所有挑战者——他们将睁大眼睛——每组六人。去年，当帕特里克以这种方式比赛时，我曾与他交谈。附近，来自达拉斯的杰出魔术师诺曼·贝克会让围观者感到迷惑。此外，我们将有鲍勃·哈曼和莎朗·奥斯伯格这两位世界顶尖桥牌专家在周日下午与我们的股东一起打桥牌。

To add to the Sunday fun at Borsheim's, Ariel Hsing will play table tennis (ping-pong to the uninitiated) from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. against anyone brave enough to take her on. Ariel, though only 11, is ranked number one among girls under 16 in the U.S. (and number 1 among both boys and girls under 12). The week I turned 75 I played Ariel, then 9 and barely tall enough to see across the table, thinking I would take it easy on her so as not to crush her young spirit. Instead she crushed me. I've since devised a plan that will give me a chance against her. At 1 p.m. on Sunday, I will initiate play with a 2-point game against Ariel. If I somehow win the first point, I will then feign injury and claim victory. After this strenuous encounter wears Ariel down, our shareholders can then try their luck against her.

为了增加博希姆珠宝周日活动的趣味性，邢延华（Ariel Hsing）将在下午1点到4点打乒乓球（对不熟悉的人来说是乒乓），与任何敢于挑战她的人对战。尽管只有11岁，邢延华在美国16岁以下女子中排名第一（在12岁以下男女中均排名第一）。在我75岁生日那一周，我与当时9岁、勉强够高能看到球台对面的邢延华打球，心想我会对她手下留情，以免打击她幼小的精神。结果是她把我打得落花流水。此后我设计了一个计划，让我有机会打败她。星期天下午1点，我将与邢延华进行一场2分的比赛。如果我 somehow 赢了第一分，我会假装受伤并宣布胜利。在这场激烈的交锋消耗掉邢延华的体力后，我们的股东就可以接着向她挑战运气了。

Gorat's will again be open exclusively for Berkshire shareholders on Sunday, May 6th, and will be serving from 4 p.m. until 10 p.m. Please remember that to come to Gorat's on that day, you must have a reservation. To make one, call 402-551-3733 on April 1st (but not before).

戈拉特牛排馆将于5月6日星期日再次专门为伯克希尔股东开放，营业时间为下午4点至晚上10点。请记住，要在那天去戈拉特，你必须预订。预订请于4月1日（但不能提前）致电402-551-3733。

In the 2006-2007 school year, 35 university classes, including one from IBMEC in Brazil, will come to Omaha for sessions with me. I take almost all - in aggregate, more than 2,000 students - to lunch at Gorat's. And they love it. To learn why, come join us on Sunday.

在2006-2007学年，有35个大学班级（包括来自巴西 IBMEC 的一个班级）将来到奥马哈与我交流。我几乎带所有人——总计超过2000名学生——去戈拉特吃午饭。他们很喜欢。想知道为什么吗？星期天也加入我们吧。

We will again have a reception at 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon for shareholders who have come from outside of North America. Every year our meeting draws many people from around the globe, and Charlie and I want to be sure we personally greet those who have come so far. Last year we enjoyed meeting more than 400 of you from many dozens of countries. Any shareholder who comes from other than the U.S. or Canada will be given a special credential and instructions for attending this function.

星期六下午4点，我们将再次为来自北美以外的股东举行招待会。每年我们的年会都会吸引来自全球各地的许多人，查理和我想要确保我们亲自问候那些远道而来的人。去年我们很高兴见到了来自几十个国家的400多位股东。任何来自美国或加拿大以外的股东都将获得特殊的凭证和参加本次活动的说明。

Charlie and I are extraordinarily lucky. We were born in America; had terrific parents who saw that we got good educations; have enjoyed wonderful families and great health; and came equipped with a "business" gene that allows us to prosper in a manner hugely disproportionate to other people who contribute as much or more to our society's well-being. Moreover, we have long had jobs that we love, in which we are helped every day in countless ways by talented and cheerful associates. No wonder we tap-dance to work. But nothing is more fun for us than getting together with our shareholder-partners at Berkshire's annual meeting. So join us on May 5th at the Qwest for our annual Woodstock for Capitalists. We'll see you there.

查理和我异常幸运。我们出生在美国；有出色的父母，他们确保我们接受了良好的教育；拥有美满的家庭和健康的身体；并且天生具备“商业”基因，让我们能够取得巨大成功，其程度与许多为社会福祉做出同样或更多贡献的人所经历的极不相称。此外，我们长期从事着自己热爱的工作，无数才华横溢、乐观向上的同事每天以数不清的方式帮助我们。难怪我们跳着舞步去上班。但对我们来说，没有什么比在伯克希尔年会上与我们的股东伙伴们相聚更有趣的了。所以，请在5月5日加入我们，参加在 Qwest 中心举行的我们一年一度的“资本家伍德斯托克”。我们到时见。

February 28, 2007

2007年2月28日

Warren E. Buffett
Chairman of the Board

沃伦·E·巴菲特
董事会主席